243, 244, 245, 246

Thursday I learned about Jonestown. The settlement for the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones, Jonestown was founded in 1974 and was the site of the mass murder-suicide in 1978. 909 people died there. I never heard the whole story, it's crazy. I read the article on Wikipedia. Hard to believe.

Friday I learned that they are opening a Panda Express right next door to Larry's on campus. Yay! I will now be much more excited about going to Larry's all the damn time.

Saturday I learned a way to get around all the traffic on the way to the Pumpkin Show and get there in a tiny fraction of the time it would otherwise take. Technically I just sort of lucked into it, but from here on out I won't have to worry about traffic any more. It also helps to go early, if you're wondering.

Today I learned about fat cells. By the time you finish puberty, you have all the fat cells in your body that you will ever have. When you get fat, you don't get more fat cells; the ones you have just get bigger. I wonder how big they can get.

237, 238, 239

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.

196, 197, 198

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.

Sixty two, Sixty three, Sixty four

Um, yeah. I lose at learning.

For Friday and Saturday I give you two things about horse racing.

1.) Thoroughbreds are English mares + Arabian stallions. Any horse that's called a thoroughbred has to be able to be traced back to that original pairing. To classify today, the mating of the two horses has to be live and witnessed by a real person--no artificial insemination or anything like that. Heh heh. Horse sex.

2.) Keeneland was the last racetrack in North America to start broadcasting racing calls over the PA system; they didn't start until 1997.

And for Sunday I learned that there's a restaurant called the Hoover Grille over by Hoover Dam. I like never drive over that way, but we went to the dam on Sunday and there it was. Who knew.