soup -o-

In beef, what you worry about is e. coli.  In healthy live cattle (and they must be healthy to be butchered for consumption) e. coli is only in the digestive tract but it can escape and contaminate the outside of the beef during slaughter and butchering.  The bacteria does not migrate to the interior of the meat as there is no circulation to take it there.  So you can eat beef where the inside is less cooked as long as the outside is well seared to kill any bacteria that may be on it.  Hamburger should always be thoroughly cooked because it is all “outside”.

With chicken, the concern is salmonella, which is found through out the body of the chicken.  Chickens can tolerate it, it doesn’t make them noticeably sick, but humans can not, so the entire meat must be cooked enough to kill any bacteria present in the meat.  As a note, it used to be believed that salmonella was not passed on to the eggs and in fact in the 1950′s, when my dad was in Vet school, studies showed it was not present in the eggs even if it was present in the hen.  That’s why there used to be a lot of recipes that used raw eggs, it was safe then.  However due to some change in the bacteria, or changes in egg-farming practices, it is now found in eggs as well.  The amounts are small, and if you are eating eggs within a couple days of being laid it’s probably not a problem, but store eggs are old enough for bacteria to have reproduced to dangerous levels and the liquid interior allows it to spread all through the egg.

I also wanted to mention that apart from the salmonella risk (which is a freakin’ big “apart from”), you also have the risk of Campylobacter infections. Not only can these lead to really really horrible gastro-intestinal problems, a small number of infections also cause an auto-immune response that leads to the body destroying its own myelin (the stuff around your nerves that makes them good at carrying electrical signals). Basically, your nerves stop working and even if you survive, you’ll be hooked up to an iron lung for… a long time. I don’t know how long it takes to regrow myelin, I’m not a neurologist. 

Seriously. Heinz, mainverse Heinz, has so many tragic traumatic backstories, to the point of getting a whole clipshow episode about them. His parents didn’t show up to his birth, he was raised by ocelots, he was forced to work as a lawn gnome, the family pet was called Only Son, he had to wear hand-me-up girls dresses after his younger brother was born… and that’s just the start.

And he’s “Evil”. He is very much Theatre Evil, performing it (with scripted monologues and musical numbers and the expectation that his nemesis will thwart him), rather than acting on innate cruelty.

His daughter, in the season finale, actually told him he wasn’t Evil. She said, and I quote, “No, Dad. You’re basically a nice guy who’s pretending to be evil. And, you know, it seems like it’s all out of obligation to your backstories, not something that truly comes from your heart.”

(This is just headcanon but I see him as someone searching for acceptance and healing, the only way he knows how (ie Evil), who’s more interested in annoying people with petty “revenge” than in genuinely harming anyone. All he wants is the attention he’d been denied his whole life, and if he can’t have positive attention he’ll take whatever he can get.)

Meanwhile, Doof-2, from the Second Dimension… he has a “backstory”: He lost his toy train. That’s it.

To quote mainverse Heinz after that revelation: “That’s your emotionally scarring backstory? That’s your great tragedy?”

All that happened to him was losing his toy train, and now he’s a twisted and cruel man who commits “crimes against humanity” because he thinks it’s fun. He’s destroyed lives because it benefited him, without even an ounce of remorse.

Doof-2 is the epitome of “cruel because he never suffered”, in stark contrast to Heinz’s lashing out in pain because he doesn’t know how else to get the attention he’s so desperate for.

You can see this in how they treat their respective nemeses, too. Doof-2 turned his nemesis into a cyborg who can’t disobey orders, Heinz found a friend who’ll be there for him of his own free will.

Enderman: *looks at player’s eyes*

Player: 01010010 01100001 00100000 01110010 01100001 00100000 01010010 01100001 01110011 01110000 01110101 01110100 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01010010 01110101 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110001 01110101 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01101111 01101000 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 01101101 01100001 01101110

One of the most important parts of writing MYSTERY is figuring out what to do with clues and red herrings - and how to use them effectively. Here’s some advice that’s never steered me wrong: 

Hide the real clue before the false ones! Most people, so by extent your readers and your sleuth, tend to focus on the last piece of information presented to them. A good strategy is to mention/show your real clue and then quickly shift focus. 

Do a clue cluster! Squeeze your real clue in among a whole pile of red herrings or other clues, effectively hiding it in plain sight. This works especially well with multiple suspect mysteries. 

Struggling to think of what a clue could be? Try this list: 

Physical objects: Letters, notes, tickets, emails, keepsakes, text messages, diaries, etc. 

Dialogue: voicemail recordings, overheard conversations, hearsay, gossip, rumours. All of these can hold grains of truth! 

Red herrings distract and confound your protagonist and your reader, so you should be careful not to overuse them. Well balanced, red herrings should lead your characters down false paths to create confusion, tension, and suspense.

Contradictions! Have characters claim they did so-and-so at such-and-such a time, but other characters have evidence that contradicts this.

two drunkards with too much strength and their unwillingly patient high-standing others because i did not want to decide (*・∀-)☆