Thanksgiving

Turkey

I still do not understand what exactly about this obnoxious bird appears to so many people. Perhaps if Franklin's famous proposal had made the turkey our national bird I might understand the association of the beast with our national culture, but for want of such a status the turkey seems to have been elevated to its current post by luck alone. 

I do not even understand why we must continue eating the creature. It is at best dry and flavorless, but we continue to consume it each Thanksgiving in a misguided effort to emulate our forefathers. Simply comparing it to other poultry should reveal why there is no justification for eating it.

Chicken:

• Common, leading to many recipes/methods of preparation from around the world
• Easy to prepare
• Healthy
• Flavorful (after all, we judge all white meat by chicken's standard)

Quail:

• Fancy
• Unique
• Great Scrabble word

Turkey

• Large (?, might not even be a benefit)

Let's say that you decide not to eat turkey (understandable) but still feel like they might have some worth as a live animal (not so much). Let's take a look at the bird to discover why this position is so utterly wrong:

(photo credit Lara Danielle)

Note how it seems to combine the worst features of lichen on a decaying tree stump, a quadruple chin, and a color scheme chosen by a monkey throwing darts at a color wheel (how else would one chance upon the truly unique combination of bright blue, deep red, and the spectrum of colors from dark brown to ash to white of a burning log?) It is not majestic like an eagle, nor is it beautiful like the bluejay, but rather it has all of the visual appeal of a legged cube with arbitrary chisel marks carved into it.

And even if we ignore the obvious lack of visual appeal, we must also note that the animal is entirely useless. Songbirds brighten days with their lovely calls, owls kill rodents and otherwise keep our homes clear of pests, but the turkey serves no useful function. Other than targets for hunters I can imagine no beneficial role played by the turkey. And even then their function seems entirely unnessecary; I defy anyone to compare the taste of venison or wild boar favorably with that of the lowly and tasteless turkey.


I hate turkeys. They are the worst food and the worst bird. Don't even get me started on

Sleep

Because I tend to publish when I walk in to class, this may not be evident, but I am currently writing this post at a time at which no human should be awake for any reason other than a fire alarm. This would not be a problem, of course, if sleep did not insist on wasting so much of our time.

I will admit to enjoying sleep. I am, after all, human, and to claim to derive no enjoyment from sleep would be an absurdity of the highest order. And yet I do not like sleep in concept. The issue is not with the action itself, but rather that I need to do it. If sleep were entirely optional, it would be much easier to get enough work done during the day. 

But sleep still insists on stealing fully 1/3 of our lives from us. We do not yet know what sleep does for us and nonetheless it persists in robbing us of time on a (hopefully, for health's sake) daily basis. 

Sleep is truly terrible. I hate it (need it though I do). Don't even get me started on

Lessons of a Halloween Costume

Pockets

I don't hate pockets. That would be absurd. Pockets are probably one of the greatest inventions in the history of clothing, after clothing and the red fuzzy hat.

My problem is that no one understands how to make pockets.


For reference, this (at least the top pockets) is what pockets should look like (photo credit DPoPhoto). Note the angle, which faces outwards to allow the hands to enter them easily and withdraw objects without difficulty. Moreover, note how they are placed close to the side of the pants, allowing the pocket to hold many items without interfering too greatly with walking.

The costume I wore most of the day yesterday necessitated my buying of a new pair of jeans for the first time in some time (as I do not usually wear jeans) and I did so operating under the assumption that the pockets would be the same sort of pockets as shown in the picture above.

You can imagine my disgust, then, when I discovered that the pockets were vertical.

I do not know who started this trend or why, but I am greatly disappointed in them. Vertical pockets are next to useless. The are difficult to reach into, requiring near-gymnastic maneuvers for those of us with long arms to reach into them. Moreover, their contents press against the foreleg, impeding walking and generally causing discomfort.

And yet, a flickr search revealed that this seems to be the norm amongst jeans. Why would the makers of pants decide to punish us like this? It is an unreasonable design choice and yet it persists.

There is, unfortunately, an even more egregious design flaw in the current pants industry that seems even more widespread and worse than misoriented pockets: pants with no pockets whatsoever (or only token pockets).

There are perfectly good reasons for having many or few pockets on a pair of pants. Which is in fashion changes frequently, and having additional storage space is sometimes important even when multi-pocketed pants are out of style.

But why have zero pockets? I can't think of anyone that has neither a phone nor a wallet that they need to carry around, let alone a key to a dorm room. And of course it is possible to carry a purse or satchel, but that is not always practical. An item might get lost in a purse, or a bag of any kind might not be able to be carried in a given area. And yet pants continue to be made without pockets to the detriment of everyone.

I find myself wanting for an explanation for this bizarre phenomenon. After considerable racking of my brain the only answer that seemed apparent was some sort of conspiracy between the designers of purses and those of pants. Or, perhaps, the fact that seemingly idiotproof pockets could be ruined proves the old adage: "No matter how well you idiot-proof something, Nature will invent a better idiot".

I hate poorly made pockets. I truly despise them. Don't even get me started on