Why the smell of old books is such a turn on.

If being granted the power of flight would be worth the hassle of media attention, scientific prodding and crazy people. How long you could keep teleportation a secret. If the ability to read minds would make you a happier or a sadder person, and what you would do with it.

Why complex animals sleep. (Current theory is that complex brains consist of several different neural networks (i.e. left brain is "tight meshed" and right brain is "loose meshed") and sleep is the process of synchronization and transport of information between networks -- how a skill goes from being consciously learned to subconsciously known.)

What would the military do if given access to a Gay Bomb. And following on from that, what would society look like if sexuality was a true choice (i.e. you could be gay, straight, bi or asexual by taking the right pill any given day.)

Likewise, what happens if you developed a pill that negated the "mental" effects of testosterone without any physical changes, and then gave it to Wall Street. (There's a serious theory that some traders had "toxic" levels of testosterone during the Boom that affected their decision making ability.)

At what point a system that is examined according to a metric starts optimizing for the metric at the expense of the health of the system. (i.e. srsly, how the fuck did this shit get fucked up again)

Why Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans never interbred. (Current theory is that complex language was a very specific set of genes only owned by EMH and they used language fluency (i.e. storytelling, poetry) as a sexual selection technique. Neanderthals just weren't sexy enough.)

How to make a perpetual motion machine using zombies, a small easily dangled child, and an oversized hamster wheel.

Whether a zombie affliction that was semi-reversible (i.e. if you feed a zombie enough human flesh it regains sentience again) would be better or worse than straight out zombie apocalypse.

Whether the "decline effect" and the rise of the effectiveness in placebos are signs that we really don't understand how to do science in a massively complex environment, or a sign that we're expecting more out of science (and through placebos, getting it) than we have ever done before.

If, since being a true hipster requires you to deny being a hipster, the entire population could thereby be declared hipster, ironic hipster, or meta ironic self-reflexive hipster. There is, of course, one group not included in this designation of "true hipster": self-declared hipsters. This brings up the secondary question: if declaring yourself to be a hipster could be accurate if it were somehow ironic enough to overcome being true.

Good points:

• M.C. is funny.  And speaks several languages.
• Get free U.S. Constitutional booklet!  And History of the United States!
• Woman singing National Anthem sings beautifully.
• Certificate of citizenship is lovely.
• Whole family showed up for ceremony, had excellent chocolate ganache at La Boulange after.

Bad points:

• One nation "under God".  Added in the 1950s, not exactly kosher with founder's intent. Was strongly tempted to change it to Allah / Krishna / Flying Spaghetti Monster.
• No Harold Zinn in the History of the United States booklet.  C'mon, dude is epic.
• The "so you're a citizen now" video.  Looks like a cheesy 80s music video, and the music is "Proud to be an American."  Ugh.  Was strongly reminded of David Cross's comedy routine.  Plus "Gave Those Rights To Me" makes no sense -- they are INALIENABLE rights.  The whole point is that you had them to begin with.
• Obama looks absolutely toasted in his congratulatory message.  Dude, get some sleep.
• Mad rush for the passport line turned into total gridlock.  The grannies got there first -- they're not afraid to shove people out of their way and everyone feels bad about shoving them back.
• Had to hand in the certificate as soon as I got it for the passport.  Dad downcast that I didn't have documented proof of citizenship.  (Just as well I don't live in Arizona.)
• "Proud to be an American" is still sticking in my head a full day later.  But at least I know I'm free to do what I want, any old time.  Never going to give you up, never going to let you down...

Are you a good liar?

• Yes
• No

A good liar wouldn't answer yes. But I'm not a good liar. Does that mean I should answer yes?

Two weeks, hiking over mountains, at the furthest end of the world, without email, phone, SMS, twitter, skype, IRC or IM. And yes, I've used all of them for work, sometimes over the course of one day.

I fully expect to come back with legs like tree trunks. This should be good.