Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Test Me, Schaller


So, as has happened before, a meme for my local Twitter gang has turned into a song. This one took a few years to ripen and is slightly different from the actual phrase we use, but such is art.

Chris Schaller is a great guy and the ground system software guy for the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. He also can be kind of snarky (which is part of his charm). After he teased the nearly-equally-snarky Sarah Hörst, she responded "don't test me schaller".  Simple enough. For whatever reason, the term took off (well, for small values of taking off) among several planetary science tweeters, even leading to a T-shirt with the phrase.

I'd thought it would be a good song title. Turns out that "Test Me, Schaller" is even better than "Don't Test Me, Schaller" (at least for me). I'd had the first line/melody for a little while, but finally wrote the rest of it yesterday.  And in the interest of striking while hot etc., here it is:

"Test Me, Schaller" (live to mono)

Don't expect to see this on any albums or anything. It seems a bit too esoteric. :)

Also, Happy Mardi Gras!!