Oil and water

” I just want one of those Skittles hourglasses . . .  but filled with Reese’s Pieces.”

“Eh, not a peanut butter man.”

“You can fill yours with M&M’s then.”

“I’m not so into candy . . . “

-silence-

“.  .  . except Swedish Fish.”

“I don’t think Swedish Fish would fall through the hourglass very well.”

“Guess I need an aquarium.”

“You mean a terrarium. ‘Cause they couldn’t actually get wet. That’d be gross.”

“Uh uh. They’re Swedish Fish.“

-silence-

July 4th Moment of Zen

I walked out of my house this morning to see a parade of small children on patriotically-bedizened bikes straggling by, involving a LOT of: redwhite&blue crepe paper, star-spangled paper hats that were too big, cooing parents with hyperactive cameras, coercion, and bike horns. Bike horn squeezing > pedalling by a good 3 to 1 ratio, except by one girl out front who was apparently in a race with herself ( or trying to escape the parade, and who can blame her? ) and was bent low over her handlebars pedalling furiously, leaving flakes of shredded crepe paper in her wake. Her hat had fallen down her back but was held on by a thin elastic, so it ended up riding upright on her hunched shoulder blades like some coruscant camel’s hump. At one point, she looked back over her shoulder and almost got hit in the face by the hat. I kept hoping she would suddenly jet off into the horizon or levitate like E.T., sailing over the sun in a final f-you to 4th of July parades, but she just got tired and slowly drifted back to the racket and had a rocket pop

but in a final act of defiance (and in spite of much begging by the gaggle of amateur photographers), refused to put her hat back on.

Best (or worst, it’s negotiable) firework names

Bad Mutha Trucker

Cooking with Gas

Festival Balls

Treasure Trail Fountain

Shock ‘n’ Awesome

The taste of summer c. 1998

Another inconvenient truth

Not only have we poisoned our rainwater, driven species to extinction and heated up our planet, we’ve also SHRUNK THE SHEEP!

This has got to stop.

People I know whose names perfectly suit them

The lean, bearded used bookstore owner – Aesop

A chirpy political fundraiser – Chatty

The happy-go-lucky, look on the bright side seamstress – Pollie Ann

Classic dad saying, #55

“That could knock a buzzard off a gutwagon!”

Said in reference to either a) profanity or b) a horrible smell, usually a fart, and accompanied often by a fanning hand gesture or window opening.

They might be giants. . .

but many squid and octopuses are very very small. And cute. Below are a few of my fav tiny cephalopods:

Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes) – This squid has bioluminescent bacteria living inside its mantle, which it feeds sugar and amino acids. In exchange, the squid gets to use their luminescence to illuminate its underside, hiding its silhouette from predators.

Firefly squid (Watasenia scintillans) – This squid is the only species of cephalopod that seems to have color vision, possibly to help it distinguish between ambient light and bioluminescence. It is itself bioluminescent, using hundreds of photophores to illuminate its body at night. Like this:

Brains are more like sand piles than computers

Or between a pendulum and air turbulence, if you prefer. Evidently new reasearch shows that our brains balance on the edge of organization and chaos. I’m guessing everyone’s had those moments where their brain has misplaced a word or a name, only to have it come back inopportunely in the frozen foods aisle two hours later, so this may not come as a huge surprise, but the article is killer all the same. From New Scientist.

There’s no wrong way to eat an Eggo waffle

Cut off the rounded edges and eat them first, leaving a perfect square.

Cut the waffle into each of its individual squares and eat them one at a time.

Cut off the edge row of all 4 sides of the waffle and eat them. Then the next set of rows in, and so on and so forth until the waffle is only a tiny bite-size square.

Cut the waffle only through the vertices of the squares.

Zeno’s paradox waffle: cut the waffle in half, then cut that half in half, then cut those halves in half, and so on. You may have to cheat at the end.