It's funny how an idea can be in the air all of sudden. Yesterday I was talking to the DH (dear husband) about magnetic reversals, a process whereby the earth's north magnetic pole becomes a south magnetic pole, and vice versa. This occurs at intervals of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. The trouble is, reversals are not instantaneous, and during the thousands of years that the magnetic field weakens, cosmic rays bombard the earth. Cosmic rays can break DNA, and so periods of magnetic reversal may accelerate genetic change, leading to evolution.

I told the DH that effecting evolution with cosmic rays was like fixing your car with a sledge hammer.

Anyway, today my computer started to act funny -- it wasn't typing nearly fast enough. So I shut it down and let it cool off. But when I flipped the big red switch to turn it back on, it wouldn't start! No fan, nothing on the screen, no Windows! So I repeated the procedure, and then I got out the Windows start-up disk. Still, no sign of life.

I tottered away, thinking of all the data stored on the dead computer. Then, while mixing up some chocolate chip cookies, I remembered the sledge hammer idea. When the cookies were safely in the oven, I went back to the computer, hit the big red switch, then bashed the computer near the on/off button with the heel of my hand. It started up and has been working perfectly since.

Neophytes, please note that I bashed it near the switch, not actually on the switch. There's an art to these things.