500 Days of Gooch

Ashley Dupre in an upcoming Playboy. If I make the picture small enough, it's not NSFW, right? (Click to enlarge).

So I wrote that last "11:11" post as sort of a brain dump. I was thinking about Buzz Aldrin and then my mind wandered to the episode of Mythbusters where the boys investigated whether the moon landing was faked. Then my brain started filling with thoughts, which I typed out in the post prior to this one.

So I, apparently, did not know that the Obama Administration was unveiling a new "space plan."

But now a new paradigm is being proposed. The moon program is off the table, and Mars is only a distant possibility. NASA is essentially getting out of the astronaut business, letting the Russians and private enterprise take over. The glory days of NASA, some say, are over.

Fanfuckingtastic. I'm not so naive as to think that monies earmarked for space will go to a womens' shelter or a soup kitchen, but I'm sure it'll go somewhere good, right?

The words "Toyota Bailout" just popped into my head.

Shit.

goochout.

Houston, we have an 11:11

I'm a little baffled at the expense/risk to payoff ratio of the NASA program. So many experiments involving space, space exploration, life on new planets, etc. Things are a little too fucked up here on Earth to be fascinated about whether or not a drop of water was found on the Moon's surface. How much money, seriously, is being spent on the Space Program, and how much does it really benefit the citizens of the United States?

We were the first country to put Astronauts on the Moon. Who gives a shit? Do you know how insignificant this event was to the world at large? A lot of people believe that the moon landing was filmed on a sound stage somewhere and NASA, quite frankly, has no real way of proving otherwise. Think about that... there's no real proof that the greatest feat of engineering ever took place? A great acheivement of science and exploration and what good did it do us? The United States has the biggest space dick?

Well, if we didn't do it, Russia or China might have beaten us to it. Good! Fuck 'em. What do we care if they land on the moon, discover an icicle on Mars? Wouldn't it be cooler to use that science brain trust to say "hey... we cured cancer" or something that people could benefit from? Let other countries worry about trivial shit like space walks. Let's fix something here.

When's the last time modern medicine actually cured something? Chris Rock said it best... there's no money in the cure, just the treatment. I guaranfuckingtee you that the CEO of Pfizer would never die of anything other than old age. I bet there has never been a natural cause of premature death of anyone or their families that works as an executive at a pharmaceutical company. I'll bet you dollars to Viagras that there's a vault somewhere in every pharmaceutical headquarters with bottles labeled "AIDS CURE" or "CANCER CURE" or "HERPES CURE."

I'm just saying that it's sort of outrageous that so much money is going to government organization that absolutely has no other impact on Earth (save for Tang, posturepedic mattresses, and freeze dried snacks) while the money for one space toilet could help out an average citizen.

Great, now I'm sounding like a fucking hippie.

goochout.

Rebel without a Clue...

I've sort of become a bit paranoid about people reading this site and bringing what they read into the real world: making judgment calls about me, my personality, even my soul. Having said that...

http://www.igooch.net/columns/lovecolumn.htm

http://www.igooch.net/columns/bearhunt.htm (From 2000)

I'm up already this morning. Made breakfast and prepared lunch, which will likely be consumed as a snack so that I can eat some god-awful expensive lunch downtown.

UPDATE: [from the interweb]:

There is helium all around us in the air, but it is not a good source for helium collectors. There are only about 5 parts of helium for every 100,000 parts of air! People have discovered much richer sources of helium underground. Some radioactive elements, such as uranium, release alpha particles when they decay. An alpha particle is just a helium atom with no electrons. Deep in the Earth where these radioactive decays take place, the alpha particles capture electrons and become helium. As the radioactive deposits age, large quantities of helium become trapped in underground caverns. To collect the helium, people drill down into the caverns and capture the helium as it escapes.


Most people are familiar with helium balloons. We put helium in these balloons, because it is lighter than air and is non-flammable. However, most of the helium used today is in liquid form. All gases become liquids when the temperature becomes low enough, or when excessive pressure is used. Scientists use liquid helium for experiments that have to be kept very very cold. Helium becomes a liquid at 270oC below zero!

Did you read that? I didn't. I'm more content with my own imagined conclusions which, of course, involves voodoo with a side of sorcery. Lighter than air?That doesn't seem scientifically possible. Of course, neither does Gatorade or the female orgasm.

[Girl on the phone as I write this: "I've experienced both." Me: You've had Gatorade and helium?]

Early morning wit... you can't buy that at the supermarket. You can't buy condoms there either. At least, that's my excuse for never having one on me.

Caffeine is kicking in.

gooch:out

UPDATE: I read that helium thing. They do mine it. Holy shit. They mine it using drills and witchcraft. At least, that's what I think I read. Wouldn't it be funny if I could write and at the same time be functionally illiterate?

[Gooch sits on the witness stand, about to be cross-examined by the prosecution]
Prosecution: Mr. Gallucci, did you write this?
Gooch: I think so.
Prosecution: Can you read it to the court?
Gooch: Um... no.
Prosecution: You can't or you won't?
Gooch: I never learned to read.
Prosecution: You can write, and yet not read?
Gooch: That's correct.
Prosecution: That doesn't seem possible.
Gooch: Hey, neither does helium. Did you know that they mine that shit?
Prosecution: Yeah, you mean you didn't?
Gooch: Well, I had to look it up.
Prosecution: Seriously?
Gooch: Yeppers.
Prosecution: Is this a poorly executed comedy technique, known as a call back?
Gooch: Sort of.
Prosecution: Are you done writing this?
Gooch: Hell yeah, I should have been done before I started.
Prosecution: Do you regret not copying and pasting the words "Prosecution" and "Gooch?"
Gooch: My typing muscles do hurt.

out.

Where does helium come from?

I was driving up Interstate 205 towards Portland (Oregon) today. I took notice of a floating promotional blimp, tethered to a building. The blimp, a small scale replica of say a Goodyear or Sanyo airship has flown over that location promoting a spa/pool shop for years.

But today I took notice and wondered: Where does helium come from? Are there helium mines somewhere that I don't know about? Can you manufacture gas (aside from Gregster's ability to do so after any given meal) in a factory?

My eyes glanced back and forth from the road and this rather stationery-suddenly-mesmerising roadside promotional piece. I wondered for a while about it. Or, more precisely, the gas that keeps it afloat.

Sure, I could Google it, Wikipedia it, take-some-other-internet-information-entity-and-use-its-name-as-a-verb it. I could ask someone. If I was in North Portland, I could aks someone. But I spent the remainder of my drive basking in my child like wonderment.

I wonder if the radio guy that announced the Hindenburg crash was thinking the same thing about Hydrogen. I mean, his broadcast started off routine enough. He was probably bored, wondering "where does Hydrogen come from? Can you mine it? Manufacture it? OH MY GOD THE HUMANITY!"

gooch:out.