NASA Photographs Infuriate Shut-Ins, Conspiracy Geeks

ew infrared images from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter featuring the long-debated formation known as the "Face on Mars" have sent shockwaves through the shut-in and conspiracy geek communities. Anxious and unbathed web surfers who expected the infrared pictures to provide new revelations about the features voiced their disappointment, saying the new images are bullshit because they don't show any kind of recognizable face at all, just a couple of bumps in the dirt.

NASA claims this is because there never was a face, stupid, only a trick of light and shadow fueled by desperate weirdoes who haven't worked in years. Fans of the face contend that it was only the lack of "night-vision" imagery that failed to expose the Sphinxlike visage they have come to know and love. NASA responded with a patronizing smile and a hand gesture indicating "okaaay."

The debate over the Face has simmered for the last twenty-five years, since NASA's Viking orbiters transmitted pictures of the Cydonia region that appeared to show a half-shadowed, helmeted face staring up from the planet's surface like some kind of cross between Kermit the Frog and Han Solo. Since then, additional formations have been identified as the "Alien Conspiracy Pyramid," "the Mounds of Xena" and so forth — and fans of the Face have argued that the formations showed evidence of a vast Martian civilization populated by breathtaking huge-breasted women incapable of resisting the charms of virginal 30 year-old earth men.

In the past five years, sharper imagery from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter popped a big-ol' hole in that over-inflated fantasy balloon, confirming the mainstream view that the Face and the other formations were nothing more than a whole lot of wind-eroded dirt, much like everything else on Mars. But die-hard fans of the Face refused to give up hope, disregarding the newer photos as hoaxes and propaganda, and confusing everyone in their apartment buildings by going as "The Face" for Halloween.

The new Mars Odyssey images are unique in that they were taken using infrared light, unlike the visible light used for the Viking and Global Surveyor images of Cydonias. This allowed for day or night photography unhindered by shadows. Many fans of the Face, however, took issue with NASA's methodology.

"We got gypped," griped Thomas Reinhold of Jackson, Miss. "They totally lead us to believe they were going to be doing some nighttime infrared imagery, not just daytime. What if the face only comes out at night? Didn't think of that, did you, NASA?"

"He said what?" questioned Tony Rice, a member of the Arizona State University imaging team that worked with NASA on the project. "Jesus. Thanks to AOL, every kind of mook can get on the net now."

The Arizona State imaging research team denied any unique features belonging to the mesas that make up the Face. "What do we have to do, draw you people a map?" Rice questioned. "Oh, wait, that's right. We already did that. Morons."

No stranger to being called morons, the Face fans press on with their hunt for the truth.

"Those white-coated government lackeys over at NASA can conspiratize all they want, but we know the truth," boasted Elmer Noonan of Vine Grove, KY. "We've seen the pictures. The first picture, anyway. All the other ones after that were bullshit. A total governmental cover-up, straight out of the handbook. If it hadn't been for that Libertarian dude working at NASA back in '76, we never would have got to see that original image of the face. I bet those NASA guys have been kicking themselves every day since they released that thing. Ha. Jerks."

"We're putting new stuff out there every day for the public to look at," Rice said while playing with a hole in the bottom of his shoe. "I don't know what their problem is. Oh, right. The conspiracy. I almost forgot. Well, you're going to have to excuse me while I conspire to drive my shitty little Tercel over to Arby's and eat a roast beef sandwich for lunch."

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I have emerged from my underground bunker. The Thai place will no longer deliver food there. It was fun while it lasted, but since the world has yet to blow up under the leadership of George W. Bush, the international response might not be exactly what I predicted. They're probably taking a "wait and see rather than destroy the world" approach, and I will follow that lead. For now.

Personally, if I were a Thai delivery guy, I would be happy to give blood and urine samples to a customer who asked for them before letting you enter the domicile. But that's just me—security isn't a big concern in Thailand, I suppose. Not a lot of cases of stolen identity.

But let's put that behind us. I picked an opportune time to return from exile, as I can see. The new commune is looking sharp, thanks for the redesign go to Randy and Glynis in IT for that. My return was also timely in that Gay Bagel's influence here has been growing stronger in the meantime. They all hate him, of course, nothing new on that front, but without my steady leadership, Raoul Dunkin, commune nutsack, has entirely disappeared, and I think they have been getting ever-closer to making Lil Duncan some sort of woman leader here, to combat Gay's attempts to take over the commune. She tells me she's been running the commune since my absence, and I humor her. No one can run the commune, baby. It's like a tornado. Can you run a tornado? No, you can't—liar.

They have made some changes I'm not so sure about. Gay Bagel was all "statistics" this and "statistics" that, apparently referring to statistics of a site. Under pressure from Big Gay, as his enemies call him, Lil instituted a ratings system for the weekly commune pieces here. It's for advertising sales figures, she told me. I said that's Advertising's job, not ours. She said she went to advertising and Shelk's been waiting all this time for sales figures before proceeding. I told her to tell Shelk sales figures are somebody else's job, not his, and not ours. I don't know who should do that.

To get to the point already, goddammit, I had to bend a little to keep Gay from making another power play for control. We're wasting money, Gay said, paying all these people to do columns and news and having no way to make money off our endeavors. He argued that it's vital we figure out how many people are reading the commune, what they're reading, and the benefits and cons (business speak nonsense) of each piece. He told me I should no longer give people a column just because they buy me a drink, or I think seeing their picture in the commune staff photo will be funny. I ask him what other criteria are available to decide who to hire and who to not hire. Well, sir, don't ever do that. I got a list a mile long. The guy is such a knob, it's hard to believe we're related.

Hence you'll notice the new commune ratings system, just to the right side of the page, under the big picture that we put there because we think it's funny. These numbers are pretty raw, of course—judging by them, you would initially think no one is reading the commune. But we haven't properly interpreted the data yet. I just hired a guy, Perry "Bigger" Dunston, to research all those numbers and tell us exactly what they mean, with the idea that hopefully we'll be able to cut some deadweight around the office and keep on people who can make the commune more profitable. Dunston charges $2,000 a week for his service, but when you're trying to reduce spending, you can't spare any expense.

So bear with us, faithful readers. Or reader. We are doing what we can to make the commune the kind of online magazine you want to read—you, and hopefully, ten to twenty thousand white males ages 18-34.

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Apologies for the sudden end to last week’s column, communistas. The sheer epic scope of the commune’s tale got the better of me and I had to take three Excedrin Migraine and spend a few hours feeding the ducks behind the Shanesly Arby’s.

When I left you last, the Crochet! staffers had just packed up and left town like those front-running little bear assholes in The Lorax. I have to tell you, commune readers, this was a personal low point in the life of Emil Zender. However, that didn’t last long as the very next week there was the lawsuit, which made Crochet! jumping ship seem like a trip to Six Flags.

It turns out that all these years there was a website called The Onion that people tell me is quite popular. And apparently various individuals with law degrees felt that the commune’s brand of insouciant truth-telling was a bit too close to The Onion’s jam for comfort. I don’t see it personally, but that may be due in part to our lack of a working internet connection. For all I know they may have a Homer Brinks working there who tortures their downstairs neighbors at Sew What? magazine, that really would be weird and possibly actionable. But either way, there was a lawsuit, and it turned out that our "friends" at Hipsoda.com were just archiving our site for use as evidence in the trial, just like they had repeatedly told us they were doing. It even turned out they weren’t being sarcastic! Note to the world: We really need to develop a sarcasm font, pronto.

Before you get too excited however, the lawsuit turned out to be about 97% sizzle and only 3% steak-like polyurethane. It turns out they’d spent years carefully amassing evidence against the commune without bothering to check in on our assets, which turned out to total -$47.39. Yes, Kinkos, I got your collections call. After realizing that even recouping their legal expenses was an absurd pipe dream, the lawyers attempted to have our site shut down so as to cease and desist damaging The Onion’s reputation. However it was quickly uncovered that for most of the commune’s existence, due to various technical fuckups the site had only been accessible through off-brand love tester machines in various Southern California Pioneer Chicken locations, and had never actually been posted on the wider internet until Hipsoda.com started collecting evidence for the lawsuit. So by a strange twist of fate The Onion had damaged its own reputation, spreading the commune’s unique brand of verve to seven new fans in the intervening years.

This seemed to embarrass everyone into just dropping the whole thing, well that and the fact that Boris Utzov got confused and went home with The Onion’s lawyers at the end of our last meeting with them, and the last I heard they’ve been unable to get him to leave.

But sadly, the commune’s triumph was short-lived. Without their shared hatred of Crochet! or the law to rally around, the commune staffers soon began to splinter. Some followed Omar when he left to start a cult in Gambia. Some -shudder- got jobs at the Shanesly Department of Public Works. Some are employed at the local strip club, Twerks because they typed in "Works" wrong on the nav. Some, I am certain, were eaten by the Gnarlap living in the crawl space under the basement, after it ran out of regretted mail-order brides and Pomeranians to eat.

Raoul Dunkin left to start a new political news site, TwinkInc.com, a hopefully more palatably-named successor to his deeply mourned spankrag.com. Red Bagel did stop by briefly, dressed as Colonel Sanders and insisting that everyone refer to him as such for tax purposes, but he quickly lost interest and left to work on his "Donald Trump" character.

My most loyal boarder was of course Ivan Nacutchacokov, who stayed the longest due to his fierce love for the commune and deep fear of his ex-wife, in uncertain proportions. But even his ticket was punched one night a few months back when the NSA came for him, apparently after finally getting around to reading some long-forgotten commune article that laid their nefarious plans bare for all to see. I would suggest they were tapping our phones or internet, but we had neither, and I’m not sure they’ve learned how to intercept bulk Valpak coupon mailers marked RETURN TO SENDER, which had been our main means of economical correspondence.

After Ivan was dragged screaming out my front door, then calmed way down and went along happily after discovering it was the NSA and not goons hired by Ivana, I must admit I fell into a bit of a funk, commune readers. Was this all my grand plans had come to? A brief smattering of articles over the years, countless unexplainable holes in my walls, some kind of insatiable beast living under my basement and an attic that smells like a sanitarium for dogs? Sometimes I question if it was all worth it.

And then I remember that all those dolls in the attic still have little walkie talkies in them. And man if my mom’s boyfriend Doug isn’t afraid of those dolls.

The spirit of the commune lives on!

Zincerely,
Emil Zender

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