Pointless Questions...with Aaron Mucciolo

I’m too tired to write an intro to the column this week. Instead, I’ll just say: Mmmmmm…Donuts…

Howdy. I was wondering if you could find out for me if Gibson’s bakery sold their recipe for cake donuts to Entenmann’s. An alum told me they did, but we’ll never know for sure until you lay down the law. –Nathan Winkler-Rhoades, college sophomore

Yee-hah, there’s a new sheriff in town and his name is Mooch (highwaymen and bandits everywhere quiver in fear I’m sure). Entenmann’s Bakeries are an East Coast chain, for those of you who never heard of them, with bakery outlets and a retail biz in grocery stores throughout the New York State region. A staffer with their Research and Development Department (no, I don’t know why a bakery has an R+D department) was kind enough to ask around and called back saying that the Entenmann’s recipe is an original, internal creation.
Your alum friend appears to just be spreading an urban myth. Mr. Gibson was quite amused by the notion and confirmed Entenmann’s statement.

Why does my gas gauge show ‘full’ for a while before moving?

According to NPR’s ‘Car Talk’ guys, your car’s gas gauge is a rough estimator of the fuel in the tank. Quoting from one of their columns at cartalk.cars.com: “Dashboard gas gauges are good as relative measures. They tell you when the tank is pretty full, and when it’s pretty empty. To use them for anything more precise than that is like using your kitchen scale to weigh molecules of radioactive plutonium.”
The gauge (since you’re all dying to know, I’m sure) works on a rheostat — the fancy term for a dimmer switch, like the one you may have in your dining room. There’s a float in the gas tank attached to this dimmer. The needle in your gauge is on an electric circuit also attached to this dimmer and is trying to push itself to the ‘full’ end of the gauge. As the gas gets used up and the float sinks it increases resistance in the rheostat — like turning down the lights with a dimmer switch; it’s not that less electricity is flowing, it’s that less is getting through — which makes the needle slowly move towards empty.

What’s a ‘shawm’? –Sara Femenella, befuddled News Clerk (see Arts Calendar, page 11)
Shawm describes any early double-reed wind instrument — the forerunners of the modern oboe. Apparently the calendar listing is connected with the Con’s Historical Performance Program.

What’s up with that no phone blue light phone by the Lewis Center? –Charlotte Phillips, college senior

A better question might be who the hell’s in charge of the blue light phones? After being bounced back and forth a bit between Safety and Security and Facilities Operations, someone in the latter promised to look into it. Fortunately for my editor they not only looked into it, they got me an answer.
It’s a bit vague, of course. Apparently there was something wrong with the mechanics of the phone and/or the column that houses it. They are in the process of removing the column so no one will be confused and no one in danger will head for it. People walking by the west side of Lewis may have noticed the column wrapped in trash bags and duct tape, trying its best to look inconspicuous before its removal.

Hey Mooch, what’s the deal with grits? –Carrie Pierce, college junior. Care to elaborate?

What exactly are grits? My roommate thinks they’re made from that white part at the tip of the corn kernel. Is this true? If so, how is that white part prepared to turn it into mush like that? What process is performed on what sort of material to make grits?
Okay, I gotcha. Grits are roughly ground corn — as opposed to more finely ground (flour consistency) corn meal. You pretty much just take corn, grind it up, sift out both the meal and the hard, insoluble bran or shell, then boil what’s left. For those who have never tried it, it’s kind of like soupy Cream of Wheat or thin, more granular oatmeal.
Hominy grits are prepared almost the same way except the corn is soaked first until the bran comes off. The kernels are then dried and ground. The result is a smoother finished product.
From what I can gather, the entire corn kernel is used in both cases, not just the harder, tasteless white part at the bottom of the kernel.

Fuel tanks, blue lights, and shawmns. We’re getting a little less pointless every week. Email your questions, pointless or point…ful as they may be, to aaron.mucciolo@oberlin.edu or write to Pointless Questions, c/o The Oberlin Review, Wilder Box 90, Oberlin OH, 44074. Your name will be used only with your permission.