Quit trying to kill me, space rocks

DUDE. What part of "the astrophysicists are busy" do you not understand? Please put on a shirt.

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/the-lure-of-rocks-from-outer-space/?ref=science
The New York Times' mission to publish an ever-increasing amount of tasty, delicious filler surged forward today, when our intrepid paper posed the timeless question: why are big rocks in the sky interesting? Exhibiting the kind of efficiency one might expect from an institution on the verge of selling budget advertising space to the New York Post, nyt contacted six astrophysicists, all of whom replied, in various verbose and sciency ways, "cause that shit's scary, man." One went on to elaborate, "Dude, have you seen Armageddon?" Thanks, astrophysicists, for destroying my illusion that the Smartest People in World are protecting us from malicious comet/asteroid attacks, and confirming my fear that you too, are mere Ben Affleck fans.

This bring us to the subject of today's QTTKM: Space Rocks. Now I know there is some kind of difference between asteroids and comets that is supposedly important, just like there is some kind of snout-shape dissimilarity between alligators and crocodiles. However. I am also convinced that, when said crocogator is snapping my ankles off with its all powerful Barrymore freakjaw, I am not going to be concerned with the species issue, nor whipping out my tape measure for snout shape verification. So I'm going to stick with Space Rocks, and all the astrophysicists who read this blog daily between their Pearl Harbor and Jersey Girl fixes can just suck it.

I first became aware of the Space Rocks' desire to kill me (and everyone else, I guess, but let's stay focused) at the tender age of something, when mom took me to the Planetarium to see a movie called "Hey Kids, Science is Fun, and Can Scare the Crap out of you too!" According to Mufasa the narrator, giant rocks are whirling about the universe like they own the place, blatantly refusing to settle into a fixed orbit, contribute productively to spaciety and grow the fuck up. Even worse, sometimes these teenage dirtbags of the solar system take their authority issues out on responsible Earth-type planets full of chocolates and ducks and bubbles and babies, killing EVERYTHING. Like, remember those dino monster dealies from Jurassic Park? Space Rocks wouldn't quit trying to kill them. Now they are dead.

After the Planetarium successfully terrorized me into lobbying my congressman for "more money in the sciences, please", I stayed away for a while, but was finally coerced into a return trip when mom got us tickets to the deceptively titled "Don't Worry, Only About Constellations!" However, as might not be expected from the title, Space Rocks made a pretty sizable cameo in Only About Constellations, because, as it turns out, that is where they hide. Riiiight in the constellations. And apparently there are a lot of those, as evidenced by Mufasa's repeated claims that "we can only monitor .00000000001 percent of the sky with our current lack of funding. Ahem."

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to contact my congressman about the Planetarium Moviemaking Bailout Package, and propose an Astrophysicist Netflix Ban clause.