Quod erat demonstrandum might as well mean “Quickly ends discussion.” It’s a somewhat pretentious notation placed at the end of a mathematical proof to indicate its completion.

Freud may have been too conservative in his characterization of the unconscious. The architecture of the mind is such that a great deal of mental processing occurs outside of conscious awareness.
Quotation from Timothy D. Wilson, Know Thyself

I am who I choose to be. I always have been what I chose, though not always what I pleased.
Quotation from Lois McMaster Bujold

I hate when something is advertised as “FREE” but you have to buy something to get it, as in: Buy 4 and get the 5th one free. It’s not free, it’s a conditional discount.

“But you said buy two and get the third one free.”
“No, I clearly stated buy three and get two, and the sign says No Refunds or Returns on Sale Merchandise.”
“But that doesn’t make sense.”
“Dear, I couldn’t state it any clearer.”

The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.
Quotation from Gloria Steinem

In Costa Rica, many store mannequins have impossibly big boobs, as compared to mannequins in the United States, which are impossibly thin. It’s intriguing what different cultures consider “ideal” and seductive.

Strange and Beautiful Tattoos (1dak.com) Do you find ink sexy?
Pierced Pink and a beautiful touch of plastic destruction (Flickr.com)

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” That is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Poem by John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

Immediately after a disaster, one takes stock: You find the injuries and the memories, the blessings and the fear. You think “If i had been on that bridge, or if the earthquake had been longer or stronger…” You confront your own vulnerability. Others were hurt and some perished. Reverence becomes an emotion.
Information comes in whispers. There were landslides at the waterfalls. Some stairs collapsed under a family with children, but they are ok. The roads are gone, in both directions. Cinchona, the next town over, is gone. Gone? Some employees at the La Paz Waterfall Gardens live in Cinchona and have family there. Two girls died at the Poas Volcano lookout, where we were earlier. We are trapped on the mountain, which is steep and filled with faults, and it isn’t safe.

Where to help Costa Rica earthquake victims (Tico Times)

The recommended daily requirement for hugs is: four per day for survival, eight per day for maintenance, and twelve per day for growth.
Quotation from Virginia Satir

I was near the cat enclosure when the earthquake happened. One of the cats got out of her cage. Thankfully, I didn’t have to confront a frightened cat. I saw the monkeys out of the cage, however, and somebody told me the glass cages broke in the snake house. “There are poisonous snakes loose” she said.

Post Earthquake Update on La Paz Waterfall Gardens w/Photos (WaterfallGardens.com)
Post-Earthquake Photos from Marsrox (WebShots.com)

The quotation in today’s comic is from the poem Is it Well with the Child? by Christina Georgina Rossetti.

Animals are smarter than people acknowledge. They have fundamentally disparate senses and abilities than humans, so they understand the world differently than we do.

Can Animals Predict Earthquakes? (LiveScience.com)
Animals & Earthquake Prediction (U.S. Geological Survey)

There have also been examples where authorities have forecast successfully a major earthquake, based in part on the observation of the strange antics of animals. For example, in 1975 Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude quake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed. If the city had not been evacuated, it is estimated that the number of fatalities and injuries could have exceeded 150,000.
Quotation from National Geographic News

Ticos, as the locals are called, love to salsa. Salsa is the art of moving your hips when you step. It’s spicy because it never stops. One song leads into the next so you dance and dance. It’s very sexy and the Ticos love to teach by example.

Iran Castillo: How to Dance the Salsa (YouTube)

Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.
Quotation from Maya Angelou

I love this uncrowded beach.
Nothing matters but the aimless rhythm of the waves, the sun,
the shells and pebbles that give character to the sand.
Has it ever been more beautiful?
It’s familiar, but never the same, like watching
my face resolve into the sea.

The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it.
Quotation from Herman Melville, Moby Dick

What is it with public toilets? I once went to a nice cafe in Paris, but it had a hole in the ground (it was called, I think, a Turkish toilet). In Costa Rica, I twice found toilets with no seats, one in a restaurant. My opinion: Public potties shouldn’t be an adventure to use.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
Quotation from Ernest Hemingway

All my good reading, you mught say, was done in the toilet… There are passages in Ulysses which can be read only in the toilet —if one wants to extract the full flavor of their content.
Quotation from Henry Miller, A Saturday Afternoon

One exciting way to see Costa Rica is to do a Canopy Zip-Line adventure. Flying over tropical vegetation concentrates the mind in the immediate moment. Canopy tours often include a series of platforms and some rope or suspension bridges. It’s awesome!

Monteverde Costa Rica Canopy Tour
Arenal Volcano Costa Rica’s Half Mile Zip Line (YouTube)

With speech therapy, I can teach you to say “fuck off” more clearly.
Quotation from Shane Connaughton, My Left Foot