The danger of reading about science online

The Boy is a chemical engineer, and now when ever I mention "an article I read" or "a story about a study I heard on the radio" instead of it just getting the response of "Oh, that's kinda cool" he picks it apart. This happened a few minutes ago when, while on slashdot I came across this article that, at first glance to someone who is NOT a scientist or involved in the sciences, seems to say that there is a gene for being religious, and that it is spreading. My reaction to this was, "Wait, WHAT?" to which The Boy said that's insane. Which when you think about it, it is. People are less religious now then they were fifty years ago. I dug a little deeper, and checked the source of slashdot. That led me here.

The Boy looked over and asked "How the hell did you end up on phyorg?"

"I followed the link to the source article. Are they reliable?"

"Hit and miss," he said simply.

So I dug deeper then that, to the actual article here says something very important that the other two do not. Two very important facts, actually. It states that the research was done under the assumption that such a gene existed, and that fertility was culturally based. Kind of different then the initial article I found, isn't it?

I even took it a step further, I checked the validity of the source the article came from. The royal society is the scientific consultant to the UK parliament. I think that counts as them being a viable source. Satisfied that I had sifted through the internet to find scientific truth, I stopped my reading on the subject.

I only hope that this makes you think twice before thinking something you read on the internet is viable information.

Reboot drinking game and special drink

Alright folks, this one is brutal. Again, swiped some rules online and then weeded them out and edited to my liking. So, the back story. The last post took place the morning after this one, so Yoshi and Brandon came over, Brandon, after reading the Tron 2 post, wanted to get his drink on. Colton kept trying to steer us to action movies, How I met your Mother, and Halo, but I wanted to keep things a bit more nerd (and The Boy) friendly. The Boy has to sit through enough How I met your Mother as is, so Reboot was the compromised reached.

Now, before I post these rules, don't use all at once. We did, and two episodes in I had to switch from Purple to water (recipe for purple at the end of this post).

So, here are some of the less painful rules!

Reboot drinking game, wimpy rules

Dot commits physical acts of violence
Frisket growls at Bob
Hexadecimals flirts with and threatens Bob at the same time
Hexadecimal fails to win because Bob talks her out of it with reverse psychology
A game cube falls at just the wrong moment
Mouse kisses someone unwilling
Someone reaches THROUGH the vid screen
The 8-ball falls off of Bob's apartment building

Normal people rules

Dot gets a spontaneous case of stupid (The writers, were all "Man, we need to break this down for the children viewers at home. Shame we don't have a child character who would be inquisitive of these things, guess Dot will just have to loose basic understanding of things")
Mainframe is doomed
Megabyte says "Mainframe will be mine!" or "Mainframe is mine!"
Megabyte narrates his plans to no one in paticular
Enzo tackles Bob
Phong makes someone play a game with him for advice
Anyone uses two or more computer jargon terms in a row

Rules for people who hate their liver

Every time someone uses a catchphrase (EX: Bob says "I don't think so" Enzo yells "Alphanumeric!")
Hack and Slash bicker
Really crazy/over exagerated facial expressions <- This rule is actually a lot of fun
Anyone uses computer jargon <- This one hurt most of all

Now, I recommend picking and choosing a few from each category, but I admit the rules for people who hate their liver are probably the most fun.

Now, for the special bonus, a themed drink to go with the game!

The Game cube (more commonly known as Purple)

Two fingers Vodka
One finger Blue Curacao
Three to four fingers cream soda
Ice optional


I'd love to hear if anyone has their own rules they like to use for this in the comments! Happy drinking!

The tragic tale of Chocolate hi-hat cupcakes

So, Saturday morning, was out for a hang over breakfast with some friends at a little diner down the street, or up the street and then to the right, I suppose... As we were leaving I asked if anyone wanted to check out the new cupcake bakery down the street. My friends were pressed for time and declined, and The Boy sighed, "I don't know your obsession with cupcake bakeries"

"But, but CUPCAKES!"

"You can make them yourself, and if that last one we tried was any indication, you can do it much better" he had a point. So, when Yoshi and I were hanging out later while Roommate and her fiancee (Yes, I have friends who are engaged. Yes, this blows my mind as well. I'm not old enough to have friends who are engaged!) build a death laser into his car, I suggested we make cupcakes. I also had another friend's birthday party later, so, hey, why not?

So I suggest chocolate, because we are both girls, and showed her my secret chocolate ganache butter cream icing that has, on more then one occasion, gotten me proposed to. We (and by "we" on this one I mean me) decided to do hi-hat cupcakes, which are cupcakes with tall icing dipped in chocolate. So, piped the icing on, popped them in the freezer so they'd hold shape as we dipped them in the ganache, and oh man, were they pretty. And delicious. If I figure out how to post pictures, I will.

So, I leave some with her, we eat some right then and there, as do her room mates, and Roommate and I come home. The Boy is waiting, and I tried to fend him off from the cupcakes, with force, and failed. The cupcakes then make another trip to their final destination, the birthday party. So I walk in, holding them proudly, because, hey, I had put a fair bit of work into these babies, and get The Food Look. The Food Look is a look I have come to know well, it's when every one near by can sense that something delicious has just entered the room and turns to stare in awe and hunger. "Oh my God, those look waaay better then the one's I made!"

And then a coat rack fell on me.

Knocking my cupcakes out of my hands, onto the floor, and many other people's coats. It was a tragic, delicious mess. One lonely cupcake made it, and was shoved upon the birthday girl before anyone else could snatch the tasty survivor up. Her reaction of "Oh my GOD" as she ate it had other people say "Flunch it" and eat the smashed up cupcakes. More then one, actually. Yes, that's how amazing these were. People ate them after they fell on the floor.

There WAS one we never found though... Hope no one's foot found it...

Street Fighter, Ledgend of Chun Li drinking game

So, with the Tron 2 drinking game bringing in over twice as many hits then anything else I've written, I'm doing a follow up, and considering how much fun the... Research, to do on these posts is, I suspect it may develop into a new, liver damaging feature.

Now, for this installment, I was drinking with Room Mate, my friend Topher, and my other friend Mike. We cheated a little on the rules and looked some up online, however I don't have the link to the site we got them off of, as it wasn't me looking them up. If I get my hands on it, I'll post it here. I feel the need to warn you all, however, that the Street Fighter movie is... Absolutely awful. However there are many times that it's so bad it's funny, which makes it a great candidate for a drinking game. It's also: It's on Netflicks, so if you have it, you can watch it there and all it will cost you is time you will never, ever get back!


These are the rules we played with

Every time Chun Li's voice over tries to explain what's going on, you drink
Every time they referance the games, you drink <- This didn't happen much
Every time Bison's accent changes, or he speaks another new language, you drink
Every time Chun Li is referred to as "School Girl" you drink
Every time they speak English when they clearly should not be, you drink
Every time Erika tries to add a new rule, you drink

Rules recommend by Erika

Every time they reference the games, you drink  <- This one is obligatory
Every time Bison's accent changes, you drink <- We decided his accent was trying to have "A bit of an Irish twirl"
Every time they speak English when they should not, you drink <- A fun rule because sometimes you debate if you should or "That's just how they talk to each other"
Every time you gawk at Maya Sunee's breasts <- You will be doing this often. I feel they were the best part of the movie
Every time Nash is being all intense, you drink <-  He's just like Nicholas Cage!
Every time you wonder how long it took them to find Asian actresses that looked that white, you drink
Every time the movie is obviously aimed at barely-pubescent teenage boys, you drink


Bonus points for yelling out the name of the moves they're using!

And before I go on my merry way, does anyone out there have any suggestions for movies to feature in future drinking game features? I'd love to hear them!

That's why God invented coffee

So, as you can see in my side bar under friends, there is a new link. It is to my sister's blog, it is about how her life is a sitcome. One about her potentially getting deported. She's a much more coherent, concise, and grammatically correct writer then I am, and still manages to be witty! But don't tell her I said that, she might think I like her or something. Can't have that. Only deep resentment and bitterness in this family! Okay, not ONLY deep resentment and bitterness. There's some spite in there, too! So, plugging over, although I may write about my sister who fled the country again on another day, and by "may" I mean "will likely".

Right, so as all three of you who actually read this know, I'm a baker. Which means that I have to be AT work for 5:00am, which means dragging myself out of bed at 4:30am. It'd be earlier but they feed me at work. Thank God. There are some perks to starting work so early. Like being able to shut up ANYONE when they bitch about having to be up for work at 9. I actually don't know anyone who's up earlier then I am, you know, besides my co-workers, who are all up before I am because I live ten minutes from work. There's also the fact that I'm done early, which means I have the rest of the day, you know, with sunshine and the occasional rainbow? Yeah, the sun, that bright thing in the sky, or as some of you may know it, "day star". This makes appointments easier, gives me free reign of the park without having to be creepy because I'm an adult alone at a park, let's me have the apartment alone to myself, which means naked time, and makes running errands a lot simpler.

However, there are a lot of things that make getting up at 4:30am hard.
-No one else is done work so early, so if I want to see people during the week, it's hard. They all want to go out at 7, which is early for them, not when you're up at 4:30am.
-I can't really talk to The Boy until 7, either, which tends to lengthen stretches of time when I don't hear from him (he lives in a different city so it kinda matters) because one or both of us will go out at least once during the week, often more. (Yes, The Boy, I know, if I just went and put you on my damned "my 5" list this would be less of an issue, but, when I did last time you went and changed your number on me. I'm afraid you will do it again now.)
-Room Mate has the bad habit of putting on "just one more episode" of what ever we're watching to lure me into staying up past my bed time. After that we tend to end up bantering in the hall way for a while after that which further delays going to bed.
-Room Mate has also taken to setting booby traps in the bathroom, which wakes me up more when I stumble in for my middle of the night pee.
-The people above us. They tend to have loud parties during the week that can be pretty troublesome to sleep through. At least when I ask them to keep it down, they do. Or try to. Apparently they tell Room Mate to shove it. <- We have their cell number for this reason, it's not like I have to go upstairs at 11 every night and ask them to please turn it down.
-My own stupidity.
-Lastly, and most brutal to me the next morning, is my flunching Stumble Upon addiction...

So this leads me to going into work with 5 or less hours of sleep on an average morning. I also suck at napping, so that doesn't help, either... I usually just come home and crash once a week if not more.

And that, my friends, is why God invented coffee.

Tron 2 drinking game

So, my friend Ginger Dave hadn't seen Tron, and was having a hard time finding friends who had money AND were willing to see it. Being the good friend I am, despite having seen it before, I went with him. To make it more fun for me a second time through, I put a stipulation on this however. That we turned it into a drinking game. Perplexed, and a little confused, Ginger Dave agreed.

The rules were simple.

Every time they referance the original, you drink - This was a sane rule
Every time you feel the need to yell "BUT THAT'S NOT HOW COMPUTERS WORK!" you drink - This was the one that hurt
Every time you see or hear Daft Punk - Again, a sane rule
Every time Flynn is a Wizard/Hippy/Jedi, you drink - This one might have hurt, but we were both pretty... Happy, by this point.

And that was it. We almost worked our way through a mickey of rum and two of those giant movie theater things of coke. I mixed the first one with about half the mickey we realized after. Over all, introducing Ginger Dave to drinking at the movies went well.

Some tips for drinking at the movies, for those of you who haven't yet:

Only ever bring a mickey for two to three people. Otherwise you're likely to get TOO rowdy. For not Canadian readers (all one of you) that's 170mL. It's also a good size to sneak in a purse or coat pocket.

Pick a bottle that's plastic, less conspicuous, again, easier to hide, and not as heavy.

Pick a liquor that is simple to mix with things available at the theater unless you want to try smuggling mixers in with you (Rum and coke is my go to for drinking at the movies).

Sit AWAY from people and attempt to use your indoor voice. You're going to be getting silly and giggly if you do this right, so try not to ruin other people's movie going experience. They paid $9 for their ticket too.

Be discreet with it. Mix your drink after the lights go down.

Don't do this at kids movies unless it's a late showing and there aren't actually any kids there.

And last, but most importantly, stay classy you alcoholic bastards.

Bonus!

Drinking game for ANY Harry Potter movie:

Every time they cast a spell, you drink <- Have to credit Mason for that one.

Drinking game for the NEW Clash of the Titans:

Every time they deviate from the original movie/actual myth, you drink. - You WILL run dry. Doesn't matter how much you bring. You will run out or you will just give up for fear of alcohol poisoning.

So apparently Canadian's can't understand British accents?

Alright, so, I admit it. I like anime. Not as much as I used to, when I was a teenager, I was right into it. Eventually I discovered things like crunchyroll-com and onemanga.com and it just got worse from there. Eventually I just didn't have time to devote to sitting down and watching an episode of things, so my interests shifted more to manga. Since onemanga went down, I've switched to web-comics, because I just can't afford to support that kind of addiction. As I stated before, my web-comic folder has a scroll bar and is constantly growing.

Now, you're probably wondering what my past interest in anime and manga has to do with, well, anything. I think I met an anime character today grown up. No, really, stay with me. You know how in those high school set dramas there's inevitably an American or British transfer student (SOMETIMES French, or a made up country, but I never saw Canadian, which made me sad). They were always fair skinned, with weird hair and interesting eyes.

So, this guy in his... Late thirties to mid-forties, we'll say, wanders into work today. Being vertically impaired, nine times out of ten, the first thing I notice about men is their height, but I noticed his eye (from the side, so I could only see the one) and, it was a very striking blue. When he turned to look at me, the other eye was half that same blue, and half hazel. He also had black hair (I suspect dyed) and a border line mullet. It was like that transfer-student archatype from shojo manga had walked off the pages and then grown up. He's asking me random questions about the some of the things we're selling and at one point in the conversation let's out a happy sort of sigh and says "It's noice to have someone actually understand me"

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm constantly getting asked to repeat myself. I'm from bloody England! It shouldn't be that hard"

"Considering we're part of the common wealth, yeah, you'd think we could manage. I guess it's because I was raised on Monty Python?"

We then trade some Python quotes back and forth, not the first time this has happened to me at this job, I'll tell the other story later. He then sighs, "Python really isn't that good"

"Blasphemer"

"It's alright, but there's a lot of really good British comedy out there. Have you ever seen..." he lowers his voice, and glances around conspiratorially "Peep show?"

"Yeah, a handful of times. My sister's really into it," he's then further surprised and impressed by my knowledge of British crap. We then banter on about different British comedies a little more before he claims he will be back and eventually try one of everything in the bakery over time. I kinda hope he does. I'm curious if his job lines up with being a shojo manga character.

Right, so before I forget, the other Python story. I'm a baker, as I've said before, but we're short handed on cashiers where I work, so I'm cross trained, which sometimes sucks, but if I want an extra shift here or there, they're always there. Which during the slow seasons (right now) is a life saver. Well, bank saver, I suppose is a better way to put it. Anyways, it was one of the first days I was working cash, and there were these two middle aged brothers buying things, and the one and I were trying to wrestle his purchas into a paper bag. He starts humming this song, and I join in. He stops, stares, and I keep going with the tune. "YOU KNOW IT TOO!"

"...Yes."

"What IS it?"

And, without missing a beat or thinking about it, I spit out, "The intermission music from Holy Grail," the two men stop and stare a moment.

His brother nods, "She's right," he says a little stunned.

The first man gawks a bit, "How do YOU know that? You're way too young for Monty Python!"

"I was in the third grade the first time I saw Holy Grail" (Some where someone is reading this and saying "Ah, now I get it") and then the two men realize how important it is to expose their children to Monty Python early. After questioning a small child watching the Castle of Anthrax scene silently I assume.

Nostalgic snacking, part 1

Alright, time to do something that resembles and article and not just me rambling on! Consider this to be my first reoccurring feature. Although I'm not sure I should say that until it, you know, reoccurs. So, nostalgic snacking will be me wandering into the grocery store, singling out something that makes me go "Man, I haven't had that since I was a kid!" and then writing a post about it.

For issue one, I picked Dunk-A-Roos. If I knew how to post images, I would, but I do not yet, so here is a link that has people claiming it's the best thing ever. So, to start, I'll tell you guys what I remember about Dunk-A-Roos. They came in different flavor combos, and were cookies, with icing to dip them in. It seems hard to go wrong with cookies and icing. They came in a blue package and my Mother always refused to buy them for us as kids, because, well, they're pure sugar and the last thing she needed was the have her three already spastic children on an even bigger sugar high then they get from what they already sneak. Dunk-A-Roos were a magical thing, a snack only had at friend's houses. One friend, actually, I had a pretty small circle of friends as a kid, and my other friend's parents wouldn't let these concentrated delicious blue plastic packages in their homes. They were sacred. And now, I sit here with one of these little blue plastic packages in front of me, and a whole box of these flunchers waiting to be devoured, and no Mom, you can't stop me from having them for breakfast! Maybe I'll wash it down with ice cream...

Alright, so, I currently have the cinnamon cookies with rainbow chip icing, my least favorite of the flavors as a kid, but I have developed a taste for cinnamon since, and they didn't have the chocolate/vanilla ones at the store. I don't think these can live up to my expectations, but maybe getting one of the flavors I didn't like so much as a kid will have helped....

Ok, so, the verdict is... AWESOME. Now I REALLY wish that they had had the chocolate/vanilla (or, chonilla, if you prefer) ones, because I suspect they would cause a food-gasm. The only down side of these is that there's not QUITE enough icing, so you either pace yourself and hope to have enough to make it through, go wild to start and the last few are lacking, or you're TOO stingy and are left with way too much icing and have to load it all onto one tiny little cookie but then the cookie breaks because that's a hell of a lot of icing and now you have to scoop it all out with your finger and oh God it's a delicious delicious mess!

So, final verdict? Go buy some if you ate them as a kid today! Or, actually, just go buy some. Seriously, cookies and icing. How can you go wrong? I'm gonna go eat another package now.

I've got a confession...

No, it isn't that I secretly have a wanger and it's bigger then most buildings- That's pretty common knowledge. It's... Well... I like crafting. There. I said it. I don't have a desk filled with stray buttons, draws brimming with beads, spools of ribbon, vials of glitter (also known as the herpes of the craft/fashion world) and different kinds of glue. And on this imaginary desk that I don't have, there would be a cute little desk organizer that I made myself, a special paper cutting board and maybe even a paper cutter, along with reams and reams of special paper (I've always had a bit of a stationary fetish - two confessions, one post!) but, if I had the space for this sort of desk, and the money to stock it, I would.

It isn't my fault that I well up with envy every time someone shows me their cute new bag that they TOTALLY made themselves! It's my Mother's! That whore. Just kidding, my Mom is a classy lady (for all you know). Let me back track here. My Mother has what, for as long as I can remember, has been called her "Mary Poppins bag" it is filled with candy, coloring books, and reams of arts and craft supplies. She can keep a hoard of rowdy children amused with nothing b this one tote bag and her own slightly terrifying childish energy. Seriously. She's a two year old in the body of- well, I won't post my Mom's age, she's allergic to computers so she'd likely never see that I had, but it's just not a nice thing to do. The body of someone doing very well for their age none the less.

Now, the Mary Poppins bag was a big part of my childhood. It came with us to Brownies (the step below Girl Guides for those of you staring blankly) where she was known as Sunny Owl (I actually called and asked her that) which is basically like a Girl Guide Leader. Or what ever they're called higher up. I was never a girl guide. The bag came to the cottage to amuse all of my cousins and siblings for days, yes, DAYS on end with no electricity what so ever. It went to potlucks at their friends place to keep their kids amused as well. To the other kids, this bag was pure, unadulterated magic. For my siblings and I? Daily life.

Beyond my Mother's Mary Poppins bag, there were all of the times that for parties and weddings that she and my aunt decorated on their own. My parents house is all decorated wonderfully, my Mother painting, wall papering, flooring, and at some points tearing down and rebuilding walls herself. My siblings and I are all pretty hands on.

The seed was planted early. I didn't stand a chance. So now, I want to be one of those crafty girls. The type who makes her own jewelry and hats and desk organizers.

Stumble Upon

So, I don't know about you, but I'm a little bitch for the web-browser add on Stumble Upon. In a moment of super narcissism, I actually added this blog to it, because, well, I'm hoping to attract readers so I don't feel like I'm talking to myself so much. My Stumble addiction is pretty sever, my surfing habits are like this:
In order:
iGoogle (which tells me if there's any e-mails and the weather, but is my home page, so, you know, gonna see that anyways)
Web-comics (my web-comic folder as a scroll bar, I might start doing a web-comic feature, would anyone actually read that?)
toplessrobot.com <- NOT weird porn most of the time, promise, but, uh, spare your self and don't read FFF, seriously.
And then onto stumbling until I get bored.

But that's the problem. You don't get bored. Stumble Upon is the leading cause of insomnia. I can't count the amount of times I've been sitting here, innocently, and The Boy will look over at me, purse his lips and say "You're Stumbling again, aren't you?"

To which I will look up from what ever random web-page Stumble Upon as brought me to, wide eyed and innocent, look him straight in the eye and lie to him. "No"

"Erika, put the lap top down. You have to work in the morning"

"Just one more link"

"It's always just one more link."

"I promise, this is the last one, then I'll go to bed, honest!" He stares at me a long moment, I'm still giving him the innocent eyes. He's heard this one before, so many times, but, maybe, maybe this time will be the time I will master my addiction.

With clear bitterness, he spits out "Fine." Before he sits down next to me, to make sure that I stick to my word. So I click that little circle again, and read what ever it brings me to, and by the time I have finished reading what ever I found, without a thought, I click the button again. "Erika!"

"Oh, right, sorry, I'll, uh, just finish this one, I mean, it's already there..."

It eventually ends with him wrestling the laptop from my hands, him screaming "YOU HAVE A PROBLEM!"

And my screaming "IT'S NOT A PROBLEM!"

"You need to be up in four hours!"

"THAT'S WHY GOD INVENTED COFFEE!"

He then throws me over his shoulder and drags me to the bedroom, which you would think would be followed by wild, passionate sexing, but really just ends in him then trying to subdue me into ACTUALLY going to sleep. The trials of The Boy trying to get me to go the flunch to bed will be saved for another post, but seriously, I do have a problem. Am I the only one with this addiction?

Also: I was initially going to call this post NUMA NUMA and talk about how I Stumbled that old Numa Numa video, and talk about internet memes and how it's the closest thing to pop culture I'm aware of, but I got distracted with my deep love of Stumble Upon, and will probably write a post about my cultural oblivion later.

Happy New Years

Despite spending the week leading up to New Years eve sick, and being banished from work ON New Years eve for this reason, I went out. Although it took some digging to find last minute plans (and some drama that will be dealt with at a later date) a party was secured. My friend Greer informed me that one of her school buddies was having a house party and to come on over. So the boy and I trek out to the west end and spend the night drinking with a bunch of strangers. It was a good time.

Some highlights include:

The boy accidentally getting a 16 year old trashed.
The 16 year old then hit on my friend Greer.
She later had to be one of the ones dragging him to a couch (I belive it took about three of them) with a bucket in hand.
I got in trouble for trying to draw on him. I have tragically gone another year without drawing on a drunk, passed out person.
A man informed me that he could put his hair into ANY shape. So I challenged him to make it into a Star of David.
I won that battle.
I also got in a war with one guy who had a pointless zipper over his nipple and little flaps on his shoulders with snaps. I spent a lot of time trying to unzip and unsnap him.
I think I may have technically pole danced, but just a little, and all my clothes stayed on, so I guess I'm not very good at it.
There are a bunch of random pictures on my camera that I definitely did not take, and I'm pretty ok with this.

The boy, however, ended up drinking champagne. From the bottle. He was more hung over.
I resolved to not make a resolution this year!
Then I changed that to draw on a drunk passed out person.

So here's to another trip around the sun! May it bring you all health, happiness, and hookers and blow.