Ode to the Greatest Vending Machine
Most of the times I’ve used a vending machine, I haven’t encountered any trouble at all. Yesterday was different. I deposited three quarters and selected E6. So far, so good. The metal coil that held my candy bar captive spun slowly but surely, in the process moving my sugary confection closer to the clear plastic I am probably meant to assume is glass. Just as it was about to reach the precipice and tumble to the bottom of the machine, into the reach of my grubby paws, the turning stopped.
I had been listening for the familiar thunk of a heavy bar of chocolate landing from a fall of several feet. That thunk never came. I gazed into the bowels of what I was just beginning to recognize as a malevolent piece of automation, and saw my tasty snack leaning towards me, but firmly lodged in the clutches of that metal coil.
I tried a few experimental nudges of the machine (from a running start) but to no avail. I resigned myself to drawing three more quarters from my pocket and inserting them into this tyrannical box that tempted me with attractively displayed packages of fat and sugar only to deny me their procurement.
It was then I noticed the display on the machine was showing I had a credit of $.75. In light of the fact that I selected E6 and watched that damnable metal coil turn, this simply didn’t make sense. Digging through the folds of my memory, though, there had only been silence after I made my selection. While I didn’t hear the satisfying landing of my tasty treat in the hand-accessible bin, I also didn’t hear the soul-crushing landing of my precious quarters coming to rest in the quarter-laden bowels of my insatiable antagonist.
I can only conclude that someone had dreamed up the rational and intoxicating idea of installing a sensor in the bottom receptacle of the machine. If this sensor isn’t triggered, then my credit remains, unsullied. Is a scale busily counting ounces when individually wrapped morsels of food drop to that weigh station on the road to immaculate consumption? Perhaps a light beam is broken? It doesn’t really matter. What matters is I received my candy bar in accordance with the unspoken agreement between that vending machine and I that the price label it presented for item E6 was something more than mere decoration. It was a declaration. We had entered into a covenant that I could distort my blood sugar, possibly adversely affecting my dinner, for $.75. No more. No less.
Vending Machine in the Stairwell Nearest My Cubicle, I salute you.
Single Sentence Movie Review: Click
I contend that marketing this (entertaining and satisfying) movie as a pure comedy was a poor business decision.
Polyphasic Hybrid
I’ve been thinking about an idea for a hybrid somewhere between the Uberman schedule (the specific polyphasic schedule I’ve been trying) and regular monophasic sleep. As I was easing into polyphasic sleeping, I was taking two naps during the day and then sleeping for a modest chunk of the night. I remember that didn’t feel too bad.
I’m picturing a core sleep from midnight to 4:30am with naps at 8:00am and noon. The 4pm and 8pm naps are the ones that I’m the most likely to stay awake through right now anyway. And from midnight to 4:30 I seem to have a great deal of difficulty staying awake.
I think this alternate schedule would give a little more flexibility. If social stuff was happening, I think I could stay up past midnight and shift my sleep a little later without being blown out the next day. It gives me a wide chunk of time to naturally be awake from 12:30pm to midnight every day, which seems ideally suited for social engagements, even when traveling out of town. (And truthfully, I think I’d have a little more flexibility on when those naps occurred. If 9am and 2pm were the times sleep was available, I expect that would work since I would have stored up some energy from my core sleep.)
It still gives me the advantage of “stealing” a few extra hours out of the day in the early morning when the rest of the world is snoozing. I’d be sleeping 5.5 hours a day and should get 5-6 REM cycles. (6 being the target of the Uberman schedule, and 5 being what I think I got on a monophasic schedule.) The only question is if my body would be smart enough to jump to REM sleep for the short daytime naps when I was sleeping for a longer period each night. I think it might, based on what’s been happening over the past few weeks.
Since I’d still be getting up and going to work by 5:30, I’d still be leaving for the day at 3 (which I really like).
I think I could adapt to this pretty easily, since it’s very close to what I’m doing now. If it does work, than I would be getting some of the best elements of polyphasic and monophasic sleep.
Single Sentence Movie Review: An Inconvenient Truth
Unless you have the necessary expertise to evaluate the data yourself, you are trusting someone else’s interpretation of the information on global warming no matter which side you take; though after seeing this movie I’m slightly more inclined to trust Al Gore’s interpretation.
Polyphasic Sleep: Confessions of an Oversleeper
Prior to Wednesday night, it had been three weeks since I had what I would consider a full night’s sleep. There were many occasions where I slept longer than my prescribed 30 minutes, but Wednesday I was drawing on the sandman’s drought for 8 straight hours. When I’ve told people this today, the first question seems to be, “Do you feel super rested?”
I can say that I didn’t feel super anything. I didn’t feel anymore rested than I did the day before. In some ways, I felt a little fuzzy. I had a hard time focusing on more complex tasks. I did skip my lunchtime nap, though. It’s not that I don’t think I could have fallen asleep, but I came into work very late. I didn’t want to be eating dinner here at the office. Hopefully, this won’t magnify the mistake and screw my schedule up even more.
I didn’t actually mean to sleep 8 hours. The alarm clock I was using requires you to flip a switch to move between “normal function” and “setting the alarm time”. I switched to set the alarm time and played with the arrows until I landed on just the right time. I then promptly forgot to flip the switch back to normal function and crawled into bed.
So what have I learned? I had previously wondered about the ability to handle an occasional change up in the polyphasic schedule. If I had a big day coming up without a lot of chances to get away, could I just get 8 hours of sleep the night before and make it through the next day without nap interruptions? Based on today, I’d have to say the answer is a qualified no. It might actually be possible, but I would be trading off too much of my ability to function in exchange for not needing to take any breaks.
Another interesting quirk came up. Historically, I have required my home air conditioning to be set no higher than 71 degrees Farenheit during the summer in order to be comfortable. Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten a little chilly in the morning and bumped the thermostat up to 74. I had previously attributed it more to the changes in my diet, than the changes in my sleep patterns. When I woke up from my 8 hour hibernation, I felt sticky with sweat. Yesterday at work, I was noticeably less comfortable with the temperature. Even worse today. The pseudoscientific answer I can give is that when I’m immobile for so many hours, my body has to start producing internal heat to keep my system running smoothly. (Note the complete and total lack of scientific basis for that emotionally satisfying conjecture.)
What’s most weird about my experience is the vague, ethereal body of polyphasic sleep knowledge mentions people who plan an occasional extended period of sleep (sometimes called “reboots”) on a weekly or monthly basis. Maybe the key is that these reboots not be 8 hours long, but I don’t feel like my day was any improved from the extra sleep I got last night.
