Craft(y) Project: Pop-Up Stage

A few weeks ago I stayed late at work on a Friday night making a template for this project, because why wouldn't you procrastinate Saturday drama class prep work? Using only what was in the immediate vicinity of my desk, I made and then created said templates to (kill a lot of time and) teach the kids about the different parts of a stage and their English names.

I was honestly surprised by how well it went over. I thought it might be a little too complicated - as the kids range in age from about 6 to 12 and their levels are just as varied - or that they'd get bored quickly and start whining, "Uugghh, teacher, game!", but as it turns out, it kept them incredibly focused. I'm putting up pictures of all the steps so maybe someone else can use it in an ESL drama class.

Letting the kids draw their own set, props and actor is sort of the fun creative bit at the end, and ideally, you'll want to follow this up with a game on an actual stage, where you shout the names of the different areas and have them run to them. If they're not super into it, just start eliminating the slowest person each time, and before you know it, they'll all be asking you to play again.

Vegetarian, Vegan, and Gluten-Free Street Food in South Korea

If all else fails you can fall back on fruit punch in an IV bag.

Tasty, cheap street food options exist even for the diet-impaired!

As you might imagine, there's not a whole lot of it - nearly everything in Korea contains meat, seafood, wheat, or some combination of the three. It can be like navigating a dietary minefield, but don't get too discouraged just yet. Believe it or not, some street vendor fare is both vegan and gluten-free. Am I absolutely sure? Is it certified? Is it also organic and fair-trade? Of course not, doofus, you're buying it for a dollar from an old lady in a tent on the side of the road. Unless your diet absolutely requires you to be very strict, you're going to have to learn to let go of your lofty expectations at times. If you come to South Korea, you're going to be hungry, and you're not going to care that there's dried squid and fish jerky sitting less than an inch away from your chestnuts when you're lucky enough to find them.

Pictured above is the holy trinity of hot winter street food (though it doesn't vary too much from season to season) for people who don't eat meat, can't eat wheat, or both: steamed corn on the cob, steamed sweet potatoes and roasted chestnuts. They cost about 2000, 3000 and 5000 (for a paper bag of about 10) won, respectively. 


I'd never had a chestnut before coming here, and actually, had never really heard them mentioned outside that classic Christmas carol, but they're pretty great. They're large, starchy, filling, and surprisingly reminiscent of potatoes imo, but fairly low in calories. If you're attempting a meat and gluten-free diet in Korea, they can also serve as an important source of B vitamins, potassium, iron, folate, fatty acids and other nutrients. 

As gluten intolerance and food allergies most often occur among people or northern and western European descent, Koreans don't really do gluten-free. Generally speaking, anyone beyond their 30's probably doesn't understand the concept of an alternative diet at all, so I wish you the best of luck in effectively communicating your needs or desires to them. Luckily, though, rice-based cakes and similar goods are very common, so you may find that you actually have more options in Seoul than you did at home, if you come from a smaller town.

A standard ddok shop. Dark green mugwort, pumpkin and 
red bean crumble-covered are common types/flavours.

Ddok (rice cake) comes in many varieties and textures, and to be honest, most of them aren't that nice. It's either chewy and sticky or steamed and spongy. Warm steamed or microwaved rice cake is probably the closest you'll get to gluten-free bread outside Seoul, but eat it sparingly. Though many people can't tolerate wheat, it's actually healthier for you than rice flour, as it contains more fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and is lower in calories. Many Koreans think it's the other way around - which is good for domestic agriculture - but it's basically condensed, empty-calorie starchy starch goodness, and eating a lot of it will pack on the pounds. 

An extremely cheap if not oversized alternative
 to breakfast cereal? Perhaps.

There are also crunchy puffed rice snacks and crackers galore, and they cost nothing. For a quick, filling snack to hold you over until a meal or as something to stow away for a rainy day when you've run out of groceries, these are perfect. They can usually be found in a truck or street stall while the chewy and steamed varieties are more common in the subway. 

These cookies are sold by weight, 
in baggies or in larger bags, 
kind of like kettle corn.

Additionally, there's also one type of common, extremely cheap traditional Korean cookie I've found at street stalls that should be gluten-free. It's a long cookie with little bits all over the outside, either plain or subtly coloured pink, green, orange, etc. The orange ones contain pumpkin flour, which also gives them a very slight flavour, but I'm not sure about the others. It's possible that the pink ones are strawberry.

They're handmade and will vary a bit, but for the most part they're light and crispy rice cookies with a thin wafery outside and a chewy interior, sometimes with honey. Watch out if you don't eat animal products, though! I'm almost completely sure they're made with gelatin. You can snag a bag for less than one U.S. dollar, and sometimes vendors will give you some for free (as with all rice snacks). Do keep in mind, though, that the chances that certain things contain equal amounts of wheat and rice flours are quite high, and the chances of cross-contamination at some point along the supply chain are high. Even if you have a native Korean speaker helping you and they say, "She says it's only made with rice flour, nothing else", there's still a good chance that this has occurred. Many of these options should be viable, but don't get too excited and go overboard before you know what works for you!

A fruit stand (er, truck) outside Namdaemun Market's
busiest subway exit.

In some places you can find fresh fruit kebabs, usually made with pineapple, watermelon, and honeydew. Bananas and oranges are also very common in Korea, though apples are a little more expensive. Once I even found a vendor selling strawberry, apple and grape kebabs dipped in the transparent red sugar candy that hardens into a shell - like the kind sometimes used for candied apples on Halloween - for less than a dollar apiece.

In addition to those candies, there are traditional Korean sugar candies that come in a variety of fun shapes and sizes, including the occasional foot-tall Gundam-esque robot. These are hard, darkish yellow and sort of transparent. Individually-wrapped candies like Bit 'o Honey and Chupa Chups are also quite common and popular.

These lightly-fried fish-shaped cakes filled with red bean
 are also popular in Japan. I couldn't help myself -_-

For those who are vegetarian but don't want or need to avoid gluten, well, there are doughnuts, pastries, breads, noodles and all sorts of carb-a-licious goodies everywhere! There are also these wonderful things called tornado potatoes that are whole potatoes cut into a ribbon and skewered, then brushed lightly with batter (though not always, they're sometimes batter-free!) before being deep-fried. 
The fryer oil in Korea isn't usually vegetarian because it's shared with chicken, calamari and whatever else people are serving side-by-side, but the Swirly Potato Man I know and love only makes one thing with his fryer. They're slightly crispy on the outside and still soft on the inside, and there are little trays of seasoning in flavours like chili, cheese and onion that you can roll your fresh fried snack in (if you needn't avoid wheat!) as you please. It's awesome.

Mmm, warm fried potato snacks make everything better.

Beginners' Tips for Selling (and Making a Profit) on eBay

I've noticed that most people, for some reason, think selling on eBay is complicated and more trouble than it's worth. This is most assuredly untrue. With some dedication, focus, and - most importantly - desirable items that fall into a decent price range, it's not difficult to start a small business from home that easily has the potential to be more profitable than a minimum-wage part-time job. 


Start out by following this simple instructions and tips and you might be surprised by how enjoyable it can be, too. :D

Step One: Figure Out What to Sell

Sounds basic, I know, but many people don't have any kind of an eye for what's valuable and what isn't. Even if you do, sometimes there is no apparent rhyme or reason to the Internet and its highly variable swarms of bargain-savvy office chair shoppers. Not setting yourself up for disappointment and non-profit is something I'll cover a couple of steps from now.

What you want to do is cruise eBay for a while, searching for everything you can conceive of wanting to sell, and see how much said things are selling for. Remember not to sell things just because you like them unless they're in demand. Where you acquire your stock is also at your discretion: your attic, basement, thrift stores,  estate and garage sales, other online auctions and clearance racks are all good bets.

List prices aren't important; the number of bids on similar items and their final sale prices are the true indicators of how desirable and valuable they are. The number of feedback ratings a seller has is also telling: how successful have they been at moving items like these?

Finally, you may want to try selling an assortment of different items at first just to test the waters, but if you're choosing what to list (as opposed to just getting rid of what you've already got), it's better to specialize in one type of thing or a few similar things. That way, people will remember you for a certain product and come back knowing what to expect.

Step Two: How Not To Lose Your Ass

This is probably the most important part: the most basic ways to avoid losing money.

Before you even price your item or calculate the cost of shipping it, there are a few things of which you should be aware. eBay collects a number of different fees from listings in addition to a commission on the final sale price of your item. Be sure to list your item under only one category, the most accurate one possible. 

Listing a sweater, for example, under "Women's Clothing >> Tops and Blouses" and "Clothing and Accessories >> Vintage >> Punk, New Wave 1979 - 1989" is completely unnecessary and  redundant and will cost you something like 15 cents. 

Each picture you add in addition to the first one will also cost 15 cents. Only add additional pictures for higher-quality and more expensive items you want to present in a more professional manner and on which you want to show more details. When I want to show multiple angles I've deemed necessary on something like a basic vintage article of clothing I just smash two or three photos together using MS Paint. That's right, nothing fancy here! Just be sure they're nice, clear images - more on that later.

Adding something like a subheading to your item listing also costs money, so avoid this frivolities altogether. Everyone gets 50 free listings per month and I take full advantage of mine. After that, the insertion fee is 25 cents. If you're listing, say, 30 items beyond the free ones and you have 3 pictures for each of them (none of which are on special and free), you'll pay $21.00 just to put them up without any guarantee they'll sell. Totally unnecessary. Only do this if one dollar per item is irrelevant to your anticipated profit margin. Always consider the final commission eBay will take and even the small fees PayPal collects from your transactions when listing and pricing smaller items.

Lastly, beware Free Shipping and the $0.99 Auction. Don't assume something is going to sell for close to what you want for it if you list it for a starting price of only 99 cents. In some cases people will scramble for the item and bid it higher than the normal price you might have listed it for originally because many more people will see it and get more competitive when bidding, but this definitely isn't something on which you can rely. Don't list your item at an unrealistically high price but don't be afraid to list it for a retail-level value, either.

Also, only offer to ship something for free if you know it's hardly going to cost anything. Jewelry, for example, is the epitome of this tactic. Even when I see something with no additional shipping cost I instantly find it more appealing.

Step Three: How to Ship Things

I've noticed that people feel the same way about the post office not only as they do about eBay, but also about how things like computers and jet engines work: it's some sort of complicated, magic infrastructure, process or technology beyond their capacity to understand. Well, that's obviously not true. It's not intimidating, it's just mailing stuff.

First and foremost is the issue of shipping supplies. I sell a wide variety of items online and I therefore need boxes and bubble mailers of all different sizes. I also do a considerable amount of my very limited shopping online, so I just recycle almost all of the packaging that stuff comes in. No one cares as long as the old information is covered up. Just peel off the stickers that will come off fairly easily and and tape a piece of paper with the address written on it over the others , or put the sticker available for you to instantly print over them in the same fashion. Buying envelopes and things isn't necessary, and it's far from environmentally sound when they're only being used once. Stalk places such as your office for them instead. And yes, I do condone taking things - especially from abstract and/or corporate entities - that no one will miss. Packing tape is kind of expensive. No, ma'am, I have no idea where those extra rolls of it went.

You can also use the Flat Rate Priority Mail boxes and envelopes available at the post office to ship things. In the case of a coat, for example, the flat, long, $11 (the prices fluctuate a bit) Medium-Sized Box is definitely the cheapest way to ship it anyhow because of its bulk and weight. 

I simply guess how much things will be to ship - even items I'm shipping internationally - because I now have a good idea of how much it will cost after selling online regularly for over 4 years. I've only ever screwed up and underestimated cost a few times, though doing things willy-nilly like that is obviously bad business sense in the first place, if you're taking this seriously. Just remember to ship everything in the most secure, compact way possible. For example, I recently folded up a vintage romper and wrapped it in brown paper (also a wonderful, readily-available type of free packaging material) to ship it because I'd made no profit on it. I wouldn't call that winning, per se, but the fact that is was the size of a fat drink coaster did help.

 Step Four: Creating Appealing Listings

Now that you've stocked your items and shipping supplies, you'll want to make sure your listings look good. Why even bother if you're going to take crappy pictures? Find a way to take pictures with an all-white or otherwise empty and clean-looking background. Don't always use a camera's flash as it can look bad and misrepresent an item's colours. Do use image editing programs such as Picasa to brighten up your picture and generally make it look better, even if you're just hitting the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button and Instagrammifying it. This portion of the guide is easier for those with good aesthetic senses, of course, but it's still pretty simple and essential.

And, last but not least, don't give your item a stupid name no one's going to see. Cram as many (accurate) key search words into the title as possible. I've seen items with sentences for titles. What is that? I don't even. Just stick to the essentials! If you run out of room, decide which words are the most important and substitute lesser ones, even if the title makes a little less sense grammatically.

So there you have it.

Selling online is really pretty easy and straightforward. Probably the hardest part of all this is figuring how much it costs to ship things, and even then you can go to the post office and ask them hypothetical questions using various zip codes and items of different sizes and weights in different types of packaging. But don't be annoying and ask too many questions, in case your local postal workers are the famously disgruntled kind. Happy selling!

(Originally published 2.23.12)

Gluten-Free, Vegetarian Recipe: Stuffed Bell Peppers

You know how things like pasta, omelettes and baked potatoes can be used as a base for random but delicious concoctions made of leftover bits and pieces? Well, apparently stuffed peppers are the same way.

I used what I had on hand for these after getting inspiration from a couple of different recipes, and they turned out awesome. They're also super healthy. This easily made enough for 4 and perhaps 6 bell pepper halves. Here's what I ended up using:

- 2 red bell peppers
- 1/2 cup of (uncooked) quinoa 
- 1 13.5 oz. can of cooked spinach
- 1 15 oz. can of black beans
- 2 small-medium tomatoes
- Approx. 1/4 cup diced roasted poblano peppers
- Approx. 1 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend
- 1 cup (organic low-sodium) vegetable broth + 1/2 cup water
- Garlic and cumin powders to taste
- A few tablespoons of (garlic and rosemary-infused) olive oil

First, rinse and drain all of your veggies and the quinoa. Dice the tomatoes and process any other vegetables you're using. This includes slicing the peppers in half (retaining the stems for presentation) and hollowing them out.

Swirl your olive oil around in a saucepan over medium heat and sautee fresh minced garlic, onions, and any other veggies you may be using that need extra cooking time. If you're not using anything I didn't, simply toss in the quinoa when it's been thoroughly drained, along with the garlic and cumin powders, and stir.

Drain the black beans and be sure to drain the canned spinach well. Add these, the tomatoes, peppers, any other veggies you're using, the water and vegetable broth. Stir well, cover and let simmer over a low heat until the quinoa has absorbed all the liquid.

Preheat your oven to 350. Stir the cheese into the veggie-quinoa filling and generously stuff your bell pepper halves. Careful while holding them: they're not going to protect your hands from the hot filling. 

Place them onto a roasting or baking pan and fill it with water, about halfway up the sides of the peppers. Bake for 1 hour. Sprinkle with more cheese, green onions, salt, etc. before serving. 

I served mine with boiled fingerling potatoes with a little melted butter and garlic salt. -drool-

(Originally published 3.21.12)

Bad But Popular Book Review: Fifty Shades of Grey

Captain's log: 1:12 A.M. Finally decided to read 50 Shades while drunk because I'd be more forgiving, and because it's already here. Time for a leisurely bath. 

Chapter 1. Immediately realise than any moderately clever dialogue is going to be subsequently explained and thereby deflated. Just plow through it.

Chapter 5. Lots of cumbersome five-cent vocabulary words that don't serve to express anything more acutely; mental tweaking not entirely unlike peer-editing editing a college English paper. 

So far, two details taken directly from Pretty Woman. The next time I come across an italicised George Takei "Oh my..." or completely unconvincing "Wow" I'm going to start doing shots for every one I see and inevitably be violently ill. Initiate softcore sequences. Craving scrambled eggs.

Charlie Tango! Who's he?

Captain's log: 2:26 A.M. Chapter 6. Mediocre, naive and constantly mumbling main character finds shaving her legs and plucking her eyebrows - "what men expect these days" - very unpleasant. Swarthy fangirls identify and unite. Never read Twilight and never will, but feel pretty confident that Ana is Bella. There's even a good-looking Hispanic guy competing with the pale mysterious one. Not yet sure if Grey sparkles. Kristen Stewart a shoe-in for the movie. Not sure if Ana's mouth is constantly agape and her expression always profoundly blank during her constant nervous lip biting, though; further reading required. 

Chapter 8. Bondage and domination for dummies. Thoroughly disappointed by Christian Grey's hard limits - which encompass everything "hard" - but somewhat amused by the idea that he's just going to be a bit rough in bed and tell Ana how to live her life. 

Just learned it's possible to orgasm from having your nipples played with if you're a hopelessly romantic celibate. Bored by the lack of interesting and prolonged foreplay and with the myth that penetration alone is exhilarating and orgasmic, but willing to concede the convenient hypersensitivity. Hoping Ana yells "Cacao!" at some point.

Headache setting in; chocolate milk not helping. Don't feel like making eggs. Will resume tomorrow.

Captain's log. It's now a couple of days and a bottle of wine later. I sigh and wince slightly as I pick up the borrowed tablet and open the Kindle app, knowing I'm not really drunk enough for this and having slipped into a more traditional narrative style and subsequently explained myself as a mockery of this drivel.

11:48 P.M.: Chapter 10. Had difficulty spelling "chapter", but still not drunk enough. Every paragraph is a struggle. Morale is low. Sentences that end with prepositions, irritating personifications of Ana's subconscious as her "inner goddess" appearing with alarming frequency. Would literally die from alcohol poisoning in a few hours if the "Oh my/Wow" drinking game were to go into effect. Picturing Grey as 27 year-old James Spader the only thing saving this S&M-for-astoundingly-bland-dummies endeavour.

Also, what the hell kind of English lit major who has a job, presumably got a scholarship because of her GPA and general lack of a life (in this case) who also has a rich roommate and as a result pays "peanuts" for rent doesn't own a computer for all the research, reading and paper-writing her classes require? Right - the same kind who has also never dated, masturbated or looked at porn. 

Chapter 11. Scoffed earlier at the thought that nipple clamps probably wouldn't even appear, but lo and behold, the full contract gives me hope. Anal fisting? Might be able to finish reading if it finally gets legitimately kinky, but suspect the author is tenuously stringing me along.

'50 Shades of Grey' Book Brings Record Sales For Nipple Clamps

Chapter 17. Correction: someone who has never dated, never masturbated, never watched porn, never had sex, doesn't own a computer or even have an e-mail address, and who has never been hit. Starting to wonder if this blank slate protagonist was constructed to make readers fell less naive. 

Captain's log: the following night. Obama has just won re-election, praise logic and progress, and I've made myself a celebratory dessert cocktail with the tiny amount of Irish Cream I had left, Chocolate Whipped Vodka, a little Hershey's syrup, and milk. Hopefully the elation is a good substitute for the dwindling liquor supply... 
As Christian Grey will probably say at some point, "I'm going in dry".

2:24 A.M., Chapter 20. Kinkiness level increasing slightly. This novel isn't absolutely unforgivably terrible, but it still reads like a drawn-out fanfic (and manual for how to spice up a painfully insipid sex life). Yes, I know how a good fanfic reads, because I was once aged 11 - 13 and spent a lot of time browsing anime fans' Geocities sites. Heard it was conceived in actual fanfic form on a Twilight forum; wouldn't be surprised if this were true.

Struggling to find sympathy for Christian now that I've been introduced to his very contrived soap opera-esque early childhood issues. Just kidding, not struggling at all.

3:30 A.M., Chapter 24. Keep checking Facebook and doing other things; easy but not engaging read. Might go back to another weird and equally impossible love story, Vanna Bonta's Flight.

Captain's log: 2:47 A.M., the following night. Finally finished the last three chapters. Not sure why women feel compelled to fix and change men for the better; classic first-timer mistake. 

You know the ones. Not even kidding, until I Googled
it after mentioning it, I had no idea Fabio acually got
his start posing for these.
Source: Official Fabio Book Covers Page

This book wasn't as frightfully bad as I expected it to be, but as I said, it's basically a long fanfic imho. That the trilogy's cover design is sleek, sophisticated and monochromatic is a great marketing tactic and a nice upgrade from those cheesy painted softcore fantasy romance novel cover scenes with a shirtless guy who looks like Fabio holding a beautiful woman in a billowing gown as they stand on a cliff with their luxurious hair being tousled dramatically in the wind. 

As far as E.L. James writing style goes, well, I've already complained about her supererogatory use of not-entirely appropriate or fitting words, her random peppering of them throughout her mildly salacious, otherwise high school-level writing. It's obnoxious and distracting, and teachers who notice that students have done the same thing with colourful selections from the classroom thesaurus tend to mark them down for it when they've gotten this overambitious. 

Something that also bothers me is her descriptive inability. I'm not sure if the constant "Wow"s, "HOT"s, "Oh my..."s, etc. are actually her weak writing or a condescending jab at the people eating it up, like she knows she doesn't have to try very hard. Contributing to this is the fact that her narrative style doesn't change to give a unique voice to each character; they all speak in her writing. What average 20-something actually, excitedly says, "I'm so pleased to see you," in a casual situation?

There were much better examples, but none come to mind at the moment. Grey's cold, curt, formal style and Ana's mimicry of it is one thing, but the only time the author uses any realistic colloquialisms ("Jeez", "Shit!", etc.) is when Ana is thinking or being fucked. I guess I could also say that they appear in the e-mails and with Kate, but the point is that the dialogue is just... bad. 

Additionally, her characters obviously don't have much depth. A dark, brooding, mysterious man sorrowfully playing the piano is just such a cliche. All Grey kept bringing to mind for me was Richard Gere in Pretty Woman blended with James Spader in Secretary, and if I'd ever seen Twilight, I'd probably throw Rob Pattinson in there, too. 

Suck it, Grey, even if you end up being Jake Gyllenhaal and bringing this reference full-circle.

You know, I think I'm right about that condescending jab thing. It seems reasonable to infer that James has a sadistic streak and is laughing all the way to the bank at the droves of women who have been so easily and powerfully influenced by something so stupid, who thank her profusely for enlightening them about the joys of the blindfolds, ice cubes, and toy handcuffs that have saved their marriages. Maybe she is just a crappy dated romance writer and I'm giving her too much credit, but if not, this craze more so than the many before it and the many that will unfortunately follow is a sobering metaphor about the nature of consumerism, is it not?

Well anyway, speaking of Secretary, from the very beginning I thought, "I wish I had it so I could just watch it instead", and that's still how I feel. Everything about this novel reeked of the author having done the bare minimum to churn out a product. So... I guess she nailed it.   

The origin of "50 Shades of Derp", a much more fitting title.

(Originally published 11.8.12)

8 Reasons Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a Badass

It was a few years ago that I learned of the existence of the world's most-loved astrophysicist, while watching a show about the official demoting of Pluto as a planet on the Science Channel. He described with much verve the hate mail the Hayden Planetarium had been receiving from insulted children who'd whipped out their blue and purple crayons to illustrate the body in question and argue for its legitimacy, just in case he wasn't sure which one it was. 

The man is brilliant, charismatic and a passionate educator who's been making science popular and cool for years. A badass, basically. Don't believe me? Well, here are a few reasons why he deserves your attention.

8. He has an awesome funky collection of space ties and vests.

There's even a small Tumblr dedicated to them. 



7. He holds 12 honorary doctorates

in addition to the one he earned at Columbia. You can check out some of his other accomplishments here.




6. People voted him the world's sexiest astrophysicist back in 2000.

It's just a snippet, but I feel fairly certain this category was invented for him.



5. He did ballet in college.

And, according to Wiki, in 1985 he won a gold medal at a national tournament in International Latin Ballroom style dancing.

If this old photo that popped up on Reddit a while back is what he looked like while doing it, too, then it's no wonder People invented a sexy category just for him.






4. He believes in treating animals with kindness and respect.

While he's not a vegetarian, he also wants his body to be buried rather than burned so that the energy and nutrients it contains can be reabsorbed back into the ecosystem. 

I don't have any respect for PETA as an organisation, but it's still good to get peoples' attention this way. You can read more about the PSA on Huff Post.





3. Carl Sagan's Cosmos is returning, with him as its new host.

Well, eventually. 2014's the word now.

Carl Sagan had a huge impact on Tyson - who actually knew him - and I'm sure it was the same with every young scientist he met. Let's hope the new show goes on more or less indefinitely like it's supposed to and doesn't get pulled by Fox after one season.

2. He has explained how and why religion and creationism erode progress.

1. His meme confirms his unequivocal badassery.

His is one of the most flattering memes imho, though I'm sure he could probably be The Most Interesting Man in the World if the spot wasn't already taken. 

The image for the meme is a screenshot of an educational interview in which he was talking about Sir Isaac Newton and how amazing he was. I don't always teach people about how the universe works, but when I do, it's hilarious and entertaining. 

(Originally published 2.28.12)