Another reason I shouldn't cook

I made bread last week. Without mincing words: It was a total failure.
There are three reasons why I feel comfortable admitting this disaster publicly:
  a) It came from a store-bought mix (not my fault)
  b) It was made entirely in an automated bread maker (not my fault)
  c) The resultant bread became a bit of a science project, and science is fun.

There are many ways for bread to fail. This particular breadtastrophe was about as unleavened as a leavened bread could possibly be. When all was said and done, a pound and a half of bread had somehow baked neatly into a few cubic inches:

It was nearly 9 times the density of normal bread. I was reassured to learn that despite that, the bread was not in fact as dense as a brick. For your edification, here's how the bread stacks up against a few other materials.

Notably, the bread is more dense than crushed asphalt.  Mmmmmm... Pavement.  I like pavement toasted with a bit of butter, then dipped into hot cocoa.

Also of interest, the bread is essentially isodense with elemental potassium. Presumably, the bread would not burst into flames if you immersed it in water, but I didn't actually try that.

We have been touched...

Years ago, Jordan Ficklin taught me how to make smiley-faced pancakes by pouring the batter for the face into the pan a few seconds before pouring the rest of the pancake.

I was passing this pancake wisdom along to Dave. Then, in a manifestation of wonderful wonder and awe,  the Flying Spaghetti Monster unexpectedly appeared in pancake form, right there in my humble skillet.

It was like those apparitions of venerated Saints, but less religious, more bizarre, and way more edible.

We have been Touched by His Noodly Appendage.

Yet somehow, there was no dysentery

Dave and I went to a huge crawfish boil party hosted by one of the other residents in my ophtho program. (The resident hosting it grew some supersweet redneck mutton-chop facial hair, which I wish I had a picture of, but alas I do not.)

I remember fishing for crawdads in the cow pasture ponds at the end of our dirt road growing up (...speaking of rednecks), but it never crossed my mind that anyone would eat those nasty little beasties, let alone have a party for the purpose of eating them.

Yet somehow, that's exactly what we all did Saturday evening.

First they were alive in a bucket:

Then they were cooked, but still eerily reminiscent of giant cockroaches:

It shocks me to admit this, but they were surprisingly tasty. I've held off on posting this, in the event of massive gastric regret, but we've officially lived to tell the tale consequence-free!



Four out of five ophtho residents in my cohort approve of crawfish carnage.



 Mmmmmmmmm. Giant cockroaches. It's a party.

The Boss Sings Everything...Or Nothing...

There are two types of people in this world: Lumpers and Splitters.

Splitters subdivide everything into extremely differentiated subcategories with a great degree of detail.

Lumpers group all kinds of remotely-related things into one package deal.

I am a Lumper. This was never clearer than the recent realization that all songs written after 1980, sung by a male, and having a patriotic theme or focusing on an American city aren't actually by Bruce Springsteen. I was shocked to learn this. My entire casually lumped category of "Springsteen sings every raspy American anthem" completely fell apart.
- Ain't That America.... not Springsteen
- Jack & Diane... not Springsteen
- Walkin' in Memphis... not Springsteen
  - God Bless the USA... Ha! Gotcha there! I didn't think this was Springsteen.   ...okay...fine...maybe I did...

When the issue of my misplaced Springsteen credit came up, several friends each independently tried to educate me on songs that Bruce Springsteen does sing.  I...uh...hadn't ever heard any of them.

I will admit, that moment was an epic fail for the Lumpers, myself included.

Are you a Lumper or a Splitter? How did you come to realize that you are one or the other?