You and a friend are presented with two boxes. The first box is transparent and contains $1,000. The other box is opaque and either contains nothing or $1 million. A mysterious benefactor offers you this choice and tells you that you may choose to take both boxes or just the opaque box.

“However,” your generous benefactor cautions, “If I expected you to take both boxes, I have left the opaque box empty — you get only the $1,000.” The mysterious person continues. “If I predicted that you would take only the opaque box, then I have placed $1 million in that box. You will get it all.”

You and your friend begin to discuss what to do. Your friend wants to take just the opaque box. You argue that the benefactor has already made his prediction — the million dollars is either in the opaque box or it is not. It is not going to change. Whose argument is more correct?

Cute stuff from my favorite contemporary artist, Tony DiTerlizzi:

::|:| the spider and the fly |:|::

Washington Mutual rejected two BPAL checks and “lost” my payroll check.

Am I cursed?

::|:| chrysippvs’ babelfish funtime |:|::

The only pissy moment of my day was due to an eBay auction. I’d been bidding on a pair of Swears, and some jackoff outbid me with seconds to go. Normally this doesn’t bother me… all’s fair in love and shoe shopping… but for some reason this really pissed me off.

Irrational, ain’t I?

Cross-posted, in part, to the Alchemy Lab LJ community.

Still having a hell of a time with the email. We’re moving to Pixeled as soon as I have a moment’s peace… which, thankfully, will be early next week. Because the Gods can be merciful, the season is finally ending – a week earlier than I thought it would. As of tomorrow, I am officially laid off til March. I’ll still be slaving full time for two weeks every month [and will work the occasional show] til then, but my sanity will be restored and my rapid, horrid burn out will finally cease.

Huzzah.

My biggest problems at the moment are catching up on the emails that are finally trickling in and completing the site update. The update is about 80% finished and the new oils are finally finalized. I went a little bit overboard with the Winter Limited Edition perfumes [heh]: there’s a gingerbread blend, a fabulous holly berry, and [!!!] I finally made the PERFECT snow perfume. I almost regret only making one batch of each of those. At the risk of sounding thoroughly immodest, there isn’t a single blend that I’ve made for this season that I do not absolutely love.

On a personal note…

I had a spasm of political euphoria at work after reading a James Carville snippit, and spent a lovely afternoon arguing about the death penalty with Ted while we watched CNN in the amphitheatre kitchen. Work was slow and therefore tolerable for once. We had the most glorious evening at the Maple Leafs – Kings game, and once we came home he played the WOW alpha while I frayed about a billion sample vials and Brian packed orders. I schlumped into the Lab, finalized the Yule blends, and… here I am. Tired, hungry, and a little confused.

At the moment, I’m half-drowning in Oberon due to a little spillage incident, and I seem to be saturating everything I touch with huckleberry. It’s almost 1am, and I need to haul my berry-scented self into the shower and flop into bed.

Everyone give a massive whoop of relief on my behalf tomorrow at about 6:30pm PST. 😉

I’ve fallen in love with this watch.

Al Franken Considers Move to Minnesota
Wed Nov 12, 3:25 PM ET

MINNEAPOLIS – Comedian Al Franken, a Minnesota native, says he’s considering moving back to the state to run against Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in 2008.

“It’s a long way away, five years away,” Franken told the Star Tribune this week. “It might be crazy. I might not be the best candidate. Part of this is seeing what happens next year and what direction things are going.”

His possible bid for the Senate was first reported by Newsweek. When asked to respond to the story, Coleman said: “I have no comment. I don’t do comedy.”

Franken, a friend of the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone, said he’s being encouraged by his friends to run. Driving him as well has been his distaste for the Bush presidency, he said.

“I felt like after 9-11 this president had a chance. We were united in a way that I had never seen, and he had a chance to take this country forward in a spirit of mutual purpose and mutual sacrifice,” the liberal humorist said. “Instead, he just hijacked it and used it to his own political ends.”