How to end

Butte, Montana

John Johnson was born a hefty 9 pounds and 4 ounces in Merryweather Hostpital near Butte Montanna.  Hi father was a copper-minor, and John desired to be a minor too.  His mother was a homemaker and worried for the day where John would be old enough to mine.  However when John reached age 13 his father fell ill from unknown toxins and died a month later.   The death convinced John that his mother was right to worry, and John’s grade’s immediately began to improve, especially in Mathematics.  John graduated highschool with a 3.8 gradepoint average and set off to the Nixon bussiness academy in Wyoming.  He zipped through the program and secured a job as an accountant for a lumber company after only three years.

John moved to a cute town in the suburbs in what was considered a large house for the 1950s.  It was the perfect neighborhood except for a possible serial killer who had left a group of five bodies in the woods nearby.  Despite how well things were going in the material sense, he suffered socially.  He had few opportunities to make friends because his co-workers were all lumberjacks and he couldn’t relate to them.  Naturally, John grew lonely (although he refused to reach out to his mother who was even more lonely).  Instead he became an alcoholic while maintaining his career as an accountant.  One evening (among many) John found himself driving his car while the world spun (aided by alcohol).  Instead of parking in his garage he parked in a stranger’s garage (the garage looked similar).  When the neighbor heard noises in the floor below he got out his shotgun and crept downstairs suspecting the serial killer from the papers might be in the house.  When the neighbor saw John get out of his car he fired.  John was hit by 10 shot-gun pellets in the gut and died in the hospital one day later from internal bleeding.

It was later revealed that the papers were in error, and there was no serial killer.  The bodies belonged to a suicide club.  The suicide letters were recently found in a single large envelope stamped “returned to the sender” due to a non-existent zip code.

Reflexes

Every time I see my neighbor I say “Hi.  How’s it going?”  Then he says “Same old same old.  Going to pick up the kids as always.” he says.  Then we talk about how kids are getting older.  I don’t actually listen to what he says because I know the content.  I doubt he listens to my replies either.  Can I be replaced with a spinal chord?

Trimming Hedges

I ran from home at age 12 and never looked back.  I can’t remember my parents.  My last job was trimming hedges for the city.  I was assigned the task of trimming the ivy near the Allen St. entrance to the 210.  It was 95 degrees out yesterday, so I just quite.  No f**n way am I trimming hedges under that sun.

Although I didn’t formally quit.  I just failed to show up to work.  Regardless, I still get checks in the mail.

Crazy Person #5

One way to make money is by selling the scrap metal from shopping cars.  However transporting multiple shopping carts is very difficult.  You will surely be caught by the grocery store manager if you are walking away with a giant train of them at midnight.  However if I take one at a time they don’t seem to bother me.  I’ve done this daily, and stock piling them on the shoulder of the CA-101.

Over the course of a week I had stockpiled about 10.  Yesterday I went to the grocery store and got another.  When I got to CA-101 I found that they were all gone.

Mother’s Day

poster for "Blown Away" (1994) starring Tommy Lee Jones

1996

I was 11 years old I my mom was a fan of Tommy Lee Jones.  A new movie had come out on VHS where Mr. Jones played an insane criminal mastermind, known for his skill at constructing rube–goldbergian explosive devices.  The movie was called “Blown Away”.

Every friday my little brother, my mom, and I would rent a movie from Midtown Video on Middlefield Road in Palo Alto, and this time she chose “Blown Away.”  We got home while it was still light out, made some popcorn, and started the VCR.  Oddly there were no movie trailers at the beginning nor an FBI warning.  The movie just started.  The first scene was a panning shot on a rural roadway of a man on a motorcycle with the title blasted onto the screen accompanied by an ostentatious electric riff.  The motorcycle stops at a horse stable and we cut to a mid-range shot of the man getting off of his bike. A lady wearing really tight riding clothing gets off her horse to greet him.

“Who you lookin for?” says the girl.

“Claudia.”

“I think Claudia is up behind those mountains.  Come on, I’ll take you to her.”

“Great.” says the man.

As they started walking, a low-budget dissolve transition begins.  They arrive at a house with a good view of the green valley below and enter.  The man follows the girl into a dimly lit bedroom.

“She’s not here.  What should we do while we wait?”

“I don’t know,” says the man.

“I know,” says the lady.  They start kissing and the man immediately rips off her shirt.  The cheesy guitar music starts up again.

…

After about 30 seconds of this my mom turned off the VCR.

“I don’t think this movie looks very good.  I think I’ll return it and we’ll rent a better one tomorrow.”

My brother and I agreed.  This movie seemed weird and boring.

2004

I was now a naive freshmen at NYU.  I was setting up my computer in the dormitory when it hit me. `I watched pornography with my mom.’  One of the Midtown Video employees must have switched the original VHS (starring Tommy Lee Jones) with a porno of the same title.

I returned to the task at hand, of installing Microsoft Office.

Crazy Person #3

The temperature under the sun in Pasadena is 95 degrees, and you can see oscillations in the refractive index of the air rising from the concrete and asphalt.  In front of the entrance to 210 a homeless man sat with a cardboard sign.

your day will come.

Perhaps true, but I can see why this person is homeless.

Convection Cells

from "Hexagonal convection patterns in atomistically simulated fluids", PRL 2006

At the nearest Starbucks they make the coffee way too hot.  One way to verify this is to burn yourself with it.  A second way is to drop some cream or soy in and see the convection cells form.  From the standpoint of physics this is very counter-intuitive, since temperature is usually associated with increases in entropy.  High temperature means molecules are colliding in more or less random ways, with no clear discernible trends.  However a hexagonal patter of Raleigh-Benard convection cells forms.   We see an equilibrium with some order.

Had I been a caveman I would have thought the same about the world.  A world full of people who speak no particular language randomly colliding into each other.  Only chaos could result.  Two people meet, fight, have a baby.  I have no idea how this makes the world simpler.  However today we have nations and countries and banks.

Condom Riddle

(the following is adapted from a Martin Gardner book)

It’s the 80s.  Nobody knows who has the HIV.  Three guys (Jerry, Larry, and Moe) hire one prostitute.  They each want to take turns.  They draw straws to decide the order which turns out to be Jerry first, Larry second, and Moe third.  unfortunately they only have two condoms, and no money to buy a third.

Shit!  If one of you guys, including her has the HIV.  Then I’ll get exposed no matter what!

says Moe.

The prostitute chimes in,

That’s not true.  I have an idea so you each will get turns without anybody exposing themselves to the same surface of rubber.

What is the prostitute’s idea? 

The Wind

At age 5 Marty Tannenbaum loved walks in the park where he could think.  He didn’t play much with other kids.  He graduated elementary, and middle school with perfect grades.  12 year later he graduated high school as the valedictorian.  He attended Harvard for Biology and Economics, and University of Chicago for a PHD in mathematics.  He was then hired by a financial form in New York to work on high frequency trading.  He did not understand why he was sad.  He had not heard the wind in 20 years.

Crazy Person #2

I was driving to the grocery store at 11pm.  Nobody else was out, because everything (except Vons) closes in Pasadena by 8pm.  On the way I was stopped at Lake and California St.  Lit by the yellow light of the street lamp I saw a homeless man sitting on the corner, cross legged.  This did not seem unusual, so I focused on the light turning green.

The light turned green, and I made a right turn around the corner where the homeless man sat.  As I passed I caught another glimpse of him.  A pulse of adrenaline and fear shot down my spine before I realized the cause.

He was smiling.