There’s only one newspaper still worth buying, and that’s the Trumpeting Moon. And even then, I mostly just buy it for that one puzzle page where they have the interesting thought experiment of the day. The rest of the newspaper has dissolved into pointless human-interest trash, and the comics are just awful, but I don’t know what I’d do on a Saturday morning without my large cappuccino, a chic café-grade brownie and the thought experiment of the day.
This week it was ‘you’re dumped on a random planet in the solar system. What do you bring with you?’ Now immediately, you’re forced into a position where you have to bring some real tools along. You can’t survive for long on Jupiter without creating some kind of shelter, so my first thing would be my ute. That thing has EVERYTHING you could possibly need for survival, if you count toolbox central locking as being something useful for survival. Not that I think there are aliens on Jupiter who’d be rifling through my toolbox, but you can never be too careful. I did a bit of research, and it turns out that there are all kinds of really terrible storms on Jupiter that’ll mess things up really good if you’re not careful. I don’t want to turn round in the middle of building my ultra-safe storm-proof bunker and find that there’s been a freak Jupiter windstorm and all my tools have blown away, and yet I have to work fast, so I need to streamline the opening and closing business.
And of course, my ute has basically everything you’d ever need to survive anyway. I’ve given it the works; just fit new under tray drawers last week. And the week before that I made sure I got rid of those old gas bottle holders that were covered in rust, and now it has brand spanking new ones. I reckon me and her would do pretty well on Jupiter. Or any planet, really…
-Boyd