Panic Button

A lot of new apps have been introduced in the past few months most of which got a thumbs down from me as many of them were more trouble than they were worth. Today's post is about an app that is either sheer genius or the worst idea yet,I really can't decide. MillerCoors (when did they mate up?) has introduced "Miller Lite On Demand" making beer delivery the push of a button or voice activation away. So far it is available in 40 cities with plans to expand depending on results of the tested areas. It seems like a great idea to keep people who have already been drinking from getting behind the wheel to get more beer,but my concern is with kids being so tech savvy couldn't they get around any needed passwords or whatever and end up with the beer when the adults are out or otherwise occupied? Of course a year ago Budweiser came out with a Wi-Fi connected fridge that warned the consumer when the beer supply was low,pretty soon a person won't have to remember a single thing other than where their phone is!

Roach Residence

Today's post clearly illustrates the importance of getting a second opinion when you know something is amiss. A 42 year old woman in Chennai,India woke up in the middle of the night with a crawling sensation in her right nostril and a burning sensation in her head. She went with her son to the nearest clinic but they couldn't find anything wrong. The next day she was still suffering the same symptoms and went to that state run Stanley Medical College Hospital where doctors discovered a cockroach sitting between her eyes close to the brain. A 45 minute procedure with clamps and a suction device was finally able to extract the intruder. The good news is one of the doctors with 30 years experience said he had never seen anything like it and if left alone the roach would have died and caused the woman's brain to become infected. I'm not too squeamish about bugs but that would no doubt change if one ever decided to take up residence inside my head.

Doughnut Cartel

This is no doubt the type of crime the acting (and I don't mean to say he is acting the least bit presidential) president intends to curtail by building a wall across the border with Mexico. 51 year old Sonia Garcia or one of her two sons drive from Juarez,Mexico to El Paso,TX and back several times a week with 40 boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. They buy the doughnuts at a bulk rate of $5 a dozen and sell them for $8 which has provided a way to send one son to college for an engineering degree. There used to be a Krispy Kreme in Juarez but it was closed down during the drug wars and hasn't reopened. They have many long time customers with mild to severe sugar addictions that are soothed with a regular fix.

Perilous Pants

Let today's post be a lesson for those youngsters who think wearing baggy pants like a wanna be thug can really leave you hanging. A locksmith working on locks at an Arizona school while they were closed for spring break noticed a man trying to get in a door. The man also noticed the locksmith and ran for a tall spiked fence in an attempt to escape,but alas his baggy pants proved to be a hold up! He would have made it but his pants caught on the fence and left him hanging upside down by his ankles. Needless to say police had no problem capturing the would be burglar. I know it's wrong to laugh at someones misfortune but in this case I am making an exception.

Framed Art and Pigskins

It's funny how things line up in a person's life,for instance I was reading about how tattoos work some of it was things that I mostly knew but a lot was new information. With that said I'm not sure how Rik Reinking will get his moneys worth with the tattoo he bought. The work of art by Wim Delvoye (also known for tattooing pigs)  is on a 40 year old man who agreed to be skinned after he died so the tattoo could be framed and displayed plus he agreed to display his tattoo in museums at least three times a year. If that's okay with both of them I don't have a problem with it,but from what I read the color is more under the skin that on the surface otherwise it would wear off in a matter of months. So how would a person go about skinning and preserving a tattoo?  I guess this is the part where I go back and do some more research.

Last Laughs

I happened to find some humorous obits that are further proof that some people really do die laughing. Stephen Merrill was an avid superheroes fan who died unexpectedly at age 31. Since his friends and family didn't know the cause of his death at the time, his obit read he had died from an uppercut to the jaw administered by Batman. They continued the theme at the funeral donning superhero T-shirts and flower arrangements in the shapes of various superhero accessories.
Douglas Legler religiously read and criticized the obits and insisted that his obit should simply read "Doug Died" which is what his daughter had printed.
Scott Entsminger spent his life as an dedicated  Cleveland Browns fan even though they had been on a decades long losing streak. When he died he asked that 6 Browns players be pallbearers at his funeral so they could let him down one last time.

Brand Loyalty

There's  been a lot brewing with the beer industry in the last few years. I like to imagine some of these ideas coming to the brewers at the end of the day as they sit around sampling their wares. You know what I'm talking about..."Hey let's use pubic hair for the yeast!",or "how about using treated sewer water"? Anyway the people at Meantime Brewery decided to use one of their brewers DNA to create a beer designed for his genetic preferences. They named the brew Double Helix and it is part of their new line of the Pilot Series beers. Double Helix is available at exclusive locations in London and online for a limited time. It wasn't mentioned if they would craft other beers to cater to an individuals genetically programmed tastes or what the next plan was for the Pilot Series.

Polly Want a Fix

The subtitle for today's post would go something like "Or Why Your Opiates Will Cost More". Poppy farmers in India have been fighting the parrots for their crop since 2015 but the addicted birds have learned to overcome obstacles to get their drugs and more birds are joining the flock. The birds would normally be squawking and making themselves heard in the nearby trees but they have learned to not make a sound until they have silently swooped in the grab the pods after the farmers slit them open the hasten the ripening process. The government suspects the farmers for the crop discrepancies which are around 10% less than normal. The birds get so high they sometimes fall out of the trees often times resulting in their deaths.

Diamonds Are a Chick's Best Friend

Okay,technically the title should be a hen's best friend but I exercised my literary license,so sue me! That aside today's slice of weirdness happened in Cumbra,UK when Sally Thompson was going to have boiled eggs for breakfast. After pealing one egg and taking a bite she felt something hard in her mouth and when it came out it appeared to be a diamond. She took that as an omen because she is getting married soon and is somewhat superstitious. She decided it must have been eaten by the chicken and went about finding out if that was possible,it is possible but thought to be highly unlikely. Then she worried that someone was missing their diamond but she had it examined they told her it was most likely a cubic zirconia. I'm thinking the diamond was laid by a chicken who has an oyster in her family tree.

New Ride!

Before I get started with today's post I have an update on the March 7th post about the turtle named Piggy Bank,she had an obstruction after the first surgery and died when they put her under to repair the damage.
Once again inventors have brought fiction into reality. I mentioned not too long ago about the autochef from the J.D. Robb novels set in the future,what I didn't mention at that time was the vehicle used by the cop protagonist. The rig was the answer to every drivers prayers as it could raise up to drive over cars that were in the way,not to mention several other handy features. A special effects company has made a vehicle that can drive over other cars at the push of a button using a hydraulic system. Now for the bad news...unfortunately there are no plans to make any more.

Wiped Out

Since some of the nation is still in an uproar over bathroom issues I figured it would be a prime time to mention a bathroom related problem in China. The Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing,China was having a problem with people stealing toilet paper so they installed a facial recognition toilet paper dispensing system. The machine scans the face for 3 seconds then dispenses between 24-27.5 inches of tissue. The machine will not dispense more paper until a 9 minute period has passed,if more is needed for an emergency situation before that time has lapsed it can be obtained from the bathroom staff. As is common with machines they have quit working completely at times leaving only the bathroom staff to pass out the paper. Out of curiosity I looked up the price of facial recognition systems thinking that it would take a lot of toilet paper waste to pay for one but the ones I found were between $325-$680. It still seems like overkill but these times they are a changing.
 

Color My World

In my travels I have noticed that passports come in a variety of colors but never knew what the reason was until today. Although there seem to be exceptions to these general rules I will just present the basics since I might be the only one that finds this information the least bit interesting. The European Union (EU),excepting Croatia, uses a burgundy colored passport cover as do parts of South America. The Islamic countries opted for green as that color has importance in their religion. Communist countries mostly use the red covers. There are also specially colored passports for diplomats and military.  The US and parts of Central America use the navy blue color which not only show dirt less but also heighten the contrast of countries crests. There are also black passports but try as I might I couldn't make heads nor tails of how the countries were connected that use the black cover,but once again the country has the final say on the color.

Purrfect Scents

Considering the title of yesterday's post it seems only fitting that today's offering would actually be about a scent. A company called Demeter who is known for their unusual types of scents spent 15 years developing a scent named Kitten Fur. It has been so long since I've been around kittens I'm not certain I recall what they smell like. Demeter claims the scent smells like warmth and comfort just like the back of a kittens neck and of course no kittens were harmed in the making of Kitten Fur. The scent is available in perfume,shower gel,lotion and massage oil...they don't mention if the massage oil comes with the kneading kitten paws. The purrfect gift for that crazy cat lady in your life! Regardless of how it smells it has to be better than some of those strong scents that choke a person with the first whiff.

Toilet Water

When I first saw the ad for Stone Full Circle Pale Ale I misunderstood the phrase "toilet to tap" and thought the worst. Who could blame me since brewers have started using yeast from less than savory sources. As it turned out there wasn't really much to get excited about because the ad referred to San Diego's pure water recycling program. The locals came up with the "toilet to tap" name for the new water system which recycles the waste water back into the fresh water system instead of the ocean. Stone Brewery is big on recycling and they claim the water is superior to their current water and will enable them to not use so much natural water.

Tech Togs

I must not have been the only one who thought most of the wearable electronics really weren't needed (the sales on many of them had drastically dropped),but with these latest wearables it seems like they are putting a little more thought into the practicality of the items. Levi's and Google teamed up to make a smart jacket which has technology woven into the fabric allowing the user to take phone calls,get directions and check the time by simply tapping their sleeve where a cuff link like button then transmits the information to their headphones. The jacket was designed with bicyclists in mind but would be good for several outdoor applications. It will go on sale later this year for $350 and is washable once you remove the cuff link which has a two day battery life.

Debunking the Day

I found a few things about St. Patrick's Day that are different from the traditional lore as seems to be the case with many of the modern holidays. Leprechauns were not cobblers in fact they lived underwater,which brings us to the next piece of alternative facts,they also didn't live in Ireland. They lived in an undersea kingdom in the Mid-Atlantic. The original Leprechauns did not wear green in fact they were dressed more in the fashion of St. Nick. They wore red clothes laced with gold and instead of top hats their hats were pointed. They were also smaller than one would think (I always figured them to be around 2 feet?) standing only a couple of inches in height. I'm not sure how or why the Leprechaun's image has been changed over the centuries but if I had to bet my guess would be commercial gain.