Pop Quiz

When one's significant other mentions in a casual moment of conversation that he or she is thinking of becoming a vegetarian, do you:
a) stare shocked into his or her face and say nothing for a long time?
b) nod your head understandingly and begin a sensible dialogue?
c) become bombarded by images of dozens of your favourite meat-based meals flash through your head?
d) become filled with remorse that you realize that you may never have any of those delicious meals again?
e) a, c, and d?

If you answered anything except e), you are a better person than I am.

TrivInsomnia

I'm unable to sleep, which is going to wreak havoc on my day tomorrow (I'm supposed to meet people at 8:00 a.m. for breakfast). But I thought I'd use this time to look up some things that I was curious about earlier this week and share them so as to improve the breadth of knowledge of my readership.

1. There is no difference in makeup or size between a symphony orchestra and a philharmonic orchestra. Both are made up of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion sections, and have a large number of musicians (about one hundred; compare that to a chamber orchestra, who has about forty members). Philharmonic (from the Greek for "music-loving") and symphony (from the Greek for "sounding together") orchestras do differ in one sense, though. It's a matter of semantics. Symphonic is a general term, while philharmonic is a specific term that only occurs as part of a name. So you could say that the London Philharmonic Orchestra is a symphonic orchestra, but you couldn't say that the London Symphony Orchestra is a philharmonic orchestra.

2. Chicken Tikka Masala, an Indian-style dish that features roast chicken (chicken tikka) in a tomato and curry sauce, wasn't created in India at all. It was created in Great Britain. The most famous story was that it was invented in a Glasgow in the 1960s, when a customer in an Indian restaurant ordered roast chicken and when it arrived, asked where the gravy was.

3. Speaking of gravy: poutine, the famous French-Canadian dish of French fries, cheese curds, and gravy, caused an international incident last week. A poster celebrating the Canada Day party at the Canadian Embassy in the U.S. featured Samuel De Champlain, founder of Quebec City (whose 400th anniversary is this weekend), holding a plate of poutine. This is apparently insulting and in bad taste: Jean-Paul Perreault, spokesman for Impératif Français, was quoted as saying "If they wanted to make a joke it's a really bad joke and if it wasn't a joke, well, it's worse then." Then, he likened the poster to using a hot dog to pomote English Canada. I'm not Quebecois, but I think that's overreacting. First of all, although it's unclear where hot dogs were first created, it was probably either Vienna or Bavaria, and was likely refined in New York City to look like the hot dogs we know today. Second of all, poutine is a well-known French Canadian food, and it has instant recognition: putting it on the poster makes sense to me, and I don't see how it's insulting. Also: if they make the English Canadian poster, I think John Diefenbaker should be holding the hot dog. It would look really funny.




That's all folks. Good night; hope you can get to sleep.

What's Up "Wednesday" - Special Sasquatch Edition!

Well, yesterday was kind of a write-off, what with me sleeping for 15 hours and feeling like crap when I wasn't sleeping. But today was better, so here's a little update on my activities this weekend.

Best Show: The Flaming Lips. The opening of the show had a giant light rig that was made up to look like a UFO come down from the rafters, at which point the lead singer came out of the top of the UFO in a giant hamster ball and rolled around on top of the audience for a bit, and then came out and shot streamer cannons into the audience while giant balloons were released. And then things got WEIRD.

Best Performance: Rodrigo Y Gabriela. I only caught the last half of their set, but it was amazing. Two former members of a thrash metal band playing acoustic guitars and rocking the roof off the place, if indeed there had been a roof to rock off. Such a good performance that I had to buy their album; we listened to it on the way home and their music was as good as I remembered.

Favourite Performance: R.E.M. (I never said I was impartial.) The performance wasn't as varied or as exciting as the time I saw them in Vancouver, but Michael's voice was much better, and they did play a few songs I was surprised and delighted to hear ("Harborcoat," "Drive," and "Ignoreland" in particular). I stayed out through the rain and enjoyed every bit of it.

Biggest Surprise: The Presidents of the United States of America. I know, I wasn't expecting very much, just some guys being goofy and playing around on stage. But these guys were TIGHT. And they had so much energy, and made such a great sound from their limited, weird instruments, by the end of their set they had the crowd in the palm of their hands. I would DEFINITELY see them again if they came to town. Just a great, great performance.

Biggest Disappointment: Built to Spill. They weren't really bad, per se, but they were a big letdown after the previous band (The Hives), barely interacted at all with the audience, and a lot more mellow than I wanted at the time. I really enjoyed their last song, though, but if that was because I was slowly coming around to them or because it was just a really great song, I don't know. I'll still check them out, though; I have a feeling that they're not a great band to see if you're five hundred meters away from them.

Best Discovery: The Cave Singers. Great folk trio from Seattle; their mix was a little too loud (as was almost every performance on the secondary stage), but their music was really compelling and I downloaded an album from eMusic when I got home.

Best Moment in the Comedy Tent: Jerry Minor talking about how funny monkeys were. I've been into Jerry since his time on Mr. Show, where he delivered the immortal line, "Life is precious, and God, and The Bible." His performance on the comedy stage was so funny, I teared up numerous times. Plus, he asked my what my favourite monkey was. I was enormously happy to be a (very small) part of the performance.

Best Discovery in the Comedy Tent: Rich Fulcher. His first set was a little dead, but his second set, if I might, killed. Talked to him after the show and told him how much I enjoyed the set, and he gave me permission to watch The Mighty Boosh illegally because the DVDs weren't available here yet. So that was cool.

Biggest Disappointment in the Comedy Tent: (Well, technically it was outside the tent.) Not getting to see the Upright Citizens Brigade's ASSSSCAT show. Long-form improv comedy featuring Matt & Matt from the UCB, plus Jerry Minor, Rich Fulcher, Sean Conroy, and Tim Meadows. Would have been great to see, but the tent was at capacity and the line was going nowhere, so we walked away, a little disappointed but ready to see something else.

Best Purchase at the Festival: Chocolate-chip-cookie ice cream sandwich just before the Flaming Lips show. It was DELICIOUS and exactly what I needed.

Worst Purchase at the Festival: An $11 can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Seriously, it could have been the most disappointing beer I've ever had, and I've had beer that tastes like mushrooms before. That was entirely unneccessary, made even worse by the exorbitant price.

What's Up Thursday - April 3, 2008

The Film/DVD: I am a big sucker for Akira Kurosawa. I've seen six movies he wrote and directed - The Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Throne of Blood, Stray Dog, Rashomon, and Yojimbo - but I love all of them. And after watching Ran on Tuesday, he's batting seven for seven. It's got a more theatrical tone, which might turn some people off, but considering it's based on King Lear and a Japanese folk legend, the long takes and far shots make a lot of sense to ground it in a more theatrical, less cinematic context. But there's still a lot of great cinematic technique: the battles are epic and there are some really breathtaking moments (especially in the final 15-20 minutes) that could only be done in cinema. I'm sure I'll eventually find a Kurosawa film I don't like, but I'm going to be enjoying myself while I look for it.

The TV Series: I got Veronica Mars, Season 3 out of the library (slight aside: the public library is a LOT more hip than it was when I was a kid), and have started devouring it in large chunks, like I had the previous seasons. This season, though, is rubbing me the wrong way. Unneccessarily updated theme music, a meandering plot, and a ridiculous romantic subplot. There's still clever dialogue, and Kirsten Bell & Enrico Colantoni are stellar as usual, but it's definitely much lower on the quality scale. After the first season, I thought to myself, "Why on earth did this series get cancelled?!?" About 1/4 into the final season, though, I'm starting to see the faults. I still don't think it was bad enough to cancel, though. Just not great any more.

The Food: I wanted to have sushi while I watched Ran because, well, I sometimes get odd cravings that I cannot explain nor deny. So I ordered a few small dishes, one of which I'd never ordered before: spider roll. Soft-shell crab, mayonnaise, cucumber, and avocado rolled up in a delicious rice roll. I'd never had soft-shell crab before, and it was definitely a new experience - like eating a whole shrimp if the shell was more edible - but in the end, spider rolls go in the "awesome" column. And there are only three columns in my sushi rankings: "aweseome", "excellent", and "fair". I have yet to find a sushi I did not like.

What's Up Wednesday - March 26, 2008

The Book: I borrowed The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz about two months ago and I didn't get around to reading it, but I figure I should read it and return it before I'm known as the black hole of non-returnables (I just returned a bunch of stuff Diego lent me over eight months ago.) Anyhow, that's not the point. This book is interesting, positing the theory that even though we as a people might want as much choice as possible, the fact is that we as a society have so much choice that it's causing us distress. Wasted energy from trying to find the absolute best choice, spending too much time on meaningless decisions, mental distress from worrying about things after the fact, and the real danger of making a bad choice that shouldn't have been wholly yours to make in the first place. I came in a skeptic but found myself agreeing with Schwartz's points a lot more than I thought I would. I have barely spent any time reading it and I'm 75 pages in, so it's that rare find I like so much: a well-researched, thoughtful book that's not painful to read.

The Movie/DVD: I watched a LOT of movies last week, what with my Peach being away and needing breaks from studying. I could talk about any of them, but I think I'll focus briefly on The Phantom of the Opera from 1925. It's melodramatic and the print is understandably faded, and I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed it. But the sets are GORGEOUS, and even though it's more quaint than spectacular you do get a sense of awe from some of the larger scenes. And Lon Chaney, Sr. is magnificent. Just a wave of his hand or a shrug of his shoulders and you don't need anything else. A classic more in the remembering than in the re-watching, but still worth a watch for film nerds like me.

The Food: The McRib is back, baby! (Warning: Flash.) Not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story! I know some people are vegetarians and some others wouldn't set foot in a McDonalds if you paid them, but to me, there's something special about delicious pork meat on a bun with pickles and onions. Oh, McRib. Why can't you stay forever...

The Real Life: Yeah, still with the studying. It's a killer, and I'm sure how well it correlates to the exam, but it is kind of nice to know how much stuff I remember, and how much is coming back to me with so little memory-jogging. I actually find myself liking Resonance and Speech Science a lot more than I did during the classes, and am almost interested in re-reading some of my old textbooks purely for enjoyment's sake. Yes, I know. Nerd. What else is new?

What's Up Wednesday - January 30, 2008

It's later in the day but it's still Wednesday. What's been on my radar this week? Glad you asked.

The Book: I tried but failed to get through The Cold War: A History by Martin Walker before I had to return it to the library today. It's a really dense read, but still somehow readable thanks to the straightforward prose. It's my first foray into the history of the Cold War, a subject I find really fascinating but something I never learned about enough in school. So I'm going to take it out again and try to finish it. After all, I lived through the end without understanding what was going on; I'd like to revisit it knowing a little more about life.

The DVD: I caught Dog Day Afternoon for the first time this weekend. Oh wow, it's so good. High-tension drama with a real emotional core, as Al Pacino tries to deal with a bank hold-up gone wrong. Yeah, Pacino screams a lot, but in this movie it's absolutely necessary at times. And the supporting cast is amazing, John Cazale and Christ Sarandon in particular. Director Sidney Lumet really grounds you in the scenes while allowing the actors to do amazing work. Much better than I was expecting, and I was expecting pretty good things.

The TV Show: I caught the first episode of The Border, which is a show about The Canadian Immigration and Customs Security Squad. The trailers make it look really slick and it's certainly a novel idea. I was really intrigued by the storytelling possibilities, but I found the first episode fell really flat: the dialogue was clunky and stilted at many times throughout the show, and there was WAY too much hand-held camera work. I know that "shaky-cam" has become shorthand for "cop show", but it's often not necessary, and in The Border, it was really distracting. I'm willing to give it another shot, as the next few episodes have a lot more potential (dealing with Canadian-American relations), but I have much lower expectations.

The Video Game: After the fiasco that was Harvey Birdman, I decided to go old-school and download Super Mario Bros. 3 for the Wii Virtual Console. I played through the first level last night with The Peach watching, hoping that she'd get interested in it. As it was, she just got more depressed about not being able to play her Game Boy games, and went online to look for an A.C. adaptor. So, mission half-accomplished. The game's still great, but the display's a little wonky: there's a line of pixels on either side of the screen that don't match the rest of the background. It's a picky complaint, I know, but it's also really annoying. Still: Super Mario Equals Super Fun!

The Food: Avocados. Seriously, if you told eight-year old me that I would eventually love avocadoes, I would have thought you were an idiot. But this weekend I've made guacamole and a delicious avocado-shrimp salad, and had sliced avocados on a BLT. Avocados: I've come around on them. Add them to the list of "foods you hate when you're a kid but like when you're an adult", along with brussels sprouts and dark chocolate.

The Real-Life: It's been UNBEARABLY cold here! Minus 43 degrees overnight at times, which for you Americans, is almost exactly the same in Farenheit as Celcius. It was so cold that my car refused to start after Kow practice on Monday night, which blocked Jago's car and thus necessetated his taking a bus to work the next day. I finally got it out thanks to the help of a few of my friends, which is a lucky thing because the A.M.A. was so backed up in the city that they had a more than 24-hour wait time for non-emergencies, and a 12-hour wait time for actual emergencies. It was a little warmer today, but still really cold, and it's a good time to stick around inside and keep warm. Which you kind of have to do when you're waiting a day for a tow truck.

That's my week in three or four nutshells. How's everyone else doing?

Deconstructing The Presentation

Friday morning after I posted about my thesis stress nightmare, I triple-checked that I had loaded the most up-to-date versions of my presentation and script onto my CD-ROM, and headed to the university. I did a couple of quick faxes before the presentation, and before I knew it, nine o'clock had rolled around and I was ready for my grilling. I've had an idea of what a thesis defense would be like when I was a boy - a strange think for a boy to think about, but my dad did his Masters when I was about nine or so, so it was something that was on my mind. I had imagined that you stand in a sparse room with hard tile so that every step or shuffle you take makes loud, obvious echoes; that you stand the entire time, in front of a table of your committee members who sit in a row, hands folded, and begin to throw question after question at you. I also imagined, for some reason, that they would be wearing robes.

The actual presentation was, unsurprisingly, nothing like that. I sat with everyone at an oval table; they all wore sweaters; and everyone was very friendly. The chair started the session by asking me to leave so they could confer on how the presentation would go, so I left and hung out in an office, trying to calmly go over my presentation. I was summoned back, I did my twelve-minute Power Point, and then the questions began. You start with the person furthest from the project and the field of study, and work inwards, and go around a few times asking questions until they're satisfied. I was pretty nervous, and although I tried to play it cool I think it showed a few times when I just didn't understand some of the questions but inadvertently answered them when trying to get to my point. I also felt I was unfairly grilled on some statistics questions, but then again I was fairly grilled on other statistics questions, so I suppose it all evens out. Over an hour of questions passed, and then I was dismissed again so that the committee could go over their questions and slot me into one of the following three categories:

1. Pass.
2. Pass, with revisions.
3. Fail.


Almost nobody gets option one, and very few get option three. So in this case I was VERY content to score in the middle of the curve. I passed, with a slew of revisions to tackle, but I can probably get them done before December ends. So yes, my thesis went well. I didn't have much time to celebrate afterwards, because of the choir concert I had the next day and the dress rehearsal for it that evening, but Sunday night The Peach took me out to unheardof for dinner, which was delicious and full of celebratory times. I would highly recommend it for a special dining occasion: the seafood bisque was AMAZING. So now that my thesis is, essentially, done, I have time to focus on other things. Like The 5th Annual Apocalypse Kow Kristmas Kabaret (this Friday night!). Or gift shopping. Or redecorating the living room. Or completing the office move at the University. Unfortunately, outside the academic bubble I was in for a couple of weeks, life has moved on, and I have to catch up.

My Life Last Week in Links

Or, "Trying to make up for the un-excusable silence."

Monday – Kow Rehearsal. We do a lot of talking about the upcoming charity show and about the upcoming "Kow Year In Review", not a lot of rehearsing. Then we watch some Angel Season 5 (two more episodes left! It’s coming fast and furious now), and play a game of Gloom with ScottyBomb, which is a game where you have a house full of Edward Gorey-esque characters and you do terrible things to them and then kill them off. For fun!

Tuesday – A quiet dinner at home with The Peach. We have burritos and watch Jeeves & Wooster, Season Two. I deal better with the dissonance that comes from watching early-90s British Hugh Laurie and mid-00s "American" Hugh Laurie concurrently.

Wednesday – First night of Tai Chi class with Morgoid. I am a little nervous about this, seeing as how it's a) something new, which always makes me a little worried, and b) a form of physical activity, which is rarely one of my favourite things to do. However, about ten minutes into the class my fears completely disappear. Doing the Tai Chi moves is relaxing and soothing, and helps me decompress at the end of the day. I leave a little sore but really happy and looking forward to the next class. Then, Morgoid and I talk about comics for half an hour, including how good Dwayne McDuffie is on the Justice League (i.e., very good), how lame Penance is (i.e., so lame, but also so old news), and how awesome the New Warriors were in the 90s (i.e., Night Thrasher).

Thursday – Second choir rehearsal. Still a little leery about joining the choir, as it's run a little more haphazardly than I'd like (not being able to hear the director when he's ten feet away means you need to SHUT IT), but I'm getting along with the other Tenor IIs (all three of them), and am looking forward to performing with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at the end of the month at the John Williams 75th Birthday Concert. We're singing mostly from his current work (1997 and on), but I hold hold out hope that we will hear the Superman theme from the orchestra.

Friday – NinjaStolz and Fi come over for dinner. The Peach and I make jambalaya (I didn't put in any celery because she doesn't like it, but she admits it was lacking afterwards), cornbread muffins, and blueberry cobbler, which is all heartily eaten. Then, we sit around the living room talking pop culture. Well, he and I do; the ladies sit there and mostly look varying degrees of amused.

Saturday – NoSweat 2007. Astro's brother organized an anti-sweatshop fashion show with the proceeds going to support FUNARTE, a charity that works with children in Nicaragua. Kow is involved in a scene and have to sing a couple of songs, which is changed to three when it is discovered that the crew cannot completely strike and re-set the stage in 30 seconds. The rehearsal is a little scattered and takes much longer than we were originally told, but NinjaStan and I spend the time we're not standing motionless onstage hanging out: we read, play VS, and chat about various things. The show itself goes off splendidly, with beatboxers, fire jugglers, hackey-sacking, handsome people in pretty clothes, Filipino stick dancing, B-Boys, and of course, a Kowpella.

Sunday – NinjaStan and I accompany Jago and one of his co-workers to the k-os show at the Starlite room. The Starlite is HOT and the opening band, Kill the Lights, does not start until nearly 10:00, almost two hours after the doors open. They are pretty good, and although the female vocalist/keyboard dances like a goblin on LSD, I decide they are worth a second listen, because anyone who can rock out on two tambourines unironically gets points in my book. I go outside during the break and talk to Fernando, a gentleman we met inside, about what it was like going to bars and concerts when we were younger men. Then, it was back in to see the k-os rock show, which had a few hiccups but was ultimately a pretty good show. There were a couple of miscommunications between k-os and the rest of the band, and his freestyle rhymes were about 60% on (including three Oilers references and a dyad where he rhymed "salary" with "Calgary"), but it was great to see the way the band re-imagined the songs for a much more Rock & Roll based live show. Also: the guitarist in the band was AMAZING. The anchor of the show for sure.

So, that was my week. Anyone else do anything amazing?

Caffeine: Threat or Menace?

Like many people, I like coffee. I drink coffee almost every day. My online alter-egos typically have coffee mugs in their hands (see: the display picture in this blog). I love the smell of freshly ground coffee, and I love the taste of a perfectly brewed cup. Sadly, my coffee maker at home doesn’t always make for the best cup of java, so I sometimes add brown sugar, milk, or (rarely) hazelnut flavoured oil-based milk-like product. And yes, I’ll admit it, I enjoy the physiological effects of coffee as well. I’ve tried to figure out how to add coffee to various foods, from muffins to tacos to chili to cookies, all with varying degrees of success. I’ve even read books on coffee, and always found the historical and cultural aspects of the beverage fascinating.

Caffeine, on the other hand, I knew much less about. I know that it’s a stimulant, and I know that it’s a diuretic, but other than that, I was clueless. Until I spent an hour at my computer, that is. Now, I’m afraid I may know too much. (Sources: Caffeine entry at Wikipedia, “How Caffeine Works” at HowStuffWorks.com, and “Caffeine-Related Disorders” at The Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders.)

Caffeine can be found in many different foods and drugs, some obvious, some not. Coffee, tea, cola, chocolate, various energy drinks, and headache medications all contain some amount of caffeine. (Why do medications like Anacin have caffeine? Because if you have a vascular headache, caffeine constricts the blood vessels, thereby reducing the headache.) Caffeine is a stimulant for the nervous system and for the metabolism, leading to increased alertness and focus, increased lipid breakdown, and improved reflexes. But you probably already knew that. Here are some more interesting tidbits.

Different foods have different amounts of caffeine. Here’s an interesting list that I’ll be referring to later:

Approximate Amount of Caffeine per Serving
- Brewed Coffee (6-oz cup) - 100 mg
- Brewed Tea (6-oz cup) - 70 mg
- Espresso (2-oz shot) - 100 mg
- Regular Cola (12-oz/354 ml can) - 50 mg
- Jolt Cola (12-oz/354 ml can) - 70 mg
- Red Bull (8-oz/240 ml can) - 80 mg
- Milk Chocolate (1 oz/30 g) - 6 mg
- Anacin (1 tablet) - 32 mg
- Dexatrim (appetite suppressant; 1 tablet) - 200 mg


Most people take their coffee in large travel mugs or paper cups from coffee shops, so their “cups” of coffee are more like 12, 16, or 20 fluid ounces. That’s 200, 260, or 330 mg of caffeine per cup. At an average of eight to eleven 6-oz cups of coffee a day, I consume nearly one gram of caffeine a day. To compare, the Peach likely has a maximum of 100 mg per day, if she has a mug of tea and a chocolate bar. Then again, I’m about double her mass, so it’s a pretty bad comparison all around.

Caffeine has a really complex metabolism, but essentially it blocks adenosine receptors; since adenosine slows neural activity, causing drowsiness, when caffeine binds to those, it instead causes increased neural activity, which causes increased production of adrenaline. So, not only do you NOT get drowsy, but your body gets primed. Adenosine antagonism also leads to increased production of dopamine and serotonin, leading to a stimulatory effect and improved mood. (Adenosine antagonism may contribute to caffeine’s diuretic effect.) While humans can metabolize caffeine just fine, it’s actually harmful to other animals like dogs and horses. Caffeine severely disrupts spiders as well, making me wonder if there are any comic books out there that show Peter Parker going on a caffeine-induced bender through New York City, and if not, why not.

Like all drugs, regular intake of caffeine can lead to tolerance. Caffeine tolerance builds up rather quickly: complete tolerance to the mood and attention improvement of caffeine develops after daily consumption of 300mg of caffeine over 18 days. That means that if you have one large cup of coffee from your favourite chain coffee shop every day, you’re tolerant. In fact, look at that list again. You have 2 cans of coke and a small cappucino? Same thing. Your mileage and metabolism may vary, of course, but still: that’s a lot. Essentially, anyone who has coffee every day isn’t getting a “boost”, you’re fighting off the crash that comes when the adrenaline wears off: headaches (because your blood vessels expand), anxiety, irritability, reduced motivation, and sometimes depression. It only takes 1-5 days to withdraw from caffeine, but most people don’t last that long. It’s easier to just have another Coke.

The DSM-IV, the handbook of mental disorders, lists four caffeine-induced psychiatric disorders: caffeine intoxication, caffeine-induced anxiety disorder, caffeine-induced sleep disorder, and caffeine related disorder not otherwise specified. That’s right: some people consume so much caffeine (or metabolize it so badly) that they have psychiatric disturbances that merit clinical attention. A diagnosis of caffeine intoxication requires the presence of at least five of the following symptoms, and it can’t be better explained by a different medical or mental disorder: restlessness, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, flushed face, diuresis (increased urinary output), gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching, talking or thinking in a rambling manner, tachycardia (speeded-up heartbeat) or disturbances of heart rhythm, periods of inexhaustibility, and psychomotor agitation. Because tolerance builds up so quickly, though, caffeine intoxication is typically encountered in people who don’t normally consume very much, or who have dramatically increased their intake, like a college student during exam week, or an expectant father during a 36-hour labour; bad situations made worse, so try to avoid drinking 2 pots of coffee every day during finals (personal experience AND science talking here).

Caffeine has been linked with the reduction in the risk of Parkinson’s and heart disease, and might even prevent baldness. However, anyone thinking that a couple of extra glasses of tea would stop that hairline from receding, it takes at approximately six grams of caffeine to result in enough making it to your hair follicles, so you’d be better off washing your hair with Jolt Cola than drinking more of it. Besides, you’d get caffeine intoxication LONG before you’d see any result on your scalp.

So, that’s my weekly knowledge dump, for better or worse. Anyone out there consume more caffeine on a daily basis than I do? Look it up in the list, let me know. I’d feel better, at least.

Comments on Condiments

Quite often in my meanderings through the internet, I click on a random link on the sidebar at Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin. I typically find myself reading comics commentary, and have found quite a few decent comic blogs that I read with regularity. However, today I came across an entry about, of all things, ketchup; entertaining, sure, but not what I was expecting. This is the entirety of the entry (cut and pasted, no offense to Blogger Erich):

At dinner the other night, it occurred to me...every ketchup (or catsup, whichever spelling you prefer) bottle I've ever seen has read "[insert brand name here] Tomato Ketchup." Which got me thinking...is there any other kind of ketchup besides tomato? I suppose it's theoretically possible to subject any number of fruits and vegetables to the ketchuping process, but I've never heard of it being done...


Putting aside the fact that I now really enjoy the word “ketchuping”, it got me interested in reading up on the quintessentially American condiment (and enjoyed thoroughly here north of the 49th as well). It has a long and convoluted history, which people don’t seem to be able to agree on. Ketchup actually used to be a general term for sauce, and used to be made of mushrooms or fish brine, but most people know the traditional tomato-based variety (although there are MANY other versions). The word itself might have an etymological origin in the Amoy dialect of Chinese, or in Malayan. It’s an essential component in Thousand Island dressing and BBQ sauces. People use it on almost everything: scrambled eggs (the very thought of which makes me shudder and feel slightly nauseous), French fries, macaroni & cheese, fried chicken, baked potatoes, steak, fish, tacos, rice, onion rings, and of course, hamburgers and hot dogs.

EXCEPT. And this is where I really got confused. Apparently, hot dog “aficionados” insist that you should never dress your hot dog with ketchup. Apparently, it ruins the flavour. Now, I don’t know about you people out there, but I’ve eaten my fair share of hot dogs in my time, roasted over the fire, boiled, grilled, roasted; home-made, from the best vendor in Edmonton, and even at the movie theaters. I can’t honestly say that hot dogs have a flavour that you could ruin with the addition of sugar, salt, and tomatoes. In fact, my favourite hot dog topping would be ketchup, mustard, onions, and sauerkraut. Sure, you don’t want to kiss me after I have a couple, but then again, you probably don’t want to kiss me before I have a couple either. Am I crazy? Has anyone ever heard of this anti-ketchup brigade before? What do you put on your hot dogs? Enquiring Docs want to know.