Randomness and WTF
Jun. 27th, 2007 01:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
simplyslyToday was a good day. My mother called and altered me that there are ripe Marionberries, blackberries, and currants just waiting for a willing stomach out at my Uncle Ray's place. Well, it's not my house, nor my mother's, so I called my cousin Roger who has been taking care of the house, getting it ready for market (some of you may recall that my Uncle Ray passed on earlier in the year). In the course of arranging for my roommate(s) and I to head over that way Wednesday or Thursday, I was invited to dinner. Now, cousin Roger is technically my first cousin once removed, being the first cousin to my mother, and I've only really started to get to know him this past year. I've been to his house a couple of times, but only for big family gatherings (you know, the type with more than twenty people all sitting around talking and eating, brought together because the weather is nice or something. ok, so it's usually more like a birthday, a going away party, or a graduation celebration, but still). I headed out there and was greeted not by Roger's son Adam (who graduated high school just a few weeks ago), but rather a random female that I guess they know from church, who is about Adam's age (I think).
It was an interesting, if simple, dinner. Adam was rather quiet, I thought, but that's not really strange for this family. Apparently, he's at that stage where he'd rather be in his room than out socializing with family. Yeah, like I have no idea what that's like. Dessert was the Marionberries and Blackberries, over angel food cake. This is why going over today to pick berries wasn't possible; they had already been cleaned off by my mother and Roger. Oh well, it's not like a day or so wait is going to kill me. I mentioned having gone to A Night of Improv, and they were rather shocked. Apparently, not only have they watched and liked the show, they rather consider the WL cast their heroes. Well, um, ok. Roger apparently likes Kathy Greenwood the best. I personally believe that it's just because he's straight and she's the only female contestant for most of the seasons. Before I left, they gave me a gallon bag of cherries (from one of the trees around), and I lent them my WL dvd's. *sob* I has no whose line right now. It feels so, wrong.
Well, came home and shared cherries with my roommate that likes to bake (other one was busy climbing and jumping off the roof; something about too much energy). She decided, at about quarter to nine in the evening, that it would be wonderful if we could make vegan tarts. Of course, to make said vegan tarts, we first had to find a recipe. And then go the store. And buy hazelnut flour (I have no idea why this is important, but it apparently is). While waiting for her to pick out the flour she wanted, I spotted, of all things, beet powder.
Now, I don't know if any of you have ever seen beet powder before. If you haven't, it's hard to appreciate the colour, and the opacity of such a thing. Mainly, I just liked the colour and was tempted (extremely tempted) to buy some to put in a glass jar in the kitchen, just because. And then it hit me: I can use this in Red Velvet Cake. The thing about Red Velvet cake is that it typically shown today as a vibrant red, which is incredibly hard to reproduce. Originally, the red tint to the cake came from using non-dutch processed cocoa powder and vinegar, which has since been recreated (and enhanced) mainly by red food colouring. A LOT of red food colouring. However, some chefs prefer to use beets to get the same colour, and this is what I'm thinking about trying. All else, it would make for a rather interesting conversation with my older relatives.
So, day was going all right. It was interesting, and filled with fruits. And then I came home, watched the Colbert Report, and learned about this. The Science of Gaydar. Rather than being about our brains, and how they pick out random things from the aether, this is about physical traits that have a higher correlation of appearing when a person is gay. You know, like the old adage about the fingers (in which a gay man would have a longer index female, while a gay ("butch", they clarified) female would have a longer ring finger) and other such things. The interview itself on the Colbert Report rubbed me all kinds of wrong, but the article itself is slightly less offensive, I find. The main thrust appears to be expounding on the believe that there are physical traits that can identify someone as a homosexual, as being homosexual is genetic. Everything from finger prints to voice pitch to hair whorls, it seems, can give a person away. I'm about as enthused about this as I was when I read about the doctor who said that women have no sexual orientation.
I am not convinced. Perhaps is just that I like believing that some things can't be scientifically explained away, but really. Correlation is not causation, and until something can be completely proved (not that I really understand why they're trying to prove this in the first place), I think I'm going to go back to pretending that this never happened and that there aren't going to a whole lot of people checking out people's hair and finger lengths after this.
It was an interesting, if simple, dinner. Adam was rather quiet, I thought, but that's not really strange for this family. Apparently, he's at that stage where he'd rather be in his room than out socializing with family. Yeah, like I have no idea what that's like. Dessert was the Marionberries and Blackberries, over angel food cake. This is why going over today to pick berries wasn't possible; they had already been cleaned off by my mother and Roger. Oh well, it's not like a day or so wait is going to kill me. I mentioned having gone to A Night of Improv, and they were rather shocked. Apparently, not only have they watched and liked the show, they rather consider the WL cast their heroes. Well, um, ok. Roger apparently likes Kathy Greenwood the best. I personally believe that it's just because he's straight and she's the only female contestant for most of the seasons. Before I left, they gave me a gallon bag of cherries (from one of the trees around), and I lent them my WL dvd's. *sob* I has no whose line right now. It feels so, wrong.
Well, came home and shared cherries with my roommate that likes to bake (other one was busy climbing and jumping off the roof; something about too much energy). She decided, at about quarter to nine in the evening, that it would be wonderful if we could make vegan tarts. Of course, to make said vegan tarts, we first had to find a recipe. And then go the store. And buy hazelnut flour (I have no idea why this is important, but it apparently is). While waiting for her to pick out the flour she wanted, I spotted, of all things, beet powder.
Now, I don't know if any of you have ever seen beet powder before. If you haven't, it's hard to appreciate the colour, and the opacity of such a thing. Mainly, I just liked the colour and was tempted (extremely tempted) to buy some to put in a glass jar in the kitchen, just because. And then it hit me: I can use this in Red Velvet Cake. The thing about Red Velvet cake is that it typically shown today as a vibrant red, which is incredibly hard to reproduce. Originally, the red tint to the cake came from using non-dutch processed cocoa powder and vinegar, which has since been recreated (and enhanced) mainly by red food colouring. A LOT of red food colouring. However, some chefs prefer to use beets to get the same colour, and this is what I'm thinking about trying. All else, it would make for a rather interesting conversation with my older relatives.
So, day was going all right. It was interesting, and filled with fruits. And then I came home, watched the Colbert Report, and learned about this. The Science of Gaydar. Rather than being about our brains, and how they pick out random things from the aether, this is about physical traits that have a higher correlation of appearing when a person is gay. You know, like the old adage about the fingers (in which a gay man would have a longer index female, while a gay ("butch", they clarified) female would have a longer ring finger) and other such things. The interview itself on the Colbert Report rubbed me all kinds of wrong, but the article itself is slightly less offensive, I find. The main thrust appears to be expounding on the believe that there are physical traits that can identify someone as a homosexual, as being homosexual is genetic. Everything from finger prints to voice pitch to hair whorls, it seems, can give a person away. I'm about as enthused about this as I was when I read about the doctor who said that women have no sexual orientation.
I am not convinced. Perhaps is just that I like believing that some things can't be scientifically explained away, but really. Correlation is not causation, and until something can be completely proved (not that I really understand why they're trying to prove this in the first place), I think I'm going to go back to pretending that this never happened and that there aren't going to a whole lot of people checking out people's hair and finger lengths after this.
