lots of stuff...IN SPACE

India shot a bunch of Canadian stuff into space today! I don't know why today. (Or why it's in India.) Maybe everything just happened to be ready to go to space at the same time and they thought they would kill seven escape velocities with a single rocket. In India.

First, let me tell you about the "Canadian Suitcase." That's the unofficial name for it. I use that name because the official name is LAME. The Canadian Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite. Or NEOSSat. Seriously. That's what they call it for short.

Granted, I'm not Canadian. NEOSSat might actually be a common word in Canada. Like Maple or Bacon. Maybe it's an ancient Canadian word meaning "maple bacon...in space!"

NEOSSat (or maple bacon in space) is going to look for asteroids and space junk. So we know what kind of stuff could fall on us.

For some reason, they did not put lasers on it to shoot space junk or asteroids.

ALSO going into space are the Bright Target Explorer (or betterly code-named BRITE) satellites. They are 2 super tiny space telescopes that will look at stars.

Also, no lasers. Which is weird because if stars or asteroids or junk star falling onto Earth, wouldn't we want to stop them?

NEOSSat: "Hey Earth! There's this giant asteroid coming right at you!"

BRITES: "Also, Earth, there are a bunch of stars falling on you, too!"

EARTH: "As unlikely as all that seems, why don't you laser them or something!"

NEOSSat: "Um...we were built without lasers."

BRITES: "Yeah... ... ...awkward..."

EARTH: "Who built you?!"

NEOSSat/BRITES: "Canada."

EARTH: "Curse you Canada! Stop maple-ing bacon and start lasering!!!"

And that is why we can't have nice things.

I'm off to maple my bacon.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

that's no maple leaf

Canada is in a fiscal crisis! You could say (and this will be funny later when you know the story) that they are on a fiscal limb! (It's a tree joke...wait for it...)

Canada has brand new $20 bills. As always, they look like colorful  candy. (Actually, as far as I'm concerned, everything in Canada is sugary and edible.) But, there is a BIG botanical brouhaha over the dollar design. More specifically, the maple leaf. (See? The tree joke is making sense now!)

The leaf on the new bill has FIVE lobes! Five you say? Five I say!

You know from your years of botanical studies that the 5-lobed maple leaf is from the invasive Norway maple tree. NOT the beautiful 3-lobed sugar maple that proudly sits on the Canadian flag.

Now the banks and botanists are fighting. It WILL go down in history as the Bank/Botanical Battle Boogaloo.

The bank said it's a mish-mash of ALL maple trees. Because they accept all maple currency in Canada. Botanists aren't buying it...and are afraid it won't buy them anything.

You: "Here's your payment for all these plants and tree-things I'm buying at this wonderful botany store."

Botanist Cashier: "What's this? This isn't money! And trust me, I know from silly looking money, eh! I'm full-on Canadian and KNOW what a sugar maple leaf looks like and this, my friend, is Norwegian money!"

You: "I swear this is real money! Even though it looks totally fake like all Canadian money even though it's really real, eh!"

Botanist Cashier: "Get out of my store you Norwegian counterfeiter! Mounties! I need some Mounties! Royal Canadian Mounties! This person is Norwegian!"

That was the last time I did anything botanical. It was also the last time I rode a horse. But that's more hippological and less botanical.

I'm off to maple a tree.

Enjoy Everything, Eh.

-dj