Descarte said “Cogito, ergo sum,” (I think, therefore I am).

What would the equivalent be for “I think, therefore they are”?

We went to see an exhibit of Chihuli glass at the Saint Louis Botanical Garden on Sunday. In watching the video of the artist working, we wondered why he didn’t have a glass eye. Just think of all the cool possibilities.

RIP, Lloyd Bentsen. I’m glad he never became vice president, though.

The Tigers are in first place in their division, having won seven straight, with the best record in the major leagues. That has to boost the mood in Detroit, amid the GM/Delphi financial woes. Of course, it will also help if the Pistons can pull out two wins to stay alive in the championships. But I hate basketball.

Watch a flexible economy re-price capital in real time. A subcompact is renting for more than an SUV in Boston from Avis according to WSJ. This is a strong signal (though not the first) that it is time to retool. Honda is building new plants to churn out hundreds of thousands of hybrids that will hit the market in a few years.

Instapundit is discussing coffee makers.

As a non-coffee drinker who makes the coffee for Her, she objects to me performing initial preparation the night before, because the grounds aren’t fresh. I have to get up before her, and make a latte on a little two-cup Krups (model 872-42), complete with milk steamer, which has worked fine except the plastic cover over the carafe broke off the little tabs that clip it on within a few months of purchase (it’s about a year and a half old now), and requires careful cleaning of the little pinhole at the end of the steam nozzle with a safety pin (or if one is more bold, a straight one), lest one end up with naught but unfoamy warm mammary juice into which to lovingly pour the sacred sludge.

Lest one think me a true hero of domesticity, let it be known that I work at home while she has an often-ugly commute.

Looks like window seats may be harder to get soon. Last week New Tech Spy said this.

Microsoft plans to buy Massive Inc. for $300 million +/- $100 million. They do ad placements in video games. More in the Wall Street Journal. In-game ads are expected to triple from $56 million last year to $160 million this year and be $700 million by 2010.

I ordered a copy of the Financial Times from my left-over US Air miles. Today, as usual, Richard Branson’s face in a Samsonite ad stares up at me from my doorstep. It is a mixed motivation to have my major competitor with over ten million in booked sales and tremendous media recognition start my day. It is an amazing standard to aspire to, but humbling at the same time. A big day of getting the word out for my site Space-Shot.com got easier when I saw on the front page of the second section: game company Xfire was purchased by Viacom for $102 million in cash. (The FT version is subscriber only.) Xfire has 4 million members spending 91 hours per month in advertiser supported game heaven. They earned less than $10 million in ad sales last year. The revenue and subscriber numbers are achievable for Space-Shot.com. Back to work.

I don’t know if this is a Marriott thing in general, or just TownePlace Suites, but the staff there have taken to the habit of asking me upon checkout, “Did you have a perfect stay”?

I never know how to respond to this question. Perfection is a platonic ideal, never to be achieved in real life–it is a goal only to be sought. To ask someone whether or not they have achieved it is to put one on the spot. I can lie, and say yes (which no doubt many do, just to get out and on their way). Or I can tell the truth, and say no, or in an attempt to avoid the quandary, to inform them that perfection isn’t possible. This doesn’t get me off the hook–the inevitable response to either of the latter is “…well, if it wasn’t perfect, what could we have done to make it perfect?”

I don’t know.

Make it so the teevee can be viewed while working on the computer? Have wine glasses? A slightly firmer bed? Protein with the overcarbed muffins in the breakfast room? A quieter room, away from the street? Move the entire hotel to the beach? Move the entire hotel to Cabo? Open bar happy hour? Hot and cold running nymphomaniacs?

It’s an unreasonable question, and whatever marketing genius came up with it should rethink it, because it’s gotten to the point of making me not want to stay there. I think the next time they ask, I’ll say, “My stay would be perfect if you wouldn’t ask me if my stay was perfect.” Ask if it was good, if it was great, if there were any problems, but please don’t place the burden of your failure to achieve the unachievable on me.