Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… a bird! Big bird, as in manmade satellite. It’s the International Space Station, and it has gotten so large you can see it just by looking up. The trick (there’s always a trick — damn these crafty spacemen) is knowing when to expect it.

From 9 to 16 December, keep an eye out for humankind’s first permanent offworld toehold by looking up when NASA tells you to. There it goes! There it goes! Wave! Wave!

Of course, you may already be so darn full of the Advert spirit you’re actually ready to buy my Hanukkah gift, in which case I direct you to TheSpark’s Christmas Test. (Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever. Roll with it.) I tried this on various friends and was much pleased, if not unnerved, by the results…

No, I’m not doing Advert this year. No ambition. But just in case you were missing it, stop that and do this instead.