Hot Potatoes

I don't know why we were talking about sweet potatoes- we just were. Maybe in everyone's life the subject of sweet potatoes comes up once- I just don't have the information you need. You look to me for the answers to these big questions but I'm afraid I just can't deliver, all I can do is tell you what Susan says, and then hopefully we can all learn something and the world will be that much closer to a state of blissful harmony.

So this week's piece of idiocy defended with an almost admirable commitment to wrongness, was

"Sweet Potatoes aren't vegetables".

This in itself is just a simple incorrect statement, curable when countered with a subtle mixture of two special ingredients- 1) the truth, and 2) the slightly nauseating intellectual snobbery that comes effortless pouring out of me and which, incidentally, I'm not proud of.

"No, really Susan- it's a root vegetable, it might be a tuber", I countered. Now the truth is I haven't got a bastard idea what a tuber is and I was almost cetainly wrong, but I know a vegetable when I see one.

"It's not a vegetable, I saw it on something".

Clearly this would be more difficult than I anticipated, someone had clearly got to her with some nonsense first, much like they did with the whole creationism thing (see April 2006). Maybe Susan is just a pawn being played backwards and forwards between me and some unknown malevolent demon of stupid.

She was very insistent in much the same way that you would be if you were sure you were right.The brilliant twist being that she wasn't right. "what is it then?" I enquired.

"I don't know but it's definitely not a vegetable"

And that, as it so often is, was the ending. No moment of realisation, no glorious victory- just two people getting on with their work, unchanged in their opinion. If only all unexciting throwaway conversations had a smart-assed narrator.

The Tanning Question

As those of you in the UK are aware, we've just had the hottest weekend of the year so far. Upon seeing Nick (IT guy) sporting the tan that he'd gained, Susan asked..

"Have you been using that self-tanning cream?"

How do you answer that without patronising the questioner? Evidently Nick wasn't concerned with tact and gave an response that included the phrase "big fuck-off fiery ball".

The Answer...

I suffer the arrows of stupidity, and selflessly scribe my tales and all you lot seem to be interested in is the poxy logic puzzle I mentioned last time.

The answer is...
you turn two of the lights one, and then after five minutes you turn one off. Then you walk in the room, and you can figure out which switch works each light by seeing which is on, which is off, and which is off but with a warn bulb.

The puzzle is bollocks, there is no indication that you can reach the light bulbs for starters. For some brilliant answers to stupid logic problems go to http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/lateral.htm

Frankly he's far funnier than me. But come back, don't be fickle now...

The Lights are on but...

Nick (chap in IT) sent us all a logic problem on email the other day-

Inside a windowless room, there are 3 electric lights. Each light bulb is turned on by its own switch and the 3 switches are located out of sight of the room, in the corridor.
The only way of telling which switch operates which bulb is to go into the room.
However, for the purpose of this puzzle you are only allowed to enter the room once, although you may operate all 3 switches.
How can you discover which switch turns on which bulb?

Did you get that? Good. Now I didn't know the answer, I'll freely admit. Susan did. The answer according to Susan...

"The right one"

I'm sorry, the right one? Unfortunately I couldn't get her to explain her wisdom, as she quickly distanced herself from her original answer. She then asked...

"Are there any switches upstairs?"

Even as I write this, I'm questioning whether I actually heard that question, but I did. I don't know where she was going with it. She seems to be getting better at spotting my reaction to things, and she must have figured out that she was wrong from my look of incredulity.