Gliting Glastries

I love randomness. Although I suppose I'm still debating whether or not there's such a thing as true randomness, the concept that Things Happen without rhyme or reason, some days it just makes me feel better.

Sometimes I'm able to convince myself that true randomness exists. Those are generally the days that I'm having a bad day. The days that I convince myself my car isn't working because a butterfly in Walla-walla Washington sneezed. No true randomness so far. But /why/ did the butterfly sneeze? No real reason, it just did so.

Of course, other days, I convince myself that it did sneeze for some real, if unmeasurable, reason. And that happened for some other, but also unmeasurable, reason. Etc. Etc. Etc.

So basically, my definition of randomness is based entirely on if there /exists/ a reason, or if the reason can be measured, I suppose. But nonetheless, I love randomness.

But ignoring the difference in random- and pseudo-random- things, a long discussion in itself, one of my favorite uses of randomness is randomly selecting words. It's fun to supply random answers when people ask questions. Especially for the questions that people don't really care about the answer to ("how've you been?") or the questions that you obviously wouldn't know the answer to.

Some people don't even notice. They know what they were expecting to hear, so that's what they listen to, and anything you said doesn't matter. Some people give incredibly odd looks. Some people play along and continue the conversation, using that as a valid answer. The latter group is a lot of fun (as is the first--but only for you, not for both parties), but things can get more interesting if you stop using random words, and instead use a random word.

Which probably needs some explanation. Using random words (former) means using a randomly selected word from your personal dictionary. Kumquat, dodo, antidisestablishmentarianism, a word that means _something_ at least. Using a random word (latter), however, means using a random collection of letters which when put together make a pronounceable sequence that does not have a preexisting meaning. The latter is not recommended if you're wanting to have a meaningful conversation, unless you're both really good at playing.

Or if you're wanting to come up with a good name for a band.