GirlHacker's Even More Random Blog

QotD: Stupid Human Trick

What is your stupid human trick?
Submitted by Scarlett.

I can hang a spoon on my nose -- backwards (bowl facing out).  And during the Twin Peaks craze I learned how to tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue and teeth -- a suitable trick for weddings and frat parties.

QotD: I'll Have Two Boxes, Please

What's your favorite kind of Girl Scout cookie?
Submitted by My Lovely One.

Thin Mints from the freezer.  But I never turn down a Samoa.

QotD: They Play My Jams

What's your favorite radio station, past or present?

In my Connecticut town (and probably many around it) in the early 1980s the radio station to listen to if you were in-the-know or wanted to seem as if you were, was WLIR. This Long Island station was the first in the country to play groups like U2, New Order, The Cure, The Smiths, Modern English... I could go on.  It was new wave.  It was like a college radio station but it actually wasn't.  Some of the songs I heard on there I never heard again and went searching for in the used record store bins years later.  Some of the songs went on, it seemed like years later but was probably months, to become smash hits and defined the 1980s (like the John Hughes films' soundtracks).  And, thinking back, the best part was that I didn't listen to it because everyone else was, I listened to it because I loved it.  I was so sad to go away to college and not be able to hear it anymore, but it didn't matter because it changed itself to WDRE and kept cutting edge, which meant it left synth-rock behind and went grunge, retaining its audience of forward listening teenagers.  I then lost track of what happened to the station and have now looked up its more recent history on Wikipedia.  It's somewhat ironic.  After some turmoil it went back to the call letters WLIR, but the 92.7 frequency was purchased and Alphaville's happy dance beat version of "Forever Young" (one of my all-time favorites which lost out to Modern English's "Melt With You" for our senior high prom theme) was played as the Last Song (I would've cried the entire way through).  The station officially moved to 107.1 and eastward (out of range my town, though I never tried it -- the original location was difficult to get some nights as it was).  There was a format change that didn't work out and now, after all those years, WLIR is back to playing what it was playing in the 1980s and 1990s.  Only now I guess it's actually a -- shudder -- oldies station.  And I'll have to check out their web streaming broadcast to see if they really are playing those lost gems ("Big in Japan", anyone?) or just the popular ones.

Potsticker Throwdown

I caught Ming Tsai making potstickers with his mom on his PBS cooking show and I'm pretty dang sure I could whip his ass at a handmade potsticker challenge.  His technique was horrendous (his mom even made fun of it).  His mom, however, I have no hopes of coming even close to.  As it should be.

QotD: My First Flight

Do you remember your first flight? Where did you go? Why?
Submitted by Laurel.

When I was around 11 I flew with my parents from either LGA or JFK (can't remember which) to LAX in order to go to my oldest brother's college graduation at Caltech.  The airline was TWA and it was a widebody, either a 747 or L-1011 (I know we took one of each on the flight out and back).  I remember being extremely excited to go on an airplane.  We got menus to pick our meal (in coach!) and of course the free drinks were exciting.  The landing wasn't so great for me because I wasn't sure about what I was supposed to do with my ears (I think I didn't pop them by swallowing because I thought it would hurt) and my parents weren't much help with that either, so I ended up not being able to hear very well for about 12 hours afterwards.  The same thing happened on the way back and I assumed it was typical that you lost your hearing for a while after a plane flight.  It wasn't until I started flying regularly in college that I figured out that you could just pop your ears and it was all fine, didn't hurt and didn't cause hearing loss.

QotD: I Can't Believe I Ate This

What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten? 
Submitted by Megan.

Hmmm... i dunno, eyes I guess.... fish eyes, squid eyes (no mammal eyes, that'd be too creepy).  I've eaten all the usual Chinese oddities (chicken feet, eel, etc).

This wasn't in the documentation

The milestone of "must check toddler's pants pockets before washing" has been reached.

QotD: My Earliest Memory

What is your earliest memory? 
Submitted by Megan.

Getting scared by the giraffes at the Bronx Zoo.  I was probably about 3, sitting in a stroller staring up at the giraffe house and the doorway was completely dark.  Then a huge giraffe appeared and scared the heck out of me, so I started crying.

QotD:Just Like Me, But In 2-D

Which cartoon character best represents you? 
Submitted by Know It All.

  She doesn't really represent me but everyone knows she's the Joy and the Laughter.  Also she loves animals, is a polyglot (that's definitely not me) and kicks ass.  She's my hero.

Bubbles, Powerpuff Girls

Playground Equipment

We go to a lot of different playgrounds; we're lucky to have so many to choose from.  I've been noticing what's changed since I was in grade school where we had a recycled tire playground and a few metal structures and jungle gyms.  Of course there's a lot more plastic now and that means static electricity when going down slides!  The variety of the play structures is amazing, we really just had different orientations of metal rods if I distill it down (and ignore the tire playground creations which were too hot to play on when it was sunny anyway).  The two freestanding items that astounded me recently were the Kompan Supernova, a freely (and easily) spinning ring that you can sit on, walk on, stand in the middle of, and the Infinity Climber (which is not a Mobius strip, but there is another product from a different company called the Mobius climber).  Our son (he's 2) loves all slides and so his first goal at any new playground is to try them all out, no matter how high up they are.  He will climb things that I would not have attempted when I was years older than he is.

Here's a video of the Kompan Supernova.

Kompan Supernova