Geeky Guilty Pleasures

Once again, Cosmic Variance provides an amusing dinner-party-conversation idea: What is your geeky guilty pleasure?

Mine is re-reading Harry Potter, for the 19 thousandth time. Seriously, I should be reading something else. There is plenty of literature that I haven't read yet...Macbeth, Dante's Inferno, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol... But somehow or other I always wind up back at Hogwarts.

Salvor Hardin, part 2

Seriously, I love this guy. He's actually addressing the cause, not the symptom.

Fictional Characters

If you could bring one fictional character to life and marry him / her, who would it be? (book, movie, tv show, whatever) And why?

...just curious. :-)

Eating and Reading

I read this article in today's New York Times. It reminded me of one of the many reasons I love New York so much...it's perfectly acceptable to go out to eat by yourself and not be weird. I mean, if there's a professional yodeler down the hall and a woman on the next block who makes a living as a pet psychic, eating out alone won't raise any eyebrows.

And I also love to read as I eat. Though I agree with several of the commenters: eating requires light reading. (Harry Potter, a magazine, emails) My main problem is I have trouble when I'm supposed to stop reading...half a day later my cereal bowl is congealing and I'm still at the table promising myself "I'll stop at the end of this chapter."

Scientific Study

There was this scientific study they did where they determined that (shocking!) men tend to choose a prospective mate based on physical appearance. NPR was talking about it (Scientific American also had a paragraph on it). Apparently they made the subjects fill out a survey on what they were looking for (intelligence, sense of humor, etc) and then made them go through a speed-dating round. Even though the men had said that other traits were more important than being attractive, they all wanted to go out with the prettiest women at the end. One of the NPR people pointed out, "So we get yet another shocking result: MEN LIE."

No, I'm not making that up. I wish I were.