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Thursday I learned about hair follicle drug tests. To do one of these, they take about 50-70 strands of your hair that are about an inch and a half long. The test can detect cocaine, marijuana, opiates, methamphetamine, and PCP, and it's more effective than urine testing because it picks up drugs that were used at a lower level or longer ago. Traces of the drug get into your hair as it's metabolized. If you don't have much hair on your head, they can use body hair to test as well. This is very random; I'm not on drugs or anything.

Today I learned how to make a caramel pecan pie. I had never made a pie before today. Well, Erica made the crust, but I mixed the other stuff up and put it together. It was really easy--you just melt caramel, milk and butter, then mix it up with some sugar and eggs--and it turned out great. Deeelicious. Here is the recipe, if you are interested.

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Monday I learned some beginner tips for painting with acrylics. See here.

Tuesday I learned about oatmeal. Oatmeal is good for you. It can lower your cholesterol and it is high in fiber and complex carbohydrates. Oatmeal will leave you feeling fuller longer during the day. Steel cut oatmeal takes a long time to cook but is extra good for you because it leaves the outside part on, like with brown rice.

Today I learned where you can get your credit report. The three companies that have to give you a free report per year are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. All you have to do is go to the website annualcreditreport.com or call their 800 number or mail in a form, and you can get your free report. You don't have to contact each agency separately, and any other website that is trying to give you a free credit report is not for real and you should watch out. I sound like a commercial here, but I am just trying to tell you what I learned. I don't care if you get a free credit report or not.

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Thursday I learned that you can set your Amazon wishlist to show you all of your stuff if you're logged in, even the stuff that has already been purchased. So if Christmas or your birthday or whatever is coming up, you can still look at your wishlist and change stuff around without having to see what all has been bought already. That's cool.

Friday I learned about tin foil hats. People wear tin foil hats because they think that aliens (or someone else) is trying to control their brain with signals, or because they think it will protect them from electromagnetic fields and the like. A really well-made foil hat might actually help protect you from some things, but for the most part it does not work (mainly because it doesn't completely enclose your head) and sometimes it might actually help signals get in.

Saturday I learned about eggnog. I was not sure exactly what it in eggnog. It is milk or a blend of milk and cream plus sugar and spices (like cinnamon or nutmeg) and then eggs are added to make it frothy. Eggnog that you buy is usually pasteurized so you don't have to worry about dying from the raw eggs, but if you make it yourself you should heat the eggs slowly to 160 degrees to make sure they're safe.

Today I learned that the Grand Canyon is in Arizona. I always think it's in Colorado, and I know that's wrong, but then I can't remember where it actually is. Bill thought it was Colorado too.

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Wednesday I learned that there are 2 different types of allergy tests you can get done. In one type, you get pin-pricked with little particles of different allergens to see which one(s) you react to. In the other, you get these big strips pasted onto your back. The strips have like 20 of the most common allergens on them, and you leave them on for two days (gross) and then get them removed and the doctor sees what things you are allergic to. I do not like the sound of either of these.

Thursday I learned that the wish bone on a turkey is actually called the furcula. It is part of the sternum/clavicle region and it helps support the wings in flight. I like to break the wish bone because I am superstitious about wishes, but I don't like to do it because I am terrified of bones breaking. This year I did not get to break the wish bone, and I also did not get my birthday wish on my birthday cake. This may be a bad year.

Today I learned what sweet potato pie tastes like. It tastes mostly like pumpkin pie, but a lot less gross.

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Today I learned what a pavlova is. A pavlova is a giant cake-sized meringue that you decorate with whipped cream and fruit. (Side note: my new huge pet peeve is people who write "whip cream." It is not "whip cream." It is cream that has been whipped: whipped cream.) It gets crispy on the outside but stays moist on the inside. The pavlova comes from New Zealand and does not particularly look like something that I would want to eat.

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Thursday I learned that there are different techniques for eating chicken wings. Here's one where you break up the wing and then smash it on the table to get the meat off. Gross. I love the taste of wings but I freaking hate having to tear the nasty meat and vessels and tendons off the bone.

Friday I learned that I could expect to get about $7000 if I sold my car to a private party right now. That is freaking sweet.

Saturday I learned how to do zombie makeup. I found out about a cool technique where you roll up little lines of toilet paper and apply them with liquid latex to make an open wound. I also played around with lipstick and eyeliner to make dead zombie eyes. And I learned that that color hairspray stuff is never, ever worth it. What a mess.

Sunday I learned about sunflowers. 1.) In their bud stage, sunflowers follow the sun; in the morning they face east and turn their faces westward over the course of the day. At night they go back to facing east. That is creepy. 2.) There is like a mathematical model to show the pattern that the seeds grow in the middle of the flower. See here for that.

Today I learned where the Maldives are. I would like to go there on a magical fantasy free vacation.

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Friday I learned about defacing money. Apparently it is OK to alter or deface currency as long as you then don't try to use it as currency; so, you can punch a hole in a penny and wear it as a necklace, but you can't try to use it as a spending penny after that. See here. I have been giving people wrong info on this topic for a while now, which sucks. My bad.

Saturday I learned about the Mongolian Barbecue, which is neither Mongolian nor barbecue. Apparently this type of restaurant was invented in Taiwan within the last 50 years or so, which is pretty funny. It comes from a style of Japanese cooking; that makes sense if you've ever been to one of those Japanese steakhouses, although I'm sure those aren't particularly authentic either. I went to BD's Mongolian Barbecue on Saturday. It was pretty good, I would go again. I like picking my own stuff.

Today I learned about a variety of different shock sites, after Goatse and Tubgirl both came up in conversation between Bill and I within like 2 minutes of each other (yeah, interesting conversation). I was familiar with both of those two, unfortunately, but not with any of the other ones mentioned in this article. Man, I am so tempted to go and look at each and every one of those sites but I know better. Once you see those things, you can't un-see them.

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Saturday I learned what a "ruby slipper" is: it's a shot of whiskey topped off with grenadine and dropped into a glass of 7-Up. It is not a glass of water and a shot of grenadine, which is what they gave me at Larry's. That was hilarious.

Sunday I learned that you can do a Priceline-esque hotel room purchase through Skybus. They have some rooms that you can book like normal, but they also have some that they can't tell you what they are until you've booked. You'll know the cost, hotel amenities and location, but that's it. I am too big of a wuss to book a hotel that way. If I was just going to stay there for one, maybe two nights, I might go for it, but for a longer vacation I don't see it happening.

I had something I wanted to do for today but I could not find anything useful on the topic...bad librarian! Instead I learned about "meat pies." I read this book that takes place in Australia, and characters kept eating "pies" all through the book, though I got the impression that they were not the delicious cherry or pecan pies that you or I might expect. Instead they were these, a sort of Hot Pocket meets pot pie convenience food. I uh...kind of want one. Except for that part in the Wikipedia article that talks about tongue roots and blood vessels.

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Today I learned about cabbage. I'm sort of obsessed with cabbage and coleslaw lately. I did not like coleslaw until 2004, when all of a sudden I did like it. Cabbage is very high in vitamin C...maybe I am lacking vitamin C and that's why I think about cabbage all the time? And want to eat copious amounts of KFC or Bob Evans coleslaw? I do not know.

Cabbage is related to broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, and some other vegetables that you probably would have figured it was related to. You can make sauerkraut or kimchi with cabbage. You can also make coleslaw. Did I mention coleslaw? Because that comes from cabbage too.

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Ok, first of all, do not read this and PLEASE do not click on the links if you are squeamish/super sensitive about tiny baby animals. I have a decent tolerance for hearing about gross things but this one almost puts me over the edge.

Today I learned about balut, which is a Vietnamese delicacy. Balut is a fertilized duck egg where you take the egg, boil it with the baby duck growing inside of it, and then eat the egg and the dead baby duck--beak, bones, tiny feathers and all. It looks like some weird, veiny testicle/eyeball/fetus blob. People might have heard of this because I guess they ate it on Survivor and Fear Factor (I could never watch Fear Factor b/c I was afraid the people would vomit), but I saw it on a travel show or something a year or two ago. For some reason it came up earlier today (why?) and I re-looked it up. This really grosses me out. I know there's nothing wrong with it and eggs and meat in general is all just as gross, but for some reason balut is too much for me. You can read about eating one here.

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Saturday I learned the etymology of the word "lollygag," because it is a funny word. Etymonline.com says "dawdle, dally," 1862, lallygag, Amer.Eng., perhaps from dial. lolly "tongue" + gag "deceive, trick." The Word Detective has this to say:

Unfortunately, the origin of "lollygag" is unknown, but there are clues from which we may, perhaps, be able to extrapolate the roots of "lollygag." ("Extrapolate" in this context, by the way, is a fancy word for "guess.")

First up in the batting order of possible "lollygag" clues is "loll," which is a very old word originally meaning "to droop or dangle." We use "loll" today to mean to relax or pass time idly, the sort of behavior that vacations are designed to encourage. There seems to be a plausible connection between this "utterly relaxed" meaning of "loll" and the "wasting time" sense of "lollygag."

Another bit of evidence might be found in the fact that "to loll" also means to let your tongue hang out, and that "lolly" is an English slang term for tongue (quite possibly the source of the name of our friend the lollipop, by the way). Perhaps "lollygagging" arose from the perception that lazy lollygaggers were adept at exercising only one muscle -- their tongues.

Sunday I learned about the Waffle House. How did I learn that? BY GOING THERE. Oh yes, I am a Waffle House virgin no longer. Despite scary numbers of flies and the possibility of getting a breakfast meal completely covered in cheese, I have to say that my food (pecan waffle and a side of bacon) was actually super good. I love waffles and I love pecans. I want all my waffles to have pecans from now on. Um, as for a specific learning, I learned that you pay up at the register and not at your table. That was a funny night. Nice meeting you, Waffle House.

Today I learned about sushi. All I did really was read the article on Wikipedia, but it had a lot of information in it. I learned about the different types, like nigiri-zushi (the blob of rice with a piece of fish sitting on tip of it) versus maki-zushi (rolled sushi). I learned about some things that can go in sushi such as "gobo" which is a type of vegetable and "masago" which is a type of fish egg. I actually do not eat sushi mostly because of the different vegetables like cucumber and raw carrot that are always showing up in there. There is almost no raw vegetable that I like, and cucumber is especially heinous. Other than that it all sounds pretty good.

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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 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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"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.