Welcome to Apocalypse Maybe Week at Second Effort!

The world may or may not be ending on Friday.

The U.S. Government says the world absolutely will not end this week, so that makes me nervous.

On the other hand, astronomers have identified no rogue planetoid on a collision course with Earth, so that makes me feel better.

On the other, other hand, as Zay N. Smith noted in his QT column Monday, sometimes potentially deadly asteroids aren't detected until they're pretty darn close at hand:

News Item (December 10): Astronomers discover Asteroid 2012 XE54.
Which passed between Earth and the moon two days later.
News Item (December 13): Astronomers discover Asteroid 2012 XB112.
Which passed between Earth and the moon a day later.
News Item (December 14): Astronomers discover Asteroid 2012 XL134.
Which passed between Earth and the moon during the weekend.

So there's still time for something to turn up.

Now, I'm nervous again....

So I'm going to try looking at the bright side of our perhaps-impending doom.

This picture has been making the rounds among my Facebook acquaintances. Hard to tell whose work it is, but it presumably originated offshore (the temperatures are apparently in Celsius):

The first 10 times I saw this I don't think there was anything on the picture about linking up at any safe house....

Here's another one I saw on Facebook that made me laugh:

I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do if Friday is really the last day. I'm reminded of the confused bartender in the movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. After Ford Prefect announces that the world is about to end, the bartender asks:

Barman: Shouldn't we all lie on the floor or put paper bags over our heads?
Ford: If you like.
Barman: Will it help?
Ford: Not at all.
[Ford runs out of the pub]
Barman: Last orders, please!

So while I'm not sure yet what to do or how to do it, maybe we'll find out together here on Second Effort as we (imagine big echo chamber basso profundo here) countdown to the End of the World!