Oh Hi! Didn’t See You Come In

Random Thoughts

The tidal forces around a black hole cause spaghettification of infalling matter. Or for child prodigy astrophysicists, “paskettification.”

You can offer a black hole other foods but it’s just going to say “No!!! Spaghetti!!!”

Something to add to the Paragon mythos. (Universal devourer Marvin Crackbaby is related to black holes.)

I wanted to write a further black hole joke with the punchline “linguinification” but I Googled the word and a lot of people have done that already. Too bad. “Linguinification” is a hilarious word. Maybe I could say something about “lasagnification” instead. Make it a Garfield joke. “Garfield Deforms Spacetime: His 36th Book.”

When you think about it, the word “sweater” is kind of gross.

As I continue to read Roger Ebert reviews, I notice that I’m gratified when he agrees with me [for example, that Dream a Little Dream (1989) is confusing] and irritated when he disagrees with me [for example, giving Looper (2012) three-and-a-half stars].

Ice Ice Baby

I probably get most of my water from ice. My default drink is Diet Coke, but I usually add a lot of ice. If I have unlimited access to ice, my preference is to fill the glass to the top with ice before adding the Diet Coke.

Apparently I would have a difficult time in England. They don’t put ice in anything, so when a visitor asks for ice, they have to try super-hard to get even one ice cube, and then they think that’s a lot of ice. If you asked them to fill the glass with ice and then pour the drink, their heads would explode.

Presumably when they transport a human organ, they don’t pack it in ice. They just put in the box in and let it get warm like lager.

Over time the ice in my Diet Coke melts and I drink it along with the Diet Coke. So at least I’m getting some water. I go through about two trays’ worth of ice cubes per day. That’s the healing power of 28 ice cubes! Feel those pounds melting off!

I should drink more water. My cat drinks a lot of water. In addition to having a water dish, he likes to follow me into the bathroom so he can jump on the counter and drink from the tap. I should be more like him. Except I can use a glass.

Post-Modern Doritos Update

I’ll have to be careful. I’ve caught myself trying to avoid the harder items on my Pomodoro list by arranging for easier items to happen first.

I also have to remember my new rule that just starting a hard activity counts as one move. For example, just getting all the materials together to start drawing is enough of an effort, on top of the actual drawing, that I get discouraged and give up before I start. So I’ll make gathering the materials an entire item by itself, then take a break, and then the drawing can be another item.

Maybe I should make “drink a glass of water” an item. It’s easier than some of the things I’ve been avoiding.

Elliott Gould Has Almost Never Had a Good Haircut

The only good haircut he had was in the episode of The Twilight Zone (1985) called “The Misfortune Cookie,” where he played an evil food critic. The sides and back were short, though the top was still a little messy.

Also, I was rewatching American History X (1998) and Gould’s hair in the flashbacks is not too bad. It’s swept away from the forehead so you can see he has a good hairline, no further from his eyes than his eyes are from the bottom of his nose, and with a nice triangular widow’s peak.

The standard for hair has become shorter and shorter over the years so that when I rewatch a thing from a long time ago, where at the time I thought someone’s haircut was super-short, when I watch it now it doesn’t seem that short.

Gould’s haircut in The Twilight Zone is one example. Another is Rob Schneider’s hair in Surf Ninjas (1993). It seemed almost punk at the time (which I guess it was meant to), but if you see it now it just looks average.

Also, there was a time, around the mid-1990s, when a balding man could shave his head and it was a fresh, hip, new look. Now everyone does that by default, so it doesn’t look make anyone look cool. It just makes the guy look like what he is, a middle-aged member of Generation X. Somebody’s dad. It’s still better than leaving the hair big and puffy on the sides and back, or having a combover, though.

Maybe advances in MRNA will cure baldness. When Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) came out, a lot of people wondered if Captain Picard’s baldness meant that 400 years in the future, in spite of technological advances, there was still no remedy for hair loss. The standard answer we got was that it was entirely possible to reverse baldness, but humanity had matured to the point where it didn’t matter.

It would be nice to think that in the Star Trek universe looks don’t matter. But then you get notorious hunks like Captain Kirk or Commander Riker or Captain “The Outrageous” Okona who are irresistible to women of every species. And then by contrast, there are nebbishes like Lieutenant Commander La Forge or Lieutenant Barclay, who can only find love from holograms.

Counter-argument: both LeVar Burton and Dwight Schultz are actually quite good-looking, so it’s not really looks. It’s charisma, or confidence, or social skills, which can be learned. Although their characters don’t.

Furthermore, we’ve seen that cosmetic surgery in the future is so advanced that it can turn humans into Romulans, Klingons into humans, and Cardassians into Bajorans. When Picard was disguised as a Romulan, he had a full head of hair. The Cardassian hairline is halfway back on the head, but when Gul Dukat became a Bajoran, he had a human-like head of hair, possibly the same hair as the actor who played him.

Therefore, if a 24th-century person were determined to be beautiful, they could be. The technology exists. Not to mention all the different fountains of youth they’ve discovered over the years and then forgotten about. That’d definitely be the first thing I’d do. They can claim looks don’t matter in the future but I’d still feel better looking as good as possible.

For that matter, I’m not taking advantage of all the technology that exists right now to improve my looks. But there are obstacles. Lack of money, for example. And to get the surgery for a strong chin and a square jaw, I’d first have to get in shape. They won’t operate on you above a certain BMI.

All my problems overlap each other so I can’t solve anything because first I’d have to solve something else. It’s tempting to give up in despair and hate myself and ask why I was created and want to die.

Just keep plugging away I guess. Making my tiny feeble ineffectual efforts. Doing what little I can do. Getting no observable results. And despite what they say, sometimes change does come from external sources, so waiting and hoping isn’t as pointless as they want you to think. And that’s one to grow on!