The Stars My Destination
The devil take Norm Augustine, today is a day to celebrate. Rejoice, gentle readers, for this day of days has seen… the flight of the Ares! The Ares I-X Development Flight Test: N.A.S.A.link & B.B.C.link. To paraphrase Master Qui-Gon Jinn, we've taken our first step into a larger world. Yippee!

And let us not overlook the Spaceman's perspective.

Project MERCATOR
One week ago—Wednesday, 21 October—I attended a most unusual event, a basketball game between two distaff athletic clubs, neither of which is dedicated to basketball: a roller derby team and a cheerleading squad. It was exactly as ridiculous as you'd imagine, the derby girls prevailing by a final score, after four eight-minutes quarters, of 11-10.

Last Friday—23 October—I fielded an invitation to make a grand tour of various haunted houses in Genesee & Oakland Counties, but declined on what I thought were solid grounds not inconsistent with Project MERCATOR's goals and precepts. Staying in that evening was a mistake, even if made for the best of reasons. My parents and I were due to depart for Ohio the next morning, and I do not find travel restful. It's fun, exciting, and even gratifying, but never restful. So, instead of staying out to all hours of the night, I thought I'd catch a quiet night of television. Alas, my father was in rare form, going well out of his way to be unpleasant and grating. So petulant was he that instead of watching either Stargate Universe or Dollhouse at nine o'clock, he preferred to wait and watch them on the D.V.R. starting at ten so as to be able to fast forward through the commercial breaks. Waiting to start the evening at ten o'clock? That's a criminal waste of the evening, and adding insult to injury I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that not only do I not like Stargate Universe, I think I hate it.

Meanwhile, I received several text messages from my haunted house haunting pals, who were having a whale of a time. Around midnight they invited me to join them at a Coney Island, but by that time I was a miserable cuss and decided that turning in early was the only way to salvage any of the night's already squandered value. This two was a mistake, because swapping a few hours of sleep for some smiling faces probably would have been a good bargain. So, last Friday goes down as the second and so far greatest failure of Project MERCATOR. As ever, failure is more instructive than triumph.

"If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right."

This Monday—26 October—I was engaged in a frustrating, though ultimately successful, attempt to make a short video for a club to which I belong, essentially an elevator pitch for our club for entrance in a contest that could net us a few hundred clams to put toward various club purposes. This was not a MERCATOR project, but it was a bit like herding cats (an overused expression, I know, but so apt in this case). I had to be in charge or organizing several things at once, but without any authority to make decisions or boss people around; so, I had to cajole, and I find cajoling to be both excruciating and exhausting. At last we finished, and repaired to a local sports bar/buffalo wings chain, finally meeting the standards of Project MERCATOR. We laughed, the six of us shared two sampler plates, we made fun of the drunken douchebag businessmen at the next table, and I managed to make it home on the right side of midnight, given that this was a Monday night. I'm convinced I'm still feeling the ill-effects of Monday-Tuesday's lack of sleep, but after shooting the video a bit of frivolity was most certainly called for.

What will this coming weekend bring? I'm going to a ska show(!) on Halloween, in costume. I do not know what if any festivities Friday might bring, but I've learned the lesson of the previous Friday and stand ready to accept whatever invitations come my way. (So odd to have people around who actively want me to come out and socialize with them; it's been years since that was regularly the case, and it's taking a period of some readjustment.)

Science!
So cool: sea monsterlink. I am disappointed, however, that the B.B.C.'s headline writers chose this moment to exercise tasteful restraint; I think we all know that the headlines for this story should have included the phrase "colossal fossil."

Science!

Perchance to Dream
Yesterday morning, I dreamt of driving Lumi through an unfamiliar subdivision in the dead of winter. The road was a sheet of ice and all the houses were obscured by monstrous snowbanks. I lost control around a corner and Lumi ended up rather improbably on top of a snowbank, flipped over onto her roof. (I hadn't the velocity for such a leap; so, how did Lumi end up so far off the ground? Stupid dream non-logic.) More improbably still, I possessed the strength to lift Lumi off her snowbank perch, right her orientation, and set her on the ground. From there, though, a degree of reality set in and I had to face the fact that Lumi had sustained extensive damage. I awoke before anything so mundane as summoning a wrecker occurred. But, by Janus, that snow was beautiful! I cannot wait for the advent of winter.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
The Articles, "Ska's the Limit" from Flip F'real (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Because Joel Rash of the Flint Local 432 predicts we're a year and a half away from the next ska revival. I wonder what "fourth wave" ska will sound like, and from whence it will come….

Dienstag, 27 Oktober
Green Day, "Song of the Century" from 21st Century Breakdown (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: I don't even necessarily like "Song of the Century," but all day long I kept repeating over and over again the incorrect lyrics, "It's the song of the century." Irksome, that.

Montag, 26 Oktober
The Rolling Stones, "Paint It, Black" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: We heard "Paint It, Black" during yesterday's drive home from Ohio. I remarked, "This is a great song," which elicited a nod of agreement from my pop. It would have been Sunday's R.B.D.S.O.T.D., but I needed to celebrate having once again eluded Ohio's necrotic grasp and returned to the sacred soul of Michigan.