Final Thoughts of the Night, 2026

Each night, shortly before going to sleep, I tell my wife a Final Thought. These may be funny, they are sometimes dumb, they may be vaguely story-like, they may be pseudo-philosophical and intelligent-sounding, they may be almost mythic from a spur-of-the-moment mythos. The topics have spanned a wide range of subjects: animals, steampunk, food, technology. Anything that pops into mind is fair game. The full story is at the bottom.

February, 2026 260205Here's a problem with modern technology. We used to use dial-up modems to connect to the internet. They would scream bloody murder as they were connecting. Once the connection was established, they were quiet and placid. We then went on to use an internet that was pretty tame and mostly non-commercial. Nowadays, connecting to the internet is silent, easy, and essentially a constant state. Our hardware doesn't scream about connecting, it just does its job without complaint. So much of the internet it connects to now is sordid and septic and everyone is trying to squeeze money from you. Despite all the crud imbedded in the internet now, there's nary a complaint from the hardware as it connects up. 260204I think when a birdwatcher dies, that rather than having a visitation, the decedent's family and friends should gather in a field and run around in intricate and mesmerising patterns. They should celebrate the life of their loved one with a murmuration. 260203For a long time now, I've heard that it's bad for birds to throw rice at weddings and this just makes me confused. Why is it bad for the birds to throw rice? Where are these birds even getting the rice? Do they enjoy flinging long-grained rice at people? Are the birds hoping for a good spread at the reception? Which side do they sit on during the ceremony? Why are the birds bothering to come to these weddings anyway? 260202Whoever named the nose holes really dropped the ball when they didn't call them snotstrils. 260201As me gran used to say, "Aye, 'tis better to have the old quiche than to crack eggs for a new omelet."

January, 2026 260131"Cape" is a slang term for superhero, as in, "These two capes came and kept a school bus from falling off a bridge." With that slang in mind, I had a mistaken, but very cool, misunderstanding when I first learned about Cape buffalo. 260130Similarities between words can be very interesting, and simultaneously fraught. For example, despite the similarities in sound and spelling there's a big difference between "perennial" and "perineal". Now that's a pair of words you don't want to get confused. 260129I want to get a waterbed, but I'd have to install supply lines for both hard water and soft water in order to get juuust the right level of firmness. 260128Drug commercials usually have one person that's the ad's focus. I've started thinking of that person as having the same name as the drug. So there's Vraylar who is now able to write poetry because she takes Vraylar, there's Bimzelx who likes to wander around cities and take photos -- with clear skin -- thanks to the joys of Bimzelx pills. These drug adverts are run so often that Vraylar and Bimzelx and the others all feel like old friends, even family. 260127In honor of Burns' Night, I wanted to order several copies of the computer game Rogue. However, I was disappointed that the parcel would arrive late. 260126When you're rushing somewhere in your car, you've got to balance off the benefits of green lights -- getting somewhere faster -- and red lights -- time to do stuff. The red traffic lights are great for doing those last minute personal maintenance tasks that still need doing. The only problem is that traffic lights have different ideas. When you need to stop for a minute to tie your tie or brush your hair, you hit the lights green. When you need to be zooming through the lights, they cunningly show you their red face. You rarely get things to line up properly, because The Lights Know. 260125As a piper, I am often called on to pipe in the haggis. This is exceedingly impractical for two reasons. First, haggis is moist and sticky and gets all in the chanter and messes up the tuning. Second, very few haggises are big enough for me to actually get in, not even considering bringing my pipes along. I dream of piping in a parade float that is shaped and decorated to look like a haggis. That would be the best, classiest way to pipe in a haggis. 260124The Call of the Void strikes you when stand on a precipice and you feel the urge to jump. I wonder if people who have a deathly food allergy have a similar Call of the Void to eat their allergen. 260123I'd like to figure out the hierarchy of clones, and how clones rank based on where their base cells came from. Are hair clones ranked higher than nail clones? Are bone clones higher or lower than skin clones? How do snot clones fit into the whole clone hierarchy? This is important information, and I have no confidence that Science is looking into solving these important issues. 260122For a while, I've been wondering what to name my two guitars. I don't want anything precious or cutesy; rather, I want something appropriate. I think I may have found a pair of names. For the (much) less expensive EZ-Play guitar, I'm thinking of calling it Slut, because it's easy. For the higher-quality, expensive ZAD80, with installed tuner and fiddley controls and buttons and beautiful adornments and pearl and great body work -- which is also an EZ-Play -- I'm thinking of calling it Courtesan. 260121Squirrels have a specific set of traits, commonly associated with a certain group. Their natural stance is hunched over with a rounded back, they usually hold their hands together in front of their bodies, they are always fiddling around with stuff, they have beady little eyes, they strew crumbs everywhere as they eat. That's right, squirrels are naturally predisposed to play concertina. 260120I read lots of British mystery and spy books when I was young. In many of them, a murder victim was discovered when the body was pulled off of a river weir. I had no idea what a river weir actually was, just that they seemed to attract dead bodies. I just knew that if I ever made it to England I would almost certainly find a dead body washed up in a river weir. 260119Those Newton's Cradle, silver ball things demonstrate an important scientific principle -- kinetic energy transfers between objects when they whack into each other. Some objects have a quantum-level non-physical connection such that when one is bonked another object gets the quantum-transfer bonking. A prime example of this is how ice dropping in the icemaker makes you jump because you think you were startled by the unexpected noise. You actually jumped because of the jostling of the quantum-level non-physical connection between the ice and your nervous system. 260118I had a Southern Baptist baptism when I was a teenager: full immersion, dipped backwards, informed and willing adult. (I first said "consenting adult", but that gives weird undertones to it.) As the pastor was dipping me backwards for the immersion, the pastor dropped me. I got a really good dunking, rather than just the quick down-up dip. I've always wondered if being dropped was a sign from God, and if so, just what that sign was saying. 260117There was originally just one universe. All the infinite possibilities and divergences of everything crowded around together, all trying to be The Thing that happened for each event. All these things trying to be The Thing that happened eventually reached critical mass and everything all exploded. This formed an infinite number of alternate universes, where all those infinite possibilities and divergences had somewhere to actually happen. This was the original, true Big Bang. 260116In the olden times, in the misty days of using a modem to login to a shell account, systems would often have dial-up activity monitors. If a session didn't do something, anything, within a time limit then you'd be forcibly logged off. This annoyance spawned a host of tools that would generate periodic simple activity in order to keep a login alive. In modern times, tools like this are needed to mute streaming activity monitors and keep them from harassing you while watching vids. "'Are you still watching?' 'Yes, NetPrimeTube, leave me alone'" would change to blissful non-interruptive nagging from the streamer. 260115Wheels reached their ultimate evolved form when they became tires made from synthetic rubber, which is itself made from petroleum products. Since petroleum is formed from dinosaur remains, according to popular conception, this means that any planet that never had dinosaurs could never develop the best, most optimal form of the wheel. 260114I don't know what my spirits animal is, but I hope it's whisky based. 260113Until the female kangaroos paid a visit to Heaven's customer service/complaints department and had strong words with the angel Aloysius, they didn't have that handy-dandy, built-in front pocket. 260112We played The Floor Is Lava when I was a kid. It was always fun, hopping around from couch to chair to chair. I didn't realize then that living on Earth is really a low-risk game of The Floor Is Lava. Rather than furniture, we have to hop from tectonic plate to tectonic plate, avoiding the interstitial gaps. Since the tectonic plates are floating on a sea of magma, those interstitial gaps are filled with glowing red-hot lava. Those lava-filled interstices may be quite small and far between, but they are a real and potential risk in everyday life. 260111When you die in the final step of achieving your fate, you have fulfilled your deathtiny. 260110Dinosaur-shaped food is typically thought of as being for children. In particular, there are dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, maybe a novelty candy or two, and that's pretty much it. Dinosaurs should get more respect from adults, and perhaps making adult food shaped like dinosaurs would help. Dinosaur-shaped steaks, dinosaur-shaped margarita glasses, dinosaur-shaped casserole dishes, Chicken à la T-Rex. All these would go a long way towards restoring respectability to dinosaurs. 260109Neanderthals were pretty stationary; they had their territory and didn't really leave it. They had a close relative that did migrate and didn't have a set territory they kept to. These relatives wandered across the continent without any real plan, and they never really settled down anywhere. They were known as meanderthals. 260108New guitars are known to sound better the more they are played. This is really good for people who are just learning to play because the more they play the better the guitar sounds and the better their playing sounds. It all works out to make the new player with a new instrument sound better and better the longer they play. 260107Toilet paper comes from a long history of using writing materials to wipe our butts. Toilet paper has been a good improvement over its predecessors, such as toilet scrolls and toilet papyrus. Toilet clay tablet was pretty bad, but the worst was the toilet petroglyphs. Toilet media continues to be an evolving technology. Toilet keyboards, the latest entry, are good for getting things clean, but they are kinda hard on the butt. Not to mention fairly expensive. 260106Squirrels are the familiars of academia. That is why universities have at least one squirrel per student. All those thinky thoughts bouncing around in such close proximity, a new squirrel is generated every time a couple of thoughts collide. Squirrels are the product of this intellectual sciuridaean Brownian motion. It varies by region, but in the eastern US it's more of a Greyian motion. 260205After years, decades!, of mentally mispronouncing the name, I have finally learned the proper way to pronounce Aloysius. Knowing that I've learned a new fact is nice, but my very world is shaken and discombobulated. Where once there were two names -- ah-LOY-zee-us and al-loo-ISH-us -- there is now only one name. I am left wondering about the Schrödingerian aspects of this revelation. Where once there were two pronunciations and two spellings, the quantum uncertainty has collapsed into al-loo-ISH-us and there is now a single spelling and a single pronunciation. What happened to all the al-LOY-ZEE-us-es? Have they been wiped from reality? Have they collapsed into the alternate state and are now ah-loo-ISH-us-es? What happens to all of these new al-loo-ISH-us-es, if they have survived, and their old ah-LOY-zee-us-nesses? A fundamental shift in reality has just taken place, and I wonder if anyone else has noticed. 260104There are two well-known facts about Australia. First, the UK settled Australia by banishing lots of convicts and criminals there, making it a geographical prison. Second, there are some extremely dangerous animals that live in Australia. I think it's obvious that the animal kingdom uses Australia for its own prison and banishes its most dangerous denizens there. 260103Cats don't purr out of contentment. Cats purr out of a low~grade frustration that they can't stay in bed every minute of the day. 260102Dogs are the Santas' Little Helpers for any Santa that needs help.Week of Santas' Little Helpers 260101Corvids don't have their own Santa; they borrow everyone else's Santa.Week of Santas' Little Helpers



Final Thoughts of the Night -- The Full Story

I started writing these after talking with my wife about the last words one might say to their loved ones before dying. Rather than leaving to chance the possibility that I might die in my sleep and maybe having said something dopey to her -- rather, not having said something dopey to her -- I decided to ensure that one of the last things I say to her each night is something dopey.

Thus, I undertook the "Final Thought of the Night" project. Each night, shortly before going to sleep, I tell her a Final Thought. These may be funny, they are likely to be stupid; they may be vaguely story-like; they may be pseudo-philosophical and intelligent-sounding; they may be almost mythic from a spur-of-the-moment mythos.

The topics have spanned a wide range of subjects: animals, steampunk, food, bodily secretions. Anything that pops into mind is fair game. Animals are a big focus because it's so easy to say something about animals. I hope I'm not repeating anything, but I am making absolutely no effort to ensure that repeats don't happen. If you see the same idea multiple times, that might mean it's something I think about more than other things.

More final thoughts are available here:



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