Foucault's Pendulum

The plot of Foucault's Pendulum revolves around three friends, as relevant to the rule of three, named Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon, who work for a vanity publisher in Milan. After reading one too many manuscripts about occult conspiracy theories, they decide they can do better, and set out to invent their own conspiracy for fun. They call this satirical intellectual game "The Plan". As Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon become increasingly obsessed with The Plan, they sometimes forget that it's just a game. Worse still, when adherents of other conspiracy theories learn about The Plan, they take it seriously. Belbo finds himself the target of a very real secret society that believes he possesses the key to the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. It's a tough read with numerous plots twists and endless references to societies that I must separately research. Oh, and then there's the translating from Italian.

The Potential Well

Zero-point energy is fundamentally related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Roughly speaking, the uncertainty principle states that complementary variables (such as a particle's position and momentum, or a field's value and derivative at a point in space) cannot simultaneously be defined precisely by any given quantum state. In particular, there cannot be a state in which the system sits motionless at the bottom of its potential well, for then its position and momentum would both be completely determined to arbitrarily great precision. Therefore, the lowest-energy state (the ground state) of the system must have a distribution in position and momentum that satisfies the uncertainty principle, which implies its energy must be greater than the minimum of the potential well.

Is The Caller There?

As a young boy, I always thought that Wilbur, the man from the hit T.V. Show Mr. Ed, had it made. I loved that his place had a stable (where Ed lived) that had a phone and a desk and fridge... I always thought that was so cool. I used to think that if I were Wibur, I would just move my bed out there too and my clothes and everything and just let Carol (his wife) live in the house. Carol (and my mom for that matter) only seemed to make Wilbur (and my dad) nervous and upset, whereas Mr. Ed was obviously a guy and I thought guyfriends were better than women friends. We have a lot of fun and it's just a lot of fun. Say good night Ed.

Tee Polyphosphate Ef

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning, blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline. The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite. Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs. Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic, slam, but neck, right? Right.

Living Hell!

Here is a picture of the man who has made my life a living Hell, here at the Chocolate Factory. Little Charlie is all grown up now and runs the place like some kind of concentration camp. Oh, how I miss Willy Wonka. Why, sometimes, I get so down-hearten I just want to climb into the taffy puller and turn the machine on. Really what I'd like to do is shave that bastard's smug mustache off and sprinkle it in the candy. That would shut this place down real quick. Oh, I'm going to Hell. In a handbag y'all.

It Ain't Over

Meanwhile, back at the chocolate factory, the oppression persists. As the only "straight" Oompa-Loompa in the joint, I am often the "whipping Boy" to Charlie's manic rage against the state of the economy and his business affairs. It's an extremely difficult life here in what looked, at least on paper, to be a veritable cake-walk of a job and a wonderful opportunity to advance myself in life. Now... well, there are times so dark I just feel like diving into that river of chocolate and sinking away to that eternal obscurity.