Blog Migration

I've finally come to terms with the fact that this blog's title is freakishly long (albeit awesome), and in consequence you can now find me at http://whatmightycontests.blogspot.com/.

Christmas Vikings

Unsure what to request as a holiday gift? Vikings are this year's hot accessory.

Thanks to your Viking, snow removal will no longer be a problem: the heat from his manly chest will cause it to flee in terror.

Boy trouble? Not after your Viking deals with him.

Slick roads? No problem! He'll pull you on his wolf-drawn sled...

Or carry you pillion on his eight-legged steed.

He'll even deal with those pesky historical accuracy snobs.

Best of all, when next year's shopping season hits, he's got you covered.

Come to think of it, why don't you ask for two Vikings? That way you can share one with me.

Alternatives to the Stair Method of Paper Grading

Diamond BFFs

According to a recent CNN article on holiday shopping, “Diamonds have always been a girl’s best friend.” This got me thinking... what if they really were?

We’d hang out together...

go shopping...

offer moral support...

and be each other’s wingwoman.

I had believed that DeBeers created the diamond myths that were later perpetuated in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. However, CNN has now corrected my misunderstanding. Diamonds have always been important companions for women.

So there you have it. Diamonds are not a source of strife and bloodshed as cited here, here, and here. They are, always have been, and always will be a girl’s best friend. Who needs human beings when you have shiny pieces of carbon?

Eggconomics: The Options Market in Poultry Gametes

...or, “Why I Have Three Mostly-Full Cartons of Eggs in My Refrigerator”

It all started a few months ago when I was baking a cake for a dinner party. I bought a dozen eggs and used three of them to make a lopsided but delicious tower of chocolatey goodness.

This left me with nine eggs. Obviously I wasn’t going to cook real food just for myself, so I decided to make the remaining eggs edible with as little effort as possible. I tried hard boiling some on my archaic electric stove, but this resulted in a war between my laziness and my impatience.

Okay, thought I, I’ve got some butter left; I’ll just fry them in the skillet. This resulted in quick, palatable eggs, but the cleanup left much to be desired.

Some time later, I was providing snacks for the scholastic bowl team I coach, so I pulled out the egg carton and looked at the date. Because the “use by” date was ten days past, I put the carton back in the refrigerator (I was okay eating slightly-old eggs, but I certainly wasn’t going to inflict them on anyone else) and drove to Jewel to buy a fresh dozen.

You can guess the rest. My new mostly-fully carton became fridgemates with my old mostly-full carton, and these were joined by a third carton when I baked for yet another event.

The problem, you see, is simple economics. I can buy six eggs for $1.39 or twelve for $1.89.

Odds are that I won’t need more than half a dozen... but what if I do? Invariably I choose to pay an extra fifty cents in order to have the option of using those extra six eggs.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy eggs – my church group is coming over tomorrow, and I’m making brownies.

A Day in the Life: Monday, November 22

Step One: Drag somnolent, corpse-like figure into early morning faculty meeting.

Step Two: Teach five classes and supervise one study hall.

Step Three: Plant tulips in a thunderstorm.

Step Four: Learn what a "float valve" does.

Step Five: Go to sword fighting class.

Step Six: Drag massive amounts of bags to the curb for refuse pick-up.

Plagiarism

In other news, Randall Munroe is brilliant.

Semantic Shift

"On their left was an impenetrable tangle of creepers" -- Lord of the Flies

What Golding meant:

What my students picture:

Scurvy Prevention

My roommate has been telling me for months that I need to eat foods with actual nutritional value, but it didn’t sink in until I read a health question during Scholastic Bowl this afternoon.

I knew scurvy was bad, but... bleeding gums? For the rest of the match, I kept picturing what would happen to my mouth if my eating habits were left unchecked.

To protect my future self from becoming a toothless crone, I stopped to buy pertinent groceries on the way home. Fruit, I vaguely remembered, was the key to staving off scurvy, so I carefully selected strawberry yogurt and frozen dinners with mandarin orange tidbits in the rice. Eventually it occurred to me that I should check the produce department, where I promptly grabbed a bunch of bananas... only to wonder belatedly which fruits actually contain vitamin C.

As I stared the mystifying array before, I noticed a section of small, roundish, green things, and suddenly it clicked: limes... limeys... British sailors warding off scurvy... They were three for 99 cents, so I grabbed the greenest one (obviously an indicator of high vitamin C levels) along with two companions and headed for checkout line.

There was only one couple ahead of me, but they took approximately forever because they were being helped by a clueless new hire who couldn’t figure out how to give them a rain check on a buy-one-get-one-free deal. My confidence was not restored when my turn rolled around.

It wasn’t until I returned home that I realized that I had no idea what one actually does with limes. I hate citrus texture – eating oranges seems like gnawing on roadkill dowsed in adhesive remover – so I decided to consume just the liquid.

This was a fail, so I tried making lime juice.

Also a fail. I wound up with about an ounce of something that could eat through the floor of my kitchen and then erode the basement for good measure.

Being the inventive soul I am, I came up with a solution for my scurvy-fearing dilemma:

In other news, would anyone like a lime? I have two up for grabs.

Why It Took So Long to Organize My Bookshelves

After months of allowing my book collection to languish in my parents’ house, I finally managed to cart 600+ volumes into my future library. Seized by a fit of industry, I devoted the entire night to setting up my beloved books.

Why did it take so long? Let me walk you through the process.

The dilemma is that there are multiple and contradictory ways to arrange books. Should I organize them by author? Genre? Publication date? Even within these categories it’s not that simple.

At the same time, I try to place my books as to highlight the ones that correspond with the image that I want to project.

Meanwhile, the books that I’m embarrassed to own (most of which were gifts to my middle- and high school self) are relegated to what I dub the “Shelf of Shame.”

Basically, the more I love a book, the closer to eye level it goes.

It gets even more complicated, however. What do I do when I adore David Eddings’ Belgariad but hate his The Redemption of Althalus? Does it matter that Belgariad is a set of well-worn paperbacks and Althalus is a gorgeous British-edition hardcover? My affection is complicated.

Difficult decisions having been made, I have nothing left to do... except totally rethink where I wanted to place the shelves in the first place.

Flirting Flowchart

The Perils of Being an English Major

Stockpile