Trans-Martian insertion commence… four… three… two… one… one… ONE! Commence, damnit! What’s the matter with you clones? Geebus!
I’m telling you, my friends – you just can’t get good help these days, not anywhere. Not on Earth (our home planet). Not on Mars (our current place of business). Not in deep space (which separates Earth from Mars). As you may recall from our previous Web-based utterances (known as blog entries), we’re running a little short-handed here in Big Green-land, particularly owing to the recent “brain drain” at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. The more knowledgeable (and higher-paid) members of our contingent – mad scientist Mitch Macaphee and etheric energy specialist / inventor Trevor James Constable flew the coop, having grown tired of our slovenly ways, our peasant fare, our… general ripeness, if you will. Anyway, they lit off for Rio, Monaco, Paris, and pretty much anyplace better than the mill.
So what the hell, we thought, we don’t need them. We can manage our own interplanetary travel, right? I mean, it’s not rocket science. Well, 
the fact is, folks… funny story. Turns out, it is rocket science. And self-sufficient as we may be, we are not bloody NASA, okay? So yes, we did manage lift off (with some difficulty), but that was the end of the easy part. On Matt’s advice, I had Marvin (my personal robot assistant) point the nose of the ship towards our objective – planet Mars, where bookings awaited us. Right… now this is the complicated part. Turns out shooting for Mars is shooting at a moving target. That sucker’s speeding along at some ungodly speed. So by the time we’re what should have been half-way there, it’s way the fuck ahead of us! That meant making some kind of complicated course change that required more hands than we could muster. Oh, there was one other option. You know… being screwed. No one’s favorite, as it happens.
Well, luckily for us, our good ex-friend Mitch Macaphee left one of his travel trunks in the ship’s storage bay. In desperation, we cracked it open, looking for something… 
anything… that could get us out of this jam (even if it was just a rope to hang ourselves with). Buried under some novelty tee-shirts (“I’m with Frankenstein”??) and other throw away items was one of Mitch’s many inventions – a small device he had been obsessed with over the course of several weeks… something he called the clonolator. He was going to try and sell it to Clonaid (a movement run by space people called the Raelians, not a refreshing drink) but I suspect he was asking too fat a price. Anyway, we thought what the hell – let’s clone the help we need to get this sodding ship back on course. So we ran tubey through the clonolator and zip-bang, it created several replicas of our erstwhile little root vegetable. Just the extra hands we needed.
Well, quite nearly. Don’t ask me why we didn’t run someone competent through that thingy. I guess we thought the man-sized tuber could handle it better than we mere mammalian mortals. Whatever – these clone-tubers are almost as useless as tubey himself. And Mars is getting farther and farther ahead of us! Damn you, Mitch!!!
to summon the will to stop it. I don’t mean to depersonalize that observation – I include myself in that broad “we”. Sometimes I wonder whether, years from now, I will look back on these days and curse myself for being so limp and impassive in the face of disaster. For the second time in just a few years, we seem to be sleepwalking into war. Our lame duck leaders, eager to demonstrate their relevance, are almost certain to bring about some kind of attack on Iran. Many in the Democrat-led congress are walking in lock-step with them (and sometimes a step or two ahead), particularly those with presidential ambitions. At the same time, Israel has struck a site in Syria, raising the question of what will come next (and from where) and Turkey is poised to invade northern Iraq.
them – best to do it yourself. It’s easy. Just ask yourself, is Iran occupying another country? No. Are they the most technologically advanced industrial and military power in the region, let alone the world? I think not. Are they issuing ultimatums? No, though Bush and others have tried to characterize some of Ahmadinejad’s comments as such (without accuracy). So… why are the nominal leaders of both political parties apparently pushing for an escalation, perhaps a military attack? Is there anything in this situation that could justify such an aggressive action? Don’t we already have two hands full with pointless war? What, we’re going to carry one in our teeth now? I hate to sound like Bob Dole, but … where’s the outrage? Sure, most of us will not be forced to fight any of these wars, but if we keep starting them willy-nilly like this, we will ultimately get bit on the ass, even way back here at home.
I’m sure that wasn’t right, tubey. No, no… I’m telling you. Countdowns start with larger numbers and end with the smaller ones. What part of that do you not understand? Freaking root vegetables!
What went wrong? Well, it started with the ship. Our rebuild was less than optimal, let’s say (charitably). The resulting interplanetary conveyance resembles more something in the way of playground equipment than space-worthy vehicle. That is not exactly a metaphorical comparison – with our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee AWOL in Argentina (or was it Madagascar? Can’t recall) we were left to our own devices. So Matt and I scavenged the parts from junkyards, rubbish tips, and – yes – abandoned playgrounds (though most playgrounds are abandoned at 2:00 a.m., I’ll wager) and, under John’s able guidance, we cobbed together the makeshift crate that will whisk us from Earth to Mars and back… hopefully. Sure there are holes. Sure it’s held together with duct tape. But damnit, she’s yar. She’s extremely yaaarrrrr….
(a grueling duty if ever there was one). That left only Big Zamboola and/or the man-sized tuber to handle our countdown. Split-second precision was required if we were to make our launch window. Zamboola and tubey drew lots and, well, Zamboola won, so tubey got to do the countdown. (Don’t ask me why it works that way, because I JUST DON’T KNOW!) I handed tubey a hastily-repurposed eye chart with the relevant numbers jotted on it and told him to fire away.