I love this joke... it literally made me laugh out loud. :)
DEA officer stops at a ranch in Texas, and talks with an old rancher. He tells the rancher, "I need to inspect your ranch for illegally grown drugs." The rancher says, "Okay, but do not go in that field over there," as he points out the location.
The DEA officer verbally explodes saying, "Mister, I have the authority of the Federal Government with me." Reaching into his rear pants pocket, he removes his badge and proudly displays it to the rancher. "See this badge? This badge means I am allowed to go wherever I wish.... on ANY land. No questions asked or answers given. Have I made myself clear? Do you understand?"
The rancher nods politely, apologizes, and goes about his chores.
A short time later, the old rancher hears loud screams and sees the DEA officer running for his life chased by the rancher's big Santa Gertrudis bull. With every step the bull is gaining ground on the officer, and it seems likely that he'll get gored before he reaches safety. The officer is clearly terrified. The rancher throws down his tools, runs to the fence and yells at the top of his lungs... "Your badge... show him your BADGE!"
The other day my friend Ray posted a video on his Facebook page of Carl Sagan explaining the fourth dimension. You should watch it before reading the rest of this post (only 7 minutes):
I LOVE Sagan's analogy because it makes it so easy to understand the idea of why we have trouble seeing/experiencing other dimensions. (And listening to him talk just cracks me up.) The video started all kinds of quantum wanderings in my head. I intended to blog about my mental musings, but Mark gave me the perfect opportunity to post them first on Facebook by making his status read: [Insert Profound Thought Here]. I obliged with what was forming in my head, and accordingly he replied with his own thoughts and questions.
The odd part is that after I submitted my second long post in response to his counterpoints, Facebook lost the entire thread. It wouldn't let me post any more comments and even the ones that appeared previously are not viewable. I had no trouble viewing or posting on anyone else's page, but this particular conversation was OVER. I dunno if I blew Facebook's brain or the aliens were like, "Oh no you didn't!" but the entire discussion is gone.
However... smart pirates have backups. :) Yarrrr. Internet gremlins be damned! Since I was going to blog about it anyway, I was saving the convo elsewhere, so the following is the discussion we were having...
Him: Status: [INSERT PROFOUND THOUGHT]
Me: Ok... if Carl Sagan can hold up a clear plastic cube and create a shadow of it on paper thus illustrating how 3D becomes 2D; then he shows us a clear plastic 3D representation of a tesseract and says that's like a shadow of 4D becoming 3D; and if the 3rd dimension is defined as the directions of back/forth, up/down, side/side, and the fourth dimension is measured as adding the element of time to the 3D directions, then considering all that should the element added to 3D to create 4D actually NOT be time, but "within/without" instead (I mean look at how the "shadow" of a tesseract looks - one cube within another), and if so, how do we measure "within/without?" By an emotional scale? Is that profound enough for you?
Him: I don't believe time was considered one of the dimensions in a tesseract, however. It's four spatial dimensions that it represents. The questions is, if there are more than three spatial dimensions, how many objects that are four dimensional (+) intersect our three dimensions and defy explanation by their behavior because we are unaware of the activities taking place in the other spatial dimension for them?
Me: That's what I'm saying - time SHOULDNT be considered in measuring or describing a tesseract (because what is describing something in our world besides measuring it?). Time is always considered in measuring distance (distance = the time it takes to get from A to B, yes?) and MATHEMATIC tesseracts involve measurements of distance through the spatial relationships of one cube to another. If the distances of the vertices are not all equal then it's not a tesseract but some other poly-shape, right? So time is involved in some way through the measurement of distance when describing that particular form mathematically. But since (as Ray said) time is only a human thing then it only exists in the dimension WE live in - the 3rd dimension, yes? Generally, we cannot extract ourselves from the use of time/distance as a measurement of our world. Just like a 2D creature could not imagine up/down as a direction in their world. So in order to properly describe a form that lives in a dimension outside of our own, should we not remove time as a means of measurement? (Oh yes, I want to delete math from the equation - what a surprise. haha) Perhaps things in the fourth dimension are measured on some kind of emotional relation scale and what WE see as a tesseract here in this dimension is only a 3D representation of it just like a drawing of a cube is a 2D representation of the real cube in 3D. The trouble for us is comprehending how to measure or describe a form without a scale we're familiar with. Even when we say "on an emotional scale, how do you feel?" we tend towards numbers (like 1 being I feel icky and 10 being I feel great) because distance and numbers and time is what we use to measure and describe the 3rd dimension. I think this is why yogis can do what we would consider "magic" - their relational thinking involves different kinds of spacial relationships - they do not bind themselves to the means of measurement of the 3rd dimension like most of the rest of us do. It's all in how you THINK about it. Your perspective. Hence, my idea of measuring with emotions, not math. Geez, I'm not even sure I understand all that now. haha
You know what's really sad is that spell check on FB can't recognize the words "mathematics" or "tesseract." (Or "vertices" for that matter.) You'd think this site was built by 20-somethings... oh wait...
Him: I forgot how integrally time figures into distance equations... yeah. Without the time it takes to get "there," "here" and "there" have no meaning since you are everywhere all at once.
Me: And to answer your second question about how many objects intersect our three dimensions and defy explanation by their behavior... I'd guess somewhere just under 7 billion and counting. :)
1. You are no longer faking your inability to open a jar just to win points by making The Man feel all manly.
2. The Man actually IS a man, not just a Guy.
3. You feel like a pedophile when you receive Abercrombie's email ads with the hairless, naked boy-chest plastered across your screen. You also wonder if it's wrong to still like/wear their clothes.
4. You go to a concert and wish the kids around you would shut up and listen already.
5. You think of other concert-goers as "kids."
6. You cheat on the eye exam at DMV by casually walking up to the eye chart while waiting for your number to be called and memorizing the letters. (And think how lucky you are that you can remember that many letters!)
7. Retail clerks call you "M'am" instead of "Miss" to get your attention. You, of course, ignore them unless they walk over and get in your face because there is NO WAY "M'am" could be referring to you.
8. No one cards you anymore for anything, even if the sign says they card everyone under 80.
9. You receive a blank stare from the Starbucks barista when you make a joke about the Reagan Administration.
10. You no longer leave your clothes in piles on the floor - one for clean and one for dirty... oh wait...
(Yes, I wrote those. And no, leaving piles of clothes on the floor is not me. That would be the bf.)
My Jeep has always had personalized license plates. I think they make it feel special and cared for compared to cars with only a standard issue tag, and they give it bragging rights in the parking lots. (Yes, my imagination runneth over.)
In New Jersey my license plate said LEEZARD because that's what I call my trusty vehicle. (There's that whole iguana & gecko thing I have going on too.) I mean the Jeep IS green and if I ever got brave enough to take it off road, I'm sure it would love crawling up on rocks to sun itself. (I'm not scared to go off road, I'm scared to rip the transmission from the axles and be sans transportation!)
I had several possible plate combinations picked out months before I left for California. When the time came to register it, none of them felt right. I ended up going with FZY LOGC because it means a couple things to me: 1) The chinnies needed their turn to be represented on the license plate and fuzzy logic could imply chinnie logic since they're so fuzzy and all; 2) I love physics and even tho fuzzy logic is technically a math concept, it's used in physics; 3) I love irony and I thought it more than a little ironic that I would pick something math-related since I am so allergic to math.
Unfortunately the FZY LOGC plate has not thrilled me. It still doesn't feel right and being in the Home State of Silicon Valley, I've already had a couple enginerds ask me about it as if I actually UNDERSTOOD what fuzzy logic is... then I've had to hang my head and admit that I suck at math. They always look so disappointed.
I started thinking something along the lines of gratitude might be a better fit, especially since I have the Cafe Gratitude sticker on the back to ask anyone checking out my rear, "What are you grateful for?"
I went to the DMV's web site where they conveniently have a program to type in your license plate to see if it's available. These are the things I typed in:
Apparently California is the most grateful state EVAR. Not one of those combinations was available. Of course, we are also the most populated state I think, so if I cared a whit about math, statistics (or perhaps fuzzy logic) would probably have saved me the wasted time and explained why I most likely wouldn't get the plate I want.
To be fair, TH4NKFL and GR4TEFL were available but considering the font Cali uses I'm just not convinced I'd get the message across. Still thinking about it. Maybe I should just go with LEEZARD again. (ACK!!! Except I just checked that and someone has my plate now! Should've grabbed it when it was available. :( )
(Incidentally, URAWSUM and IMAWSUM are both taken. How AWSUM would it be to see both of those at a stoplight together? LOL)
A few months ago I went on a mission to replace some seriously aging bras. I must've spent at least $200 on enough plain, daily-wear, no-lace-involved unmentionables to last a little more than a week without having to do laundry.
Victoria's Secret has been a good brand in the past. I have some items that have been in service for over five years. Altho I rarely buy anything that's not on sale there, it is generally expensive enough - even with a discount - to make one expect a higher quality than something you would get at say... Walmart. If the adage "you get what you pay for" is true, then I purchased lingerie that should last AT LEAST a year or two, hopefully much more since I am not particularly hard on my clothes.
Here's the big but(t) in this story...
These only-a-couple-months-old bras are actually made with an element of evil. I'm convinced somewhere along the factory line, my unassuming underwear were sent into a dark cavernous space, where they were shown a film instructing them how to unravel and tangle, stretch and deteriorate, and generally collaborate with the machine to wreak havoc on the psyche of the owner. Much like certain members of the GOP.
Every one of my "new" garments have had the underwires at least poke through the lining, if not entirely remove themselves from their sewn compartments during cleaning. In addition, the straps wrap themselves around each other in such a decadent fabric grind they could make the Playboy channel blush. They emerge from the washer wound up so tight even a sailor would be left scratching his head over the knots. Of course this watery dance stretches said straps to their limits, effectively making me shorten them more each time I wear them lest they fall all over my shoulders in their exhaustion. Further, ANY other type of material that may be in the gentle cycle with them causes the fabric to pill and the elastic to unravel at the edges, making them look more like Goodwill material than anything from an "upscale" establishment.
This is not a matter of overuse and too-frequent cleaning due to lack of volume. I'll bet I could actually go three weeks without doing laundry and still be wearing fresh booby gear every day, altho in that case they would not always match my outfit, which is one of my charming idiosyncrasies. My point is, these newcomers are not the only bras I have, nor are they the only ones I wear, so on average I'd say each one gets to surf the suds maybe once every two weeks. They enjoy a very posh life for lingerie - I'll bet the JC Penney bras would kill to be in their drawers.
If you Google "Victoria's Secret complaints" you will find I am not the only unsatisfied customer with these issues. The company's response has been that every bra's tag says "Hand Wash Only" and women do not heed this warning, so the company is resolving themselves of all responsibility. Please. This is the biggest political cop out I've ever heard. First of all, I've been buying VS products for years and never have I hand-washed any of them. The ones I have from five years ago still look new. The new ones look five years old already. Only in the last six months have I had an issue with them falling apart and tangling up, which tells me they probably changed their manufacturer to an under-18 sweatshop in a third world country. Secondly, we do not live in 1950. What modern woman with access to a washing machine actually chooses to dunk her drawers in the sink? If you are doing this, you have too much time on your hands and I will gladly provide you with a kitchen to clean right after you bake me an apple pie. You think those pouty peddling Brazilian brats have dishpan hands from cleaning the lacy scraps of cloth they model? Give me a freakin' break.
I've considered gathering up the offensive garments and taking them back from whence they came; my receipt is dated June 9. I haven't decided yet whether it's worth dealing with a snooty, black-clad 20-something trailing Dream Angels vapor that thinks she has authority along with that key to the register.
Caveat Emptor I suppose. Vicky's new secret is that she ain't what she used to be.
~*~
In other news... it occurred to me that when you are little they tell you if you are lost to stop running around and stay in one place until someone finds you. That does not work the same way with a job hunt.
