Riveting. Truly riveting.

And by the way. Wow! She’s got really shiny hair.

So the last time we check on our venerable hero, he was starring in the fourth season of the hit Fox show, House, M.D., looking to catch the eye of a particular Dr. Allison Cameron…

Thing is, I left you all on a bit of a cliffhanger, right?

So let’s start with the basics.

The first thing we need is a love function.

Attraction has got to measured in some way, right?

A love function provides a measure of how attracted you are to someone else. You’ve all seen guys nudging each other subtly (or not so subtly) and whispering, “Dude, check out that nine”. Or something to that effect.

That’s a love function in nature, folks.

But we’ll go ahead and make the following definition:

P(t) = Phil’s attraction to Dr. Cameron as a function of the time.

A graphical depiction of such a love function would perhaps resemble the following,

As you can see, my attraction to Dr. Cameron goes through several phases as the seasons progressed: (1) an initial fast growth, when I was all smitten, (2) a fast decline into deep despair when she decided to grow out those stupid bangs in Season 3 (see right), and finally (3) a quick ascent back to blissful, puppy-like attraction.

Be sure to also distinguish the appropriate axis on the left. A positive value of the love function means you wanna get your mack on. A negative value means you’d rather go home and do some math.

And as you can imagine, one can come up with endless types of love functions, each of which can be analyzed mathematically. For example, that lustful adolescent love I’m sure we all felt when we met our first love can perhaps be modeled as an exponential growth:

And what of love after marriage? Well I assume after the honeymoon phase, the love function would be a sort of an exponential decay:

And according to my empirical analysis, most women exhibit love functions that are ‘randomly’ oscillatory — vague, unpredictable and seemingly chaotic:

Honestly, I’d throw in a discontinuity (or ten) and some other mathematical nastiness, but I try not to let my personal feelings run rampant.

But see, when we start to model our relationships, it’s not enough to know whether one person is in love with another. It’s equally important to know how fast or how slow this process is taking!

Compare, for example, the difference between a hot and heavy 2 week fling while vacationing in the Bahamas with say, a 10 year unrequited love from afar.

From a distance, both scenarios could very well resemble the above exponential growth — that is, a love that’s growing positively as time progresses. The real difference is found in the rate of change or speed that the couple falls in love.

A two week (or two day) affair would probably explosive, with a lightning fast rate of change. On the other hand, a 10 year unrequited romance would perhaps be a slow burning process — certainly not explosive.

Those of you who have taken Calculus or Physics will simply recognize this as the derivative of the love function. But if you haven’t (or more likely, if it’s been too long), all you need to know is that it’s vitally important we study both the level of attraction, and how fast or slow the attraction is growing (or dying).

P’(t) = How fast is Phil digging (or not digging) Dr. Cameron.

Notice the little prime (’) here which indicates that this function measures the rate or speed of attraction, not the amount. So in the above graph, P’(t) would be very large for an explosive attraction. But for a slow-burning and lengthy attraction, P’(t) would be quite small.

And of course, P’(t) could also be negative, which would indicate a growing dislike.

Phew! That’s enough mathematizing for one day, wouldn’t you say?

In the next part of this series, we’re going to finally get our hands dirty and start looking into the dynamics of relationships.

In fact, I’m going to mathematically prove why the Cameron-Chase relationship is doomed to fail.

Which totally leaves the door open for me.

Yesterday night, I was married to Rachel McAdams.

So it was only for a handful of hours.

And so I wasn’t technically conscious.

But I ask you, kind reader, what is consciousness, anyways?

Now, I could go off and talk about how Descartes wondered the very same thing — that is, how do we really know if we’re dreaming or not — cept’ in his day, there was no Rachel McAdams. Descartes was probably dreaming about that saucy wench with the low-cut blouse who served him tea in the afternoons…

But dude, I was married to Rachel McAdams! Don’t you wanna hear about that?

Okay, so Rach — [yeah, I called her “Rach”. She loved it. She called me Phil, by the way. We were tight like that] — Rach and I lived in this itty-bitty quaint house, along with two kittens and a dog. It was back in Canada, of course, because everyone knows that Rachel is from Ontario.

Anyways, we ‘d be sitting on the porch, sipping our drinks. And she’d be dressed in that really sexy bride’s maid costume she had on in Wedding Crashers. Why she was wearing a bride’s maid dress, I have no idea. But piss off. My dream, remember?

Then we’d talk about our day. Nothing fancy. She’d regale me with all the wonderful details of her day: how she fended off advances from Brad Pitt and George Clooney, how she had lunch with Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman, and how Owen Wilson was inviting us both to his cottage next week.

Then I’d talk about mine: how I sat around at home. Mostly naked. Reading about math and checking my e-mail. Eating Cheeto’s and shit.

She’d think I was the cats pajamas. Real hilarious, you know. Then again, I always seem so much funnier in my dreams.

Oh, and I think Ryan Gosling might have stopped by and tried something shady. I might have punched him, then chased him off with a bat.

Anyways, I had a fantastic time.

Tonight, I think I’m going to try falling asleep to The Notebook.

To: Phil
From: Dave
Date: Yesterday
Subject: Your post on camels

[Phil,] if you could manage to snap a picture of yourself holding a camel in a chokehold whilst surrounded by a group of cheering African children in loincloths (spears optional), I would forever in your debt.

- dave

As most of you know, I do enjoy Potter-Mania.

Well, I managed to find another volunteer who would come to a midnight showing of Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix with me today. I can’t believe I’m going to be watching Harry Potter at midnight in Kenya.

And seeing how we’re 7 hours ahead of you guys back home in Ottawa, that just shows how hardcore we are.

“It’ll be me, you, and Hermione,” my friend says.

Yeah, baby.

Self magazine polled a thousand 25-35 year old women from China to find out which male celebrity they most desired to father their children.

Andy Lau, chinese actor slash model came out on top, followed by craggy billionaire Bill Gates in second, and the (admittedly) handsome Takeshi Kaneshiro also sneaked in for a Top 3 finish.

Although my Chinese readership is paltry — I must say I did feel a pang of hurt, not even making the list.

I mean come on. Brad Pitt may be good looking and quite possibly the sexiest man alive, sure, but can he do math?