2:00pm: One Way Out
China today retrieved this unmanned teakettle it had mistakenly launched into orbit around the earth. The Chairman of China's fledgling Space Ministry was quoted as saying "We make big mistake." The teakettle, spirited from the kitchen of a local farmer on the outskirts of northern Gansu province, was manned by dummy astronauts, and apparently launched with supplies exceeding weightless limits for earth's atmosphere (after correcting for the absence of measurable ozone). Upon further inspection the spacekettle was found to have sixteen gallons of milk on board, further violating the Sacred Cow Alliance of Eastern Asia, and well-established global standards on good taste. When interviewed after the recovery, the astronauts had no comment. A Ministry of Tea official said "We don't use milk in tea! Turn camera off!" A new launch date has yet to be announced.
In other news, Pilgrim cut short his early-morning round of frisbee-golf in Paradise today to call a brief press conference, where he made the following announcement in his country's native tongue of Mostly Jibberish: "I don't have a ticket home," Pilgrim opined. "But if they send that teakettle back up I plan to be on it." Sources are trying to determine whether he will pass safely through the spacekettle's culturally-skewed caffeine detector, as he has reportedly been mainlining java since the age of three.
Posted by cronish at April 02, 2002 02:02 PM