In response to my "weird food" post from yesterday, Jane writes: I've heard the same argument made by foreigners about peanut butter. What is it about national bread spreads, anyway?

Thinking peanut butter is gross? That's just crazy talk! Any foreign folks reading this? Confirm of deny?

Newton adds: I have a nomination for your strange American food category: chocolate. Why can't American's make chocolate? I mean I liked the food in America (you might have noticed) but the chocolate is horrible: dry, brittle, tasteless and bitter. I brought some Hershey bars home from Chicago because everybody's heard of them. People had a bite, all excited, then went 'eugh!' The disappointment was palpable. It reminds me of the thing with the money, you know where all the notes are the same size and colour. I kept thinking: "Of all the things you'd expect Americans to get right, it would be money." I know you reckon this is to fool foreigners into giving $100 tips by accident, but I think it's 'chocolate syndrome' i.e. you're thinking "We're Americans, we MUST be getting this right."

If there's anything else the people of Northern Ireland can help you with, do let me know.

Note to Hershey: The views expressed on this site may not be the views of the site owner. (Although in this case, they are). Please don't sue me.

Oh my god, I didn't think things like this really happened. It give you another reason to be paranoid about flying and flushing.

News Flash: Marmite is 100 years old. If you haven't been exposed to British people, you haven't been exposed to marmite, and trust me, you're a happier person for it. Marmite is this fou black yeast spread that Brits put on toast. It tastes like salt and a pot of glue that something nasty died and rotted in for several years. If you grew up with it, you love it -- among the many Marmite proselytizers I have encountered are otherwise sane people such as David and Larissa, my flatmates from Hong Kong, and Paula and James, she a Brit I met in HK and he a South African I met when I went to Australia to visit Paula.

As a side note, my sister Laura asked me to get her some Vegimite, the Australian version of Marmite (which my Brit-leaning friends say is vastly inferior) when I went there in November. I refused to spend any money supporting such a horrible enterprise, but I did get some free Vegimite packets from a B&B I stayed in there. I gave them to her from Christmas. I have no idea if she's tried them. Laura, any reviews?

The only other "What the hell are they thinking?" love it or hate it food I've ever actually tried is the durian, a spikey green fruit from Southeast Asia. I tried one when I was in Malaysia with my sister Amy. I'd try to come up with my own description, but Tim Cahill give pretty much the definitive picture of it when he says it tastes like "an onion-fed mouse crawled inside a mango and died." Bleh. Bleh. Bleh. Those who like it, by the way, call the durian "The King of Fruit."

The only other dish I've heard of that offers a similar love-it-or-hate-it reaction is lutfisk. I've never tried it. I'm fine with that. And I'm not sure it's in the same league as Marmite and durian, as apparently you only eat it once a year.

I'm trying to think of what the equivilent of marminte/Vegimite or Durian or Lutfisk would be here. The closest I can come up with is this: I was in Hong Kong when Ben and Jerry's came out with "Chubby Hubby" ice cream, which is Fudge Covered Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels in Vanilla Malt Ice Cream Rippled with Fudge & Peanut Butter. Jane's flatmate was managing a B&J franchise, and Jane sent me the Chubby Hubby t-shirt ("Body by Ben & Jerry's" -- a particular favorite during the AIDS Ride), which described the flavor. People either looked at the description and felt ill, or thought it would be cool. No middle ground. But even that doesn't give you the same feeling -- I mean, you might think an ice-cream flavor sounds gross, but do you have a physical revulsion to it?

So what is the American equivilent of Marmite or Durian? I don't mean just a dish where: If you think about it -- ew. If you just eat it -- yummy -- I mean, I do like scrapple, and that basically the bits of pig that are left over after you make the hot dogs. I mean something that a substanital portion of the population passionatley loves, and everyone else thinks is foul. What would that be here?

This is either a sign of how dedicated I am to actually getting this writing thing going, or how pathetic I have been in my attempts to put off writing: I disabled solitaire and hearts on my computer. That was one of my main, utterly pointless, time-wasting devices for avoiding writing: I'd sit down at the computer, get ready to start typing, and say "Eh, I'll just play a little solitaire to loosen up. Just until I win." Then hearts. Then solitaire again. Pathetic.

So I've taken them out of the equation. I'm doing fine with that, really.

Finished three Australia articles. I sent them to Jane for her opinion.

Me: You can tell me if they suck.
Jane: They don't suck
Me: You haven't read them yet
Jane: (Barely suppressed sigh) OK, I'll read them and give you a call.

Mommy.

Wendy brought last night's Angel tape (a "wacky" episode -- not bad) and said "You know the back door was wide open, and so was the laundry room door." Huh!?!

The major appliances are still there, thank God. Near as we can tell, the alarm installer guy just left it open this afternoon. Yeah security!

I had a frustrating day at work -- actually trying to work from home, but continually being thwarted by tech problems (curses!) -- redeemed by a good Police Beat meeting. I talked with a bunch of the neighbors, saw evidence that the cops were actually doing something, and got a bunch of tips from Pedro, an old Puerto Rcan guy I've said hi to when he's out playing dominos but never actually talked with at length. He's a good guy. (Guy with the limp -- if you're reading this on Wendy's computer, everybody in the neighborhood knows you're dealing. We're all going to call 911 whenever we see you. Leave now.) One of the cops who had responded to one of our robberies told me they'd recovered a computer monitor, and he's going to call Wendy about it when he gets back from vacation in five days (timing in everything...) Another showed me the bulletin they'd sent out over the district telling people to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. So yeah, there is some action, it seems.

Then when I got home, a message from another detective regarding the second break-in, and I got his number so I can give it to the insurance guy. He called me an "urban pioneer," which is better than "idiot," I suppose.

The light-timing controversy continues. Rob writes that, among other things, he: Drive[s] a route based on time -- if it's before 7:15am, I'll take route A, but after that it forces a left turn w/o a light onto a super-busy street, so I take route B; Know[s] that it takes 25 minutes to get in, 30-35 to get home depending on when I leave;....Know[s] roughly how long I have to get through a light when the green goes stale (and the orange hand starts blinking).

Now, all that makes sense to me, because those actions don't require extended mathmatical analysis. However, he goes on to say:

[W]hen I worked/lived where I rode my bike 75% of the time, I had every stoplight along the route timed according to exactly the number of times the orange hand flashed. Folsom and Canyon was 18, I think. (It's been 4 years.) Folsom and Valmont was 12, plus there was the bike lane crossover. I basically knew exactly how close (like "at or beyond the third shrub in the median") I had to be when the hand started flashing to either exert and make it through or give up and coast to the red.

I don't think this is compulsive at all, because I know how much effort it takes, just what it feels like to your butt and thighs, to start moving on a bike. Because it's my butt and thighs that hurt if I'm doing a lot of stopping and starting, as far as I'm concerned it's worth paying attention. In a car, it's no real effort to stop and start, so I can't imagine bothering with it.

Then my dad came back with this: [I]t's not that we are a compulsive and regimented family. It's those traffic engineers. They are the ones who sequence the lights like that. Why do they do that? Drivers who adjust speed to take advantage of the sequenced lights move more smoothly, and more efficiently. Cuts congestion, saves gas, decreases pollution and helps avoid global warming. How could anyone be against that?

Oooh, a hit, a palpable hit! He's getting me where my lefty street cred lives! (I knew I shouldn't have put that "invisible sneer tag" around Republican.) He's right -- the lights are timed for a reason, and it's not just so analytical folks like Wendy and dad can have the thrill of "beating the system." My take has been "why bother learning the lights, because (1) it takes effort to do that, and (2) it takes very little effort to stop and start a car." Easy for me, sitting on my ass in the climate-controlled splendor of my Geo Prizm, but not so easy on the car or on the environment. Isn't learning the light patterns the least I can do, just one effort I can take to make sure polar bears don't starve?

Damn my idealist leanings! All right, Wendy and Dad, you win this one.

And I hasten to add that I tend to take public transport to work, thus doing my bit to save the polar bears and penguins.

This just in! I'm the weird one! At least according to my dad and aunt Elaine, regarding light timing.

From dad: When I used to drive between my Barley Mill office and downtown Wilmington I was always aware of stretches with lights that could be hit on green by driving the proper speed. This is not over-thinking. It is obvious. Why wouldn't you do it? It does not stop you from listening to music or thinking about movies or other such things.

I could dismiss this as just dad being, well, dad -- He's a Republican! His first degree was in chemical engineering, for god's sake! -- but then I got this message from Aunt Elaine, the official Funky Bohemian Aunt Role Model of our family: Back when I was commuting in Chicago, I would either go to work via Eisenhower expressway or Ogden Ave. On the expressway I knew just when to switch lanes to make the most efficient time. On the streets, I knew just how to set a pace so I hit the green lights. I can't remember my Meyer-Briggs type but it's the one that only 9% of people are--a bit odd.

Hmmm. So Wendy, consider yourself vindicated.

I've been listening to music at work, as the stuff i'm doing is boring but you have to pay attention. The music keeps me awake without wanting to fling myself out the window.

Right now I'm listening to Liquid White Light, a live Poi Dog Pondering CD and one of my favorite CDs ever. And I'm rocking out, chair dancing like there's no tomorrow. Our cubicals have half-windows, and Andy happened to be sitting at such an angle that he could see me. Oops.

He put the following post-its on my cube window:

Nice dancing So I stopped. I mean, I'm obviously making a fool out of myself, right?

Then this: Feel free to dance. Don't let me stifle your self-expression or stamp on your self-esteem.:-)

Consider my self-expression squashed. No more interpretive chair dancing for me today. Probably a wise choice -- Aeron chairs were not built with artistic expression in mind. They are nice and bouncy, though.

So Wendy has what I consider a pretty hysterical habit: She has the traffic lights on the way to work timed. That means, for example, she knows the exact speed she needs to drive to make lights A through F, keeping in mind the number of turns, traffic patterns, etc. I think that's just funny -- if a light is about to change, I may speed up, but I don't have the light-plan plotted in my head.

Does anyone else pull a Wendy? Time the lights and such? I haven't found anyone.

The latest theory we have is that it's a personality-type thing. I'm an INFP, an idealist type. Wendy's an INTJ, a rationalist type. Apparently there aren't that many INTJs out there. But she's on an INTJ mailing list, and put the scenario to them. Here's the conversation that brought on:

wendy: yep, the stoplight thing seems to be an INTJ thing
sjerslix: I'm not surprised
sjerslix: you guys are officially funny
wendy: funny - hah hah or funny - weird
sjerslix: Yes
wendy: maybe it's everybody else that is funny, and we're the normal ones
sjerslix: Possible, but I doubt it

wendy: here's a sample of the responses I got
wendy: >So - is that an INTJ thing?
>it is for me. for example, driving home from Jason’s apt., there is always exactly one stop between broadway and lombard. after the left turn on lombard, you have to keep up speed so that you only hit one stoplight going west. if you go slower, you'll hit two, and then you miss the left turn green arrow at the end and have to wait an additional cycle.
wendy: see, that whole exchange above seems perfectly normal to me
sjerslix: And it seems funny hah hah and funny weird to me.
sjerslix: I mean, why bother?
wendy: what do you mean, why bother? what else are you going to do?
wendy: you want to get from point A to point B - you go the fastest way possible
wendy: or the easiest
sjerslix: It just strikes me as overthinking it.
sjerslix: There are stoplights.
sjerslix: They happen.
sjerslix: You deal

wendy: but if you're faced with the same stoplights every single day...
wendy: wouldn't you want to find a way to make it go the smoothly?
sjerslix: OK, I'm going to have to ask the crowd here
sjerslix: The office agrees -- you're weird.
sjerslix: Let me ask the tech guys.
sjerslix: Tech guys think you're weird too.
sjerslix: "If I see a light is about to change, I'll run to hurry to make it, but I don't have it down to a science."
wendy: ok, here's another INTJ with a perspective on not-driving this way
wendy: my ESFP sister has no real concept of traffic patterns and how it moves. She just kind of drives like a butterfly - goes here or there with no reason or purpose. She'll get stuck behind various cars and trucks or just sorta drive and then realize that she needs to do something.
sjerslix: that makes sense
sjerslix: it seems like a silly thing to actually plan or think about to that extent
wendy: this is why there is so much bad traffic in the world
wendy: people just not thinking about it
sjerslix: And there's probably so much road rage from people overthinking it
wendy: if there was only one of you driving like that, it wouldn't be a problem. it's that there are so many of you driving like that :-)
sjerslix: And if there weren't so many people taking it so seriously, trying to control it, people wouldn't be upset by it.
wendy: hey, we don't try to control it. we try to play the game. we don't try to change the rules
sjerslix: And I guess we don't think it's much of a game that has rules.
wendy: what do you think about while you're driving, then? if not about the game of getting from point A to point B fastest?
sjerslix: Anything. The song on the radio, what I'm going to be doing later, movies I want to see.... whatever pops into my head
sjerslix: INFPs are idealist-types. What are INTJs?
wendy: I think the nickname most often given to them is Mastermind
sjerslix: Ah
wendy: so yeah - most people think we overthink things
sjerslix: Heh

So to sum up: I tend to think of light-timing as going overboard, trying to control the lights. Wendy seems to think of it as using the tendencies of the lights to her own advantage. I think that's just silly.

Anyone else do the light-timing thing? Am I the weird one, or are INTJs just anal?

Hee hee! I'm a happy woman:

You will marry LEGOLAS from Lord of the Rings, live in an ancient elven palace in the middle of the forest, and spend your days walking on top of snow and rowing ivory boats and just being beautiful.

What's YOUR M * A * S * H future?

He's my new favorite.

(Thanks to Erin at Gigglechick for showing this quiz. She got Maximus. That would work too. And thaks to Mary for linking to Erin.)

Just got back from a Girls' (and Boys') Night Out to see Brotherhood of the Wolf. It was, as they say in French, un piece du caca malorderous. Un piece du Fromage tres stinky. It was crap.

So I've been to two long movies that didn't feel long in the past couple of months -- Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter ended when it should have, I think, and I would have been happy for LOTR to go one for another several hours. This, however, was a long movie that felt longer. Much longer. Endless.

A couple of disclaimers: The house was packed, and we were sitting in the second row on the left. Maybe I missed some of the granduer of the shots. Also, reading subtitles from that angle and keeping track of the images was really difficult.

But enough pussyfooting around. How did it suck? Let me count the ways....

We'd heard that this was a French Crouching Tiger/The Matrix. It was actually a long-format French commercial for spot remover. Soooo many slow-mo shots of mud splashing, blood dripping, clothes being soiled. I felt like I needed Le Shout Wipes by then end of the movie.

It was also, apparently a long-format shampoo comercial. I think this dialog was cut, but you still get the sense of it int he movie. "Gee, Mani, your hair looks fabulous." "Thanks, chevalier. I find it's very important to have bouncy, shiny hair before I go into battle with potentially supernatural beasties, so I use Loup-Garou Shampoo, the shampoo of choice for nobel savages with serious hair-care issues." Honestly, befoe half the fights he got into, the guy would shake out his long, lusterous locks. Wouldn't it be more practical to keep it tied back so you could, I dunno, see who you were kicking the shit out of?

Obligatory -- and pointless -- slow-motion, stop-motion, jerky frames, fading into negatives... you name the artsy camera trick, they did it. Now, granted, as we were in the second row, a lot of the camera tricks just made me carsick.

Does it really rain that much in southern France?

Look! A noble savage! What an incredible concept! And he's your blood brother, but you spend much of the film talking about him as if he isn't even there? What the hell?

Hey, do you think the pretty, coy, well-born virgin will win the libertine's heart? Or do you think he'll end up with the courtesan, who, let's face it, is much more interesting? I wonder....

Hey, that Indian guy sure can fight. And fight. And fight. And fight.... Right, this is getting boring and pointless. And you, blondie, are you ever going to step in and fight with your "blood brother"? Or are you too busy sketching and pitching woo and such?

What is with the witch girl. Surely she will be shown to have some point later on in the movie. Surely....

And now, some complaints that involve spoilers. You'll have to highlight them to read them. Go ahead -- the movie ain't worth the $8.50.

"A beast form Africa." Yeah, ok, but what the hell was it? Were we supposed to believe he'd trained a hyena? A Lion? What?

So they trained it cruely, put armor on it, and it didn't rip their hands off. Right.

Speaking of hands ... That hand revelation was just the stupidest thing. So you've got this arm that you supposedly lost to gangrene, but instead are keeping underwraps for no discernable reason, and then, THEN, we're supposed to believe you have strength in that arm to wield the numbchuck sword.

Oh for fuck's sake, stab the bastard. You're allowed to stab your brother when he's trying to rape you. Really.

So it's this mystical cabal that started off as part of the church and then went beyond the pope's control, and the point of it is... what? To be monarchists printing scurilous things about the king, so he'll need you? To make people believe it's the apocalypse? No sense to that whatsoever.

Ah, the poignancy of the French Revolution... I have no idea what that stuff was doing in there.

So, overall, a truly bad movie. We actually thought we were going out to see a good one, but nope, c'est merde. We should have just gone to see LOTR again. Oh, fine, you're right, or I could see the 20 other movies i've been wanting to, like Beautiful Mind or Gosford Park or Amelie or whatever.

Also, Webster lace -- crappy theater. It sounds like Kat and Bob are moving to Evanston, so we'll have a couple of G(AB)NO folks inthat particular 'burb. The new theaters there are niiiiiiice.