The Space Emos

Today, February 20th, 2012, is the 50th anniversary of Senator John Glenn's orbit around Earth. Which is kind of cool. It's also kind of depressing.
I am sitting here, on my super awesome computer with it's 12gigs of RAM, whatever blah blah blah processor and graphics card, etc etc. The super awesome computer that all I really do on it is play video games and write essentially useless blog entries. I use it to pretend I'm in space all the time (thanks SWTOR for making space missions so enjoyable). WHY AM I NOT ACTUALLY IN SPACE?! Not only am I not in space, I have no real chance in this lifetime of EVER being in space. Nor do my neighbors. Or old classmates. Or the creepy people I stalk online. And none of us are actively trying to be in space or even to help get more of our fellow man into space.
Nope. Not at all. Instead we are busy giving advertising companies all our time and money. Idolizing athletes and people who got chosen for whatever reality tv show is popular at the time. Making all the rich people famous for just being rich. Really, we are no better than the Romans were. Or any other society that preceded our current one.
Yes, we have the technology. We have assloads of technology. Some awesome geek created that tv with it's excellent and realistic picture quality so that those humans you idolize so much could seem closer to you. That same geek could have been designing displays for an orbital station. But you know, that wouldn't have paid his rent. Don't get me wrong, I love my 50-something inch LED/LCD/HDTV/WHATEVER tv. But I'd like the display quality much more from an orbital station or a space shuttle. The programming would probably be better. Watching asteroid belts is much more entertaining than watching some guy throw a ball.
So yeah, what am I doing to help future space colonization? Not a damn thing. I wanted to be an astrophysicist but am really terrible at math. Same goes for aerospace engineering. I guess I could try to help disseminate the awesomeness of space. Maybe list all the things all of us non-math geniuses could do to help move things along. I'll try to think of some things.
In the meantime I have a 7 month old son to educate and I'm going to try to teach myself all that really freaky math. Hopefully even such small steps can lead to a greater impact. In another 50 years, perhaps we can look back and say, "Oh wow, it's John Glenn's 100th anniversary of his Earth orbit", from our orbital station, as we too circle the Earth.

SWTOR Fan Art Piece

I am a geek. I play Star Wars: The Old Republic. I love it so much I spent hours with an aching hand, using colored pencils to create fan art based upon my character and her romantic companion, Vector.
So alas, here is Parker Ripley, Master Conspirator and Vector Hyllis getting hitched on the um, lovely?, planet of Tatooine.

ABSA: Feb Theme: Anti-Valentine's Day

"Cupid's a Bitch"
By: Kat Kendall