Ha -- then I ran into Theon Greyjoy professor this afternoon on the Greenway! What timing.

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My best college friend R. is in town and we were able to hang out today. That was great. I hadn't seen him in three years, in large part because we have lived on different continents and/or coasts since 2004. Had a great time. After a quick tour of the MBTA-themed Google offices and lunch on the adjacent rooftop garden, we enjoyed the Ig Nobel informal lectures and then walked along the river & over to South Station.

I'd only been to the lectures once, the year I was at MIT. That batch featured slime molds solving mazes and studies about duck necrophilia and about Coca-Cola as a spermicide, so it holds a special place in my heart. This year's wasn't bad. Highlights: the physics of slipping on banana peels, dogs aligning themselves on the north-south magnetic axis when they pee, cured pork as a solution for uncontrollable nosebleeds, and Norwegians dressing up as creepy polar bears to study reindeer behavior. We had no idea what to make of Dr. NakaMats.

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And now for a quiet evening, likely to include Project Runway and Doctor Who.