Fish had fingers and toes 385 million years ago. Please note that the fish-fingers were not proof of early evolution, but rather they were a gift from God so that fish could get an early start on writing the Bible. There is no proof of these bibles existing today only because fish live underwater and had a hell of a time making paper.

The part where I cracked up was when I got to the picture of Richard "Bongwater" Feynman. Especially since I'm nerdy enough to have read several of Feynman's books so I know that he actually did smoke a lot of dope. But not quite that much.

I was talking to a coworker and I actually felt my fingers twitch when I tried to describe something. My knees flexed and I was about to launch myself towards the whiteboard in my office, a whiteboard which does not even exist. I must truly be a programmer. Either that or a terrible communicator. Note to self: get a whiteboard.

In other news, I accidentally fell in love with Sarah Slean.

Things that DID NOT have prequels/sequels as far as I'm concerned

Men in Black
Star Wars IV, V & VI
Chinatown
Legally Blonde
Arthur
The Hustler
The Matrix
The Mask
Alien & Aliens
Die Hard I & II
Highlander
Elizabeth
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Never-Ending Story
Star Trek II, IV, VI, Insurrection
Any Disney Animated Movie Ever
Jaws
The Flintstones Movie
Scream
The Godfather

Things that did have sequels, by gum

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Clerks
Harry Potter(s)
Desperado
Firefly
Futurama
Indiana Jones(s)

Wow, that is both really nerdy and kind of cool. And really nerdy.

In other news, I am an essay-writing machine. And I write essays on a machine, as well. An essay-writing machine-using machine. And in a way my body is also a machine, a machine that is made out of meat. I am an essay-writing machine-using meat machine-machine.

If you want to know anything about Kant's views on torture, five-lined skinks, the works of Ulrich Beck, genetically modified foods, or Daniel Dennett's views on consciousness*, well, just go ahead and ask me. C'mon, ask! Ask! Ask!

* my prof says that he has the best beard in modern philosophy. I concur.

I had an assignment due this morning, and when I went to print it out yesterday night I discovered that oh no! We were out of paper! A mad basement hunt ensued. Boxes were torn open, the recycling bin was pilfered for pages with nothing on their backs, and stationery supplies were thrown about in panic. Then, suddenly, a container caught my eye. What's this? Paper?

Oh, wait. It's stinky ol' A4. Yuck.

(I have no idea where it came from. I never used to touch the stuff, myself). Well, good enough. I printed out my paper and grumbled about the weirdness of it all. It just felt odd in my hands. It was all... long. And ... narrow.

Yeah, my life is tough.

Then I did some reading about A4 because, after all, I can't just use the damned paper. No, I have to understand its in-depth life history, relatives, motivations, and where it was on August 12 1954 at 10:00am. This behaviour, by the way, is basically the primary definition of a nerd. Which I clearly am.

Well. I did my reading. And now? I am an A4 fan. I'm all about the A4. It still feels weird and strange, but I'm just going to get over that because, from a design standpoint, A4 is FAR SUPERIOR to 8.5"x11" paper. It's all about the mathematics, folks. A4 is not based on the length of the King's foot ... no, A4 is based on ratios. Which are COOL.

The ratio in question is a very pretty ratio. It's √2. So for every single kind of A paper, the length divided by the width is the same. It means, in non mathy terms, that you can fit two A4s perfectly on one piece of A3 (2*1:√2 = √2:2), for example. No squishing, no lost margins or things cut off. It's so... exact. And METRIC!

The US is the reason why we're using the imperial Queen's-big-toe paper standard in Canada. Turns out that every other country in the world uses A4, and it is actually its own ISO standard. I love standards. I love international standards even better. The US is slowly starting to adopt A4 in some situations, finally, so there is hope for us here in Canada to adopt A4 at some point in the next millennium too.

So from now on I'm going to use A4 paper. All my assignments will fit awkwardly in my TAs binders and I will stand out! As weird! Or possibly British. Which is... er... good?

But at least I will be hardware-standards-compliant, kind of like using Firefox in the meat world -- a pain in the butt full of smug moral superiority and annoying layout issues. But that's the price you pay, isn't it? So I'll spearhead the movement: Spread A4! It's mathematical! And math is cool!