But I'd also suspect there are times when I'm definitely not deciding things, like when I'm watching a movie or TV show or maybe driving. I suspect this because at these times my senses are sort of saturated, and I don't really have the mind to process thoughts internally. I'm either being barraged by entertainment, which is engrossing me (hopefully) with its captivating story or emotional scenes, or my visual and motor senses are plugged in to the traffic world while my audio senses are either rocking out or involved in conversation.

Hopefully this has been some use to those of you who found my blog by searching "how to have a threesome blogs" on Google (I'm the # 3 hit for that search string as of today). If you're confused, no I have not ever given out advice on how to construct (compile? convene?) a threesome, but I think I have mentioned the existence of threesomes once, and maybe that some people are interested in having them. I actually do have advice, I'm just not giving it. The advice I'm not giving is based on experience but on internal revelation and an extrapolation of my experiences. No interpolation is involved.

So Darfur will get a few hundred dollars for the effort of 833 man-hours (35 days straight) of mouse-clicking (assuming it takes 10 seconds to join a group). Somehow I find the whole situation fascinating. The willingness of people to expend minimal effort on what sounds like a good cause, especially the willingness to donate money or cause money to be donated. Imagine if everyone who joined the group actually read the linked article about Darfur; that would be amazing. I actually bet some large fraction of them did, because if you're on Facebook you're just trying to kill a little time and an article on genocide is just as good as updating your profile to include "Coldplay" under your favorite music.

I haven't joined the group because to me it somehow seems demeaning: my response to caring about something should be a little more than joining a group where 0.1 cents of someone else's money gets donated to an unnamed organization. And I don't have the time to read that article on the Darfur genocide anyway. In group members' defense, the "it can't hurt" attitude seems equally reasonable, at first. But then I thought about the first debriefing meeting our mission team had upon returning from Swaziland this summer. Apparently one of the cardinal rules of mission work is not to give anyone money while in country. Money, according to the mission expert, always leads to more pain or suffering. If you give it to someone in need, they become a target of evil, or else they themselves are tempted to use it in an unhealthy way. For example, if you want to pay a child's school fees, you send money directly to the school and not to the child or their family (if they have one). It's a hard principle to believe, especially since it's much easier for most people to give money than to invest time into a cause, but it's easy to see how it would be true.

Hair is so fragile! Why hasn't someone been able to exploit this fact to find a less painful solution to the problem of unwanted facial/body hair? I thought our civilization was advanced enough to cheaply make chemicals that denature proteins. If so, why are we not focusing on making those chemicals that can denature the proteins of the hair on our face? Imagine being able to spread some gel on your face and have the hair dissolve right into your hands . . .

If I'm somehow wrong about the protein denaturing chemicals, then the fire solution seems just as plausible. A short but intense, highly localized blast of heat to the face designed to vaporize hair but not burn skin. This device might also be useful for cutting hair, either your own or your enemies. Imagine being able to render an entire person hairless from a mile away . . .

(Names have been changed to protect the poorly served from legal action.)

Dotty

The night I arrived in Santa Cruz, I went out with my two travel companions to get a late dinner. We ended up at a diner that was almost packed at midnight. After waiting a few minutes, we were seated at a table with menus. The menu selection was impressive, and luckily we had plenty of time to make up our minds. Then, 10 minutes later, Dotty walked up to our table slouching and, without a word, slowly flipped over the top page of her receipt pad and readied her pen to take an order. She didn't say anything. Each of us ordered without any verbal response from our server. We asked for water, and she acknowledged with a sound. She let out a silent breath as if she had just completed a very difficult task, and walked away, barely lifting her feet off the ground. The first plate arrived 20 minutes later. Dotty delivered it, dropped it really, without making eye contact or asking who it belonged to. The next two plates came out in a similar fashion, and we were told, "pancakes on way." Pancakes was definitely not capitalized. We saw Dotty once more during our meal, and I think she started opening up to us more. After each encounter she returned more of our communication with actual verbal sounds. From the looks of it, I'd guess that this 24-hour diner was actually so called because their staff works in 24 hour shifts. What a miserable job.

Chris

Being a liquor store clerk has its advantages and disadvantages if your goal at a job is to do as little work as possible like Chris. On the one hand, you generally don't have to bag as many items as grocery clerks and you're less likely to have a gun pointed at you than a convenience store clerk. But on the other hand, you have to not only take money and give change but also check IDs, which is yet another delay in the next window of time during which you have nothing to do but stand there. Chris knows that he is not paid to make eye contact, show any sort of expression on his face, or say anything to the customer but a single number (the amount due).

Kate

Kate is a bartender. She works hard for the money. She serves her customers well and expects to be rewarded for that service. Your beer costs $4? She'll take the five you give her and say "Thanks" while scrunching her nose in such a way as to add "I'll just take my tip from your change." I'm pretty sure this violates some sort of bartender code, but Kate doesn't care.

Josh

Josh's job requires him to stand outside in the miserable cold for hours. After a couple of hours a hoodie and baseball cap just don't keep you warm, and it makes Josh start to lose the will to move. When people show up to the bar to enter, Josh has to check their ID. It doesn't say anywhere that he has to stand by the door. If he happens to be standing 10 ft from the door, Josh expects that the patrons will see him standing under that tree over there and walk over to him to get their wrist stamped. Sometimes this will cause minor confusion, but at least Josh didn't have to move.

Furthermore, it's interesting that really good smells don't seem to ever linger. The most logical explanation is probably that I have a poorer idea of what a really good smell is. For example, I could rate smells on a scale of one to ten and calibrate my bad smell scale by placing the smell of human feces at 9. Now let's say I use that same scale for good smells, I actually can't think of any good smell that's a 9 on the equivalent scale. Bad smells are much worse than good smells are good.

The Croc's are taking over. Actually, I can't go into more detail than that for fear of my life. I want to tell you all about this seemingly colorful and comfortable threat, but I can't. In fact, I'm not even sure what's causing this epidemic. As to the cause, I can only hypothesize that's it's a new strain of the metrosexual virus that is infecting physically active, older males. At a place like the Institute for Astronomy such a virus is sure to spread at an alarming rate.

If you're confused about this entry so far, let me switch tracks completely in an attempt to regain your attention. Surely, everyone can empathize with me when I say that I've always found the classification of record at a music store to be vaguely dissatisfying. There's just something about the divisions: 90% of the records thrown into "Rock/Pop", and the remaining 10% divided among increasingly specific and/or confusing categories (what is new age exactly, and how is it different from world music?).

You might have guessed it; I have a solution to this problem. I would classify records by how they are used. Here are some example categories

"Music to Work To" - This one is pretty straightforward. It's music that doesn't grate on your ears, doesn't beckon you listen to some message, and in general doesn't require much of your attention. It captures just enough of your attention to keep your creative juices flowing and to provide you a minimal level of distraction drowning out bigger distractions while you work.

"Music to Break Up To" - Also simple to understand. Conveniently, provides single people with a venua for meeting each other. Potentially a reckless category choice with respect to rebounding.

"Music to Fall in Love To" - Not to be confused with the "Music to Make Out To" section. Records in this section generally portray life as hopeful, fun, and a good deal all around.

"Music to Do Drugs To" - Your garden variety psychadelia. Maybe some super-chill stuff for the pot smokers.

"Music That Goes With Red Wine" - Dust off the Perry Como if you want to enjoy a bottle of Chianti. Try some Diana Krall with a Pinot Noir.

"Music to Make People Think You're Cool" - Need to stay on top of the latest trends coming out of London, Amsterdam, and Berlin? Beat the Europeans and hipster kids to it in this section.

"Music That Gets You Pumped Without Annoying Your Neighbors" - Actually, it will annoy them, because anything played too loud at 7am is guaranteed to be annoying, even if it's "Superman" by Five for Fighting.

Of course there would be overlap in some of these, but there already is overlap in the current system so I don't see the problem with that. The real question is whether I could boil these categories into only a handful of fundamental activities. If not, this system is probably doomed to fail.

• If possible wait until most of the people have left. That way, if anyone does see you drinking at work, they will be less likely to think it inappropriate.

• In fact, if you plan on drinking more than a beer or two, you should probably wait until you are about to leave your position at that workplace. People will care less about what you do if you're not going to be around in a couple of weeks. (Actually, it's probably more of an issue of the amount of time their subconscious will have to associate you inappropriate behavior/alcoholism.)

• Depending on the sort of ambience you're going for, you will either want to close or leave open your door. Which option you choose will also depend on the time of day and how "laid back" your workplace is. If your cubicle would be readily visible from the hallway the safest bet is to close your door most of the way. I don't recommend closing the door all the way: if you have a visitor they will probably think you're an alcoholic.

• If you are at all concerned with your image and reputation as a beer-drinker, you will likely be drinking beer out of a bottle. If it's not a convenient twist top, then hopefully you have a bottle opener. If not, and if you don't walk all the way to the break room (this is especially likely if you've already had a few beers), then your only option is likely to use the metal part of your doorstop, a technique which is known to be very effective.

• However, if you've ever open a beer bottle on a doorstop, then you know that you will almost certainly spill some beer in the process. Assuming your workplace has tiled floors, this is certainly an acceptable sacrifice (again, especially if you've already had a few beers) when compared to walking all the way to that break room . . . the important part of this bullet is that you should WIPE UP ANY BEER SPILLED. This is really key. Beer spilled in your doorway will evaporate, and the beer vapor will pervade the hallways. You may as well have been drinking up and down the halls at this point because now everyone knows what you're up to. And they will probably assume that the smell is actually coming from your breath, implying you are much more of an alcoholic than you actually are.

• Make sure you have enough to share. This is important for two simple reasons: you want people to like you and you want people to think you're not an alcoholic who only planned on drinking alone.

• You should plan your workplace drinking far enough in advance so that you're not stuck at work having to drive home. You should bike in so that you can legally transport yourself home (note: bicycle laws may vary by state).

Did I miss anything?

Until a couple of weeks ago the hunt was actually challenging. That was before I had gone and bought a second can of roach spray for the house (we usually keep one can handy near the kitchen or living room). Back then I might have had to actually resort to primitive roach-killing tools such as our plunger (very inefficient for obvious reasons), hair spray (not as immobilizing as one might think), or Lysol. Back then it was a true battle of wits in which the roach actually had a chance to survive if only he/she scurried in just the right way. One roach tested my mettle by hiding under the lip of the sink in such a way that I'd have to risk spraying my toothbrush with potentially toxic roach spray in order to get him. He failed, and my toothbrush remained as clean as it was before the incident. Most other roaches are not nearly as clever/lucky and used to be able to rely on their superior agility and maneuverability to evade whatever other crude instrument I might be throwing at them that night. Now they hardly have a chance. Now I have a fully loaded can of Raid at the ready somewhere in my room. It doesn't have a highly collimating nozzle for pinpoint accuracy, but it gets the job done. The best the poor creatures can do is scurry away to die in peace under a sock or behind some furniture.

This next paragraph would be dedicated to discussing how the nightly roach hunt is actually symbolic of episodes that we all go through in life, but that would just be painfully obvious and is therefore unnecessary. One thing I've noticed is that the hunt gives me peace of mind, which is nice to have right before going to bed.

Two of the seminars I went to were particularly interesting: one by Richard Mouw and one by Richard Rohr. Richard Mouw discussed how he thinks Christians should behave in the public sphere, and generally he encouraged people not to try to "take over" (a la Ralph Reed) nor to throw up their hands and claim that this world isn't their home (in case you don't get it, their other true home would be heaven). Apparently he thinks the Bible tells us to work for the welfare of the people and the government equally, period. The other seminar was also interesting, but I won't bother summarize Rohr's (a Catholic) good points. A lot of his talk was so far out on the edge of theology that I think he ventured into very uncertain or clearly crazy territory once or twice during his talk. One example is when he alluded to something called Kirlian photography as "evidence" for something he was talking about, but from what I can tell it's totally bogus:

The principle of Kirlian photography, as well as all electrography, is the corona discharge phenomenon, that takes place when an electrically grounded object discharges sparks between itself and an electrode generating the electrical field. When these sparks are captured on film they give the appearance of coronas of light. These discharges can be affected by temperature, moisture, pressure, or other environmental factors. Several Kirlian techniques have been developed, but the basic ones generally employ a Tesla coil connected to a metal plate. The process is similar to the one which occurs in nature, when electrical conditions in the atmosphere produce luminescences, auras, such as St. Elmo's fire.

My mom also says he's into enneagrams, which, seem to be neither here nor there. It still strikes me as odd that someone like Rohr can have something useful to say while still believing crazy things.

The contest is to resign the office so that the cubicles are treated more equitably using the Powerpoint file in the link above. I should point out that the main reason this is a non-trivial problem is that the office doesn't have four corner spaces, as can be seen in the image to the left. If there were four corners, each person could simply be given a corner to do with what they will. That said, here are some rules/clarifications when modifying the map:

- Try to keep Desk-B and Desk-D together. Desk-B cannot be used singly as a person's desk.

- The Bookshelf-A's are used both as bookshelves and dividers because they are so tall. Use that dual ability.

- Ideally, each person gets a filing cabinet, but if you have to put them in the hallway (or "anteroom") then do so. But remember: the bikes are sacrosanct.

- The cabinets are mounted high on the wall, and so a desk may be (and currently is) placed underneath them. But dividers and bookshelves cannot be placed under the cabinets.

- In the left hand bottom edge you should be able to make out a rectangular shape; this is the cork bulletin board. It, like the cabinets, is a highly prized item to cotain within an individual cubicle, but it can't be moved.

That's all! Feel free to swap in and out differently shaped desks (such as the extra items in the upper right hand corner), but stick to shapes that already exist (for the desks and bookshelves). Be sure to keep in mind traffic flow in and out of the office (the entry is the set of doors in the upper left).

Remember, this is primarily for fun, but if someone actually comes up with a valid solution, a prize of some sort will be awarded. Like the Millenium awards in mathematics or something . . . there is no award for the "best" design, just the first design that works.

After he told us everything he could think to tell us about the pornography (oh yes, apparently its illegal to bring foreign pornography into the U.S.), he started talking about the atomic bomb. There are apparently some interesting "artifacts" left over from the exploding of the bomb over Hiroshima, including the shadow of a seated man imprinted on a rock (he absorbed the rock-color-altering radiation) and a building that stood directly below the blast. The building wasn't destroyed because it was apparently only pushed downward instead of being hit by a largely horizontal shockwave like all the surrounding buildings. He talked about the bomb some more and then went home.

Coming soon . . . "Design My Office" with a prize to be awarded.

- I have been listening to "The Best One for Me" on repeat, after appropriately editing the ID3 and ID4 tags to be compatible with the rest of my Bess Jankowski mp3 collection.

- I've been compiling the ultimate mix CD for L. E. Hanson (I've actually been working on this for months, but in the last month it's received a lot of attention, finally achieving completion).

- I spent about a week visiting, freaking out over, and spending time with other friends of a friend of mine who had to go to the emergency room with a blood clot in her brain. They were uncertain times, but she can pretty much read now, and hasn't blanked out on recalling any nouns in a while.

- I tried to sell my old dining room table on Craigslist twice, and failed both times. This was motivated by making room for a papasan chair I also from Craiglist in the time since I last posted. The papasan is awesome, by the way.

- I've been watching all the episodes of Scientific American Frontiers recorded on my DVR. Did you know that chimp males eat monkey meat, which they don't share with the females?

- I got a cold twice. I started wearing my long underwear to bed, and have been fine since.

- I cleaned my cubicle, by which I mean terminating all the interesting science experiments I had going on. My main area of interest is the ability of Mountain Dew to destroy substances its left in contact with over long periods (e.g., wax paper).

- I went to a pho restuarant in Chinatown and they took forever to serve us (order taking and food bringing), and they didn't even bother to tell us they weren't going to bring out my friend's avacado shake (they were out of avacados). Mira Furlan was also eating at this place, which was super exciting.

Well that's it. You can hope this marks a return to more frequent posting; you can hope.