原创 Is this a banana in my pocket, or am I just happy to see you? (Part 2)

[Continued from Is this a banana in my pocket, or am I just happy to see you? (Part 1)]

I tell you ... we could be here for hours talking about the stuff I found on the Geeky-Gadgets.com website, but I shall restrain myself to just one more little tidbit. As you must know by now, I am a huge fan of Doctor Who, so you can only imagine my surprise and delight to discover The TARDIS Mini Set.

As it says on the BigBadToystore.com website: "Build your very own TARDIS and re-create adventures in time and space with the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond! The TARDIS, or Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, is the Doctor's vehicle and home that can take him to any place and any time. Remember, it's bigger on the inside than the outside! Includes constructible TARDIS and fully articulated Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond micro-figures."

I know it's silly, but this would look very cool in my office, and the figures are "fully articulated" after all, so I could amuse myself for hours posing them in different ways (maybe I could integrate this into my Caveman Diorama project in some way). The problem with me is that everything I see triggers a "chain reaction" of thoughts and ideas. For example, thinking about Doctor Who made me think about "Time and Space", which made me think of a really great book called The Big Questions – Physics by Michael Brooks.

This is basically a collection of 3000-word essays, each of which "Simply and concisely examines a question that has eternally perplexed enquiring minds," as it says on Amazon. I only began to read this a couple of days ago and I must say that, thus far, I've been very impressed with the way in which really complex topics are presented such that I can understand what's going on and not be left with a "Huh?" expression on my face.

Actually, to be scrupulously fair to Barnes and Noble, I purchased my copy of this tome from the "Bargain Books" section in their local store a week or so ago for just a few dollars. I was reading one of the chapters earlier this morning. This contained one of the best descriptions of Schrödinger's Cat that I've ever seen. I was familiar with the underlying concept, of course, but Michael's explanation really made me better-understand the concept of a cat being in a superimposed state (I hate it when that happens to me).

And, of course, talking about cats made me think of the "Juggling Cats" sequence from the film The Jerk. It has to be said that one-handed cat juggling is not as easy as it looks (my apologies to our cats Rocket and Skitty – I'm sure they will soon recover from the experience).

Of course you can't ruminate on Schrödinger's Cat without pondering the philosophical implications of this conundrum, which (a) reminded me of my recent column, (c) led me to ponder the old philosophical thought experiment "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality, and (b) allowed me to say "Yes, I know that points (b) and (c) are out of sequence!" (Ha! Caught you Mr. Brian LaGrave [Brian is a friend who peruses everything he reads with a fine-tooth-comb and never fails to email me whenever I slip up]).

In turn, this reminded me of a variation of the "If a tree falls..." thought experiment as follows: "If a man says something in the middle of a forest and there is no woman there to hear him, is he still wrong?" (The answer, in my experience, is "Yes!")

Returning to bananas, you might be expecting me to raise the perennial question "Is the banana a fruit or a herb?" The answer, of course, is "Both". This is because the yellow thing you peel and stick in your mouth is undoubtedly a fruit, but the so-called "Banana Tree" is technically regarded as a herbaceous plant (or "herb"), because the stem does not contain true woody tissue like a tree.

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the thought of the banana being a herb had never crossed my mind. What I was actually thinking was more along the lines of "Bananas are a funny shape and they make me smile." Of course this reminded me of that classically funny image How can you tell when a banana goes bad?

And you really don't want to know what I'm thinking about now...
...Good Grief Am I truly that transparent? How on Earth did you guess that I was thinking about Comic-Con 2012, which is to be held July 12–15 in San Diego? Of course the link was obvious when I come to think about it. In addition to bananas, something else that makes me smile is the TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory. All of the main characters in this program (Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Rajesh) like comics. I like comics. The biggest thing in Comic Space is Comic-Con. As the Wikipedia Comic-Con Entry says:
Originally showcasing comic books, science fiction / fantasy and film / television and related popular arts, the convention has expanded over the years to include a larger range of pop culture elements, such as horror, animation, anime, manga, toys, collectible card games, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels.

I've never been to a Comic-Con before, but everything I've seen and heard about this event tells me that it would be a lot of fun.

What? Of course Comic-Con has nothing to do with bananas. What on Earth is this disturbing and unnatural obsession you have suddenly developed with fruit?