Ask a Geologist: Where to find someone.

Do you know where to find Donna Yvette Robinson?

No. But if you ask at the security office someone there might be able to help you.








In the last 15 minutes two people have come by my office and asked me how to track down people on campus. It's pretty weird. I don't know where your people are. I'm a geologist.

Ask a Geologist's Best Friend from High School About Baby Stuff

How do I get my three year old to sleep in his own bed and not come get in mine at 2am?

I'm kind of unqualified to answer this question because my child was five when I met him. I don't mean that he burst forth from my loins at age five, it’s just that he is my step-son. I feel like I needed to ask someone else about this because even though I have some ideas they are as yet untested. So I turned to one of the best mom’s I know! Leslie Heindselman!

Leslie was my best friend in high school and she has always wanted to be a mom. She has three kids and she always has the most impressive, sane approach to deal with any kid problem. Not to mention she has her MS in Education. She’s seriously awesome. I knew she was the gal for the job and she did not disappoint.

Here’s her advice:

“If they haven't all ready done this, I would take them right back up to their bed--every time for a week or two-be consistent and do it without any talking.

If it's been that long and still no results I've only got one option. Keep a pillow and blanket under your bed and when they come in to get in your bed, pull out the pillow and blanket and have them sleep on the floor. Maybe sleeping on the floor will be uncomfortable enough that they want to stay in their own bed.

Good luck to your friend.”

Um yeah. That is such a good idea! Tough love is tough to pull off but sleep is so important that you have to be firm. In any household it’s important that everyone get a good night’s sleep. It’s important for sanity, harmony, development and health of the family. It’s worth being tough about even though I bet those first few nights will be hard on your heartstrings.

Ask a Geologist's: Another Geology Question

Julie,

Given recent attempts to pass legislation in North Carolina to allow "fracking" for natural gas, what can you tell us about this process? Is it worth it to get the clean burning fuel source?

Thanks Julie :-D

If you weren't so nice about this and I didn't like you so much I wouldn't answer this because it's a geology question. At least write back later and ask me something about your cat, ok? Like, "My cat is in a bad mood. How can I make it less crabby?"

Fracking is a nickname for hydraulic fracturing. It's bad for the environment in a number of ways but the worst is that it contaminates fresh water. In the US we are pretty sheltered from the notion that water is a finite resource but fresh water is on the verge of becoming non-renewable all over the world.

Fracking is an easy one to answer. It's a BAD BAD BAD idea. NO NO NO BAD NO NO WRONG NO BAD.

There's a reason the word sounds like a swear word. It's because greedy people are fracking you over to get natural gas. When they are through you will be totally fracked. You should tell them to go frack themselves and get out of your community.

It's also a bad sign that we're taking it so seriously. It is definitely one of those things were corporations are taking advantage of the general public's lack of confidence in science. People think they are "bad" at science and generally let the government, media and corporations spoon feed them "facts" that they just swallow without research...or even thinking them through.

Now, I generally take videos like the one below with a grain of salt because they are trying to be persuasive. Sometimes they stretch the facts. Even though the cartoon is a dramatization I really feel like all of the points are valid.

Fracking is a great way to make money at the expense of the health of your population. It is not worth the trade off of being a "clean burning fuel source." Let's find other ways to solve this problem. If we're all dead we won't need electricity.

A Geologist Tells You: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth is perhaps the worst movie ever. OK it's right up there with other horror moves, The Core, 2010 and The Day After Tomorrow. These movies are complete crap but sometimes I forget and accidentally watch one on purpose and then...for about six months I'm filled with rage. I'll randomly roll my eyes and mutter, "It can't be made of diamonds."

So here's a clip from this shitty movie (see I'm already mad):

#@$$%%%%^^^%$#@@*&*&&^%&^$ujyhl,asfdhgajalsdfjsdkfhsldfhsdfhi'm foaming at the mouth. OK we're going to get through this together.

They are standing on MUSCOVITE? Muscovite is a mica. It is a silicate which means it is pretty sturdy and you KNOW WHAT ELSE IT'S NOT GOING TO CRACK LIKE ICE BECAUSE IT HAD CLEAVAGE THAT PEELS IN SHEETS...it doesn't crack and he's supposed to be a geologist. It's like plastic and it forms in thick layers. IS HE DRUNK?

OK real talk. For the rest of this thing if I type it in lower case imagine I am yelling because I am yelling. It peels in sheets, that's all I'm sayin' folks.

OK so they fall into the center of the Earth, whatever, idiots...and then they find these bioluminescent birds and he's like, "Oh dude. These went extinct like 150 million years ago."

And you hear that and you're like, "Whatever. That's pretty old, man," but I hear that and I'm like what the what? 150 millions year ago? They died. Well, that's super convenient because Archaeopteryx lived around 150 millions years ago ok and oh yeah, it was the first bird like thing. The grandaddy of all birds. Birds as we know them didn't even appear until about 160 million years ago. So there's that...Nevermind that this little bio-sparrow is Disneyfied and freakin' makes faces and chirps at people.

The insanity continues when they fall for 15 minutes but don't splat even when they hit a water slide, check out the center of the Earth and there's water and like some sort of fake sun made out of gas (odorless, non-toxic, no radioactive, faux sun gas) and there's trilobites that you can eat. They have white gooey centers.

After a little bit of this you kind of think, "OK self. This is fantasy. Let's just go with it." and then they see the ocean.

The ocean.

The center of the Earth ocean with the center of the Earth seashore but they're like, "Oh snap! It's getting so hot so fast cause of the igneous something er another and we're like gonna die of teh heat strox lolz." But no one is sweating and they all have on winter clothes. Homegirl's hair is as perfect as it was before she fell, to the center of the Earth. So they hatch a plan to get out where they build a BOAT to capture the WIND to sail across the OCEAN to hitch a ride on a GEYSER.

You know in movies when people have brain hemorrages and blood comes out of their nose. That seriously happens every time I think about this. And that's before the sea monsters and piranhas and the cell phone call. I can't get reception in my office at work and MC Whiney Teen gets a phone call at the core.

Brendan Fraser's ripped biceps are the ONLY redeeming quality of the movie unless you are a guy in which case it's Blonde Token Adventure Girl's Teflon Yoga Pants of Invincibility.

A storm brews while they are at "sea" and they get separated. DJ Teenmaster Whine has to go across a....ravine...thing (where does it go? the center of the center of the Earth?) that's made with suspended boulders that are floating because of magnetism.

Bad news, Movie Writers, if the core is a big empty jungle and not a hulking high pressure mass of iron nickel alloy surrounded by a fluid mantle then you don't have anything to make a magnetic field. No dumbass compasses you keep using and no stupid floating Donkey Kong boulder path. A T-Rex chases Senor Nino de Whineypantalones and he outruns it but it can break through rocks with it's nose and it falls (to where?) through more glass like muscovite.

Then they are reunited with Blondie who has made a boat out of a jaw of a dead T-Rex and the geyser squirts them out of the volcano into Italy. Of course. And I would feel bad for giving you these spoilers but:

A. This movie is a waste of your time You're welcome.

B. I turned it off at this point so you could have 5 more epic hours of glorious plot twists and I would have no idea.

PS Another problem with this movie is that the kid in it is going to be Peeta in the Hunger Games movie which means that in March I will be forced to be in love with. It's going to be super awkward.

Ask A Geologist: Easy Ways to Lose 5 Pounds for the Holidays

Dear Sweet Geologist,
What is a good way to lose 5lbs before Christmas? I want to look fab for my office party and my dumb MIL.

Five whole pounds? 5? Did you leave off some place value on that? I can accidentally lose five pounds in a day.

Personally I think you should just get some spanx but here are some other tips to get you looking fit and fantastic in no time.

5. Put your purse on the floor before you get on the scale.*

4. Weigh yourself with wet hair one day and dry hair the next. Or at night after dinner one night and in the morning before breakfast the next.

3. Change the tare on your scale.**

2. Take off your shoes.

1. Whatever. Just tell people you lost 5lbs. No one cares. Have you seen you? You're the hotness. Go watch this:





* Back in college my friend Anna and I would work out together at the Turner Center a few times a week. Mostly we would just go to the gym and be weird. One day, after about a month of "working out" Anna got onto the scale. She was SO MAD. She yelled, "I'm up like eight pounds!" We sat there for a minute trying to figure out what had happened and then I realized that she was still holding her purse. I think about that almost any time I get on a scale.

**Nerd.

Ask a Geologist: Don't Fear the Yeast(er)

Dear Geologist,How did you overcome your fear of yeast?I'm always afraid 1. I'll kill it 2. I'll overfeed it, and it'll take over the kitchen like the blob 3. It'll just be bad.

I want to learn to make rum baba which has yeast.

I used to be afraid of yeast too. And it’s funny because I always used the word “fear” with yeast and so many people I talk to say the same thing. People are not ambivalent about yeast. “Fear” is a pretty serious word for something that is not going to literally kill you if you mess it up. Lemme tell you how I got over my fear.At first I went out of my way to try and make yeastless bread. I made the stupid beer batter bread…that sucked and was horrible (imho) and I tried a bunch of quick breads. Nothing is as delicious as real bread.

My husband worked at a fancy pants French restaurant as a baker for a while so he was all the time makin’ stuff with yeast like it was no big deal. I always wanted to know how to do it but I was always scared. Then I got a bread maker for $12.50 at the G Dub and everything changed. A bread maker is kind of a gateway appliance. With that thing I was churning out beautiful loaves of bread and the house smelled fantastic. It was so easy! It was like a crockpot that made bread! But after a while I got kind of tired of always having loaves of bread with the weird little spot on the bottom from the mixer…and I realized that the bread machine wasn’t really doing anything revolutionary. It certainly wasn’t doing anything I couldn’t do and it wasn’t doing anything magic with the yeast.

The other thing that helped me get over the fear was that I realized that flour and yeast are super cheap so if I messed something up I could easily chuck the batch and start over without a lot of lost time and money. So here is a quick and awesome pizza dough recipe that I use all the time that’s a great introduction to yeast. If you mess it up you realize it within the first half hour and you have plenty of time to start over before dinner. I think started out as a recipe from the Pioneer Woman mashed with a recipe from About.com but I have tweaked it a little bit to suit my pizza needs.


Ingredaments
2t yeast
1 ¼ cup warm water

1 T honey

1 T olive oil

1 ½ cup all purpose flour + 1 cup whole wheat flour OR 2 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 t dried or fresh rosemary

1. Add 2 teaspoons of yeast to the bowl of a stand mixer (or regular bowl, it’ll work, you just have to try harder). Add 1 ¼ cups of lukewarm water. You want it to feel warm but not be hot enough on your hand to be uncomfortable. Just slightly warmer than your normal temperature. Add this to the bowl and then put in a big squirt of honey. (If you don’t have honey you can use a little bit of sugar or molasses. Just a lil something to get the yeast interested. Swish that all around. Let that sit for like 5 minutes. I generally go get my other ingredients now.

2. Come back and look at your yeasty water. Does it look different? Does it have kind of a foamy brown cap on it? Mine looks like this:

If yours looks the same you should start over with cooler water or think about how old your yeast is. If it's pretty old it might be dead. It should smell good and yeasty right now and if it doesn't your yeast has probably gone to meet it's maker. Whatever that means.

3. Add in 1T of olive oil, your flour and the rosemary. You can leave out the rosemary or add other spices (except salt). Sometimes I put in basil or garlic powder. It doesn’t change the chemistry so it won’t hurt your rising or anything. Stir that all up in your mixer or by hand (you may want to kind of knead it) and until it looks like…dough. Having a stand mixer is awesome for this.

4. Find a warm spot for your bowl and put it there with a clean towel over it. HAHA. I love on recipes when they tell you to put a clean towel over something as though you’re such an idiot that you’d drape a dirty towel over your food. “Huh, alls I’ve got is this gunky gym towel that I used to clean the skunk carcass off of Rover. That should be fine.”

The best place in my house for bread is a closet in the master bedroom that we use for our out of season clothes. This is where I put my dough with its nasty ass towel draped over it. My dough started out like this:

Leave it there for at least 15 minutes….or longer if you can spare it…or if you get wrapped up in Facebook. When you come back it’ll look like this:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Take a normal rectangular baking sheet, spray it with pam, and then fit your dough over top of it until it fills up the whole thing. This takes some doing but you can make it happen. If you have holes you can move dough globs from the thick spots. Go ahead and put on your favorite pizza toppings. I like olives, onions, mushrooms, cheese and sauce.

When your oven is pre-heated you can pop this in. I NO RITE? SO FAST!! Then it cooks for 25 minutes and you have pizza. Yummy, healthy, pizza in less than an hour. ADDED BONUS: You’re a yeast expert and can now go on making all sorts of stuff with reckless abandon. OK…so maybe not…but you’re on to something and you can practice.

A few of my friends are really into the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day craze and I just tried out that method recently. It’s super easy and fantastic. You can buy the book on Amazon for cheap or you can get the basic recipe here. It’s sooooo basic and easy and the bread turns out delicious and adorable.

Ask a Geologist: About a Geologist

I'd like to know more about Julie so I'm asking these questions:

If one song were to describe your life, what song would it be?

Are you good at making new friends?

What is your least favorite word?

Do you have tattoos?

Do you trust easily?

Name your least favorite feature?

If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

What's the worst thing about being your gender?

Which is a stronger emotion: anger or love?

Ummmm...whoah! Hi! That's alot of questions. Well, generally here at Lets Blog About You, we like to blog about...erm...you and not so much me....but since it's my birthday I'll give these questions a shot. After all, it's like a good ol' Live Journal Meme and who doesn't love that?

If one song were to describe your life, what song would it be?

Because I'm a gangster...and it doesn't feel bad.

But some would argue that this is more accurate:

But the truth is more like this:

Are you good at making new friends?

Yeesh. Ummm....no. Not actually. Well, let's back track. That is true for the most part. If I met you I wouldn't talk to you unless I couldn't avoid it. It's more likely that I wouldn't meet you at all though, because I actively avoid going to events where I might have to talk to strangers.

Unfortunately my job requires that I meet about 300 people a year and I've kind of gotten good at pretending to be outgoing until I get to the point where I know everyone and can calm down. After you've known me for a while it's hard to imagine that I was ever shy. We moved a lot while I was growing up so I've had to make and remake friends a lot in my life so you'd think that I'd be better at it.

Now that I'm older I find people I like and just attack them with love. My best friend says that even though I'm bad at making friends that I'm really good at keeping them. She also says that I make friends like a blender with two speeds. You're either my acquaintance or OMGWTFBBQ WE R BFF 4-EVA. Like, three seconds after you meet me I hand you a t-shirt with our names air brushed onto it and a mixed cd with all your favorite songs. It can be overwhelming for people...but whatever. I am who I am.

What is your least favorite word?

Can't.

Do you have tattoos?
On the small of my back, what some would call the tramp stamp, it says "vtec" in black lettering. I tried to take a photo but it's really hard to take a good picture of your own back.

Haha. Not really. None of that is true. That would be silly. Chances are if you're reading this blog you don't understand why I think that's so funny.

I'm allergic to pain and I don't really like anything enough to have it written on me forever.

Do you trust easily?

I'm doing a meme for a stranger on the internet. Survey says...YES!

But honestly, I would like to be more cautious about trusting people. Sometimes I'll get fleeting thoughts that try and warn me not to trust people but most of the time I ignore those thoughts. However, when it comes to strangers, people trying to sell me things, anyone making excuses or people who have previously lost my trust I am very cautious. If you betray me once I will never really trust you again but you might not ever notice that.

Name your least favorite feature?

Blargh. What? Like...on myself?

Ok let's face it folks...I am what is known as "curvy". If real women have curves then I could stand to be a tad more imaginary. I am not svelte, petite or dainty. I am also what South Park and the Harry Potter franchise call a "ginger." I am short. My face is allergic to...my face. Also, one of my exes once told me that I have small "piggy" eyes "like my father." ( I rolled them at him.) I have tons and tons of freckles. I know that there are parts of my body that people might think I should list here as things I am ashamed of or would like to change. But for the most part I am ok with the package that is me. I'm not saying that I'm gorgeous and perfect or anything but I am pretty content. I'm just me all day erry day.

It's weird but when I was younger and cuter my self esteem was a lot lower. As an adult I've never worried about the shape of my eyebrows or the smoothness of my armpits like the magazines seem to think I should. I have no idea if my pores are abnormally sized. One of my friends and I just had a conversation about labiaplasty. Dear God, if you don't know what that is don't Google it but let's just say it's a bad idea. I don't want liposuction or a boob job.

There are plenty of people who are willing to tell you bad things about your appearance. You have to be an advocate for yourself. So instead of my least favorite feature I am going to tell you that my nose is perfect. It's true. A gentleman caller once went into great detail telling me the virtues of my perfect nose. It is not too big or too small. It is not too pert or too flat. It is....the perfect nose. All I know is that it smells great. :D

If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

Made mashed potatoes? Huh? Why would you try to fail? Are terrorists trying to make you do something against your will? What the what? Do or do not. There is no, "try."

If you set to fail you WIN.

What's the worst thing about being your gender?

There's a lot of ways I could go with this. Honestly, I could talk about how difficult it is to be taken seriously as a woman in a science field. Or about how my previous job paid me half of what they would have paid a man with less training. Or about cramps....or expectations of motherhood. These are tied more to my choices than my gender.

I think the worst thing about being female is that I have more things to worry about then men do.

Which is a stronger emotion: anger or love?
For me, love. I can stop being angry at someone in seconds. I just have to put my mind to it. But it's much harder and more painful for me to stop loving someone. Sometimes I just can't do it. I feel like I'm not alone in this. I have so many different kinds of love in my life for so many different things and people and yet I can't think of anything I am actively angry about.

Man, that was intense. Bunny steeplechase chaser.

PS The prize for the perfect nose goes to Adele. Look at that schnozz! It's bee-yoo-ti-fil.

Ask a Geologist: Seriousness: EF

Dear Geologist,

I just totally eye-f**ked a hot doctor at UNC Hospital. How do I get him to want to date and marry me (only knowing which door he walked into after the eye-rape I gave him)?

Love,
EF


For this you need a five point plan of attack:

1. Find out his name.

You can a) Make note of the room number, grab the nearest scrub wearing person that's handy, and say, "What is the name of the Dr. that just went into room 2013B?" They don't know. Of course they don't know. Get huffy with them until they track it down for you.


Or B) Walk around looking for like pictures of staff on the wall, lists of those on call and just Veronica Mars the hell out of things until you figure it out.

C) Wait til he comes out and call him the wrong name, "Excuse me, are you Dr. McDoctorson?" You can probably just read his name tag but if he doesn't have one (sketch) you can be like, "Oh, who are you? Ms. Nurse Nurseynurse just told me you were Dr. McDoctorson." HAHA now you have a funny story for when you meet again. Also, you're kind of a liar. Hilarious.

2. Google that ish. Facebook stalk, read his Tweets, skim his medical journal articles and gather intel. You want him to want to date AND marry you so you're going to need to know as much about him as you did about Justin Timberlake when you we're in Junior High. Since there is no such thing as a hot doctor version of Tiger Beat you're going to have to do this yourself.

(OMG and when you get done we're going to become billionaires by making a hot doctor/ pharmacist/FedEx/Electrical Engineer/ChemLawn Guy version of Tiger Beat for old ladies like us. We'll call it COUGAR BEAT!!! ROLFLMAO I AM A GENIUS.

It'll look something like this. We're so money. Yeah, I made that in Powerpoint.)

3. Now is an excellent time of year to go after a hot doctor. Why? Because all of the slutty nurse costumes just went on sale. Run out and buy a slutty nurse outfit. Volunteer as a candy striper. Dude, actually, have you seen those candy striper outfits? Return the slutty nurse outfit. Just get yourself a regular old candy striper outfit. (More like Candy the Stripper amirite?)



4. Go in there with your outfit and chat up Dr. Hotdoctor. (Paging Dr. Hotdoctor....) and drop in the things you've learned from Cougar Beat. "Haha I learned to change bed pans when I was living in Montana. Oh YOU are from Montana? Tee hee what a small world...that reminds me that I just love rainbow sherbet and baseball. OH YOUUUUU LOVE THOSE TOOOOO? OH WOW." Now would be a good time to twirl your hair at him and bat your eyes. (Note: Pick up fake eyelashes when you return your nurse outfit.)

5. Next find out where he hangs out and be there. The Chipotle across from the hospital is a good bet. Clear your calendar and hang out there in a hot outfit until he comes over to eat lunch and propose.

If that sounds too labor intensive for you I guess you could just try and introduce yourself like the smart, mature, hotty that you are. Maybe ask him a question for your grad school research but really....what fun would that be?

PS COUGAR BEAT + US = PROFIT

PPS We're too young to be cougars.

Ask a Geologist: Seriousness

Well, I have this, uh, friend, and she's had some neurological problems in the past as well as some auto-immune stuff. She's in reasonably good health right now, but she's letting the fear of more problems rule her life.

She's afraid to get a job. She's usually a fairly outgoing person, but she's just moved to a new town, and she's lonely sometimes b/c she hasn't gotten involved.

She's a little skeevy about driving b/c of the aforementioned neuro stuff as well as the fact that her new home is very rainy--which can be scary to drive in.

Does the Geologist have any advice for my, um, friend?

Tell your friend I said not to waste her time. And by that I don't mean, don't both getting a job or making friends. I mean, SEIZE THE GD DAY! Get out there and kick life's ass. As Childish Gambino says, "We're here for a good, not a long, time."

If Friend wants to get a job she should get a job that makes her happy and that she enjoys. (Or she should volunteer! Which is like a job but it makes you feel more content/smug.) If Friend wants more Friends besides you...who might actually be her...then Friend should go ahead and do that.

It is hard to overcome this kind of fear. It is sometimes hard or impossible to just "suck it up." That's not really an option. I recommend that Friend start small and just work her way in to it. The problem with jobs is that they expect you to be there quite a bit and they get touchy about things because they are paying you. Volunteering would be a good fit for Friend because she could have a flexible schedule, meet new people and possibly do something that would help take her mind off of her problems. There is always someone worse off than you, as they say.

I went to hear someone speak this weekend who said something that I thought was incredible. He said that when he has a problem with something, like he's feeling jealous or worried about money or something like that, he goes out of his way to do the opposite of that thing. When he's worried about having enough money he donates to charity. When he's feeling lustful he focuses on love instead. To that end I think that Friend should plan a party.

Not a big party...not a blowout shindig with catering and craziness...but maybe Friend should invite over a few people she'd like to get to know better for dinner and game night. Or even suggest to a new acquaintance that they go out to lunch. Maybe see if her guests would like to bring one of their friends too.

The driving issue is scarier and I'm loathe to give advice without knowing all of the details. I am imagining, since I know where you live, that pedestrianism and public transit are not really viable options. I might be wrong about that? I would have Friend talk to her physician to try and find out how real the danger is and if there is any advice for that. It's also a great time of year to take your car into a mechanic and have them make sure it's safe and ready for winter. Tires are a big thing in wet conditions.

In my old age I have gotten more aggressive about making friends. You just have to! But I have found that people are really more interested in hanging out than I give them credit for. I'm always hesitant to invite a new person to hang out or to try and convert and acquaintance to a friend but it always works out great. I find that everyone is a little shy about things like this. Just meeting someone for coffee or shopping is a great icebreaker that's low pressure and has plenty of room for flexibility.

Don't forget Friend of Friend, that you and I met while I was meeting someone I had only talked to on the internet. She brought you for support and the three of us took off like a greased frictionless object boosted with rocket power. We've been friends ever since. Friend should use you as an example. Maybe you should tell Friend the story of how you met your husband. ;)

I want to challenge Friend to hang out with one new person and volunteer for one cool thing before Christmas. It might not sound like much but you'd be surprised how these things have a way of snowballing.

Ask a Geologist: How to Make Girls Crazy

How do I get girls to like me?

No, Dear Geologist? No details? No specifics about what kind of girls or why you'd like them to like you? Or whether you wear sweatpants and smell bad? (---This is an easy fix. Don't do these things.) Plus, I'm going to guess that you don't want "girls" to like you. You want "girl" to like you. Just one specific girl not a whole herd.

Well, you're off to a good start because this question is really frustrating to me. I would recommend giving a girl your number, asking her to text you and then not replying for at least three days. Then respond with something cryptic that is preferably one word. Some something like this:

Her: Are you going to Jason's party on Tuesday?
Him: (On Thursday) The new Dark Knight trailer looks cool.

or alternatively

Her: I had fun at the movie!
Him: OK

Girls love this. It has been my experience that they cannot get enough of it.

Seriously though...don't be that guy. The method describes above makes us crazy but not in that good way. It does not make us crazy for you.*

The best way of getting a girl to like you is to show her an aspect of yourself that she has not previously seen. They do this in the movies all the time but it works great in real life. Showcase your hidden talents.

If she thinks you're shy pop up somewhere with your guitar and sing something.
If she thinks you're snobby let her see you volunteering somewhere with little kids and making a ruckus.
If she thinks you're a jerk show her your softer side.
If she thinks you're a nerd invite her to your pickup basketball game where you're the star.

Just don't fake any of those things. Be yourself and be confident. Because you're fantastic, and a great catch and if she can't see that she doesn't deserve you. Sometimes nice guys think that girls like dbags and that nice guys don't have a chance. This is false. Women like guys with confidence. (Unfortunately, most jerks have a lot of confidence so it gets confusing.) So be the nice guy but take some credit for it. It's one thing to make fun of yourself and be self deprecating and humble but don't go overboard to the point where she feels like she has to be a cheerleader for you.

Be honest with the the girl you like about why you like her. Give her compliments. You don't have to say anything that reveals your feelings. Just say something like, "I really like your Fraggle Rock t-shirt."

Be a good conversationalist. Be an active listener. Make sure you're not dominating the conversation and ask questions about what she's saying. Go out of your way to remember things that she tells you. This is like the #1 Lady Killer of all time. I can't tell you how many times I've talked to one of my friends who is shocked, just flabbergasted, because some guy she likes has just remembered some nugget of information she dropped on him a week ago. She'll be all, "HE ASKED ME HOW I DID ON MY TEST!!!?!!! I told him about that test like, three days AGO." or "He told me he hopes that Button's surgery goes ok!!!!1!" Or play a Weezer cd in your car because she mentioned she loves Weezer. We can't even handle it. This is truly a trait that separates the men from the boys.

You'll notice I haven't given you advice about your looks. We don't really care about that as much as you think we do. Sure, we want you to be clean but women have a pretty broad range of what we're looking for appearance wise in a guy. Have you ever seen Beauty and the Beast? (You just earned a point for singing a little bit of, "Be Our Guest.") Or have you ever seen a hot girl with a C- looking guy and wondered, "How did he do that?" We're looking more at the whole package and less at your....ahem...package. There are always exceptions, though. Some girls really are so shallow that they are just looking for an Abercrombie model with no substance. See also: You're fantastic and too good for her.

Good luck!

*Seriously dudes. What is it with the word "crazy." Every guy I've ever met has described their (not currently in the room) girlfriend as crazy. Then when I meet her she's normal. What kind of cop out is that? Also all ex-girlfriends didn't work out because they are crazy. I think what you mean is that these women are crazy for talking to you in the first place. Is that what you meant?

Ask a Geologist: Because Race Cake

I want to bake the f#ck out of some cakes and decorate them. I, however, don't want to eat them. Aside from doing this for a bake sale, to what or whom could I give said cakes? I want like one slice, if that.

Sometimes I have my friend, TheGunShow consult with me on tough questions.

Craftmaster3000: work?

TheGunShow: tiny cakes? but that's not a scalable solution to learning to decorate cakes.

yeah work is true

Craftmaster3000: also cupcakes yes!

TheGunShow: and school... sendall: FREE CAKE IN KITCHEN

Craftmaster3000: I bring leftovers to work all the time or send them to b's work. people flip out.

TheGunShow: ha ha

yeah

F*CK YEAH

Craftmaster3000: or firestations!

TheGunShow: aw that's sweet

FIRE DOGS LOVE CAKE

Craftmaster3000: OMG OM NOM WOOF

TheGunShow: or nursing homes

WHO HAS DIEBETES???

Craftmaster3000: A better question is where can't you bring cake?

TheGunShow: lol

truefax

Can we decorate/make cakes together?

Craftmaster3000: also freezing them is goooood

YES

I love to bake. It's one of my favoritest things which is kind of a problem.

TheGunShow: We could hold fundraiser cake walks

TheGunShow: or sell them for fundraising

FOR OUR RACE CAR

Craftmaster3000: YES

TheGunShow: AND TEAM HOODIES

Craftmaster3000: why make cakes? because race car!

TheGunShow: YES

would it be lame if our team name was Because Race Car?

Craftmaster3000: Mmmmm...maybe :(

But not cause I don't love it

TheGunShow: rippy offy

Craftmaster3000: h8rs

and such

TheGunShow: mm

Craftmaster3000: But our name could be a question

and people'd be like, "why is your team name a question?"

and we'd say ...

TheGunShow: BECAUSE RACE CAR