Like last year, I've been doing paid psych experiments at the UofO for some extra cash. Last year was the one where I carried a PDA for two weeks and went to the lab three times in that period to get electrodes fitted to my head. That was a study on emotions and stress. And it paid quite well, too. A hundred dollars or so isn't anything to sneeze at.

This year I haven't seen much on the paid experiment bulletin board in Straub Hall. It's early yet, though. On Thursday I went in for three hour study that paid seven dollars an hour. Hey, every little bit helps.

My session, however, turned into four hours thanks to a scheduling mix up (it was the student's fault) and terrible parking on campus because of some sort of game going on at the stadium. He didn't have to pay me for four hours, but it was nice of him that he did.

This experiment involved electrodes again and I sat in a comfortable chair in front of a monitor in a dimly lit room. The monitor showed be two groups of dots and I was to press a button that told the computer whether I thought the second group had more or less dots. There was no time to count--it was just a quick look and the screen would go blank again.

Four blocks of this, with a break in between. I was treated well during the study. The guy running the experiment brought me coffee and offered to play music in the room while my brain waves were studied. When he asked what kind of music, I didn't know what to say, so I said alternative, nothing poppy. He piped a radio station in the room for awhile and then it switched to a CD. The music was familiar and I liked it. On my next break, I asked him what we were listening to and he said (and I had guessed correctly) that it was Modest Mouse. I was quite proud of myself because I've only heard one Modest Mouse CD and only once. I should actually get one their CDs sometime.

It's kind of cool to see my brain waves on the monitor. With the electrodes on my head, they're really quite sensitive. Moves of the head or body, or flapping the jaw, or blinking would cause the waves to spike and flare. Then it's cool too relax and see the waves calm down to just little peaks and valleys.

The second part of the experiment was the hardest, the most boring. It involved just staring at the monitor, staring at the green cross hairs as I'm shown an endless show of dot groupings. That's it. I didn't have to press any buttons. Just stare at the screen. And this went on for over an hour. Four blocks with breaks in between. My eyes got soar and the breaks were helpful to relieve that.

I'm not clear on the purpose of the experiment. Something about the speed of decision making and the bombardment of stimuli until a part of the brain becomes used to it. Like last year, our own Ray Vukcevich had designed the computer program for the experiment. I wonder if he's the only programmer for these experiments. I'll have to ask him.

I went home with twenty-eight dollars in cash.

And to clumisly segue into writing news: it appears Baen's Universe has quick response times. Two days after I had submitted I got a rejection. Ha! I sent them another story and the one that got rejected is ready to go to Talebones.