Glimmerville » silly

30Characters – #3: Gear Farmer

Rachel Ross — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 03:03:38 +0000

Looks like this crop ‘o gears is just about ready!

#2 – Sharkguin!

Rachel Ross — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 02:12:02 +0000

Working on the 30 Characters challenge, this one is just quick and silly.

Sharkguin never knows which side he’s on and who to eat.

Tiny pre-update: Zubbles

Rachel Ross — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:09:26 +0000

I’ve been watching this product called Zubbles with half an eye, since about 2005, because bubbles are one of the whimiscal things I find fascinating and dear.

FINALLY they have come to market, with a “Buy” button and everything. ( Thanks to Elly and Natalie for pointing them out to me. )

So, of course, I hit aforementioned Buy button. They cost at least an arm, if not an additional leg. The story is that the inventor spent $3 million developing them!

Further updates as Zubbles warrant. Hopefully with photos!

I feel pretty gleeful at the moment. Tonight is craft night, so hopefully I will have more art to post later.

(Pseudo) Mad (Botanical) Science

Rachel Ross — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:09:44 +0000

I am playing a “Mad Botanist” in the Spirit of the Century game at International House of Johnson. So, since I had some Miracle Fruit tablets hanging around, waiting for me to try them, I decided I would bring them to Game Night Certainly “flavor tripping” ranks fairly high on the mad science scale.

Miracle fruit is a small bland red berry that is incredibly perishable and therefore hardly ever seen around here. It contains a chemical aptly named “miraculin” that, when eaten, alters taste perceptions (for about a half hour), making anything sour seem sweet. Since the berry is so perishable and unavailable, I bought tablets of freeze-dried fruit instead. Available at your friendly neighborhood ThinkGeek.com

I searched the internet for some sour foods other people had enjoyed with the berry, and came up with this list: lemons, limes, grapefruit, sour cream, and hot sauce. Kris added apple cider vinegar to the list. To up the mad science quotient, I displayed the cut fruits in my “Radioactive” plastic food containers. (Playing a mad plant scientist wasn’t that far a stretch.)

Miracle Fruit & etc.

Laura, Gunnar and I each ate a chunk of lemon as the control, then began letting a miracle fruit tablet dissolve in our mouth. The miracle fruit tablet wasn’t that great, but you had to hold it in your mouth and allow it to dissolve completely, and covering as much of your tongue (taste buds) as possible, to get the maximum result. Gunnar pointed out that they tasted a bit like haw flakes (and I agree. It also left a little lingering sweet sensation, like stevia.). Laura was the first to finish her tablet, and took a chunk of lemon. To her (and my) delight, it was now as sweet as an orange – just as advertised!

We stood around eating lemons and grapefruit (the lime was not as popular, though I found it ok; the lemon was better to me, and the grapefruit was better to Laura). Kris and Gus both joined in at this point. I opened the sour cream. A spoonful of sour cream tasted like cream cheese – so then we ate some sour cream, along with the fruit, which was a great dessert combination. Gunnar broke out the vinegar, which was somewhat mild, but still not extremely pleasant. I tried the hot sauce, but didn’t notice any obvious flavor difference.

Dave wouldn’t try the tablet, due to the mysterious Chinese packaging – not even when I pointed out to him that the label reassuringly said “no known adverse side effects“. No I was not cackling maniacally at the time, either, I might add. Your loss, Dave!

The flavor alteration did last about a half an hour, I think. It was best if you put the food in the same area of your tongue that had held the berry the longest (the front of the tongue, more or less). By the time the spoonful of vinegar, etc. got to the back of the palate it returned to being unaltered and astringent.

All in all it was very fun! Some of the online reports I read of people ravaging through cupboards to test random things and decreeing that the miracle berry had changed their life… well it was nothing like that, but it was fun, hey!

I definitely plan to do it again. I read somewhere that in Japan someone had added a gene to lettuce so that lettuce would express miraculin (actually that’s in the wikipedia article if you read it). So maybe when that hits the market…

After all of that we had cupcakes, candy Dave brought back from the UK, and went on to encounter some Samurai warriors in 192- New York. It was, all in all, a very good evening. (Not counting the injuries sustained by Someone who was attempting to bound from the tops of train car to train car, on a moving train, without having taken any points in athletics.)

Art Without Words

Rachel Ross — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:15:37 +0000

I have decided I’m going to try to post more art here (as you can see from this week) even when I can’t come up with any great text to go with it (which is often).

I went (as chaperone) to a youth Bible conference yesterday – I’ll give a synopsis later. It was extremely convicting. We even (without planning) had the same message in church today! (Romans 12:1-2)

But for now I’ll just post some silly art. You will have noticed by now that if I’m not actually making an effort, everything I sketch ends up facing the same way. (And starting at the right since I’m left handed.)

Sleepless in Ohio

Rachel Ross — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:27:26 +0000

This Friday is the “All Nighter” that happens once a year, with area teens (around 450 of them!) who come for a night of sports, evangelism, and lots more sports. This will be my third year of being a leader/chaperone-type-person there.

Anyone have any good tips on how to stay up all night and semi-enjoy it? (No playing WoW is not an option – but bringing those energy potions is.)

: Mana Energy Potions

Main suggestions include energy drinks & eating chocolate covered coffee beans.

Will sleeping a lot this week let me store up for the overnighter? Does sleep work that way, even?

Tips and random blathering appreciated!

Perfect for the Coming Apocalypse

Rachel Ross — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:55:47 +0000

I don't think they'll last that long.

Apparently this is the perfect food for the coming apocalypse, with a shelf life of 1000 years…
Or maybe a typo.