Have you ever noticed that people say “I read somewhere” when what they really mean is “at some point I heard someone say something interesting and I am about to lay claim to it myself without actually having done any of the research or fact checking.”  It’s just an abbreviation, I guess.  I say this with as little mockery as I can because, while I may not have invented this practice, I regularly pirate the intellectual property of whoever did.  It’s like I can’t stop myself.  It’s just so easy to say that I read something somewhere than to go into an actual explanation of what I heard on which quasi-educational channel (future blog topic by the way) or from which person and when.  I’ll be honest, if my brain were a computer, it would be a little shy of ram.  By the time I got through the complete introduction of where it is I got a given interesting tidbit, I’d forget the tidbit. Plus, who wants to sit through all that for a five second factoid about earwax or the psychology of honey bees.  It’s just easier to have a social convention that you can tell a lie if there’s intriguing trivia on the way.  It does make me feel bad for people who really do spend a lot of time reading so much interesting bits of informational flotsam that they can’t quite remember which one went where.  They utter that infamous phrase and their audience rolls their eyes as if to say “yeah right pants-o flame-o! just gimme the brain candy!”  and that is what those trivial facts are. Non-nutritious sweets.  No one was ever so impressed with party-trivia to change their vocation or goals in life.  “You’ll never guess what some guy at the church social told me about octopus eye-balls and their ratio to their body mass! I’m not wasting another second of my life on IT, I’m becoming a marine biologist!”  You see what I mean about losing my train of thought? Where was i?

                Dreams!  So I said all that to tell you this.  Someone told me they “read somewhere” that half of all people dream in black and white.  Then I realized that I’d never met anyone who dreamt in black and white.  Then I read somewhere (roll your eyes all you want I actually read it) that the study behind that piece of information was done at a time when we were transitioning from black and white to color TV as a nation and the ratio was about even.  So people dreamt what they saw.  That makes complete sense as most of my dreams have mouse pointers and consist of montages of guys getting kicked in the crotch, laughing babies, super cute kittens, and star wars fan films.  My normal dreams also have annoying banner ads for more pornish versions of those dreams.  I avoid those…mostly.  Give me a break. Every once in a while my id crawls out with the impulse control of a 3-year old peaking over the edge of the desk and grabbing the mouse CLICKCLICKCLICKETY.  Those are the days that I wish that my dreams had filtering software.  I’ve been having another series of dreams involving what I watch lately about rednecks, alligators, and space jesus.  More on that next time.