My Yellow Americans

Does the flavor of a lemon affect the way we perceive the color of a lemon?

      You: "Lol wut?"

Allow me to elaborate. So, if you look through any third-grader's school supply list, there's gonna be a box of 805 crayons listed on there, and within that box of 805 crayons, there is a crayon labeled "Lemon Yellow." But it's not really so lemony in color, is it? It's much, much more vivid than an actual lemon, and much more vivid than the other yellows in the box, like, well, "Yellow," and it's a ballpark's throw away from "Goldenrod". (Doesn't even come close to that one). By comparison, the "Lemon Yellow" crayon is much more intense than it's counterparts, though not quite as violent as highlighter yellow, (it doesn't jump off the page and punch you in the eye with quite the same ferocity), but it is still vivid enough to feel very at home in the 80's.

But the actual, real life color of a vine-ripened lemon-fruit is not really so painful to look at as the crayon color "Lemon Yellow" would suggest. In reality it's much similar to the regular "Yellow" color in the 805 crayon box. So I gotta wonder, is the flavor of the lemon, that "dear god what did I just bite into" sourness affect the way we perceive the color? Does that intense flavor we associate with the fruit combine with the way we see the fruit's color? For example, say a lemon tasted like, I dunno, cardboard or rice or something, would we think to associate it with such a strikingly acidic color as "almost-highlighter-yellow"? Probably not. We'd think "Lemon Yellow" was actually a more brownish, dullish yellow, like that "Ew Yellow" that you see on cars sometimes.

No. It's that flavorful adventure, that painful but satisfying taste that gives the "Lemon Yellow" color its intensity. Least that's what I think.

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Bye-cycles

So, I saw this bicycle the other day. It was the most unusual bicycle I've------

Wait. 

I gotta stop here for a moment. A new train of thought has just occurred to me, something I've been harboring for a while. Hold on to your knickers.

Okay. I see a lot of bicyclists every day... bastards. I mean, "Hey! Hooray for you! You're saving the environment by not polluting the air with toxic car fumes, or whatever. And you're staying healthy while you do it! Yay!" No. I don't really feel that way about bicyclists. I find the whole "I save the environment!" to be a little counterproductive in this particular instance.

Allow me to elaborate. (You holding on to your knickers?) So, there aren't too many bicyclist lanes here in Austin. Weeeeeell... yes, there is, perhaps compared to other cities in Texas, there are actually a lot of bicyclist lanes. HOWEVER, there are not enough!!  Not nearly enough. And because of this, bicyclists tend to act like cars, and like cars they drive/ride in the lanes made-for-cars. Okay, whatever. It's just like being a motorcyclist right? WRONG. Because motorcyclists can keep up with the speed of traffic. Bicyclists can't. Caaaaaan't. But bicyclists are apparently unaware of this fact and continue to be ignorant enough to think that they can keep up with the speed of traffic, and therefore they take up an entire car-lane, but in reality, they're just really damn slow. They are not as fast as cars are. And as a result of this, car after car after car gets stuck behind them in two-lane, super-busy traffic, and, as a result, are forced to slow down. How is that saving the environment? Bicyclists cause cars to go slow, thus putting them at more red-lights, and stopping them more often than is necessary so that their cars are out in the open for longer periods of time, and when one bicyclists affects--let's say--20 cars a day (minimum, by God, it has to be more than that,) that is a significant increase in the amount of pollution leaked into the air by all those extra minutes those cars are sitting at those infinite-stop-lights.

There is an easy solution, however. RIDE ON THE SIDEWALK. Goddam, it's right there. Nobody is walking on it! Just pedal on over there. Save everyone a headache. 

Anyway.

Oh, yes, what I was originally saying. I saw the most unusual bicycle the other day. You know how tall awnings are on the outsides of buildings and shops and things? Like 12 feet or something. Well, this bright blue bike was parked outside a store, and the seat of the bike was level with the awning. It had a little ladder on the back of the bike leading up to the seat. Pretty neat. Would've like to have seen somebody actually riding it (on the sidewalk, cough-cough).

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Black and Blue

So, blue-jays are dicks. 

I saw some black birds happily picking through the fresh grass today, finding some stuff for munching, when a out of nowhere, (completely unprovoked so far as I know), this blue-jay comes pelting outta the sky like a missile, eyes blazing, and slams into one of the blackbirds, causing him to drop whatever he was eating. The blue-jay expertly picked the item-for-munching out of the grass and -- what did he do? He ate it. Right in front of the blackbird. He didn't even have the decency to steal it properly and fly away with it, eating it humbly in his own home. No. He ate it right in front of the blackbird, while the blackbird stared daggers at him but did nothing. When the blue-jay was done, he casually floated away in a cloud of arrogance, and the blackbird watched him go, feeling non-confrontational, but clearly wishing him an early death. 



I suppose I can't really judge all blue-jays based on this singular incident. However, this isn't the only fly-by food-stealing done by a blue-jay I've seen in  my lifetime. They've got a mean streak running through those carefully glossed feathers, I guarantee it. They enjoy food more if it's stolen, I can only assume.  So next time you're out on a jolly, carefree picnic, you might want to keep a careful eye on the skies, because heaven knows they could whoosh down in a blur of blue and white and make off with your entire sandwich before you even had a chance to taste it. 


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How Now Frown Cow?

Weeeeell, it's been a while since I've posted on my blog, and since the only things I've been posting about lately are grumbling rants about a lack of creativity or long-winded recounts of ill-spotted sicknesses, I've decided to go in a different direction for my next post. It is TWO THOUSAND TWELVE baby, the year of alliteration!

(Although, I guess that's not really true... The "thousand" doesn't really count since it makes the "th" sound instead of the "t" sound, soooo it's not really alliteration after all.)

ANYWAY. I know I moaned excessively in my last post about being unbearably uncreative or what-have-you, and maybe  there is a bit of underlying truth to it, but that's not to say I am not happy in Austin. In fact, I'm actually the happiest I've ever been over an extended period of time, (excluding the days when I was under 4 feet tall and drew on the sidewalk in chalk all day and ate my sandwiches in shapes. You can't compare adulthood happiness to the simple-minded happiness of children. I mean, I was happy all day with just some paper, colored pencils, Oreos, and a marathon of Rocko's Modern Life on tv).

In sharp contrast to my younger days, I haven't really been too happy since leaving high school.  In fact, UNT drove me friggin insane.

So naturally, despite changing to UT in fall of 2011, I was still determined to be miserable because that's what I was used to. I didn't know what it was like to not be tired all the time and stressed out to the point of hair-loss. But now....... I do. And it's nice!

I enjoy Arabic. I like the language. I like the learning environment. I think my future looks promising (assuming the world doesn't end and all that). So even though I still have a lot of work that must be done, it's manageable and sometimes... dare I say it... enjoyable. I won't drag on this post for now. But I want to keep things moving forward rather than just standing still.

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