Case Update

Higgins found a tattoo on the orangutan's butt underneath all the hair (I know, but I've just stopped asking). It is a love heart with the words "Ice Cream" inside. It is all rough and amateurish like the little guy did it himself (the orangutan I mean). He was also wearing a silver bracelet enscribed with 'Bongo'. Good solid leads!. Then I found a pair of bitchin creme shorty shorts in Mamala Bay Village that were $10 down from $30!. They may need to be taken up a bit, but style-wise.....I tried them on and I just knew even before I had pulled them all the way up. I took a bit too long in the changeroom and the girl made a little joke about, you know, did I have someone else in there. I'm sick of that girl. She dresses like a little whore and over-the-top pretends she is not interested in me. Yaha....Sure!. If she keeps reading magazines like that while there are customers WAITING FOR LIKE 5 MINUTES to be served........!!

Thomas

New Case Involving Primate!

An Orangutan walked into the Ivory Bar today. His feet were bleeding like he had walked many miles. Johnny Tan, the proprietor gave him an iced water and he produced a photograph of a young woman. On the back scrawled in lipstick were the words " Magnum.....Help!" I recognised the photo immediately. Linda Arnaz. Skip Arnaz's daughter. Skip and I ran missions outta Nga Trang in '68. Deep CIA. Died 3 years ago, but I sure as hell owe that guy enough to go looking for his daughter. Higgins is looking after the orangutan. He loves em.

Will keep you posted,

Thomas.

Space Travel: Easy,Underwhelming

Well, I don't want to trash it entirely considering I was only up 3 hours, but it really seemed very easy. You do all the prep work, and then it's like a toaster .Pop it in and wait. Everyone was pretty trashed, especially Higgins, who had all the calculations and whatnot to fine tune. 7 vodka martinis and, you know, he's got quite a small frame. Portly...but short. He was out by 1.7kms on the splashdown. Thats it. No backslapping and all that like on a shuttle launch. Ground control was on Robin Master's yacht 'Nesmith' and Higgins fished for marlin the whole time. What was it like up there looking down on this little blue bauble that we call home? Just like in the movies. Exactly the same. I was trying to get excited about it. Seen it before. It was nice floating though. I had all the beer in a big flask with a straw so drinking was easy. I had around 15 pints worth all up. I listened to Loverboy , REO Speedwagon and J Geils Band mostly. It was kind of nice but cramped. I thought about some women I used to date. The beer tasted dry. Felt like a spider crawling down my throat. Space is weird that's for sure. Italy does look like a boot. The whole time I was pining for a surf-ski or a swim in the tidal pool. I feel like an idiot for not liking space, truthfully, but there's not much I can do about that now. I won't lie to look good. Or should I say, even better than right now.

So I'm Going Into Low Orbit.

Higgins, TC and I have been working on an amateur spacecraft with the hope of acheiving an independent low earth orbit. This has been going on for maybe five or so years. We have all put quite a lot of time and money into the project and Rick was involved early on but he just had so much invested in the club that he had to scale down. Anyway, parachute deployment is still his original design so, Thanks Rick!. Higgins did concept stuff mostly. Instead of the usual booster rocket configuration that you see on TV Higgins came up with a way of having the air in front of the S:X9000 (our ship) actually pull us upwards using his molecular disturbance technology that he came up with when he was trying to give the lads worming tablets. I don't really understand it (and don't really want to) but it really does work and thats all due to our little fat British guy. Nice one Higgins!. TC bought all the beers and designed and fitted the avionics. He did an excellent job. It's plastic but looks like wallnut veneer. I built the moulds and did all the glassing (which I went to tech college to learn how to do) and I am very proud of the final result. The ship is very classy looking indeed and we are all going to take turns going into space starting tomorrow. I drew the short straw so I am going to be first. The plan is to take my ipod up and a case of beer and just enjoy the view. No experiments or NASA bs. Maybe some transcendental meditation. Eventually of course, if we like it up here we may build a small mother station. Anyway, I'll update after splash down.

Wish me luck,

Thomas.