The Problem With Shooting Your Crap Into Space.
Radio and television signals can travel a good billion miles into space (don't quote me on that) well after we've watched and subsequently become bored with them. So if an alien race somewhere in the radius of "a good billion miles" from here happens to receive transmissions of MTV's Laguna Beach, then decides the universe could do without a race of partially bald and entirely conceited monkey people, proceeding to wipe out civilization via a nation-sized potato-masher, I am a) going to be quite upset over the whole destruction of mankind, death of everyone I've ever known and loved thing, blah, blah, and b) totally stoked because I won the bet I made with that guy always out on the sidewalk holding up cardboard signs. He's all "Asiatic bird flu will be the death of mankind!" and I was all like "No way, dude. Those fucking kids from Laguna Beach. Betcha five bucks." So during the long, messy, tearful, and wildly lucrative process of mass corpse-looting, I will be sure to savor that moment of taking his five dollars, or item of equivocal value. Unless of course I, too, fall victim to the catastrophic potato-mashing (which isn't an entirely accurate verb). In that case, I would regret that I returned the dvd of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles to blockbuster without first watching the deleted scenes, and I'd hope that during the long, messy, tearful, and wildly lucrative process of mass corpse-looting, no one got the wrong idea about the two for one coupon on Head and Shoulders in my wallet. I want future generations to think of mine as a flake-free existence, aside from the occasional blizzard, Wheatie, or wearing of suit-jackets purchased from Kohl's.