Flashing lights
A eagle-eyed reader asked (auf Deutsch) what the flashing lights mean, so I will share the torrid tale with the whole class.
Back when I worked for Internet Broadcasting Systems, distractions were the digits of pi: irrational, random, and unending. That was where I found out about http://www.homestarrunner.com/ and http://www.fark.com/, two sites which can chew up slack time at work by the bucketful. My coworker (and friend) Gerg sat immediately next to me in an adjoining cubicle. He and I would occasionally AIM eachother links (from five feet away) to keep amused.
One fine winter morning I received a rope light as a secret Santa gift. It was vaguely cool, so I put it up across the top of my cubicle, since my Britney Spears shrine was suffering from inadequate lighting. One day down the road I found myself staring at the rope light as the tiny lights chased eachother from end to end and danced in marvelous patterns. The ticking of the clock slowed to an echoing crawl as the dance grew more and more intricate, back and forth, up and down, on and off.
I turned to Gerg and said, simply: “I have flashing lights.”
And thus a new term was born for any sort of distraction. This whole story was probably only funny to me, but there you go.
The speaking in tongues category is for things involving foreign languages, like the post about Chinese crotchless pants. The rest are pretty self explanatory.
heh. got it. My flashing lights are guiding me directly to bed!