Tower of Hanoi

5 April I arrived today. At the first opportunity, I removed the golden discs from their poles and scattered them around. When the monks entered, they seemed deeply disturbed and some of them started twitching, but they began patiently replacing the discs. 27 April Today I said to the head of the monastery, "To get to the door, you have to walk halfway there. Then you have to walk half of the remaining distance, and so on. Hence, you can never leave this room." He thought about what I had said, tried to walk out of the room, and failed. "Have fun pondering that one," I said as I walked out the door. 8 May While the monks weren't looking I moved all the discs but one to the third tower without actually doing the moves. When they saw what I had done, the monks started hi-fiving each other and doing silly little victory dances. I took the final disc and made as if I was going to put it in place, but instead I tripped, knocking the tower over. "Oops! Sorry guys!" The monks looked dejected as they gathered the discs to try again. 13 May I tried to discourage the monks by telling them that it had been calculated that it would take 10,000 years for them to solve the Tower of Hanoi. One of the monks working on the puzzle stopped, pondered for a moment, and then fell over dead. 23 May Today I took the envelope with the solution in it and went to the game room where the monks were working on the Tower. I said, "Look, I've got the solution!" They all crowded around me. I opened the envelope and looked at the solution. "Shit, this is easy! I can't believe you haven't figured it out yet!" Then I tore the sheet of paper into a couple strips and ate them. 13 June The monks have been hitting me with sharpened sticks for the past couple days. To get them to stop I showed them how to play Tetris on my laptop. I told them the world would end if they beat my high score. I think we're safe for a while. 20 June One of the monks is a bit of a Tetris prodigy. He was playing today and after 17 hours he beat my high score. He jumped up and made an obscene gesture at me, in anticipation of the end of the word. Nothing happened. 29 June Today, the head of the monastery told me that he had friends in high places. "Oooooh," I said. In response, a lightning bolt shot out of the sky and struck me. Then the monks transformed into monkeys and ran off into the jungle. 10 July It's been very lonely here at the monastery since the monks all left. Today, I went to the neglected Tower. of Hanoi. I was about to start playing when I notice the edge of a panel sticking out from under one of the towers. I moved the Tower, uncovering a button and a sign that said, "In case of emergency, push to end the world." "Wow," I thought. "It's been right there the whole time."