What did you learn today?

[Earthshine]

I love all spiders, even the venomous ones that can kill you. They are important creatures that are a keystone species, like bees. If we lose our spiders then our world would visibly be affected. They are not evil, and they actually don't bite if you just leave them alone. I get some gnarly spiders up here as well, and they are wonderful and perfect, just the way they are.

[tailz]

I know they aren't evil, that was just a joke I made up about me hitting a spider with an oversized leek. sorry if you took offense to it. Oh and BTW, I think it's great that you care soo much about god's creatures on this planet. I care about the animals in forests or jungles. A lot of them are becoming extinct nowdays with all the so called "Hunting" and such. Though I think of it as killing more than hunting...

[Earthshine]

Nah I didn't take offense to it all. I just try to praise spiders whenever possible because they ARE a hated species and many people fear them needlessly or simply don't understand them. Those that are phobic, well that's something entirely different and I'm not going to deal with that or say their fears are unjustified.

[tailz]

Yeah, so I'm one of the people who fear spiders, but that dosen't mean that I hate them. (Well...not all of them anyways...lol) But from time to time whenever I see a spider I do say Hi to it or whatever. (I know it's kinda lame and geeky, but that's what I do sometimes.) It's often when I see a random spider just sitting there minding it's own buisness. I really don't know why I do it, I just do. (Maybe so It won't try to attack me or something. lol.)
Oh, and I'm glad that you didn't take offense to it because it feels like I've been hurting your feelings a lot lately which makes me feel kind of bad...

[Earthshine]

I'm not one to get hurt feelings over a differing opinion, simply because it's a differing opinion over superficial things. Don't worry about it, you're fine. You've been polite and cordial and have given me no reason to be upset.

[tailz]

Thank you for letting me know that Earthshine.

Oh and by the way, I learned that giving and being honest is a loyal thing. And I also learned that I got an Astro boy T-shirt and gba game on x-mas! XD!

[Astro Forever]

Hehe, I'm learning a few things reading this topic!

I learned from this site that I was speaking English as if I was from Honolulu, New York, and I forgot the other place.

Actually, in my case, this makes no sense since I've never lived in the English world, therefore quite a lot of my answers happened to be "I have no word for this". Or, they would be whatever word I had heard here (but not knowing if it really is the standard for English natives here), or the closest to the one I knew in translation. But it was still amusing.

[tailz]

I learned today that Kanji (Chinese style of Japanese writing.) has 20+ strokes. O_o! That's a lot!

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

I tried to make myself some "Tea over Rice" for lunch. I didn't have any of the traditional Japanese fruit or vegetable toppings, so I just used some canned salmon and carrot strings with some microwave brown rice. It took about a half a cup of green tea to cover the rice in a medium sized bowl.

Not bad really, though I'd sure like to know what the real deal with traditional toppings would be like. Maybe I can find better at an Asian market. Any ideas?

[Earthshine]

Bonito flakes would be a must. They are like little dehydrated pieces of fish and seaweed (more or less fishfood but fit for human consumption). They add a real ethnic taste to ochazuke and rice in general.

Cutting up some nori (seaweed) would be another good topping in itself, as well as some mushrooms such as enoki (they are really tiny mushrooms with long stems).

You can get all of these items in an Asian market as they are common Japanese house items. If your city has a sufficient Japanese population, they should carry these items.