Seriously. What the hell?

I came to the realization the other day that I hate how slow my body and brain work together when it comes to dealing with hunger.  My stomach works at 56.6k speeds when it decides to inform my brain that I’m full. In an ideal world my stomach and brain would immediately warn me that I might become a tub of lard if I continue eating that entire family sized box of mac and cheese.

Instead, in reality, I get to the end of my meal and disappointment sets in because I’m still feeling hungry. So I find a bag of chips. Only after I start snacking on chips to fill that void that is hunger depression, my stomach finally tells my brain, “Hey, buddy, I think you overate.”

My brain responds to this news by going into a fit of rage against the body (stomachache) and flips the off switch to my entire body (itis).

Luckily for me if my body isn’t shut down by the itis, I’m also often too lazy to make more food if nothing is readily available to eat. Gluttony and stomach, I hate you both.  Sloth, I love you.

The idea of surgery may scare some people. Hell, the sight of blood is enough for some to cringe in fear. Thanks to surgery, though, many people have been saved. However, imagine being prehistoric man, and going to the doctor, or the equivalent at the time, and hearing that they would need to cut inside your body in order to find whatever it is that’s ailing you. One ridiculous example is trepanation, a historic way to relieve head pain. What is trepanation you ask?

This picture would make more sense if you had a drill going in your head

It’s when a hole is drilled into your head to relieve your head pain. I mean goodness, even with modern day anesthetics, people are scared to death of surgery, so it must have been horrifying to hear the doctor say that they’ll need to drill a hole in your head without any sort of pain reliever. Speaking of which, the first surgeons probably didn’t knock you out before they started operating on you either. If you really needed some problem go away, you probably had to stay wide awake while the surgeon moved their hand around your chest cavity. What was the surgeon looking for in that open wound? Well, even they probably didn’t know. A successful surgery thousands of years ago probably meant the surgeon removed something from that chest cavity and you didn’t die. Well, thanks to those surgeons of the past, we have modern techniques that are less barbaric, or, at the very least, we’ve found different ways to knock people out while we feel around their chest cavity.

Some say that man is destroying nature with industrialization. Through the rise of cities, humans are killing off wildlife and driving some animals to extinction. Nature’s response to man making forests into cities is the raccoon. These resilient scamps are one of the few animals that have adapted very well to whatever conditions they have to live in. I recently saw a PBS documentary on them and about how they’ve adapted to wherever they’ve been brought to. Toronto is the raccoon capital of the world. 1,500 raccoons were imported to Japan as pets in the 70s and now they’re destroying infrastructure there. German hunters can’t seem to get rid of them. They even live in Alaska where there are polar bears and igloos. Their resiliency knows no bounds.

Some of the most damning evidence against raccoons comes from the media. There was an episode of King of the Hill that taught viewers you can’t tame a raccoon and keep them as pets. The protagonist of the Sly Cooper series of video games is a raccoon. At first, we’re supposed to support Sly, but then we come to the realization that, like all raccoons, Sly is a dirty thief. It gets even worse when we realize that Sly, like most raccoons, does all this without pants. Sly’s vulgarity truly knows no bounds.

If you’re a pet owner, these rascals are a scourge upon your animal. Some are as big as dogs and they have little hands. Those little hands can do things from scratch your pet, grab things, and give you a handshake. They’re also quite agile for their size. On the PBS documentary, it showed how raccoons can slip through the small spaces between fences. I thought being that big would hinder how quickly they can move, but apparently it doesn’t, it just makes them look fluffier. No matter how fat that raccoon looks, it’s like a little Sammo Hung. This means as soon as you hear your pet’s barking or meowing, the little jerk is already on the other side of the fence. It’ll wait for you to spot it though, just so it can give you a smug look and a wink assuring you that it’ll be back.

You ever notice how sometimes when you’ve slept for a few hours and wake up tired? Now think about times that you felt tired in the middle of the day, took a 5 - 10 minute nap, and woke up super refreshed. What the hell, right? And sometimes, after staying up too late or something like that, you could be taking a 10 - 12+ hour sleep, and you might wake up ridiculously tired. I’m no scientist, but that’s absurd.

Jellyfish are plain weird. Any way you look at them, they don’t resemble any other living thing (at least to the visible eye). They’re basically plastic bags floating around in the ocean. They’re living plastic bags that cause painful stings to other people and provide food for turtles. You can see right through them and such, but you won’t spot any vital organs. Some jellyfish can technically live forever by some process that reverses their aging or something along those lines. Do I know how they reproduce? Not before I decided to write this. Some of them split in half, while others go through a process that I didn’t quite comprehend, but they are asexual, meaning they don’t need another jellyfish to make jellyfish babies. All I really know is that they’re a pretty delicious dim sum item.

For most people, Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola are very popular sodas that have very familiar tastes. However, imagine if you are among those that have not tasted these sodas. How does one explain the flavor of cola? If someone asked me what cola tasted like, I don’t know what I would say besides, “It tastes like…cola.” Unlike 7-Up, Sprite, or any other fruit flavored sodas, cola has its own distinct taste. Outside of calling it just sweet, how would you describe the smell? The flavor? This thought came to me as I was drinking a very large amount of Diet Coke. Does the flavor of cola appear anywhere else in the natural world? From what I’ve read, the flavor of cola is a mixture of different flavored things. If the flavor of cola can be drawn from things that occur in nature, then why is it so hard to describe? If someone does ask, however, the response I may give them is, “It’s delicious.”

After the longest of delays, here’s an update!

Sir Isaac Newton is quoted as once saying, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Well I say, “Everything amazing happened in the 20^th century.” Let’s consider the things that happened in the 20^th century. The internet was created in the 20^th century, and without that, I wouldn’t be able to post about it on itself. Second, computers were made, and without those, I wouldn’t be able to type this.

First things first, let’s think about the wars. In what other century would you have MILLIONS of people killed with around ten years of fighting? This probably happened in history before, but this happened like THREE times in the 20^th century. The 20^th century introduced a whole new kind of fighting with airplanes. Not only was it important to be powerful on sea and land, but you’d be out of luck if you couldn’t defend yourself from the air. Fire bombing and napalm let you set your enemies on fire from the air. Fire raining from the sky? I can’t think of anything worse. Maybe if we dropped spiders or clowns from the sky, but fire and bombs are bad enough. We also strapped guns that could fire bullets at unheard of rates on those flying death machines. Hell, weapons became so deadly that there were actually some that were banned. Mustard gas isn’t a condiment you would want on your hot dog. To think, in previous centuries, every country would have killed (literally) for the most deadly and horrific weapon to use on their enemies, but in the 20th century, even the victorious countries were like, “Dude…” There are tons of cautionary tales against the use of nukes after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. However, during the Cold War the USA and USSR both had enough nukes to destroy the entire Earth like 8 times over. Considering the fact that one nuclear meltdown like Chernobyl can render an entire city uninhabitable for thousands of years, imagine the power of all those nukes exploding. It would lead to no life left on Earth or humans would have to evolve at a rate that would produce millions of Incredible Hulks.

I’m sure we’ll write more about the 20th century, but for now, we’re starting on a cheerful note. Hopefully we’ll keep this thing rolling!

Have you seen the show?  It’s a show on the History Channel that follows Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz—two guys who make a living off of buying and selling antiques—as they look for items in the properties of collectors, hoarders, etc.  Basically the show is about undervaluing property and pretty much undercutting old people. 

From all the episodes I’ve seen they come upon a rundown place and ask if they can see what the owner has on his property.  They’ll find old Imperial Japanese swords from WWII, rare bikes, and awesome signs.  A lot of the owners of these pieces look like they’re about to kick the bucket and I have a feeling they’re just happy to be able to have company and show off these items.  Which, when you think about it is kind of sad. 

In one episode they found an old circus ride and made an offer to which the owner—let’s call him Elmer (old name, right?)—said “no, that’s way too low,” and added that his kids even told him not to sell it.  Mike and Frank tell him that’s the best offer they can give him and after he rejects, they leave.  By the end of the episode they’re tipped off by Danielle that the owner wants to counteroffer.  Mike and Frank return and pretty much through the gift of gab and feigned friendship get him to accept something close to their original offer. 

Mike and Frank, leave these old people alone or at least tell them you love them before you #$%# them in the @$$ (to borrow a line from South Park).