LSNED

For most people, including myself, the process of eating a chicken wing was not pretty. Nibbling, gnawing and doing whatever it takes to get your 25 cents worth of honey-glazed nourishment. Well I just learned an amazingly efficient method to eat a chicken wing, that I’d love to share with you for “casual Friday”.

Note to my vegetarian readers: If you’re less than excited about this new and improved way to devour animals, may I direct your attention to my previous posts on how to cut an onion without crying, or how to saute mushrooms like a pro.

Now, there are two types of chicken wings. There’s the “drumette” bit which looks like a small drumstick. That would be the upper arm of the chicken. Today we are dealing with only the mid-section of the wing that has two parallel bones. (the third section, the tip, is rarely served with a wing platter because it doesn’t have much meat on it)

Step one: Locate the nubby end of the wing with the exposed cartilage and protruding bones. This would have been the chicken elbow. You want to tear that end off the wing to expose the ends of the bones. The guy I learned this from eats that bit, but remember, elbows are gross.

Step two: Grab the end of the little bone, and pull and wiggle it away from the bigger bone. This loosens the connection on the other end of the wing, so the little bone should be able to slide right out cleanly. If the wing is properly cooked, the bone should come right out all naked.

Step three: Grab the remaining bigger bone, holding the other end of the wing with the other hand, and twist the bone so it also detaches and gently slide it out. Again, it should come out clean.

Step four: You’re left with a completely boneless wing. Dip it once, and pop the whole thing in your mouth. Or, if you’re more dainty, make it a two-bite affair. Either way, you can enjoy it thoroughly without looking like a hungry squirrel.

• Source: http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2009/10/making-world-better-place-one-chicken.html (with a video if you want to see it in action)

Closing out the first ever theme week on the topic of deception, here’s a little do-it-yourself deceit lesson. Of course, it comes with the disclaimer that this is in the interest of protecting yourself from cheats, not to inflict it upon others… promise?

So you find yourself playing poker with your grandma and your uncle. As you give ‘em the ol’ steely-eyed gaze you realize they are pretty lax about standard card table procedure. Those procedures, such as cutting the deck before dealing, that are in place to prevent cheating. As grandma goes to check on the casserole again during the deal, you decide her and uncle Max are ripe for a fleecing.

There are countless ways to cheat in a casual home game of cards. Dealing cards from the bottom of the deck is handy, but takes years of practice. Here’s one trick you can use that doesn’t take much skill… just guts. In the cardsharp lingo it’s called holding out. It is the real life “ace up the sleeve”, except sleeves are not very practical.

We’ll assume your playing some sort of draw poker, wherein you are holding a five-card hand. (while Texas Hold’em is the popular game these days, it’s harder to cheat when you only get two cards, and they generally stay on the table) So, your first hand is nothing special, but it does contain an ace. You wanna keep that. Bring that ace to the face of your packet, and as you casually wait for your turn, the hand holding the cards naturally comes near the table edge, and subtly thumbs the ace off to fall into your lap. Obviously, make sure nobody can see in your lap.

When it comes your turn to fold, you toss the four remaining cards onto the table. Ideally, you can aim for another folded packet so the cards mix, obscuring their numbers. Now you are holding out an ace. In the action of adjusting your chair, you can tuck it under your leg for long term storage. Later on you will hopefully find yourself with one or two other aces in your freshly dealt hand and it may be a good time to ring in your secret ace.

One hand goes south to retrieve the ace, and as you transfer your packet of cards from one hand to another (near the table edge) the card gets added. You can then ditch the un-wanted sixth card using the same drop-in-the-lap move as before. (and remember what that card is for the next time!)

So it’s not a tricky move, but you want to get the timing right. A fun, casual game is full of distraction. Somebody is digging in the chip bowl, a person walks by to chat, the casserole is burning. Like a ninja, use these to your advantage. Grandma had it coming to her anyways.

• Source: the book “How To Cheat Your Friends At Poker” (at least I think this trick is in there… it’s a fun book either way)

I’m a bit of a schoolmarm when it comes to word usage. I don’t get upset or annoyed by improper use but, as evidenced by my discovery about mispronouncing ‘often’, I do my best to keep my words in order. Here’s a few more common errors made with words…

everyday or every day: I see this one all the time in my blog statistics as people search for “learn something new everyday” (the more common, but incorrect, word choice). Every day means something that happens continuously each day. Everyday, on the other hand, does not refer to frequency, but rather something that is common. Think “everyday people”, or “everyday clothes”.

Ninja letters: I also try to keep my eye out for letters lurking in the dark. Words like library, Wednesday, and February have those tricky little bumps that really ought to be enunciated.

it’s or its: You can go back over this blog and surely find multiple mess-ups on this one. I often get mixed up between its and it’s. We’re used to writing “the dog’s ball”, where the apostrophe signifies the ball belongs to the dog. However, it’s incorrect to write “the dog is brown, it’s ball is red.” The only time you can use it’s is as a contraction of it is. All other times, use plain old its.

there, their, and they’re: Another little detail that often gets mixed up is these three homonyms. There refers to the location, their is a matter of belonging, and they’re is a contraction of they are. I’m pretty good about keeping them straight, but I’m terrible about spelling their correctly. I always get mixed up by possibly the worst “rule” of the english language; “I before E except after C”.

(for the record, here’s a few other common “jail words”, as my grade two teacher would say: beige, conscience, deity, dreidel, eight, either, feign, feint, feisty, foreign, forfeit, freight, heifer, heigh-ho, height, heinous, heir, heist, neighbour, neither, rein, science, seismic, seize, sheik, society, sovereign, veil, vein, weight, weir)

I don’t mean to sound like a nit-picky grump. Its no big deal, as their are people making these mistakes pretty much everyday. Even on wendsdays at the libary. But if you do catch yourself, now you can make an effort to fix it.

• Source: Just me. My grade two teacher would put rule-breaking words inside a little birdcage… I guess the lesson stuck.

Tomorrow morning I vanish off the face of the earth, technologically speaking, for eight days. I’m leaving and I’ll be totally un-wired. I was planning on writing eight extra LSNED facts this weekend, and scheduling them to trickle out while I was gone. Eight. That’s a lot. Each one takes over an hour to uncover, research, write, and illustrate. I worried about it. I hated the thought of a lapse in my once-a-day continuity (this post marks 70 days without a hiccup). Surely I’d be letting down my readers. As the weekend arrived, the task grew from a worry to a stress.

Just now, at the moment I began writing this, I freed myself from that un-fun, stressful task simply… with a shrug. Here’s some suggestions that may help you de-stress your life.

#1 – Realize it probably doesn’t matter. The majority of what seems critically important today has a very short life span. It will dull by tomorrow, and by months end be a faded memory. My “legacy” of once-a-day-every-day posts, I realized, really only mattered to me. The rest of the world will be un-affected, if they even notice.

#2 – Play matters. Play often. I feel it’s very important for adults to do things that don’t matter at all, except that you enjoy doing them. The key is to release any feelings of guilt. As Dr. Stuart Brown explains in this video, play is vital, beneficial, and makes you smarter. Writing this blog is play, except when I feel “forced” to write eight posts in one day!

#3 – Shop less. Much stress is caused by the earn/spend life cycle. It’s very easy to buy things we don’t need, then spend more unnecessary time working to pay for those useless items. I know some people go shopping as a form of entertainment. Yikes! I personally have a wait-and-see tactic. If I feel the urge to buy something, I don’t give in then and there. I wait to see if I still want it next week, or next month. (this rule does not apply to chocolate bars)

#4 - Move slower. The most stressful part of rushing, for me, is that your mind is focused on where you intend to end up rather than where you are. The zen concept is “being in the moment”, and the folk version is “stopping to smell the flowers”. Take things slow and be mindful of what you’re doing. The insight that comes from that also helps you to discover certain tasks that may not really matter, as above. (I made the decision to not write those 8 posts while laying in a hammock)

#5 – Don’t worry, be happy. If a fish can learn to sing, dag nabbit you better listen! Don’t worry. Worry will never change anything. Either do something about it, or accept that the thing in question is beyond your control. There is never a good reason to worry. Be happy. Author Dan Millman says to practice unreasonable happiness, which is simply being happy without any particular reason. You and only you are 100% responsible for your mood.

I do appreciate all you folks who visit, read, and hopefully enjoy my blog.  I’ll be back again with fact-filled daily posts after my adventure. In the meantime, I encourage you to try applying some of these thoughts to your life. If you do run short on facts, be sure to check out any of the other 69 posts I’ve made around here.

• Source: cobbled from various collected wisdom and things that I at least try to practice in my daily life.

Much like the story on hammocks, I’ve put a lot of personal research time into this topic. I just hope you appreciate the result of my intensive studies into napping. Here we have a quick lesson on how you can boost your productivity, energy, and creativity with a mid-day nap.

Step 1: Don’t feel guilty. Napping has a bad stigma about it, that napping is for lazy people. The truth is many of the highest achieving individuals throughout history understood and appreciated the power of a good nap. Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and even the anything-but-lazy Lance Armstrong. NASA conducted a study on naps and concluded a 34% increase of performance, and 54% boost to alertness.

Step 2: Pick the right time. Generally, the best time is whenever you feel draggy, or over-loaded. However, you may want to avoid late-afternoon, as napping during this low part of our daily cycle may leave you feeling groggy for an extended time. You will wake up from any nap feeling a little out of it, but that will pass within ten minutes and you’ll end up with more energy than before.

Step 3: Find the right spot. You need to be undisturbed for the next little while, and it’s also best if you can turn off the lights. Darkness stimulates a sleep-inducing hormone.

Step 4: Choose the right length for your nap. Up to a point, the longer you nap, the more restorative benefits you can rack up. Here’s a guide to optimal napping times…

• 10  to 20 seconds – there is no benefit from nodding off, other than signaling that you should take a real nap!
• 2 to 5 minutes – a quick way to shake off the feeling of sleepiness.
• 5 to 20 minutes – increased alertness and ability to learn and perform motor skills.
• 20 minutes – lets your brain rest enough to improve memory and ability to learn new information.
• 50 to 90 minutes – you get in some deep sleep as well, allowing your whole body to rest and restore

So the ideal target is 15 to 20 minutes. Set an alarm and go for it. Albert Einstein would nap in his chair while holding a pencil. He would wake up when he naturally dropped the pencil, to ensure he didn’t fall into a deep sleep, then he went back to what he was working on with more alertness and energy… and boy did that guy know energy!

• Source: http://some-interesting-facts.blogspot.com/2008/04/10-benefits-of-power-napping-and-how-to.html

The fundamentals at work in any stringed instrument are rather simple. The only reason that a guitar might cost upwards of $500 bucks is because of its ability to produce a vibrant sound, its tonal vocabulary, and its aesthetic sensibilities. If we throw all such expectations out the window, we can make a perfectly acceptable instrument from junk found around the office.  Here’s what we need:

1. a rubber band, small to medium size.
2. any short solid object like a paperclip or pen cap that can fit across the bottom of…
3. a paper, plastic, or styrofoam cup.

The basic function of any musical instrument is to take a sound wave (vibration) and, assuming it’s not an electric instrument, use some acoustic amplification to make the sound audible to your adoring fans. The instrument we’re making today is modeled on the washtub bass, as seen in many jug bands.

Step 1: The cup will act as our resonating chamber to amplify the sound. Poke a small hole in the center of the bottom of the cup. (get mommy or daddy to help) It should be just big enough to poke one looped end of the rubber band through. The tighter fit, the better.

Step 2: Take your paperclip (or similar sized object) and slip it through the rubber band loop inside the cup. Pull the rubber band so the paperclip is held snug against the inside of the cup.

Step 3: With the bulk of the of rubber band hanging out the bottom of the cup, loop it over your thumb. Your other hand grips the cup tightly on the very edge around the bottom. Keep your fingers off the bottom and sides of the cup so as not to dampen the glorious sounds. Now stretch the rubber band tight between your thumb and the cup. (c’mon, tighter than that) With it looped over your thumb, that leaves your fingers free to pluck the rubber band. Stretching the band more or less will produce varying tones.

Step 4: Get down with your bad self.

Caution: This musical instrument does have a tendency to break and come zinging towards your eyeball. Especially during mad Elastiphone solos. Keep it pointed away from you and your bandmates.

• Source: Myself, discovered during the brief time I had a real honest-to-goodness office job

Preface: Up until this point I’ve been dishing up a fact-of-the-day. But straight-up facts is not all that LSNED is about. This marks the first post of a new category featuring “how-to” tutorials and lessons. They will still be quick, bite-sized and fun, and most importantly we’ll continue to Learn Something New Every Day!

I would love to be a better cook, but I really have no interest in recipes. I want to learn the skills to create impromptu culinary delights with whatever is on hand. A cup of practicality with a dash of creativity and voila… dinner. Here’s one of the fundamental cooking skills that will let you make pretty much any ingredient instantly delicious. Sauteing is all about cooking things quickly on high heat. The goal is to keep all the natural flavours and juices in the food. It works as well with meats as it does with veggies.

Step 1: Picking the right pan. The ideal saute pan is large, with a thick flat bottom. Thickness is important because even heat is critical. There can’t be hot spots in the pan. If you don’t have a fancy-schmansy saute pan, a thick (cast-iron) frying pan works well.

Step 2a: Pre-heating the pan. Before you put anything in the pan, you want to heat it up. Set it on the burner at medium-high heat and wait. Don’t rush this. Let the pan heat all over.

Step 2b: Cutting the ingredients. While the pan is heating, this is your chance to cut up your ingredients into equal-sized pieces so everything will cook at the same rate. Get everything set now, because once the cooking starts, you won’t have any more time.

Step 3: Add butter or oil. (butter can add more flavour, but oil is less likely to burn) Only after the pan is evenly heated, you add some butter. You don’t need a lot, but too little and your pan will dry out, depending on how much the ingredients soak up. (mushrooms are like little sponges!) The timing on this step is critical. Watch the butter. It will melt, then it will start to get foamy, and after a moment, it will begin to turn brown. That’s the signal to dump in your ingredients. If you don’t hit it right, the butter will burn, and you have to start over.

Step 4: Keep things moving. Stay focused on your saute pan. If you try to do two things at once, your food will burn quickly. Keep your ingredients moving around in the pan. Don’t use a fork, or you’ll let tasty juice leak out. There’s no set time for sauteing. Just watch, and keep stirring.

And that’s about it. It’s not a complicated technique, but the timing is critical. It goes pretty fast, so you can practice multiple times in the course of cooking one meal. Saute a bunch of different veggies, toss them in a wrap with some brown rice, and enjoy the natural flavours.

• Source: http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/saute.htm (well worth a read for the in-depth info)