Let's get ready to rumble

In this corner, weighing in at a svelt 0.5 oz, some kind of pincher-cockroach thing. And in this corner, weighing a toned 0.75 oz, a gold scorpion.

That's my best guess as to what the announcers at japanesebugfights.com must be saying as they call a live, glass-enclosed fight to the death between two gross bugs. Here's one of 30 fights you can watch on the site.



You can all thank my neighbor and non-gay partner at work for showing me this site. My life instantly became more enriched, and I hope yours will too.

-JT

With great power comes great responsibility

That's the lesson that Uncle Ben (not the rice guy) gives Peter Parker in Spider-Man. Talk about deep.

I wonder if anyone ever passed this wisdom nugget to Alain Robert. Robert, known more popularly as Spiderman, scaled the New York Times building yesterday. When he got near the top, he opened up a banner that read, "Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week."


A few hours later, Renaldo Clarke climbed the same building. He wasn't a complete copycat, though, since he didn't have a banner. Tenants inside the building said that Clarke stopped from time to time during his ascent, and he mouthed "What floor am i on?" to onlookers.

Neither of them were hurt, and both of them were arrested. Shocking.

-JT

Emoticon Etiquette

Just very quickly, while I'm still thinking about it:

:) or :-) is a smiley face.
:( or :-( is a frowny face.
;) or ;-) is a wink.
:P is sticking your tongue out at me.

I have a business associate who INSISTS on using the following for her smiley face emoticon:

=D

Why this bothers me so much, I don't know. But seriously, whose eyeballs look like that?

And I promise you, on no IM program is "=D" the hotkey for a smiley face.

-10-key princess

Oh, Numnah! That's a Relief.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is an event I look forward to every year. And you really wonder why? THIS, readers, is true entertainment at its finest.

Lucky for him, he won.

-SM

In honor of the latest Indiana Jones movie

Check out this re-creation of the famous Indiana Jones scene where Indy's running from a rolling boulder. There are a few subtle differences, but I'll leave that up to you to find for yourself.



The lego supply must be down everywhere else across the world.

-JT

Deceptively Delicious

Like every other parent on the planet, I've been having issues getting my son to even contemplate trying vegetables. No, I shouldn't say that. He likes those plain peas, carrots, and corn you get in a bag for $0.89 at the Jewel. But when it comes to fresh broccoli, cauliflower, squash, bell peppers, tomatoes, celery, lettuce, or zucchini, this is what he says:
"Mommy, when I was a little baby, I used to eat those things. But not anymore. I'm a BIG BOY!"

So the challenge to incorporate healthy foods into his diet has begun. So I researched, and looked online, and watched Oprah - of course.

Jessica Seinfeld (wife to Jerry) was featured on Oprah with her new-ish recipe book called "Deceptively Delicious." Essentially, the concept is that if you puree vegetables and mix them into foods like brownies, muffins, cupcakes, pizza dough, chicken nugget coating, deviled eggs, spaghetti, mashed potatoes, sloppy joes, etc., then your kids won't know they're eating them.

I have two issues with this.

First, I want my kid to KNOW that he's eating vegetables. I want him to grow up understanding that it's a healthy part of his diet. Hiding it in his food isn't going to do him any favors when he goes to college and says, "My mom never made me eat vegetables," when really, I did all along, but he just didn't know it.

Second (and seriously, this is where the rant comes in), I'm sure Jessica Seinfeld wasn't the first person in the world to think of hiding vegetables in food. I mean, come on! Just because you have a famous husband and a celebrity last name, you get the rights to selling pureed food in cookbook form?

Rant over. And now I'm off. Off to try this particular recipe that looks super duper appetizing: Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes with Yellow Squash and Beets.

Yum.

-SM

A herd of sheep just passed my office...

No really.

My apologies for being absent. Writer's block coupled with a few conferences plus a pile of work never going away is why Science Saturdays haven't been happening. My apologies.

Instead of leaving you dear readers in suspense, I hereby offer my resignation as czar of cznark and czience. As a send-off I give you this:



Chow for now,