Chance of asteroid hitting Mars increases to 4%

This is headline-worthy? Mars?? 4%?? Do people not have better things to do with their time? Based on the following quote from Don Yeomans, a space man at NASA, no.

"I think it'll be cool," said Don. "Usually when an asteroid is headed toward Earth, I'm not rooting for an impact."

Usually? So, sometimes you do hope for asteroids to collide with Earth? As long as it hits your house and not mine.

Those of you long-time readers are familiar with how I feel about NASA in general (hint: it's a pointless waste of money and I don't like it) so I literally laughed out loud when I read this quote:

"Should a collision occur, it would likely blast a half-mile-wide crater north of where the rover Opportunity has been exploring since 2004."

They've got to be kidding. What are the odds? We send a rover to a distant planet to do what, I'm not sure (look for life? There's plenty of life here we haven't discovered that's being systematically destroyed by the systematic slashing and burning of the rain forests) and now that little rover, that's probably no bigger than a car, worth tens of millions of dollars, is sitting on a planet and an asteroid could land on it. The irony cracks me up. Seriously, I'm laughing right now. I would LOVE it if an asteroid the size of a football field landed on the Mars Rover. I'm envisioning it happening over and over again in my mind and I can't stop laughing.

Original article from USA Today.
Photo courtesy of here.

Thoughts on Christmas decor

I realize it's after the fact, but I'm convinced people who have inflatables in their yards have different kinds of inflatables in their closets and they all scream the same two things: tacky and lonely.


Photo via TackyChristmasYards.com.

New look. Whoopee.

Yeah. Got bored. I was trying for something a little less "Blogger-like". I don't know if I succeeded since, you know, I used one of their templates.

Southwest Airlines: go ahead and change your baby on the toilet lid

Normally I'm a pretty big fan of the Southwest Airlines. They have funny flight attendants and the prices generally can't be beat. I've flown them countless times over the last five or so years. This Christmas was no different.

Last night as my wife and son flew back from Oregon my son did something very characteristic of himself: he pooped. While this isn't a good thing, it's a normal thing. We dealt with it on the way over (or, I should say, my wife did). However, on the return flight it was my turn. My wife informed me that there was a changing table in the "forward lavatory". So I picked up my very cute, but reeking son and made my way to the front.

When I peeked into the lavatory there wasn't a changing table. I asked the flight attendant who was dutifully doing whatever it is flight attendants do when they aren't distributing beverages and crackers, if the changing table was in the rear lavatory.

"No."

A bit surprised, I asked where I should change him, thinking I might be able to do it on the floor in front of the door we boarded through - inconvenient, but roomy. She told me to do it on the toilet lid.

Now, I'm 6'4" and moving around in those little bathrooms is fairly uncomfortable. But when you're trying to balance a 28-inch wiggling baby boy on a dirty toilet in a moving aircraft...well...you can imagine.

I must have given her a "look" because she said, "I can give you a garbage bag to put down if you want."

You're too kind.

I took her little garbage bag and made my way into the lavatory. The short version is that Jake was screaming, his legs hanging off one end of the toilet and his head and hands touching the disgusting backdrop behind the toilet. I wish I'd been able to take a picture because I'm pretty sure it hadn't been cleaned recently as it appeared there was something (I'm trying not to think about) that had splashed up behind the toilet and run down the backdrop.

The backdrop my seven month-old son's head and hands were touching.

Needless to say, I'm quite disappointed with Southwest's lack of consideration for parents and I feel much worse for those who have kids older (and taller) than my son who need to change diapers on their flight.

Photo courtesy of here.

Merry Christmas from Oregon

Merry Christmas from a damp, green, beautiful Oregon! I hope it's a wonderful one for you and yours.

For lack of anything else to write, what was the best gift given or received in your family? For example, did your mom give your dad something particularly thoughtful? Did your family do something for a less fortunate family? Let me know in the comments.

Need a an invite to NBC's Hulu.com private beta? Tech Crunch has a few thousand

As was mentioned here, NBC pulled their content from iTunes and started their own web-based streaming video service. It's called Hulu and at the moment it's in private beta which means you need an invite to check out your favorite shows from The Office to Arrested Development to 30 Rock.

Well TechCrunch got an allotment of about 2,500 invites for their readers. As of this posting there are over 2,000 left, so jump on over and get yours by clicking here.

Need some last-minute Christmas gift ideas?

Brain freeze? Can't figure out what to get the last few people on your list? Jump over to LivSimpl for 11 non-lame, last-minute Christmas gifts generic enough for anyone, for under $30.

And tell your friends.

Merry Christmas!