January 7, 2004

So, if you didn't "get" today's strip, you are just NOT NERDY ENOUGH.

For those of you who have been living in a cave for the last week, we the Spirit lander landed on mars a few days ago. I earned a number of nerd points that night. How many nerd points did you earn?

Watching the landing live on CNN: 3 Nerd Points
Waiting with bated breath through the "6 minutes of hell" while it was landing: 3 Nerd Points
Staying up for the first picture to be returned: 5 Nerd Points
Knowing that the last successful landing was the Pathfinder Mission (before CNN told you): 5 Nerd Points
Searching online for an hour for the hi-res versions of the Spirit photos, because NASA took them off their site due to heavy traffic: 8 Nerd Points
Finding them: 8 Nerd Points
Making one of the hi-res images your wallpaper: 12 Nerd Points
Having 3D glasses handy to look at the 3D pictures Spirit took: 5 Nerd Points
Having those 3D glasses because the last time you used them was to look at 3D Pathfinder pictures: 15 Nerd Points
Locating the Gusev Crater on a map of Mars you happen to have: 5 Nerd Points
Locating the Gusev Crater on a GLOBE of Mars you happen to have: 15 Nerd Points
Wanting desperately to get one of the "Mars Time" watches the Spirit controllers all have: 3 Nerd Points
Knowing the Beagle is England's Mars probe that landed 19 days ago: 5 Nerd Points
Knowing that today (Jan 7th) will be the Beagle's last chance to communicate with it's controllers: 8 Nerd Points
Praying the Beagle establishes communication while not giving a RAT'S ASS that it's not an American probe: 10 Nerd Points

And the final two:

After reading the strip, immediately noticing that the Spirit's 3D photography would quickly reveal that it's in a box: 20 Nerd Points
Assuming that the Martians put HOLOGRAPHIC pictures around Spirit for that very reason: 20 Nerd Points

-ATW