KFC -- which is finally embracing their unhealthy roots again and going back to calling themselves "Kentucky Fried Chicken" -- has decided to go for the flyover and alien market by creating an 87,500 sq. ft. image of Colonel Sanders in the Nevada desert, near the fabled ufologist hotspot Area 51. It is composed of 65,000 1'x1' colored tiles and is visible from space (image is from Google Earth; if you have the program installed click on it to view the deep fried visage yourself).

"If we hear back from a life form in space today - whether NASA astronauts or a signal from some life form on Mars - we'll send up some Original Recipe Chicken," said KFC President Gregg Dedrick, quoted in a Reuters article.

Which opens up a greasy cardboard bucket of questions. How, exactly, will they do this? Has the KFC Corporation secretly been developing their own space program to enable geosynchronous takeout? What about the other franchises? Are we just now finding out about a frantic fast food space race? How far away are Happy Meal payloads? What happens when the delivery gets to ISS and the astronauts discover they forgot the potato wedges? And is this the first step towards marketing to extraterrestrials, or is this a subtle way to stop alien attacks by clogging invaders with cholesterol?

These are exciting times, my friends.