Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

It will come as no surprise to you that I was very excited when we started being able to detect exoplanets, even more excited when we started being able to figure out seemingly impossible and fantastic characteristics like their composition and atmosphere, and of course even more exciting when we started finding “goldilocks” (ie. not too hot, not too cold… just right) planets that might be capable of supporting life of the sort that we are familiar with. Of course this is just the beginning! A long while back I was at a SETI conference and I could swear I recall someone making the statement that our best radio telescope arrays should be capable of picking up a low-wattage signal — well below what a commercial radio or TV station uses for example — from the distances that are certainly much further, by a great many light years, than where we can detect these exoplanets at. We just need to be listening at the right time and at the right star.

So it got me thinking that it’s got to be only a matter of time, probably a much shorter time that our lonely planet gut tells us these things should happen in, before we find a planet that’s broadcasting it’s own version of entertainment. In this big galaxy I’m sure that we’ll eventually stumble across some exoculture that we can listen to long enough to figure out their language — languages perhaps — and then start translating it all in bulk. Dubbing it, why not? Maybe I’m crazy but I am completely convinced that during Nefarious’s lifetime, quite likely soon, there will be hit shows on television that were produced on another planet orbiting another star. Now that’s what I call copyright violation!

Aaaaaanyway.

Let me wrap up with a picture of, let’s say… yes… an alien that I made out of… you guessed it, some leftover clay (and an old teardrop shaped glob that has been stuck in the couch for two months). I’m not too happy with it because I kind of wrecked it with a bad paint job, so I’m going to hide two more pictures after the break if you want. I suppose I could re-paint it but I don’t want to spend the time, and I want to try and do some bronze cold casting today.

EDIT: Yeah, so like I said, crap paint job. So I just chromed it instead. If you want to see how it was originally painted, I’ve moved all those pictures to behind the break wall. I should have kept it simple and not added all the spots and dots. Too much!