Irrelevant Cheetah

My brain is like an internal combustion engine.

More specifically, it’s like an older model internal combustion engine with a carburetor and a manual choke.

Those of you who have never had the experience of using a manual choke, allow me to describe it. When the engine is cold (e.g. first thing in the morning) you pull out a knob on the dashboard that closes the choke and allows a richer fuel mixture to help the engine start. You step on the gas once, and then crank the engine until it starts.

As the engine warms up, you gradually (over the course of several minutes) push the choke control back in, until it’s once again pushed all the way in and the engine is at normal operating temperature. The catch, of course, is that if you push the choke in too slowly, or too fast, or if you step on the gas too much, the engine will sputter, choke and possibly die.

Now, I’m not lecturing about the usage of a manual choke. Rather, I’m comparing it to my brain and running a metaphor into the ground. When I started this quarter, my brain was cold, and I stomped the accelerator and pulled out the choke. Result: coughing, sputtering and almost total engine failure. However, it seems that my brain has smoothed out, and I can now push the choke all the way back in. Grades are up, and I’m no longer flailing around. Perfect timing, too: Finals are in a few weeks.

I have also started writing a short story on my Blackberry. If that doesn’t make me a total writer geek, I don’t know what does.

Somehow, in the chaotic whirlwind of homework, midterms and newspaper articles, I managed to remember that the 16th is when they let me post at that other blog.

However, remembering to post is one thing. Coming up with a post is an entirely different animal. So I did the blogger’s fallback/cheat and posted one of my old favorites from the Cheetah. You really ought to head over and check it out; it’s an enlightening bit about evolution, sex and managing - yet again - to make my wife wonder what the hell she was thinking when she married me.

In other words, good stuff.

<gloat>

I have tickets tonight (free – there are some perks to being a student) to go see Brian Greene lecture in downtown Portland.

If you are a normal, functioning member of society, that name probably means nothing to you. The more geeky among you, however (and I can think of at least two of you) know that this is the nerdly equivalent of scoring Lakers tickets. Unless you don’t hold with String Theory because it’s not really a theory, since it can never be proven, yada yada yada…

Regardless! I’m going to his lecture, and you’re not! Ha! Neener neener neener!

Okay – the rest of you, I’ll fill you in. Brian Greene is a leading proponent of String Theory – a theory of sub, sub, subatomic physics that holds that all of matter and energy is composed of tiny, vibrating, one-dimensional “strings.” These strings vibrate in up to ten other dimensions too small for us to see. He wrote a bestselling book, The Elegant Universe, which PBS then turned into a three-episode series on Nova. It’s not quite as awesome as seeing Stephen Hawking would be, but it’s pretty close.

Okay, back to your (infinitely more exciting) lives.

</gloat>

I wanted to take a moment and quell a nasty rumor that has been floating around the blogosphere.

Well, not really. But it should be.

Allow me to stress the fact that Irrelevant Cheetah is not – I repeat, not – going off the air.

Rather, you may have guessed that school is, quite frankly, kicking my ass. Apparently diving in with both feet after letting the mental gears go rusty is a good way to pick up an aneurysm. Not to mention hours upon hours of homework.

And for those of you that still take the time to visit, read and comment even though I haven’t reciprocated lately: you guys rock. You know who you are: Montucky, Pinhole, Chris, and you others. I do try to stop by, but you guys just need to quit posting so much. Some of us have busy schedules, you know? Slow down!

Hopefully it won’t be long before I’m back to a more normal posting schedule. Also, it’s not often that I can use the words “I’m” and “more normal” in the same sentence. I’ve gotta cut and paste that.