January 26, 2004
Opportunity Knocksentry,
I'm overjoyed to hear that NASA's most recent Mars Rover, "Opportunity" landed right smack-dab in the middle of a crater containing the very stuff it was sent to study.
Apparently if Mars had surface water there'll be trace minerals left behind, and the best place to find them is in spots where different layers of sediment are visible. Naturally, a crater created AFTER the water dried up is going to have punched through a bunch of layers, and that's where Opportunity is sitting right now.
I'm also happy to hear that Spirit is doing a little better. I've had Flash memory problems before, and they're no fun.
In other news, the Schlock Buffer hit 35 this weekend, which is a new personal record (I think). Better still, I also cranked out two weeks' worth of scripts this weekend, and I finally know how this story wraps up.
Sure, sure... you people may think I'm planning this stuff years in advance, and I may TRY to do that, but The Voices In My Head always have their own plans.
Well, they've spoken, and I know how "Book II" ends. Ya'll'll find out (yes, that's a proper double-contraction, short for "you all will") how it ends in a few weeks. Six? Seven? Ten? I'm not saying.
As for this "Book I" and "Book II" thing, the plan is to do bound, dead-tree Schlock books containing the story and art found on March 9th of last year, and working forward. Everything PRIOR to that will be slapped together on a CD, which I hope to make available in the next three months. Everything AFTER March 9th gets bundled up into these "Books" that span about six months each, give or take.
Remember when I said I try to plan ahead? Well, this last week I figured out what happens in Book IV. Or rather, a story I've been meaning to tell aligned itself with the stakes in the ground outlining Book IV... I guess in about a year I'll find out what The Voices In My Head have to say about it.