tikistitch

In the plastic bottle dealie: *sniffs* Smells ... sweet. Like ... something sweet?

Onto the wrist: Yup. Definitely sweet. Like, sweet stuff.

Onto the OTHER wrist: Still sweet. Uh-huh.

After it has dried on my wrists and neck and ankles and various other body parts I won't go into but I figured I'd try because what the hey: Oooo-la-la zee scent, she transports me to zee old days on La Rive Gauche, where Jean-Jacques-Michel and I would sit with zee Cafe Au Laits and Baguettes, wearing our saucy berets and stripey jumpers, summarizing Proust together, and the scent of ... I dunno ... some kind rilly French sweet stuff of some kind would come all wafting up from the Seine. Sacre bleu! Jean-Luc Picard!!

OK, I fail at life.


EDIT: Just a follow up: so, we went running, and I came back and showered and washed my hair.

And, I can still smell the sweet gunk on my wrists! In fact, it's stronger now!!!!

Happy Darwin Day one and all!

Go make Darwin stickers. C'mon, it's a special day.

Coffee is a vegetable.

The New York Times says, SUCK IT UP!

(And, it's in the Style section, so you know it's true....)

Girl Talk Has Its Limits

MOST teenage girls love to talk to their friends. And talk. And talk....

But recently female friendship and girl talk, particularly among adolescents, has drawn growing interest from psychologists and researchers examining the question of how much talking is too much talking. Some studies have found that excessive talking about problems can contribute to emotional difficulties, including anxiety and depression.

The term researchers use is “co-rumination” to describe frequently or obsessively discussing the same problem. The behavior is typical among teens — Why didn’t he call? Should I break up with him?

...Why are all dollie people completely batshit? (Oh, sorries, that's us.)

tiki's new word of the day: Co-Rumination! We're going to be changing the name of this blog to "Come, co-ruminate with me!"

Bottling it up 'can ease trauma'

People who do not talk about traumatic experiences can fare better than those who "let it all out", say researchers.

The University at Buffalo study compared the progress of 3,000 people who took different approaches over two years following the 9/11 attacks.

It found people initially unwilling to talk were less likely to be adversely affected two years later.

We note with amusement that we found this report on the BBC web page.

After years and years and YEARS of dieting, this one is kind of a no duh, but we're glad somebody thought to take the time....

Restaurant menu promises buried in calories, fat

Dishes targeted to health-conscious consumers at popular chains such as Chili's, Taco Bell and Applebee's contained as much as twice the calories and eight times the grams of fat than the restaurants claimed in their published nutrition information, a Scripps Television Station investigation revealed.

....

The Macaroni Grill sample showed the widest variance from the menu's claims. Its "Pollo Margo Skinny Chicken," which was supposed to have 500 calories, actually had 1,022, according to the testing. The chicken dinner was supposed to have 6 grams of fat. It had 49.

They go on to list several dishes where the fat content is off by about an order of magnitude. Not surprising, as it's not terribly hard to go a little crazy when you're adding oil to the pot, and more fat just makes stuff taste nummier, so we doubt anybody would ever complain.

Just, rule of thumb: if you're reducing calories to lose weight, cut down how often you eat out. Period. And the whole "divide it in two and eat the rest at home" nonsense? That just means you'll be sucking down half the fat and calories whilst standing around in your bathrobe over the sink, instead of sitting in a chair.

So, since mmymoon 'minded us, given that she's still young and has a brain, we at Tiki Labs LLC decided to open our bottle of BPAl Tiki Queen and subject it to some rigorous quantitative analysis.



Methodology: We utilized beer to cleanse the palate. (Since it was Cinquo de Mayo yesterday, and to be scientific, we chose a Mexican beer.) Also, since we didn't have any chips, we got pretzels.

We opened said bottle, and fanned a bit of air over to our nose, like you see them do on CSI. And then we applied a bit to a cloth and repeated. Lastly, and so as not to contaminate the bottle, we rubbed a bit on our wrists for smell, and also behind the ears, 'cause that seemed cool.

Observations from Scientific Subject #1: To start with, let us say that we were slightly disappointed with the appearance. First, why stop at Tiki Queen when you could make Tiki Goddess? There's like bajillion tikis out there, which means you could produce a veritable line of scents, some of which would get all jealous and fight with each other! Which, would be cool. Also, it's a cute picture, but why not a tiki tiki bottle so we could put it up on the shelf in the kitchen where it could collect dust along with our other tiki mugs?

As for the scent itself, the overwhelming notes we observed were "coconut" and "sweet." It is very not unlike the scent of certain tanning products we used back in the days when we still occasionally ventured into the sun.

The scent also called to mind a visit to Singapore many many years ago. Singapore sits smack on the equator, and the humidity felt like you'd just emerged from a very hot shower, so all trips outside were hasty shuffles back and forth between air conditioned spaces and some form of shade. At one point, we debarked an air conditioned bus and hastened to the shelter of an open market. We soon were relatively comfortable inside a dark, covered food court. We sat down at a table, and the proprietor brought over a single coconut. The coconut had two holes drilled into it, and we and our companion each received a single straw. We drank the coconut milk straight from the coconut. It was the best thing in the world.

Observations from Scientific Subject #2:

Us: It's my new perfume, Mr. Tikistitch.
Mr. Tikistitch: Uh-huh.
Us: It's called Tiki Queen!
MT: Um.
Us: What does it smell like to you?
MT: *sniffs* Smells like....VICTORY!

Richard Dawkins is gonna be on Dr. Who!!!

Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

The man who reinvented 'Doctor Who' for a new generation hints at a real surprise to come in the new series, as the man in the Tardis goes into 'dadshock'.

He is the creator of galaxies, saviour of Saturday night telly and the most influential gay man in Britain, but Russell T Davies can still shriek like a starstruck fanboy. "Richard Dawkins!"

Russell Davies shrieking!! Over a scientist!! This is just so many flavors of awesome. Though it would be even awesome-er if he got to kiss Cap'n Jack.

Via Pharyngula.

According to PZ, these guys are behind the eeeevolution.

The purpose behind choosing the term "dark clan" is to convey the sense of a web-like structure with offshoots in every country, orchestrating the moral degeneration of today's world. Even though it presents itself as highly modern, its structural design is reminiscent of the historical totemic clans. This dark clan is to be found behind all kinds of despicable deeds, corruption and perversion. It controls drug-trafficking operations, prostitution rings and promotes immorality.

Sorries, kiddies, tiki's gotta go. Those despicable deeds won't do themselves!

Via the ever mind-expanding thedisneyblog...

Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain

THE prototypical computer whiz of popular imagination — pasty, geeky, male — has failed to live up to his reputation.

Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are not misfits resembling the Lone Gunmen of “The X Files.” On the contrary, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.

“Most guys don’t have patience for this kind of thing,” said Nicole Dominguez, 13, of Miramar, Fla., whose hobbies include designing free icons, layouts and “glitters” (shimmering animations) for the Web and MySpace pages of other teenagers. “It’s really hard.”

Nicole posts her graphics, as well as her own HTML and CSS computer coding pointers (she is self-taught), on the pink and violet Sodevious.net, a domain her mother bought for her in October.

“If you did a poll I think you’d find that boys rarely have sites,” she said. “It’s mostly girls.”

Indeed, a study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35 percent of girls compared with 20 percent of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 percent of girls compared with 22 percent of boys).

But... (and you knew there would be one)

But even though girls surpass boys as Web content creators, the imbalance among adults in the computer industry remains. Women hold about 27 percent of jobs in computer and mathematical occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In American high schools, girls comprised fewer than 15 percent of students who took the AP computer science exam in 2006, and there was a 70 percent decline in the number of incoming undergraduate women choosing to major in computer science from 2000 to 2005, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology.