The transience of memory

Brought to you today with a full helping of digressions and a bonus serving of nostalgia.

Three p.m. yesterday found me in my office, searching for toothpicks to prop my eyelids open as I waited for a four p.m. examiners meeting. In my defense, I had been at work since before seven a.m., and was still suffering from the previously discussed "not really jet lag, but there's no better word for it". The prospect of an examiners meeting is hardly something to set the pulse racing either. Basically, these consist of discussions where we all agree that our colleagues have graded their exams correctly (based only on a list of marks) and they do likewise for us.

So, in search of diversion I fired up PokerStars and prepared to do a bit of kibitzing. Does one kibitz in poker? I suppose so, though I associate the term more closely with bridge. Pause to consult the interweb. Gosh, who knew -- here's a rather nice discussion of kibitz, which certainly indicates the wider sense, in fact the first example refers to poker. Anyhoo ...

I spotted Fuel at a short handed 5/10 table and dropped in to wish him luck at the WSOP Main Event as well as to watch the fireworks. And fireworks there certainly were. Chips were flying everywhere. Three way all ins seemed to be the norm. It got so crazy that at some point I felt compelled to remark: "Why am I thinking of Lewis Carroll: 'You don't have to be crazy to play here ...'".

And then that annoying little man in my head started clamouring for attention:

"Just what Lewis Carroll quote is that please?"

"Oh come on", I replied, "you know, the Cheshire cat says it to Alice before she goes off to the Mad Hatter's tea party."

"I think not. Would you care to have a little wager on it? If I'm right you have to blog this sordid little tale, if you're right I won't bother you for a week."

Those were certainly excellent pot odds, or so I thought. Thus, off to the interweb it was to prove that silly little fellow wrong. You'd think I'd know better by now. It pains me to admit it, but apparently the phrase "You don't have to be crazy to verb here, but it helps" is the sole province of stupid signs on desks and coffee mugs, and has nothing to do with Lewis Carroll. I did find one other similarly confused soul somewhere on a motorcycling discussion group (complete with the Cheshire cat reference) but the little fellow said that didn't count, and really I can't argue. It just seems to be a play it again Sam thing, though now I suppose that "quote" is more famous for being "not a quote" than otherwise.

For the record, the passage from Alice in Wonderland that I seemed to be thinking of comes from towards the end of Chapter 6:

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. `What sort of people live about here?'

`In that direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in that direction,' waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'



Tenniel's illustration of that scene featured on a much derided math freshman T-shirt in my second year at Waterloo (with the caption "We're all mad here" as I recall.) My frosh shirt just had a big empty set symbol on it. The highly commended next frosh shirt (I wonder who had a hand in its design) featured π to several hundred digits.

Bonus geek points for spotting either possible reference in the title.