It's a Dogs Life

 A chef and dog owner has opened what is possibly the first fine dining establishment for dogs in San Francisco. At Dogue (which rhymes with vogue) for $75 per pup the pampered pooches enjoy a multiple course meal called "bone appetite"featuring dishes like chicken skin waffles and filet mignon steak tartare with quail egg,the meal also includes a mimosa and baked treat for the human accompanying the pup. The food is all human grade and takes hours to prepare though would taste bland to the doggy parents. The real goal at Dogue is to raise awareness of fresh,natural,healthy ingredients for your dogs diet instead of commercially produced dog food. 

Batty

 Keeping with the Halloween theme let's go batty! Bats are the only mammals that fly,they also make up about 21% of the mammals on earth. They are very diverse including the smallest member of the mammal group,the bumblebee bat at only an inch up to the flying fox with a 5 foot wingspan. There are two classes of bats,microbats and megabats. The microbats are the smaller ones who hunt with echolocation and eat insects where the megabats are larger with some being daytime flyers with diets of mainly fruits of which they also are major pollinators. So even if you associate bats with creepy stuff and Halloween they are actually an important part of our lives.  

Puppies and Kitties Oh My

 Until the late 15th century the word puppy referred to a woman's small dog,probably from the French word poupee meaning doll or toy likely because of the way the dog was handled. In the 1590s puppy took on the current meaning of young dog replacing the nearly obsolete word whelp. Before the word kitty meant a young cat kitty meant a young girl. The first recorded use of kitty referring to a young cat was in 1719 and once again probably from the French word kitoun or the Old French word chaton. Now we know how those cute words came about which brings me to what happens to cute phrases when they become obsolete,like rabbit ears? Is there an old phrase burial mound somewhere? 

Cold Hard Cash

 Today let's take a look at a few idioms concerning money. Might as well start with "cold hard cash"...when coins changed from being mainly gold and silver which were softer and warmer than the metals used to replace them,the merchants noticed the difference when handling the coins and referred to the new money as cold and hard. As with most idioms "Bringing Home the Bacon"has more than one possible origin but my favorite is from England in the 1100s when couple could bring home a side of bacon if they swore to the clergy that they hadn't argued in the last year. 

Time Warp

 Today's post is a glance back to 1958 when apparently the entire focus for women was getting married,some of these ideas are almost scary when considered by current standards. Bottom line these are for a laugh only,if you choose marriage the most important thing is to be yourself. 

Rent a billboard and post your picture and telephone number on it. 

Stand on a busy street corner with a lasso. 

Never let him believe your career is more important to you than marriage. 

Resist the urge to make him over-before marriage,that is.

Wear a Band-Aid people always ask what happened. 

Enough of this crap for the day! 

Dying For a Job

 A Kentucky man had a death wish which involved him pretending to be dead for 321 days and recording it with the hope of landing the role of a corpse on CSI:Vegas. He had no prior experience with acting and didn't want a speaking part he only wanted his 15 minutes of fame. He said with time he learned a lot about being dead,fake blood just didn't work for him though with time he could hold his breath for longer but the most important part was to have movement around the body to make him seem more still. Eventually his hard work paid off and he was contacted for a part as a dead body though he blew one take because he forgot to turn his phone off and a telemarketer called. Since his debut he has had other offers to die  but he doesn't plan on quitting his day job. 

Say Ahh

 With more technology comes more need for more exacting authentication. Of course fingerprints have been used for over a century but they can be both covered up and altered same with retina scans, the eyes can change with cataracts and other age related issues,same deal with voice recognition a simple cold can alter the pattern. Leaving technology with an overlooked identification method that may be the most exacting,tongue prints. Not only are they more unique than fingerprints they are also in a protected environment leaving them mostly free from external factors plus there are other things in the plus column,the width and length and the way the tongue is extended for examination. Though nothing is immediately in store for this identification method it couldn't hurt to practice sticking your tongue out!  

Thinking Caps

 A professor of engineering at the College of Engineering in the Philippines implemented a clever anti-cheating solution. She asked her students to make a simple paper design to block peripheral vision but being engineering students they went above and beyond the assignment with headgear ranging from helmets to egg cartons. The only step she missed was making their creations part of the final grade but maybe that will be the next step.  

Devolution

 Are humans done evolving or is it just so slow as to not be noticeable? An Australian artist had an idea to create a mock up of what a human would look like if they evolved to survive car crashes. She consulted with both a trauma surgeon and a car crash investigator and came up with Graham who has a flat nose to prevent it from breaking,extra facial fat to absorb shock,an extra large head to protect the brain,no neck to solve the neck injury problem,what looks like extra nipples act as mini air bags to cushion the rib cage,Graham's legs were made for pedestrian accidents with joints that bend in all directions and small feet to facilitate his ability to leap out of harm's way. Bottom line,unless you want future generations to look like Graham you'd best drive safely! 

Oh Nuts!

 While us humans are going through the typical fall routines other animals are also making their preparations for upcoming events. Squirrels are busy packing away the nuts to ensure they will have enough to eat for the winter since they don't hibernate. The interesting part of the squirrel's routine is the male squirrel's brain gets bigger during caching season though the female's brain remains the same size. Here comes the zinger...the females don't need the extra memory as they already function at a higher level and can remember where they store the nuts they have gathered though the males need that extra brain power to enable them to remember where they stored their nuts! Another amazing squirrel fact is like most rodents their teeth never quit growing but a squirrel's teeth grow 6 inches a year so all the gnawing on the nuts is necessary to grind those choppers down to a manageable size. 

Counting Counts

 There has been an abundance of holiday (Halloween) related trivia lately that I feel compelled to pass on. For instance Count von Count of Sesame Street fame was created from European lore about vampires suffering from arithmomania,the uncontrollable urge to count or calculate numbers which is why in many homes they would spread grain or seeds on the floors hoping the vampires would stop to fulfill their counting obsession,same with fishermen who place nets over their homes hoping the vampires would be distracted by counting the holes in the net. There's my something new learned today though maybe if I had spent more time watching Sesame Street I would have know the Count's story? Also a new thing learned is mustard seeds were often used in the seed distraction ploy,they are also called eye of newt! Who knew?