Good morning John. Um, so honestly, like I just can't right now. So instead, I'm going to indulge in three things I like a lot: home soda carbonation; Mars, and pedantic over-analysis. SodaStream had a Super Bowl commercial, and it is one of my top, like, five SodaStream commercials. You might think I'm kidding, but no. Number one is definitely this one from the 90s.

It's SodaStream, so get busy with the fizzy.


Number two, probably this one from the 80s.

::80s ad copy - unclear. Get busy with the fizzy::

They never really settled on a jingle during those years, but they really stuck with "get busy the fizzy," like, for decades, which is a little baffling considering I will do a lot with the fizzy, but I tend to not get busy with it. But anyways. Super Bowl commercial. Mars. SodaStream. I gotta talk about it right. Especially because I think that there are some teaching moments here.

Shot number one: Establishing shot from Mars drone cam two.
Shot number two: Our astronaut on Mars.
Shot number three: They're excited about something!
Shot number four: 
Shot number five: It's water! On Mars!

Yeah I'm going to have some problems with this. There's enough confusion already about the water situation RE: Mars. We're, like, probably never going to find liquid water on Mars. It's, like, physically impossible for there to be liquid water on Mars. The temperature is too low for it to be liquid. And if it was not, because the pressure is so low there that it would immediately evaporate into a gas into the atmosphere. You might have heard of these, like, streaks that appear onto the side of very steep mountains. Those might be a kind of flowing water, but they're seeping through soil. They're also, if they exist, extremely saline, so they've got a bunch of salts in them. Not like table salt - like perchlorate salts, which are super toxic.


Shot number six: We're at mission control, which is a very quick shot, but I have a lot  to say about it.

First, there are no NASA logos here, which is a little confusing to me. Is this a SpaceX thing? More important to me though on this beautiful wall of HD images livestreamed from the surface of Mars, on the bottom right-hand corner, there's a picture of Earth! And I zoomed in to that picture of Earth, and there's a little caption, and it says: "great Pacific plastic patch." Look, Ocean plastic is a big deal, but not, like, a we're just gonna keep an eye on it from Mars mission control big deal.

Number seven: Beautiful shot of the water.

Number 7.5: Same shot but now in an internet news site.

Other articles from this site. Something about the Super Bowl. Something about plastic waste. Optimist about climate change! And sparkling water is all the rage on Wallstreet!

Was this just for me? Who else looked at this? But my biggest problem with this news site is this: Water. On Mars?!?!

Now I'm not just being insufferable here, I hear it all the time. People are, like, excited to maybe find water on Mars. There is a lot of water on Mars, and we've known this for decades. If all the water on Mars right now was melted, there would be oceans on Mars. And also, we know from the Curiousity Rover that there once were oceans on Mars.

Shot number eight: Billy Nye, get that money son! But also, why do you have a big ole rock on your desk, and a microscope facing the wrong way and calculations for gravitation over a distance on your blackboard?

Number nine: This young woman is Alyssa Carson, who is a science communicator and space enthusiast, so that's cool. Also here we get to see that somehow we named our Mars mission after a Roman emperor who was known largely for debauchery and incompetence. Why did we do that? I don't know? Subtle dig at the current leadership maybe? 

Number ten: Reverse shot. Who are these people? We have not seen them before. Also, this is the shot where we get the telltale sound ::pause for sound:: of the SodaStream.

Eleven: Close up on competent woman.

Twelve: Close up on competent man.


Thirteen and fourteen: Close up on SodaStream.

Fifteen: Midshot of incompetent man

Sixteen: He's really enjoying his beverage! I actually asked on Twitter, and somebody knew that this thing is a mass 100 NT microbiological air sampler, so, like, that's a real science thing.

Shot number Seventeen: She looks very worried, but this is not the face of woman whose only Mars water sample has been destroyed. It's the face of a woman who realizes that her colleague is about to die of perchlorate poisoning, this thyroid is shutting down right now. Mark, it was never safe to go to Mars, but we didn't think you'd go out like this.

SodaStream. Get busy with the fizzy.

John, I'll see you on Tuesday.