Tag: rambling

viewer mail, issue #15

It is time for another issue of viewer mail.  (I really should do these more often; they’re fun.)  As always, these are actual search terms that brought people to this website, followed by my own leading brand of analysis, commentary, and rambling.

* buffets make people fat — Buffets don’t make people fat — people make people fat.   Actually, you make yourself fat.  But that’s not meant in a derogatory way.  I mean, if you want to be fat, then you have that option.  But let’s not blame buffets, or the “politically correct” crowd will try to ban them.  Besides, even if all-you-can-eat buffets went away, there would still be fat people.  It’s just a matter of semantics or somethin’…

pickles are evil* pickles diarrhea — I haven’t heard of such things, but I also don’t research it in any way, because pickles are evil.  Some have posited that eating pickles will turn you into a zombie (which probably could lead to diarrhea as your body tries to reject that).  I don’t think that’s completely proven yet, but some important people are working on it.  We’ll keep you updated.  But in the meantime, avoid pickles at all costs, unless you’re throwing them into the sun to destroy them.  That would be okay.  (FYI, there’s a very funny discussion on pickles at that link.)

* shampoo fraud conspiracy — I have no idea about this one…  Does anyone have any clue what this could be referring to?

* potassium nitrate side effects — Potassium nitrate is an interesting compound.  It is used in fertilizer, amateur rocket propellant, smoke bombs, food preservation (in old days), cigarettes, tree stump remover, the heat treatment of metals as a short-term rust inhibitor, the manufacturing of ice cream, toothpaste, and it’s one of the three ingredients in black powder.  So if you were to eat it, who knows what the side effects could be?  There’s a lot to choose from among that list.  But given those options, I don’t recommend eating it.

* burn calories poop — Well, just about any activity burns calories, even tapping your finger on your desk, so I reckon pooping would, too.  I did a quick search, and someone estimated the process burns between 19 and 70 calories.  I don’t know how scientific and accurate that is, but that site claims to be the #1 source for #2.

* can the sun be dangerous — Certainly!  In case you weren’t paying attention in science class, here’s a brief recap.  The sun has constant fusion, where hydrogen atoms fuse together to form helium atoms and release energy.  Or in other words, it’s a constant explosion.  So you don’t play with it!  IT IS NOT A TOY!  You wouldn’t want to put the sun in your pocket, because it would burn your butt.  Fortunately we’re 93 million miles from the sun, and Earth’s atmosphere refracts the direct sunbeams so it’s not instantly lethal.   But using a magnifying glass you can refocus the beams of sunlight and see just how dangerous it is — it creates fire.  So obviously it’s quite dangerous — sunlight plus curved glass creates fire.

That’s all the time we have for today.  I hope you learned something, or at least laughed.  (Laughing burns calories, y’know.  I’m not sure about learning, but it’s still good for you.)

overeating and inactivity doesn’t make you fat

I’ve always heard that eating too much and not getting enough exercise will make you fat.  That seems reasonable to me.   But I read somewhere online that this isn’t true.  Check out these “facts” someone posted:

The basic assumption here is that people become obese due to overeating and inactivity. This isn’t true. … Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.

Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller.

Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.

We get fat because of an imbalance — a disequilibrium — in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism.

So if I understand it, I’m not overweight because of overeating and being lazy, but because of excess fat accumulation.  And exercise doesn’t help you lose weight but actually makes you fatter because you’re hungrier!  (This sure sounds like that “Important Doctor” fellow, but it was someone else.)  And it’s my “hormonal regulation” that is to blame.  Hmm…

If you’re curious what that guy recommended to do to lose weight, his solution is to eat less carbs.  Although I thought he said consuming excess calories doesn’t make us fatter, so I don’t understand.   I just know that according to what that guy said, it’s not my fault!

a bag of donuts

I’m about to tell you a strange story.  It’s one that you’ve never heard of.  You could say it’s quite obscure in most parts of the world.  I usually don’t tell tales such as this here, but today is an exception.  I guess you could say I’m just in a story-telling mood today.

Every year on December 12th (12/12), something unusual happens.  There’s a peculiar man who goes around the tri-state area bringing holiday cheer with food.   Nobody knows his real name, but they call him Bag O’Donuts.  This is his moniker because he carries a magical bag of donuts (doughnuts) on this special day / holiday.

bag-of-donutsThis special bag has within it every kind of donut — any kind you can imagine.  And the donuts are always fresh, similar to the ones you get off the line at Krispy Kreme where they almost melt in your mouth.  But this magical bag works only one day per year, making it a most special day for all who love donuts.

Mr. Bag O. Donuts has done this every year for a while now, establishing a tradition you could say, except one particular year, and that was when a man named Fab stole the magical bag of donuts.  Fab and Mr. Donuts were talking about the magical bag, how it worked, when Fab simply pulled the wool over Mr. Bag Donuts’ eyes (literally).  While Donut-Man struggled to unfleece himself, Fab escaped with the oft-coveted bag.  donutsFab hid in the pea patch, and ate donuts all night long.  He ate glazed, chocolate-filled, cream-filled, chocolate-covered, cream sticks, custard donuts, strawberry shortcakes, twists, etc. — all he could imagine.   It was better than a wagon full of pancakes!  He ate and ate, until he could eat no more.  In fact, he ate so many donuts that he began to look like one!

A search party eventually found Fab in the pea patch, asleep with the bag at his side and donuts in each hand.  But it was too late for Mr. Doughnuts to make his run — the clock had struck midnight, thus the bag’s special powers went dormant, and many people suffered free donut withdrawals.  It was truly tragic.

Now Baggy Donuts won’t bring donuts to Fab anymore, although I hear they are on talking terms now.  Fab denies the incident ever happened, but don’t believe him.  Rumor has it that sometimes on Dec. 12, late at night, you can still find Fab wandering around the pea patch, longing for the endless donuts once again.   Some say he has a donut-shaped hole in his soul, leaving him restless and endlessly hungry.

Now you know… the rest of the story.

ending my world hunger

World hunger is a big problem.  So I’m going to do something about it, starting today.  I thought about all the different organizations that want my money, so they can end world hunger.  And they’re mostly good, I suspect.  But I thought of that Michael Jackson song, from back when he was cool in the ’80s, called “Man in the Mirror”.  And then I realized that I should start with myself.  You shouldn’t try to change the world without changing yourself!

So today I’m going to Larry’s Pizza, with some friends.  If you read this before lunch and want to join us, go ahead.  If you show up and can’t figure out who we are, then I reckon you just didn’t want to eat with us bad enough.  We’ll be the coolest ones there.  It’ll be that obvious, if you have discernment for such things.

Of course, there are a lot of eating options that would end my world hunger, but I might as well do it right.  There’s no pizza like their chicken-bacon-ranch.  Mmm…  And to have it (plus many others) in the all-you-can-eat format makes it extra awesome.