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Today I learned that McDonalds and some other fast food places in American cities with large Muslim populations offer halal chicken nuggets. That's random, I know, but it's that kind of day.

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Today, by request, I looked up the word "pussy." First usage dates from the 1500s as a term of endearment for a girl or woman; 1726 shows a diminutive form of "puss" meaning cat or rabbit. The 1800s is when it first appears as slang for lady parts--"perhaps from O.N. puss 'pocket, pouch' (cf. Low Ger. puse "vulva"), but perhaps instead from the cat word on notion of 'soft, warm, furry thing.'" Eew. Hehe.

I thought I had already looked this up, but I looked up the etymology of "bunny" which overlaps in places.

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Saturday I learned what cat scratch fever is...not the song. It's a bacteria that cats (usually kittens) carry in their blood and can transmit to people through scratches. It causes symptoms like fever, headache, pain, and mental alteration, but it is usually mild and resolves itself quickly.

Today I learned about skunks. Skunk spray comes from 2 glands on either side of the anus. The spray can be accurately aimed up to 10 feet away. It can cause skin irritation and temporary blindness, and is strong enough to be smelled from at least a mile away. One time a skunk got run over down by the high school, and I could smell it in my room for at least two nights. Fortunately skunks don't spray that often because they don't "carry" that much spray at a time. It is legal in some states to own a domesticated pet skunk. Ohio is one of those states, as long as you have a permit. There was a skunk in our patio tonight, and Fudgems was shitting his pants over it. If Fudgems is whining like a kindergarten girl, you can bet there's some weird creature in the patio.

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Today I learned what German chocolate pie is. It looks kind of like a pecan pie, but it has pecans, chocolate, and coconut in it. Mmmm. Well, I mean, I haven't had any yet, but I bought one. It's gonna be good, I can tell.

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Today I learned that the word "factoid" originally meant something that wasn't true. The OED says: "Something that becomes accepted as a fact, although it is not (or may not be) true; spec. an assumption or speculation reported and repeated so often that it is popularly considered true; a simulated or imagined fact." I think most people have come to use it to mean a piece of trivia or like a "mini-fact." That's how I use it.

I also learned this in the book that I'm reading.

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Today I learned the word "antimacassar:" a covering to protect the back or arms of furniture. From anti & macassar meaning oil; the antimacassar will keep your greasy hair off the good furniture. I had honestly never heard this word before. It's in the book I'm reading.

157

Today I learned how to sync a Wiimote, and some other things about setting up a Wii. We got our Wii at work last week and today various people were scheduled to go out in the meeting room and play with it, to get used to how it works. Well I was not one of those people, but I had a free hour so I invited myself out there. I helped get it set up for the first time and demonstrated for some people how to play Wii sports and Wii Play. I felt kind of smart. I know it's not hard, but still. Also, who gets paid to play video games for an hour? It was pretty sweet. I made miis of myself and one other guy I work with, and then other staff members proceeded to make the two of us box for the next hour. I thought it was hilarious.

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Um, today I learned a new dirty term but I'm too embarrassed to put it in my blog. Instead I learned about traffic light sensors, which was way more complicated than I had imagined. I accidentally learned extra stuff. Dammit.

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Thursday I learned about this thing called Fiddler's Green. It's this imaginary land that sailors talk about, where everything is happy and people continuously dance and play the fiddle. The legend says that you can find the place by putting your oar over your shoulder and then walking inland until people ask you what you're carrying.

Friday I learned about the iPhone. I played with one at the Apple store at Easton. It was pretty cool and easy to figure out. I guess you can buy me one if you really want to.

Saturday I learned that Alan Ruck was 29 when he played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Jeez, that's old. I knew he and Matthew Broderick were not high school aged when they made that movie, but 29 is pushing it.

Today I learned that "pico de gallo" is Spanish for "rooster's beak." That is crazy, that I never knew that and I never thought to look it up or anything either.

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Today I learned a bunch of crap about how to use Excel. It was really basic and really easy, but honestly I did not know how to do most of it. That's one program that I just never use. As an Englilsh major and in my regular life I've never used it on my own so I never learned all the billion things you can do. Today mostly I learned about the basic functions and a lot of stuff about formatting and moving stuff around. It was a pretty good class, especially when we condensed 3.5 hours worth of material into 1.5 hours. That's how I like to do things.

150

Today I learned that the slang phrase "flip a bitch" means to make a U-turn. I learned this while reading the Wikipedia article on the word "bitch," which is just hilarious in general because it is very serious while the word bitch is very, very funny. Unless you are directing it at me or another girl who you shouldn't be directing it at. Then I will bitch slap you.

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Today I learned where 315 goes if you keep driving on it North past 270. I had driven on it north of Powell Road and south of 270, but never the stretch in between. I'm all, "oh there's Mt. Air! I see."

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Today I learned about General Tso, more properly known as Zuo Zongtang. He was a Chinese military leader who faught in China's largest civil war, the Taiping Rebellion during the 1850s/60s. The chicken dish was named after him, but no one really knows why. One story is that his wife made it for him once after a battle and he really loved it, but it's more likely that someone just stuck his name on there because they wanted their dish associated with a famous Chinese person.

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Friday I learned some trivia about birthday cakes. They became popular in the middle 19th century. Putting the words "happy birthday" on them did not start happening until the "happy birthday to you" song caught on in the early 1900s.

Today I learned about pinhole cameras. This has always been kind of a confusing concept for me, I don't know why. Important things to know are that the hole should be as small as possible, the material that you punch the hole in should be as thin as possible, and that the diameter of the hole should be about 100 times smaller than the distance to whatever you're taking the image on.

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Today I tried to learn about the JJ Abrams movie coming out in January. All I got was that it's code named Cloverfield and that, seriously, nobody knows anything. Apparently this Slusho website is connected somehow; one of the characters in the trailer is wearing a Slusho t-shirt. There's also this cool site where you can go to obsess over every tiny detail until they give us more info.

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Today I learned about what they are doing with Wyandot Lake. I think I went to Wyandot Lake once, ever. I was kind of too little to do anything good. I do need to go to the zoo still this summer, though.

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Today I learned Sunday's M-W word of the day because I am lazy and because I already knew today's word and yesterday's. The word "cavil" means to raise trivial and frivolous objection. Hey, I do that!

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Today I learned about drive-in movies, although I got a couple of kind of differing accounts. The basic point is that the drive-in movie was invented in 1933 by Richard Hollingshead. He plopped a projector on the top of his car and started showing movies on either his garage door or a screen that he nailed to some trees. Other people took interest and he started a company. The movies didn't really catch on as a fad/widespread thing until the 50s and 60s, though.

One reason that drive-ins fell off was the growing cost of real estate; the theaters could really only operate at night and during the warm months, and it was just too expensive to keep that big empty plot of land open for that.

You know what I think would be a good idea? They should have drive-ins in big parking lots during the summer. Think about it: over at Easton or somewhere like that, everything shuts down by 10 or 11 at night. Why not have people fill up one of those big lots and show the movie on the side of Macy's or something? The place is just sitting there empty. Might as well use it. I dunno, I'd go.

141

"What the hell is malt?" I wondered to myself while watching the Food Network.

Well, it comes from grains...the malt process involves letting the grains germinate and then quickly drying them. It can then go in beer or whatever; a byproduct goes into malted milk which makes Whoppers and milk shakes and stuff. I am not a big fan.

140

Here is the scoop on how they get Elphaba so green for performances of Wicked. Makeup, powder, spray fixatives, green bodysuit...that's crazy.

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And for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday:

The Broadway production of Wicked opened in October of 2003.

The actors who play Fiyero and Elpie in the natioinal tour of Wicked are engaged (aww!).

The Ohio Theatre opened in 1928 as a movie house.

I'm going to see Wicked tonight, if you couldn't tell. ;)

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Well, this was bound to happen sooner or later. I totally slacked off for an entire week and didn't do my blog. I honestly have been very busy/not home much, but I'll admit that I was mostly lazy. The good news is that this long hiatus almost prompted me to just give up on the project entirely, but somehow today I guilted myself into coming back. Anyway, for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday:

The Clash's "Rock the Casbah" was inspired by the ban on rock music in Iran. The Clash is all, "Forget that! Let's rock the casbah!" I agree, boys.

There is a whole list of songs that Clear Channel made up after 9-11 that their radio stations were not supposed to play for a while after the attacks. It seems kind of retarded to me; I mean, off the top of my head, the list includes Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" but not "The Only Living Boy in New York." Stupid.

I learned, um, some things about COTA and how the COTA buses work, but not enough to actually catch the bus I wanted to catch. Still. I know more than I did before.

I learned how far a walk it is from Lane Avenue to Vet's Memorial (4 miles).

One reason why we don't pee while we're sleeping at night is that the body produces an antidiuretic every evening. This keeps the kidneys from producing much urine, so your bladder isn't full until morning. The other reason is that you learn to wake up if your bladder feels full.

More tomorrow.