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urbpanIn honor of the fact that I'll be seeing Chris Hardwick (the nerdist) entertain Boston at the Wilbur in an hour in a half, I'll quickly share a nerdy thing that I've been momentarily obsessed with.
Alexis and I have been watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine recently (all star treks are on netflix instant btw). At the beginning of one episode they showed a child eating oatmeal. All the food on the space station is made by the replicators--machines that use transporter technology to generate food and other items from a stored bank of matter (I read up on them today). Presumably this means not only can you procure ANY food you can think of (or have the schematics or software for) but that the machine could be programmed to alter the nutritional content of the food.
If I had access to a replicator, I might say "Tea, Earl Grey; hot," once or twice, just to work on my Patrick Stewart impersonation, but most of the time I'd be saying stuff like "Masamam curry tofu, medium spicy, with pineapple chunks." Or I'd say "Crunchberries, large bowl with lactose-free milk!" Since the machine is generating the food--it never grew, it never lived, it was never killed or harvested--you could say, "veal cutlet, breaded, with dolphin sauce" guilt free. Hell you could have big bowl of baby monkey hearts, if that's your thing (those guys that are black on one side and white on the other eat baby monkey hearts, look it up).
But I would live on DS9 for a long long time before it occurred to me to say "Oatmeal, lumpy, too hot on the inside, slimy and cold on the outside." (This describes every bowl of oatmeal I've eaten.) I brought this up with some of my coworkers, and five out of six of them said the same thing to me: "I love oatmeal. What's wrong with oatmeal?"
...
"Spaghettios, room temperature, from the can."
Make it so.
Alexis and I have been watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine recently (all star treks are on netflix instant btw). At the beginning of one episode they showed a child eating oatmeal. All the food on the space station is made by the replicators--machines that use transporter technology to generate food and other items from a stored bank of matter (I read up on them today). Presumably this means not only can you procure ANY food you can think of (or have the schematics or software for) but that the machine could be programmed to alter the nutritional content of the food.
If I had access to a replicator, I might say "Tea, Earl Grey; hot," once or twice, just to work on my Patrick Stewart impersonation, but most of the time I'd be saying stuff like "Masamam curry tofu, medium spicy, with pineapple chunks." Or I'd say "Crunchberries, large bowl with lactose-free milk!" Since the machine is generating the food--it never grew, it never lived, it was never killed or harvested--you could say, "veal cutlet, breaded, with dolphin sauce" guilt free. Hell you could have big bowl of baby monkey hearts, if that's your thing (those guys that are black on one side and white on the other eat baby monkey hearts, look it up).
But I would live on DS9 for a long long time before it occurred to me to say "Oatmeal, lumpy, too hot on the inside, slimy and cold on the outside." (This describes every bowl of oatmeal I've eaten.) I brought this up with some of my coworkers, and five out of six of them said the same thing to me: "I love oatmeal. What's wrong with oatmeal?"
...
"Spaghettios, room temperature, from the can."
Make it so.
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Date: 2013-09-28 12:02 am (UTC)also.. baby monley hearts? What do I google to look that up? o_o
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Date: 2013-09-28 12:26 am (UTC)you just don't know how to cook them oats.
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Date: 2013-09-28 11:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 02:09 am (UTC)I think I'll make oatmeal for breakfast...
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Date: 2013-09-28 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 02:50 am (UTC)I might also try replicated curried baby hearts, because why not?
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Date: 2013-09-28 03:09 am (UTC)As a high school student I would eat Campbell's chicken alphabet soup straight out of the can, unheated and undiluted. I think the salt would kill me on the spot these days.
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Date: 2013-09-28 06:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 12:25 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel-cut_oats
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Date: 2013-09-28 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 01:06 am (UTC)My wife's daughter had some good thoughts on this tonight: perhaps the person eating the oatmeal had tried all the exotic things but wanted the comfort of oatmeal. Perhaps the person had a strict upbringing and considered oatmeal to be virtuous.
Perhaps the oatmeal was caffeinated.
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Date: 2013-09-28 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 10:51 pm (UTC)I also have eaten and enjoyed cold tinned spaghetti on occasion. That's one of the ones I don't like people looking at me while I do it though, like drinking teaspoons of pickle vinegar.
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Date: 2013-09-29 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-30 06:18 am (UTC)Thinly sliced banana or blueberries + whole almonds are the best.
Also I never knew oatmeal was such a controversial topic. If you combine this post with one about outdoor domestic cats and selectively foraging invasive species you could bring about the end times.
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Date: 2013-09-30 03:10 pm (UTC)