Do you know what pancakes know?

I’ve noticed that a lot of the recent comment spam here has been in Russian.  I don’t speak Russian, so it’s all Greek to me.  But I was curious what they were promoting, so I copied one comment and pasted it into Yahoo’s Babel Fish translation service, and it returned this:

To ??? simply!  Everyone, pancake, all knows, except me

For some context, this was a comment on the caption contest featuring weird robot costumes.  Although I’m not sure if that really adds context, but I’ll make it fit.  Let’s see…  Were they calling us “pancake”? Surely not.  That makes absolutely no sense.  The interpretation didn’t give us the full meaning, so we must apply some interpolation.   Given the context of the caption contest, perhaps they meant everyone knows what is going on in that picture, except them.   That is, even pancakes know what’s going on.  Man, it must be tough to be dumber than a stack of flapjacks.   I reckon that’s why they’re in the spam business…

lots of Easter eggs

One of my neighbors put out a LOT of plastic Easter eggs on Easter morning, as evidenced by this picture.

Easter Eggs everywhere (click for larger image)

Now, I don’t have kids, but I do have some memories from my childhood of hunting Easter eggs, and it was never this easy.  To me, this isn’t even hunting or finding — it’s just picking them up.  What sense of accomplishment is that?  You might as well just throw the eggs at them. 

I have a younger brother, so eventually I got to help hide the eggs for him, and I never made it that easy on him.  In fact, sometimes I’d make it hard for him to find them all.  Being challenged like that helps people develop diligence and thoroughness.  I’m sure my brother would thank me now if he realized how much that contributed to his development.    (Actually, he’d say he’s cool on his own and I had nothing to do with it, but that’s just because he refuses to give me any credit.) 

viewer mail, issue #15

It is time for another issue of viewer mail.  (I really should do these more often; they’re fun.)  As always, these are actual search terms that brought people to this website, followed by my own leading brand of analysis, commentary, and rambling.

* buffets make people fat — Buffets don’t make people fat — people make people fat.   Actually, you make yourself fat.  But that’s not meant in a derogatory way.  I mean, if you want to be fat, then you have that option.  But let’s not blame buffets, or the “politically correct” crowd will try to ban them.  Besides, even if all-you-can-eat buffets went away, there would still be fat people.  It’s just a matter of semantics or somethin’…

* pickles diarrhea — I haven’t heard of such things, but I also don’t research it in any way, because pickles are evil.  Some have posited that eating pickles will turn you into a zombie (which probably could lead to diarrhea as your body tries to reject that).  I don’t think that’s completely proven yet, but some important people are working on it.  We’ll keep you updated.  But in the meantime, avoid pickles at all costs, unless you’re throwing them into the sun to destroy them.  That would be okay.  (FYI, there’s a very funny discussion on pickles at that link.)

* shampoo fraud conspiracy — I have no idea about this one…  Does anyone have any clue what this could be referring to?

* potassium nitrate side effects — Potassium nitrate is an interesting compound.  It is used in fertilizer, amateur rocket propellant, smoke bombs, food preservation (in old days), cigarettes, tree stump remover, the heat treatment of metals as a short-term rust inhibitor, the manufacturing of ice cream, toothpaste, and it’s one of the three ingredients in black powder.  So if you were to eat it, who knows what the side effects could be?  There’s a lot to choose from among that list.  But given those options, I don’t recommend eating it.

* burn calories poop — Well, just about any activity burns calories, even tapping your finger on your desk, so I reckon pooping would, too.  I did a quick search, and someone estimated the process burns between 19 and 70 calories.  I don’t know how scientific and accurate that is, but that site claims to be the #1 source for #2.

* can the sun be dangerous — Certainly!  In case you weren’t paying attention in science class, here’s a brief recap.  The sun has constant fusion, where hydrogen atoms fuse together to form helium atoms and release energy.  Or in other words, it’s a constant explosion.  So you don’t play with it!  IT IS NOT A TOY!  You wouldn’t want to put the sun in your pocket, because it would burn your butt.  Fortunately we’re 93 million miles from the sun, and Earth’s atmosphere refracts the direct sunbeams so it’s not instantly lethal.   But using a magnifying glass you can refocus the beams of sunlight and see just how dangerous it is — it creates fire.  So obviously it’s quite dangerous — sunlight plus curved glass creates fire.

That’s all the time we have for today.  I hope you learned something, or at least laughed.  (Laughing burns calories, y’know.  I’m not sure about learning, but it’s still good for you.)

overeating and inactivity doesn’t make you fat

I’ve always heard that eating too much and not getting enough exercise will make you fat.  That seems reasonable to me.   But I read somewhere online that this isn’t true.  Check out these “facts” someone posted:

The basic assumption here is that people become obese due to overeating and inactivity. This isn’t true. … Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.

Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller.

Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.

We get fat because of an imbalance — a disequilibrium — in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism.

So if I understand it, I’m not overweight because of overeating and being lazy, but because of excess fat accumulation.  And exercise doesn’t help you lose weight but actually makes you fatter because you’re hungrier!  (This sure sounds like that “Important Doctor” fellow, but it was someone else.)  And it’s my “hormonal regulation” that is to blame.  Hmm…

If you’re curious what that guy recommended to do to lose weight, his solution is to eat less carbs.  Although I thought he said consuming excess calories doesn’t make us fatter, so I don’t understand.   I just know that according to what that guy said, it’s not my fault!

a bag of donuts

I’m about to tell you a strange story.  It’s one that you’ve never heard of.  You could say it’s quite obscure in most parts of the world.  I usually don’t tell tales such as this here, but today is an exception.  I guess you could say I’m just in a story-telling mood today.

Every year on December 12th (12/12), something unusual happens.  There’s a peculiar man who goes around the tri-state area bringing holiday cheer with food.   Nobody knows his real name, but they call him Bag O’Donuts.  This is his moniker because he carries a magical bag of donuts (doughnuts) on this special day / holiday.

This special bag has within it every kind of donut — any kind you can imagine.  And the donuts are always fresh, similar to the ones you get off the line at Krispy Kreme where they almost melt in your mouth.  But this magical bag works only one day per year, making it a most special day for all who love donuts.

Mr. Bag O. Donuts has done this every year for a while now, establishing a tradition you could say, except one particular year, and that was when a man named Fab stole the magical bag of donuts.  Fab and Mr. Donuts were talking about the magical bag, how it worked, when Fab simply pulled the wool over Mr. Bag Donuts’ eyes (literally).  While Donut-Man struggled to unfleece himself, Fab escaped with the oft-coveted bag.  Fab hid in the pea patch, and ate donuts all night long.  He ate glazed, chocolate-filled, cream-filled, chocolate-covered, cream sticks, custard donuts, strawberry shortcakes, twists, etc. — all he could imagine.   It was better than a wagon full of pancakes!  He ate and ate, until he could eat no more.  In fact, he ate so many donuts that he began to look like one!

A search party eventually found Fab in the pea patch, asleep with the bag at his side and donuts in each hand.  But it was too late for Mr. Doughnuts to make his run — the clock had struck midnight, thus the bag’s special powers went dormant, and many people suffered free donut withdrawals.  It was truly tragic.

Now Baggy Donuts won’t bring donuts to Fab anymore, although I hear they are on talking terms now.  Fab denies the incident ever happened, but don’t believe him.  Rumor has it that sometimes on Dec. 12, late at night, you can still find Fab wandering around the pea patch, longing for the endless donuts once again.   Some say he has a donut-shaped hole in his soul, leaving him restless and endlessly hungry.

Now you know… the rest of the story.