Dates are so good.
Everyone should enjoy dates.
Mmmmmn dates!
January 24, 2007
December 16, 2006
Communication, Relation, and some Nice Warm Sheets
So it's currently 5 mintues to 1 am, and I have a final exam in 8 hours. I should be asleep. Or if I'm not sleeping, I should be studying, right?
Well, I was sleeping, but then a thought struck me, and it struck me so hard I was jolted from my nice warm waterbed. (Yeah, it's sexy.) I was pondering an old catchphrase from common society of a few years back... you know, all that promotional material about men learning to communicate. Well, I thought to myself, Men already know how to communicate, it's women that don't, ironically. If you consider communication to be the transfer of information, that's what men do when they talk, mostly. On the other hand, women mostly relate when they talk. I suppose all that gibberish, which has thankfully mostly faded, was really about two people in a relationship transferring information on how they felt about the relationship. Wait a sec... is that communication or relating. Here's the kicker: If it's done in a way that expresses feeling more than fact, it's relating. If it's done in a way that expresses fact, position, opinion, etc, then it is communication more than relating. Relating is more subjective, and communicating is more objective.
That's it! I've solved the battle of the sexes! Except... I think this whoooole thing was communication.... darnit.
Well, I was sleeping, but then a thought struck me, and it struck me so hard I was jolted from my nice warm waterbed. (Yeah, it's sexy.) I was pondering an old catchphrase from common society of a few years back... you know, all that promotional material about men learning to communicate. Well, I thought to myself, Men already know how to communicate, it's women that don't, ironically. If you consider communication to be the transfer of information, that's what men do when they talk, mostly. On the other hand, women mostly relate when they talk. I suppose all that gibberish, which has thankfully mostly faded, was really about two people in a relationship transferring information on how they felt about the relationship. Wait a sec... is that communication or relating. Here's the kicker: If it's done in a way that expresses feeling more than fact, it's relating. If it's done in a way that expresses fact, position, opinion, etc, then it is communication more than relating. Relating is more subjective, and communicating is more objective.
That's it! I've solved the battle of the sexes! Except... I think this whoooole thing was communication.... darnit.
December 14, 2006
Ode to Sulphur
Oh Sulphur,
how I love thee,
thou art a lure,
and smelly.
Anyway... what do these "foods" have in common:
Garlic
Leeks
Shallots
Onion
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Cabbage
.
.
.
.
Answer? Sulfur!
Or more techincally, they are foods with relatively high concentrations of organic sulphur containing compounds. Why do we care? Well, we care because we looooove biology! (Admit it, you do, formaldehyde and fetal pigs aside.) I'm sure we've all been told that the human body is approximately 102% water. Well, it is. Sorta. And I'm sure we've all eaten olive oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, canola oil, or fish oil at some point or another. If you're part cat, it's probably the latter. Furthermore, I'm sure we've all been told that oil and water don't mix! Hah! So what happens to the oil? Well... it goes to /dev/null. But not directly. It actually goes to a big box in the centre of your torso called your fat-box. Biologists like to call it your liver, but they're wrong. In a big sack of water (like you and I), there has to be a box to put all the oil/fat in, and it's called the fat-box. Well, in case you've never noticed, you never urinate oil. (Okay, well, at least *I* never have, so I'm assuming you haven't either) So, where does the oil go when it goes into the fat-box? Well, your fat-box likes it when you eat the above sulphur containing foods, because it rips the sulphur groups off what you eat, adds it to the oils, and voila! They're not really oils anymore because they're water-soluble, polar, and have a sulphur (and probably oxygen) containing group on the end. Then what happens? You urinate (in case you didn't get it last time, that's a fancy word for pee) them out in all that water. And NO, that's not why your urine is yellow.
A Special PostScript for Garlic
Garlic, Onion, Leeks, and so on are a bit more special. Take garlic, for example. If you cook an entire clove of garlic in the oven, and then slice it up, it won't smell at all. The chemistry of garlic is such that a chemical reaction occurs when the cells are burst and the contents freely mix. This causes the strong garlic odour. However, if the garlic is heated before the cells are burst, these reactive compounds are broken down before they meet each other, and thus no resulting smelly compound. The resultant smelly compound is the one that is super good for you, however, so you always want to chop, mince, or crush your garlic before cooking. Likewise with onion, I always chop it finely before cooking it.
Oh yeah, and you'll always smell like what you eat, it just so happens that garlic has a super strong odour and travels through tissues well.
how I love thee,
thou art a lure,
and smelly.
Anyway... what do these "foods" have in common:
Garlic
Leeks
Shallots
Onion
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Cabbage
.
.
.
.
Answer? Sulfur!
Or more techincally, they are foods with relatively high concentrations of organic sulphur containing compounds. Why do we care? Well, we care because we looooove biology! (Admit it, you do, formaldehyde and fetal pigs aside.) I'm sure we've all been told that the human body is approximately 102% water. Well, it is. Sorta. And I'm sure we've all eaten olive oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, canola oil, or fish oil at some point or another. If you're part cat, it's probably the latter. Furthermore, I'm sure we've all been told that oil and water don't mix! Hah! So what happens to the oil? Well... it goes to /dev/null. But not directly. It actually goes to a big box in the centre of your torso called your fat-box. Biologists like to call it your liver, but they're wrong. In a big sack of water (like you and I), there has to be a box to put all the oil/fat in, and it's called the fat-box. Well, in case you've never noticed, you never urinate oil. (Okay, well, at least *I* never have, so I'm assuming you haven't either) So, where does the oil go when it goes into the fat-box? Well, your fat-box likes it when you eat the above sulphur containing foods, because it rips the sulphur groups off what you eat, adds it to the oils, and voila! They're not really oils anymore because they're water-soluble, polar, and have a sulphur (and probably oxygen) containing group on the end. Then what happens? You urinate (in case you didn't get it last time, that's a fancy word for pee) them out in all that water. And NO, that's not why your urine is yellow.
A Special PostScript for Garlic
Garlic, Onion, Leeks, and so on are a bit more special. Take garlic, for example. If you cook an entire clove of garlic in the oven, and then slice it up, it won't smell at all. The chemistry of garlic is such that a chemical reaction occurs when the cells are burst and the contents freely mix. This causes the strong garlic odour. However, if the garlic is heated before the cells are burst, these reactive compounds are broken down before they meet each other, and thus no resulting smelly compound. The resultant smelly compound is the one that is super good for you, however, so you always want to chop, mince, or crush your garlic before cooking. Likewise with onion, I always chop it finely before cooking it.
Oh yeah, and you'll always smell like what you eat, it just so happens that garlic has a super strong odour and travels through tissues well.