I love cooking. My mum is a super-pro cook and one of my happiest memories of childhood was eating homemade meals (still is). Cooking in general is fun because you get the instant reward of eating it, but what’s even more fun is that you can do whatever the hell you want… within acceptable limits. Cooking by a recipe can be fun, but going by feel and changing around stuff is even better! And best of all, you can make your own recipes.
What I find the most fun regarding cooking is that you can get creative with various ingredients and see how it turns out. It could be you’re making something from scratch, or trying to recreate a meal you had somewhere else. I mean seriously, it’s like Lego that you can EAT. How much better can it get? Sometimes I look at the limited supply of food in my fridge and take it as a challenge.
For example, you can go from easy things like fried rice where you can pretty much dice up whatever and toss it in a pan:
…to more complex things like sweet & sour chicken, which I always have fun experimenting with (it’s really not that complicated tbh…):
If you ever have a disagreement with a friend and would like to bet over who is right, make the ultimate wager: the slap bet. Basically, whoever is right gets to slap the other person in the face as hard as they possibly can. On the surface it appears to be simple and harmless. But in reality, it is a deadly and formidable wager. For example, if one ever makes the unfortunate mistake of making a slap bet with the condition that the slap can occur at any place at any time, then they must live in fear of a slap appearing out of the blue and leaving a glowing, red and rather painful hand print on your face.
Being such a pricey bet, it is always useful to appoint a Slap Bet Commissioner. The Commissioner is responsible for resolving any problems that may arise regarding the bet, such as making a ruling. They must remain completely unbiased and hold the integrity of the slap bet above all else. They must also enforce the sacred rules of the slap bet, such as no premature slapulation. If the rules are disobeyed, the Commissioner has the power to endow one player the right to slap the other player (with completely subjective judgement of how many slaps they can get).
The slap bet is also highly customisable, where the players can settle on the number of slaps and the manner in which they will be delivered. Will the loser receive ten slaps in a row? Or will they get five slaps that can occur from the moment they lose to infinity?
A slap bet is the ultimate bet that is so satisfying and cathartic for the winner, but for the loser it is… well, let’s just say it is a real slap in the face.
Rock-paper-scissors is a game with a long history. The earliest example of the game is a Chinese game called huoquan, which follows a cyclic rule where the frog eats the slug, the slug dissolves the snake and the snake eats the frog. The reason why rock-paper-scissors has been saved throughout history is because of the uncertainty it contains. Any hand you choose, the chance of winning is the same. Ergo, there is no single best choice and there is no move that will always win. But this is still a game played by people. It is not a game played by emotionless machines, meaning that you can use human psychology, the surfacing of emotion and specific signs and movements to help deduce your opponent’s hand. Mentalist Derren Brown can read tiny flickering of muscles in the opponent and microexpressions to pull off his “undefeatable rock-paper-scissors trick”, but this is near impossible for a normal person to try. However, you can use the following strategies to improve your odds.
Use paper on a beginner: Statistically, people prefer using rock. Males especially have a strong tendency to play rock.
Use scissors on an experienced player: People who know the first trick can be defeated by going one step further.
Use a hand that loses to the hand your opponent played: This uses the psychology of the opponent wanting to mix up hands and wanting to beat the hand you last played (which is the same as theirs as you drew).
Say what you will play and play that hand: In a competitive situation like rock-paper-scissors, people tend not to trust others. Thus, if you say you will play a certain hand, they will think is a trap and not play the hand that defeats that hand. For example, if you said you will play scissors, the opponent will play paper or scissors and you will either win or draw.
Do not give the opponent a chance to think: People have a subconscious tendency to play a hand that beats the hand that they played before. Without time to think, the subconscious takes action meaning that you can predict their move. If you do the same as strategy 3 and play a hand that loses against the opponent’s previous hand, you will win.
Suggest a certain hand: This is a form of hypnosis where you suggest something to the opponent’s subconscious. To use this trick, pretend to go over the rules by saying “rock, paper, scissors” then play a certain hand. The opponent will likely play the hand that the subconscious last saw.
If you keep drawing, use paper: This is the same as strategy 1.
Unfortunately, rock-paper-scissors has an equal probability of a win and a draw, meaning draws are rather common. Thus, a computer engineer called Samuel Kass devised a game where two additional hands are added: rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock. Lizard is played by making your hand into the shape of an animal’s head, while Spock is played using the Vulcan Salute from the science fiction show Star Trek, where you make a V-shape with two fingers on each side. The rules are as follows.
Scissors cut paper. Paper covers rock. Rock crushes lizard. Lizard poisons Spock. Spock smashes scissors. Scissors decapitate lizard. Lizard eats paper. Paper disproves Spock. Spock vaporizes rock. Rock crushes scissors.
As each hand has two ways of winning, the odds of winning is 10/25, or 2/5 and the odds of drawing is 5/25, or 1/5. As you can see, you have double the chance of winning compared to drawing, making the game much faster to play than the original game.
There is an extremely entertaining experiment that can be done with two simple ingredients found in the local supermarket: Mentos mints and Diet Coke (it is more effective than original Coke). The experiment procedure is as following:
After opening the bottle, quickly drop the Mentos in to the Diet Coke. Run.
As soon as the Mentos falls in, the Coke spurts foam explosively, which shoots up to great heights. Depending on the temperature of the Coke (the warmer the better) and the number of Mentos mints (it is more effective to thread them and drop them all at once), the pillar of foam can rise to a few metres.
This fascinating phenomenon is not caused purely by a chemical reaction, but has more to do with physics. Mentos mints are coated with menthol, which has numerous microscopic dents. When it enters the Coke, the dissolved carbon dioxide forms bubbles that collect in these pits. As they collect, the bubbles expand until the pressure builds past a certain level, causing an explosion.
The most important point is that if this experiment is not performed outside, one could end up cleaning a sticky room for days.
Karaoke are entertainment machines that play music without the vocal track, so that users can sing along to the song (where lyrics are usually put up on a screen also). It is a great addition to any party and is found in almost every city nowadays, especially in Asia.
The word karaoke means “fake orchestra” in Japanese, and this is linked to the story of its inception. A musician/entertainer by the name of Daisuke Inoue was often approached by patrons at cafés he played in, asking him to record his tracks so that they could play it anywhere. That, along with his laziness, led him to devise a machine that played pre-recorded tracks when coins were inserted, thus removing the need for an actual band to be present. This idea became instantly popular, and he loaned karaoke machines to businesses, updating the song database himself so that users did not have to purchase new songs every time they came out. He was awarded the prestigious Ig Nobel Peace Prize for inventing the karaoke, “thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other”.
