on shuttles and information overload

well what with america being unable to launch anything into space you sort of wonder what it is they can do anymore- they can't win wars, everybody hates mcdonalds and now they can't even get into space because all their shuttles are older than i am. the fact that this whole shuttle launch- meant to reassure us all that America is still king of space had just been cringingly embarassing, from the fact half the tiles fell off when they launched to going out to repair it with a homemade hacksaw and some poly filler. its not like Apollo 13 where they went to the moon and back even though the rocket was buggered, there will be no hollywood movie about this. The fact is that somehow the Russians are still able to send people into space for about the price of a small holiday without killing them even though they can barely afford to keep all their nuclerar weapons in the country. Despite my constant US bashing it is very sad to see they are plainly not going to mars any time soon and it is unlikely they will go back to the moon either- though to be honest their idea of having some kind of permanent us moonbase was frankly stupid.
though maybe it is a very british thing to invent something and then have everyone else do it better than you and as the US descends into just being the worlds biggest military NASA will probably just become another arms company but with a funkier logo.

i have been reading more articles about people dying from playing too many computer games, usually they are south korean for some reason. it is nothing really sinster, only that they become obsessed with certain games and play them until they die of exhaustion. this led me to think about how the pace of life has quickened and that are access to information has increased exponentially over the last few decasdes. we are constantly bombarded with information, both for pleasure/entertainment and to "keep ahead"- ie wheeler dealing on Ebay, getting bargains that sort of thing. labour saving devices merely mean we have time to do more things, everything can be achieved instantly that it gives little time for thought, reflection or most importantly relaxation. how can you relax knowing you might be missing something on the TV/internet/chatroom? therefore pretty soon we will all be like games obsessed south koreans, never sleeping and living our lives at twive the normal pace. Armando Ianucci wrote an article that i have lost where he says he is now resigned to the fact he will never watch the series of the sopranos he has been given and that in order to remain sane he just ignores any recommendation given to him of what he should culturally absorb. I think thats the only way to surive, to accept you can only absorb so much, that you should realx more otherwise your stress levels will blow your heart from your chest.