We have lost an icon...

I just read that jerry orbach died last night. I knew his face, but have never seen an episode of Law and Order or many of his movies. Still he will be greatly missed because he had such a monumental impact on my life. There is nothing like being told to go someplace and doing something, then standing up and getting in their face and very emphatically saying:

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

I am so sick in the head.....

I like to watch TV especially the news and talk shows and say things like "I am so glad I am not psycho like that guy." or "Boy is he/she fucked in the head."

but then the other day I saw a story on multiple personalities and I thought to myself, "I could be the most screwed up person ever!"

OK, hold on, this might hurt your head. This is what I was thinking when that thought crossed my mind. When people have MP it is usually manifested as a single person being "inhabited" by a party of very different individuals. There is sometimes a Vietnam vet, who has PTSD and just broke up with his wife, drinks to much and hasn't seen his kids in years. And sometimes there is a small girl who is completely sheltered and regressive because here wealthy jet setting parents didn't really want her so they abused and neglected her and then eventually left her with a sherpa in nepal to be taken to a temple to be trained as a high priestess in some lesser known religion.

anyways, the MP person is characterized by violent shifts in behaviour because the personalities are often so different and conflicting. But, what if this isn't always the case?

I began to think. What if I have two personalities, but they aren't wildly different and conflicting? Perhaps, my two personalities are identical twins! they look alike, have the same body image. there were raised together, (the kind that always had two of everything and got along well and shared a common set of friends) so they have she same views and beliefs based on common life experiences. They are also the wierdly close kind that are sort of telepathic and can finish each other's thoughts and everything. I could be inhabited by two people with the exact same personality! in which case you and possibly even me would never know if I was switching wildly between the two.

This brings up an even more obtuse question....If they are basicaly the same person, does that count as multiple personalities? What if I need my own classification of mental illness? I am two people, trapped in one body, that share a common psyche! At this point I am beyond frantic and have really freaked myself out.

But, as I plunge my hand into my pocket to get my cell phone and call someone frantically for help, i end up pulling something else out. The next thought I have is "Cool, I didn't know I had a dollar in my pocket." and all is cool again. I go back to watching cartoons and eating my new Winter Fruity Pebbles.

Square Peg.....Round Hole

Being as how I am the only one of my friends who isn't some sort of engineer, I am often asked my opinion on a variety of topics just to see how another field would try and solve an issue. Most often my way is vastly superior and much more effecient. But recently I came across a problem where that wasn't so.

Square Peg...Round Hole. (more specifically a square peg that is just barely too small to fit through the round hole)

So the engineer immediately says "Lathe!". I was dumbfounded. That was the perfect solution. In minutes you could completely alter the landscape of whole situation from one mind numbing jagged mountainous mass of angles and forces, to the wide open flat planes of Round Peg....Round Hole.

I was embarassed. Being a geneticist, I had never thought of altering the pieces directly, all i could hope for was to steer them in a desired a direction and let nature do the dirty work for me.

My solution was to force the square peg and round hole to interbreed. I am not sure about the genetics that encode square vs. round, but i figured after millions of years and generations I would either end up with one gene being dominant over the other and having all squares or all rounds, or there would be some sort of co-dominant population of squarish pegs and holes with rounded corners.

either way, this time I lost. Just for that, I am not cloning any of your children or pets, you math-geeky engineers with all your forces, and moments, and tensions.

*I am a sore loser*

Updating a romantic cliche.....

Time to get all mushy and sappy. But only because i think it is important, and it may start to appear more often soon.

So the convention holds for two romantically involved individuals: You + Me. This usually equals love, or happines, or 4Eva, or some such.

let's think about what this really means. Do you want to be added to the person you are dating? This would result in some sort of amorphous blob of aspects of both of you. The result is you are both the same person. What fun is that, I wouldn't want that, this needs to be changed.

The next obvious assumption would be: You x Me. But is this any better? It just indicates to be that every aspect of one person is multiplied by the other person. Fine if you have no self esteem or self respect and completely dedicate you life to the other person at the expense of your own identity, but doesn't seem all that healthy. it still results in a weird amalgam, but would be even more lopsided toward the dominating personality.

My proposal? You^Me. You raised to the power of me, how eloquent and perfect is that? Every aspect of you retains its own identity but is ampliphied by the ammount you like the other person. If you are cute, then you are that much cuter, if you have a quirk or something that makes you unique then it is even more so and you are that much more endeering to the other person. It amplifies both the similarities that make to people get along, and the differences that keep the relationship new and exciting.

If you see this on a halmark card be sure to notify me so that I may sue. You will be called to testify.

You^Me.

I once was lost, but now am found....

I have decided to start studying the bible.

Not because I felt like I needed religion, but because I am totally sweet. I am totally pumped all the time now, I might even flip out.

If you don't know, you betta ax somebody.

thought of the weekend: "I want to be a wrathful deity"

Guess the Gift...

Ok everyone, I am getting a gift for Christmas from a friend, but i have been informed that I am not allowed to know what it is. I have however asked several indirect questions that hint at its identity. But I am stupid and have not been able to piece together exactly what I am getting. So, I am enlisting your help. Here are the questions and the answers I recieved, make your best guess.

Q: Is it big?
A: Big is a relative term.

Q: It is not a puppy?
A: No, I did not mail order you a puppy.

Q: Would a badger eat it?
A: Only a very confused badger.

Q: Is it thermal sensitive?
A: Only to the extent that most things are.

Q: If you used it to smash a frog would it still be functional?
A: Yes, but covered in frog parts.

Q: To use it, is it better to be dumb as an ape or smart as a chimp?
A: I bought it for a smart guy.

Q: Is it dainty?
A: No.

Q: Is it more like a cucumber or an ardvark?
A: Umm, Cucumber.

that is all for now, i guess that makes it pretty obvious, but if i come up with anything more, i'll post it here.

I am a bad person...

I do this, if you are at all creative (and a little judgemental), you do this. Only there aren't such interesting looking people around where i live so it is usualy more about the torrid affairs of soccer moms, or the well dressed business man talking on a cell phone to the dial tone because he wants people to think he is successful even though his marriage and business are in shambles.

The He Looks Like... Game

Tis the Season for X-Mas Parties

It's the time of year for awkward social get togethers, pretending to like people you can't stand, getting a little too drunk in front of your boss, getting in the holiday spirit and waking up in the morning to a very awkward encounter with a co-worker that you hope to never see outside of work again.

Luckily for me I work in a lab at a univeristy. And our holiday party was lunch, and in our department's usual tradition it was very half-ass. Held in the hall of another building, everyone brings random food only they like, not enough drinks for everyone that shows, people segregating themselves and only socializing with the people they work with every day. Nothing like large groups of intellectually gifted and socially impaired people.

But I get to walk on the other side this year. I am being taken to a friend's company's party on Saturday. I get to be paraded around in public all dressed up for people to ooooh and awwww over, but i will get fed well for my services, so I am not complaining. Getting to see how another organization does things right will help me more adequately ridicule how poorly my department handles these gatherings. Though to be completely honest, most of it is probably the people. Great people can make the worst situation fun, and some people can make Disney World kind of dreary. But it's not like i am every going to try and offer suggestions or do the party thing right myself, so i'll keep my criticisms to myself. It's the american way.

Hot Chocolate, Snowmen, Oversized Sweaters

Doesn't that just give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside?

I wish I had that feeling, but I don't. For a multitude of reasons:

It is F'in 80 degrees outside. I don't know why this bothers me every year, I have lived in and around Houston for 24 years now, I have only seen snow twice, it only stuck once, and even they it wasn't enough to fully cover the streets. I sure hope this massive polar shift we are over due for happens soon, i'm in serious need of a climate change.

Also, I'm sick. And it is the worst kind of sick. Not the "oh just let me die, i think my head is going to expload kind of sick", the kind that just kind of bothers you and you can't justify staying home so you go to work and just let the headache and stuffiness harass you. The mild cold is my arch nemesis. Well maybe not my arch nemesis, gravity holds that spot. One day gravity, i'm warning you, your time will come.

And, i'm still at work. How come i can't just take december off and sit on my ass and play video games and basketball all month? That is why the germans are so much more productive than us, they recognize the benefit of doing absolutely nothing for weeks at a time.

Well, just the rest of this week and next and i get a small vacation. I will be sure to not get anything done during that time. and i'll mask my sorrow for the lack of snow with glee stemming from the copious ammounts of spinkle covered cookie goodness i will consume.

The Nature of Genius

I believe that intellegence is composed of two aspects: Retention and Vision.

All people possess some of both qualities, the ability to remember facts that they have experienced and the ability to infer new meanings and ideas based on those facts. However, this ratio is not set, people can be more to one side or the other, and their intellegence as a whole is based on the sum of these two faculties.

I shall demonstrate. Consider your intellegence to be the number Z. Z is the sum of your level of Retention and your Vision. If I and another person are equally smart then the number Z for both of us is the same. However if my retention value is X and Vision is Y (where X is greater than Y), and the other person's is inverse (Y retention and X Vision)then we will not perform the same on tasks meant to differentiate the two.

one of these tasks would be as follows: Take apart a small combustion engine, name and identify the purpose of all the parts, then put it back together. The other person with more vision is able to take apart and play with engine and figure out exactly how it works just by examining it, and may be able to do this very quickly. I on the other hand have little vision and am not as adept at this. However, if someone sits down with me and does it for me once, I am able to retain everything that is shown me very well. The initial training takes longer for me than the person with better vision, but when presented the problem again I immediately know how to solve it. The visionary on the other hand, may remember that they had seen the problem before, but not remember all about because they could just rely on their ability to figure out again if necessary.

If this test were administered several times, this would be the result:

first time) The Visionary finished fater than me because they were able to figure it out on their own.

second time) We finish at about the same time because i remember more of the problem from before, and the other person starts from scratch. I require no outside assistance this time and am able to rationalize my way through some difficulties due to an increased knowledge base.

thrid time) I finish significantly faster than the other person because I have mastered and remembered the task and they are still figuring out all over each time.

fourth time) My finishing time is the same as the third test, I have mastered it to the best of my ability. The other person still finishes behind me, but has narrowed the gap due to growing familiarity.

Fifth time and on) We finish in the same time and this is always the fastest time possible because we both have mastered the task.

These results demonstrate how we both posses some of both qualities, but in differing proportions. We end up maxing out at the same time because we are equally smart as a whole (Z is equal).

Using this view, savants would be classified as people who's Z is comprised totally of one aspect or the other. (all retention, or all vision). This is a person who can memorize and encyclopedia but can't figure out how to tie their shoes, or a person who doesn't know thier birthdate, but can play piano by ear without instruction.

Real genius would posses high scores in both aspects yielding a very large number for Z. However, they could still be lopsided in one aspect over the other. Many people know someone who is smart because the remember everything they have ever read or heard, and also know somone who is smart because they can just look at something and figure it out, or know the right questions to ask, or just look at things in a different way.

This isn't revolutionary, or awe inspiring, but it is interesting. Next time you see someone and are like "they are really smart", think about what kind of smart they are. Also analyze yourself and think about if the job you have that frustrates you, or the people that don't understand how you do things boils down to the way the problem or person fits your strengths and weaknesses on this scale.

Kind of neat.

Bistro....

I am convinced that Bistro is french for "20% less food", or possibly "leave hungry". For some reason every time I have been to eat at any place classified as "Bistro" I have been given a portion size barely suitable for an average sized pygme.

Is that strategery or something? "You are only 80% worthy of eating here, so we will only 80% feed you." or: "Taste our delicious morsels and long for them as you waste away to nothing." possibly even: "We are Bistro, we are hip and trendy! If you are not heroine chic, we will make you as such!"

Any way, I will not be bothering with them again. Buffet all the way! I think that will be my new campaign slogan.