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Ease of memorization of any data is directly proportional to its lack of utility.
Today in paleontology lab, we got to play with live specimens for the first time!
And at some point, the entire class ended up talking about superhero comics. And it wasn't *my* fault, I was happily working on my lab and pretending to be a good student. Actually, I think it started when they were trying to identify an olivine sample and decided it was actually Kryptonite . . . but anyway, they were mostly talking in terms of recent parodies (Like The Incredibles and Mystery Men) and I *had* to break in, because if there's one thing my revived obsession has taught me, it's that superhero comics, like Maryland politics and Mary Sue fanfiction, are very hard to parody effectively, because there's nothing so ridiculous it hasn't already been *done* by the real thing, usually while well-aware of how ridiculous it is. But, I mean, as one of the sillier examples of something that would happen if superheroes existed in the real world, the professor mentioned how heroes in Mystery Men made their living through ads and merchandising... and since the only real superhero comic I *own* is Fantastic Four vol.3 no 60, wherein they hire an ad agency because licensing revenues are down the past few quarters, I had to mention that non-parody superheroes make their money that way, too. I think I scared them a little by knowing way more about it than any of the people who *should* have been in the demographic.
Of course, it may have been because I brought up pink Kryptonite, but they started *that*, too, when somebody mentioned that they'd thought one of the characters in Incredibles went by the name Gaydar, and started acting out the superpowers. And then I shocked myself by being able to name and give the function of five more colors of kryptonite (Can you?), which is when the professor came out with the epigram which titles this entry, and started talking about the Ardalambion instead. (Aww, men are cute when they feel their sexuality being threatened.)
Anyway, that prof is *so* a child of the sixties-- not only talking about Tolkien as if it was something popular long ago in his youth, but when somebody mentioned they'd once made up a superhero who could only use his teleporting powers when he tripped, the prof immediately thought about 'tripped' in the *other* sense. (Which, as we all realized while cracking up, would be a *much* funnier superpower than the other way. Although, to disprove my thesis that you can find anything in canon, I can't actually think of any with such powers. But surely there *must* be. There are plenty whose powers activate accidentally at first, and several who get them through performance-enhancing drugs, and some who are (or ought to be) on psychiatric drugs, and some with drug habits that don't effect their superpowers, but I can't think of any who trip out to get powered up. Plenty of magic-user types, but I can't think of any *superheroes*. hmm.
This lab also featured what he called the botanists' Rorschach test. --a gingko fruit. He claims that everyone who smells it thinks it smells like something different, so one of the lab questions was describe *exactly* the scent of the female reproductive structure of ginkgo (which isn't technically a fruit since gingko isn't a flowering plant). Class answered ranged from cat piss to slightly rotten cheese, but they *were* no two alike! I said "fresh country air" because that *is* what it smelled like. The real answer, of course, is that it just smelled like generic rot and we all picked the kind of stinky rot we were most familiar with. (which is *not* cat piss. That has a certain bouquet all its own which is not rot, and apparently varies by the hormoral status of the cat and the person doing the smelling.)
Anyway, in lifestyle news, I've been sitting here eating salsa and corn chips. Salsa is one of those things I hated until I got to college and turned to it out of sheer need for *variety* in anything resembling fruit or vegetable. (especially given the current tomato rationing.) I still am not overly fond of food with strong flavorings; I believe there are only two legitimate reasons for adding lots of spices and stuff to food: to prevent it from going bad as quickly, and to cover up the fact that it's already gone bad. If you're lucky enough to be able to *get* good, fresh food, you should learn to savor it for the rare privelege it is. But... living in a dorm, good food *is* a rarity, and jelly and salsa and sausage have the advantage of at least resembling something that was once alive.
This makes me think of my grandfather, smearing grape jelly and pepper relish on everything he eats. I wonder how different salsa is from hot pepper relish, really...
And at some point, the entire class ended up talking about superhero comics. And it wasn't *my* fault, I was happily working on my lab and pretending to be a good student. Actually, I think it started when they were trying to identify an olivine sample and decided it was actually Kryptonite . . . but anyway, they were mostly talking in terms of recent parodies (Like The Incredibles and Mystery Men) and I *had* to break in, because if there's one thing my revived obsession has taught me, it's that superhero comics, like Maryland politics and Mary Sue fanfiction, are very hard to parody effectively, because there's nothing so ridiculous it hasn't already been *done* by the real thing, usually while well-aware of how ridiculous it is. But, I mean, as one of the sillier examples of something that would happen if superheroes existed in the real world, the professor mentioned how heroes in Mystery Men made their living through ads and merchandising... and since the only real superhero comic I *own* is Fantastic Four vol.3 no 60, wherein they hire an ad agency because licensing revenues are down the past few quarters, I had to mention that non-parody superheroes make their money that way, too. I think I scared them a little by knowing way more about it than any of the people who *should* have been in the demographic.
Of course, it may have been because I brought up pink Kryptonite, but they started *that*, too, when somebody mentioned that they'd thought one of the characters in Incredibles went by the name Gaydar, and started acting out the superpowers. And then I shocked myself by being able to name and give the function of five more colors of kryptonite (Can you?), which is when the professor came out with the epigram which titles this entry, and started talking about the Ardalambion instead. (Aww, men are cute when they feel their sexuality being threatened.)
Anyway, that prof is *so* a child of the sixties-- not only talking about Tolkien as if it was something popular long ago in his youth, but when somebody mentioned they'd once made up a superhero who could only use his teleporting powers when he tripped, the prof immediately thought about 'tripped' in the *other* sense. (Which, as we all realized while cracking up, would be a *much* funnier superpower than the other way. Although, to disprove my thesis that you can find anything in canon, I can't actually think of any with such powers. But surely there *must* be. There are plenty whose powers activate accidentally at first, and several who get them through performance-enhancing drugs, and some who are (or ought to be) on psychiatric drugs, and some with drug habits that don't effect their superpowers, but I can't think of any who trip out to get powered up. Plenty of magic-user types, but I can't think of any *superheroes*. hmm.
This lab also featured what he called the botanists' Rorschach test. --a gingko fruit. He claims that everyone who smells it thinks it smells like something different, so one of the lab questions was describe *exactly* the scent of the female reproductive structure of ginkgo (which isn't technically a fruit since gingko isn't a flowering plant). Class answered ranged from cat piss to slightly rotten cheese, but they *were* no two alike! I said "fresh country air" because that *is* what it smelled like. The real answer, of course, is that it just smelled like generic rot and we all picked the kind of stinky rot we were most familiar with. (which is *not* cat piss. That has a certain bouquet all its own which is not rot, and apparently varies by the hormoral status of the cat and the person doing the smelling.)
Anyway, in lifestyle news, I've been sitting here eating salsa and corn chips. Salsa is one of those things I hated until I got to college and turned to it out of sheer need for *variety* in anything resembling fruit or vegetable. (especially given the current tomato rationing.) I still am not overly fond of food with strong flavorings; I believe there are only two legitimate reasons for adding lots of spices and stuff to food: to prevent it from going bad as quickly, and to cover up the fact that it's already gone bad. If you're lucky enough to be able to *get* good, fresh food, you should learn to savor it for the rare privelege it is. But... living in a dorm, good food *is* a rarity, and jelly and salsa and sausage have the advantage of at least resembling something that was once alive.
This makes me think of my grandfather, smearing grape jelly and pepper relish on everything he eats. I wonder how different salsa is from hot pepper relish, really...
no subject
The "juice" of the salsa (okay, water) is the thinner of the two, and there's more of it. Salsa doesn't really make a great spread unless the thing you're putting it on is quite substantial.