smashing a roadster in slow-motion

This link isn’t funny, per se, but it is somewhat interesting in that a sports car gets smashed during crash testing.

Here’s a video of the Tesla Roadster (an electric sports car) being smashed from different angles, in super slow-motion because it was recorded at a thousand frames per second.

This footage cost the company about a million dollars per minute, but I’m glad they’re going through all that effort and expense to make vehicles safe.

Speaking of such things, perhaps they need to combine old and new technologies to make vehicles safer.  Some older vehicles are made of steel, which holds up pretty well in a wreck.  Mango-Man has an old 1963 Bel-Air, and the even the dash is made of steel!  However, that car lacks modern amenities like seat belts and air bags, so an upgrade would definitely be needed.  That would be cheaper for manufacturers than having to do all the modeling on the body and frame.

how to eat what you want and be healthy

The government recommends we get so many vitamins and minerals in our daily diet to be healthy and fit.  However, many of our food choices don’t contain sufficient amounts of them, so we have to make do with what we have.  You could take vitamin supplements, but they don’t taste good, and they aren’t very filling, nor are they fun.  Another possible option is that you keep eating until you get a sufficient amount of your daily nutrients.  For example, if you’re eating pizza for lunch, but each slice has only 10% of the Vitamin C you need each day, then you’ll just have to eat 10 pieces.  This will ensure your body is getting all the required vitamins and minerals that it needs, plus you will enjoy the process of being healthy and eating right.  🙂

Granted, you may take in a few extra calories and thus gain a few pounds, but you’re giving your body the nutrition it needs.  What’s more important — being healthy or being skinny?  (And, when it comes to eating, being happy or eating small portions of boring foods?)

the special days of March, pt 2

Now we’ll continue the list of the special days and holidays of March, which we started yesterday.

  • 12 Girl Scouts Day — They do sell some good cookies, like the Samoas and Thin Mints.
  • 12 Plant a Flower Day — I don’t care so much about this, but we do have a certain reader who has a serious interest in flowers (which he denies).
  • 14 Learn about Butterflies Day — Okay, here goes.  Some butterflies can taste with their feet.  I’m sure glad we can’t!  Imagine sitting down to eat a good meal but tasting your socks after a long day…
  • 14 National Potato Chip Day — Yeah, here we go!  On this day, you should eat lots of potato chips.  Of course, choosing one single variety can be difficult, so eat however many kinds you want.  Also, remember that diets don’t apply on holidays.  🙂
  • 14 National Pi Day — No, that’s not a typo.  This is Pi Day because the date is 3/14, or 3.14.
  • 15 Everything You Think is Wrong Day — I know some people who live this every day!
  • 15 Incredible Kid Day — I don’t have any kids, but I was once an incredible kid, myself.  Now I’m even more incredible, because I’ve learned to control my super powers.  I wonder if there’s an incredible adult day?  Or a day to celebrate superheroes?  If not, there should be!
  • 15 Dumbstruck Day — Would you be dumbstruck if I told you “MY BUTT IS ON FIRE!”?  No?  Me neither, because it’s not.  But it’s a funny phrase, and it’s a good example of this holiday.  Your goal on this day is to make people dumbstruck.  So say things that aren’t expected, to try to make people speechless and/or to get that “deer in the headlights” look.  You get bonus points if they say, “Uhh”, three or more times.  🙂
  • 16 Everything You Do is Right Day — Some people think this concept applies to them at all times, but no one is always right.  Politicians especially need to realize this valuable truth, because so many of them do stupid things, but they never admit they were stupid or wrong.  (Perhaps they never realize it?)
  • 17 Submarine Day — Is this referring to the big hero sandwich or the boat?  Since I don’t have much use for a submarine-style boat in these parts, I’ll apply this to the sammich.  (Do you like that spelling?  It’s fun to say it that way.)
  • 19 Poultry Day — This seems like a good day to have fried chicken.  Or perhaps a casserole dish full of Mexican Chicken.  There are a lot of options to consider here…  Actually, since there are so many good dishes, this should be a month-long celebration…
  • 20 International Earth Day — Be thankful for the Earth today.  Living on Earth is much better than living on Mars!
  • alien20 Extraterrestrial Abductions Day — I would advise against participating in this.  While such things might be hypothetical, there’s supposedly some bad things that happen when you’re abducted.  Plus, they might not bring you back — you might become their pet!
  • 21 Fragrance Day — Everyone has a scent, but that’s not what this day is about.  You’re supposed to wear cologne or perfume, to make yourself all good-smelling.  However, I’m afraid some of my readers will use this day to “excuse” their other fragrances, like poopourri.  *groan*
  • 22 National Goof Off Day — This is a holiday that I can really support!  We all need a day off occasionally, even a day off for goofing off.  Sometimes we burn vacation / PDO days to do projects around the house, but it’s really refreshing to spend a day doing nothing important.  Coincidentally, this is the month that Super Smash Bros. Brawl comes out for the Nintendo Wii, and it would be awesome to devote a day to playing that and eating nachos.  But feel free to spend the day however you see fit.  Just don’t do any real work…
  • 23 Toast Day — Let us have a toast to bread, for without bread, there could be no toast.  Also, here’s the marketing slogan from The Toast Marketing Board: “Eat more toast.”
  • 23 National Chip and Dip Day — Yes!  Cheese dip and chips is one of my favorite meals!  I know, to some it’s not a meal, but they should try it.  Sometimes I’ll add some side dishes like chicken strips or taquitos or hot dogs, but they’re not required.  It’s especially filling if you make chili-cheese dip, which I usually do.  Anyway, on this day, eat lots of nachos / chips and dip.  (This holiday should occur every month!)
  • 23 Near Miss Day — This day commemorates a near miss by an asteroid the size of a mountain.  It came within 500,000 miles of Earth.  Perhaps in interstellar terms, that might be close, but it’s not so big of a deal that we should make a holiday of it.  Why does the average person care?  There are people whose job is to watch all the objects in space that are close to Earth, including all asteroids that will be close at some point.
  • 24 Dyngus Day — This is a Polish holiday, where guys chase girls to drench them with squirt guns or buckets of water.  This one sounds fun.  Perhaps we should adopt this in the U.S.
  • 24 National Chocolate Covered Raisin Day — Sounds healthy!  Raisins are a fruit, and chocolate is made from cocoa beans, which is a vegetable.  And nutritionists say we should eat more fruits and vegetables.  So eat all of these you want!
  • 25 Pecan Day — I don’t normally eat pecans by themselves, but the holiday doesn’t specify that you have to.  You can have some pecan pie, or chocolate-covered pecans.
  • 25 Waffle Day — I like food holidays!  You should eat lots of waffles, and experiment with different toppings and syrups to add some variety.
  • 26 Make Up Your Own Holiday Day — I really like this idea!  Everyone should create their own, obviously.  I think I’m going to go with something like “Have a paid day off work where you play video games, eat unlimited amounts of chicken-bacon-ranch pizza, have dirt cake for dessert, have nachos for snacks, drink lots of sweet tea, get a massage from your woman every hour, and do whatever else you want day”.  🙂
  • 27 National “Joe” Day — This day is for everyone who dislikes their name.  On this day you can call yourself “Joe”.  I’m thinking instead of limiting it to “Joe”, why not have a day where you can call yourself whatever you want?
  • 28 Something on a Stick Day — This should be on the same weekend as Toad Suck Daze, the local festival here in Conway, AR, because they sell almost any food on a stick.  One year I tried gator on a stick.  (Yeah, it tasted a lot like chicken.)
  • 29 Smoke and Mirrors Day — Pay no attention to the man behind the smoke and mirrors!
  • 30 I am in Control Day — You can believe this if you want, but it probably won’t make much difference.  I suspect this might be a day for people to daydream about being the boss at work, or being in control of your marriage, or for ruling the world.
  • 30 Take a Walk in the Park Day — Take a hike, bub!
  • 31 Bunsen Burner Day — This may sound like something to do with school, so it may bring back bad memories for some.  But try to let go of the past.  Where’s there’s a Bunsen Burner, there’s fire.  And where there’s fire, you can burn stuff.  So this could be rather fun…  Just be careful if you’re in a laboratory and you start grabbing random chemicals to put in the fire, because, while explosions are awesome, they’re not quite as cool up close.
  • 31 Tater Day — On this day, you eat taters.  What’s taters, eh?  Po-tay-toes.  Boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a stew.  Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish.

Well, that concludes our listing of the holidays for March.  There was a lot this month.  I hope you found some holidays that you can celebrate to make the month a little more special.

the special days of March, pt 1

As we have done in previous months, we will look at the special days and holidays of this month.  Since it’s March, I reckon we’ll focus on March’s holidays.  🙂  As usual, this is not a complete list — those can be found elsewhere.  But I guarantee you will not find another list like this one.  Not only do we list the best of the unusual and strange and obscure holidays, but we add our own unique commentary and analysis.

Let’s start with looking at the month-long celebrations and observances.

  • Music in Our Schools Month — I think students should be exposed to different types of music, like with Music Appreciation classes.  But make it fun.  Too many people know only the “Top 40” stuff on the radio.
  • National Frozen Food Month — This may sound like a bachelor’s food only, but there are now some nice frozen foods, like lasagna, which are really good.  Mmm… lasagna…
  • National Noodle Month — Speaking of lasagna…
  • National Nutrition Month — I’m not sure if this should be the same month as National Frozen Food Month.  Also, I figure this would be January, when everyone is starting a diet and trying to eat healthy.  By March, most of us have given up.  (Maybe they want renewed emphasis on nutrition…)
  • National Peanut Month — Peanuts are good by themselves, but add chocolate, and they’re even better.  Or you can have something with peanut butter and chocolate, like Reese’s, which are excellent.

The only weekly celebration worth mentioning is:

  • 2nd Week National Bubble Week — A good idea for bubbles is to blow them over cubicle walls at work and act like you don’t know what happened.  Another good office prank is to rip a bubbly fart, but you surely don’t want to get caught for that one!

Now let’s look at the individual day holidays and observances:

  • 1 National Pig Day — Since most people don’t keep pigs as pets, I reckon it’s best to celebrate them by eating sausage, bacon, and ham.  Mmm…
  • 2 Old Stuff Day — Uhh… what?!?  I reckon you should be thankful for antique cars and such things.  This day ought to make the Important Evil Genius happy, because he supposedly has a rather large collection of antiquated old relics that he plans to build a doomsday device with.
  • 3 I Want You to be Happy Day — I really do want you to be happy, every day.  That’s why I publish this great blog — to make everyone’s day a little more surreal.  🙂
  • 3 If Pets Had Thumbs Day — According to some scientists who believe in evolution, this would make animals a lot closer to humans.  But that’s silly. In fact, this whole day is silly.  What’s the point of it?
  • 3 National Anthem Day — If this is for the national anthem, there’s already a holiday or two where that is traditionally sung and/or played.  But perhaps this means we should each have our own anthem this day.  I’ve always thought it would be awesome if we each had our own theme song.  It could play when we get to work (although that might reveal your lateness to your co-workers) or when we walk into a meeting at work.  Of course, we’d want the option to turn it off, for when we needed to be in stealth mode.  But I think this could be really awesome.
  • 4 Holy Experiment Day — Uhh… what is this for?  I’ll figure out something.  How about on this day you try to live a completely holy life.  Although, if you’re a Christian, you should be trying to do that every day.
  • 5 Multiple Personality Day — Isn’t that normally considered a disorder?  If so, why are we celebrating it?  It can be confusing to have multiple personalities, so I recommend against it.  Besides, if you want to add or remove parts from your current personality, you can do so without adding the disorder.
  • 6 Dentist’s Day — I appreciate dentists, but I’m not going to celebrate this day.  They already make plenty of money, plus I don’t want to go to the dentist any more than I have to.
  • lasagna6 National Frozen Food Day — This would be a good day for lasagna.  Mmm…  Of course, there are other options, like Hot Pockets, and there are some frozen desserts that are pretty good.
  • 6 On this day in 1912, Oreo cookies went on sale for the first time.  Now we might take them for granted.  But imagine eating your first Oreo, then discovering how good it is with milk.
  • 8 Be Nasty Day — Why is this a holiday?  We shouldn’t ever be nasty.  There’s a place for joking amongst friends, but we shouldn’t ever be nasty.  (I could come up with better holidays than this…)
  • 9 Employee Appreciation Day — Employees should definitely be appreciated.  This would be a good day to give everyone the afternoon off, or to let them leave early, or to at least buy their lunch.  If this day is on a weekend, it should be observed on the following Monday.
  • 9 Panic Day — This is just stupid.  If there’s a reason to panic, then panic, but don’t schedule it!
  • 9 Daylight Saving Time Begins — We’ve discussed this before, and we decided it should be changed to better accommodate the average working person.  I really don’t like losing an hour of sleep, nor does that help productivity the following Monday.  There is a better way…
  • 10 Middle Name Pride Day — This is good if you have a good middle name, but some people may not.  Also, it’s a good time to learn why you were given the name you got.
  • 11 Johnny Appleseed Day — This is to honor a man who planted and sold a lot of apple trees some 200 years ago.  He lived a simple life, and he was a deeply religious person.  And, if you’re curious, that wasn’t his real name.  I didn’t know you could be famous for planting apple trees…  He has become a legend in some ways.  I need to figure out how to become a legend, other than planting trees.  Perhaps someday this blog will be legendary.  If my blog traffic continues to grow at its current pace, eventually the whole world will be reading it.  🙂

This post is getting really long, so I’ll continue the list tomorrow.  (There will be a link above this post to the next one.)