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The target location being Woodlawn Park in Portland, Oregon. The team from Atomic Arts are doing live presentations of Journey to Babel as presented on screen by TOS (The Original Series, as if you didn’t already know). I will now be going through all the Con Event postings in my part of the country to see if I can find them performing at a venue a little close than the other side of the continent, since I would love to see this on stage.

The story itself was written by D.C. Fontana, and first published in the March 1953 edition of the pulp magazine Incredible Tales of Scientific Wonder. J/K, because that’s the magazine from the DS9 episode Far Beyond the Stars in which the entire cast got to be humans putting out a science fiction magazine, one of my personal favorites from that series. But they posted it that way in Memory Alpha, and after I got done laughing I just had to pass the joke along.

Tonight is Yuri’s Night, the anniversary of the first human to make it into space and live to tell about it! Named after Yuri Gagarin, who took his epic ride on April 12th, 1961, this date is now used to celebrate all aspects of humanities continuing efforts to leave this gravity well. That first link will get you details to 183 events in 44 countries on 7 continents, so there will be something going on near you (unless you live way out to sea, in Antarctica, or along the full length of the former Siberia/Alaska land bridge and the lands it tied together). And even if you live in those places, or just don’t feel like driving, there are 9 Online Parties so you can celebrate with your friends at the Second Life International Space Flight Museum or Second Life Frontier Spaceport, the Foundation for Space Development at Mach30, and at Area 52, Outlands for you WoW folks (message HumanityPlus in-game for details, that event is on the 17th).

If you are a bit more serious than that, go for the Constellation Apps platform party, if you have the application development enviro installed, or hit NASA’s Third Rock Radio to listen to it all come down, or watch on SpaceVidcast online or on Roku. There are a lot more; find the one that works for you and join us in celebrating mankind’s attempt to escape this cosmic trap, and survive through the ensuing millennium.

You still have time to finish assembling and charge up your candidate creation for our Future Robot Overlords, and have them ready to show off for National Robotics Week, which runs from April 7th to the 15th. There are special events being held all over, including Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the The National Air and Space Museum in DC, the 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition and the Robot Block Parties being held in multiple cities around the country. I know, I linked to the Robot Block Party being held in San Francisco, because that one is being hosted by Instructables and looks like a lot of fun. There are more events being added every day, for the full list go to Google Calendar.