Assorted Thoughts 50: I Had A Bit Of An Idea Backlog Edition

• I will all too regularly forget to apply sunscreen, which is a problem when doing research on boats in Florida.  When that happens, I just treat my charred skin as a burnt offering to the Sun Gods, hoping to earn their favor in the shape of not getting melanoma.  If that's not how this works, it should be.  Gods love burnt offerings, right?
• The proper number of clips and straps on your dive gear is equal to N + 1, where N is the number currently present.
• Manatees are somewhat cute and beloved by millions. They are also slow, stupid, and regularly hit by boats. I'm sure there's a life lesson there, even if I'm not sure what it is.
• Is an excess of mangroves a call for manscaping?
• When traveling, I carry all my hygiene equipment (shaving supplies, hairbrush, toothbrush, etc.) in a Magic: The Gathering bag I got at a gaming shop.  The irony amuses me.
• There is such a thing as being too grounded in reality.  I don't even get superpowers in my dreams.  I have to pretend that I have superpowers in my dreams.  Kind of sucks.
• I also just had a dream where I was moving back into the dorms at my undergraduate school, only to get really confused halfway through when I remembered I graduated already and should be at a school on the other side of the country.
• Apparently I am on the lazy diet.  We currently don't have any easily-prepared food in the house, so I'd rather skip breakfast and go straight in to the lab than spend a few minutes cooking an egg and not being hungry.
• Florida is helping me answer the age-old question of "How much sweat could a Ben sweat sweat if a sweat sweat sweat sweat sweat?"
• Unfortunately, the answer appears to be "All of it."

Assorted Thoughts 49: Work Work Research Work Eats My Life Edition

• Could you clear-cut a bonsai forest with an ordinary lawnmower?
• Apparently the Marines are now advertising on the iPhone Scrabble application. I'm not convinced they know their audience.
• It's kind of amusing how in some respects grad students are lower on the lab totem pole than undergraduate minions. Our minions get these weird things called "days off" and are, on occasion, paid better than we are.  But then again, we do get to tell them to do stuff that we decide on.
• Technology is amazing.  The internet allows me to ask inane questions of anyone anywhere on the planet!  While I could easily look up what time it is in Japan, it's way more fun to send a message to someone I know who is living there asking what time it is.
• Getting told "You should start a blog!" causes some serious deer-in-headlights reactions from me at this point.
• If you're ever considering a business plan that involves selling ice cream from unmarked vans with ice cream truck music blaring from mounted speakers, stop it.  Saw one of those vans recently and it was the creepiest thing ever.
• If ever there was a machine that should be robust to violations of the directions, it's a coffee maker.
• A hellbender is a kind of salamander.  It is also an awesome name for a metal band.
• I recently started up the dictionary app on my iPhone, and it asked me both to allow it to send me notifications and to allow it to use my current location.  Exactly why does a dictionary need to notify me of anything?  Late-breaking changes to the definitions I use?  And what the hell does it want with my location?  It's a freaking dictionary.
• Hades was really worried when his dog started to have trouble walking, so he took it to the vet and was devastated to receive a diagnosis of Cerberus palsy.