Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

John Varley, one of my all-time favorite authors has a great essay up on his dislike for militant vegetarians.

He's a very smart, funny guy and he sums up my own feelings almost perfectly.

I certainly don't share all of Varley's political views, but even if I didn't already love his writing, I'd love him just for calling Bill Maher a "sanctimonious asshole."

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First up, we've got a 3-variable quiz on what kind of sense of humor you have. (Link from Jeremy Tolbert)



Dean's World has got a really cool optical illusion.

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Here's a neat little Flash-based instructional thingie on how to carve a really cool Jack-o-Lantern.

Carve a pumpkin!

Link snagged from Dave Barry's Blog

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"Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy."

-- The Sphere's description of a Point, from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin A. Abbot

Read it! (File from Project Gutenberg)

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Speaking of funny videos, Jody over at PolySciFi has got some humdingers. Check 'em out!

I like the He-Man one in particular.

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I bought a chicken wrap from the deli section of the company cafeteria today, and from the presence of a vaguely orange-colored sauce, I suspected that it was a "Buffalo" chicken wrap. That's what I wanted.

Me: Yum! I like buffalo chicken wraps.

So imagine my surprise after taking a great big bite. Yes, it was a buffalo chicken wrap, but it was EXTREMELY spicy!

Now, I'm not a spicy-wimp. I'm not hard-core or anything, but my preferred variety of salsa is Medium, and I can enjoy Hot on occasion, and very rarely run into something that is too hot for me.

This was too hot. Borderline inedible. Mouth still burning an hour later hot.

So why should you care? Well, it just got me thinking. Shouldn't something that spicy be labeled? I mean, I was able to get it down, but I would have enjoyed it more had it been a little more reasonable in its spiciness. I imagine that people who are less capsaicin-tolerant wouldn't have been able to eat it at all. For some people, it could have even made them sick.

So am I crazy to think that they should warn people that something is going to be so spicy? There was no label of any kind on the thing, and the wraps are not always the same kind, so pretty much the only way to know what's inside is to ask, or to just look and guess.

As a result, I'm just left to wonder how many people were shocked to find their tongues on fire today. Why would they make it that spicy and not label it? It's like a prank or something.

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