A ghost? What's the deal? Is every frat on this campus haunted? And if so, why do people keep coming to these parties, cause it's not the snacks.

Xander ,'Dirty Girls'


Natter 70: Hookers and Blow  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Jesse - Apr 12, 2012 2:38:52 pm PDT #702 of 30001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

My big meeting is over! And went well. My boss half-jokingly said it should count for 5 meetings, and I'm sort of hoping to remind her about that at review time, since number of meetings is in fact one of my metrics, and I'm not going to hit it.


billytea - Apr 12, 2012 2:46:43 pm PDT #703 of 30001
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

They gave people local honey, manufactured honey, and honey flavored syrup and there wasn't any notable difference in allergy symptoms amongst the three.

An important point from the article: different species of plant use different vectors for pollination. It's the plants that favour wind-borne pollination that cause allergies, as it's their pollen that winds up in the air (of course). By definition, these are not the plants that bees are visiting, and so the allergy-causing pollen won't wind up in anyone's honey. 

Side note: if you find a red flower in the wild, it's probably pollinated by birds. Most insects, including bees, can't distinguish red. (That may also be a reason that some trees have red or purple leaves in Spring - it helps protect the young, tender leaves from insect predation. They can go green and start photosynthesising once they've matured and are less delectable.)


Sheryl - Apr 12, 2012 2:52:16 pm PDT #704 of 30001
Fandom means never having to say "But where would I wear that?"

Timelies all!

We have been Cleaning All The Things in preparation for my parents' arrival tomorrow.(It's the usual Northern migration)


Steph L. - Apr 12, 2012 2:52:17 pm PDT #705 of 30001
Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe

I was going to make gluten-free brownies and they are crumbly.

Do you make them from scratch (not a mix), or a mix? The Betty Crocker GF brownies hang together really damn well. I made them last weekend with M&Ms on top, and they were devoured quickly by mostly non-GF people. Pretty tasty.


Sue - Apr 12, 2012 2:56:18 pm PDT #706 of 30001
hip deep in pie

Side note: if you find a red flower in the wild, it's probably pollinated by birds. Most insects, including bees, can't distinguish red. (That may also be a reason that some trees have red or purple leaves in Spring - it helps protect the young, tender leaves from insect predation. They can go green and start photosynthesising once they've matured and are less delectable.)

Oh! Oh! Oh! I knew that! Except for the fact I had totally forgotten it until you brought it up...


Jessica - Apr 12, 2012 3:00:36 pm PDT #707 of 30001
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

An important point from the article: different species of plant use different vectors for pollination. It's the plants that favour wind-borne pollination that cause allergies, as it's their pollen that winds up in the air (of course). By definition, these are not the plants that bees are visiting, and so the allergy-causing pollen won't wind up in anyone's honey.

See also, why those Benadryl ads with the blooming flowers make me cranky.

(But keep buying the local honey anyway. It won't cure your allergies, but it does support local small farmers! And it's delicious!)


JZ - Apr 12, 2012 3:14:40 pm PDT #708 of 30001
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

They gave people local honey, manufactured honey, and honey flavored syrup and there wasn't any notable difference in allergy symptoms amongst the three.

Okay. On to the hookworms it is!

eta: And local honey, for the placebo effect and to compensate for the trauma of the hookworms.


aurelia - Apr 12, 2012 3:19:15 pm PDT #709 of 30001
All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story. Tell me a story.

(But keep buying the local honey anyway. It won't cure your allergies, but it does support local small farmers! And it's delicious!)

Indeed. I'm still ignoring the hookworms.


le nubian - Apr 12, 2012 3:20:10 pm PDT #710 of 30001
"And to be clear, I am the hell. And the high water."

So, what's Mel Gibson's deal?

Has he always been this anti-semitic? I think he actually might be the most anti-semitic person I have ever heard of in modern times outside of the Klan. His vicious epithets I haven't heard before.

So are you telling me that when he was in Lethal Weapon, he was this big of an asshole?

Because I find him irredeemable, odious, and vile. I didn't like him much before the latest revelations came out, but now I am putting him in the category of Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, and John Derbyshire


Hil R. - Apr 12, 2012 3:53:43 pm PDT #711 of 30001
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l

Mel Gibson has been saying antisemitic stuff for a while, but I don't think it really made the news much until the time he was arrested for drunk driving. There were some comments before that, but nothing that was so obviously out-of-line that it got a ton of attention -- mostly just vague sort of half-answers when he was asked about his father, who's a member of some Catholic group that believes that Vatican II was a Jewish plot to bring down the Catholic church, or something.