Death

is on my mind, lately. So it's no surprise to me that no one has commented on my post, asking for political-awareness recommendations for Mr. Hatandcoat. As I had thought, this blog is dead. It's a shame.

A SHAME, I say.

Well, I guess I can reanimate it and make it into my personal political blog.

(this is fair warning)

Hat and Coat and All

Hey there. I'm in Japan. I know that's no excuse. But where's my coblogger?

When last we spoke of politics, Mr. H asked me what political blogs I follow. He was looking for an easy way to stay informed.

Unfortunately, I don't follow political blogs. I find them annoyingly concerned with putting forward agendas rather than news. Liberal blogs are great when it comes to disputing crazy-ass Fox News stuff, but they're no fun to read regularly.

The only totally political stuff I follow on GReader is political cartoons. I gave some of those to Mr. H, but he didn't seem amused...

How do I stay informed? Well, ambient news. When the Author of the etymology blog is riled up about some senator, I get riled up, too. Facebook, Twitter, etc., all contribute to the ambient newsscape, as well as the CNN and BBC feeds that I skim the headlines of.

If Hatandcoat were to post the same question here, how would you inform him?

Bloggertainment

My co-blogger is cabin-fevery at the moment and requires entertainment.

A place to kill time: http://boardgamegeek.com/, in case he hasn't been there in the past few hours.

I just gandered at the favorites list, and I've heard of two of the top 50 and played 1. I wonder what those numbers are for aak.

Perhaps he could take inspiration from our shared Jesuit educational background and spend his recovery time like St. Ignatius of Loyola did.

I don't know if Aak can leave the house, but if he can get out he should see the new Star Trek movie. I spent weeks talking gf into going to see it. When I finally got an endorsement from a non-nerd she broke down and went with me last night. I think she liked it more than I did. The entire movie had me wondering about the accuracy of the background events, but I didn't know the original series very well. The only ones I watched were TNG. But they explained things in a way that made it possible, if totally new to the timeline.

This reminds me...While gaming with Aak and a couple of other friends we got into a discussion of what terrible movies we like. When put on the spot to name one of mine all I could think of was Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. I watched that pile of garbage enough times in the early 90s so the nostalgia value can carry me through the two hours or so. But I have a new response: Star Trek: Insurrection. And I'll go a little further, I liked Insurrection more than I liked First Contact. I fully admit that the latter is a better movie, but I have my preference nonetheless. I think I'm taken with 1) the cheap time-freezing scenes and 2) Picard's love interest with the hot 300 year old cougar.

I have a challenge for Aak: see if you can make a house of cards using only your plastic shark extended arm grabber. It may not be possible.

Russian "Winter" Salad

Winter Salad
Made this for book club tonight, since we were discussing The Master and Margarita. A Russian said it tasted really authentic.

For once, I'm going to be really specific about the directions, so watch out.

Winter Salad

4 potatoes for boiling (Yukon Gold works)
3 hard-boiled eggs
2 medium-large carrots
2 spring onions
a handful of fresh parsley
4 small gherkins
peas, canned in sugar, salt, and water
a few slices of ham
a few dollops of mayo and/or sour cream
most of a medium Granny smith green apple

• Scrub but do not peel the potatoes. Do not cut them up.
• Peel carrots but do not cut up.
• Boil potatoes and carrots in the same pot.
• When potatoes let a fork pierce them without much resistance, remove from pot, drain, and set aside to cool.
• Meanwhile, dice the gherkins into tiny pieces, like relish size.
• And chop the green onions into small chunks.
• And boil the ham if you need it. The ham shouldn't be like lunchmeat, it should be more substantial than that. Cut it into thinnish rectangles.
• Dice the eggs.
• Chop the parsley.
  
• When the potatoes and carrots are cool, peel the potatoes and cut them into bite-sized pieces.
  
• Chop up the carrots bigger than the gherkins.

Okay, now here's a tip: you eventually will be mixing all this together. But the more you mix it, the mushier everything gets. So I worked in layers, adding potato, egg, gherkin, carrot, onion, parsley, ham, peas (drained), and mayo.

THEN, dice up a slice of the apple. Dice really finely, as finely as you can. Add that to your layer and then mix gently. I used a spatula, wriggled it under everything, and turned everything over five times.

Repeat until everything is in there. Refrigerate for many hours to get all the flavors to mix. Serve cold as a side.

--BONUS RECIPE--

I didn't make this, but Erik brought it, and it was great. It may have made me like beets.

Borscht

First, sauté:

• onions
• garlic
• potatoes
• red cabbage
• celery

Then add that to:

• beef broth
• canned diced tomatoes
• canned beets

Stew for a long time.

Lentils And Everything You Got Soup

Sick. Paper, translation project, and exam yet to finish. Sentences... beyond my ability. But, recipe:

Lentils and Everything You Got Soup

lentils

stock (turkey)

onion

everything you got (can of tomatoes/okra/corn; can of mushroom pieces; bowl of cooked but left-sitting-for-2-weeks red kidney beans; leftover carrot--no, wait, it's rubbery; leftover fresh spinach; remainder of frozen chopped spinach)

seasoning (chili seasoning, parsley, curry powder)

Cook lentils til soft, drain.

Fry onions in butter. Add mushrooms halfway through. Stir-fry over high heat.

Thaw out homemade turkey stock (only 2 months old, not bad). Add a little lentil juice for good measure.

Combine lentils, onion, mushroom, and basically everything you got (except the spinach) into a big pot, and add the thawed stock. If the stock doesn't cover it all easily, add water and/or more stock, as long as the liquid doesn't get too watered down.

Bring to almost-boil, then reduce heat to simmer.

It's ready to eat whenever the flavor penetrates the red beans. Then add spinach and simmer for a few minutes more.

CAREFUL with that curry powder. Not even a teaspoonful.

Also, take the time to skim off the scum off the top. Don't say I didn't tell you.

Result: awesome.

My Old Friend, Mr. Blog

You ever pick up a book that you don't understand one bit, then take a class where the subject overlaps with the book's topic, then revisit the book afterwards, but not as if you were looking to test yourself and how you've developed, but more like you stumbled upon it when looking something up after a reference made in a conversation with your Dad whose interests overlap with yours exactly in the subject matter of this book, like, he's into philosophy and you're into math and the book's title is Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy? When that happens, isn't it awesome that you're like "hey, this totally makes more sense now!"

I've been done with classes for a week now and I had one day of extreme relaxation and satisfaction, then boredom settled in. I don't know what to do with myself. I felt a craving for a movie involving war and death, but friggin' Hollywood Video didn't have braveheart (!?), so I rented the first three episodes of Generation Kill instead. The next day I finished off the series. Sure, seven or so hours of tv will leave you feeling like you have a film of unproductivity slime covering your body, but I loved it. The problem was that I was hoping for something hollywoody and stylized and glorifying things, but this was just so real and made you feel moral hazards and gray areas and decision making hell. It was a bit heavier duty than I was expecting as an escape. Of course, I knew what to expect after seeing the creators' other show, The Wire - one of my favorite shows of all time, but still.

The boredom ends in two weeks when my summer semester starts. Meanwhile I get to dive more into my hobbies. In BJJ, I missed lots of guard passing lessons while studying for finals, which blows, but now I get to know all about leg locks. And in Tango gf and I may take private lessons because we think that's what we need at this point for further growth. There's also a dude in our class who proposed to me that we dance together outside of class for a while. He wants to learn how to follow (the man leads and the woman follows), and I do to, so we can alternate. I figure it'll make more sense in the future if I know what my counterpart is experiencing.

While I'm writing this Jimmy Fallon is bombing on the tv behind me. I hope he turns out better than this because it's just sad to watch. Nah, f*** it, I'll just enjoy watching the struggle.

Phew

Mid term and a computational project out of the way. One mid term left. That was a stressful week.

I've never done any computer programming except for a brief online tutorial I took once on html. Now I use matlab for a class. I have mixed feelings about the experience. Overall it was incredibly fun. It's extremely satisfying to type in a command and see all your efforts lead to one beautiful plot. It was very stressful, though, because I was trying to learn a whole lot of stuff at once for a deadline. I leaned pretty heavily on a former programmer friend of mine who had to put up with me for a couple of days saying "hey, dude, it's [h&c] again. Uh, how do you ______?"

My friend tells me that as far as programming goes matlab is very easy. That makes me excited to learn more.

I became compulsive with it and I felt like I was doing that empty vessel distant boyfriend thing during the past week. Glad that part's over.

One interesting part was finding out how juvenile I still am. When I was trying out simple programs just to learn syntax and such, I named them things like "eatme" and "gobblemy____." When I type "eatme" I think it gives out an collection of 8x8 random matrices :). I'm reminded of a novel where the main character was interacting with some programmers who created a virtual world. The dude went into this virtual world to do what he needed to do for the story then interacts with the virtual beautiful tour guide woman. When he mentions the programmer's name (we'll call him joe johnson), the woman chimes in with something like: "Joe Johnson is the greatest man alive."

Mexi-chuan Shrimp & Scallions

This weekend H-Mart was having a deal on scallions: 5 bunches for $0.98. Giant was having a sale on frozen shrimp: $8.98 for 2lbs (medium size shrimp). I searched in my Google Reader for recipes for these ingredients and found these two by Mark Bittman:

Sichuan Shrimp and Scallion Stir-fry

Chili-Fried Shrimp With Scallions

Both were excellent, but I liked the first one better for the unusually-green-oniony flavor. I had some shrimp left over and the scallions were due to go bad (I had purchased 6 bunches!), so I wanted to make the Sichuan one again. But I had 3/4 of an avocado to use up, plus I wanted more spiciness.

I added chili oil (the kind that you get on the side when you ask for it in Chinese restaurants) to the peanut oil before adding the shrimp. This made for a recurring kick throughout the meal that I enjoyed.

I started to add just a slice of the avocado, but then realized that my other avocado was going soft already. I decided to throw all 3/4 of it into the blender, plus a little lemon juice. I blended and BOOM, guacamole color instead of the vibrant verdancy of green onion. I tasted it and found I'd created a Mexican dish out of a Sichuan one.

It turned out really well. I had it on top of rice, but I'm wishing I had some tortillas to finish off the remainder.

Mexi-chuan Shrimp & Scallions

• Salt
• 3 bunches scallions, trimmed
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• avocado (maybe half? play with amount)
• dribble of lemon juice
  
• 1 pounds shrimp, peeled
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• one teaspoon of chili oil
  
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

First, if using frozen shrimp, take them out of the freezer and into a colander, and put them under cold running water (not too fast a stream). Shake them around every few minutes to distribute the flow of the water. They should be thawed in 15 min.

Boil water. Cut 2 bunches of scallions into 4-inch pieces. When water comes to a boil, dump these into the water and let cook for only a minute (just getting them bright green). Then drain, saving liquid for smoother pureeing. Then plunge scallions into icewater. Then drain again, not reserving the liquid. Put scallions, garlic, avocado, lemon juice, and a little of the scallion liquid into blender and puree.

"Roughly" chop the remaining scallions and cilantro. Peel shrimp if necessary.

Heat oil on high, adding a spoonful of the chili oil (with lots of the chili flakes). When chili flakes begin to sizzle, add shrimp and spread out on bottom of pan. Pinch some salt on top of them. Do not stir (for some reason) until sides look a little pink (a minute or less). Then stir to your heart's content. When everything looks pink, add the "roughly" chopped cilantro and scallions. Stir-fry for a minute. Then add avocado-scallion puree. Season to heart's content. Cook until everything's warm. Serve on rice or in a tortilla.

The Know-It-All Dilemma

3/16 Edit: writing this post merely vented steam and prevented me from writing an ill-advised email. Will delete soon enough. 3/19 RE-EDIT: Cut this post down to three questions and a statement.

What can you do with a person who says they don't like you because you and che (non-gender-specific pronoun) are both know-it-alls?

Doesn't J.K. Rowling decide whether her character is gay or not?

Is anybody really entertained or enlightened by Andy Rooney any more?

I am not a know-it-all, though I understand if it seems like it at times; I state strong opinions and often am wrong, but I never take it personally if you disagree.

Tearing It Up 2: Tearing It Down

Here's what I imagined occurred in the minds of the Hatandcoat blog's readers over the past week, in chronological order:

1. "Huh, no food posts. Aak probably forgot."
   
   
2. "Wait, no posts about the Baltimore Breakfast Feast and the crepes Aak made for it? What's going on?"
   
   
3. "Huh, no food posts, still."
   
   
4. "No food posts. It was kind of a silly thing to blog about anyway."
   
   
5. "No posts so far this week."
   
   
6. "..."
   
   
7. "What the hell is Aak eating? I MUST KNOW."

I apologize for creating a(n imaginary) demand and then refusing to fulfill that (imaginary) demand.

I got sick. Again.

The cold was on the edge of my awareness on Saturday, and so I packed very warm pajamas for my sleepover in Baltimore. I also started taking a multivitamin, echinacea, and zinc. All to no avail. I was feeling fine during the making of the Sunday Breakfast Feast, but afterwards, my sinuses began the long melt downwards. By Sunday evening, I was a puddle of congestion, coughing, and overall bleckiness.

Then I had a snow day, which is clearly evidence for the existence of Providence. I made lentil soup with cabbage, about which I will blog later, perhaps.

I made so much that I ate at least double portions of lentil soup for Monday dinner, Tuesday for all three meals, and Wednesday for all three meals.

I started biking again on Thursday morning, just in time for the warm-up. Very nice.

Now that I'm feeling better (still coughing, but it's not too bad), the question is, do I persist in detailing nutritional decisions and exercise quotients, or do I find another way to fill the empty space on this here blog?

I'm leaning towards stopping. It was interesting to focus so much on exactly how much I was eating, what portion size, and so on. I think I've internalized it pretty well, for now. As for the exercise, recording it or not made little difference in how much I biked, but I liked getting the stats. In a sense, I was trying to "game-ify" my life.

While posting daily was valuable and insightful (to me), I think I could derive some benefit from writing such posts weekly instead of daily. It wouldn't be scientific, but it might just be less annoying to you guys. If I really wanted to get scientific about it, I could enter calorie amounts into a worksheet and get real numbers... which leads into the second reason I'm thinking of stopping: inadequate time to navelgaze.

(I've slimmed down to the point where I can fit into my tightest jeans. I probably won't be able to maintain this state of affairs, but it's nice for today, when I have to wash my standard jeans.)

End Program.

Tearing It Up

So sorry to keep you all waiting. No, I was not on a starvation diet. I simply had no time for anything for the past couple of days.

I took some Japanese students around the campus, practicing Japanese, on Wednesday. The only real place of interest to take them was the Dairy, where I bought ice cream for the first time in like nine months. It was white chocolate with a little caramel. Then the students paid for me to have lunch with them. Even though I'd brought my lunch, I couldn't refuse.

I had to stay up late on Wednesday night, so I tried eating more to help sustain my energy. Eating more did not help, and it caused considerable... discomfort, later.

I spent money on food today at the food court on campus. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Wednesday's Meals

Breakfast: cereal, fat free milk
Lunch: medium ice cream, 4-pack of Chick-Fil-A strips, apple
Dinner: spinach and feta penne pasta with 2 ham slices cut into strips
Late Snacks: half a bag of Thai Lime Cashews, a couple of servings of yogurt-covered Goji berries, a few handfuls of almonds

Wednesday's Exercise

Biked to bus stop: 7 min.
Biked UMD-SS via trail: 50 min.

Thursday's Meals

Breakfast: bowl of kashi, fat-free milk
Lunch: spinach/feta pasta with ham
Dinner: Thai Chili's stir-fried duck with bamboo shoots

Thursday's Exercise

Walked to bus stop: 18 min.
Walked from Gallery Place to north of Columbia Heights: 1.5 hours
Walked home from bus stop: 20 min.

Friday's Meals

Breakfast: kashi, milk, crumbs of brownies
Lunch: medium salad with avocado, radicchio, carrots, and spinach leaves, brownie
Dinner: 8-count CFA nuggets, large waffle fries, grapefruit

Friday's Exercise

Walked to bus stop: 12 min (kinda ran)
Walked home from shuttle: 15 min

What I Learned Today

...or over the past few days since my last post.

• The Russian word for hello is Здравствуйте! Transliterated: zdravstvuyte! Its roots are in words for "you," "health," and an imperative form, meaning "Be of good health!"
  
  
• Bob Costas pronounced "Beijing" a really bizarre way throughout the Olympics.
  
  
• He pronounced the J in Beijing with the same sound as in "genre." In other words, with a sound that does not exist either in Chinese or English (except in French loan words). It's "Beijing," with a J as in jingle.
  
  
• In Japan, they make no clear distinction between "looking young" and "looking like a child." This explains so much.
  

Aak's Been on a Tear

With this post I make it 54 for the month of February between the two blogs. That makes it the most productive month since we've been doing this. This post puts my personal contribution at 10. Aak's been on a tear.

Some of it is due to him finding ready-made formats with the biking, learning, and eating. And then more eating.

Speaking of eating, I just had a terrible burger that's making me ill. I have no plans to eat at that place again. When I feel this way it makes me crave soda. Does that make any sense or is it still learned from when I was a kid and I was always given ginger ale? Someone once told me that ginger ale used to actually have ginger in it which has healing properties and the fact that we drink ginger ale when we're sick is a misconception.

The cool thing about getting older is that you can think about the people you're friends with and how long you've known them can now be measured in decades.

Back to Aak. I imagine that he's become more efficient with it - blogging. I put too much thought into a post, or I should say that I stare at a blank screen and think "I have nothing to write" a lot then give up. While I wouldn't say that I'm generally overjoyed to find out about what Japanese food my coblogger ingests on a given day, more power to him.

Off to class now. I've been bummed recently to realize that I need to set aside massive chunks for myself to learn my class material and understand it properly. When setting aside schedules I always want to squeeze in an hour here or there to get something done, but I can't do that with learning. Maybe I should just lock myself away for a month at the beginning of every semester and do nothing but my classes and emerge when I'm ready. Then I can emerge from the cocoon ready to live.

Happy Mardi Gras

Maybe it's the lack of sleep, or maybe it's the decrease in caloric intake, but I felt tired all day today. Just making a note.

Monday's Meals

Breakfast (8:30 am): okonomiyaki

Lunch (1:30 pm): brown basmati rice, Punjab Eggplant curry (TJs)

Dinner (8:00 pm?): brown basmati rice, the rest of the punjab eggplant curry microwaved with a little tofu, a few spears of baby corn, and some chicken stock

Monday's Exercise

Morning commute: frazzledly biked to the metro (7 min), then biked from CP station to class, late (10 min)

Started to bike home, then realized I had a flat. Went to the Bike Shop on campus where the guys helped me patch it for free. (walking: 10 min)

Biked UMD-SS via roads at night: 45 min at least

Tuesday's Meals

Breakfast (7:00 am): bowl of Puffiins with fat-free milk

Lunch (12:30 pm): medium-large salad of a little lettuce, a lot of mung beans, and a lot of carrots, with that ginger/soy/sesame/rice vinegar dressing, plus a PBJ and an apple.

Dinner (8:00 pm): spinach and feta pasta (a bowl and a half, perhaps too much), a large piece of king cake (definitely too much)

Cheating Late-Night Nosh (just now): a large piece of king cake (Happy Mardi Gras)

Tuesday's Exercise

Biked SS-UMD via roads: 30 min

Biked UMD-SS via trail: 45 min

Biked to library, then bike shop and grocery store, then home on a new back wheel: 25 min?

Spinach and Feta Pasta

This came out well, but I think I added too much feta. I think a little feta can go a long way. Maybe too many tomato bits, too. Just enough spinach, though.

Plagiarism CYA: I looked up a number of recipes. Most of them were the same. I mainly followed this one: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sukis-Spinach-and-Feta-Pasta/Detail.aspx

Spinach and Feta Pasta

• whole wheat and flax penne pasta (Trader Joes, about 1/2 a package)
• diced tomatoes (from a Trader Joes can)
• a couple of handfuls of fresh spinach, washed
  
• red onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• olive oil
• feta, about 6 oz
• seasonings (salt, pepper, red pepper, parmesan)
  

Salt the water and boil, cooking pasta. This variety takes a little longer than normal spaghetti. Cook until almost done. Drain and leave.

Glug some olive oil into a wok. Get it hot, but turn down the heat to med-high. When the oil shimmers, add the onion and the garlic.

When the onion and garlic turn brown or at least soft, add the tomatoes and the spinach. Turn up the heat just a smidgeon. Stir-fry and wilt that spinach down to a fourth of what you thought you put in. (Which is to say, don't wilt it too much.)

Add pasta and crumble the feta. Stir around a bit. Season. Done.

What I Learned Today. Well, Within The Past Week Or So. Or the Past Month.

Yeah, hijacking someone else's format.

• Monkeys instinctively go for the genitals during combat. While talking with some people about that recent Chimp attack, someone informed me that Chimps have all out wars with organized armies and such. And when two male chimps are fighting over a female chimp they go for a guy's most prized possession. Once they're done I guess that definitively solves the issue of who mates with her. Provided she's game, of course. Oh, please, they're chimps, not law abiding citizens. Whoever wins gets her. I hope I'm wrong in that.
  

Side note: "It's often said that an adult chimpanzee weighing in at 150 pounds is three to seven times stronger than a human being."

Does that mean that the chimp is 4 to 8 times as strong? I'm tellin' you, it's everywhere. ;)

• If f is a function from A to B, and if K is a subset of Powerset(A), then f(Union K) = Union f(U) such that U is the set of elements of K.

• When someone has a hold of some spot on my gi while sparring I need to break that grip else it will thwart things I'm going for. VERY frustrating. Then while sparring Sunday without a gi this giant guy kept grabbing my wrist and twisting my arm around my neck when he was on top. Like a sucker I let it happen over and over and over and I got really mad. You know, the kind of mad where thinking about it the next day gets your blood up. Fortunately he was a really nice guy.
  

• Milonga is a way faster form of dance than tango.

• Do NOT buy a snuggie.

• The bible was actually written mostly in 1805 by Mark Jacob Allen Anderlieferson. He then aggressively marketed it and everything we know about today it is a lie.
  

• Ok, I made that up.
  

30 Little Parties

It was a pretty heavy weekend. Parties will do that to you. And I feel like losing so much sleep has had negative effects on my health as well. Too bad late-Feb-early-March is birthday season--mine included!

I'm thinking for my 30th birthday I will have 30 little celebrations instead of one big bash. It'll help if I think of other people's birthday parties as my own. Actually, I think I'll claim that Saturday night was my first birthday party this year. 29 more to go.

Sunday's Meals

Breakfast (11:45 am): 10 reheated gyoza, less than a cup of grapefruit juice

Lunch (3:45 pm): s'mores at Cosi (7 marshmallows, 3 graham crackers, less than half of a hershey bar), peppermint tea (no sugar)

Dinner (8:30 pm): big salad with mung bean sprouts and a new kind of homemade dressing (ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, hot oil)

Sunday's Exercise

Biked SS-Dupont: 45 minutes

Biked Dupont-SS: about an hour

What I Learned This Weekend

• Limca is a fizzy lime drink in India, and allegedly goes well with gin.
  
  
• Drinking a lot of red wine allegedly lengthens your lifespan.
  
  
• A company was working on creating a "red wine pill," giving you the benefits of red wine without destroying your liver. This company was bought out for 750 million dollars.
  
  
• I need more karaoke practice.
  
  
• I was lucky to get my Sevens jeans for $40; they're typically $100 discounted at Filene's.
  
  
• Reheated gyoza tastes really bad, but reheated okonomiyaki is great.
  

Kinda Cheated, But Rock Band's Awesome

Cleaned my room, did laundry, went on a date, and went to a birthday party. Long day, and here I am, at 4:45, writing a blogpost. I'll make it short.

Today's Meals

Breakfast (12:00 pm): two oreos

Brunch (2:20 pm): a bowl of leftover miso soup with enoki mushrooms and wakame and tofu

Dinner (6:30 pm): Thai Tanic Star (I overstuffed myself; instead of 80% full, I felt 120% full)

After-Dinner Scrabble (7:30 pm): green jasmine tea with half a sugar packet

Supper (9:30 pm - 3:00 am): birthday party snackfood, including

• two bruschetta (bread, mozzarella, tomato, basil leaf)
• half a tomato slice and a basil leaf
• about 10 chips with salsa
• two spinach/pepper cheese quiches on water crackers
• about 3oz of cheese with crackers
• two and a quarter Georgetown cupcakes (so freaking good; I had red velvet, vanilla, and a vanilla with raspberry icing)

Today's Exercise

Walking (1.5 hours total) to bus stops and party

Playing Rock Band at the party (it was awesome, until my voice died on Buddy Holly by Weezer)

What I Learned Today

• "Cheeking" is when a prostitute conceals a condom in her cheek, then rolls it onto their client during oral sex.
  
  
• A "shock-trauma handshake" is when, on the scene of an accident, in order to determine if the injured person's spine has been broken, a medical technician inserts his or her finger into the injured person's anus. This is to check the autonomic response (tightening of the anus).