More Percolationy Mind Blather

1) I find myself increasingly tempted to place bumper stickers reading "CAREFUL: MORON DRIVING!" on large SUVs parked in 2 or more spots in parking lots. If you can't competently handle your vehicle, you shouldn't be driving it.

2) I am coming to peace with the joggers on my walking route home. Or maybe they've learned and have been running more heavily so that I hear them over traffic. I still, however, favor mandatory jingly bells.

3) I wonder if I should actually start dressing like a tech. Most of the other techs wear jeans and T-shirts. I wear Dickies pants, a dress shirt tucked in, a belt, and Converse sneakers. I recently found out that many people in the department thought I was a post-doc. I hadn't thought I'd yet acquired that stench of quiet desperation and soullessness.

4) Something that smells worse than 2-betamercapthenol actually exists. A 3-day old plate of Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron smells absolutely terrible, the kind of reek that makes you want to scrub your eyeballs out with lye and burn your clothes. Also, my boss doesn't seem to even so much as notice the smell.

5) Today I had sprayed down a bench with 70% ethanol and had an open flame nearby. The undergrad asked why I didn't just set it on fire. Naturally, I thought to myself, "Why don't I just set it on fire?" So I did*. Pretty blue flames!

6) At what level of autonomy do robots ascend to androids?

7) My dog has a visceral and deep-rooted hatred of the vacuum cleaner, to the point where she will literally try to attack it. She is in battle mode as soon as it comes out of the pantry, and she doesn't understand why when I'm trying to get her to let go of the hose. Maybe she and the vacuum cleaner could become friends if I rubbed bacon on it?

8) I've been increasingly tempted to drink more often so that I can force myself to fall asleep earlier, because otherwise sleep doesn't ever really seem to kick in until ~2am. This becomes a problem when I've got morning experiments scheduled.

9) I am deeply appalled by the horrific quality of childrens' science programming on TV. Johnny Test and Grossology, with some rare re-runs of Jimmy Neutron, are all that's out there. I mean, Discovery Kids also has Boneheads about paleontologists, but that just seems far too narrow. I've made claims along these lines before, but I have been paying closer attention to the programming schedule since. I've yet to find any refuting evidence.

10) I should really stop bobbing my head to the music while riding the bus. The busses here don't play music and I don't use headphones/earbuds.

11) I tried counting out a kilometer the other day recently, just to see, but quickly found out that my attention span is only 0.5km long. At least I got halfway there. It should be noted, however, that this was done mostly on campus, so there wasn't much to look at to distract me.

*Not the first time I have done this, nor the largest amount of ethanol, but likely the largest surface area.