Average conversation

Me: I want to make cinnamon rolls.
Penny: Cinnamon rolls are quite tasty.
Me: Mmhmm. I need to invest in a rolling pin, though.
Penny: They are handy things.
Me: For baking and use as a blunt object should zombies attack and you have not yet obtained a shotgun.
Penny: Of course.

This is an example of why we are friends.

7 Things I Learned This Week #14

1. When making cake balls, don't try making your own frosting. It won't be the right texture and will just screw everything up. Also, don't use black forest cake: it's too crum(b)y. Haha, see what I did there? Did you see? I made it a combination of "crumb" and "crummy."
I am so clever.
I need to get out more.
2. Charles Manson has three kids, two of which are also named Charles Manson. I wonder if their mothers regret any of their decisions, related or otherwise.
3. Hillary Duff wrote a novel...? It was released in October and came up in my Amazon recommendations. I think I need to retrain Amazon. Anyway, it is called Elixir, and a masochistic part of me kind of wants to see if I can find it at the library or something. (Oh my. I just found out she has an album called "Best of." If it is the best of something awful, it is still awful, right?)
4. I never would have thought I would post something about the Bears or the Packers, but this was actually mildly interesting: since they produce a bunch of championship merchandise for both teams before they know the outcome, half of the items they make are not okay to sell after the championship game. That extra merchandise winds up in third world countries. This I knew, but what I didn't know was that World Vision is the organization that is under contract to send that stuff overseas.
5. When you don't log on to Twitter for several months, they e-mail you to let you know they miss you and that you are missing out on the world around you since you don't have a 140-character tweet every few seconds to tell you what is important. I must be more lost than I thought.
6. The "beef" in Taco Bells tacos and burritos is only 36% beef. The rest of it is a combination of soy products, wheat products, and a mess of things I can't pronounce.
7. Thomas Jefferson thought the State of the Union as a speech was too monarchical, so he sent a letter to congress instead. Other presidents followed his example, Jimmy Carter being the last to do so.

7 Things I learned this week #13

1. Katzenjammer is the technical term for the "discomfort and illness experienced as the aftereffects of excessive drinking." (hint: that is a hangover)
2. Monmouth College's slogan is "what college was meant to be." 
3. The boiling point of mercury is 629.88 K356.73 °C, or 674.11 °F.
4. I learned how to make eggs in a basket. After one terribly failed attempt that Andrew ate, the second one was quite nice.
5. 30% of employers give MLK day off.
6. Snapple fact #673: turtles can't reproduce until they are 25 years old.
7. My sorority got four awesome new girls in recruitment. Go AlphaSig! 
Bonus learny thing: being in a sorority is just as much fun when you don't have to do the work for recruitment and can just be proud of the sisters and their accomplishments.