Sports that Suck

 Just when a person thinks there are no more weird sports to be invented along comes another one. This time it's Suction Cup Tug of War which got started to help bald men build self esteem or at least that's what they claim happened, it sounds more like something someone suggested after consuming several adult beverages. The participants attach suction cups to the top of their skulls, as it works best on flat surfaces, then a string connects the suction cups and the one who loses their suction cup first loses. People with hair can also enter but rarely do well as the forehead isn't flat enough to hold the suction. 

Lady With the Light

Not to be confused with lady with the lamp, the lady with the light refers to the Statue of Liberty in her early years (1886-1902) when she was expected to perform double duty as a lighthouse. It didn't quite work out like the engineers had planned as the lights they had installed in the torch and around her base were supposed to shine a beacon 100 miles but in reality the light only reached around 24 miles. The first time the lights were lit they only stayed on for a week due to lack of funding then the lights stayed off for 2 weeks while emergency funding was found. Both the cost of the electricity and the lack of distance illuminated were deciding factors in discontinuing her lighthouse status. 

Another thought on a previous post on the 21st of this month about Early Fake News...even though times have changed what kind of person would give a six year old an ax for their birthday?

 

Good For Your Health?

 Most everyone has a soft spot for animals and the medical community says they are good for lowering blood pressure, anxiety and several other complaints though John Hopkins researchers found that the second most common injury in adults over 65 were the result of walking dogs on a leash. The most common injuries were fractures and traumatic brain injuries. They suggested doctors working with this age group go over safety issues of dog walking to make sure their patients knew of the risks. I'm also guessing a lot of the injuries come from retractable leashes as the more length the more leverage not to mention the getting wound up in the leash factor. Of course animals are also pretty good at tripping people inside of the home but in most cases the falls wouldn't be happening on pavement! 

Feeling Owly

 Before we actually get to the topic today let's sidetrack for a moment...so feeling owly means being grumpy but it's unknown how it came to mean that. Best guesses are owls look grumpy though I've always thought they looked wise which brings us to the real topic. A group of owls is called a parliament which I figured had to do with the wisdom thing but actually comes from literature. In the 14th century Chaucer wrote a poem, "A Parliament of Fowls" then C.S. Lewis used the phrase in "The Silver Chair" (of the Narnia series) where the birds form a parliament to advise the protagonists. People begin using it to describe a group of owls and by 1968 it was included in the OED. I didn't see that one coming. 

Gull Wars

 If you've ever lived at the coast you know what a nuisance sea gulls can be though it's more the fault of people thinking it's fun to offer them food but what the people don't understand is the gulls quickly become accustomed to receiving these easy meals and then become pests and never mind the foods they are stealing from people or other animals are usually far from an ideal diet for the birds. The Blackpool Zoo has a solution to the problem, they are hiring "Seagull Deterrents" who are people willing to dress up in a bird costume to scare the gulls away from eating areas. I'm not sure this will really work but presumably since it's a zoo they know what they're doing. 

Yummy Leftovers!

 Is there anyone who doesn't like Tater Tots? What's not to like about them? especially with your favorite dipping sauce but what exactly are Tater Tots? In the 1950s the Grigg Bros set out to reduce the waste from making frozen french  fries. Initially they sold the vegetable bi-products to farmers for livestock feed but they decided to try and make these leftovers into people food. They started by chopping up the potato scraps, mixing them with flour and spices, then shaping them with the help of a homemade plywood mold. They named their creation tater for potato and tot for small, Tater Tots and a star was born except that consumers were reluctant to try them because of their low price so they raised the price and the rest as they say is history.  

Fart Mobiles

 Today's post is a prime example of turning lemons into lemonade, only it's cow poop/gas into fuel. There has been some considerable hand wringing over dairy and beef operations and the methane produced by the cows adding to the climate crisis and now that methane is being harnessed for use running the farms. One farm in the UK produces enough gas to reduce their carbon footprint by75% and also sell the excess bio fuel to the county to run some of their vehicles. The next step is to get a generator for the farm and go completely off the grid with the cows becoming the solution instead of the problem. 

Pre SPF

 With summer hopefully just around the corner it seemed like a good time to think about protection from the glowing orb. Pre 1923 people used clothing and parasols to prevent exposure to the sun as darker skin meant working class. Early Greeks used olive oil to prevent sunburn and by todays ratings has a SPF of around 8, the Egyptians used a combo of rice bran, jasmine and clay. Coco Chanel was the first to make tanning fashionable (in 1923) plus doctors were recommending taking sun for several ailments so the need for sun screens was reborn. L'Oréal was one of the pioneers of sunscreens with a product called Ambre Solaire, an Austrian chemist launched the first commercial product named, Glacier Creme which had a SPF of 2, next up was an US airman/pharmacist who used a red goop called "red vet pet" which was mixed with cocoa butter and coconut oil and was purchased by Coppertone and marketed as "Coppertone Girl" and "Bain de Soleil" in the 1950s as the first commercial US sunscreen. 

Definition of Isolation

 In 2018 "The Washington Post" decided to define what the meaning of "the middle of nowhere" was and after doing their research they found that 98% of Americans in the lower 48 live within an hour of a city of 75,000 or more. Their next step was finding an isolated town with a population of 1,000 or more that was the greatest distance from an urban hub. Drumroll please...that honor goes to Glasgow, Montana! Glasgow is 4.5 hours from any city with over 75,000 people though Glasgow is thought of as the hub of their tiny corner of northeast Montana. 

 

Early Fake News

 Most of what we were taught as children has turned out to be fake history, like George Washington and the cherry tree parable, it never happened his biographer made it up when he wrote of Washington after his death but it was repeated as fact to underscore the importance of truth, pretty ironic. Next we have the well respected inventor, Thomas Edison most broadly known for inventing the light bulb which he didn't do, he only improved on the design. The light bulb came from the work of several inventors though Edison was responsible for several of the important parts such as the carbon filament and the Edison Screw, the twist in light bulb still in use today. These examples could be easily disproved today with the internet at our  fingertips but in the days of yore when most of the books told the same stories it was a little harder to eke out the truth. 

Chip off the Old Block

 File today's post under the "which came first" category. This time it's about chocolate chip cookies and how they came to be. In 1937 the Toll House Inn was owned by the Wakefield's and Ruth was known for her cooking/baking skills. Wanting to change up a favorite recipe she decided to use semi sweet chocolate instead of bakers chocolate, instead of melting the chocolate as she normally would she used an ice pick to make tiny pieces and was pleased to see they had retained their shape when they were baked instead of melting. Needless to say the cookies were a hit and Nestle bought the recipe to print on their semi sweet chocolate bars plus they started making the bars in 160 segmented pieces that came with their own cutting tool. It wasn't until around 1940 that they started selling chocolate chips in bags. Even the simplest objects have their own background and yes the cookie came before the chocolate chip.  

Seeing Stars

 A very cool feature of a few beaches in Japan is the star sand which looks just like regular sand at a glance but upon closer inspection one can see that the sand is shaped like stars. Most sand is made up of rocks, minerals and ground down coral but the star sand is the tiny exoskeletons of single cell organisms known as Foraminifera. Move over Hawaii's black sand, green sand and red sand beaches Japan is home to the stars!