We've been living in Ithaca now since August 2000. One thing we didn't recognize before, but that could be a potential problem (with respect to our dietary habits), is the fact that Ben & Jerry's is a 30-second walk from our front door.

I used to hate running the vacuum cleaner when I was a kid. Then I started imagining that the whole process was just one big game of Qix, and then I didn’t mind doing it anymore.

Commerce fills the pocket, but does not necessarily fulfill.

On another note... Have you ever been to a store that’s simply so beautiful and well executed that you wished you had a need for something they sell? The Ithaca Guitar Works is such a store for me. I don’t play guitar, and don’t ever really intend to, but this store is so wonderful that it makes me wish I did.

Been thinking lately…thinking about the fact that thinking is the thing I really like to do most. I could sit around all day and just think about stuff and never be bored. And I’m referring to thinking about things by choice, not problems or situations you have to think about because of work or other responsibilities. It’s really fun to just sit there and ruminate about the workings of the universe. For instance today I figured out why the back of the bus is a rougher ride than the front, even though the whole bus is traveling on the same road and the same bumps (it’s a simple physics thing—and the same theory applies to roller-coasters). I’ll share this revelation at a later date. Or you can just figure it out for yourself.

It really bothers me that I’ll only be able to spend, at most, 10-15% of my life sittin’ around thinking. I think that’s why I’m resentful of any job I’ve held, even it was a great job. (Any past or potential employers reading this can feel free to completely ignore that last sentence.) Thinking for the purposes of commerce just isn’t as fun.

Happy birthday Dante, wherever in existence you are currently residing.

There's almost nothing that's more fun than a broken thermometer. Chasing those lil' drops of mercury around the room is pure joy.

Free.

I will likely be carrying a towel around with me conspicuously on May 25.

This makes me very sad. Douglas Adams both underscored my already-existing mental aberrancies, and inspired the creation of all new ones within me. His writing took me away from this world a carefree way that no other author has ever been able to quite duplicate. I’ve read and re-read his books many times, and in fact am currently in the process of reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for about the eleventh time. It makes me happy to know that I was reading one of his books on the day he died.

Knowing that he was still alive gave me reassurance that there was yet another person out there that understood the insanity of the world, and wasn’t afraid to unapologetically communicate it. By creating analogies to human life through stories of strange events in outer space, Adams pointed out the silliness that underscores many of the world’s major problems. One of my favorite quotations from his entire body of work lies in the first few pages of Hitchhiker’s Guide:

This planet [referring to the Earth] has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

Well, that about sums it up for me. Speaking for myself and the rest of the people out there who are often confused by what goes on in this world, we’ll miss you Douglas.

Kraftwerk rocks like there's no yesterday.

Everybody says they want balance in their lives.

The truth of the matter is, I've been completely consumed by my work at Cornell for the past couple of months...