The Question Game

[tanarill]

I've been thinking about doing this for a while now, but it was rlly my BF who convinced me too.

This is called the Question Game. You comment and ask me a question. It can be anything: funny, humorous, racy, serious, embarrassing, whatever. I have to answer it honestly. The catch is that I get to ask you a question, and you have to answer it also. We go back and forth like that until someone gives up or we get tired of playing.

Ready? Go!

Comments

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

Nope. Google-fu is not a recognized martial art. The fighting techniques I know are not martial arts, they are born of the streets. Like switchblade knife-fighting. And I'm learning the whip.

What about you. Do you know any fighting styles?

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

Some. When I was a likkle munchkin (2nd grade) I took karate for two years. More recently, I took Tang Soo Do for a semester. I also know a few hold breaks, limb breaks, and judo throws. Really simple stuff, but effective. You probably know more useful things, though.

Is trying to fit a family tree for the Norse gods/giants on one peice of paper a futile task?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

Depends. Is firing a rifle "useful"? Especially since I don't know handguns.

Not as futile as the incestuous Greek gods but yes. Unless you have a giant piece of paper then the theological family tree is kinda wtf.

Why is it people who walk into my store believe they can let their kids run wild and it's okay? Do I look like a babysitter?

(ha ha, double question)

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the time you have and distance you are shooting from . . .

Norse gods are incestuous too. I'm just trying to plot out how the Loki/Baldr pairing relates to everyone. It's hella complicated.

In the single picture of you I have ever seen, you looked very Domme, not babysitterish at all. I don't know. My parents never did. Anytime we went to Shul, for example, I made a peep (much less run wild) and I was out of the sanctuary. I took ruthless advantage of this fact, too . . .

Can you teach me the mental bitchslap? There are some people I want tomentally bitchslap >.>

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

If the single pic of me you've seen involves me in a red corset (and it probably does) then that explains it because that pic was taken of me at the Folsom Street Fair which is this awesome street fair for the SF S/M leather culture. Because this is San Francisco and we can totally just have street fairs with naked people and the cops show up to take part in it.

The motions for the mental bitchslap are easy, they involve holding your invisible target by the neck and slapping them once acorss the face while you make the sound effect. But in those instances where the motions are not good or awesome then the mental bitchslap involves either a specific type of glare or the invocation of lots and lots of awesome directed at mental beat-down.

Why is braiding hair so hard? Mine is long enough to be braided normally but it's too thick and so makes a very short braid that prevents me from finishing it.

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does. I'd like to be SF at least once for a con . . . I can mooch off relatives in the area :>

I have the glare down pat, according to my family. It's the awesome I need to work on. And the sound effects.

I don't know. I usually get MW to start my braid. Tips:
1. Start braid while hair is wet. That way, it's not frizzy while you try to braid.
2. Spend some time at the beginning on getting the hair amount equal, the better you do this the closer to the tips of your hair you can get.
3. Get Pet to do it. I can get MW to do the whole thing about half the time, it's wonderful mother/daughter bonding . . .
4. Braid so tight it hurts. You can sleep with a tight enough braid, it won't some undone or frizz at all.

Is that is any way helpful?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

No, not really helpful. I can start it easily it's just really thick hair and therefore makes a hella thick braid. Seriously, the finished braid is a good foot shorter than the unbraided hair.

The braid isn't for avoiding frizz. It's for getting it out of my way because it's that stupid long.

Besides, if I braid my hair wet it's still wet three days afterwards because of the thick. It's not good for hair to stay wet that long, it grows its own hair. Which is gross.

Sharks with laser beams attached to their heads are awesome, aren't they? Their heads can't swivel so they're actually really good at aiming.

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. I just want to know what's wrong with having a foot less fuzzy warm woolen blanket on your back in the middle of summer . . .

Yeah, the only thing is, I can't start my own braids unless it's wet. Because of frizz.

The way around wet-hair-braids is to wrap it back up in the towel afterwards, and sleep like that. Capillary action FTW!

Yes. Yes, they are, although I tend to prefer pirhana drop tanks. Or maybe alligators, evil overlord style.

You have Austin Powers on the mind, don't you?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

Because I braid my hair for day work. Nighttime I have to sleep on my side with my head elevated or I have stomach problems ( thank you anorexia [/deadpanned] ) so my hair just sort of bunches under the neck and keeps me from getting a cricked neck.

Capillary action fails. It takes wet hair and a damp towel and turns it into wet hair, wet towel, wet pillow, sometimes even wet sheets and a wet Pet pillow.

Not really Austin Powers. We were playing Shadowrun last night and GM went on a rampage on how the rules in the Augmentation book not only allow but encourage sharks with laser beams. Because when he wrote those rules he had Austin Powers in mind.

Why is it that with seven people eating that no matter how much pizza you buy there are no leftovers? Especially antisocial pizza.

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

[shrugs] I support capiallary action, but I have massive fluffy towels. Like, seven by four feet, wrapped around my braid at least thrice. It works for me.

...I want your GM. I dooo.

Because the rule for pizza leftovers is: hours until all pizza is consumed = (number of pizzas bought) - (0.75 times number of persons present) - (8 times number of persons below the age of 50 present). When you have seven people present and all are below the age of 50, hours until all pizza consumed is a negative number, guaranteeing that all pizza will be eaten as fast as is physically possible. (People abovet he age of 50, on the other hand, can do odd things with Pizza-hours.)

Is it possible to add too many alliums to foods?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

That's not the formula for pizza eating. You forgot to add in the variances caused by toppings, pizza size, and sauce awesomeness.

Given last night's pizza's toppings were garlic and onion then I am not thinking there is much of an upper limit to allium concentration in foods. Not if the alliums are sufficiently cooked/carmellized.

Considering the similarities in the chemical structures of caffiene and adenosine, why can't we just use adenosine in the production of ATP backbones? I know why caffiene makes a poor nucleotide, it's bad at hydrogen bonding, but ATP doesn't require hydrogen bonding. Ever.

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

You're right. And the depth of the pizza. Chicago deep-dishes take more time to eat, definitely . . .

I like too much alliums. I make 40 cloves and a chicken with 100-120 cloves.

Sorry, but you lost me. I get the caffiene is very nearly adenine but not, and I know what ATP does, but ATP structure is more than I have yet learned. A quick Wiki suggests that it would seem to make sense to turn adenosine into ATP (all you do is phosporilate it, right?) but maybe biology runs it the other way and gets adenine as a result of ATP/adenosine production? It would all have to do with which way is more energy-costly, I think, ATP->adenine or adenine->ATP.

It feels good to geek again :)

Why does hydrogen bonding confuse people so much?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

And as yesterday's faces when I suggested this would indicate, a beef tongue, zuchini, and anchovie pizza would have few takers in civilized gaming.

ATP vs DNA is very chicken-and-egg in current evolutionary theory. In ATP there's a ribose sugar attached to the ATP at a convenient aromatic N and three phosphates in a line attached to the ribose. And in DNA there's an adenosine with a ribose sugar attached at a convenient aromatic N and a phosphate attached to the ribose. The difference between ATPness and DNAness is more phosphates attached to the ribose to form a chain of phosphates and riboses with nucleotides hanging off like loogies.

The way to get the adenosine and the caffiene is the same. Take a purine double-ring and stick stuff on it. And the body just does that in protien metabolism. It just... doesn't make caffiene for some unknown reason. Not because it's hard, it's really not. But because early life favored adenosine over caffiene.

Though I really bet in a liquid ethane environment like Titan (and I so firmly believe there's life on Titan it's not even funny) caffiene would be the dominant of the two because it's less polar.

Hydrogen bonding confuses people because it's not really an exact bond. It's not a covalent bond, it's not an ionic bond. It's more like the sharing of a skank. Proton (the skank) accepts charge (expensive favors) from two different molecules (the suitors) at the same time. Then when the molecules unbond the skank goes with one suitor and hands the loser back his favors.

What are your thoughts on peroxide-based life? Peroxide as opposed to water, I mean.

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

That was a mental image I did not need. DNA, if you extract it, looks very much like loogies . . .

I'm going to guess it has to do with polarity and H-bonding. Caffeine doesn't, so early life didn't like it. Your theory about life on Titan in a liquid ethane environment would indeed make caffeine dominant. I wonder if the Titans find adenosine a mild stimulant?

We have taken this metaphor far beyond where it was ever meant to go and we are not stopping now.

You mean H2O2 instead of H2O, or peroxide in the organic sense of ROOR? Because I don't find H2O2 life too likely. Water based life works because per molecule, there are an equal number of partial positive and partial negative charges, which causes H-bonding but also lets the water crowd around positive ions. In H2O2, H-bonding would still occur but positive ions would have nearly nothing to react with, so things like metal-ion pumps would be a good deal less important. I'm not saying that it wouldn't happen; I'm saying that the idiots at NASA would kill it long before they figured out it is life.

Why are all the drivers on the road complete morons?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

H2O2 although ROOR would figure prominently in their biology the same way we have H2O and CH2O

.....according to the latest theory they already have killed it before figuring out it's life.

Peroxide-based life is the latest theory for life on Mars. And the Viking landers ran their mass spec experiments to find life. University dudes outside of NASA took a look at that data, looked at Mars, and figured out peroxide-based life is pretty damn likely. NASA, of course, refuses to listen because of their whole "it must have water" bullshit mindset.

Why is it old people refuse to learn new stuff? We got a new POS at the store to replace the old POS and to prevent the old owners from using the old POS where shit just fails we deleted it. No more old POS. But rather than learn the new POS so we can get actual work done now they're doing everything by hand on PAPER and wondering why even more things get lost than before! WTF?!

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

Because NASA are idiots. I think we have established this fact beyond all reasonable doubt.

I don't know, but if person is younger than 30 or so (ie, started working after computers were common) you can generally get them to do new things. Anyone older seems to think that if something works you need to fix it so that it doesn't work and something that fails needs a better system but will not ever put the effort into it.

(What is a POS?)

You did not answer my question. Does this mean I win?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

No, no, no win. I just didn't see it. I was, after all, at work.

POS stands for Point Of Sale. It's the computer program used to run the cash register. It also stands for exactly what you're thinking it stands for.

Old people fall into the category with everyone else. They're "normal humans". Which also explains your question of why drivers are morons. Because the average human is a complete and utter moron. The 15% of those morons who ever finish some sort of degree are slightly better than the rest at being not-stupid but there's still a lot of stupid out there. There are entire hours of stupid where all the morons flock to the road to display their stupid like some twisted badge of honor. Those hours are collectively called "rush hour".

As cool as my old guy boss being a ninja is, he's still old and he's still pretty "normal human". Today he offered to sell the store to a random guy instead of my supervisor who's been working said store for over a decade and has been making hints, pleas, and offers for three years. Wow, Boss isn't even attempting to hide his disdain for my supervisor.

My boss even warned me today to not let my supervisor "push me around". Dude, he so doesn't. He buys me sushi and banters and is fun and amusing and I can get him to shut up with a well-placed Your Mom joke. It's great.

Oh, I found out today that I can prevent shoplifting with one hard-placed glare. Apparently I look EVIL.

Why do all energy drinks taste like cough syrup?

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

Ninja?

I wish my supervisor were like that. I have had a grand total of sx conversations with my supervisor in six weeks. It's making me nervous; I can't tell if he doesn't like me or is just too busy to deal with the intern.

Lacha, you are evil. I don't think it is so much that you look it as that you exude evil aura and everyone picks up that it is Not Good to be on your bad side.

Because everything else tastes like chicken.

Does that mean Malaga is an energy drink? O.o

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

My supervisor, 67 year old man tho he is, takes Iaito martial arts. The art of the samurai sword but even unarmed if three dudes with knives it'd be a fair fight. Simply because he's diabetic and would start having problems after killing the first and second dudes.

Eh, he's just busy.

You have no idea how hard it is to exude not-evil for work. Because tho it keeps the 4 year olds in line the moms are unappreciative.

Everything else does not taste like chicken. I should know, I've eaten many of the everything else.

My comp doesn't offer any clairolfactory hookups so I can't tell for sure but good muscat doesn't usually taste like cough syrup.

But still, to cover up the bitter of 294mg of caffiene they use so much sugar and bad food flavoring it becomes cough syrup. Bleh.

Who in their right (or wrong) mind makes cough syrup wine?

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

67? And he will not retire? o.O

I speak, not of the Spanish Malagas, but the Kosher wines of the same name. If I had to describe the taste, it would be like taking cough syrup, adding sugar to it, and then allowing the whole thing to ferment. It tastes exactly like fake grape flavoring, and I don't really know how that's managed because it comes from real grapes. We all drink it anyway because the other Kosher wines are worse.

You must understand that because grapes are not meat and no meat or meat products are used in wine production, it's impossible to make an unKosher wine.

To understand why the Kosher wineries don't just make better tasting wines, I must relate a story. My great-great-granduncle, who immigrated from the old counrty, lived in Kentucky. Kentucky is bourbon country, and he was regularly invited by some of his gentile friends to try the Kentucky bourbon. Eventually, he agreed. The poured him a shotglass of it; the drop that spilled was stripping the varnish of the table. So he picks up the shot, slugs it, slams the shotglass down and says . . . "That vas nice vine."

That is what most Black Hatter patriarchs think of bourbon, even today. Malaga, as far as they are concerned, is not wine. It's not even alcoholic. You give it to the kids to make then sleepy, and the women because [rolleyes] women cannot handle real vodka, and therefore it has to be sweet.

The sad bit is that my grandmother, 84 year old putz that she is, likes Malaga. Way to enforce the stereotype! [/sarcastic]

Aren't you glad you're not Jewish?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

67 and he will not retire, yes. Senile, diabetic 67. But at least the ninja staves off the arthritis.

I... somehow fear Jewish wine now. Because as a chemist I'll swallow most things that don't smell poisonous. But that kinda stretches my definition of what smells poisonous.

I does make me glad I'm not Jewish, actually. Or, well, at least not that Jewish.

I should get a tattoo. I've got the wings-spread dragon planned for my lower back, just have to finish designing it. Any suggestions for anything else? I was thinking of a serpent armband around my upper left arm.

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

It won't kill you . . . ;P

I'm not that Jewish either, although a lot of my extended family is. My immediate family only uses Malaga for the blessings. For dinner/table wines, we use dinner/table wines. I prefer Bartenura :9

Serpents are always cool. Given the entire la chatte noire thing, I think you also need to have a black cat done somewhere. Or the cat's eye. One of the two.

Is evil actually delicious, or is it just empty carbs?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

Evil tastes a lot like meat, actually. At least the evil I exude smells and tastes like meat. Impossible to wash off.

Why is it stuff to do at work only shows up when you're goofing off? That's why I'm on LJ at work, to attract Murphy's customers.

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

It's for the same reason that waiters at restaurant only come to take your order when you aren't ready or someone goes to the bathroom.

Acrylic or watercolor? Or some other variety?

[lachattenoire13.livejournal.com]

Acrylics at this point. I like the alcohol-based acrylics, much better than the acetone-based ones for obvious drying-time reasons.

Of course all mini paints are either acrylics or enamels.

What wonderful thing is it fast food places add to their foods that make them still safe for eating after 8 hours on the kitchen counter?