Mission: Space
Wannabe Astronauts, Trekkies, and Nova-sympathizers, listen up: If you want the thrill of your life and don’t have millions of dollars or the balls for the real thing, Mission: Space should be your pilgrimage in life. It might very well be the closest thing you’ll have to a real space odyssey. A spiritually uplifting moment (to make up from the tears of joy shed on the Silver Golf Ball, to be blogged about soon) that I can only describe as a mind-f*ck if it wasn’t real and I didn’t really go to Mars. Mission: Space – continue reading …
Ode to… Jet Blue
Nova’s odysseys begin again to other cities around the globe (thoughtfully avoiding the moon on Friday of course given how other things were landing there). The first jet graced with our presence on our first odyssey of October is Jet Blue- and I am taking the time to write this immersed in the upper echelons of night to pay homage to Jet Blue. The short is Jet Blue is finally one of those companies that figured things out. How our environment contributes to our moods and behaviors, how you don’t just brand a product (in this case airline) you brand the totality of the customer’s experience. Travel begins the moment you walk out your home door. You remember your encounters with the check-in crew, security, and then the wasted hours inside an airplane hangar weighed down with luggage. The new Jet Blue terminal in JFK makes you WANT to leave early for the airport. You have abundant choices of dinners (from fine-ish to fast food) your snacks are healthier versions of junk (but still satisfying those cravings), you can shop for useful travel goods, get your shoes shined, plug your laptop in to email, play with your kids in the kid play pen area, charge your phone, then sit in one of their cool colorful, playfully shaped sofas (that aren’t gross with cloth hiding who-knows-what, but pleather) and watch the sun set behind our city in glorious reds and golds. No, Jet Blue is not responsible for such an awesome sunset that brought a smile to my face as I wondered briefly if it would be my last, but it is responsible for my enjoyment of a sunset by placing such a couch by the window and making it so comfortable.
So right now I say, Ode to Jet Blue! Thank you for appreciating the fine details of odysseys that give life flavor.
Where will Nova land?
where I won’t be tomorrow
photo by Luc Viatour
Nova is gearing up for some new odysseys, but she’ll tell you one place she aint going to be. That would be the moon, given looney-tunes NASA has decided it needed to shoot the equivalent of a missile into it “to see what happens”. Sounds very much like a bunch of little boys detonating fireworks in places they really shouldn’t be, though talking about it in a language appropriate for their ages and nerdiness : “LCROSS Centaur Separation… Mission operations is initiating the breaking maneuver. This will create the 4 minute, 373 mile (600 km) separation planned for optimal data of the Centaur Impact Flash and debris plume. The breaking burn is 4 min 5 sec. in duration.”
Break out the apocalypse kits! Women will simultaneously get their periods across the globe, massive tidal waves will engulf our coasts, and the alien base hidden in the moon’s core will become activated and aim their cannons at earth. All because we wanted to see what happened.
No following NASA missions for me this time around! I’ll be home with my duct tape.
Space Odyssey in Washington Heights
This installment sits in the secluded woods of Fort Tryon Park by the dog run. I think it is a cleverly disguised black monolith from the movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey. Instead of apes jumping up and down to its presence and hum, you have dogs barking around it, perhaps triggering some evolutionary spark in them so that dogs evolve into their anagram: gods. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, visit the black monolith link.
If it’s not a disguised black monolith, then it is an ode to the types of radiators we have in Washington Heights.
Your thoughts?
Breaking the Matrix
My breaking the matrix… well it’s a lot of things, but right now the challenge seems to take its example in salsa and performance. It scares me silly, and I push myself, but shy away more. I retreat at the thought of watchful expectation, but also hold high expectations.
It’s good to know though that this matrix exists and you have to transcend it. I’m chugging along, even though I seek an immediate transcendental moment. And I’m brave enough to tackle the salsa congress with just, what? 6 months under my salsa spandex belt?
What’s your breaking the matrix?
Why all of you are trekkies
Those of you who think you are not sci fi fans or trekkies, think again… Did you know that the inspiration behind the invention of the cell phone are the communicators and tricorders used in Star Trek? Don’t know what a tricorder is? Well time to read up and just give into Trekkie coolness. And now that we have touch pads, well… it’s getting more and more like what Spock, Kirk and Picard use when going where no man has gone before…
And to further show you how cool some Trekkies are, here is a pin up by the artist Jesus Diaz.
So next time you are texting, googling, blabbing and slaving over your cell phone, remind yourself of the truth. You are really a trekkie. And by texting so much, your fingers will slowly begin to curl permanently into the Vulcan live long and prosper sign. It’s a secret trekkie joke of the inventor.
get ready: end-time, black holes, mutants, aliens or the status quo
The latest news is that the Large Haldron Collider is set to restart sometime soon. If you recall, fellow nerds and Henny Pennies, the Large Haldron Collider is a massive particle accelerator situated between ….it doesn’t matter where it’s situated- it’s situated close to all of us. Scientists are seeking to recreate Genesis by colliding two proton beams together at close to the speed of light. The theory is that this will shed light on the Big Bang and our universe’s origins.
Now the thing had started last year for about a week with the protons doing their warmup lap, until it malfunctioned. They’ve been repairing it ever since, now with a rumored start date of November 2009. Theories abound by the sci-fi minded about the intelligence of doing such a thing. Will we conjure doomsday? Will this create a black hole that will slowly swallow earth by 2012? Will this become a stargate for those Aliens that made the pyramids to return or those visitors seen by Ezekiel? Some say everything will discontinue to exist in a BLINK. If the answer is no to all of these scenarios, and the physicists are right–they discover the origins of life and the God particle, then I imagine life could be very boring–we’re left without a mystery to chase anymore, and will play with our thumbs and stare at each other until it’s time to die.
how dumb we’ve become
Link to brandsalsa.com for an article on this name change, no relation to salsa dancing that I know of.
My normally relaxing, utterly transporting experience of watching Star Trek: The Next Generation was interuppted by an abomination on my TV set. The Sci-Fi channel has changed it’s name and logo to Syfy. How dumb have we become that we take a channel devoted to smart, cool things with a cool planet symbol and correct spelling to a dumbed down, bubble gum font brand? I can’t see this logo without cringing. It’s Sci Fi, I liked to be remind of the SCIENCE and the FICTION, not a cutesy name. The F doesn’t even get a capital letter. The linked article tells you the reality behind this, but right now it doesn’t sit well with me.
By the way, if you’re sensitive to caffeine, don’t drink a frappé after 5pm. I think I’ll be blogging for awhile. Darn foodies turned me into a caffeine freak.
