Category: Viewer Mail

viewer mail, issue #14

One of my regular readers recently pointed out that I haven’t written an issue of viewer mail in a while, and what they said was true.   There’s no good excuse for that, but to appease certain people, I’ll make an excuse anyway: I had stuff to do.  🙂

But enough rambling, well, rambling without a point, anyway.   Let’s get to the viewer mail.   As always, these are actual search terms that led people to this blog.  I will provide answers, advice, skepticism, ridicule, or whatever is necessary in response to these phrases.

  • newly invented vitamins and minerals — I have nothing against science and inventing, but I don’t think we need more vitamins and minerals.  I already have enough trouble eating all of them I’m supposed to.  HOWEVER, if these new vitamins and minerals can somehow make things like bacon and gravy healthy, then I’m all for it!  That would be a great invention — not only would you improve the quality of life of millions of people, but you’d make billions of dollars!
  • volcano-kilauea-in-sept-84-shot-450m-high1“survive a volcanic eruption” — I can help you here.  The key for survival in that situation is to be far away.   It’s really that simple.  You really want to avoid the hot molten magma / lava, because it can burn through almost anything, including concrete and steel.  So it’s best to be far away.   And don’t try to cook marshmallows or hot dogs over the lava, because it can reach 2000 degrees; thus your food will melt, as will you.
  • friends that are too cool — It’s unfortunate this happens, but it’s a way of life.  Your only options are to either improve yourself, or just give them their space.  We had a guest editorial by Thomas Wayne about this one time, so you can read a few people’s thoughts on it in the comments on that post.
  • chocolate chip cookiescookies for breakfast — Some health nuts may say cookies are not a “breakfast food” or that they aren’t suitable for breakfast somehow.   To that I say “hogwash!”.   I have conducted my own extensive research in this area, and the results are conclusive that cookies make a great breakfast.   Milk is a good beverage of choice to go with your breakfast of cookies.
  • smoking/oxygen — I’m glad you brought this up, whoever you are.  Have you ever realized that smoking cigarettes and cigars burns oxygen out of our atmosphere?  Thus smoking contributes to global warming!   You probably won’t hear Al Gore mention that, because it might make some people mad, but I’m not afraid to rock the boat.

Well, that’s all we have time for today.   I really do have stuff to do.  🙂  Be sure to check out the other issues of viewer mail for more answers to the stuff you’re searching for.

viewer mail, issue #13

It’s about time to open the viewer mailbag again.  I have some time-specific ones about Halloween which might prove helpful to people with questions, plus there’s some general issues to discuss.  As always, these are actual search terms that people used to find this site.

  • what to do with old pumpkins — With it being close to Halloween, a lot of people are probably wondering about this.  I didn’t make a trip to the pumpkin patch to get one, but I know of people who did.   Anyway, I e-mailed the Buffet o’ Blog staff to see what they thought, and here are the options they presented: A) catapult; B) fire; C) both A and B.  Another suggestion was to line up a few hundred pumpkins on the train tracks, then wait for a train to plow through them.   That would be awesome to see.  (Of course, the standard disclaimer applies to these ideas: we are not responsible for any of the stupid stuff you do.)
  • cycling calories burned smell — So when you’re riding your bicycle for exercise, you encounter a burnt smell?  Well, the truth is, you can’t smell calories burning.   You might not want to know what that smell is, but I should probably tell you so you will know.  It’s either sweat or gas.  I don’t know that cycling gives you gas, but the act of cycling may cause more release of gaseous fumes.
  • pickles burn calories — I’ve never heard this, but it could possibly be true.   But even if pickles do lead to the burning of calories (and thus exercise in some form), you don’t want to take this route.  Let me explain.  Pickles are evil.  That’s well-documented at that link.  The side-effect (or full-effect) of eating pickles is not fully understood by scientists, but some important scientists suspect pickles turn people into zombies.   The way this can burn calories is that your body has a natural immune system, which will try to fight off the effect of the evil pickles.   But there’s no guarantee that you will win.  So just don’t eat pickles!   There are much better ways to burn calories.
  • subservient chicken — This is not as good an idea as you might suppose.   Burger King created one online a few years ago, and the page is still there.  We’ve written on this before, and the link to him is at that post.  He can do some stunts and even dance for you, but if you tell him something useful like “bring me nachos”, he does weird stuff and never brings me any nachos.
  • is fat bigger than obese — Interesting question.   Everyone has fat, but of course not everyone is obese, so I’d say obese is bigger.  To get technical with it, obesity is when you have so much excess body fat that your health is negatively affected.  So I reckon if your body fat is not excess — that is, it’s how much you want — then you’re not obese.  Or even if you’re fat or “big-boned” but still have good health, then you’re not obese.  So maybe it has to do with how you look at it.  From a scientific standpoint, it is generally agreed that you’re obese if you’re a man with more than 25% body fat or a woman with more than 33% body fat.  I could explain why those numbers are different, but this is a family-friendly blog…  AWW-RIGHT!

Well, this has been fun, but I have stuff to do, so I’m calling this issue finished.  Besides, some people say these posts get too long (which means they have the attention span of a cheese sandwich).   If you want to read more, you can catch up on the other issues here.

viewer mail, issue #12

It’s been a while since we’ve opened the viewer mailbag, so let’s do this.  First, we’re going to answer an actual message sent to us via our contact form, by Neil:

very cool are you selling or anything?

Well, Neil, currently this blog is not for sale.  Though for enough money, we might consider it.  (We’ll entertain any offer, regardless of size, so don’t be afraid to ask.)  Also, we don’t currently sell any merchandise, although I’d like for that to change.  If we can come up with a cool logo, we could get some T-shirts printed, for all our super-fans to buy and wear proudly.  🙂

Now we’ll look at some of the search terms that have brought people to this blog.  These are actual search terms, not modified in any way.  We’re going to give you answers for what you are searching for.  🙂

  • how to tell a coworker they smell — There are a lot of possible methods for this, but if you want to be discreet and anonymous, you can write a note that says, “You smell like -> ” and put it next to a picture of poop.  Or, if you’re really bold, you can even put some real poop there — that will make a bolder statement and will surely give them something to think about.
  • buffet know-how — Are you looking for a tutorial on how to eat at restaurants with a buffet?  Honestly, I never thought one was necessary.  You just eat the food you like, in whatever quantities you want.  The only strategy is to eat fast if you want to maximize food consumption.  I suppose you could also consider which foods are more filling, but really, the purpose of a buffet is that you eat what you want.
  • what men do in bathrooms dynomite — While there are certain scenarios where creating explosions using dynamite would be fun in a bathroom, most of them are quite dangerous and probably illegal.  So usually there isn’t any dynamite being used — it just sounds like it.  🙂
  • bad farts cause headache — My research does not support this hypothesis.  Has anyone else done any research in this area?
  • cholesterol in wendy’s bacon hamburger — Are you referring to the infamous Baconator?  I know about it, because I ate one in the name of research.  🙂  If you want the nutritional information, you can get it easily enough.  Wendy’s is required to give you this information if you ask, and it’s on their website, but first you need to ask yourself if you really want to know.  I mean, you already know it’s not healthy — it’s a fast-food double cheeseburger with six strips of bacon on it.  If you’re wanting to eat healthy, you should not even be tempting yourself with looking up this information.
  • “ferment beans” — Why would you want to do that?  Are you trying to make an alcoholic beverage that tastes like beans and has the associated side-effects?  I don’t recommend it.  Or do you want to make refried beans that make you “tankered up” (drunk)?  Again, I don’t recommend this.
  • i think your super — Y’know, I’m not surprised this search term found me.  I’m super in more ways than you know.  But to whoever did that search, you might should work on your grammar — it’s not cool to use words incorrectly (unless it’s on purpose).
  • CRAYONS AND BLOOD PRESSURE — This seems random, but that’s what we specialize in here.  🙂  This phrase could be parsed a couple of different ways, so I will answer both.  1) Eating crayons probably doesn’t help your blood pressure, and it may make it worse because bad things might be going on inside your body while you digest and pass crayons.  Just don’t eat them.  The other alternative: 2) coloring with crayons can be relaxing, so that could help lower your blood pressure.  I know, coloring is often looked at as a children’s pastime, but it can still be fun, even for adults.  If you’re one of those thinking coloring is childish, YOU SHOULD QUIT BEING SO OLD!  Try it…

With that last piece of advice, I will wrap up this week’s issue of viewer mail.  (Ironically, this series isn’t published weekly, probably closer to monthly, but it could be done weekly because of all the visitors we have here.  But there’s so much other cool stuff to write on, that this series sometimes get neglected.  It’s like I just start typing and randomness overflows.  You may wonder why I don’t publish multiple times per day, then.  Well, I could, but I have stuff to do.  That is, I have a life (plus another blog).  If someone were to make donations, I could easily justify writing more.  But I digress…)

viewer mail, issue #11

It’s been a while since I’ve answered viewer mail, so here goes.  Like always, these are actual search terms used to find this site, followed by commentary and analysis.  There wasn’t any questions to answer this week, but if you have any, use the “Contact Us” link to send it to us.

  • flavor of poop — I haven’t ever researched this (for good reason), so I’m going to resort to a third-party on this one.  I have read of someone who actually ate some, and he said it tasted about like what you would expect.  I wish I could find the reference to it, because I’d give him a few seconds of additional fame for his feat.
  • i would like 17 super powers please — Doesn’t that seem kinda greedy?  Of course it would be great to have more superpowers than you know what to do with, but then some would get wasted.  Besides, can you think of any superheroes that have 17 super powers?  That would offset the balance on both sides, and it would be really bad if you decided to use your powers for evil.  So, sorry, on this request you’ll have to be DENIED.
  • coworker is an aliencoworker is an alien — If this is true, then you need to be very careful!  An alien is not going to come to Earth just to sit in a cubicle and do work; he obviously has some ulterior motives.  He could be here for research, spying, infiltration, or kidnapping.   But regardless of that, there’s another aspect of this to consider.  Do you have any idea how much fame and fortune you could get by discovering an alien?!?  People have tried to prove the existence of UFOs for decades, and if you could, you’d be so famous.  So document all your encounters with him/her/it, and keep your proof in a safe place.  Write a book with an accompanying DVD, then hit the talk show circuit.  You’ll easily make millions!
  • words like discombobulator — That word makes me feel discombobulated…
  • why do pickles explode — BECAUSE THEY’RE EVIL!!!  Actually, I didn’t know they explode on their own, but I do know for a fact that they’re evil.  Does anyone have any evidence or explanation of them exploding?  My plan of shooting all pickles into the sun would cause them to explode, but if there’s any natural exploding of pickles, I’d like to know about it.
  • unbreakable stuff — That’s just a myth.  Nothing is unbreakable.  I’ve worked with people who were naturals at breaking anything.
  • why should i eat chocolate — This one is really easy — because it tastes great!  What other reasons do you need?  But if someone is trying to convince you that it’s not healthy, that’s just because they want the chocolate for themselves.  Chocolate actually does have nutritional properties to it.  It has antioxidants, which nobody understands, but they say your body needs them.  And chocolate is a great source of sugar.  I know, sugar gets a bad reputation these days, but did you know your brain runs on sugar?  It’s true, look it up.  Of course, your body can create sugar from foods like fruits and vegetables, but why not save the time and effort by eating chocolate, which has your daily sugar needs in highly concentrated form (plus it tastes much better).
  • how safe is buffet eating? — I’ve never had any problems with it.  But, since you brought it up, I should research this.  I think this calls for a trip to Larry’s Pizza!  WOOHOO!  Would anyone like to join me to offer a second opinion?  Before you quickly volunteer, know that this may require multiple visits to local buffets, so we can reduce the standard deviation and stuff.  🙂

That’s it for this week.  Now you know more than before.  You’re welcome.