Totally Rocking It!

Except Not How You Imagined It
And no, you don't have to cower in the corner in anticipation of a series of films that feature "It" or even "It!" in the title.
     Although - here the dreaded "And now an aside" makes it's appearance - I was thinking of what is now hideously described as a "Young Adult" novel entitled "Five Children And It", where the It comes at the end of the title, rather then the beginning.  Is this significant? 

Four of the Five

 Well, rather!  You see, it's an Edwardian novel by Edith Nesbit, about five children - you were probably way ahead of me there - and a species of wish-granting fairy that calls itself a "Psammead".  The children's wishes almost always turn out to be unpredictably disastrous, to comic effect.  It's been made into television series and films and stuff.  Art?

The It Creature
(A whole lot friendlier than the Id Creature)

     I wonder, if Ambrose Bierce had gone into politics instead of journalism, would he have kept the South Canadian nation out of the First Unpleasantness?  A fascin 
     INAPPROPRIATE "HERE AN ASIDE" CONTENT HAS BEEN TERMINATED BY THE OVERSEERS NORMAL SERVICE WILL NOW BE RESUMED* 
     Where were we?  O yes, the Intro.  And rock.
     Not the music form, and be careful, for at the merest jog of an elbow, Conrad will bang on about his favourite rock bands for several hours.  

Forgive me!  Forgive me! I just had to work a reference in -

     For, Lo! are we not talking about that Japanese asteroid-intercepting missile mission, Hayabusa?
     Yes!  Yes, we are - that was a rhetorical question.  Art?

The rock in question

     That there is the asteroid Ryugu, which Hayabusa was sent to orbit over three years ago.  On Friday last, the probe hovered over the surface at very close range, whilst blasting a tantalum bullet into the rocky regolith.  This will shatter the surface geology apart, allowing Hayabusa's sampling horn (no sniggering at the back there!) to collect various bits and pieces.  These will eventually be brought back to Earth next year, where their hideous mutant contents will escape and conquer the planet composition will be examined.

Hayabusa gets horny.
(NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!)

     This close approach was nowhere near as simple as you, and the Jaxa mission controllers, had expected, since the surface of Ryugu was a lot rockier than they had planned for.  Kind of like going to a Keane concert and ending up watching Linkin Park.**
     They have gotten around the problems, nevertheless, because as the late, great Gene Roddenberry once stated, "Did aliens build the pyramids?  No.  Human beings did, because they are clever and they work hard."

A still from an obscure Sixties sci-fi show you've probably never heard of ...

     So there you have it, a little rock and roll.  Plus pitch and yaw.

     The motley is still recovering from those Poison Ivy cocktails - I thought it was only green food colouring! - so let us move on anon.

     Well well, I've just been reading some of the BBC's website Comments about the Hayabusa mission and - actually pleasantly surprised that most are positive.  There are the usual idiots there e.g. "Why spend money on anything that isn't beer, football or reality TV?" and one staggeringly stupid idiot who cannot believe it happened, therefore it didn't happen and it's all a big con trick.  To what end?  

The equally unbelievable Large Hadron Collider

     I say, time is a-marching on, isn't it!  Let us start another item -

Jigsaws
To the DIY afficionado this word has a different connotation than to you and I, because for them it means the instrument that cuts in a very particular way.  Art?

The jig saw

     As you can see, this particular device sports a thin, manoeuvrable blade which can be twisted and turned in order to create the pieces present in a jigsaw puzzle, which might have been how it was done In Olden Times; I bet they use sinister CNC laser perforation nowadays.  
     Anyway, I was pondering over my 1,500 piece jigsaw puzzle (which I continually label a "crossword puzzle" for reasons unknown) and wondering what the simplest possible jigsaw puzzle would be and I found this - 

Hmmmmm.

     Not rocket science, is it?  

Okay, I think we'll call a halt there, I have beer to drink, comics to read, crosswords to solve and a jigsaw to complete, which currently stands at about 15% done, so I don't have time to sit around and gossip with the likes of you.


*  As normal as this nonsense ever gets.
**  O bow down at my pop culture skillz.