Author: Buffet o' Blog

Laughing is good for you. So this blog is a buffet of randomness and humor. Most of the content here is original and thus exclusive to this site. I encourage everyone to participate in the comments section -- it makes it more fun for everyone.

I have a dinosaur in my backyard

It’s true! I saw a real-life living dinosaur, and it was starting to build a nest where I didn’t want one, so I confronted it and scared it away! I battled a dinosaur and lived to tell the tale! Afterward, it glared at me in seething anger, but I glared back, and it chose to retreat to the neighbor’s yard, so I let it go. I actually defeated a dinosaur! (Yeah, there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me!)

This isn’t my backyard. It would be neat if it was, but mine is somewhat less dramatic, with much smaller dinosaurs. Mine also has considerably less mountains.

So how can I say this and claim it’s true? Do you think this is some embellished memoir? Well, according to some scientist, it’s true. Check this quote out:

“Today’s birds evolved from dinosaurs, which makes them every bit as much of a dinosaur as T. rex or Triceratops.” ~ Steve Brusatte, paleontologist

I suppose someone could make that argument, but it still sounds silly. Granted, I’m no paleontologist nor an ornithologist, so I didn’t have any voice in debating what to call them. But still, I have a voice, and I’m writing in my corner of the internet on a blog that’s had over a million pageviews, so I have some reach, and I’ll share my opinion anyway. (Always glad to share my ignorance. I’ve got plenty.) Maybe it would be better to just say modern birds descended from dinosaurs. (I still don’t know that that’s true, but it sounds better.) It just sounds wrong to say that I have dinosaurs in my backyard… And it takes away from the mystique of dinosaurs.

But if you want to play along with that thinking, you can tell people you have a dinosaur in your backyard. Or that you’re stronger than a dinosaur. Or that you’ve killed a dinosaur. Or that you’ve eaten a dinosaur. It could be a fun conversation piece. Try it (with people who appreciate humor).

stinky wordplay

This is not quite how it happened, but an unreasonable facsimile thereof.

One day I was driving my kids around town (as I am apt to do), and a traffic scenario required deft reflexes. The kids enjoy being slung around in their car seats, so they laughed. When they asked what happened, I told them it was an “evasive maneuver”. They weren’t familiar with that term and were being silly, so they interpreted that as “invasive manure” and started saying that. It was funny. That’s one of those word combinations that I’ve never heard before. It might’ve been said at some point in history by someone*, but I’m not aware (and I’m not putting that in my Google search because I don’t want news articles about manure, nor do I want to know anything about such things — some rabbit holes aren’t worth going down, particularly ones filled with invasive manure). 🙂

* It’s amusing (to me, at least) when I hear a phrase that has possibly never been said before. Such events are rare, but with kids they do happen sometimes if you’re paying attention.

Do you want a chicken bird sandwich?

Why do people say “tuna fish sandwich”, yet nobody says “chicken bird sandwich”? Think about it…

I asked someone about this, and they said that maybe “tuna fish” is the actual name, but I looked it up, and tuna by itself is proper. So the joke still works. People say tuna fish, but nobody says bass fish or salmon fish or crappie fish or catfish fish. I figure it’s a marketing thing from decades ago. (I’m not going down that rabbit hole to research it, but if anyone has any idea on it, leave a comment.)

Speaking of tuna, the “chicken of the sea”, do you realize how large they can be? Tuna is often served in these little cans, yet the original fish is huge! The albacore tuna can weigh up to 133 pounds, and the atlantic bluefin tuna can weigh up to 1,508 pounds and be 15 feet long! That’s the size of a small car!

Some tuna are rare and valuable. At the beginning of this year, a bluefin tuna weighing 608 pounds sold for more than $1.3 million. The group that bought it has a chain of famous sushi restaurants. The company president thinks the first tuna of the year “is meant to bring good fortune” and “our hope is that by eating this tuna everyone will have a good year”. That seems quite far-fetched to me. Maybe it’s more marketing and promotion than actual belief. But to each their own. I’ll eat my $1 tuna and have a good year regardless. 🙂

Anyway, back to where all this rambling started… Ask people about the opening question above. It can be fun to get people to think original thoughts. Besides, everyone should do original thinking more often.

making cars more fun

Most car manufacturers don’t make cars fun. They’re just serious. I understand how they can become risk-averse. They don’t want to risk making the Homer mobile — which is a great episode of The Simpsons — but there is a lot of space between serious and over-the-top.

Initially, Tesla did some fun things with their interface, but they’ve been one-upped. Actually, more like lapped. (Elon Musk is very busy destroying the federal government from the inside with his DOGE agenda, so who is leading Tesla these days? But I digress…)

Rivian is a rival EV (electric vehicle) maker to Tesla, and their update last Halloween is what car makers should strive for. They released free theme packs that changed the truck dashboard, vehicle sounds, and exterior lights to be like KITT from Knight Rider or the time-travelling DeLorean from Back To The Future. See for yourself in this video:

Here’s how it looks from the inside:

Here’s more pictures and details at the official website. If you want to read more about it, here’s an interview with Rivian’s chief design officer.

Unfortunately, these were available only for a limited time and only usable while the vehicle was parked. So that’s a major bummer. But this is just the start. Someday a car manufacturer will realize many people want their cars and trucks to look cool and be fun to use, and since most modern vehicles have large screens in them, this is a great way to do it. (Reportedly Toyota has hired developers from the game engine Unity to design user interfaces for their car dashboards, so hopefully something good will come from that.)

Here’s my vision of this — cars will include various themes that you can choose from. Obviously they don’t need to be too distracting with many animations while you’re driving, but there is a fun middle ground. There can be themes based on movies and video games and sports teams which could be purchased (since royalties would have to be paid, and there is work involved). If they were to make them self-moddable like some video games are, that would be great. (Most companies would not do this, but hopefully somebody will. They could release the modding software to ensure safety standards are met.)

Imagine the possibilities! If you want a Batman theme, you could. If you prefer to show off your favorite sports team, you could. If you want it to look like a vintage muscle car, you could do that (to some degree). There could also be various themes that aren’t brand-affiliated, like with nature landscape backgrounds, or flowers, or lightning, or a steampunk design. This could also sync with ambient lights to produce a greater effect. And it could include sound effects that go with each theme. There is so much possibility here to make this an awesome thing. Somebody get on this.