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Learn me good, baby.

15:55 / 05.02.04

so here's the dealyo. I'm pretty smart (relatively) but the facts are:

a) I don't know jack shit. seriously. I don't follow the news, I don't read up on all the cool bizniz, and I'm not interested in...well, anything. I don't have a passion or art or music or history, nothing that makes me want to delve in and absorb as much of it as I can get. I enjoy more tangible things.

b) I have a short attention span. like, killer short. and it's getting shorter as I get older. I'm not called "magpie" for nuttin.

c) my info retention is poor. my brain, she is a sieve.

d) all of my friends and acquaintances are smarter and/or significantly more talented than I am. sometimes, I feel like I just can't keep up. and why the hell are they friends with me anyway?

I want more. I was raised pretty simply and have had a rough and tumble sort of life, where my most important (and well honed) skill is having the superior acid tongue. I can change out an electrical outlet, hang sheetrock, do basic maintainence on my car (when I have one), and scare the pants offa just about anybody! I'm a whiz with other people's money (if not my own).

but I want to know things. will you tell a magpie some shortcuts to knowledge? point me in the direction of books, movies, sites, anything that will not only teach but entertain, that will enrich my shallow cultural pool, will expand my limited internal resources.

any subject, I don't care. as long as it will hold my attention for more than one hot second. maybe we can all learn something?

Cheap. Easy. Cruel.

16:12 / 05.02.04

You might want to try reading An Undergound Education. Quite interesting and entertaining.

16:14 / 05.02.04

Shit, I can't change out an electrical socket. Or hang sheetrock. We can trade. What do you want that I've got?

whothehell@where?

12:42 / 06.02.04

nothing says class like culinary knowledge:

http://italianfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa111203.htm

14:06 / 06.02.04

here's how to make groovy grean beans that just about anyone will eat, BK...

step one: break off the ends of green beans and rinse

step two: steam green beans

step three: toast sesame seeds (by toast, I mean just cook over light flame in a dry pan)

step four: Drain and dry beans

Step five: Combine one clove grated garlic, one teaspoon of sesame oil and two tablespoons of soy sauce (sometimes I throw in a shake or two of worstershire sauce)

step six: toss grean beans in mixture, then shake toasted sesame seeds over the top

you can use this recipe for a lot of vegetables. it's so yummy.

Whisky Priestess

18:00 / 06.02.04

PM me for the recipe for perfect popcorn. (Can't just give that sort of information out to anyone, you know.)

whothehell@where?

18:14 / 06.02.04

recipe for perfect popcorn:

step 1. smoke marijuana

step 2. put megabutter popcorn bag in microwave

step 3. turn on microwave

step 4. smoke marijuana

step 5. remove megabutter popcorn bag from microwave

step 6. smoke marijuana

step 7. eat megabutter popcorn

inserting steps 1, 4 and 6 into any recipe will insure "perfect" results

22:10 / 06.02.04

Snakes fart. Oh yes. Something of which many otherwise well informed people remain unaware to this day, bk.

22:48 / 06.02.04

And, just for you, Thing Two: How to make the Horned God out of a dinner napkin.

gotham island fae

23:49 / 06.02.04

Xoc, have I told you that you are a god today?

Eureka! 81 Key Ideas Explained put out by [blahcorp]Waldenbooks[/Blah] puts like every idea (not invention) into party perspective. Tells exactly what it means and then tells why it may have been discarded by rational thinkerz.

Good to feel like you have a lasso on three thousand years of thought. Even if they're all crap.

01:11 / 07.02.04

Xoc, you're so adorable.

Gosh, what can I teach bk?

The grave marker of the eldest of the extant Greek playwrights, Aeschylus, made no mention of his playwrighting career, focusing instead on his military service at the battle of Marathon, where the Greek forces whooped the Persians against overwhelming odds.

The marathon race is so named because after the Greeks won the battle of Marathon, a messenger ran all the way from Marathon back to Athens (I think it was Athens), said "We won" and dropped dead. This distance was supposedly close to the 26 miles and some odd yards of the marathon today.

I think that this is a very good lesson in why one should not run a marathon unless it's a really special occasion, but I am biased by my own pathetic laziness.

20:09 / 08.02.04

An Underground Education : The Unauthorized and Outrageous Supplement to Everything You Thought You KnewAbout Art, Sex, Butsiness, Crime, Science, Medicine, and Other Fields of Human

it cuts off "knowledge", which leads me to visions of people dressed salad greens.

cooking, recipes, good, good. you lj foody types should join my community foodgeek and share your wisdom often.

the snakes contract their cloacal sphincter, forcing air (and any other material that happens to be there) out

my kinda reading. also, I agree with both fae and maz - xoc is quite fantastic.

fae, I think the review line "phds for dummies" was enough to sway me.

maz, I, too, am lazy. it's good to know where the craziness is said to have been started. I always enjoy a story of the origins of a name thats not only interetesting, but also reasonably easy to remember!

thanks, everyone