It was interesting to see what I could do to fill my idle time, watching over the world as it slept. I spent a few nights on a log by Beebe Lake at Cornell, just reading by flash or moonlight. Occasionally, I had a radio or something to provide me with sound, but otherwise, it was preternaturally quiet, in a way I suppose only a dream can be. There would be the sound of my feet in the gravel as I left the road, and then the occasional bug buzzing past. Until one night, I stumbled across a meeting of a couple of other guys. Or rather, they stumbled across me in their usual meeting place. It was getting to be about 4AM, so they were likely daywalkers just up a bit early, perhaps for some stargazing. Instead, they ended up talking about Star Wars and some newer sci-fi of which I hadn't heard. They talked quite a bit, almost like I wasn't there. It wasn't their fault, per se, as they did try to involve me once or twice, but I was just not interested. I was more concerned with my quiet and the isolation they were disturbing. So after about a half-hour of trying to preserve my sanity and the serenity of the lakeside, I gave up. After these guys showed up, these nasty mosquitoes came along and started biting me repeatedly. So I closed up my book and shoved off. Once the peace was restored, the bugs disappeared and I was alone again, walking home. I assume when you don't have sleep, you have time to walk most everywhere. At least, across town and out into the woods, where it's quiet. Where it's often quiet, at least.
In response to the puzzle I posed in the waking world, 1, 7, 6, 3, 2, 0. The full series was composed of the first ten numbers all arranged alphabetically. The only person to get it right was
unusualtaste, who is not a regular reader. The wide array of responses was very interesting; I got any number of mathematical series expanding on addition, subtraction, even negative numbers. The narrow array of answers was also interesting; I had no less than two people guess that it was my phone number, which was an odd enough guess to come up only once let alone twice. However, naught but one applied Occam's Razor to come up with the very simplest possible solution. If you're curious where I "found" this puzzle (since that's the second most frequent question I've gotten after "What's the answer?"), I made it up. You can feel free to look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls, put it in your pipe & smoke it, sit & spin, or whatever other ampersanded activity you desire to perform with that knowledge.The preceding paragraph fulfills my obligatory snootiness requirement for the week. Any additional snootiness is purely for the fun of it.
"obligatory requirement" fulfills my redundancy quota for the month, and, as such, I will not be saying "PIN number", "HIV virus", "ATM machine" or "Department of Redundancy Department". For any readers residing in Great Britain, this also means no one will be "made redundant" and so your jobs are all secure.
Thank you, and have a good night. I'll remember to wave as I pass by your house while you sleep, myself never ceasing for fear that I'll miss something. Anything.
