Hello Friday: The Fiercest Nerds on The Block June 12-18

Oh, man, I’m leaving you in the more than capable hands of slpc next week, but I’m like already missing you guys super big time. But let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about all these awesome comments.

HELLO FRIDAY

re: Fierce Anticipation: June 12-14, in which Ryan Dixon puts forth the theory that you can predict how whether an Eddie Murphy movie will flop by looking at the movie poster — basically if it doesn’t feature children, animals, or a morbidly obese person along with red font, it will flop . He predicted that Imagine That would flop, according to his poster code theory, and lo and behold it only netted 5.2 million dollars its opening weekend. If Eddie ever gets work again, hopefully the marketing people will listen to Ryan this time.

KaseyB: The Murphy Code…wow! I never noticed. Of course my disdain for children, grotesquely fat people, and red fonts have been keeping me away from Murphy films for years.

PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY

re: Fierce in Seattle: Indoorsy goes Outdoorsy, in which Kelli Bielema applies her black thumb to her back yard garden.

Josh G: Use ladybugs for pest control, they eat many types of bugs, mostly aphids. Also if you have bug problems plant some marigolds and the bugs will eat them instead of everything else. We planted our first garden this year also and these seemed to help.

OH, IT’S TUESDAY

re: Political Physics: Are Hate Crimes a Form of Domestic Terrorism?, in which Monique King-Viehland argues that the answer to that question is yes.

Yolanda: Yeah, they may have just developed the term “hate crimes” in the last few years but a lynching in 1960 was still a crime of hate. I haven’t looked at the statistics but I’m sure there has been a rise in “organized hate groups” – there’s more access to information and to one another thanks to the internet/cell phones/etc, more people in our population, and less loyalty to older groups such as the KKK (I assume). Plus, bigotry is not just one-sided anymore. I wonder what the percentage of U.S. citizens in those U.S. based groups is now compared to fifty years ago though? I believe people should be free to believe what they want to believe, at least in this country. It may be tough on others but I absolutely would not like for my children to grow up thinking our country is a utopia where everyone loves each other and just gets along, particularly because certain types of thoughts and speech are banned (i.e. China). Humans are what we are… we will forever have our biases towards one another. Hopefully as we evolve, we’ll become more tolerant (I think that’s showing up in the millennial generation). That’s just not reality now though, so I have to do what I can to prepare my Black sons for what they may encounter.

WOW! IT’S WEDNESDAY

re: Fierce Foodie: It’s the Time of the Season for Ice Cream, in which Roya Hamadani reminded us why summer is so great (main reason: ice cream) and provided us with a recipe for a sorta healthy (almost-like) ice-cream sandwich.

Kara: We all scream for ice cream- and Roya! My mom used to make us those graham cracker sandwiches, only she used pudding as the filling- you know, for our health.

DEAR THURSDAY

re: Secret Life of a Nerd Girl: The Importance of Travel, in which Gudrun Cram-Drach ponders the value of first class among other things.

BabySmiling: I am neither rich nor important, but I flew business class in the fall. We were going to Asia, and I knew that such a long trip in a coach seat would be intolerable for my very tall husband (and unpleasant for me). We spent years worth of frequent flyer miles, and it was totally worth it.