A reminder of how far my tiny brain has to go...

They (They, the people... The guys) announced on the radio this morning that it's Stephen Jay Gould's birthday. My reaction was to dust off this book:




I'm not a big reader of books, but every once and a while I say something so horribly stupid, that I head to a bookstore to try and salvage what's left of the part of my brain reserved for retaining information. A few years ago, I had one such incident, so I picked up Dinosaur in a Haystack–mostly 'cause the cover was cool–but also because I'm a guy, and guys like dinosaurs. I like to see them eat people (preferably my asshole neighbor).

Sadly, this book has very little to do with dinosaurs, much less them eating my neighbor, which at first was disappointing. However, after I read it, accompanied by a dictionary, encyclopedia, calculator and thesaurus, I was amazed what it taught me about human nature and how we're really all just a insignificant dust spec in an infinitely huge universe.

Its both inspiring and depressing all at once.

So, in honor of the late Mr. Gould's birthday, I'm going to re-read his book. Maybe this time I'll understand at least 50% of it.