Sixty-Ninth Entry

March 14^th, 2037

1340

Dear Space Diary.

What, would you say, is the most pressing concern if you’re stranded on an alien planet with a mysterious city, a skeleton suffering an identity crisis, a large amount of (currently absent) maintenance robots, and a missing spaceship?

Food? Water?

As it turns out, no. The Zubrin has both in near infinite supply. As long as you don’t mind paste.

Heat?

Again, spaceship. Or indeed spacesuit. Even if I were stuck outside, it’s not especially cold out. Quite pleasant.

Except for the lead based atmosphere. That’s less pleasant.

So what’s my most pressing concern? Batteries.

Yup.

1400

And we don’t seem to have any. At all. Without them, I can’t track down the location of my missing ship.

The only thing around that I’ve seen with batteries are the lightdogs, and they’ve all gone walkies and I haven’t seen any in ages. Apart from two. One of those I brainwashed and sent into orbit. The other I threw a rock at.

So my track record there isn’t brilliant.

1410

Asked NASA if we have any batteries. While I wait, I’m having a hunt through the cupboard.

1415

Wow, NASA really packs a lot of junk on their missions.

So far, I’ve found.

An Exercise Bike

An issue of SPACE! – The Official NASA Inflight Magazine, dated February 29^th, 2010

A collection of herbal shampoos

A plush toy of SuperNovey^TM, NASA’s official mascot

24 Notepads

No Pens

Great collection, NASA. Really. Great.

1417

Actually the shampoos look rather good.

1425

Had a bit of a scout round the cargo bay in the hope that one of the lightdogs got left behind when they all switched on, but no luck there.

Even if I had a charger that’d be something, but can’t find one anywhere. I think there’s a power socket around here somewhere.

Hmm. Wonder how they expected anyone to use the exercise bike in zero gravity. Must have been for when Mary landed.

1500

No response from NASA yet. They’re normally pretty punctual.

When they feel like it.

Which is almost never.

Still, I’m hoping they’ve put the batteries in some obscure place I haven’t looked yet, so at least I won’t feel so bad for not finding it.

1530

Still no response.

On the plus side, this Inflight Magazine is actually better than I thought it would be.

Suppose there’s nothing else to do but sit down and read.

SQUEAK

Whoops, just sat on SuperNovey.

…The question I have to ask at this point though is why would you make a toy Supernova that squeaks?

Actually, why would you make a toy Supernova?

Hmm. It has a button that says “Press Me.”

Hard to argue with that.

1532

Wow. It just told me its name was SuperNovey, that it saw great things in the stars for me, and that SuperNovey is trademarked internationally.

Ugh.

Oh, and now it’s telling me I should donate to NASA.

Stupid gimmicky battery powered piece of…

1535

YES!