Get it Right, Rogue!

The poll results are in! 6 out of 8 people (75%) agree that if you are female you should use the "hops" restroom, and if you are male you should use the "barley" restroom. Which is what I think, too. In brewing, the floral part of the hops is used (I think), and flowers are generally associated with females since the flower contains the ovary...whereas barley is used in grain (or seed) form, which is more typically associated with males. But this is coming from a biologist. When the bartender at Rogue Brew House in Newport was queried, he responded that females correspond to barley because they are sweet, whereas males correspond to hops because they are bitter. However, I've known many people who exhibit the opposite gender stereotype. Therefore, I believe my biological reasoning for restroom designations to be superior and more accurate than the rationale used by Rogue. Ask any botanist and you will likely get a similar response. Me thinks Rogue will be soon be receiving a letter informing them of the results of this highly scientific poll!

Bacon Makes Everything Better!

Wow - what a great bellydance show at The Blue Monk on Saturday night! It was quite the turnout to see the Offbeat Bellydancers strut, shimmy, and shake their stuff - Chris and I had a great time, and it was awesome to see my instructor perform along with many other dancers. Everyone definitely had their own style, and I must say that the white Russians were tasty as well.

But you're probably wondering where the bacon comes in, right? After the show, Chris and I were almost home when we decided to turn back around and head over to Voodoo Doughnut, a Portland institution that I had never been to before. We had to pay $8 for parking ("but the sign says $2 for the first half hour!" "Yes, but that will still be $8, Sir") and wait in line for about a half hour, but we finally got our donuts and left post haste so that we could devour them in the privacy of my home. Oh - question: do they make hair nets for facial hair? Just wondering...

Anyway, Chris dared me, yes dared me, to get a maple bacon donut, one of Voodoo's most popular. And damn, if I didn't take him up on it (and I didn't even wait for the double dog dare!), although I was scared because the sample maple bacon donut sitting in the display case looked excessively old and crusty. But Beardy pulled out a "fresh"(?) maple bacon delight from the back, bagged it with Chris' raspberry jelly donut (wimp!) and we were off.

Let me just say that many of you may know that I don't eat mammals much anymore. For the most part I stick with chicken, turkey, non-mammal seafood, and anything else without nipples. However, sometimes I let my cravings get the better of me and break down when it comes to eating piggy products. Bacon and sausage, mostly, but sometimes ham. I just can't help myself because it's so friggin' delicious. Regardless, I had a bit of trepidation when confronted by the maple bacon donut bar in my dining room. Granted, the bacon looked crispy and not overly fatty or chewy...and I do like McGriddles (my one yearly McDonalds breakfast purchase), so I crossed my fingers and chomped. Hey - it was pretty good! The taste was rather pleasing - a nice combination of salty and sweet, even if the texture was a bit surprising (crunchy bacon with creamy donut??? hmmm...). I'm not sure I'll get it again, but it was at least an experience.

You should definitely check out the Voodoo Doughnut menu and perhaps try a taste adventure of your own. Or at least purchase a t-shirt that says "the magic is in the hole". Yummy!!!

This Peep Show's Not Free, Folks...

Hey! I think I've been doing pretty well with maintaining my New Year's promise to blog more frequently. Wouldn't you agree? Yes? Alright then. Now that we're all on board with that, let me ask you this. What's up, people? You think you can just read my blog and get free laughs without having to do anything for them? There is no free lunch my friends, so listen up. Blog participation is a two-way street! I've had my blog-follower's list up for over a month now, and get this...I have no followers. Does this mean that no one is reading my blog? No, it can't be, because at least 7 of you people have voted in my latest poll (thank you!). So here's what you can do for me: 1) sign up as a Marcilicious blog follower (it's easy to do - just click the button on the right side of my blog, below), and 2) vote in my polls (there are just a few days left for this one). Easy right? Almost as easy as just freeloading entertainment from my blog anonymously...ha ha ha!!! Feeling guilty yet? Yeah, I thought so! :oP

Snowmageddon? Really?

Are we really calling the storm that struck the East Coast over the weekend Snowmageddon now? Come on - yeah, some flights were canceled (uh, mine in fact), but really...I'd hardly say that the storm resulted in an armageddon-like disaster. Maybe we should ask the people of Haiti to chime in on this one? Did their natural disaster get a fancy nickname yet?

Yeah, ok, Dulles got some snow, but it's not like they've never seen snow before. Wimps.

At any rate, yes, I had a flight scheduled on Sunday to Dulles (Washington, D.C.) so that I could take a course entitled "Resource Management Implications of Climate Change" at NCTC (the Fish and Wildlife Service's National Conservation Training Center). NCTC is in Shepherdstown, WV, which is about a 2 hour drive from Dulles and apparently currently inaccessible...so the course was generally canceled as well. About 7 brave souls managed to survive Snowmageddon and reach NCTC mostly unscathed (not sure how many emergency amputation were performed yet...news comes slowly when communications are down), so some of the sessions are being broadcast over the web, which I get to watch from work (which is what I'm doing right now...). On one hand I was really looking forward to the course (and racking up almost 16 hours of travel comp time - woo hoo!!!), but on the other hand, I was really not looking forward to spending almost 16 hours of my own time traveling. Luckily, I found out that my flight and course were canceled Saturday night, so I didn't have to drive to the airport at 5 am on Sunday to get that bit of news. I was very tempted to just not show up at work this week to see if anyone would figure it out...but in the end, my conscience won the battle and I decided to report for duty.

On an unrelated note, I made my modeling debut a couple of weeks ago for a bellydance-wear company here in Portland. It was a lot of fun, but I think some of my pictures turned out better than others. For most of the photos I was wearing this humongous coin bra that made my boobs look incredibly huge - really, I'm more of a B cup kinda girl, and not the FFF that the coin bra makes me out to be. So, to satisfy your curiosity, here's a photo that will also be featured on the back cover of Yallah magazine next month.

That's me with the incredibly goofy look on my face and ginormous-looking boobs in the middle of the bottom row. But in case you're wondering, I'm still dancing, still love it, and am getting a bit less sucky at it! :o) This is mostly due to the constant encouragement, guidance, and entertainment provided by one of my instructors, Ziggy (top left, yellow skirt).