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You are offered a Brain Pill. If you swallow this pill, you will become 10% more intelligent than you currently are; you will be more adept at reading comprehension, logic, and critical thinking. However, to all other people you know (and to all future people you meet), you will seem 20% less intelligent. In other words, you will immediately become smarter, but the rest of the world will perceive you as dumber (and there is now way you can ever alter the universality of this perception). Do you take this pill?

Which do I care about more — being smart, or having people think I’m smart? Is it worth being 10% smarter if I have people think I’m dumber? Better yet, do I need to be 10% smarter?

Also, how would people not catch on that I’m smarter? Say, for example, I’m taking a test or having a debate with someone — wouldn’t my test score/answers/debate points show that I know more and am thinking at least slightly differently than I used to? So wouldn’t people sort of realize that way that I’ve become smarter?

I don’t actually know the answer to any of these questions. Maybe if I had that pill, I would (ha). I’d like to say that I’m secure enough to be okay with people thinking I’m dumb when, really, I’m smart — but I don’t know about that. I don’t know that anyone particularly enjoys being talked to like they’re stupid or being told that they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Also — and this is going to sound horrible, but… — do I really need to be smarter? I don’t mean that in a “I’m already so smart, it doesn’t matter” sort of way, nor do I mean that in an “Intelligence doesn’t matter to me” way. Before I take this pill, I just want to know when in my life these slightly enhanced skills will help me. According to this question, I’m not gaining knowledge of random information; instead, my comprehension, logic and critical thinking skills are getting better. I’ll be the first to admit, I could probably use a little more common sense sometimes (I’m not stupid, I just tend to jump headfirst into things without thinking them all the way through), but is it absolutely necessary to my well-being?

For now, I’m going to say that unless the person giving me this pill can give me concrete examples of how it will affect my intelligence (besides just making me 10% smarter) and actually make a necessary difference (I’m looking for reasons along the lines of “With your enhanced skills, you will land your dream job, work your way up the ranks, and eventually run your own publication. Without this pill, you won’t.”), I’m not going to take it.

You have been wrongly accused of a horrific crime: Due to a bizarre collision of unfortunate circumstances and insane coincidences, it appears that you have murdered a prominent U.S. senator, his beautiful young wife, and both of their infant children. Now, you did not do this, but you are indicted and brought to trial. Predictably, the criminal proceedings are a national sensation (on par with the 1994 O.J. Simpson trial). It’s on television constantly, and it’s the lead story in most newspapers for almost a year. The prosecuting attorney is a charming genius; sadly, your defense team lacks creativity and panache. To make matters worse, the jury is a collection of easily confused sheep. You are found guilty and sentenced to four consecutive life terms with virtually no hope for parole (and – since there were no procedural mistakes during the proceedings – an appeal is hopeless). This being the case, you are (obviously) disappointed. However, as you leave the courtroom (and in the days immediately following the verdict), something becomes clear; the “court of public opinion” has overwhelmingly found you innocent. Over 95 percent of the country believes you are not guilty. Noted media personalities have declared this scenario “the ultimate legal tragedy.” So you are going to spend the rest of your life amidst the general population of a maximum-security prison…but you are innocent, and everyone seems to know this. Does this knowledge make you feel (a) better, (b) no different, or (c) worse?

Of course that makes me feel worse! The better question is how in the hell I managed to get tried by 12 (or however many are on a jury; I don’t know. I was on one for approximately 30 hours, including selection time and time at home spent freaking out about how this trial could last a week and I wouldn’t make it back to school in time, until they settled right before the trial was to begin…but that’s a different story. It clearly wasn’t long enough to learn much about the judicial system, except that it causes me undue stress) people within the 5% of this country who don’t think I’m innocent.

My lawyers got veto power, or whatever it’s called when you can override a certain number of the opposing side’s jury choices (thanks, AP US Gov,  you clearly did me well), right? Thanks, guys, couldn’t you have made better use of that by, oh, I don’t know, FINDING SOME JURY MEMBERS WHO WOULD BE ON MY SIDE?!?!

Can’t you somehow get re-tried if enough people protest or think the verdict is wrong? Shouldn’t that get you a shorter sentence? I’m probably making that up. This is why I’m not a lawyer…although I think even I could have done a better job than these idiots who defended me. Still, I have a right to be hysterical and grasping at straws — I’m about to spend the rest of my life peeing next to where I sleep (I’ve seen those cells…ew!)

Apparently this goes to show that a) if you’re the victim of unlucky circumstance, you can definitely spend your life wrongfully imprisoned while the real perpetrator goes free (oh, hey, Anthony Capozzi and Altemio Sanchez), so therefore, b) money is well spent on a savvy, swift-talking lawyer team.

Yay, US justice system?

(fade in, cue theme music, opening montage)

In case you missed it, here’s what happened last week on Angela’s blog…

and so begins another week of questions. Fortunately, we begin with an easy one.

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You work in an office performing a job that you find satisfying (and which compensates you adequately). The company that employs you is suddenly purchased by an eccentric millionaire who plans to immediately raise each person’s salary by 5% and extend an extra week of vacation to all full-time employees. However, this new owner intends to enforce a somehwat radical dress code: every day men will have to wear tuxedos, tails and top hats (during the summer months, men wil be allowed to wear three piece grey suits on “casual Fridays”). Women must exclusively work in formal wear, preferably ball gowns or prom dresses. Each employee will be given an annual $500 stipend to purchase necessary garments, but that money can only be spent on work related clothing. The new regime starts in 3 months. Do you seek employment elsewhere?

I’m a bit of a girly-girl, in that I enjoy pretty dresses, and I’m a journalist, so it’s not like I can really be picky about a job that pays me well AND gives me money for work clothes. Not to mention, whenever I have to go to a fancy event, I’m totally set.

Short answer — meh, why not?

4. At the age of thirty, you suffer a blow to the skull. The head trauma leave you with a rare form of partial amnesia — though otherwise fine, you’re completely missing five years from your life. You have no memory of anything that happened between the ages of twenty-three and twenty-eight. That period of your life is completely gone; you have no recollection of anything that occurred during that five year gap. You are told by friends and family that — when you were 25 — you (supposedly) became close friends with someone you met on the street. You possess numerous photos of you and this person, and everyone in your life insists that you and this individual were best friends for over two years. You were (allegedly) inseparable. In face, you find several old letters and e-mails from this person that vaguely indicate you may have even shared a brief romantic relationship. But something happened between you and this individual when you were 27, and the friendship abruptly ended (and apparently, you never told anyone what caused this schism, so it remains a mystery to all). The friend moved away soon after the incident, wholly disappearing from your day-to-day life. But you have no memory of any of this. Within the context of your own mind, this person never existed. There is tangible proof that you deeply loved this friend, but — whenever you look at their photograph — all you see is a stranger. Six weeks after your accident, you are informed this person suddenly died. How sad do you feel?

So we’re going to pretend those ages in this question are ages I’ve already reached. Which would mean I’ve suddenly jumped from 21 to 30, so I’m already disliking this question. Then, not only have I missed out on nine years of my life, but I’ve suffered a serious, amnesia-causing accident that made me forget five years of my life (which I guess would mean I only really missed out on four years), and a once-close friend died.

I REALLY dislike this question.

In any case — would I be sad? How sad would I feel?

This is me, I get sad over television shows. I cry at cute, cheesy moments in movies. So, yes, I will be sad because, although I cannot at all remember this person, I have mementos that indicate we were close and had a good friendship. And while I can’t imagine not being sad about a former friend dying, even if we did have a falling out and weren’t speaking and maybe even hated each other, this memory-less me has no recollection of that. For all I know, we just drifted apart. Therefore, I think I’d be more likely to be sad than I would be had I not suffered this crazy blow to the head.

Strangely enough, I might actually be sadder than I would have been if I hadn’t lost my memory because the one person who could help me regain those missing memories would be gone. That dead friend is the one person who knows what happened between us, and he or she could have answered all the questions I had and given me a piece of my life back. When this person died, all those memories died with him or her, and in this situation, that would be like having a part of myself die.

Assume everything about your musical tastes was reversed overnight. Everything you loved, you now hate; everything you once hated, you now love. If your favorite band has always been REM, they will suddenly sound awful to you, they will become the band you dislike the most. Everything will become it’s opposite, but everything will remain in balance (and the rest of your personality will remain unchanged). So — in all likelihood — you won’t love music any less (or any more) then you do right now. There will still be artists you love and who make you happy; they will merely be the artists you currently find unlistenable. Now, I concede that this transformation would make you unhappy. But explain why.

Why would this make me unhappy? Because I’d be stuck listening to T-Pain and opera music, that’s why. Need I explain further?

Okay, fine. I’m assuming this new-taste-in-music me still has all my memories of the period in my life when I liked the music I like now. I would remember the great lyrics, the guitar solos, the beautiful voices. I would remember the fun I had at concerts and the happiness I got out of singing my lungs out to “Bad Romance” or air-guitaring to “Layla.” I would still connect that music to moments in my life — my dad quizzing me about the inspiration for Don McLean’s “American Pie” every year at Nardin’s Father-Daughter Dance; dancing to “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls on the lawn at Darien Lake; crowd-surfing to Fall Out Boy’s “Dance, Dance” at a concert with my friends. Except…I wouldn’t love that music anymore.

So says this argument, I would “love” fly beatz (yo) from somebody like Lil’ Wayne or Drake, or I would enjoy discussing the merits of Beethoven’s Fifth or Sixth or Nine-Hundredth or whatever Symphony, or I would be raving in my car to techno music — and doing so would make me happy. I would still absolutely love music, I would still spend my time devising plans to go to every concert imaginable, and I would be making new memories connected to this new music I love.

So why would I be unhappy? At first glance, I thought it would be because of my new musical tastes; I thought it would be because in this alternate reality, the music that I now don’t enjoy all that much, I’d find wonderful, spectacular, the best thing since sliced bread. Then I thought I’d be unhappy because I’d be longing for the days when I loved my old music; I thought it would be because this new me would wonder, as I wonder with the artists I don’t like now, how anyone could ever listen to such a cacophony.

But it’s none of those reasons. Really, the worst part about this change probably relates to the memories tied to the music. All those memories would be tainted, and I would be unable to still feel the magic that those songs added to those moments. I would still have good memories — but they wouldn’t be great because I wouldn’t be able to listen to the songs that provided the soundtrack for those moments. Now, I can pull up a song on my iPod and feel the feelings I felt when I was listening to that song in that moment…but if I don’t like those songs anymore, I would only be able to recall the memories in silence.

The way music affects you is unaffected by your musical tastes. Whether you like rap, punk, classical, or whatever, the music is important to you because of the way you interpret it and the memories you associate with it. If I suddenly hated (and I don’t mean in the way that I “hate” the Backstreet Boys now; I mean a way that I truly couldn’t listen to the music anymore because it would, I don’t know, make my ears bleed or something) all the music I love now, I’d be truly, truly sad because I would be unable to feel the way I feel now when I listen to it. 

Music is like a relationship. We may be first attracted to a song because of the lyrics or the beat — the “outer beauty” of the music, if you will — but we continue to love a song for the same reason we love a person — because of the way it makes you feel.

2. Think of someone who is your friend (do not select your best friend, but make sure the person is someone you would classify as “considerably more then an acquaintance”). This friend is going to be attacked by a grizzly bear. Now this person will survive the attack; that is guaranteed. There is a 100 percent chance that your friend will live. However, the extent of his injuries is unknown; he might receive nothing but a few superficial scratches, but he also might lose a limb (or multiple limbs). He might recover completely in twenty-four hours with nothing but a great story, or he might spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Somehow you have the ability to stop this attack from happening. You can magically save your friend from the bear. But his (or her) salvation will come at a peculiar price: if you choose to stop the bear, it will always rain. For the rest of your life, wherever you go, it will be raining. Sometimes it will pour and sometimes it will drizzle — but it will never not be raining. But it won’t rain over the totality of the earth, nor will the hydrological cycle be disrupted; these storm clouds will be isolated, and they will focus entirely on your specific where-abouts. You will also never see the sun again. Do you stop the bear, accepting the lifetime of rain?

Alright, this one is just preposterous.  Those weird little rainclouds that follow you and only you only happen in cartoons.  I don’t think there’s anyway to program the weather to act a certain way by a certain person. I mean, I guess it might be possible if you were carrying around a rain-making machine, or a GPS tied to a weather machine or something like that, but really? I call bull.

And in all honesty, I really don’t know how to answer that question. I would hate to see any of my friends permanently scarred by a bear attack, but that rain would seriously get annoying after a while. I suppose the honorable answer would be to say that of course I’d take the rain (a minor nuisance in comparison to a bear attack) to save my friend. But, come on people, level with me — would you really? This is another one of those selfishness v. selflessness moments (see Question #1).

If it were a week or a month or some set amount of time of rain versus a bear attack, or my friend getting majorly attacked versus me being minorly attacked, then I’d probably say bring it. But, honestly, a lifetime of rain? Blah.

I’m feeling less-than-prolific today. It could be the 12-hour workday yesterday. It could be the crazy Christmas shopping expedition I went on Sunday (seriously, swearing off malls and my credit card for a while). It could be that I just simply have a list of good blog ideas, but nothing overly enlightening to say about any of them right now.

But whenever I’m feeling less-than-prolific, I can revert to a trick I learned in grammar school when I had to write in my marble notebook journal every morning: reflect on a question. This time, though, the questions are coming from the mind of Mr. Chuck Klosterman.

Klosterman is one of my favorite authors. His witty, sarcastic outlook on all things pop culture has provided me with many laughs and humorous quotes (including one entire story about the Knicks and sportswriting that is just full of hilarious moments; it’s, sadly, not on on this list), and I highly recommend you pick up one of his books or find some of his writing online. His book IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas begins each piece with a quirky,  yet sometimes serious, hypothetical question, and for the next 15 days (or so…give or take weekends probably), I will answer them. Because that’s what I want to do.

By the way, you should answer, too.

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1. Think about your life. Think about the greatest thing you have ever done, and think about the worst thing you have ever done. Try to remember what motivated you to do the former, and try to remember what motivated you to do the latter… How similar are these two motives?

Now here’s a tricky one. I’m a 21-year old college graduate. I don’t have a particularly out-of-the-ordinary, exciting life. By that I mean that my life is fun and exciting — but not in a way that’s any different from anyone else’s life, really. The “greatest thing I’ve ever done” probably falls somewhere along the lines of graduating college or a journalistic moment — again, nothing particularly extraordinary. It’s not like I’ve cured cancer or anything. As for the “worst thing I’ve ever done”? I’m not a particularly diabolical person, so I haven’t ruined someone’s life by exacting revenge for some wrong committed towards me or something like that. If I can extrapolate and replace “worst” with “stupidest” or “most selfish,” then I have a couple moments to choose from, but still nothing overly horrible.

What motivated me to do these things? I wanted the best for myself. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. I didn’t want to fail. I wanted things to go my way. Long story short, my motivation was myself and my happiness — maybe even at the expense of someone else’s happiness.

It’s not as awful as it sounds. Graduating college (early!) made my friends and family proud. I hope those journalistic moments resulted in stories that informed people or made them smile. And those stupid, selfish moments? It’s not like I intentionally thought them out and planned to hurt someone. I told you, I’m not nearly that diabolical. I also have a tendency to jump head-first into things without considering all the important information. And when I realized the hurt feelings I’d caused, I quickly tried to make things right (with varying success).

But I don’t think it’s bad to be selfish sometimes. I’m certainly not a selfish person (I don’t think), but I know when I have to look out for myself and put myself first. I had this discussion in some class, and I think we came to a pretty solid conclusion, one that I think most of society accepts: People need to consider other people, and they should try to help out in whatever way they can when someone encounters hardships. Help can mean everything from donating money to a charity to just listening to a friend and giving advice. But you can’t go so far that your happiness, health and wellbeing are compromised. If you do, you’re not going to get the satisfaction you should from the good that you’ve done. You just have to find the balance.

I’m going to sound like an old woman (which, lately, I’ve been feeling like anyways) for a moment: “Back when I was a youngin’…” TV was so much better than today.

Go ahead and think way, way, way back — to the ’90’s. Back when Nickelodeon had cool game shows, slime, and talking babies instead of talking sponges. ABC still ran TGIF, and Saturday morning cartoons were Buster and Babs and Yacko, Wacko and Dot, not Ash and Pikachu. And — my favorite! — I would get up early for school so I could watch “Rocky & Bullwinkle.”

It was all so cheesy, but it was all SO GOOD. Shows like “Boy Meets World” and “Full House” were after-school specials in the truest sense of the word — oh no, DJ might be developing anorexia, and Shawn’s parents took off again! — but I’m still watching re-runs (thanks, TBS, for that awesome morning lineup of “Saved by the Bell” and “Fresh Prince”). We were invested in characters’ lives and relationships. I can’t imagine people caring that much about Hannah Montana’s boyfriend or life enough to religiously watch for eight, nine, ten seasons.

Or maybe it’s just that, as an adult, I can’t see myself watching those shows at all. That’s so sad because when I was little, the best part about watching “Doug” and “Rugrats” was that I could enjoy the cute adventure Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and Lil went on, while my parents got all the jokes that went over my head and laughed at the pop culture references in Doug’s fantasy montages. Can I imagine myself, as a parent, sitting through an episode of “The Fairly Odd-Parents” and finding it funny? Not really.

It seems there’s been a general shift in the idea of “television” — what makes a good show, what makes a sitcom/drama/action show, what is worth putting on TV. Sitcoms like “The Office” and “30 Rock” and “Scrubs” are a different breed than classics like “Friends” and “Cheers” and “Seinfeld.” Reality TV has all but taken over. Even The WB is gone, replaced by what I can only describe as the more “mature” CW (“Gossip Girl” would never have made it on The WB).

I do enjoy a few current shows. I’ve rather embarassingly become addicted to “Gossip Girl” and “90210” (you know you have guilty pleasures, too). And “Scrubs” was one of the few sitcoms remaining that I really had to watch every week, although I think it may have just jumped the shark with this new season. But I don’t think anything will ever make me call my friend screaming and crying the way that final episode of “Friends” did (yeah, fun fact for you there; I know I wasn’t the only one sobbing when Rachel showed up at Ross’s apartment at the end of that voicemail). It might be that I just miss being a kid and being able to find enjoyment in something simple like watching people go down the Pie Slide on “What Would You Do?”

And the little kid in me is really, really not OK with the idea of “my shows” popping up on places like Nick at Nite. No thank you, sir, that’s the place for shows from my parents’ childhoods.

Way to make me feel old again.

Getting drunk the night before a holiday based around stuffing your face seems counterintuitive. How can you be expected to load up on turkey and mashed potatoes, browse the ads to plan your Black Friday shopping excursion, then pass out on the couch when you’re hungover?

For whatever reason, though, Thanksgiving Eve is big — maybe because there’s really no other time you’ll get to go barhopping on a Wednesday night. Or maybe just  because it’s Buffalo, and we generally seem to use any excuse we can to get a party going (“Woo, it’s Thursday!”…”Woo, there’s a Sabres game!”…”Woo, it’s Dyngus Day!” — I’m not complaining).

As a newly-minted 21-year-old, this will be my first “official” Thanksgiving Eve, meaning my friends and I want to go somewhere we’re going to have a good time. The discussion of where to go, however, keeps leading back to Chippewa — which is a problem. They’re convinced that every other decent bar in the city couldn’t possibly have anyone in it tonight because, clearly, Chippewa is where the party’s at.

I respectfully disagree.

I love that Buffalo has Chippewa. It’s something fun to tell visitors about (it makes the city seem like a hip place, I guess?), and it would probably be entertaining if I ever felt like going dancing for a night. There are a couple decent places I enjoy (what up, Papaya! Tip Kym the bartender well — she’s awesome!) — but I outgrew my “Chippewa phase” before I even had one. You see, I’d rather not spend my night paying ridiculous cover charges and drink prices while being hit on by Long Island bros and avoiding puking high schoolers (side note: I like how this article makes it seem like this study about underage drinking is some huge discovery. I went to Nardin; I could have told you the results of this study a LONG time ago. I’m not being harsh. I’m being honest).

I know for sure I will begin my evening at Fuddrucker’s on Maple ($6 burgers, $1 drafts — can’t go wrong with that). After that? It’s all up in the air. So help me out. Give me suggestions. Where will you all be tonight? Please, dear readers, don’t let me die a slow death in the nightclub purgatory that is Pure and Quote.

Let’s be honest with ourselves — for most musicians, each tour stop is “just another show.”  It’s another date closer to the end, another stop in a city somewhere on this planet.  That’s not to say they don’t play their hardest or give it their all; it’s just to say that, what makes a stop in Boise, Idaho, any different from a show in Birmingham, Alabama?  If there’s nothing that connects the artist to that date or that city — well, how is it special?

But last night, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band had a reason to remember Buffalo, New York. This wasn’t “just another show.”  This was it.  Whether that “it” is the end of the tour, or the end of the band as we know it remains to be seen, but, at least for a little while, this is the end.  It’s safe to say they made sure this wasn’t “just another show.”

You could see it on the crowd’s faces as the lights went up and they did that dorky dance Courtney Cox made popular in the “Dancin’ in the Dark” video.  You could hear it in their voices as they sang the entire first verse of “Hungry Heart.”  You could feel it in the lobby of HSBC Arena as fans waited to get in, chanting “Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuce!” as they triumphantly rode up the escalators.  Mostly, you could tell by the band’s reluctance to leave the stage, by Springsteen’s cries of, “We’re not going yet!”

This was something special.  What went down in those three and a half hours on a normal Sunday night transcended the normal concert experience.  Hell, Rolling Stone was there, and you know it’s big when they come out.  This was mystical.  It was magical.  It was something beyond the crowd’s wildest dreams.

From the opening notes of “Wrecking Ball,” through the entire Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, still going through the “requests” of “Merry Christmas Baby” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” (the four-year old in line in front of me got her wish) right up to the show-ending performace of “Thunder Road”…no, wait, “Rosalita,”…no, they still weren’t done…”Rockin’ All Over the World” — the band gave it their all.

My dad told (read: yelled over the ringing in my ears) me at the end, as I was stumbling out of my seat at 11:45pm, wondering how I would ever make it up for work this morning, “If you can find a harder-working band out there, I’ll go see them anytime.”  You wouldn’t be able to guess that Clarence Clemons has health issues, or Nils Lofgren’s knee/hip/wherever problems, or that “Little” Stevie Van Zant is “as old as [Bruce]. When did that happen?,” you wouldn’t guess from their performance.  They kept up right along with the little girl who got up onstage to sing “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day” and the young boy who got to dance with Little Stevie and air-guitar with Bruce during “Dancin’ in the Dark.” (By the way, how do I go back in time and get that opportunity?)

Bruce and the band show up most acts half their age, hands down.  You don’t see Fall Out Boy (wow, that was a random pick, please don’t judge my musical tastes right now) putting on three-plus hour shows, and I certainly can’t picture Pete Wentz dancing across the stage (or even  being *on* stage) at 60 the way Springsteen does/is (seriously, the man’s gotta have that elixir from the Fountain of Youth or whatever stashed in his fridge).  If they’re ready to hang up their hats because of health issues — well, I’m not buying it.

If last night was their swan song — or even if it isn’t — Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band did it better than I think anyone there could have imagined.  “Legendary” is an appropriate word.  “Once-in-a-lifetime” gets closer.

Really, though, the yellow signs being passed out by fans in line, on the premise that this was, in fact, the final show for the E Street Band, say it all:

“Thank You.”