Tag: news

Roger Clemens was injected with what???

Roger Clemens said that his trainer Brian McNamee injected lidocaine and B-12 vitamins into his buttocks.  According to actual physicians, lidocaine is for decreasing pain, to make an area numb.  It’s what your dentist might use to numb your mouth before drilling into your teeth.  And it works only where it is injected.  So why would Clemens get that injected into his butt?  Did he have butt pain?

Okay, that’s too much seriousness already for this blog, so let’s take that story in a different direction.  What might be the side-effects of making your butt numb?  Ponder that for a minute… then see if you believe Clemens’ story…

coffee made from poop

I saw an article over at Beppo’s Blog about the world’s most expensive coffee, and it’s a story that is most definitely random and stupid (yet true).  This coffee is called (or Civet coffee), and it is made from coffee berries that have been eaten and pooped by a weasel-like animal.  Yeah, you heard that right — the animal eats the coffee berries, digests them, defecates them, and then someone collects the feces, and they make coffee from it.

The coffee berries are washed, and then given “only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process”.  Think about that — the berries were digested and then pooped out by an animal, and they don’t want to destroy the flavors that developed through the process!  This is most definitely not for me!

Guess how much people pay for this crap coffee…  In processed form, between $120 and $600 per pound!  In coffee form, $50 per cup.

If you want to see a picture of how these berries look when they are collected, follow this link.  (Doesn’t it look like something you’d want to brew coffee with?)

One website that is promoting it said this about the flavor :

“It has earthy tones of natural processed Sumatra Mandheling. It has low acidity with a syrupy body. There’s something else there, a nuance in the flavor profile that I can’t describe, and when I’ve challenged others, no one else can either. It’s almost alien, a tiny little flavor note, highly exotic.”

Yeah, that little “nuance” / exotic flavor is POOP!  I just can’t believe people drink coffee made from crap!  Will people buy anything if it’s considered rare and exotic?

What is this world coming to?!?

the Swedish Christmas goat

Swedish Christmas straw goatI forgot about writing on the giant straw Christmas goat in Sweden this past Christmas.  They build one every year, a big 43 foot tall one which weighs 3 tons.  Almost every year it is burned down by vandals.  Last year they put some special fireproof materials on it, and one of the officials said, “not even napalm can set fire to the goat now”.  To me, that sounds like a challenge…

So I looked online to find out what happened this past year, and I found out there are two giant straw goats built there each year.  One of them was burned down this past year (2007).  I also found out there are people who make bets on when the goat will be burned down.  And in the mid-1980s, there was a guy named Gunnar Hedman who built a 41 foot goat with the help of other village peoples, then after Christmas they burn it down.

Swedish Christmas straw goat on fireI want to build a giant straw Christmas goat, too.  It would be a huge tourism attraction.  This was discussed some last year, when we decided to build it in Mango-Man’s yard, since he has a few acres and lives outside the city limits (so we wouldn’t be subject to city ordinances and such, although they may not have laws against giant straw goats).  We’d sell nachos and hot chocolate, and we’d build bonfires where you can roast marshmallows.  And then at some point we’d burn the goat down, since that’s part of the tradition. It would be a great time.  We could even sell miniature straw goats that people can put under their Christmas tree and then burn whenever they want to.

Sadly, Mango-Man has thus far failed to see the ingeniousness of this plan, and he’s resisting.  But we will keep after him, until he relents or a more suitable place is found.  Someday this will happen, though, and it will be awesome.  (And you heard it here first!)  It can become one of our holiday traditions.

FYI, the Guinness world record for a giant straw Christmas goat is 49 feet high, held by the same people that build one every year.  I’m thinking we can break that, and then we’d be famous.

share the snow, please

There is a massive blizzard hitting California right now, with some of the higher elevations getting up to 10 feet of snow.  I’m wondering if 10 feet of snow has fallen in central and southern Arkansas in my whole lifetime…

Those people don’t need 10 feet of snow at once.  Buildings just aren’t designed to handle that, plus it would be extremely difficult to walk in.  (Think about that!)  So they should share.  What I want is just 8 inches of snow at one time here in central Arkansas.  I want to build a giant snow castle — one big enough for people to be inside.  I know, it’s ambitious, but I want to try.  (I have some techniques for making it work, so it might not be as much work as you would think.)

Plus it’s great when it snows here.  Once there’s any accumulation on the ground, businesses and schools start closing.  (Sometimes they close even at the threat of snow accumulation!)  I know, people from the northern half of the U.S. probably think that is crazy, because they get snow all throughout the winter.  But it’s a rare thing here in Arkansas.  There are some years where we never see any accumulation, or maybe an inch or two.  So it’s a big event when it snows here.  You get to stay home from work, play in the snow, cook deer chili (or using other meat), and just have a mini vacation from everything.  Plus the snow is so special because it rarely happens.  And so many people panic like we’ll be trapped for days — it is guaranteed that the grocery stores will be out of bread and milk before the ground is covered.

It’s just a great time when it snows here.  Now it just needs to happen…