So Insanely Jealous
Posted on March 25, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 30 Comments
Phil Plait (of the Bad Astronomy blog) is getting an asteroid named after him. I’m so jealous I think my head might just explode. Congratulations, Phil, you lousy bastard.
Note to astronomers: if you happen to have any unnamed asteroids lying around you want to name after me, you just let me know. I don’t want to want to say I’ll bribe you — that would be wrong — but, you know. I’ve named characters after astronomers before. I’m just saying.
I wish I had an asteroid.
I guess that solves the question of “What do you get the person who has everything?”
Heh heh.
Hmmmm, the best I could do for you would be to name a computer program variable after you. What is your middle initial?
That is all the creative freedom I have. Sorry.
I can offer you the most masculine name in the human language. My creation. What do you say?
Tripp:
Thanks, I appreciate the thought.
I’m holding out for an asteroid, though. Or a Kuiper Belt Object. I’m not picky. Or a species. Yes, a species of life names after me would do just fine, too.
I have some rocks in my back yard I could name after you. A rock is a rock right?
Or I do have hemorrhoids so I could name one of my assteroids after you.
But you would not want a picture. Trust me on that one.
Ahh, Scalzi. You need to cultivate a more pheromonal web presence. It clearly works for some.
http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=1166
Or Medkeff is just flinging the things at all his chums – maybe you just have the wrong friends. . .
I think you should try for a Species. There must be plenty of Coleoptera looking for nomenclature that will lend there scrabbling carapace-bound existences a little literati glamour, surely?
John,
You need to approach this in a different manner. Just change your name to Phil Plait and I believe you would have accomplished your objective!
Last year, he was happy to have an Aussie rugby team sponsored by Scalzi. This year he wants an asteroid named after him.
You’ve changed, John.
Clearly, naming fictional characters after real people is nothing special for you—wouldn’t it be more tempting if you offered to name a fictional asteroid after a real person?
Bad news, John.
It’s not just Phil Plait. PZ Myers over at Phayngula got an asteroid named after him as well.
I guess you don’t want to know that Michael Stackpole also got an asteroid named after him. Clearly forces are conspiring against you!
Unfortunately, your name lends itself more to the rash type nomenclature. ie, “I’ve got a really bad Scalzi on my left elbow.”
I’d hold out for a heavenly body though. Only settle for a species if it’s an extra terrestrial one. :)
would you rather have a Scalzi Nebula or a Nebula Award?
For a mere $19.95 Canadian, $25.00 USD I’ll name an asteroid after you in the “Official Tripp Davenport Asteroid Atlas” ™.
This official document will be registered with the United States Library of Congress, and you will receive an actual authentic digitally-reproduced computer-enhanced image of your “Official Certificate of Authenticity” suitable for printing, framing, or viewing on any computer monitor.
For $5 more I’ll double this offer and will grant you license to mail an unlimited number of electronic copies of your “Official Certificate of Authenticity.”
You better act fast though. This offer is not available in ANY stores and I will only honor the first 1,000 requesters. I also reserve the right to withdraw the offer at any time (that I receive a complaint or notification from an official government law enforcement agency).
John,
I think if you offered to provide beer, and pizza for the whole field season, and free audio copies of your books to enough paleontologists, chances would be pretty good you could get some sort of extinct animal named after you.
It gets lonely out in the badlands at night. Everything that provides comfort seems worth of being immortalized in fractured Latin. Mark Knopfler and Cutty Sark both have dinos named in there honor.
If I remember correctly Gary Larson, of Farside fame, got a species of lice named after himself. Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits has a dinosaur species. You don’t even have a foamy snowball in your name.
You’re slacking there, Scalzi.
Tell you what, I’ll name my next genuine Alaskan Birch lathe turned art piece after you (hey, a number of your readers own my work, it’s wildly, wildly, popular. Just saying). It’s a major honor and one I don’t offer lightly. BUT, I’ll expect rather significant character placement in your next book – say, second assistant apprentice starship engine-room oiler robot and bottle opener, 3rd Class. Oh, and I want a line, something funny like “Urk! My mistake, sorry! Try to breathe shallow…”
:-)
Actually, by coincidence, I *finally* picked up a book by you today (Android Dream; they didn’t have Old Man’s War). I’d feel bad, but hey, Wil has had a book of yours for like a year without reading it.
As far as getting an asteroid named after you, you have to be a) brilliant b) funny, and c) incredibly attractive. Or possibly none of those things. I get it mixed up sometimes.
But be nice to me, and I’ll see what I can do…
What? I have to be nice? I promise nothing!
Hope you enjoy Android’s Dream. I had a lot of fun writing that one.
Phil’s almost certainly got those criteria wrong, especially the bit about being nice. I’ve been nice to almost nobody, but I have an asteroid named after me….
“Or Medkeff is just flinging the things at all his chums….”
I’d LOVE to be able to say that PZ Myers, Phil Plait, Rebecca Watson, and Mike Stackpole are all chums! Sadly, though, I think the most I can say is that they are all heroes of mine. As far as I know, none of them even link to my blog.
I only met Rebecca, Phil, and Mike in January, at the TAM 5.5 conference, and by that time, all these names were already in the process of being proposed. I’ve never met PZ Myers at all, though I did talk to him on the phone on Sunday to let him know of the asteroid naming. I have had occasional contact with Phil over the years, over e-mail and telephone, but never enough to consider myself to be his pal or anything.
I stand corrected on my flippant remark – no slight was intended.
I am more than happy fully to endorse the blue collar scientist’s choice of hereos. I would that I were able similarly to mark my respect for them.
Getting your own species shouldn’t be a problem, John, you just need to be willing to spend a pretty substantial amount of money to do it. Sure, there’s a remote chance that an independent researcher who is a fan of yours will name a bacterium or a bug after you, but most of the new critters of any size these days are discovered by research funded by one of the big conservation NGOs.
In the last few years, Conservation International and the Wildlife Conservation Society have both gotten into the habit of auctioning off naming rights for the new species discovered through their work. Just last fall CI auctioned off the naming rights for 10 new fish species for a total of $2 million, and WCS got the ball rolling in style with the $650,000 they got in exchange for creating the Golden Palace Monkey back in 2005.
So just put away some (okay, most) of every royalty check from now on, and someday your name could be attached to a rare African shrew that’s a TINY bit different from the other rare African shrews that live nearby . . .
This wouldn’t also have anything to do with the suggestion that a certain other science fiction writer who recently passed away have a supernova event named after him, would it? :)
And congrats to Phil, too.
I have a fishing boat named after me… the “Stupid French Hag.”
John,
You never did tell me what I could get in exchange for the most masculine name possible in the English language. I’m willing to offer you the name and the right to use it.
And no, it is not my given name. The name is ‘my’ name in that I believe it to be my original creation but it is not ‘my’ name given to me by my parents.
There is supposedly an asteroid called “Wisse”, but I doubt it’s named after me.
I went to school with a “Tripper,” but I went to one of those rich-kid schools, and he may have been an import.
Jealousy is very bad think its not good for health take control man.
Stacey,
Sadly I wasn’t a rich kid, even though my given name “Griffith Lyle” is horribly snooty. It was a family thing. I was a “third,” officially now “the second” after Pops died. Yuck. Tripp is a nickname that stuck, saving me from countless bullies I am sure. It was fine until Linda Tripp came along. No relation – none at all.
“Griffith Lyle” sounds like a big black defensive tackle from Alabama U. You should have stuck with that.
I used to have an asteroid named after me, but I think they reclassified it.
Haha ^^ nice, is there a section to follow the RSS feed