kids are like cats

20-somethings are not always good with small children. This is a problem at large family gatherings like reunions or weddings. The kids know they are supposed to like you, because their moms say they should. However, they are suspicious because they haven't seen you in a long time.

In order to relieve stress of trying to both take care of kids and participate in family events, the moms might pass their kids off to you with a comment like, "Can you watch Billy?" or "You're good with kids, right?"

If you own a cat, you can answer with a resounding, "Of course!" Because kids are like cats.

For example, is a list of stuff my cat likes that my cousins also like.

1) Being ignored.
Trying too hard with kids and cats has the same result.

It usually ends with the smaller party hiding under a couch or in a closet. However, both kids and cats inevitably seem to drift towards the person at a family event who is least interested in them. So, you should ignore them. They will think you are the coolest person in the world.

2) Playing with things that are NOT toys.
According to my friends who majored in psychology, this has something to do with non-toys being "novel objects." Either way, kids and cats seem to want to play with everything except for the presents people have bought for them. Plus, they both love cardboard boxes and paper bags.

3) Climbing on people.
Kids and cats really enjoy using adult humans as their own personal jungle gym. Admit it-- if you were that small, you would too.

4) Giving weird presents.
My cat gets really offended if I don't accept his dead birds. Even if your cousin draws you something as strange as a dead bird, you should make a big deal over it. Otherwise, like my cat, he will spend all day being sad.

So, if you know how to make a cat happy, you probably know how to make a kid happy. Accordingly, if you know how to make a cat UNhappy, you know what NOT to do with kids.

DO NOT...
1) Force them to wear outfits
2) Expect them to do tricks
3) Tickle them
4) Give them stupid nicknames
5) Feed them after midnight

No wait... that's gremlins.

Summary venn diagrams!

 

the ninja turtle hypothesis

My favorite ninja turtle was Donatello. This is because Donatello was the smartest of the turtles. And he used a bowstaff, which was cool.

I hang out with a group of cerebral neuroscientists. In one of our conversations, we realized that almost everyone in the group favored Donatello out of the four pizza loving turtles. This led me to a hypothesis.

The type of ninja turtle you liked as a kid predicts the kind of job you will have.

This is based on the idea that you liked the turtle that was like you. People who liked ideas and inventions liked Donatello. People who liked leading a group liked Leonardo. Party-goers liked Michelangelo. Loners liked Raphael.

Here is my hypothesized correlation between preferred ninja turtles and jobs:

The Raphael correlation might surprise you, but remember that Raphael is the only turtle who truly strives for self-discovery, and who struggles with his own identity. He does not want to be a turtle. A person with a Raphael-type personality, upon maturing, is likely to want to help guide others to a similar level of maturity.

This chart is similar to my hypothesized correlation between preferred Hogwarts houses and jobs, although Slytherin does not fit.

These jobs make sense, because, each ninja turtle has a distinct high-priority goal and desired role in a group.

Most people I have encountered in scientific fields liked Donatello. Most people in business and politics liked Leonardo. As our generation grows up, the cartoon characters we liked as kids can actually begin to predict the people we want to be.

Kind of interesting and all, but thinking about this kind of thing has also unfortunatley changed the way I look at the ninja turtles.

Get a job, Mikey!

tattoo

Many people think that tattoos are a terrible idea. That is what they keep telling me.

Actually, I think this flowchart is flawed. I have determined that getting a tattoo can be a really good idea in certain situations. Here are the situations in which getting a tattoo would be an advantage.

1) You have an evil twin.
An evil twin is always trying to impersonate the good twin. Sometimes, the evil twin has some defining feature that sets him apart, usually a mustache.

However, what if the evil twin were to shave his mustache? The good twin should get a secret, identifying mark that the evil twin does not know about. That way, when the evil twin tries to steal the good twin's identity, he will be quickly found out.

If you have an evil twin, I suggest you get a tattoo like this one:

2) You are really, really terrified that someday, you might get amnesia. [NOTE: THIS IS MY REASON.]
What if you wake up one day in a hospital with amnesia? The doctors can't describe you well, because your description is "Young, female, black hair, brown eyes." There's a million people described that way, so it is hard for anyone looking for you to find you. In that case, it would be useful to have some identifying mark so that your husband/parents/family who are looking for you can easily describe you to others. (Make sure it's something no one else has, otherwise it is useless!)

You have to get a really weird tattoo in this case, that your family can write on any missing person notices. I suggest one like this:

Yeah. Who doesn't like narwhals?

3) You are a farm animal.
Farm animals always have ear tattoos. I think this is so that farmers can tell them apart, but I'm not sure. Either way, you'd be really out of place if you were the only farm animal without a tattoo.

Farm animals usually have tattoos of numbers, but I think you should be more creative.

Here is the revised flowchart:

getting married is the same as colonizing mars

In college, we thought the idea of getting engaged was really terrifying.

This was partially because, according to all the Meg Ryan movies I watched as a child, finding your lifelong mate is supposed to be some amazing journey full of serendipitous circumstance. Like a chance-encounter-turned-masquerade between book-lovers (You've Got Mail). Or a slow realization of love for a life-long friend who keeps re-entering your life (When Harry Met Sally). And even if you end up with that person, THAT guy might be the wrong guy, and in fact the right guy is some dude on the radio you've never even met (Sleepless in Seattle).

Whenever I asked fellow movie-goers about why those two people in the movie ended up together, the answer was inevitably: "They are right for each other."

"'Right for each other?'" I'd echo in dismay, "I really have no idea what that means."

The answer? "You'll know when it happens."

The incredibly vague nature of this statement has led to a certain level of anxiety during first dates.

Also, it made me worry that if there hadn't been at least one serious, drama-generating fight worthy of amazing screen-time and great cinematography, we were NOT "right for each other."

Clearly, "right for each other" is an incredibly vague and stupid metric that has caused me some level of anxiety. I have come up with a more specific and better test.

First, a backstory.

I like to fantasize about colonizing Mars. When I was a nerdy child, I did not go to sporty outdoors camp like the rest of the kids. Instead I went to nerd camp and took a class called Astrobiology, where we talked about what it would be like to live in space and discover new life forms. We learned about things like the habitable zone, and the evolution of new life. We sculpted clay aliens. It was awesome, and it made me want to colonize Mars.

So, when I talked to my friends about marriage, I realized that marriage is basically like colonizing Mars.

Here is the situation:

You live on earth with everyone you know. And then people are like, "Oh hey, please go colonize Mars. We have everything set up for you, like a basic living environment and everything. You don't have to have any special skills to live there. And you can bring only one person with you."

The question you have to ask yourself is, who do you bring? Would you bring the person you are currently dating? Might you bring them, if things continued to go well for another year?

We always ask each other, "Am I right for this person? Are they right for me?" But that's super vague. That's not a real situation. Instead, I ask, "Would you bring them to Mars?" If you wouldn't bring the person to Mars, and you don't think you ever will, you probably shouldn't be dating them.

Moving!!

I apologize for not posting yesterday. It is just that

Therefore, there might not be the normal number of posts this week. I'll try to get something up when I'm done packing. Thanks for being patient, everyone!

hamster kidnapping

When I was a kid, I had a hamster.

A hamster is just a hamster. Unless you read the Redwall books. And then, a hamster is the leader of your righteous quest full of adventure, ballads, and strawberry cordial. My friends and I liked to imagine that the hamster was like the abbot from any Redwall book, except that she also had a plane.

One day, my brother decided to kidnap the venerable leader of our abbey.

As the only boy in the family, my brother had all the nerf guns. Like Cluny the Scourge, he and his friends were intimidating in their ferocity and weaponry.

We had to come up with creative battle technique, and fast. We tried using dishcloths as slings and Koosh balls and rocks. These weapons flew too slowly and inaccurately to even be an annoyance to the enemy. Then: inspiration. We decided to make Gullwhackers.

In the book "Mariel of Redwall," the title character awakes on a beach, with no weapons except the ropes that once bound her in servitude. As a gull approaches to attack her, she uses the heavily knotted end of the rope as a flail to hit the gull and send it away. This weapon, dubbed "the Gullwhacker," is Mariel's sole method of attack throughout the book.

We did not have rope. But we did have sweatshirts.

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. DO NOT USE ON ANOTHER LIVING BEING. CREATION OF SWEATSHIRT GULLWHACKER IS FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF PRETENDING YOU ARE MARIEL OF REDWALL AND FOR NO OTHER PURPOSE.

After testing them on the walls, the floor, various pieces of furniture, and each other, we decided that our army of two was ready for a rescue mission.

It went something like this:

As in every Redwall book, it ended with a feast.

dolphin disillusionment

When I was a kid, I had the unique opportunity to go swim with the dolphins. I was really excited, because what seven year old girl doesn't like dolphins? Dolphins are so singularly revered by seven-year-olds that if there were some religion, centering around dolphins as deities with unicorns and rainbows to complete the holy trinity, it would be entirely populated seven-year-old girls.

My friends had prepared me for swimming with the dolphins. There would be no other experience as amazing in my life. I figured no photograph or video or trip to sea world could ever prepare me for being in a pool with a real dolphin.

Upon meeting the dolphins, however, I came to an important realization. Dolphins, while really cool, did not have the magical quality given to them by seven-year-olds. They looked a lot like they did in pictures. They were interesting, rubbery, grey, and had a charming laugh. But they were not empirically magical.

As I grew up, I realized that it wasn't only seven-year-olds who were amazed by dolphins. Dolphins are revered by many of my scientific-minded peers for their high intelligence. It's true-- they are awesomely smart. Not only do they possess the ability to repeat behaviors on command (much like a dog), they also show higher intelligence through creativity and teamwork in creating their own, new tricks, alone or with other dolphins. In our discussions about dolphins, we speculate that they probably have a secret dolphin language that has not yet been deciphered.

During these discussions, I remember my experiences with dolphin disillusionment. I warn my friends about the dangers of expecting too much from dolphins. What would we gain, for example, from speaking to the dolphins? Another conversational partner, perhaps. But perhaps not all that we expect. Many people think talking to dolphins will be like this:

But in fact, the cultural barriers between us and dolphins would be incredibly high, nearly insurmountable at first. A dolphin can't understand where we come from as humans with a human society. Dolphins live under the sea with fish.

A conversation would more likely go like this:

Forget trying to talk to dolphins about any human-created subject. Also, forget trying to make jokes with dolphins. We don't get their humor at all.

Dolphins are jerks when they think you are stupid. Luckily, we don't get their insults, either.

cake spectrum

I like making cakes. Here is a picture of a cake I made one time.

Cakes are fun. I like everything about them, from designing the flavors to playing with the leftover batter in the sink like a five year old before I wash everything. Designing the flavors, though, is arguably more difficult than playing with batter in the sink. Luckily, people's taste in dessert generally follows their taste in normal food.

I tend to think of food as lying on a spectrum of low-fat and crunchy to high-fat and creamy.

Normal foods look like this:

Desserts look like this:

You can use someone's taste in normal foods and other desserts to figure out what they might like in a cake.

For example, my mom is a low-fat liking person who likes crunchy textures. This means she likes salads, hard candy, and crispy cookies like tuiles. Since there is no crunchy kind of cake, the kind of cake she likes is the lowest fat cake (sponge cake) with the least creamy frosting (Chantilly cream, a lightly sweetened whipped cream). If possible, it is great to dress it with fresh fruit.

My boyfriend, on the other hand, loves peanut butter based foods, as well as macaroni and cheese. In terms of cake, it is smart to get him a cake that is fairly higher-fat. However, I know he does not like completely creamy textures (he does not go for non-chocolate puddings such as creme brulee or panna cotta). So, I usually go with a torte or molten chocolate cake for him, with a chocolate ganache or a fruit glaze for contrast. I can also make a light chocolate sponge cake, but I have to fill it with a heavier frosting such as buttercream. German chocolate cake can also be a good compromise.

Cake math is really fun. Try asking your friends what food they like, and see if it corresponds to desserts! It actually works fairly often.

Accents

Throughout high school and college, my friends kept telling me that British accents were "hot." According to them, a person's attractiveness can be increased two-fold by the presence of a British, Australian, or French accent.

Warning: Anecdotal evidence.

Since I don't find accents attractive, the only way I can attempt to dissect their mystery is by making venn diagrams based off of my friends' arguments on "which accent is the sexiest accent."

When my friends brought up the attractiveness of foreign accents with others, it appeared that they, too, were greatly swayed by the presence of particularly a British accent. I was beginning to think the opinion was something contagious, like a bad cough.

I had to see if everyone else in the English-speaking world really thought this. Since I don't have a linguistics laboratory at my disposal, I decided to use the internet.

These were the top five results of a Google search analysis I conducted for common regional dialects of English.

(For those of you who are confused by this graph, I will elaborate. I searched the terms on the X axis in Google using the terms indicated in the title of the graph. I charted the # of websites that appeared on the Y axis. In other words, the bigger the bar, the more websites created containing that search term.)

I wondered about foreign language accents as well, so I did an analysis for those.

The languages on the X-axis are the primary foreign and immigrant languages spoken in the USA.

If you go by the popular opinion on Google, accents really do increase attractiveness. Particularly British, or French if you prefer a foreign language accent.

I wanted to use this information to my advantage, because lately I haven't been able to get a chai tea when I want one. And my most attractive friends seem to be able to get awesome and generally free stuff all the time.

I developed a theory that if I altered my normal speaking voice, a chai tea would magically materialize. Here is the way my logic worked:

  A) Accents increase attractiveness.
  B) Attractive people get free/extra stuff.
  C) Chai tea falls into the category of "stuff"
  CONCLUSION: Using an accent will lead to chai tea.

Soon after thinking this through, though, I realized there were some holes in my plan. In real life, using an accent would probably not cause chai tea to materialize from thin air.

Thinking that perhaps the volume of one's voice was equally important in soliciting hot beverages, I checked Google to see how people liked to be spoken to.

Unsurprisingly, the best volume is a normal "talking" volume. But these results are probably skewed by websites about the 2007 movie "Talk to Me," since I don't know how to negatively filter Google search results. The most commonly found term after that is "yell at me."

This does not help me either.

So I guess my logic is faulty. Accents may increase your attractiveness, but not enough to magically cause chai tea to materialize from thin air. I later expanded my theory to include other commodities, such as food or clothing items rather than chai tea exclusively, but this didn't seem to work either. Changing my speaking voice has gotten me free stuff at times, but only when people were going to give it to me anyway, even without the accent. Oh well. I guess I can just pretend my logic is sound.