death

Disaster has struck our little bio-sphere! Mr. Collins and Watson are dead. We discovered their bodies this morning. And was in the throws of death, but he held on for a few hours more. The poor things were belly-up, but at the bottom of the tank rather than at the water's surface. Hale-Bopp and Crick seem alright. The temperature in the tank has been adjusted, and "good" bacteria added. I will have to be more careful with Bopp and Crick from now on. A consultation with the pet store is in order.

Still no word on the dental work. I think there are a few days left before the next moon....

So, not the happiest of days.

outposts and supplies

Wow. When it gets this cold, one really has to bundle up just to go outside for a few minutes. A climate this inhospitable allows me to day-dream that I am on a distant planet during the winter months, trapped, awaiting the saucer that brings the tea and other little luxuries. There are indigenous populations farther north that rely on supplies flown in to their communities, though during the winter there are "ice-roads" that allow transport over land, lake and river. Their ancestors lived on a "different" planet, so to speak. And they looked up into space at a different angle from other peoples, and they saw the movement of the northern lights in the sky. What did think, and what stories did they tell?

Is it easier, I wonder, for a spacecraft to enter a planet's orbit at the poles? I remember reading about Asimov's gravitational-powered vessels and thoughts of the Inuit living so high up North on our planet lead to the question. Things are different up there, and not just because of the ice and snow. Earthmen are frequently pulling meteorites out of the polar ice-caps and studying them. But maybe gravitational pull is greater at the equator. It certainly rhymes. Pull at the pole suggests something entirely different.

not much talk of little green men

Today there was lots of shoveling. Lots and lots of shoveling. Tomorrow, the shoveling of the roofs. There is far too much snow on top of our out-post and the garage. I started clearing some of the snow off the garage this evening and it looked like it was actually three feet deep up there. Quite a large drift had formed. I don't want us to be crushed under a falling ceiling, or hit by an avalanche in our own back yard. That would be most embarrassing.

I had to look up "roofs". At first I was confident I had read that was the correct plural. I did an interweb search and found "rooves". Even as I finish typing it now the computer decorates it with the dotted red underlining, just as it has done with "interweb". Thinking about it a bit I decided the notion I'd had in favour of the unvoiced "f" had come from Tolkien and his thoughts on "dwarfs". A better dictionary gave me some background: late Old English and Middle English use hrof (line above the "o", whichever accent that is) as does Old Norse. Dutch also uses "roef" (the modern language using the same as English, "roof" and the reconstructed Pre-Germanic source (assumed through linguists' study of morphology) is listed as *khrofaz.

Every word has a like history. It's true. I  back-traced it. Language remains one of the most incredible technologies conceived  by the human mind, and one of the most over-looked.

impactful is still a lowsy word

Whenever I try to stretch my mind to contemplate the vastness of space and the strangeness of its other inhabitants, the exercise causes my appreciation for every-day existence on Earth to swell. Even if I do occasionally forget that Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov were two different people, their work impresses itself upon my mind in a likewise impactful fashion. That's correct. Impactful. Like a giant meteorite. Per ardua, ad astra, ad terra firma? Hooray!

books

Two books by Edgar Rice Burroughs arrived for us at the library this past week and today presented an opportunity to pick them up. Both are stories about Mars. I took the time to look around the stacks (which only really qualify as shelves, to be honest with you) and found a Reginald Hill mystery I haven't yet read, and a big book of U.F.O.s by a man who lives in or near Winnipeg. I am trying to "follow" his on-line internet web log (blog for short) but the "blogging" program does not make this easy. It is also difficult to search for blogs. I'll have to do a search for searchers for blogs, but right now that seems tedious.

Still have not officially communicated my desire to leave my mouth to science. Will call the school for dentists before the year, nay, week is out. 

Another discovery: "Marvin" the Martian, of Looney Toons fame, was only given his name quite some time after the original episodes in which he appeared were broadcast. He was only named to improve merchandising profits. In the episodes he is actually only referred to as "Commander of Flying Saucer  X-2".

oral hygiene

I must go to the dentist sometime in the coming few weeks. At least, I must make an appointment with a dentist in the next fortnight, whether that appointment is one, two, or even three months from now is another thing. The plan at the moment is to "leave my mouth to science" and allow dentists-in-training a chance to learn from my gob.

There are ample learning opportunities for a young aspiring dentist in this pie-hole. It's been quite a long time since my last visit to such a professional: a decade at least. Plenty of cavities to fill, possibly some wisdom teeth to pull. Perhaps I'll even wind up with adult braces and a couple of root canals! It's hard to guess in advance what they might say, especially since they are new to the job. I'm sure they will thank me for the wealth of experience I'm giving them.

It appears this communication must be cut a bit short. The others need to do some scans. Off to read Neuromancer. Wild story.

under the freshwater sea

We wanted to let you know the three Puntia anchispora (or tiger barb fish) have been given names. Mr. Collins and Hale-Bopp share their little biosphere with Watson, And, and Crick. Since it is very difficult to tell them apart one from the next, and since they are always swimming around causing a mild but pleasing hypnosis in the mind of their minders, the near pointlessness of their having names has become a running joke here at the outpost. The dynamic duo for whom the fish are named come, appropriately, from the world of human scientific research. James D. Watson and Francis Crick were the first to suggest the double-helix model of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. If you watch these fish swim for a little too long, you start to wonder if their constant voyages around the tank might be conjuring life into being on some plane of existence parallel to our own. Srsly.

disjointed thoughts

It would be nice to know what percentage of inter-web ramblings in a forum such as this are devoted to having nothing of interest to say. For my part, I am devoting this post to the uninteresting. The interesting can quickly become uninteresting to the human mind. It takes a bit of attention and thought to make the uninteresting interesting, but it is worth the effort, always.

Beans are a wonderful food. Each bean is a unit of potential energy, easily measurable, and even after digestion still has plenty of bang to spare.

In the winter seasons on Earth, the insects either lie dormant or die off. Most creatures curl up and sleep through the cold in a warren or den or some muddy hole. To whom are humans trying to prove themselves and why?

some new art

Close Encounters: The next 500 years is an art exhibit happening down here in our little city right now. If you can, go have a look at the work. It is all by contemporary aboriginal artists who are peering into the future, or back from the future, or from outer space.

 One piece explores the on-line world of internet gaming and avatars from a Native perspective. The episodic videos depict characters in a virtual, 3D world, as they interact with each other and the "environment". The artists question the place of their "real-world" traditions in a future transformed by technology and made up of other worlds.

Another video installation is projected onto a screen in a bare white room. Getting closer to the flickering colours and shapes it becomes apparent that some of the video is leaking through the screen to the wall behind. Then it becomes clear: this video is being projected onto a screen made out of white feathers.

The beautiful intermingling of vision, ceremony and alternate reality in this show is profound. This is not to say that the gallerists have done anything particularly earth-shattering or different. The set-up is what gallery-goers would expect: clean, clear, well-lit. But the work itself does what well-made art should. It allows you to visit mystic places, to go on a trip, to take a vision quest. I give it a billion stars.

succour

We have a prize-winner! Mr. Kroeker correctly named the "mystery" font of a few days ago as Trebuchet MS. Waves of congratulations go out to him from the luminiferous aether! The prize is a yet to be completed drawing of an undisclosed Martian landmark. Thanks for playing!


A recent debate was aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio frequency concerning spacing following full-stops in written English. We here at the martian hop favour less spacing, preferring to let the punctuation do the work it was designed to do. There is more than enough space for us to transverse already.

Lately we have been struck by the comparability of human child-rearing with the introduction of sentient extra-terrestrial life to earth. Like a new-born baby, a Martian arriving on Earth will have to re-learn most of what it did naturally on its home world. Breathing, walking, eating, living may all be much different on Earth. A Martian will have to adapt. A Martian will have to become un-Martian. Revealing themselves on Earth in this way could be extremely undesirable. This may explain the whole tendency towards abduction, and fly-bys in saucers. Or perhaps they come to us in the guise of our children, waiting until the moment is right to make their presence known....

trolls from Mars?

Hello people,

We have found evidence of more Martian mind-control on Earth. See the linked article below, actually published in Scientific American in 2008. Please note the date of publication is not April 1st. Don't forget to peruse the comments.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=worlds-first-flying-saucer

If you have enjoyed reading this, you may also be interested in this little Earthling comedy:

a movie recommendation

Hello people of Earth. A second short post for you today because you are who you are. Below is a link to the internet's movie database entry on a film entitled "Santa Claus conquers the Martians". Below that you will find another link to the entire movie, in case you feel like throwing away eighty minutes of your life...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058548/

fonts: part deux

Can anyone guess today's font? If you can, you win a free soda pop, courtesy of the martian hop.

Hint: You already have two hints and the picture is one of them.

fonts

"Comic Sans" is not an available font on this station. This disappoints us. Especially since both Helvetica and Arial, the latter being Microsoft's Helvetica-rip-off, are included. "Comic Sans" is much maligned, rightly or wrongly (who's to say?) but not to have the option of employing it is terrible. Some situations absolutely cry, scream and beg for "Comic Sans". "I <3 Helvetica" [the middle symbol, for those unaware, means "love": it's less than three. The heart has two chambers, not three, unless we're talking about Martian hearts]... where were we? Oh, yes, the unparenthetical statement in the previous sentence is fine when constructed with the good old work-horse "Courier", or even "Helvetica" itself if you're so inclined, but put it in "Comic Sans" and you have a real coup d'espere, or whatever it is. Don'tcha think?

second contact

Maybe the mystery of outer-space was more fresh sixty years ago, in the days before people really knew the amount of effort and resources required just to keep a person alive for any length of time in a tiny steel bubble up there. Sometimes it seems as if the only reason to keep up the charade is to prevent ourselves from looking thoroughly ridiculous in the history books. Or else the funding will dry up if someone isn't pushing for progress: the use-it-or-lose-it effect. All a space programme needs is one really grand discovery now and then to reawaken the glory days and to get everyone talking, writing, what-have-you, again. The human imagination needs to be engaged. It's difficult to make that happen en masse. So much specialized factual knowledge is required to get within ten miles of spitting distance of the reality of space travel now. Sixty years ago when the Martians were in everybody's head, from N.A.S.A. scientist, to Russian cosmo-naut, to school-aged children, imagining was easy. Now it's gotten to damned difficult. What better reason to become a devoted, nerdy, be-spectacled science-fiction nerd? Make second contact!

the legendary Tornados.

no words, just pictures.

piscapalia

In order to prepare ourselves for biosphere-living, we have taken some live fish into our possession. You know the ones, "Alive without breath, as cold as death... all in mail never clinking" et cetera. Today we are trying to think of some names for the new arrivals. The "beta-fish" is Hale-Bopp (Bopp for short) and the scum-sucker of course is named Mr. Collins. I think "Tae" "Kwon" and "Do" work for the tiger barbs, but Mrs. W. wants something literary. "Sir" "William" and "Blake" weren't to her liking. The funniest thing about this is we are taking the most care in naming the three fish who look nearly identical.
Do you, faithful readers, have any suggestions?

an open question

Why are all sentient extra terrestrial life-forms in Star Trek shaped like humans?

sleepy-time

How can you know for certain that a Martian intelligence did not hi-jack the human-built machines that landed on the planet, and then programme them to send us reports of an uninhabitable planet? If I was aware of human behaviour, which I suppose I am, to some extent, that's the course of action I would recommend.
I wonder at the naming of the fourth rock. Calling it the fourth rock isn't really even accurate since that leaves out moons, visiting comets, meteors and our space junk. But why the connection to war? Blood is red, yes. I suppose the idea of a civilization wiping itself and everything else out up there is just too sad for me. We're busy with that task on Earth. Did a few clever minds on Mars send a spark of life to impregnate this planet before all was lost? Did they learn the folly of their ways before it was too late? Are we of Martian lineage then? Is there anybody out there?
I'm going to bed.

heroes and a little something else

People of Earth, if you have not already seen this, please, watch it now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78CTDaR-4sw

The Tornados, ladies and gents.

Don't forget to check the sell-by date on this one:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,919978,00.html

space-age tin

Do you remember toys from the times before plastic was readily available? Tin-toys were abundant when the space-age first dawned on humanity. One could purchase race-cars, wind-up marching pandas, hopping birds, robots, rockets and flying saucer tops. Imaginations that would eventually propel us beyond Earth's gravity were born thanks to these antiquated trinkets. 
We recently played with one of the old flying-saucer spinners. Ingenious design: it cranks up with a vertical screw on top that also has a ratcheting function inside the craft. Let go after pumping the screw up and down while keeping the U.F.O. level, and off it spins. The particular model we were flying had small holes all along its outer rim. While the craft is spinning, these holes produce an eerie, low-pitched wavering hum that just whistles "messengers from the unknown, messengers from distant places".

Such a wonderful mix of Earthling and Extra-terrestrial, functioning as it does thanks to human ingenuity and the Earth's pull, while unfettering the imagination and allowing travel to other worlds.

knowing when you're being insensitive

You just can't be too careful.
The previous post has been deleted. A suspicion that I need to keep away from telling the stories of others prevails. These writings ought not to be too closely discernable as factual. So, apologies. I hope I have done no harm.

apt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veSLdNos7q8

This will rocket you to a different time and place. Fairly relevant to other musings here.

fun and games

Why hello there,
How have you been? It's the "three-man" here. Has anyone played that drinking game before? I don't understand drinking games, exactly. This one didn't make a bit of sense to me, and wasn't much fun at all, until I chugged a bottle of the yeasty stuff first. Then it was fun. Before then it was pretty boring, drinking water, observing, and feeling thirsty from the crisps, yet having to stop myself from drinking because the game hadn't called upon me to do so. But think of it: you're at a party, you want to be sociable and perhaps having some drinks help you loosen up a bit, become gregarious even. Then you sit down to a game at which you must wait your turn to drink. Maybe it would make more sense with shots of the harder stuff, or fewer people, or something. In the end, it became a bit of a hoot anyway. I guess my jury is still out concerning drinking games. I wonder what those observing my mental synapses thought of the whole thing?

conspiracies of old

Subtle mind-control may have been practiced by Martians on Earthlings for some time now. What we humans refer to as "instinct" in dogs, for example, may simply be an effort on the part of an extra-terrestrial intelligence to disgust us. Our canine companion, as do many others of the species, often eats her own frozen feces during the winter. The only evolutionary gain here may just be to sicken the animal's enemies. Or, perhaps she is sending us a message from outer-space? "Earthlings, we laugh at you in disgust, here is an example of how debased you appear to us".

I believe strongly that my own Scottish forebears have been encouraged over time in their cultural and martial pursuits by this space-borne intelligence. Precisely when the Scots began wearing the red pom-pom atop their tams may be a date lost in the annals of history, but it seems difficult to deny the utterly alien features of the young pretender to the throne, the bonnie Prince Charlie.

a brief burst from the mental ray.

Cryptic crosswords provide excellent mental stimulation. I've been taking advantage of one free cryptic crossword puzzle per day. Memory and lateral reasoning skills are worth having. Especially if the Martians have super-human mental abilities and telekinesis.
I inadvertently caused a friend to visit an ugly interweb site. Fooey. Bad guy.
Our canine is a lovely fellow. She turns eleven on the fifteenth. She is at my feet on our couch. Oh, and said friend above, before the dog, has a birthday today. Her friends are quite lovely; I met them at a little gathering this evening. They almost make me content being a human earth-dweller. Too much solitude can do bad things to a person. The girls are Numenorian!
Signing off at 11:38 pm or 23:38. Still averaging one entry per day.

some more typed words

Today there were two very useful information exchanges. One was unassisted, peer-to-peer, off-line, and hands-free with a co-worker. The other was the opposite of the first, with an old friend from the old country. The latter exchange allowed me a peek at some of the old friend's photographic work. It's good stuff. He knows how to frame a shot, how to shoot on the street, and how to develop his work. "Flickr" hosts him. He's HalifaxJ, for the interested.

My further theorizing on Martians, their origins (past and potential), and human conceptions of them continues. Simply thinking about them is not enough, however. I need to make thoughts real, give them a home here on Earth in my version of reality. I have begun to make bright red pom-poms for many of my hats. It is a very relaxing and therapeutic pass-time. Pom-poms are also a bit of a peculiarity in the fashion of the present. THEY STICK OUT.
I used to hate pom-poms. In my youth I was terribly concerned about what others would think and that I would be laughed at. I tore pom-poms off all my stocking caps. Now I am more than comfortable with them. A big red pom-pom for the planet Mars on the peak of my cap, on the horizon of my mind, a symbol for my fixation and for my hope that, should they come, they may choose to visit me.

thoughts?

I have been thinking today about the possibility of legally becoming a Martian. I wonder if there is a lot of bureaucracy to contend with, forms to fill out, queues to wait in, that sort of thing. Does one have to have been born on the planet itself? That would be the first detail to get straight. An affirmative to that question and the whole thing's done before it even gets off the ground.

For now the assumption is no Martian civilization exists on the Red Planet, at least not anymore (or not yet). Perhaps we will find out more anon (Do you net-savvy see what I did there?). Humans are sending probing machines to the crimson sphere through the vast tracts of blackness. Robots have been there. Robots built by humans. Perhaps they are the Martians, at present. I'd prefer the "little green men" myself, though even that notion shares something with the machines: human ideas imposed upon the alien. The sublime wonder of "the other" can so easily be debased. And yet, I still want to know if I can become a Martian. I'm pretty fed up with a lot of the destruction being wreaked upon the Earth by human ideas. There is a good deal of work for a Martian ambassador to do preventing humanity from further "flourishing" on other worlds. That and environmental activism. Or its opposite, I suppose. I'm not sure if such an ambassador would attempt pleading the case of non-human life on Earth or hastening human self-destruction. Then, the alien come to earth may not have any strong feelings either way.

getting around.

Things were looking crisp today, a combination of the frigid temperature outside our heat-bubbles and my very tired eyes and mind. When I made the tremendous effort to actually look at something, that something astonished me with its hard, sharp-edged being: the back of a traffic signal hung on an outstretched arm of metal above the river of fast-flowing rubber, plastic, steel and bodies.
The sky was over-cast today so it was warm enough to fall asleep on a bench outside while waiting for a bus. In the French part of this country, there is a company that provides bus services and goes by a name I quite like: L'autocar.

a lack of sleep

The little green man is still having trouble sleeping. He kept us awake last night for two or three hours. Now he is trying to take his midday nap. I hear him chattering softly in that strange tongue of his as I write. Yesterday we had a communication with the forebears who live on the distant sea-side island. We managed to get the video-phone working. Unca M seemed very pleased to make the connection. We played a bit of music for Gram.
The sun shines brightly today, though it is quite cold. Not so cold as it has been lately, since the wind blows less.
That is all for now.

hippity-hop and you don't stop

Some of us were wondering if this little ditty is a gentle attempt at mockery of the old Napoleonic soldiery. Are they being called timid little bunnies? The male rabbit is known as a buck, and may share some similarities with soldiers of bygone days when libido is considered.


Do your ears hang low?
Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie 'em in a knot?
Can you tie 'em in a bow?
Can you throw 'em o'er your shoulder like a continental soldier
Do your ears hang low?
Do your ears stand high?
Do they reach up to the sky?
Do they droop when they are wet?
Do they stiffen when they're dry?
Can you semaphore your neighbor with a minimum of labor?
Do your ears stand high?
Do your ears flip-flop?
Can you use them as a mop?
Are they stringy at the bottom?
Are they curly at the top?
Can you use them for a swatter?
Can you use them for a blotter?
Do your ears flip-flop?
Do your ears stick out?
Can you waggle them about?
Can you flap them up and down as you fly around the town?
Can you shut them up for sure when you hear an awful bore?
Do your ears stick out?

the new way to remember

Our dear friend, let's call her Ms. A, was bitten by a dog today.
She has some sort of agreement worked out with a work-place pal that allows either party a bit of free dog-sitting when going out of town. Today she was doing the sitting, and the dog bit.
Ms. A's friend lives around the corner from us, so she phoned us to ask if we have any band-aids. She dressed the wound here. She wasn't certain if she should go to the hospital for a bite from a dog that she sort-of-knows. It's new year's day, so the hospitals are probably pretty busy. Her leg wasn't hanging off her, and no blood was visible on her clothes. She wondered if, since the bite had been through her jeans and not on bare flesh, whether antiseptic would be necessary. We encouraged her in its application.
And that's the sort of day it's been. Also, one of us had a birthday that all of us celebrated, with Nana and brother G. It was a pretty good one and the chocolate cake was delicious. One might suppose that Holiday-season birthdays are a bit of a let down, but in this case that supposition would be FALSE.
Now I will return to outer space for a bit of sleeping and dreaming.
This is the first post. I would say "I hope you have enjoyed it" but if you are us from the future, I know you will have, and if you are not, then I have no strong feelings either way. You are free from judgement.