I will describe some combinatorial problems which arise when computing various types of partition functions for the Donaldson-Thomas theory of a space with a torus action. The problems are all variants of the following: give a generating function which enumerates the number of ways to pile n cubical boxes in the corner of a room. Often the resulting generating functions are nice product formulae, as predicted by the recent wall-crossing formulae of Kontsevich-Soibelman. There are now a variety of techniques, both geometric and combinatorial, to compute these formula. My work uses the entirely combinatorial techniques, namely vertex operators and the planar dimer model; these techniques can be applied essentially "bare-handed" and rely very little upon the underlying algebraic geometry.
