Half a league, half a league, half a league on. Man, this sucker is going slower than I would have expected. You call that an ion drive? I call it junk. Do you hear me? JUNK!
Oh, hi. Didn’t know anybody was within shouting distance. Don’t pay too much attention to what I just said – 
again, I like to keep the crew on their toes, if you know what I mean. Mitch Macaphee does much better mad science when you light a fire under him (I mean this literally – he responds to fire with greater productivity). So if you have any questions about our progress, I have answers… depending upon specifically which questions you are asking. Since you’re not saying anything, I will guess that they are as follows:
Q: Are you making progress towards your goal, Aldebaran?
A: First of all, don’t call me Aldebaran… at least not while there are other people in the room. The answer, quite simply, is yes. However, I’d prefer if you not ask me how much progress we have made in the time elapsed since my last posting.
Q: How much progress have you made?
A: DAMN! I was afraid you’d ask me that. Well, the fact is, we’ve been chugging along at a very tepid speed. Our second (or 
third) hand Soyuz space craft was built in a different century, you see. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that it’s the last century (not the next) that I’m referring to. So, yeah… you’ve seen those ultra-fast cigarette boats zipping along? Picture this thing as a bunch of old telephone poles lashed together into a raft.
Q: You’ve said a lot of things here. How can I be sure you are who you say you are?
A: STOP IT! Not sure why I said that. (I’m not quite myself 
today.) I have consulted my legal advisor (the man-sized tuber) and he has suggested that I should avoid answering that question.
I hate to raise this issue when there are others present, but Mitch has suggested that we utilize some of the technology he built into Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who apparently has an ion-pulse generator locked away in his bread basket somewhere. Mitch says that if we could run a line from that sucker, we’d have all the power we need. Not sure how Marvin will feel about this, but….
Whoops. He heard me. Oh, Maaaaarrrvinnnn…… Got a little job for you.
