Center of the Universe

So some guy that works where I work mouthed off to me yesterday. Being I'm the manager, I sent him home. He couldn't understand my decision. This is probably because he believes (with some help from a few silly girls who think he's a real cool dude) he is the center of the universe. I guess I did not know my place. Maybe there's something wrong with me. I'm not sure.

So this is what my mind turns to: This was at CNN.COM on 8/31/04, "It appears that most if not the majority of the remaining 100 billion stars [in the Milky Way galaxy] have some sort of planets orbiting around them," said Butler. "We are edging closer and closer to planet systems that are like our own solar system."

And on 9/10/04, also at CNN.COM was this story, "A group of European-led astronomers has made a photograph of what appears to be a planet orbiting another star. If so, it would be the first confirmed picture of a world beyond our solar system."

Yet the only news I heard about it in detail was on the Daily Show!! Don't look for it on the website, but there's a great piece on the Cooter Festival.

What bothers me is what a friend was telling me the other night. He was coming back from vacation in Europe, and on the plane home he told a French woman sitting next to him, "well, I guess it's almost time to be back to reality." To which she replied, "No, No! What you're coming from is reality. What you're returning to is fantasy." My friend said that one statement has changed his life, and I completely understand. For me, the thought of extraterrestrial worlds and the fact that this bozo that I work with is not the center of the universe, this is reality. Whatever anyone wants to believe about politics, war, taxes, work, all that rot, that is someone's death fantasy that we all got caught up in. I'll take my reality please.