Where is Jeff Goldblum and a laptop when you need them?

For decades I have had 1 pet peeve you might not have thought about. While I love sci-fi movies, I just get annoyed sometimes. Inevitably, in almost every movie, the humans wind up doing something miraculous and beat down the aliens that are almost all complete idiots.

It's a pattern that you see in science as well as movies. If you watch Discovery Channel or some of the Science networks you've watched as scientists go on and on about the search for life. Yet all the lifeforms they discuss are microbes or maybe herds similar to cows. Never intelligent life. Never anything smarter than humans.

Between the reality and the fantasy the concept that we might not be the smartest things in the universe is lost. It's fine in a movie, though sometimes it's just over the top. Seriously, Jeff Goldblum figured out an alien language and computer system in a day on his laptop?

If an alien race can travel through space, individually or en masse, do you really think they are less intelligent than people who can't figure out how to balance their checkbook or maintain world peace for 30 days? Obviously there is one scientist that agrees with me. Stephen Hawking.

Stephen Hawking presented his new show - Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking on the Discovery Channel - a discussion of aliens. More than speculation that mere microbes might exist somewhere in the vast universe, Hawking discusses how different life might be out there and plentiful. He also considered the thought that aliens might just be like us, with perhaps thousands if not millions of years of advanced knowledge.

It's a chilling thought. One that makes it clear that E.T. isn't cuddly and that supercomputers won't be enough.

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach. - Stephen Hawking"

I love Star Trek, Farscape, and Independence Day as much as anyone. I'm a huge sci-fi nut in fact. But it's just a peeve to hear scientists ramble on as if we are the best the universe can muster up. I'm glad to hear at least 1 mega-egghead mention the more probable reality.

That said, I'm watching my video tapes of Farscape again. John Crichton rules! Frell Scorpius.

Mystery on Mythbusters?

Perhaps it's because I haven't been watching Mythbisters, on the Discovery Channel, as much as I used to (my 9-ball pool league is the same time as the show). Maybe the episodes lately were all filmed during the winter (unlikely at best). Or it could be that Kari Byron gained a bit of weight and is self-concious.

But I think that Kari Byron is pregnant.

**Ok, I'm an idiot. Well sort of. Byron is pregnant. I just double checked a couple of sources and found out she made the announcement in February. I though it was a baby.

Congratulations to Kari Byron and her husband Paul Urich.

So the next part of this is redundant and useless. Unless you too are a fan and did not hear of the news. I'm keeping it as is. If nothing else it will be a bit of humor to start the day with.**

I noticed that she has been wearing larger and larger clothes in the last few episodes that I saw. Then last night I was watching as she wore a huge jacket, while Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara both were in shirts. Plus her face has plumped up a bit.

In fact as I watched even more closely I thought I noticed a bit of a bulge. A baby bulge.

I wonder how far into the pregnancy she is? Will the Mythbusters start doing, or in honor of a birth, episodes on baby myths? Will they mention this at any point in the show, or will Byron disappear kind of like Scottie Chapman?

A near miss counts in horeshoes and with asteroids

Believe it or not, Monday was your lucky day. I bet you didn't even know it. I didn't.

Monday, unreported to the masses, an asteroid passed by the Earth just past the satellites in orbit of the planet. No one was warned, and nothing was sad until today. The asteroid was between 70 and 150 feet in diameter.

Now you may be wondering what happened, or why you should care.

Well first off is why you should care. The asteroid is the same size as one that struck the Earth in 1908. That one hit with the force of a nuclear blast, in Siberia, completely destroying 800 square miles of forest and possibly causing a minor 'ice age' in Europe that lasted some 5 years. Effectively, had that asteroid hit, any major city in the world would have been wiped out in seconds.

As for why nothing was said, it was because scientists were sure it would miss. Mind you that the asteroid was only found late in February this year. The asteroid was moving so fast that it covered 1 million miles in roughly less than 2 weeks. Aren't we glad they got the math right? Be more glad that they found it.

The fact is that there is an unknown number of asteroids that might hit the Earth any and every day. Less than 5% of the visible sky has been charted for possible threats. But it is a guaranteed fact that eventually, something will hit our planet. How bad that could be depends on what actually hits us.

The asteroid that possibly wiped out the dinosaurs was in the E.L.E. level. That's Extinction Level Event, for those that have not seen the multitude of movies (like Armageddon) and television programs (Discovery Channel) about the subject. But it does not have to be that big to do damage. Plus events happen more often than you think.

In 2004 an asteroid was within 4,000 miles of the surface and in our atmosphere. In 2008 an asteroid luckily burned up before it could hit in Africa. That one was found a mere 19 hours before it began to plunge into our planet.

So give your mom a call, or hug a loved one. Because Bruce Willis can only save the day in a movie, and we were lucky on Monday.