I couldn't figure out which category to put this in, as it jumps all around the place. Si I'll just put this here.

A new tenant moved into the upstairs apartment yesterday. She is in her early 30s, and suffers from anxiety. She is the sort of person who could easily blend into a crowd: average looks, about 20 or so pounds overweight, glasses.

She has a dog named Button Gwinnet. He is a service dog for her. I'd never heard of that. I have no idea of his breed, other that that he falls squarely in the "cute little dog" variety.

He's an affectionate little guy, very willing to jump on your lap. If he gets upset, just holding him close calms him down. If only we could be like that!

I didn't get much of an impression of her. She was apologizing for every little thing, most of which I wouldn't have noticed, or for that matter even cared about. It was the usual first meeting: both sides were trying to be accomodating. Later on, of course, we'll both let the super polite masks fall away and be ourselves.

Her boyfriend was completely different from her. He too was in his early 30s, and had that slacker look to him: shaved heard, scraggly beard, thin.

I was looking over some supplies I had bought to make a couple of PVC telescope mounts. He seemed quite interested in what I was doing. We talked, sporadically, in between him helping her move in.

He has a lot of interests. But, to my mind at least, they're the wrong interests. He brought up Eric Von Daniken. "Pure crap," I said. Von Daniken was a writer who believed aliens from outer space influenced our culture, our art, and showing the Egyptians how to build the pyramids.

According to Von Daniken, there is no such thing as human imagination. People couldn't possibly have dreamed up all those weird cave drawings and such in the past on their own. And since we don't know precisely how the pyramids were built, aliens must have done it.

My take is that people in the past were just as smart as we are: they just knew different things. If you take anyone from the present and placed them at any time in the past, even if it was just 50 years, they would not survive for long.

He was into all sorts of paranormal nuttines. He trotted out the overused idea that of course UFOs are piloted by aliens, after all: "With all the stars in the universe, who are we to believe that there is no alien life?"

He was combining two different arguments: UFOs are from other planets, and that there is a high likelihood that there is other life out there. He also misused Drake's Equation, which builds conjecture on top of conjecture, coming to the conclusion that aliens exit essentially because the odds are in their favor.

And, sure as the sun rises, he trotted out "Sure, it's all wild stories, but what if some of it was true?" Well yes, maybe. But where's the evidence? "What if" is nice when writing a story, but it doesn't cut it for science.

As it always does when I meet new people, I tell them about my father's Near Death Experience. They both gave me their whole attention, but immediately lost interest when there were no angels, bright lights, and so on.

The second thing I always mention about my dad was that he fought in WW2, in the 42nd infantry, Rainbow division. I build it up with "His division captured a small German town. You might have heard of it. That town's name was Dachau." He looked confused. "The concentration camps" I said. "Oh, yeah" he replied.

Does anyone see anything wrong with this? He knew so much about stuff that didn't exist, but he had little knowledge about a very important part of our history.

The day turned into evening, and finally she was moved in. The both of them shook hands with me, giving the usual "It was nice meeting you," which everyone does when meeting new people. It means nothing, but we all feel obligated to do it. He added "I look forward to talking to you again."

Well now! If nothing else, I should have lots of material for further dispatches.