Tag Archives: science

For clean minds only

We are starting our New Year’s resolutions early around here! Mr. H recently was weighed at the doctor’s office, and when they started calling local vet offices for livestock scales, he got the point. Now I can stop leaving Post-Its and fortune cookies around, which is just as well because he would eat the fortune cookies whole and miss the message completely. Picture the treat tossing action at Sea World.

Oh, I am pulling your very shapely leg. He merely needs to practice a tiny bit of slimming for heart health, and since he is a man, this means he will switch to Cheerios for breakfast and stop drinking Snapple and magically drop 30 pounds in one week. I’ll wake up one day and wonder when I married Christian Bale in The Machinist. Then I’ll probably poke him in all his visible ribs. Wouldn’t you?

The New York Times, always on the cusp of trends like people having blogs or knitting or finding apartment hunting trying, has mentioned a diet long touted by Vomitola: the Imagine Diet. Lambchop cited this diet in 2004: Never Say Die-t! Lambchop 1, Science 0.

Lambchop and I have tried many diets over the years, including the Spit It Out diet and the Despair diet, and while all of those work, there can be downsides. What happens when you become just too attractive?

Once we tried subsisting on Brain Wash soda, a heady confection of sugar, stimulants, and jalapeño oil. It also came in the flavor red (not pictured). It burned as if you were being cleansed by God.

We were but neophyte sommeliers, so we used to try gauche little pairings for our beverages all the time. Gummy worms really brought out the undertone of civet cat musk, and Sour Patch Kids brought out seizures. Swedish fish dialed up the shoe leather and berry notes. Pop Rocks caused an actual blackout. Combine this with a regimen of occasionally nipping at the steam trays and frozen yogurt machine in the Warren Towers cafeteria and marching from Chinatown to Allston while hallucinating vigorously, and we were fit as fiddles!

Oh, to be young again!

Wooooooo

I got a scale that measures my body fat percentage, and you are about to be painfully informed of how happy this makes me. Some people are afraid of the numbers on the scale, but I take it in stride as Science. I have 25% body fat, by the way! Wooooo! I am excited not because this is a good number to have (it’s smack in the middle of the optimal range for my height, which means that Anna Wintour would actually throw up at the sight of me), but hey, if I can have a device in my home that shoots electricity through my feet, it’s only a matter of time before I can buy a home MRI machine.

OK, if you need me, I’ll be wearing a jacuzzi suit. In the future. ThatswhatImtalkinabout.

915: Add your voice to the sound of the crowd

I am thinking of switching this site over to Whereisyournose.com. Where is it??? Where’s your nose? Oh, not sure? Well, let’s find my nose first. No? Still no nose? We may need to consult Science on this one. Science holds the cure for fun. Write your own Michael Jackson joke at this point.

Oh, where was I? I am not an animal! Stop poking me. Stop it. What is wrong with you? Why are you pinching me? If you want this piece of pasta, you will stop pinching me. I mean it. Pasta! Look, a bird. That is a bird. Where is the picture of a cat?

I have to go drop off a check for my life insurance tomorrow. What are the odds that I will be hit by a large truck on the way to do this? I have never been more scared in my life. This is more terrifying than being three blocks from home after an exotic vacation. What do you mean, a window a/c fell and crushed her? You sure it wasn’t some rare fever? Leeches? No? Stop pinching me.

Just lions smiling in the dark

Yes, I know that’s the wrong lyric. That’s why it’s funny. Thanks for making me explain a joke, you freaking jerks! Cite your sources, you say? No, no, you say, that isn’t right. The pigs say OINK all day and night. If I told you what the rhinoceroses say, I probably would have to pay a royalty to Sandra Boynton and the good folks at Simon & Schuster, so I will cut it right off.

Anyway, sources. We don’t need no stinking sources and studies. We need to prevent something that might lead to cancer, and you are a woman-hating jerk if you say “But the Science, she are not so good on this one!” And suddenly feminists are OK with a state tying something that only affects a woman’s body to a woman’s access to education? I am talking about Texas and the HPV and the Merck and the money and all, but I am not citing my sources. And that’s OK, because we don’t do that anymore. We are the internet. Did I mention CANCER? More women die each year of septicemia, diabetes, and unintentional injuries than the form of cancer in question, which is easily identifiable with a routine yearly screening. In the US, this cancer is the 14th hottest form of female cancer, rating below Alyssa Milano and Kim Cattrall.

No, no, you say, that isn’t right. You must want all those little girls to get THE CANCER (er, you mean one of four strains of a virus that can lead to the cancer if not caught early by a routine screening, right? And you know there are dozens of strains, not just those four targeted by the shot? No, I mean CANCER is a sure bet! Do not pass go, go straight to CANCER in this argument!). I would rather those little girls and boys learn to use the condoms and attempt to respect each other. But that’s OK, abstinence-only whatever works great. And then we can paternalistically mandate protection for something that might happen based on an individual’s potential sexual choices to cover up for the giant lapse in education. And the protection comes with great risks in and of itself, and the longterm effects are completely unknown. It’s anti-woman not to promote informed choice. Or is it PRO CANCER?

I could probably try to make more sense and actually cite sources, but I am too busy attempting to graph potential agony in upcoming situations, neither of which involves cancer. Budget air travel maybe. Is this caused by a virus?

We don’t need no stinkin’ naps

Today I went to the grocery store to wrestle for the last can of cranberry sauce. I had to hurt a bitch. A ybab (I am sick of all those ybab ads) bit a bitch. OK, she bit me. She bit her dog? I didn’t even buy cranberry sauce; it was just fun to play America. No one was in the bulk aisle buying organic quinoa by the pail but me. Why is that? Boy are my relations gonna love a pilaf.

The bagger at the checkout told a ybab that she is too small to be five months old. Well, how do you like that? Demoted by the help! There is no need for science when we have the great natural resource of grocery store advice just waiting to be tapped. Imagine our confusion and need for guidance as a nation, waking up in a world where Michael Richards has just Mel Gibson’ed himself. Down is up, up is down, and there is a tarantula in my bananas.

Oh, and peep this: the plumber came and put the tasteful little “hot” piece of red plastic and brushed metal in the bathroom faucet. Now I know that tap is Hot, as opposed to just knowing it was Not Cold. This divot has only been missing for a year, since we moved in and stuff, but compared to the other random hijinks to which the seller has attended (blood spatter on the counters, exploding circuit breaker box), this was a very small problem. With this problem’s small frame, it could curl up in a very small ball.

Space: a vast conspiracy

Solar system downsized. Now, I didn’t actually read that whole article. I just skimmed the headlines to make sure the casualty wasn’t Uranus. Science is way boring!

A baby has been tolerating the songs of Kurt Weill this week. I am fresh out of ideas for entertaining a baby. The other day I was singing “Crafty” by the Beastie Boys, and I realized that might be a bit salty for tender ears. But then again, “Mack the Knife” is worse, but she loves it. So now we alternate between finding the way to the next whiskey bar and the “Mr. Belvidere” theme, one of Herr Weill’s lesser works.

Homigod

Housing situation still non-pleasurable. Living in hotel for another few weeks or so. Back story complicated and irritating. Short version: flood, munged up utilities, possible negligence on part of builder, city, who knows. Parasite due to arrive: whenever she wants, at this point.

But but but but….I do not have this Disgusting and Terrifying Skin Disease! SRSLY. Read that article, watch the video, visit the foundation’s website, and prepare to think about never touching another surface again.

Membership has its privileges

Yesterday I got out of a ticket for speeding through Cow Town*, NH, with the “I have to pee!” excuse. Do give that a whirl! If you aren’t suffering from quick-onset obesity like I am, just slouch and tenderly pat your abdomen. Fucking breeders.

After escaping the law, I was glued to a story on NPR about organ brokers and illegal tissue harvesting. Finally, the profession for me! I’ve always wanted to be a surgeon, but this would allow me to skirt the pesky medical degree. I could do it from a home office. I’ve toyed with the idea of hanging out my illegal cosmetic surgery shingle, but who likes seeing how sausage is made?

Although I’m glad I haven’t had any recent illegal and unscreened tissue implants. I do feel bad for poor Alistair Cooke‘s family though. I used to love me some Masterpiece Theatre when I was a kid. And, oh hell, the families of other less-famous people too. And the unsuspecting people who received potentially contaminated tissue.

Annie Cheney was on the program discussing her book Body Brokers: Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains (excerpt). Among other interesting facts, the hotel ballroom where you are having your wedding reception may have recently hosted a hands-on seminar for doctors, meaning a bunch of torsos or ankles might have been laid out around the room for surgical training or product demos.

Over dinner, I told Mr. H that he is 100% allowed to donate any of my organs, and that he may sell the rest or donate it to science as he pleases. Or have me stuffed and mounted over the fireplace or posed in lingerie. I honestly don’t care. I’ll be dead. I think part of the problem is that people aren’t allowed to just sell their own loved ones. Eliminate the middle man of the shady funeral home, and let people seize commerce as they see fit. No touchy the folks who don’t want to be recycled. Then regulate the shit out of the whole deal to avoid implanting diseased tissue. Someone’s already making money on this, so why not just make it legal and cap the profit margin? Wow, that was a hard-hitting FOX-news-y opinion.

Then Mr. H told me he had lunch with a friend who’s graduating from medical school in a few months. The friend was agonizing over going to his next class, saying it would be boring because all they’d be doing is dissecting a brain. Mr. H said “Are you kidding? My wife would love to dissect a brain!” He knows me well. I need to have our friend over for a home-cooked dinner so I can butter him up for an invite to brain lab. What food is most reminiscent of brains?

*The mayor is actually a goat. Whoa, recycled joke!

Which foods am I thinking of today?

Today I awoke to find free cocaine falling from the sky! Pounds and pounds of it! I am so excited. People are taking it for granted and brushing it off their cars. I don’t understand that. It’s a gift from God. I am going to put some clothes on and go harvest some. Later-ish. I think I need a massage and a nap now. I’m also having all my pants hemmed to this season’s length, and I’m getting neck extensions. Huh, the landlord is out there pushing the cocaine around with a plow. That’s the ticket, man. Jolly good. Put some behind my car, yes, do that. I am going to have so much fun backing through that.

Oh, about the food. I am thinking of how bad microwave popcorn smells. And about how Hot Pockets are made of asthmatic stray cats. I could also go for some of that leftover casserole, except I ate it all last night. What do you people eat, anyway? I always imagine other people are eating better things than I am. Who am I talking to? Why do I let random dingdongs know my business at all? And by business, I mean total exaggerations or lies. Envy and vigilance, that’s the name of the game.

It rubs the lotion on its skin

Yesterday the parasite and I took a voyage au train. The parasite has been hanging around making me ill for weeks, and now it has started speaking to me. Perfectly logical, I suppose. Stockholm Syndrome.

It told me that this girl sitting in front of us looked like Soccah Stah Mia Hamm, wife of Nomah. And she sort of did, except she was wearing fake Vuitton sunglasses and a blazer that appeared to come from Sears. Then Mia Hamm put on headphones, and the parasite and I recoiled at the sound of tinny audible fiddle music.

At the parasite’s behest, I took my gum out and stuck it on her headrest. She leaned back to enjoy her fiddle, and I popped an Altoid in my mouth in case my minty breath should implicate me when she discovered the gum. “Dirty deeds done dirt cheap,” crooned the parasite. I became excited because it’s so hard to find a reliable dirty deed provider in the first place. Maybe the parasite isn’t so bad. We could achieve symbiosis instead of a host/guest relationship. I am not about to put out soap shaped like seashells. Or fancy towels. No suh.

Although it did encourage me to vomit on Mia Hamm as well. I bribed it with a granola bar and the promise of leftover risotto, and it took its patter of villainous invective down to a dull mutter during my meetings. I’m still not above making an appointment with Science to have it removed if it doesn’t straighten up.