And your nose began to twitch

Thank you for agreeing to participate in our user survey and entering for the chance to win up to five thousand dollars in slightly worn gift cards. It should be noted that, according to a free-market hypothesis-endorsing economist who broke into our offices and is holding a sharpened blackboard pointy stick with the rubber tip shaved off at us, if it were actually possible to win a big cash prize in this survey someone would have already won it long before you did.

1. How would you rate your customer experience with us?
   1. I would use a scale of one to ten.
   2. I would use a scale of one to five.
   3. I would use a Pareto chart if these actually existed and were not attempts to cover up having heard the words ``parrot chart'' incorrectly, possibly as part of song lyrics.
   4. I would use a series of allusions and metaphors, possibly by hand puppets.
   5. I am not so judgemental as that and if you were sensible you would not be either.
2. Which parts of routine maintenance have you performed on or against your product to date?
   1. I have meant to clean it after every use but done so exactly once, when I lost the cloth rag to go along with it.
   2. I have dusted it once when company was coming over, and then another time when I thought I would get everything under control by putting in ten minutes every day to dusting, only to learn later on that 'dusting' traditionally means 'removing dust'.
   3. On four separate occasions I have hit it on the side, and only on the third was this followed by the sound of plastic shards slipping off and falling deep into the interior.
   4. The product was a vending machine ice cream cone.
   5. While the product was a vending machine ice cream cone I found it needed to be rebooted from the startup DVD and was then forced to spend twenty minutes downloading updates, by which time the ice cream had become a gelatinous goo.
3. How do you indicate that you should not presently be taken seriously?
   1. I have heard of your Earth concept of 'serious' and it fascinates me. Tell me more.
   2. Even when I am not trying to say 'steeple' and stumbling despite making a good ending I talk of 'sheeple'.
   3. I attribute something other than late-season snowstorms to 'political correctness'.
   4. ``I have heard of your Earth concept of 'serious' and it fascinates me. Tell me more.''
   5. I speak of 'Hollyweird' while having a poorly calibrated sense of how much I mean to be ironic, how much I mean to snark on those not using it ironically enough, and which parts I mean a sly commentary on people who think I might be using it without making a sly commentary on people who might use it in another way than I do.
   6. I have never been not taken seriously except by accident when I meant it and good luck figuring that out.
4. Which body parts has your use of our product lead you to conclude are funny to mention?
   1. Spleen.
   2. Inguinal ligament.
   3. Monoclonal antibodies.
   4. Pelvic brim.
   5. Fingernails.
   6. h3 tags.
5. What logical fallacies have you developed while using this product?
   1. I've used 'affirming the consequence' with a side of 'continuum fallacy'.
   2. I remind people anytime any study anywhere finds a link between two things that 'correlation does not imply causation' and therefore do not connect the sharp decrease in the number of people who talk to me about links between things to this habit.
   3. I want to say 'modus ponens', which I'm not sure is a logical fallacy, but which is a lot of fun to say and has few applications outside discussions of logic and poorly translating it into 'The Mode Of Ponies'.
   4. I am still working through a 24-pack of logical fallacies picked up in the past, and have not even opened up the box of quantificational fallacies in the pantry.

Thank you for your valued contributions to whatever it is we are really up to, which you do not really want to think about. Contest winners should they exist will be notified. Send help, the economist won't leave.

Trivia: Walter Chrysler received the plans for the Chrysler Building as we know it on 5 June 1929. Source: Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City, Neal Bascomb.

Currently Reading: Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July/August 2009, Editor Stanley Schmidt. You know, Analog writers are still getting used to the post-September 11 world.