Tag: Random

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.

what to do with old Halloween pumpkins

Now that Halloween is over, I’m sure you are all wondering the same thing — what am I to do with all my leftover pumpkins?  Well, after extensive research* on pumpkin uses I found just the answer to this age-old question of the leftover pumpkin conundrum.  I hereby introduce you to the “World Championship Punkin’ Chunkin’ Contest” (more info here) held each year in Millsboro, Delaware.  This year it will be on Nov 2, 3 and 4.  Teams will travel from far and wide to see just how far a pumpkin can be chunked or who can chunk one with the most accuracy.  Each team brings their own launching device, whether a catapult or a trebuchet or something original.  In fact a world record was set back in 2003 when a pumpkin was launched an astonishing 4,434 feet.

“How did this all come about?” you might ask.  Well, here is a snippet from an interview with one of the Punkin’ Chunkin’ founders :

“It all started back in 1986,” said Ellsworth.  “We were playing around one day and somebody started talking about throwing pumpkins.  There had been an article in a newspaper or on television about some people throwing pumpkins at Salisbury State.  A physics class or something.  One of us said that they could throw further than someone else… The longest shot that year … was 126′.”

*no “real” research was done.  I was surfing the web and stumbled across the site.  (The website also has pictures of the various devices used, and there’s some videos in the 2004 gallery.)

quotes about birthdays

The founder of Buffet o’ Blog had a birthday this week, so I figured it would be a good time to write a post containing quotes about birthdays.  There’s a few original ones in here that you’ve never seen or heard before (which means this is the first time ever they’ve been published).  This first quote is one of my favorites, now that I’ve passed 30 and some of my friends like to call me old…  🙂

Birthdays are good for you.  Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.

The most effective way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once.

Men should always remember their woman’s birthday but never her age.

I’ve learned that maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you’ve had and what you’ve learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you’ve celebrated.

Now there’s a new organization of ladies who say that they want to pay their own way on dates; who say that they don’t expect expensive gifts on their birthdays; and they say that they don’t want men to give them their seats on the bus.  The group’s called “Women’s Fib.”

For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier.  I put them in the same room and let them fight it out. ~ Steven Wright

There is still no cure for the common birthday. ~ John Glenn, on retiring at 75

For my birthday, all I want is more time and more sleep and the death of all alarm clocks. Is that too much to ask? 🙂 ~ Karen S., 11/12/01

Today, when I throw away a musical birthday card, I am tossing out more computer power than existed in the entire world in 1948.

You could stop in long enough to bring a gift.  I like size large boxers*, chocolates, Crest White strips (skrips), Joop cologne, cash in varying denominations, tv dinners, tube sox, Brill Cream, chocolate pies and yard rakes.  I EZ to pleez.  *(no use one!) ~ PB, about his birthday dinner at “West Sizz”, 11/25/02

There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday.  That time is age eleven.

If today is the first day of the rest of your life, that would make today your birthday.  Happy birthday.

Today I turned 24.  I’m assuming it’s not much different than 23.  Anyways, I just miss the birthday parties at McDonalds and Chucky-Cheese’s.  The good ole days… where Nintendo ruled supreme and Super Mario Bros was a way of life. ~ DaVinci, from Digifreq.com

I’ve had a lot of birthdays — well, not a lot of birthdays, but this is the best birthday ever. ~ Celia, from Monsters, Inc.

I’m now 25.  I’m legal to do everything now.  I feel so relieved.  I can now rent a car without paying an under-age penalty.  However, before 25, I could buy a house, buy a car, get married, have a child, etc, etc, but I couldn’t rent a car without paying an extra age fee.  I think it’s hilarious.  So what did we do on my birthday?  We went to Wal-Mart. ~ Chris Davis, 1/19/06

Happy birthday!  May you not feel as old as you look. ~ Thomas Wayne, 2/25/06

I think we should “celebrate” someone’s birthday by covering their cube in cheese dip. ~ Mango-Man, 6/15/06

In dog-years you’d be dead. ~ Nelson B., about my birthday, 10/31/06

Can you feel the love in that last one?  Me, neither.  But at least the dis’ was creative.

BTW, I realize that getting older is not so big a deal once you get out of your teens, and you may not even care to think about your age (and you’d probably rather your friends would forget about it), but your birthday is nonetheless a great excuse to go eat a lot of pizza or nachos or whatever you want.  I’m thinking Larry’s Pizza is a great place to go for this, with their endless buffet of pizza — and not just one-topping pizzas, but lots of specialty pizzas.  And they even bring the food to your table.  Mmm…  You just can’t go wrong with that…

viewer mail, issue #9

Welcome to another issue of our infamous viewer mail series.  Like in previous issues, we will look at actual search terms that people used to find this blog, then we will provide advice, answers, or humor that corresponds with what you were looking for.  (And this is open to your questions, too — just use our contact us form to send us any question you’d like an answer to, and we’ll come up with something.)  Let us begin.

  • chimpanzeewhy are chimpanzees smarter then humans? — Uhh, they’re not.  However, if you believe that, maybe they are smarter than some humans…  😮
  • ice cream buffet — I’ve never heard of one, but that sounds like a good idea.  And in addition to having many varieties of ice cream out there, of course there should also be lots of different toppings to choose from and mix in, like crumbled Oreos, Butterfinger chunks, hot fudge, caramel, graham cracker crumbs, etc.  I think somebody should make this happen.
  • how does the moon belch? — You’ve got me on this one.  I can say that I’ve never thought about this before, and I don’t know.  It would be really weird if the moon did belch or fart, because it would probably be very loud, and we might even hear it on the earth.  On a slightly more serious note, to answer your question, if it has any active volcanoes, then perhaps that’s how, but I don’t know of any.  However, there is the backside of the moon, which we don’t see, so perhaps there’s some clues on that side.
  • interesting facts to read while on toilet — There are a lot of good books and magazines out there for reading in such conditions, and comics are great for that also.  Another suggestion would be to print out some articles from this blog.  The free-for-all stories are good (just click on the title of each one to get all the comments, so you get the whole story), and there’s a page with lots of toilet facts (which would be appropriate, although some might give you pause), and there’s a few posts that have a lot of discussion in the comments (see here for starters).
  • nuclear scorpion — There’s been a lot of searches related to scorpions recently, and I wonder what all the hype / buzz is about.  Perhaps the next Godzilla movie will feature a nuclear scorpion.  (Has he ever fought one?)  So maybe this is from a leaked movie script, or it could be just some crazy conspiracy theory, or maybe my warnings about Turkey Point were prophetic.  I don’t know which it is, but I’m curious also.  If anyone knows why scorpions are so popular now, let me know in the comments.
  • flush toilet into air 10 feet away tooth — Hmm… how should I interpolate this one?  Did the toilet water (and waste) shoot 10 feet into the air when you flushed it and got on your teeth?  Ugh!  Let’s hope that’s not what you’re talking about, because that’s downright stank-nasty!  Generally, you want your toilet to flush downward, taking the poop and other excrement away from you.  If it’s going into the air, then your toilet is malfunctioning.  On a side note, if your whole toilet exploded and shot up in the air, that would be kinda cool, but you’d rather that not happen at your home or while anyone is nearby.
  • moon backside nasa — See, it’s not just me who thinks there may be something going on at the backside of the moon!  Because we can’t see the back of the moon, NASA (or some other space agency) could be having underground operations there without even having to go underground.  There could be something nefarious going on there, so we need to check it out for ourselves.  Do we have any volunteers to secretly go to the moon and investigate?  If you find something, we’ll film it, and it’ll make a great movie, perhaps even winning a Nobel Peace Prize (since Al Gore has lowered the bar so low with his documentary).  Who’s interested in going?

That’s all for this issue.  Feel free to discuss any of these topics in the comments.