I just registered the domain SoCuteICouldPuke.com.
I had to.
You see, I took this picture, and I just downloaded it onto my computer and looked at it, and had this instant reaction which was, well, “this is so cute that I could puke”.
What do you think?
And what do you think that I should do with the domain?
While at the physical therapist’s office today, we noticed something unusual about the bathroom doors in the building. Specifically about the placard with the universal symbol for “this is the ladies’ loo”.
It had a screw stuck squarely through the middle of its head.
This presented a fairly odd visual, and at first I thought it was just the maintenance staff’s lameass way of hanging the placards.
But in checking that theory, there was no such big old screw shoved through the guy’s head, nor any other part of his body.
So now I just figure that the maintenance man has issues.
Who would ever have thought that a seemingly innocent thing like mint toothpaste could incapacitate someone with what can only be described as a “phasers on stun” response to being accidentally inhaled?
Well, let me tell you, don’t try this at home, kids.
When you think about the act of toothbrushing, and how often you do it (uh, hopefully), the fact that you probably don’t hold your breath when you brush your teeth (although you should if you don’t brush your teeth – at least if you are standing near me), and the proximity of all that toothpastey backwash to your epiglottis, well, it’s amazing that this doesn’t happen more often. Certainly it’s the first time that it has happened in my forty-mumbledy-some-odd years.
But there it was. I was brushing my teeth, with Crest cool-as-ice-ultra-minty gel, and somehow, a tiny bit ended up going down the wrong way.
And let me tell you – when that searing hot mint hits your delicate pulmonary tract, you experience a full minute and a half of “oh please God let me die NOW” intense pain with every attempt at breathing, every futile cough which only serves to re-sear the entire length of your trachea as you desparately claw at your throat and chest and wonder if you will ever live to see another episode of Knotts Landing.
Then for the next five minutes the coughing hurts somewhat less (only somewhat), and you have the bizarre sensation of having minty fresh breath that is minty fresh all the way from the bottom of your lungs on up.
An altogether unpleasant experience, and I think I’m switching to Tom’s of Maine orange/mango toothpaste from here on out.
Searches that led to this article: https://www mangemerde com/its-ok-to-brush-just-dont-inhale/,
The Ohio Supreme Court just handed down its decision in the cases of City of Norwood v. Horney and City of Norwood v. Gamble. These are twin eminent domain cases, in which the City of Norwood, in Ohio, decided that it wanted to take property belonging to several families (among them the Horney and Gamble families), in order to use their property to create something of vital importance: two new city-owned parking garages,and a privately-owned mall.
Yes, you read that right. The city planners decided that putting up two city-controlled garages, and letting a developer put in a mall, were important enough to force these people out of their homes – to make them uproot and relocate their families – so that they could knock down their homes and put up their garages and mall.
Oh sure, they would be “justly compensated”, as the law of eminent domain requires, but that is hardly the point, is it?
When the private developer was unable to convince the Gambles, the Horneys, and a few other families – including the Dr. David Dahlmans – to sell out, the City of Norwood went another route. According to the Court, the City of Norwood “hired a consultant to conduct an urban renewal study to determine if current conditions in the Edwards Road Corridor qualified it as a “slum, blighted or deteriorated areaâ€? or as a “deterioratingâ€? area in danger of becoming blighted.”
Because, you see, if they could get the area where the Horney, Gamble and Dahlman homes were situated to be declared deteriorated or deteriorating, then they could take the properties under the doctrine of eminent domain – forcing the families out of their homes whether they wanted to go or not.
The consultant wrote a report in which they found that “while most structures in the target area were sound, other conditions including the neighborhood’s growing isolation from nearby residential areas, traffic safety issues and susceptibility to “piecemealâ€? conversion from residential to commercial uses in the future merited a classification of the area as “deteriorating.â€?
Handy, eh?
Then, the Court explains, “The city planning commission reviewed the consultant’s report and Rookwood’s redevelopment plan, and recommended that Norwood City Council adopt the finding that the area was “deterioratingâ€? and move forward with the Rookwood plan.”
Big surprise, eh? And here’s another big surprise:
The City Council then “held a public hearing at which comment was received from proponents and opponents of the plan. Council members then voted unanimously to adopt the Rookwood plan, and subsequently invoked the city’s eminent domain power to acquire the remaining hold-out properties.”
Uh huh.
Only the “hold outs”, well, held out. And took it to court. And, in fact, took it all the way up to the Ohio Supreme Court. Which overturned a lower court ruling, and stated inequivocally that “an economic benefit to the community alone does not justify government taking of private property.”
Good on ya.
And, in this tiny place called the Internet, through the most amazing of coincidences, I am proud to say that I heard about this from my friend, Dr. David Dahlman.
One of the hold-outs.
David, I am so proud to know you, and of you.
And to you, and anyone who wants to watch a great, heartwarming and funny movie about this very issue, I highly recommend “The Castle”:
Click picture for details:
So what with doing all this raw food stuff and all, I figured, what the hey, and picked up a couple of tomato plants, and sank them in our front yard.. yep, right between the Margaritas and the Calla Lily.
We planted one Early Girl, and one Beefsteak, and despite the names, they both had their first ripe fruit on the same day.
On the way in the door just now we grabbed the one of each, and brought them in, rinsed them, and took a bite of each.
Ohmygawd… is there anything better than a still-warm-from-the-sun, fresh-off-the-vine tomato?
If there is, I want to know about it.
So I’m sitting outside a cafe on University Avenue in no-longer very tony Palo Alto and this woman walks by… you know the type… what some would describe as a long cool drink of water.
Her long, straight blonde hair swings in rhythm against her tanned arms, bare in her sleeveless linen shirt. Her slim figure is perfectly clad in a pair of thin, pale yellow linen slacks, and I watch her walk by, hating her perfection…watching her walk away and thinking “what cheek (no pun intended) to be so obviously wearing no underwear with that flimsy linen”…
And then I see it.
Oh, she has underwear on alright.
Her slim, retreating “look at my ass swaying I’m-not-wearing-any-underwear” illusion is shattered as your eyes trace inward from the zenith of each unrestrained cheek jiggling beneath the surface of the linen, only to be brought up sharp by the appearance of a thick black line going up the crack of her focal point, terminating at the thick black elastic waist band of her….
Thong.
What, I ask. Is the point?
Isn’t the point of a thong to be not observable?
Apparently not.
Oops. I wiped out the comments function.
Thanks for letting me know.
They’re back.
Here are links to the posts that I know you are dying to comment on:
Would You Eat a Chicken’s Ring?
The #1 Killer of that Childlike Sense of Wonder: Photoshop
The Human Brain is an Amazing Thing – Get Some!
How About I Charge You for My Time?
Do You Know About Bone Models?
Sorry about that. What can I say? I’m a dolt.
There are some parts of an animal that just are not made to be eaten. And that would include a chicken’s ring. But apparently nobody told country star Dwight Yoakam that, as he just launched a food called, I kid you not, “Dwight Yoakam’s Chicken Rings”.
Obviously, these are the opposite of “chicken tenders”, or perhaps a companion piece.
In fact, if you wanted to reconstruct a chicken’s nether regions from foodstuff you’d take two chicken tenders, one chicken ring, and a chicken ding (of course you’ll need to find a McDonald’s, a store selling Dwight Yoakam’s Chicken Rings, and a chinese restuarant all within reasonable proximity of each other). (Whaddaya mean that’s not what the ‘ding’ is? You tell me then what part of the chicken is chicken almond ding made from? And how do they even find that tiny little ding to make shrimp almond ding?)
You don’t believe me, do you? Would it help if I told you that the full name of this delicacy is “Dwight Yoakum’s Chicken Lickin’s Chicken Rings”?
No, probably not.
Ok, if you insist, here’s a picture:
Man, those are some big chickens!
Bon appetit!
You know what the #1 killer of that childlike sense of wonder and amazement is?
No, it’s not seeing the zipper in the back of the Easter bunny costume (which is how I first figured out that there was a human inside that big cuddly bunny). And no, it’s not learning elementary science and where things really come from. It’s not even seeing Santa sneaking a nip from his hip flask as he rings the bell on the street corner.
No.
It’s Photoshop.
I’m serious.
I cannot tell you the number of times in the past few months that our child has seen some really cool picture – of something truly amazing – perhaps staged, perhaps not – and rather than being awed at the wonder of it all, he has said “it was probably Photoshopped.”
And you know, I realize that I respond that way to beautiful and amazing pictures now, too.
We saw a series of beautiful pictures hanging in our local REI – the moon over Half Dome, a bear in a stream, a wolf way up close. And you know what my first thought was? Well, my first thought was actually “Wow!”, but that sense of wonder was immediately killed by “Yeah, they were probably Photoshopped.”
Perhaps real Professional Photographers ™ who Want to be Taken Seriously should start providing a disclaimer in their photo information: “actual unretouched photo, not Photoshopped.”
In fact, let’s take that a step further. Maybe photos which have been altered in Photoshop should carry a label disclosing that fact.
Because otherwise, isn’t it really just a lie?
We were at the Tech Museum yesterday, where I was given the code name “Curious Orange Hedgehog”. Make of that what you will.
In any event, they have this really cool feature – there was a computer set up, open to a page where you could ask a Stanford University geneticist a question!
So of course I snooped the URL for you guys:
And here is the list of already asked and answered Ask a Geneticist questions; some of them are quite interesting!
You’re welcome.
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