also, on a side note. i'd like to protect myself from the expected comments of "you'll be acting differently when someone you know is dead or close to it". my grandfather is in congestive heart failure and has sleep apnia (spelling), and because of his poor health, my grandmother can't renew her life policy on him. he's been close to dead for a number of years, and we're all on pins and needles because we don't know WHEN something is going to take yet another turn for the worse. the dude is AWESOME... but the truth is that he may very well die before the end of the year.
i'm bitter towards mankind, in general, for not having the proper tools to fix some things. we can clone worthless animals, but we can't fix people.
when he dies, hell yeah I will be sad. but, i know that hardly anyone outside of our family and friends will give a shit. he isn't important to the human race, and neither am i, and neither are you, and neither was your grandfather, and neither is my future kid if i ever have one, and so on.