We haven’t had a caption contest recently, so let’s get that restarted. It’s real simple to play — think of something funny / humorous to go with this picture. The only rule is to keep it clean. And regardless of whether you have anything to contribute, you can enjoy the comments other people leave, too.
Let me also add that comments usually pour in over the next week, so this is the type of post that it’s good to check back on. You can also subscribe to the comments (whether for just this post or all comments) if you would rather be notified that way.
(To see our other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)
In America, you’re free to name your baby whatever you want. For the most part, freedom is good; we don’t want tyranny. But some countries’ governments feel it is their duty to protect people from stupidity. A debate on whether that is good or not is beyond the scope of this article.
I started thinking about this because New Zealand just banned a number of baby names, including 18 that have been used in the U.S. (and some are popular). Some of them make sense for other countries, like King, Princess, Duke, Baron, Majesty, etc. Some are to prevent religious confusion or controversy, like Christ and Lucifer. Someone cross-referenced their list with the U.S. Social Security Administration’s database and found that 46 boys in the U.S. are named Christ, and 8 are named Lucifer. I just don’t know why someone would choose to name their child Lucifer. Seems kind of forboding toward evil… (That’s like naming your child “Important Evil Genius“, except even worse.)
Sweden has similar bans, although they extend it to names such as Superman and Metallica. U.S. celebrities are becoming known for giving their children weird names. A few examples:
Moxie CrimeFighter — child of Penn Jillette
Kal-El — son of Nicolas Cage
Pilot Inspektor — son of Jason Lee
Moon Unit, Diva Thin Muffin, and Dweezil — children of Frank Zappa
Pirate — child of Jonathan and Deven Davis
Tabooger — child of Dan Cortese
Tu Morrow — child of Rob Morrow
Having named a child now, part of the process process for us was trying to pick a name that people won’t make fun of too much. Obviously you can’t stop all teasing and bullying, but some of those above are just asking for it. Tabooger? Guess what his childhood nickname will be… And Tu Morrow? Imagine the awkwardness when everyone he/she meets has a short pause upon learning the name, realizing it’s supposed to be funny but it’s not and then you don’t know how to respond to that.
On a related note, you can go to the Social Security website to see how popular your name has been in America the past few decades.
This year Lamborghini released one of the world’s most expensive cars ever, the Veneno at $3.9 million. Only 3 were produced, so this is just a collector’s item for those with more money than they can count. (They’d better not wreck it, since there would be no spare parts to find!)
As you might expect with it being a Lamborghini, it looks fast and exotic, although even more so than normal. This one reminds me of a Batmobile, in some of its stylings. Obviously it’s not, but it would take someone like Bruce Wayne to be able to afford it.
That’s awesome already, but it would be even cooler if it shot fire out the back like the Batmobile.
There’s more awesome pictures at the link above.
Also as expected with a Lamborghini, it’s faster than most people could safely handle. It accelerates from 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds, with a top speed around 220 MPH. (The article didn’t mention it’s MPG…) 🙂
I also heard that a Lamborghini SUV will be going on sale in 2017, for an estimated $200,000. The specs aren’t released yet, but some suspect it will have around 650 horsepower. (My wife wants a new SUV… hmm… but our car budget will need a considerable increase in the next 4 years…)
I just heard about a 105-year-old woman in Texas who says her secret is that she eats bacon every day. I don’t know if that will stand up to medical scrutiny, but it’s worth something.
The article reveals her bacon “secret”, which should be enough for the whole article. But then it talks about her birthday party, which featured over 200 guests, which is okay, I guess. But then it goes into explaining why bacon has gotten a bad rap lately. It’s somewhat ironic, given the subject of the article. Apparently some research study linked processed meat to a premature death. But check out their results — they claim that eating less than 20g per day (which is 0.7 ounces) could prevent an estimated 3% of premature deaths each year. So if you eat only a bite or two of meat per day, you have a 3% chance of living longer. For people who follow that advice, I wonder what the odds are on premature death due to not enjoying life as much… (To each their own, but that advice wouldn’t work for me.)
The article then references another study saying that even a single serving of processed red meat increased the risk of participants dying by 20%. I may not be a statistician, but I figure the risk of dying is 100%. 🙂 You can eat all the plants you want, but it is appointed for everyone to meet their Maker at some point.
Obviously bacon is somewhat unhealthy — not completely, but in some ways. However, if a single serving of bacon (or any red meat) increases your risk of dying by 20%, and this woman has eaten bacon every day for 105 years so far (which could be up to 38,000 times), what would her risk of dying be? I’d like to see one of those researchers calculate it and go tell her. Maybe she’s like one of those cartoon characters who is invulnerable to the laws of physics because they don’t understand it. 🙂 Either way, whatever she’s doing has worked for her.
This breakfast platter from Tony’s I-75 restaurant in Birch Run, MI, has 1 pound of bacon.
I’m not claiming that all this research is bogus, but I think there’s a LOT more to it than just saying eating meat will kill you early. I’ve known quite a few people — including my grandparents — who ate big country meals all the time (which included lots of butter, gravy, and fried foods), yet lived to be 90+ and still had above-average health. I know that’s a small sample, but when you consider how Americans used to eat versus what we now “know” about nutrition, it’s amazing any of them lived past 25. I’m not saying fattening foods are healthy, but I do wonder if natural / organic fattening foods might be healthier than much of the modern stuff with preservatives and additives and chemicals. I can’t prove it, and I’m not convinced either way yet, but I do think there’s a lot more to nutrition and healthiness than we currently know.
Regardless of whether bacon is good for me or not, I’m now hungry for bacon…
Buffet o' Blog 