White Pride! Straight Pride! Wait, what?

I've noticed an increasingly, interesting trend happening on the internet these days, and it was a rather collective, but subtle (until recently this last week), movement I dare say: pride for the majority.

Before you angrily disagree, let me clarify what I mean when I say pride for the majority (and you're probably still going to disagree, I promise, I totally have a point after this next paragraph).

I mean the students in Ohio that celebrated a Straight Pride Week, or this website dedicated to celebrating Heterosexual Awareness Month (though I can't really tell what month they're claiming since they've marked July 6th as Straight Pride Day and July 22nd as International Day Against Heterophobia, but you can buy T-Shirts and mugs!). This forum that is for White Nationalists that say they support true diversity and a homeland for all people, but want to promote the interests, values, and heritages of the white majority simply because there's so many organizations that already do it for non-white minorities. There is this radio and billboard project that claim to be the voice of the white resistance.

None of this is new. That radio station I linked to is run by the Ku Klux Klan, and they've been around for a really long time. And that's also kind of my point. I'm a firm believer that when people don't learn their history, it's doomed to repeat itself. In this technological era, and millennials in particular, we have no real understanding of what it's like to see a repressed minority. We grew up in a world where everyone is equal on the internet (go Net Neutrality! Woo!). We asked everyone their ASL (age, sex, and location, for those older and newer folks that missed the trend before we had online profiles, and for people who don't say folks), so you could be chatting up someone of a completely different background whether that's racial, financial, sexual, religious, or something else. While you may have your personal bias of who you PM'd (private messaged), the melting pot of an open IRC chatroom did not.

This is how we used to internet. (The Fine Bros.)

So we have a generation of people coming into their twenties in America that have only experienced a world where everyone can have an opinion. Anyone can become instantly famous in 140 characters or less. We've also experienced a world where Black History Month is celebrated every February,  there are annual LGBT+ parades, and feminists can be found everywhere spreading awareness for equality between the genders both personally and professionally.

Equality.

We see that word, and we know the definition. But now we're starting to get confused. We see everyone fighting to be equal, but we forget what they're trying to be equal to. We've started to see these awesome parades and celebrations as privileges for the minorities, not as something as equal. And that's a hard thing to say. In fact, I'm kind of disgusted to say it, but I believe this trend to be true.

We watch silently as the rainbow flags wave above our heads. We diligently learn about Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream and the abolishment of slavery that followed. We learned why World War II and our own Civil War started (we briefly covered the Women's Suffrage, if at all in my school). But it all seemed so long ago. Those are just in our history books, and there are few people to recount memories of those events are alive today. In the time of the internet, those events may as well be in the Dark Ages because we move faster with the ever changing current of information available at our fingertips.

Now that we've grown up in this world, many of my generation are failing to understand why we celebrate the minorities like we do, and thus it results in my generation being led to believe that we are no longer the majority. That we no longer have these privileges that the minorities claim us to have had. That there are so many minorities banded together for equality, that we have actually become the outcasts.

And so white pride is born. Straight pride is born. We are trying to claim pride for ourselves because we're starting to feel like we're the minority.

People actually think this. I didn't just make it up. (USDemocrazy)

It simply isn't true.

Sure, you can be proud to be who you are, and you should be! But the problems begin when we start repeating history because we failed to learn it, or learn from it. I'm not saying you should be ashamed to be proud because you're heterosexual. I'm saying you should be ashamed for your ignorance when you get upset, angry, or annoyed when someone else expresses their pride for being something different.

If I were a parent of a child with a bad habit, I'd say that even though I don't agree with your choice of habit, I accept it. That's what we need to do as humans. We need to agree that we may disagree with each other's choices, whether that is who they identify as, who they choose as partners, what they choose to believe or not believe in, whatever, but we need to accept each other gracefully.

We need to tone it down with this pride for the majority stuff. We didn't have to celebrate it before because it was already known. It was already "default", if I might say it like that. What we celebrate for the minorities is because it isn't "default." We're celebrating the differences in people so that they don't feel so different after all. But now it's turning into celebrating all but one...

On the other side, Morgran doesn't want anyone to celebrate anything.

In the end, we may find ourselves on the cusp of another civil war, with businesses and buildings taking down their confederate flags because of what they may represent. Is it white history? Is it American history? Is it Southern heritage? Is it a reminder that we once coveted slavery and fought to keep it? Whatever it means, it may cause us to repeat history because we either didn't learn it or have decided to only believe the parts we want to believe.

Read a history book from England. I'm sure their take on the French and Indian War is much different than ours.


Tessa is a feminist that falls along the LGBT+ spectrum and supports equality for everyone. She believes racism and sexism are both virulent in our culture and hopes to spread the awareness. Tessa is also in support for turning our current "rape culture" into awkward conversations in order to return the value of the word to it. Yes, she will overreact to rape jokes because they're not funny. Neither are jokes founded upon mental illnesses or physical disabilities.

SPB: Vomit Chocolate

So have you always wondered why Hershey's chocolate tastes disgusting?

What's that? You like Hershey's chocolate?!

Then you must be American, because most people from outside the U.S. would agree there is just something not quite right about Hershey's.

The first bite is tasty, sweet but then there's a sort of rotten milk aftertaste that you can't quite put your finger on. Well, being a chemist I was curious about what this might be. 

It turns out that the rotten milk aftertaste is actually.... rotten milk. Not sure why I was surprised. More specifically, it is a chemical called Butyric Acid. 

Butyric Acid is the chemical that if you ever find yourself in a chemistry lab and open the wrong fridge, it hits you in the face like a jug of milk left on the radiator for a week and makes you wish you could remove your entire olfactory system with the nearest blunt instrument.

Fun fact about Butyric Acid: it's gross!

So here is a run down of Butyric acid's close cousins:

Formic acid (C1): The shortest cousin, and the stuff that red ants inject you with that burns like a son-of-a-bitch!

Acetic acid (C2): aka Vinegar. Okay, can't fault this one, vinegar is delicious! but many people think I'm insane to think that. Sorry, it's a British thing, fish and chips need vinegar!

Propanoic Acid (C3): aka Sweat! Yes, this is the smell of BO... 'nuff said.

So Butyric acid (C4) doesn't exactly find itself in excellent company....

But, the best part about Butyric acid is that it is not only literally the chemical that gives sour milk its delicious, "oh holy god, why did I just put that into my coffee?!" morning wake dry heave taste. But also the chief ingredient of vomit. 

So why you might ask would it be in chocolate of all things!

Well that is just a byproduct of how American chocolate is made. In an attempt to increase profits, the milk used in U.S. chocolate is partially lypolyzed... 

Okay so I probably just lost most people. Let's back-up.

We all know that milk has a shelf life, and left sealed the sour taste comes from the naturally occurring lypaze enzymes in the milk breaking down fatty acids to various carboxylic acids, one of which is Butyric acid. For this reason, sour milk tastes disgusting. Certain things, like exposure to light, oxygen, or excess heat can accelerate this process. So that's why milk is stored in the fridge where it's dark and cool.

To stop this process, milk in the store is pasteurized. This exposure to high temperatures destroys the enzyme (they are very sensitive to heat... as anyone who has studied enzyme chemistry can attest) meaning the milk can no longer sour itself as quickly and has a longer shelf life. The alternative is to lypolyze the milk slightly and actually partially sour it intentionally. This reaction produces some of the bad chemicals, but prevents the milk from fully souring. This is the method the chocolate manufacturers go for in the U.S.

So in the U.S. the milk is intentionally partially soured to increase shelf life and the profit.

To a non-American this is akin to urinating on a steak to keep animals away! 

But apparently Americans just develop some kind of immunity to the taste of vomit and just don't taste it! I have even given many Americans real British chocolate, Cadbury's Dairy Milk for example, and they all like it but somehow miss that sour milk vomit taste!

What is even worse to me is that this expectation is so widespread, and America is such a large international market, that rather than just make chocolate that is profitable, it just so happens to have Butyric acid in it. Legitimate chocolate manufactures actually add Butyric acid directly to their chocolate mixture!!!

Just let that sink in....

A guy in a chocolate factory somewhere is looking into a vat of delicious molten milk chocolate, and is actively getting a jar of concentrated super vomit and pouring it into said chocolate, presumably crying in actual pain while he comes to the realization that he is destroying something beautiful and basically declaring war on Switzerland. 

Hmm... needs more vomit.

This would be much like adding a mustache to the Mona Lisa to appease the mass market.

But don't worry, America, it's not all bad, There is still Ghiradelli and in my opinion the best chocolate in the world and made right here in the United States, so next time you're in the store looking for chocolate, do yourself a favor and get some real chocolate... hold the vomit!

How to Create a Clicker Mask

My fiancé and I have an interesting way of playing games together. See, we're both very sensitive to horror genre movies and games. We often get very engaged in the story, putting ourselves in the main characters' shoes and ultimately feeling what they feel. In doing so, he'll hold the controller and play the game; I sit next to him as a backseat gamer. It comes as a comfort to him and myself because we have each other as we experience these terrifying stories.

One of our favorite games that we played together last year was The Last of Us. Living in Pittsburgh, we have an annual Zombie Walk. John decided to go as the main character, Joel, and I decided to go as one of his well known enemies, a Clicker. Now Clickers are just straight up scary. They're blind and they're fast. They will eat your face off if given the chance. Any bit of sound and they will find you. So here's how I turned myself into one.

I'm the Clicker, and John is Joel. We're hunting each other.

Step 1: Shape the Frame to Fit your Head

I started molding with aluminum foil and masking tape. I used aluminum foil to make a good helmet shape, and then the masking tape to hold it together when I liked it. I've got to say, I'll probably use this method for making other helmets because I totally thought it could've been a viking helmet from Skyrim. You want to make sure it's a little lose because it may get smaller throughout the process.

I WILL KILL YOU!!

More like a cap than a protective helmet.

Actually, I think I'm going to make a viking helmet someday for no other reason than because I can.

Step 2: Strengthen the Frame

So now that you have an awesome cowl, it's time to make it stronger to hold the weight of your soon-to-be mushroom face. To do this, I used papier-mâché. Papier-mâché is incredibly easy to make. I just used a mixture of warm water and flour. You can use old newspapers, but I just bought a tablet of blank newspaper. I prepared the area with a large square of plastic since the mixture can get a bit drippy. I also used gloves because I didn't want to get it on my hands. However, it is perfectly safe to touch with your skin.

Cut or rip the newspaper into strips. With every strip, soak it in the mixture and then lay it flat on your frame. Make sure it's nice and gooey all over, and also make sure the aluminum foil and masking tape are totally covered. Don't forget to cover the inside as well.

My mask covered in papier-mâché.

Once you're done, let it sit somewhere safe to dry completely. While the newspaper looks a bit dark and transparent when wet, it will come out opaque and lighter. You'll know if it isn't completely dry by the visibly darker wet spots.

I obviously didn't leave it in a safe spot. My cat decided to taste it while it dried overnight.

Once it's totally dry, try it on your head. It's still a bit flexible, so if you need to bend some bits, definitely do it now. Your frame should be strong enough for the next step.

Step 3: Create the Mushroom Pieces

Now this part was pretty fun, but safety first! You'll want to be in a well ventilated area (I was out on the porch), with protective glasses and gloves. You'll be working with expanding foam, and stuff can be pretty toxic if used incorrectly.

Did you know I like glasses? I put glasses in my glasses.

The expanding foam I used can be found in the insulation aisle at any hardware store.

Firstly, you want to cover your cowl with the expanding foam. And I mean cover it. Make it as blobby as possible. It'll be gross, gruesome, and totally better with the more goop you can pile onto it. As I did with the papier-mâché, I set plastic down on the table to make it easier to clean up after.

Once you've used plenty on the headpiece itself, you'll want to create puddles of the stuff. I found a good technique is to not move the nozzle, but just pour it out into once place, and it settles along the edges more than the center, giving it that flowering mushroomy look.

I tried moving the nozzle in a circle while spraying some puddles, and it looked more like a pile of poop.

I did this during the late morning, and it was dried before bed. However, check the label on your can of expanding foam for drying times.

Step 4: Carve and Assemble for a Final Shape

I can't stress it to you enough to try it on after everything is dried. If you plan on wearing this for an entire day, you want to be comfortable in it. If you're trying to be authentic in emulating the Clicker's movements, you also want to make sure it's tight enough to not fall of your head as you run to chase strangers for photos.

I can't really see out of it. How authentic!

Be careful, but use a sharp knife to help carve out pieces on the inside so your head still fits. Mine caved in a little in the back from the expanding foam's weight when wet, so I just cut it down from the inside. There was at least two inches of expanding foam on top, so I wasn't worried that it was going to pierce through. Also, I didn't care if I exposed some of the aluminum foil on the inside because nobody was going to see it. Just be careful to not cut yourself. Always cut away from you and never toward you.

This next part requires some creativity. You'll want to cut up the top so you can have room to place mushroom pieces around the top. I used a lot of mushroom images and Clicker images for reference. From what I've seen, most of them had a big gash along the top, and then flowered out and around. So that's what I tried to carve it to be like.

The eye holes were just big enough so I could stare at the floor and not run into anyone directly in front of me.

I also cut up the little poop shapes I made so they were flat or wedges on one end to be fitted onto the mask, and still gross and bubbly on the other end.

I actually spent days avoiding this part because I thought I'd screw it up.
However, it's your interpretation of the Clicker. So it doesn't have
to look exactly like mine, or the video game character's, or anyone else's.
This is your mask. Be proud of it.

Once I found and carved the shapes I liked, I used a little mini-gun of superglue to glue them to the mask. I had also carved a few, unseen holes in the back to pull my hair through. Unfortunately, I didn't actually carve them big enough to get my fingers through and pull any hair through, so... that was a bust.

Step 5: Painting It

I like to paint in my spare time (when I have any), so I really enjoyed this part of the craft. Again, I used references of the Clicker and actual mushrooms to decide on colors to use. I had showed a picture of it to a co-worker who said it looked like a delicious turkey, so I brushed on some more black along the top of it to make it more gruesome.

The first step though, was using a white Gesso all over it. Gesso is helpful because acrylic paint doesn't stick well to the smooth surface of the foam. It also allowed me to fill in gaps and give texture to some of the more bland sections.

Once the Gesso was dried, I used reds, oranges, and greens to paint the top. I took care to avoid some white parts in the middle to make it seem more gross. As I mentioned earlier, I also dry-brushed the top's edges with black to avoid making it look like some delicious, meaty meal and more like a disgusting, overgrown mushroom growing out of my head.

The painting got tedious. It took a few weekends to get it to my liking, and even then, there is just so much surface area to paint by hand. After I applied these colors, I used black spray paint and sprayed it upward to fill in any spots I missed by hand. When using the spray paint, I used the safety glasses, gloves, and a face mask to protect myself. I also used a bit of excess expanding foam to test the spray paint on because I wasn't entirely sure it wouldn't melt right through it.

After meticulously painting it with acrylic paint, I used black spray paint to fill in any places I missed and make it gross and not food-like.

When everything was all done and dry, I used clear spray to give the entire thing a disgusting, glossy finish. It also protected it because it was one of those finishers you can spray on paintings to keep them safe from dust and fading.

I got to wear my mask for a few occasions. I wore it to Pittsburgh's annual Zombie Fest and to work at Brunner because we were having a costume contest.

Working my desk job with a half infected face.

Posing for the Brunner costume contest

Unrelated to this tutorial, but my fiancé is hella fine with his "older man" makeup on.

Posing before heading out to the Zombie Walk.

So I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and I'm excited to see all the wonderful masks you make!

Surprise Peanut Butter: An American Culture Shock

When you move from the UK to the US, most people would expect the degree of culture shock to be minimal. To a certain extent they are right. But the fact that you don't expect it makes those little things all the more surprising!

Early on in my American adventure I suffered from such a shock that I like to call Surprise Peanut Butter. 

Let me set the scene. In universities, most students are pretty poor so any promise of free food is likely to draw quite a crowd; that's basically the only sure fire way to guarantee a full auditorium of participants at a potentially very boring science lecture. So at my first such science talk, we were treated to a full spread of cookies and coffee (Princeton Chemistry department is certainly not shy about putting money into free food). I grabbed a plate of cookies and headed into the venue. I had grabbed a few of my favorites, oatmeal raisin included, as well as some unidentified plain cookies.

Getting the cookies I didn't fully understand was a huge mistake, but I figured, "How wrong can this go?" Apparently... very. The first bite was...

 SURPRISE! Peanut Butter!

To Americans, this occurrence is nothing strange but I'm sure my British kin can attest that biting into a cookie or biscuit from a varied platter and discovering peanut butter is very jarring. Not only is nut allergies a real possibility, and the tray was not labelled with a warning, but peanut butter seems to be one of those things that you either love or you hate...

I personally hate it!

So my delicious plate of sugary treats was turned to disappointment and broken dreams, and there was not enough coffee in the pot to drown out that flavor. 

Needless to say, I won't be diving into any unknown cookie trays from now on.

As a bonus feature, this is not an isolated incident.....

Everyone knows, at least in England, that purple is the best flavor. Loosely based on the concept of blackcurrant (although a poor imitation) in a mixture of colored treats, always choose purple, closely followed by red.

So imagine my surprise when in the US, purple means GRAPE!

What the hell is that all about! Grapes barely have a flavor anyway! why the hell would that even be a flavor, and why would anyone want to choose it on purpose! Needless to say, that candy ended up in the trash! And the candy based disappointment is continued.

Yet another jarring flavor experience, like when you are the passenger in a car and know where you're driving to, then the driver decides to take a different route and at a T-junction takes a left turn, when your whole body was expecting a right. It's unsettling.

3 Reasons Why It's So Hard To Lose Weight

Losing weight is hard. On one hand, we have people who think that it's really just some basic math: more calories out and less calories in; accomplish by eating healthier and exercising more. But if it is so easy for everyone to just do it, why is almost a third of America still obese? Well, here are three reasons why it's so hard not being fat.

3. Motivation is Fleeting

Every year in January, us Americans like to make New Year's Resolutions. Losing weight has been one of the top resolutions just about every single year since... probably forever (I only searched back as far as 2010 because I'm lazy, but I think it's safe to assume it's forever).

More importantly, everyone knows it's dumb to do it because less than 10% actually achieve these goals. Even worse, more than half that have achieved it actually gain some of it back after six months. So why do we still do it?

We get motivated.

Unfortunately, motivation does not last long. To understand it, you have to know where it comes from and why it leaves. To fix it, you have to figure out how to get it and how to keep it from going.

Motivation comes from desire. If you feel a strong desire to look thinner or just be healthier (possibly from looking in the mirror in the morning, or if you're more desperate like me, it's every time you walk past something reflective like buildings and windows), you build the sudden motivation to lose that weight and work toward your desire.

However, desire can also be your enemy. You desire to look great and be healthy, and to do that, you have to lose weight. To lose weight, you have to exercise more and eat less (because that's what everyone tells us). Okay, so let's start working on exercising more first. Maybe you schedule time in the morning for a light jog around the block. It's just something simple to start out with. But to do that, you have to take that time away from something else. Your morning routine is probably already limited the least amount of minutes spent before you go to work, so it looks like you'll have to wake up earlier. But let me ask you this:

Is your desire to sleep and feel that totally refreshing feeling more than your desire to look great and be healthy? Because if it's not, especially in the morning when you alarm is going off an hour before it usually does, you're going to hit that snooze button and you're not going to jog that morning. And damnit if you don't make excuses to yourself to justify why you'd rather sleep instead of exercise.

So while you feel that desire right now, and you're feeling motivated right now because of it, that desire and motivation can get easily wiped away when you find out that what you're trying to replace with exercise is actually more desirable when the time it actually counts comes.

Fortunately, changing your diet is less work than integrating exercising into your lifestyle because you aren't replacing the activity of eating; you're just changing what you eat. Even then, that'll lead you to discover...

2. Your Body is Working Against You

We are still learning about our bodies because we are weird, complex organisms. Even if you've managed to maintain a consistent diet and exercising regimen for the first couple of weeks because you found a way to keep convincing yourself that a better body is more important than sleeping in, you're still at risk for not shedding those extra pounds. Don't worry, it's not really your conscious fault.

Losing weight is more than just a physical battle with your body's biology. It's also a horribly twisted mental and emotional one. You're battling your own body in every possible way. You have to constantly fight to uphold your willpower to not get dessert, and doing so depletes your energy and will exhaust you.

One of the newest theories is how your body even sabotages your efforts because scientists think your body already has a predetermined weight in which it maintains. While I personally don't believe that theory in full, they aren't completely off the mark. Fat cells in your body produce a hormone called leptin, which is responsible for suppressing appetite. Cells in the lining of your stomach produce a hormone called ghrelin that increases appetite. When you start to lose weight, you also start to create an imbalance between the two, decreasing leptin and increasing ghrelin, essentially making you hungrier the more weight you lose, and making you work harder mentally to maintain your willpower in not overeating. This is why it's so important to eat fibrous foods like fruits and vegetables because it can help you curb your cravings for more, and ease your fight with your own appetite.

Portion control is another biggie. If you're on a diet plan where you're supposed to eat a certain calorie deficit, controlling portions is easier than counting calories. I tried counting calories once, and I quickly grew bored because it's very tedious to keep track of what you've eaten, how many calories per serving, and how many servings you ate, blah blah blah. It sucks. So instead, I try to only take two thirds of what I'd normally consume and leave it at that.

I've also learned to stop eating when my body makes a heavy sigh because it's actually an early indicator of being full. More often than not, I won't actually feel full until 10 or 15 minutes after, and by then, I would have regretted continuing to eat because now my stomach hurts.

So now that you've devised an dieting plan, you will learn that...

1. Exercising Sucks

I can't be the only person that thinks this. And if I am, then go have fun getting a runner's high because I'm pretty sure I'm incapable of it. For me, exercising really sucks. I've decided that I'm just really bad at it, I guess. I've tried running on the treadmill, and running outside, but I can barely make it three minutes before I feel like I'm dying and I slow to a walk. I don't have asthma, so I don't know what my problem is.

Even just walking, I start to feel pain in my calves after 10 minutes, and my left foot will start cramping as if I was swimming after 15. I really just suck at exercising. I will usually walk for 30-45 minutes when possible (I average 15-30 minutes). And the one time I decided to just say, "F**k my foot, I'm going to continue walking on it anyway," I cried in pain after taking my shoes off in the locker room and couldn't flex any of my toes for two hours after. So I haven't had any good experiences when pushing myself.

I understand, I need to start out slow and build endurance, but how slow is slow? When do I start building endurance? My fiancé got me a FitBit One over a year ago, and while I feel like I've been less sedentary because I'm more aware of my activity, I haven't really shed a single pound. Perhaps being aware of my activity has convinced me that I've been doing more than before I had a FitBit, but I actually haven't. So here I am left wondering why I'm doing all this work and seeing exactly zero results. Really take a hard look at what you've been doing each week and consider... did you really make your 10k step goal every day? No? Did you really eat a 500 calorie deficit every day? No? Then this is why you're not seeing anything. Every little thing counts, and you need the willpower, nay the desire, to maintain that.

So yes, while it probably does just boil down to eating less and being more active to live a healthier life and lose weight, doing so wreaks havoc on your mental state and that's why it's so hard to maintain this goal.

By the way, I'm no success story (yet, being optimistic here). I'm still trying to lose 40lbs before my wedding in December. It's the same 40lbs I tried losing for the last year and a half.