Category Archives: DON’T go back to your day job either

May 19, 2017 · 0:00

My New-ish Expertise

Being a fake medical expert has become a bit passe, frankly.  And that expertise came after my rarely discussed time as environmental science expertise honed as a lowly paralegal/legislative & regulatory assistant/lobbyist.

So I figure I’m ready for a new challenge.  And just in time for World IBD Day, I’m takin’ on physics!

The Physics of Poop, of course.  And I think you will agree that I do have the expertise.  And the, ummm, credentials.  And I don’t have to go far for sample collection.

You see, there’s an article I read.  (Of course there’s an article.)

The Physics of Poop

You know it’s a good article, because this is the photo that accompanies the article:

Elephant Poop

This critter has nothin’ on me.  Except maybe on my shoes  Credit: Barry Kusama Getty Images

The authors, David Hu and Patricia Yang, studied poop every which way but Sunday.  Well, maybe Sunday, too.  Because there are some chores that simply must be done 7 days a week.

They discovered that herbivores produced “floaters” and carnivores plopped “sinkers.”  And apparently “stinkers” too, as tigers apparently have the stinkiest poop and panda poop is positively precious.

Bigger animals, not surprisingly, are more prodigious poopers, but interestingly, the speed of poop production is similar regardless of the size of the animal:

Assuming a bell curve distribution, 66 percent of animals take between 5 and 19 seconds to defecate. It’s a surprisingly small range, given that elephant feces have a volume of 20 liters, nearly a thousand times more than a dog’s, at 10 milliliters.

In all honesty, the attraction of the article wasn’t the significant increase in my already vast knowledge and understanding of poop.

Nope. There were two reasons.

First, it’s the fact that this article alerted me to the existence of NASA’s

Space Poop Challenge

I think you will admit that I should be an automatic contender.

More importantly, this article gave me something to write about to celebrate World IBD Day.  And while I personally celebrate every day, you, personally can have fun with poop on World IBD Day.  Don’t say I never gave you anything.

***

But WAIT!  There’s MORE!  After this post went to press, I found this article.

When Birds of a Feather Poop Together

Golly.  Studying poop has become a 24/7 commitment for me.

You’re welcome.

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October 8, 2016 · 0:00

Even if he apologizes

You all know what’s happened tonight.  The yuge video of Donald Trump being an asshole.  Talking about women disrespectfully.  Claiming that, because he is a star, he can get women to put up with him being sexually abusive.

Right now, I’m waiting for Trump to put out a video apology.  Or something.

But how can he apologize for who he is.  Who we — including the folks who planned to vote for him — always knew he was?

Every day it seemed, there was a statement from this woman or that, saying that he hit on them or disrespected them.

Still, most of the GOP went along with him. Endorsed him.  Sighed and signed on.

Paul Ryan.  Mitch McConnell.  John McCain.  Kelly Ayotte.  Ted Cruz.  Marco Rubio.

Right now, folks are lining up to say “he’s a bad man.”  “I can’t support him.”

Donald Trump is the same, vile man he was yesterday, before this film came out.  They always knew it.

If Trump releases a video where he assures us, with the deepest sincerity, that he respects women, he will of course leave lots of folk out:  Hispanics.  Muslims.  Blacks.  Everybody but rich white men.

Me?  I’m not ready to make nice.  Go to Hell, Donald Trump.  And don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out.

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May 31, 2016 · 0:00

This Really Gets My Goat

Do you ever want to pack it all in?  Shed these mortal coils?  Have an out of body experience?  Do you get so bored that you fantasize foreign travel, hanging out with a group of friends who won’t pester you with questions, eating a steady diet of fresh picked food, and drinking water from a mountain stream?

My inability to do that for a whole host of reasons, well, it really gets my goat.

But I think I can honestly say that when I consider having out of body experiences, when I think of packing it in, and when I contemplate shedding these mortal coils, I can’t even approach, neigh, fathom what Thomas Thwaite did.

Part of me sees the attraction.  After all, remember, I spent five years living in Switzerland.  And when you climb those mountains, your heart and soul expand.  You have what I dubbed Julie Andrews Moments where you want to sing with joy.  I can honestly say that I’d love to go back and spend some time there in those mountains.

But there are limits to how I’d like to go.  With whom I’d like to spend time.  And what I would like to wear when I get there.

For example, I do not want to imitate Thomas Thwaites.  He became a goat hung out on a mountainside.  With a herd of goats.  Eating grass.

There’s an article in the Washington Post about Thomas the Goat Man.  How he developed a prosthesis that enabled him to walk like a goat.  The challenges he faced.  The cold.  How he felt that human kind was progressing towards robotics, and he wanted to go a different way.  So he became a goat.

This video, read by a robo-caller, tells the rest of the story.  You can watch it and hear the story for yourself.  Or you can mute it, and watch a man in weird costume eat grass.  Your choice.

 

I can’t help wondering if the little goats used to laugh and call him names.  Did they let poor Thomas play in any goatherd games?

 

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April 4, 2016 · 0:00

I Really Don’t Look for this Shit

Yeah, I know you don’t believe me. But I don’t go looking for this shit.  Really.

It’s just that, well, I spend a lot of time reading the news.  Because after all, you depend on me to let you know which way is up.  Or which way is down.  Or maybe just getting flush with it.

Because you see, a new museum has opened up, and we all need to get our asses over there.  — Mark, are you paying attention????

National Poo Museum opens doors on Isle of Wight

Just in time for you to plan your summer vacation! Can you imagine a better reward for your children, who suffered through the British Museum, the Tower of London and Madam Tussaud’s,  than the prize at the end of the tunnel than the National Poo Mueum?  The National Poo Museum, you will not be surprised to learn, is a museum dedicated to excrement, with examples from the animal and human world.

And it’s just opened up!

There are 20 kinds of poo captured in resin — who needs to bury or flush?

Poo Museum 1BBC Photo.  Because who else would claim this picture?

Because I couldn’t possibly make this up, I will just let you know exactly what they are producing at this museum:

The exhibition at the Isle of Wight Zoo features faeces from animals such as elks and lions as well as a human baby.

The National Poo Museum has been created by members of the artist collective Eccleston George.

“Poo is all around us and inside us, but we ignore it,” said co-curator Daniel Roberts.

Twenty illuminated resin spheres show off the different types of faeces with facts hidden behind toilet lids on the museum walls.

Poo Museum 2

They have handsome men offering fun activities.  Look!  Weigh your poo!  (But I promise you, this is a contest I would win.)

There is old poo and new poo.  Dino poo.  Seriously, if you have ever dreamed of dinosaur poo, this is your golden opportunity to see it.  Well, it’s probably more like black gold (Texas tea).

And I truly believe that what they say about poop is true:

“Small children naturally delight in it but later we learn to avoid this yucky, disease-carrying stuff, and that even talking about poo is bad,” he said.

“But for most of us, under the layers of disgust and taboo, we’re still fascinated by it.”

This is why I blog.

 

 

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February 28, 2016 · 0:00

Oscar and Me. And Oscar.

As a young woman, I dreamed of being an actress.  So today/tonight, it is only fitting that I tell you this story.

You know how they say that life is what happens when you’re making other plans.  It’s true.  I’m living proof.

I had everything it takes to be a fine, award winning actress.  I was talented, pretty, had good comedic timing, and a voice that could be heard in the cheap seats.

What I didn’t have was guts.  Good guts.  My GI tract erupted in high school leaving my future in the hands of jobs that offered health insurance instead of fame and glory.  Damn.

Oh, and I lacked the guts to go for it anyway.  Once I made a wrong exit and  my acting career died in a broom closet, that is.

But even after leaving my dream in tatters with the mops and brooms, I continued to pipe-dream.  That’s different than the real thing, and you don’t have to remember lines, or stage directions or what to do with props.  It’s actually much easier.  You get to keep your privacy, too, which is nice.

Most of my friends are aware of this fantasy of mine, and of my need to, from time to time, stand on a table (instead of a stage) and tell a story.  It often involves alcoholic beverages.  The table standing, not necessarily the story.

Right now I’m going to tell you about the night I received my Oscars.  [Feel free to stop here if you’ve heard this one.]

It was an incredibly special night for me.  An honor really.  Well, actually, two honors.  Two Oscars.  Two Awards.  But I only got to make one speech.

It was 1983, and some really fun people worked in my office that summer, one of whom, Jon, was from the area.  Carol, Mike, Jon and I all went to Jon’s house one night.  You see, 1983 was still in the Bronze Age, and Jon’s parents were on the cutting age of technology, because they had a VCR.  And Risky Business had just come out on video.

In the middle of the movie, we took a beer/bathroom break.  And guess what I spotted, casually stuck on the bookshelf in the TV room of Rob’s house.

Oscar 

And Oscar

It turned out that Jon’s father was a filmmaker.  Documentary films.  My pals presented me with two Oscars for Documentary Filmmaking.  Sadly, not one of us had a camera.  Probably just as well, because not many stars accept wearing blue jeans.

Receiving Oscar, and his twin, Oscar, was a special honor to me, since I had neither made, nor been in any documentary films, nor even fetched donuts and coffee for the real filmmakers.  Regardless,  I got to hold Oscar and Oscar, and I got to make a speech accepting my Academy Awards.  So I am in an unusual club of people who have never actually acted or contributed in any way, shape or form to a movie, who has been presented an Academy Award.

Yes, I’m that good.

[Yeah, it’s a repeat.  But one can never have too many Academy Award stories.  Amirite?]

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