I thought about this the other day when Jenn and I were shopping in the perfume section of Nordstrom…

People make associations in their brains. Like the way people remember the words to a song based on how the song sounds - the rhythm, the melody, etc. In some cases, people use songs and rap as a sort of mnemonic device to help themselves remember stuff. A popular example of this is the Schoolhouse Rock series. Hey, that’s how I learned the preamble to the Constitution.

It’s also pretty well known that people can remember thousands of different scents. Who doesn’t know the smell of chocolate or coffee?

So what if people started exploiting the ability to remember smells and exercise that to help in remembering things? I’m not sure how that would work exactly, but the ability to do something like, “Hmmm… spearmint. That reminds me that the Wright brothers made the first airplane.” Or something like that.

I think scratch-and-sniff stickers would become popular again. People in classes would start carrying around these huge sticker notebooks and be madly scratching at stickers during tests. Schools would have to start pumping out a sort of smell neutralizer to stop kids from cheating.

Might be interesting.

I will admit that random thoughts cross my mind when I’m in the car.

For example, today I was driving along, listening to my Police: Live album, and one of the songs (I don’t remember which) had a pan flute going in the background. The first thought in my head when I heard that was not “hey, that’s nice and relaxing,” nor was it “wow, that sounds like Men At Work.”

It was: I wonder what ever happened to Zamfir?

I remember being bombarded by Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute advertisements while sitting on the green shag carpet of my grandparents’ house, watching the Magnavox console TV (remember those?) and eating Cheetos. (That was around the same time that Roger Whittaker was huge, and I can still visualize the back-to-back call-this-1-800-number-now commercials.)

My grandmother on my mom’s side was still alive back then and she’d let us pick the pennies out of her change bowl to keep. I can still see her sitting, smoking, at the kitchen table in their old house. Always smoking. That’s actually what did her in, in the end.

Whoa, flashback there.

Anyway, Zamfir. What happened to the guy? Was there just no more demand for pan flute music? Was there ever a demand for pan flute music, or was it this manufactured market that he catered to? Like somehow he convinced these record companies that there’d be this huge run on pan flautists so they’d best snatch him up and make some albums.

By the time I had gotten this far in the thought process, I was at my allergy shot appointment so I dropped it.

If anyone out there ever bought or listened to a Zamfir album, drop me a comment.

Looks like Dita von Teese has a website – www.dita.net. Members area, guest area, and an online store with lots of actually quite stylish photos. I’m impressed.

I will be the first to admit that there are three things out there that just get me: Corsets, stockings, and boots - in that order. There is nothing sexier than a woman in a classy, tightly laced corset. Nothing. A good close second is a nice set of stockings - with or without garter belt (preferably with). Barring those two things, a stylish pair of boots is unbelievable.

Hawks get trounced by Spokane. The score wasn’t terrible (3-2), but the play was shameful.

Saturday was spent running errands. First thing in the morning we went to a pancake breakfast at the local Masonic lodge (sidetrack: the word lodge makes me think of a log cabin up in the woods… I wonder why…) and stuffed ourselves on some pretty decent pancakes. After that, we went home and cleaned up around the place, which was starting to look pretty terrible. Then Jenn left to go do some stuff and I went grocery shopping at both Safeway and Trader Joe’s. Got some good stuff, but that took a long time. Finally, Saturday night found us watching the Hawks rally to beat Tri-Cities. (A much better game, I thought.)

Sunday was a very lazy day indeed. I went to my parents’ house and found that Mom hadn’t touched my Halloween costume so we finished it up.

Went to Fred Meyer and picked up a Swiffer WetJet mop because the cats are becoming increasingly messy. I’ve attempted to explain to them that the food should either be in the bowl or in their mouths, but they don’t mind me. It seems to be a game for them - pick up the food, drop it on the floor, watch me get pissed off, then eat the food. Bad, bad kitties.

And now I’m at work. The weekend was not nearly long enough and I’m still tired. I will eventually take a week of PTO so I can get my Xev cat declawed and fixed and so I can play a bit of GTA: VC. Somehow I don’t think that I’ll be as rested after that week as I’d like, but we can always hope.

I added one more category to the list of paraesthesia entries: New Science. These articles are the theories I have on why stuff does what it does. My favorite thus far (hey, there are only two right now) is my Theory of Indefinite Commute. I worked for a long time on that one.

each household appliance is like a new science :)

Jenn and I will be going to a sneak preview of I-Spy tonight. I didn’t know it used to be a TV show, but I suppose that shows how into pop culture I am; my references start in the early eighties and end in around 2000.

Seems that Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones will be coming to the OMNIMAX theater at OMSI. I’ll have to look into going.

I’m sure all of you get porn spam just like everyone else.

Or maybe it’s just me getting the porn spam.

Anyway, I just got what I think is the best porn spam yet:

Ever see a $1 COKE WHORE? Now is your chance. Click HERE.

(Obviously, I removed the link so folks won’t actually go there, and no, I didn’t go there, either. I just thought the message was funny.)