You still can. Go buy some Bitcoins if you really believe in it. Let us know how that works for you as a store of value or ability to buy pizza.
Mining was always an early-adopter thing that geeks latched onto because "zomg computers". Frankly I'm incredibly glad we reached the "no don't bother; FPGAs/ASICs" point so quickly so people will stop talking about it. It's even designed in to the spec that before too long there's more of a payoff for processing transactions than mining new coins. At least then you're doing some ostensibly-useful "work".
