Planet: Seattle / WA

This is captain BEAU JANGLES of Spaceship Excellent. The following are captain's log entries for the first sector of our journey.

8.23.08
We are going to the moon. It’s day one on the Spaceship Excellent Big Bang Tour. We’ve traveled all of 20 miles and it’s already very interesting. Puffs of black smoke chugged out the bakck of our engine as we tried to get second gear, without realizing that reverse was still engaged. We are going forwards and also going backwards. The plumbing is broken. The batteries are dead. But we are flying into the unknown on interstate 5. The spaceship has taken damage entering theh atmosphere and colliding with the earth. We arrived in a puff of black smoke in the rubble of a factory warehouse. It took the crew several days to acquire the supplies needed for our retro craft to be suitable for flight on the terraformed surface. We now travel on “the freeway”. Iife is much slower here. We are in search of the one they call “Eisenhauer”.

8.24.08
We lost a wheel on our spaceship today. The front right blew out and shredded itself under our 50’ vehicle traveling at land speeds of 50 mph on the I-5 freeway. Pakwit, the Smoov-Craft-Handler brought her in safely to a screeching halt. We inspected the shredded tire. It did not respond to our questions, probings, nor did it make any attempts to fix itself.

I rifled through the dashboard for instructions on repair of our converted land-vehicle. I found an information pamphlet titled “AAA”, which appears to be a service that makes phone calls. The recipients of the phone calls visit your broken craft in marked land-vehicles. They inspect, do not touch, exchange pleasantries and mysteriously disappear. I do not understand this service.

The first tow truck was not a tow truck. It was a tire truck. That didn’t have any tires on it. “James” told us that he would return in :45 min with two tires for the spaceship. Excellent. That was the last we saw of James. We are still looking for James. The second tow truck had a commander “Phil”, a large man representing “Carl’s” towing. Phil drove – according to Phil – the largest truck in all of the land. The third tow truck driver – plumper and younger man - was in some disagreement about the size of Phil’s rig. He claimed that it didn’t have the most mass, but conceded that it might command the longest length. To this, Phil nodded that he indeed meant length.

We were excited to speak with these three commanders of tow-trucks and the late-arriving police woman. Perhaps they could lead us to President Eisenhauer. I asked them each where Eisenhauer was, and none of them new. A couple walked away at the mention of his name.

Perhaps there is something they are not telling me. Do they know that I am from outer space? Are they seeing my subtle alien mannerisms? Do they suspect there is a foreign driver to this human vessel?

8.25.08
We rose when the bright solar object told us to. I was itchy in my space bunk, which still held remnants of what they call sawdust. I saw the dust, I suppose that’s why they call it that. I am still learning how to take care of my body. It requires that I scratch it, and even that I submerge it in water. This morning I experienced the sensation of brushing my teeth. It felt very strange and left me with a foamy mouth. I swallowed the foam, which left me with a burning throat. This suit is so inconvenient.

Our spacecraft needed to be re-packed and tuned for our next destination, which is much hotter with fewer “Truck stops”, and “Shari’s” for our conveniences. We removed everything from the vessel, coated it all in black plastics, and re-secured the pieces. During this process, we realized that many of our goods had several protective layers that had nothing to do with their function. We removed these. Cardboards, plastics, bags, zip ties, papers, styrofoams, all encased a single battery. And the battery encased the energy that we are used to transmitting through our own vibrations. They have found a way to contain it in small cylinders. We purchased many of them.

During the re-packing, we visited a store owned by a man named “Fred”. “Fred Meyer” I believe it was. He had amassed a great stockpile of goods and bads, all organized in rows with high shelving units underneath an unfinished hangar ceiling. One can buy underpants right next to an automotive battery, a garden hose, and a juicy sweatsuit, all before deciding to add 2-for-1 peppermint patties to the order. I took full advantage of Fred. And upon returning to the craft with the new goods, immediately returned to Fred. We repeated this cycle several times, before departing.

I experienced “pooping” at the Cold-stone creamery adjacent Fred’s store. It was a strange and initially unpleasant sensation, though by the end, I felt as if I would like to do it again. I believe I will have the opportunity, as long as I continue to chew and ingest the fibrous cylindrical food vessels. We finally departed, and spent the next 6 hours traveling on the road approaching the desert. We now sit in a long line of tail lights, awaiting entrance to an annual ritual where they burn a man.