Please help me in my crusade of self-aggrandizement

The subject line of the email read: "Please help me in my crusade to beat breast cancer."

I'm sorry, but does a 10 km power-walk really qualify as a crusade? Or do they provide infidels for you to kill at each watering point? Why can't these people at least be honest? They're not going on that stupid bike/run/walk to beat cancer. They're doing it because they're lazy. Just like that supermodel who wouldn't get out of bed for less than $10,000, they can't get off their couch and away from the cheesy puffs for anything less than a cure for cancer.

One of my former acquaintances invited a few people over for wine and a movie. Then that huge tidal wave hit. Right away, she sent out an email saying she would be collecting $10 from each of us at her door, which she would then donate to a charity of her choice. As she wrote about the devastation (like she was the only one who had CNN), I could almost see the tear-drop stains on the email. But she wasn't crying over the plight of water-logged orphans; she was crying at her own nobility.

But guilting money from your friends and then donating it in your own name does not make you a Florence Nightingale.

I don't know. I remember at my old job, they had a jeans day, where you were allowed to wear jeans if you donated $5 to some breast cancer fund. (The company chose the cause and the fund. They probably got a tax write-off, too.) You also got a little pink pin to wear...because just like that ancient zen proverb, if no one knows you gave money to a worthy cause, then what was the point of giving?

So, everyone in the entire company shows up in jeans with their little pink pin, except me. My coworkers all looked at me as if I were pro-cancer. They never seemed to consider that maybe I was just anti-pin.

Zero

I'm almost finished reading Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. I'll have to read it again and underline pertinent passages, because when I tried to explain zero and infinity the other night, I got myself into a terrible mess.

But, here's a bit of what I remember: Aristotle and Pythagoras were scared of zero (aka the void) and of infinity, so they refused to believe in them. To them, all numbers represented geometric shapes, so how could you have a number that had no shape? Aristotle said it was ridiculous. When Aristotle's star pupil, Alexander the Great, took over most of the world, he spread Aristotle's beliefs (which became the basis of Christianity...that's why our calendar jumps from 1 BC to 1 AD -- the monk who had to develop the calendar did not know about the number zero).

The Babylonians were the first to use zero, but only as a placeholder. (They never went into the negatives.) This sped up their calculations so much that the Greeks, who were banned from having their own zero, started using Babylonian numbers (which were base 60, incidentally, which is why we tell time using base 60) for their calculations. But then they had to convert the results back into Greek.

(In Japan, I learned that babies there are born at age one. This must stem from when they didn't believe in zero, either.)

The Indians had no problem with the concepts of void and infinity, and gladly took the Babylonians' zero and started doing algebra. They never liked geometry, so they didn't get mired in the question of how a number could exist that had no shape. The Arabs adopted Indian numbers (thus we call them Arabic numerals) and their love of the void and infinity. Islam was originally a religion that embraced the void, while Christianity hated it.

There, that's enough for now.

I hate squirrels

There's a song called I Hate Mondays. If you switched out Mondays for squirrels, it would sum up my feelings exactly.

I looked out my window this morning and saw a squirrel on my porch. Cute, I thought. Wildlife. A few minutes later, the squirrel was still there, staring at me. I waved my arms at it in standard anti-wildlife manner. Nothing. Then I remembered I had a cat. So, I lifted Charlie up like a furry, squirming gun -- she just purred. (I have yet to see my cat poof up in anger, which is really the main attraction of owning a cat. The adoption ladies assured me she grew up ferile, but I'm beginning to think Kevin Federline has more street cred.)

After wasting a bit more time, I looked out the window for a third time -- no squirrel. Thinking myself rather silly, I opened the door. The blasted thing was right there, paws up, waiting for me. Luckily, my scream seemed to unnerve it, and it backed away around the corner.

Now, I can leave my apartment by either the back outside staircase, or the front. During spider season, I abandon the back staircase, as it belongs only to me, so I'd be the only one walking into the webs. The squirrel had gone towards the front. I peeked around the corner -- it was a few feet away, and it started coming at me.

That's when I discovered I hate squirrels more than spiders. I ran down the back staircase. When I got to the bottom, I brushed the webs from my face and looked up -- the thing was sitting there looking down at me, like a cliff-top Hezbollah fighter.

Yech.

I much prefer chipmunks, but when's the last time anyone saw a chipmunk?

Wine-tasting in Solvang

After wine-tasting all day, we ended up at The Touch Bar and Restaurant in Solvang. It was worse than the worst townie bar in DeKalb, Illinois. One guy with grey skin and glasses that made his eyes look huge stared at my blonde friend as she stumbled first through the door. "You're the best looking thing I've seen in a long time."

"Dude, I'm gonna barf on you."

He then came outside to chat with my other friend and me. She asked him what he did.

"I'm a floor manager at an Indian gaming casino."

"Which one?"

"Chumash. Right outside town."

"How many Indians work at the casino?" I asked.

He smirked. "None. We'd never hire an Indian. They're too stupid."

"So no Indians actually work at your casino?"

"Not a single one."

"How many Indians sit on the board?"

He stopped preening and stared at me. After a rather long silence, he said, "I don't want to talk to you anymore."

"I'm just curious. I've never been to a casino. I had heard all the owners are 1/8th Indian."

"1/4th." Then he shut his mouth so tightly his already thin lips disappeared entirely. After another long stare, he said, "You're bad. I don't like you."

A few minutes later, he was calling my blonde friend a foul name and she was getting ready to throw some chow mein at him. I came up behind them and said, "Do you know about Adam Smith?"

He stopped and looked at me. "Who the hell is Adam Smith?"

"He wrote the Wealth of Nations. Let me start with Chapter One and its two major themes: the division of labour and the love of bartering."

We left soon afterwards. It's kind of cool to know that although Adam Smith does kill a conversation, sometimes he comes in handy.