Promise Me the Moon!
I recently read that scientists at the University of Hawaii - who evidently receive salaries, benefits and paid vacations for this sort of thing - keep discovering new moons (also called "satellites") circling the planet Jupiter.
There are now 58 known moons in Jupiter's orbit. (There used to be three more, but my family accidentally destroyed them during spring break, while riding the "Star Wars" attraction at MGM Studios. To you scientists in Hawaii - sorry about that!)
These new Jupiter moons were hard to find - the experts in Hawaii say some of them orbit the Red Planet at a distance of "tens of millions of miles." And others are barely bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger. With such loose criteria for achieving satellite status, the scientists are beginning to wonder if the Earth might merely be just another moon of Jupiter.
I'm sharing this topic with you because I could never discuss it during, say, the family dinner hour. First of all, sons No. 3 (age 9) and No. 4 (age 7) would start snickering at the word "moons." Then No. 5 (age 4) would start to giggle because, hey, the others are laughing! Then No. 4 would start to laugh out loud because he thinks No. 5 has a funny giggle, and then milk would start to come out of both their noses. Then No. 1 and No. 2 sons - sitting around at their colleges 150 miles away - would start laughing, without even knowing why.
Then No. 3 would tell his famous "Many Moons" joke (which revolves around an incident in the, ahem, "powder room"), and even my wife would start chuckling. I'd try to ignore this juvenility and eat my supper, but then I'd look up from my plate and there'd be all these fannies wagging at me - maybe even my wife's.
Uh, where was I? Oh, yeah, Jupiter's moons. I'm intrigued by the fact that they're all named after Greek gods. While we Earthlings creatively call our moon "the moon," the Jovian spheres have beautiful poetic names like "Ganymede," "Sinope," "Callisto," and "Morty."
This got me to thinking, how does the naming process work - who gets to choose the official Jupiter moon names?
With 58 moons already, and predictions by the guys in Hawaii that there may be as many as 100, I have a new idea about naming rights. While this idea will unquestionably place certain burdens on me personally, I'm willing to selflessly shoulder them in hopes of bringing substantial publicity to the communities where my weekly astonishing drivel is published.
The idea: Jupiter should be mooned by me! That is, one of Jupiter's moons should be named after me.
I do not suggest this for my own personal gain. True, it could substantially raise my Q rating and kick-start my plans for Global Humor Domination - perhaps even lead to Galactic Humor Domination! I mean, there's a high school theater in Norfolk, Nebraska that bears Johnny Carson's name. . .and Dave Barry (All Honor to His Name) has a North Dakota sewage treatment facility named after him. . .but neither of those hold a candle to an actual interstellar object the size of a compact SUV!
But the real benefits would accrue to my faithful readers, who could happily bask in my reflected glory while selling tons of "Moon of Stuart - the One Right Next to Morty" officially licensed merchandise!
Of course, this won't happen without lots of help from you faithful readers. Naturally you'll need to do the basic things: sending daily snail mails and twice-daily e-mails to the Hawaiian sky-guys - David Jewitt and Scott Sheppard of the University of Hawaii, and Jan Kleyna of Cambridge University.
But a successful campaign will require you to pester bigger fish, with big-time connections and influence -people who so far haven't done nearly enough to expand your economic opportunity to sell officially licensed Don Stuart merchandise. . .people like Donald Rumsfeld, or Oprah Winfrey, or Michael Jordan.
And don't take "no" for an answer! Remember, while we don't want to use it, we do have a powerful weapon at our disposal: Anyone refusing to help will be visited by sons 3, 4 and 5, who will tell - AND act out! - the famous "Many Moons" joke.
###
Take one giant step for mankind, and write me. TakeFiveT5@yahoo.com
There are now 58 known moons in Jupiter's orbit. (There used to be three more, but my family accidentally destroyed them during spring break, while riding the "Star Wars" attraction at MGM Studios. To you scientists in Hawaii - sorry about that!)
These new Jupiter moons were hard to find - the experts in Hawaii say some of them orbit the Red Planet at a distance of "tens of millions of miles." And others are barely bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger. With such loose criteria for achieving satellite status, the scientists are beginning to wonder if the Earth might merely be just another moon of Jupiter.
I'm sharing this topic with you because I could never discuss it during, say, the family dinner hour. First of all, sons No. 3 (age 9) and No. 4 (age 7) would start snickering at the word "moons." Then No. 5 (age 4) would start to giggle because, hey, the others are laughing! Then No. 4 would start to laugh out loud because he thinks No. 5 has a funny giggle, and then milk would start to come out of both their noses. Then No. 1 and No. 2 sons - sitting around at their colleges 150 miles away - would start laughing, without even knowing why.
Then No. 3 would tell his famous "Many Moons" joke (which revolves around an incident in the, ahem, "powder room"), and even my wife would start chuckling. I'd try to ignore this juvenility and eat my supper, but then I'd look up from my plate and there'd be all these fannies wagging at me - maybe even my wife's.
Uh, where was I? Oh, yeah, Jupiter's moons. I'm intrigued by the fact that they're all named after Greek gods. While we Earthlings creatively call our moon "the moon," the Jovian spheres have beautiful poetic names like "Ganymede," "Sinope," "Callisto," and "Morty."
This got me to thinking, how does the naming process work - who gets to choose the official Jupiter moon names?
With 58 moons already, and predictions by the guys in Hawaii that there may be as many as 100, I have a new idea about naming rights. While this idea will unquestionably place certain burdens on me personally, I'm willing to selflessly shoulder them in hopes of bringing substantial publicity to the communities where my weekly astonishing drivel is published.
The idea: Jupiter should be mooned by me! That is, one of Jupiter's moons should be named after me.
I do not suggest this for my own personal gain. True, it could substantially raise my Q rating and kick-start my plans for Global Humor Domination - perhaps even lead to Galactic Humor Domination! I mean, there's a high school theater in Norfolk, Nebraska that bears Johnny Carson's name. . .and Dave Barry (All Honor to His Name) has a North Dakota sewage treatment facility named after him. . .but neither of those hold a candle to an actual interstellar object the size of a compact SUV!
But the real benefits would accrue to my faithful readers, who could happily bask in my reflected glory while selling tons of "Moon of Stuart - the One Right Next to Morty" officially licensed merchandise!
Of course, this won't happen without lots of help from you faithful readers. Naturally you'll need to do the basic things: sending daily snail mails and twice-daily e-mails to the Hawaiian sky-guys - David Jewitt and Scott Sheppard of the University of Hawaii, and Jan Kleyna of Cambridge University.
But a successful campaign will require you to pester bigger fish, with big-time connections and influence -people who so far haven't done nearly enough to expand your economic opportunity to sell officially licensed Don Stuart merchandise. . .people like Donald Rumsfeld, or Oprah Winfrey, or Michael Jordan.
And don't take "no" for an answer! Remember, while we don't want to use it, we do have a powerful weapon at our disposal: Anyone refusing to help will be visited by sons 3, 4 and 5, who will tell - AND act out! - the famous "Many Moons" joke.
###
Take one giant step for mankind, and write me. TakeFiveT5@yahoo.com
posted by Don Stuart at 12:50 PM
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