Amazing!

So, I found this list of "Amazing True Facts", published by SparkNotes last year on April 1. While the list itself is pretty fun, I think my favorite part is the comments. (Looks like Jonathan's gotten me hooked.) Just so we're all completely clear, this was an April Fool's joke, and included this link at the top. Now, in case you didn't follow that first link, below is the list, and after that are some of my favorite comments.

• When placed in warm milk, raisins re-plump into grapes.
• The metal backs of iPods are made from recycled zippers.
• Eskimos don't believe in bridges or tunnels.
• Every sixteen minutes, someone named Richard dies.
• Billy Bob Thornton's grandfather was the first person to own a television.
• Dolphins kill more people annually than sharks and influenza combined.

• On a dare, former President Rutherford B. Hayes declared war on Chile for 17 minutes.
• The original title for Catcher in the Rye was Hey, Look, a Carousel!
• Professionals call the top socket on an electrical outlet the "Martha," and the bottom socket the "Jasmine."
• In the archives at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., there are two identical snowflakes preserved in a freezer.
  
• Three out of every ten nickels has been in someone's mouth.
• If you hold one nostril closed for 72 hours, you will slowly lose the ability to see color. (Your sight will instantly return to normal when you release your nostril.)
• Wave a magnet at the lower left corner of a vending machine to receive a free soda.
• The glossy paper from the backs of stickers can be used to soothe sunburn.
• To be a train conductor, you have to cut off one of your own toes during a loyalty ritual.
• The Z in Jay-Z's name stands for "Zeppidemus."
• Jean shorts were invented three weeks prior to the invention of regular jeans.
• Whispering instead of talking on cell phones saves significant battery power.
• In Austria, the traditional Christmas colors are not red and greed, but purple and clear.
• Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase "Baby Mama" in a satirical poem published in Poor Richard's Almanac.
• If you take the first letter of each word in the Monopoly board game instruction manual, they spell out an X-rated sentence.
• The original name for the laptop computer was "Hinged Smart Slab."
• The average person inhales 3 pounds of spider webs in his or her lifetime.
• When first introduced to the public, plastic laundry baskets cost $75 each.
• Winnie the Pooh started out as a non-fiction account of mental illness.
• Reading backwards for twenty minutes burns the same amount of calories as walking a half-mile.
• The Q in Q-tips stands for "quantum," as the small bit of cotton on the tip contains more atoms than the entire human body.
• Revolving doors were first invented as a way to keep horses out of department stores.
• Peru and the moon weigh the same amount.
• Human beings and anteaters are the only animals that can snap their fingers.
• If you soak a baseball hat in coke, and then let it dry on someone's head, over a 3-hour period the hat will shrink with skull-denting force, causing intense pain and irreparable damage.
• Clouds cannot travel south southwest.
• In sign language, there are 72 ways to say "drawbridge."

Good comments:

Category 1: Dead serious and way excited about the facts.

whoa.....hummm no raisins in the house..guess i'll start looking for that game mannual

excellent....... are these really facts?!!

'Reading backwards for twenty minutes burns the same amount of calories as walking a half-mile’ might be true, cuz thinking and studying burn calories... Why do u think u never see fat nerds???

Category 2: Willing to admit (in public, on the internet, for the rest of the world to see forever) they totally believed this.

So.. these were all fake?
man... what a let down! I love interesting facts and these were like the most awesome ever!
but then not really :(

i swear i thought these were true, though some did seem a lil odd

Okay so I believed every single one of these because idk, why wouldn't I lol

wow...i actually started reading this post backwards to burn calories until someone in the comments said to click on the link and i found it was an april fools joke.

And Category 3 (my personal favorite): Determined to enlighten others about how obviously fake these facts are. I really like the self-righteous tone and the sense of superiority. "I caught this, and you didn't! I know better than to believe obvious falsehoods! I have a basic knowledge of the world! I have no sense of humor!"

But the clouds one doesnt make sence cuz that means that wind is never southwest which is definately wrong... have a nice day!!! (Nice passive-aggressive touch at the end. "You're wrong, but have a nice day!")

I can guarantee these are mostly wrong. The nostril and the monopoly one are for sure. The Q in Q tips originally stood for Quilted and now usually stands for Quality. The Smithsonian does not have two identical snowflakes. Most of these are just made up. (Only most of them, though. -Rachel) This sucks.

I'm eskimo, yuupik eskimo from southcentral alaska... I believe in bridges every time I go over one, and in tunnels every time I pass through one... All your facts are moot. (Personally, I believe in bridges and tunnels even when I'm not going over/through one.)

The thing about dolphins is definitely not true. For example, there are no documented case of a killer whale (which is the largest member of the dolphin family, not in fact a whale. You see early Spanish sailors saw killer whales, aka orcas killing whales so they called them killer whales.) ever killing a human, however scientists did once find another orca inside the stomach of a beached orca.... Dolphins are in fact quite friendly to humans. However, it is true that more people are killed by coconuts than sharks each year. Most sharks, such as the Great White Shark don't actually kill humans for food, but are curious and "taste-bite" humans, realize we are gross, leave, the human begins drowning and/or is eaten by scavenger sharks, like tiger sharks. (Good. Scavenger sharks will eat you, or you'll drown/bleed to death, but let no one pretend great whites are dangerous.)

Have a nice day!!

Innocent

Chemical engineering has a lot of fun-sounding terms that are really boring in reality. Some of them are pretty family-unfriendly, or at least would be in general use. Over this last week, I've learned a lot about necking, strippers, and generalized creep behavior. Heh heh.

P.S. Those links are family friendly, but a bit boring.

Liver-Eater

On Saturday Jonathan and I went to the opera with my brother and his wife (one of my best friends). Afterward we were in a crowded elevator heading back to our car when we realized we were sharing our space with a liver-eater.

Silence in the elevator. Then, suddenly:

"If you don't stop that right now, I will EAT YOUR LIVER!!"

OK, crazy lady. I will stop anything. Just leave my liver alone.

It turned out she wasn't talking to us, or to anyone in the elevator. She was recounting a charming anecdote about threatening a child. As we left the elevator, we could still hear her. "Mrs. Jones, what's a liver? What's a liver? Can you believe that? Mrs. Jones, what's a liver?"

We thought that was probably all there was, and if it wasn't, we were parting ways and wouldn't ever know how it ended. But we were luckier than we expected. We walked past her again. "But Mrs. Jones, how can you eat something inside my body?"

Lucky us. Poor kid.

The Payoff of Procrastination

I've decided/realized that I'm probably never going to kick my procrastination habit. Why, you ask?

1. Quizzes on reading
When I do my reading well in advance, it hardly ever fails that there will be a quiz on the assigned reading the next class period. If I read it three days ago, will I remember the details of some brand-new concept for today's quiz? Experience tells me no.

2. Typos and clarification
How often do your teachers send out emails or start class by saying saying something along the lines of "Many of you have asked how to do problem 3. The book has a typo/left out a vital piece of information. It should say [what it should say]." For me, at least once a week.

3. Elimination of assignments
Rarer but nicer than #2. "I realized problem 5 is much more difficult than I intended it to be/we never covered the material. Please don't do that problem. Apologies to those who have attempted it." Without procrastination: "Come on! Really?! I spent hours on that!" With procrastination: "Sweet!"

4. Concentration
This one is more personal. I find it much easier to focus, stay off facebook, read attentively searching for details and applications of principles, and accomplish things in a timely fashion when a deadline is looming. Of course, "looming" is subjective and depends on the assignment. I try to leave myself enough time that even though the deadline is near, I won't be rushed and will have time to at least ask a classmate if I get stuck.

The Return of Captain Obvious

I was reading the newspaper today when I saw something truly earth-shattering that I knew I had to share with the world. According to this article, anti-depressants are highly prescribed in Utah. Here are some of my very favorite quotes:

"People with chronic diseases are more likely to use anti-depressants." I'm shocked! Who would have guessed that a medicine the Mayo Clinic calls "a mainstay in the treatment of many chronic pain conditions" would be frequently used by people with chronic diseases? This is not even including the fact that being told you will suffer from a disease for a long time/the rest of your life/the rest of your shortened life could cause depression.

"Anti-depressant use also increases with age, according to the study." This couldn't possibly have anything at all to do with the fact that older people are more likely to have chronic diseases.

“If you look at where money is being spent on health care in Utah, it’s among people with chronic diseases." Another shocker. It isn't just the one-time visits to the emergency room or the more-or-less annual 20-minute appointment with a doctor? People who have a long-term condition requiring medical attention spend more money on prescriptions and doctor's appointments? Color me surprised.

Captain Obvious's next research goal? "To find out why people use anti-depressants and submit another report on that sometime in January or February of next year." I guess it just takes that long to google it.

Tired

Yesterday I was really tired during all of my classes. I kept nodding off for two or three minutes at a time. During my little mini-naps, I had some interesting dreams.

I was in Russia in the middle of a war. We were trying to decide which cities to take over next. We were looking at a map. "Let's take over Edmister." "Shouldn't it be Edminster?" "No, there's no n." Then I was no longer in Russia, but was instead in class (awake again). Apparently we had been discussing the Kemser (which I suppose sounds vaguely Russian) - Edmister method. Too bad I don't know what it is, unless it means taking over the city.

Cowardly

It turns out I'm as much of a coward as I thought I was. Jonathan and I are doing a study and needed to have our blood drawn. I was not excited because I hate needles. I actually did OK on the first try. She poked my left elbow, and it hurt, but not a lot. Unfortunately, that vein was too slow. So she switched to the right elbow.

That was when things started going downhill. In retrospect, I probably should have looked away the entire time. It really hurt, which prompted me to look. The right vein was apparently so ready to give up its blood that not only was the phlebotomist able to pull all the blood she needed, but I also was bleeding internally and externally around the needle. I started feeling a tad (as in extremely) unwell. The phlebotomist instructed her assistant to run get me a glass of water. She told Jonathan to talk to me and me to put my head down. Apparently the only thing my husband could think of to say was "it's OK, sweetie." Very encouraging.

So the room swirled, my hands got all tingly, she finished taking all the blood she needed, I didn't pass out (by a narrow margin), and now I have a nice nickel-sized bruise on my left elbow and a three-inch long bruise on the inside of my right elbow. I'm starting to agree with Jonathan that this study is not worth it.

Inconsistent

Recently I've heard people talking about this website. Cool, I thought. I want to see what famous writer I write like. Unfortunately, it seems that I am entirely inconsistent.

For this post, my result was Stephen King. This one gave me Leo Tolstoy. This one was like Margaret Atwood (blech). This sample was like David Foster Wallace, whom I had never heard of. I also seem to be like William Gibson, Stephen King again, and Cory Doctorow.

Anyway, most of the people I've talked to have gotten more consistent results. Maybe you will too. In the meantime, I'll be reconciling my multiple voices.