Really random thought about thinking

I do my best thinking in the bathroom.

Today, a thought struck me in the Writing Centre's rather decent lavatory: why do we hold our chins while thinking. Here are two examples.



I don't think putting our hands there helps the brain work any better. I asked my fellow tutors and they said that it probably made people look smarter. That's circular logic in my opinion. People put their hands on their chins while thinking; intelligent people think a lot; therefore, being seen with your hand on your chin seems intelligent.

Personally, it looks ridiculously pretentious. Ever seen a really bad author picture on the back flap of a book? I mean, this guy writes a puny little essay on Shakespeare's work and feels entitled to throwing in a picture with his chin resting on his right hand as he gazes stoutly at the horizon while considering the complexity of the cosmos. It's really ridiculous.


While I am asking random questions, I think I'll ask another one that struck me today: can we milk whales? Think about it; it might be the solution to world hunger and the whale extinction problem. A blue whale is 77m long! I am going to search assiduously for the answer now.
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update:

I found the answer to the Blue whale question on http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/planetocean/bluewhale.html

"A blue whale's milk supposedly tastes like a mixture of fish, liver, milk of magnesia, and castor oil. Bleech! But it's very rich and nourishing for baby blues. A baby blue whale drinks over 50 gallons of its mother's milk in a day. In its first several weeks of life, it gains 10 pounds an hour or a little over 200 pounds a day!"

And that's why we don't milk Whales instead of the comparatively puny cows.