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.