Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

collision...

Hey, who's that cute character spray painted onto that alley wall...

Find out by watching Frisky Dingo Episode 9 on youtube.

Make like a tree... and get outta here.

As Atlanta was settling into it's "cold, but-not-THAT-cold" wintriness, our buddy C.A. Childers opined about how he planned on purchasing a "Puffy Vest" to warm his torso.

I asked him if he was going to a Back to the Future convention.

Anyway,
We're big fans of the Back to the Future trilogy. Yes, even Back to the Future II. My favorite joke from the first film revolves around the name of the Mall they test the time machine at. In the beginning of the film it's called "Twin Pines Mall." Then after Marty accidentally runs over one of a set of pine trees in the same location in the past, the name of the Mall in future is changed to "Lone Pine Mall." There is no attention drawn to it, the joke just sits there, waiting for us to get it. These three films are filled with jokes like that.

In this wikipedia article they have detailed the entire Back to the Future timeline in great detail. From the founding of Hill Valley in the 1850's all the way up to 2030 in "timeline 2" where Marty Jr. is released from prison.

I think it would actually be fun to watch the movies with this timeline printed out for reference purposes. Yes, that is exactly what I consider to be "fun."

**update**
Josh sent us the link to The Back to the Future Drinking Game. Featuring such inspired rules as: "Drink Twice whenever Marty's voice goes up an octave"

well if he drives one...

(via the ape)

tuned in.

My boss just told us that our cartoon, Frisky Dingo, is the 27th most downloaded TV show on iTunes.

Not too shabby. Especially considering all the advertising money Adult Swim hasn't spent on us. Here is where I'd include a link to the Frisky Dingo webpage on the Adult Swim website. Alas, we don't get to have a show page. We were told that no new shows are getting individual webpages... even though that is completely not true.

You can see all episodes of Frisky Dingo on YouTube.

In other TV news:
To anybody that started watching Battlestar Galactica this season on our recommendation, we'd like to formally apologize on behalf of last week's brain achingly bad "boxing episode." Yikes!

Zardoz says...

Zardoz also makes an appearance in the awesome TV on the Radio short film Dreams

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

collision...

Hey, who's that cute character spray painted onto that alley wall...

Find out by watching Frisky Dingo Episode 9 on youtube.

Make like a tree... and get outta here.

As Atlanta was settling into it's "cold, but-not-THAT-cold" wintriness, our buddy C.A. Childers opined about how he planned on purchasing a "Puffy Vest" to warm his torso.

I asked him if he was going to a Back to the Future convention.

Anyway,
We're big fans of the Back to the Future trilogy. Yes, even Back to the Future II. My favorite joke from the first film revolves around the name of the Mall they test the time machine at. In the beginning of the film it's called "Twin Pines Mall." Then after Marty accidentally runs over one of a set of pine trees in the same location in the past, the name of the Mall in future is changed to "Lone Pine Mall." There is no attention drawn to it, the joke just sits there, waiting for us to get it. These three films are filled with jokes like that.

In this wikipedia article they have detailed the entire Back to the Future timeline in great detail. From the founding of Hill Valley in the 1850's all the way up to 2030 in "timeline 2" where Marty Jr. is released from prison.

I think it would actually be fun to watch the movies with this timeline printed out for reference purposes. Yes, that is exactly what I consider to be "fun."

**update**
Josh sent us the link to The Back to the Future Drinking Game. Featuring such inspired rules as: "Drink Twice whenever Marty's voice goes up an octave"

well if he drives one...

(via the ape)

tuned in.

My boss just told us that our cartoon, Frisky Dingo, is the 27th most downloaded TV show on iTunes.

Not too shabby. Especially considering all the advertising money Adult Swim hasn't spent on us. Here is where I'd include a link to the Frisky Dingo webpage on the Adult Swim website. Alas, we don't get to have a show page. We were told that no new shows are getting individual webpages... even though that is completely not true.

You can see all episodes of Frisky Dingo on YouTube.

In other TV news:
To anybody that started watching Battlestar Galactica this season on our recommendation, we'd like to formally apologize on behalf of last week's brain achingly bad "boxing episode." Yikes!

Zardoz says...

Zardoz also makes an appearance in the awesome TV on the Radio short film Dreams

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

collision...

Hey, who's that cute character spray painted onto that alley wall...

Find out by watching Frisky Dingo Episode 9 on youtube.

Make like a tree... and get outta here.

As Atlanta was settling into it's "cold, but-not-THAT-cold" wintriness, our buddy C.A. Childers opined about how he planned on purchasing a "Puffy Vest" to warm his torso.

I asked him if he was going to a Back to the Future convention.

Anyway,
We're big fans of the Back to the Future trilogy. Yes, even Back to the Future II. My favorite joke from the first film revolves around the name of the Mall they test the time machine at. In the beginning of the film it's called "Twin Pines Mall." Then after Marty accidentally runs over one of a set of pine trees in the same location in the past, the name of the Mall in future is changed to "Lone Pine Mall." There is no attention drawn to it, the joke just sits there, waiting for us to get it. These three films are filled with jokes like that.

In this wikipedia article they have detailed the entire Back to the Future timeline in great detail. From the founding of Hill Valley in the 1850's all the way up to 2030 in "timeline 2" where Marty Jr. is released from prison.

I think it would actually be fun to watch the movies with this timeline printed out for reference purposes. Yes, that is exactly what I consider to be "fun."

**update**
Josh sent us the link to The Back to the Future Drinking Game. Featuring such inspired rules as: "Drink Twice whenever Marty's voice goes up an octave"

well if he drives one...

(via the ape)

tuned in.

My boss just told us that our cartoon, Frisky Dingo, is the 27th most downloaded TV show on iTunes.

Not too shabby. Especially considering all the advertising money Adult Swim hasn't spent on us. Here is where I'd include a link to the Frisky Dingo webpage on the Adult Swim website. Alas, we don't get to have a show page. We were told that no new shows are getting individual webpages... even though that is completely not true.

You can see all episodes of Frisky Dingo on YouTube.

In other TV news:
To anybody that started watching Battlestar Galactica this season on our recommendation, we'd like to formally apologize on behalf of last week's brain achingly bad "boxing episode." Yikes!

Zardoz says...

Zardoz also makes an appearance in the awesome TV on the Radio short film Dreams

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

collision...

Hey, who's that cute character spray painted onto that alley wall...

Find out by watching Frisky Dingo Episode 9 on youtube.

Make like a tree... and get outta here.

As Atlanta was settling into it's "cold, but-not-THAT-cold" wintriness, our buddy C.A. Childers opined about how he planned on purchasing a "Puffy Vest" to warm his torso.

I asked him if he was going to a Back to the Future convention.

Anyway,
We're big fans of the Back to the Future trilogy. Yes, even Back to the Future II. My favorite joke from the first film revolves around the name of the Mall they test the time machine at. In the beginning of the film it's called "Twin Pines Mall." Then after Marty accidentally runs over one of a set of pine trees in the same location in the past, the name of the Mall in future is changed to "Lone Pine Mall." There is no attention drawn to it, the joke just sits there, waiting for us to get it. These three films are filled with jokes like that.

In this wikipedia article they have detailed the entire Back to the Future timeline in great detail. From the founding of Hill Valley in the 1850's all the way up to 2030 in "timeline 2" where Marty Jr. is released from prison.

I think it would actually be fun to watch the movies with this timeline printed out for reference purposes. Yes, that is exactly what I consider to be "fun."

**update**
Josh sent us the link to The Back to the Future Drinking Game. Featuring such inspired rules as: "Drink Twice whenever Marty's voice goes up an octave"

well if he drives one...

(via the ape)

tuned in.

My boss just told us that our cartoon, Frisky Dingo, is the 27th most downloaded TV show on iTunes.

Not too shabby. Especially considering all the advertising money Adult Swim hasn't spent on us. Here is where I'd include a link to the Frisky Dingo webpage on the Adult Swim website. Alas, we don't get to have a show page. We were told that no new shows are getting individual webpages... even though that is completely not true.

You can see all episodes of Frisky Dingo on YouTube.

In other TV news:
To anybody that started watching Battlestar Galactica this season on our recommendation, we'd like to formally apologize on behalf of last week's brain achingly bad "boxing episode." Yikes!

Zardoz says...

Zardoz also makes an appearance in the awesome TV on the Radio short film Dreams

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

collision...

Hey, who's that cute character spray painted onto that alley wall...

Find out by watching Frisky Dingo Episode 9 on youtube.

Make like a tree... and get outta here.

As Atlanta was settling into it's "cold, but-not-THAT-cold" wintriness, our buddy C.A. Childers opined about how he planned on purchasing a "Puffy Vest" to warm his torso.

I asked him if he was going to a Back to the Future convention.

Anyway,
We're big fans of the Back to the Future trilogy. Yes, even Back to the Future II. My favorite joke from the first film revolves around the name of the Mall they test the time machine at. In the beginning of the film it's called "Twin Pines Mall." Then after Marty accidentally runs over one of a set of pine trees in the same location in the past, the name of the Mall in future is changed to "Lone Pine Mall." There is no attention drawn to it, the joke just sits there, waiting for us to get it. These three films are filled with jokes like that.

In this wikipedia article they have detailed the entire Back to the Future timeline in great detail. From the founding of Hill Valley in the 1850's all the way up to 2030 in "timeline 2" where Marty Jr. is released from prison.

I think it would actually be fun to watch the movies with this timeline printed out for reference purposes. Yes, that is exactly what I consider to be "fun."

**update**
Josh sent us the link to The Back to the Future Drinking Game. Featuring such inspired rules as: "Drink Twice whenever Marty's voice goes up an octave"

well if he drives one...

(via the ape)

tuned in.

My boss just told us that our cartoon, Frisky Dingo, is the 27th most downloaded TV show on iTunes.

Not too shabby. Especially considering all the advertising money Adult Swim hasn't spent on us. Here is where I'd include a link to the Frisky Dingo webpage on the Adult Swim website. Alas, we don't get to have a show page. We were told that no new shows are getting individual webpages... even though that is completely not true.

You can see all episodes of Frisky Dingo on YouTube.

In other TV news:
To anybody that started watching Battlestar Galactica this season on our recommendation, we'd like to formally apologize on behalf of last week's brain achingly bad "boxing episode." Yikes!

Zardoz says...

Zardoz also makes an appearance in the awesome TV on the Radio short film Dreams

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

collision...

Hey, who's that cute character spray painted onto that alley wall...

Find out by watching Frisky Dingo Episode 9 on youtube.

Make like a tree... and get outta here.

As Atlanta was settling into it's "cold, but-not-THAT-cold" wintriness, our buddy C.A. Childers opined about how he planned on purchasing a "Puffy Vest" to warm his torso.

I asked him if he was going to a Back to the Future convention.

Anyway,
We're big fans of the Back to the Future trilogy. Yes, even Back to the Future II. My favorite joke from the first film revolves around the name of the Mall they test the time machine at. In the beginning of the film it's called "Twin Pines Mall." Then after Marty accidentally runs over one of a set of pine trees in the same location in the past, the name of the Mall in future is changed to "Lone Pine Mall." There is no attention drawn to it, the joke just sits there, waiting for us to get it. These three films are filled with jokes like that.

In this wikipedia article they have detailed the entire Back to the Future timeline in great detail. From the founding of Hill Valley in the 1850's all the way up to 2030 in "timeline 2" where Marty Jr. is released from prison.

I think it would actually be fun to watch the movies with this timeline printed out for reference purposes. Yes, that is exactly what I consider to be "fun."

**update**
Josh sent us the link to The Back to the Future Drinking Game. Featuring such inspired rules as: "Drink Twice whenever Marty's voice goes up an octave"

well if he drives one...

(via the ape)

tuned in.

My boss just told us that our cartoon, Frisky Dingo, is the 27th most downloaded TV show on iTunes.

Not too shabby. Especially considering all the advertising money Adult Swim hasn't spent on us. Here is where I'd include a link to the Frisky Dingo webpage on the Adult Swim website. Alas, we don't get to have a show page. We were told that no new shows are getting individual webpages... even though that is completely not true.

You can see all episodes of Frisky Dingo on YouTube.

In other TV news:
To anybody that started watching Battlestar Galactica this season on our recommendation, we'd like to formally apologize on behalf of last week's brain achingly bad "boxing episode." Yikes!

Zardoz says...

Zardoz also makes an appearance in the awesome TV on the Radio short film Dreams

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

collision...

Hey, who's that cute character spray painted onto that alley wall...

Find out by watching Frisky Dingo Episode 9 on youtube.

Make like a tree... and get outta here.

As Atlanta was settling into it's "cold, but-not-THAT-cold" wintriness, our buddy C.A. Childers opined about how he planned on purchasing a "Puffy Vest" to warm his torso.

I asked him if he was going to a Back to the Future convention.

Anyway,
We're big fans of the Back to the Future trilogy. Yes, even Back to the Future II. My favorite joke from the first film revolves around the name of the Mall they test the time machine at. In the beginning of the film it's called "Twin Pines Mall." Then after Marty accidentally runs over one of a set of pine trees in the same location in the past, the name of the Mall in future is changed to "Lone Pine Mall." There is no attention drawn to it, the joke just sits there, waiting for us to get it. These three films are filled with jokes like that.

In this wikipedia article they have detailed the entire Back to the Future timeline in great detail. From the founding of Hill Valley in the 1850's all the way up to 2030 in "timeline 2" where Marty Jr. is released from prison.

I think it would actually be fun to watch the movies with this timeline printed out for reference purposes. Yes, that is exactly what I consider to be "fun."

**update**
Josh sent us the link to The Back to the Future Drinking Game. Featuring such inspired rules as: "Drink Twice whenever Marty's voice goes up an octave"

well if he drives one...

(via the ape)

tuned in.

My boss just told us that our cartoon, Frisky Dingo, is the 27th most downloaded TV show on iTunes.

Not too shabby. Especially considering all the advertising money Adult Swim hasn't spent on us. Here is where I'd include a link to the Frisky Dingo webpage on the Adult Swim website. Alas, we don't get to have a show page. We were told that no new shows are getting individual webpages... even though that is completely not true.

You can see all episodes of Frisky Dingo on YouTube.

In other TV news:
To anybody that started watching Battlestar Galactica this season on our recommendation, we'd like to formally apologize on behalf of last week's brain achingly bad "boxing episode." Yikes!

Zardoz says...

Zardoz also makes an appearance in the awesome TV on the Radio short film Dreams