Gliese 581C, here we come!
Sorry for the light posting this week (light being a polite euphemism for “non-existent”) but I’ve been totally wrapped up in something reclusive. I’ve been away from the news all week, and when I finally looked at the computer this morning I was astonished to discover two things:
1. It’s Thursday. I thought it was Tuesday. Do other people lose track of time like that?
2. They’ve found an Earth-like planet only 20.5 light years away! I’m excited about this. It’s warm, it’s got a certain amount of dim sunlight, it’s the right size — all in all, there is an outstanding possibility that this planet has liquid water, possibly even oceans, possibly even amoebas swimming in those oceans with whom we will be able to communicate a billion years from now once they’ve evolved to the point where they can talk! I’m excited.
18 Responses to “Gliese 581C, here we come!”
-
simply wondered says:
well there’s no way I’M going there unless i can have a gun. boy’s gotta have standards.
how long does it take by bus?
April 26th, 2007 at 8:27 am EST -
simply wondered says:
and don’t the people who arrive there first get to set the rules? (until some blokes arrive on horses, steal the gold and give ‘em all syphilis) bugger the bus, i’ll fork out the extra and go by train! coming, vi? we could take the gun shop asshat and be the first to make a killing.
should i take my sunglasses? -
Violet says:
and don’t the people who arrive there first get to set the rules?
Absolutely! We also get to give the planet a new name.
Coal Mine
Uranium Deposit
Gold Coast
Colony -
Liz says:
Hooray! Let’s move to the “New World” and remove all the “Savages”!
-
Regina Phalangee says:
So if men are from mars, and women are from venus – who is from Gliese? Oh, silly me, of course, it’s the Gliese581c-ians.
-
Burrow says:
That’s so cool
-
simply wondered says:
So if men are from mars, and women are from venus – who is from Gliese? Oh, silly me, of course, it’s the Gliese581c-ians.
much mirth, RP/DP you of the flexible nomenclature!
anyway, they won’t be from there much longer – just as soon as this train gets there…
-
Regina Phalangee says:
sw – I like your thinly -veiled “coded messages- but….shsshhhhh!! (No that’s not the beginning of an unfinished swear word). SSHHHHHH – I will have another imposter at this rate! don’t blow my cover man!
I was going to say, perhaps a “third” gender will be discovered on Gliese581c.
I wonder what they will be called? Any suggestions? (Hopefully they will not have penii).
That guy who wrote the venus/mars book would have to go back to the drawing board – he was full of shhhhhhhh anyway.
-
B. Dagger Lee says:
I suggest the new planet be called Bendover, as in Bendover while I satisfy myself.
Roger that?
-
Regina Phalangee says:
Dagger – what bend over while you eat a mars bar?
-
Violet says:
I appreciate all your suggestions, but I’ve made my decision: the planet will be named Violetta. I will be its first queen, of course, and will be revered as the mother of my people. Future generations will mythologize me as the founder of civilization, the teacher of agriculture, the bringer of medicine and handicrafts. There will be speculation about my divine parentage.
Okay then.
-
simply wondered says:
‘I will be its first queen, of course, and will be revered as the mother of my people. Future generations will mythologize me as the founder of civilization, the teacher of agriculture, the bringer of medicine and handicrafts. There will be speculation about my divine parentage.’
but violet, that sounds just like here! we could save ourselves the train fare, the senseless murder of indigenous penis-free people and not even hav to set up our own chain of gun shops. it’s like our queen was here in kansas (err va) all along.
there’s no place like home… there’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…
eyes open to see the scarecrow/dubya grinning inanely – it’s that statue of liberty moment. hurriedly checks timetable for next train to gliese/violetta.
re v’s divine parentage (he speculates) wonder if she’s half swan, all bull or just pure gold?
-
Regina Phalangee says:
And remember, divine parentage does not involve a penis (As I recall from my faraway days of religious tutelage) I decree that all future reprodcuctions on this planet are divinely induced, ie, without penile penetration. That way, the first communication betweeen earth and gliese will not be “earth to gliese, earth to gliese, do you read me? Seen the latest hot girl of the week in zoo?” Thereby avoiding a quick devolution (regression, degeneration) just at the point where they have evolved enough to start communicating – if they had penises, the whole concept of the “almighty cock” would quickly pollute the whole planet – we don’t want another earth. The first offspring will be a girl and be called Fin Fung Foom.
It is also anticipated that due to the egalitarian and humane culture of the planet, many female earthlings will wanting to be immigrating interplanetarily to live there…this will mean that Gliese will have to resort to an immigration points system due to the sheer number of applicants…. the system will be nearly as impossible to pass as the one that the Aussie’s have to screen their potential immigrants.
Blathering on a sunday morning.
-
Quinn Everheart says:
Im sorry but I do not think humans should be alowed to screw up any more planets. maybe when we grow up and get things right we could all move to planet Quinn …or is that utopian dream just in my mind?
-
Kaitlyn says:
I think Dixie should be queen of the new planet.
She is very pretty and very smart and doesn’t take crap from the boys.
She can also throw one across the room and, if there are palmetto bugs on planet Violetta (Dixie will be queen after a violent coup – those teeth aren’t just for decoration), there won’t be for long!
I’ll be the human power behind the throne, and I say, all the gun nuts can live on an island with one elephant for every ten nuts. They should do just fine. (Elephants or gun nuts, I’m not picky.)
Queen Violet – I lose track of days all the time. Just now, I thought today was the 28th and I was like, don’t I have to change a patch? I looked at the box and I changed the patch yesterday, on the 28th.
I blame a lack of school and structure. I’ll be back at the crisis center this week, and that will fuck with my days as well – Tuesday becomes Monday and Thursday Friday. (It’s only open Tues-Thurs – I get to sleep in Monday and Friday and normal people don’t.)
Oh what a mess.
MAD magazine will be the official magazine of the new planet, the Onion the daily paper, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy 5 book trilogy the Bible.
We’ll leave Earth Thursday.
-
Infidel says:
Light generated radiates from crucible source minutes pass lightning fast crashes encircling sphere glowing but reflected, bounced blinding speed into dark empty. Hours pass, days, years, half and twenty long years of instantaneous miles, flash fast still one hundred and eighty six thousand per, slamming into a photosensitive givaway less that which was soaked up so many long twenty and a half years ago, soaked up with all it’s “not” secrets. This is what the light has not: that which carbon soaks given a nurturing source, the planet suckles its sun and we see the waste that runs down it’s cheek.
-
simply wondered says:
funny thing, fidel – i actually saw that through the train window.
-
Infidel says:
Funnier still the English language that coins words, train tracks, conductors, two metal conductors seperated by an electrolyte wooden ties, a capacitor, Farads, light-an electromagnetic wave. Just an electromagnetic wave as you pass, passive filter, frequency cleaner.
