Tag: humor

Every Minute Counts in Physical Activity for Health Even If Your Step Counter Does Not Count It!

If you want a quick read for how every minute counts in physical activity for your health, see the JAMA article “Physical Activity for Health—Every Minute Counts” (Katzmarzyk PT, Jakicic JM. Physical Activity for Health—Every Minute Counts. JAMA. 2023;330(3):213–214. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.11014).

Just for fun, I tried to see if about 5 minutes of juggling would result in a change in the step counter on my cell phone. Unfortunately, it didn’t but I sure could feel the effort!

As the authors state, public health recommendations for physical activity set a bar of 150-300 minutes a week of moderate intensity aerobic activity to get substantial health benefit.

But you benefit from just about any increment below that level. Your step counter probably won’t register it, but you can feel it.

I made a short demo video to show what good exercise juggling is. I didn’t cut any mistakes (and obviously increased the speed on it because 5 minutes is a bit long). Anybody can tell I’m pretty puffed out at the end.

Try juggling for physical activity!

Braunschweiger Slices a Big Winner!

Sena bought a package of Jones Dairy Farm Braunschweiger slices recently and made a great lunch of sandwiches with Miracle Whip and a side of Korean Kewpie Mayo Corn dish. She asked me first whether I wanted to try the sandwiches with cheese instead of Braunschweiger. My friend Dr. George Dawson prefers cheese instead of Braunschweiger with Miracle Whip on his sandwiches.

I had to think hard about it, but I chose the Braunschweiger slices—this time. Maybe cheese next time.

Anyhow, Braunschweiger or cheese with Miracle Whip are guaranteed preferred items on sandwiches according to the U.S. Constitution, as quoted below from Article VIII:

In order to establish the items of choice for the perfect sandwiches we do hereby recommend Braunschweiger or the cheese of your liking, preferably with Miracle Whip salad dressing as soon as it is invented, by our estimate not sooner nor later than 1933 according to the founding fathers who are from a different galaxy where time travel has been mastered and which enables them to make accurate predictions about the future—Benjamin “Bud” Franklin.

Glad I could clear that up. Braunschweiger slices, along with many other tasty foods, is made at Jones Dairy Farm in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. It’s reachable by either via U.S. Highway 151 N or I-80 E and I-88 E.

I suggest taking U.S. Highway 151 N because it is more scenic and avoids the tolls on the other route. Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, is close by and is also worth seeing.

Watch Out for Spaghettification on Skinwalker Ranch!

I’m not up to speed on the math of black hole portal wormhole vortices and whatnot, but I think the actors on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch need to be careful what kind of incendiary devices they’re tossing into the Triangle Area.

I barely got through the general physics introductory course at Iowa State University. I remember the momentum lab experiments—barely. My lab partner showed up late because he was really hung over. I think he asked me if I ever partied and I said I had pretty much outgrown that kind of thing. He looked at me like he was shocked and exclaimed, “You mean this crap ends?”

On the other hand, despite his hangover he grasped the momentum math better than I did.

I’m still trying to figure out why one of the actors said “A black hole?” when somebody posed the question “What does that thing look like?” referring to what looked like a black hole at ground level following a LiDAR imaging test in the Triangle Area. I didn’t know you could find black holes with LiDAR.

There was also the suggestion of funnels in the air above the black hole, leading to the team wondering if it was a portal leading to a wormhole. Everybody got excited about it, and wondered if it might explain all the weird stuff happening on the ranch. Could there be monsters, extraterrestrials, orbs, and Braunschweiger with Miracle Whip sandwiches zipping in and out of these things?

It got me looking around on the internet to find out whether black holes and wormholes could be the same thing. It turns out some scientists think there could be black hole portals on one end and white hole portals on the other end of wormholes, which I think means you get spaghettified on one end and reassembled on the other.

However, this could mean you have to be wary of spaghettification if you try to travel to another dimension through a wormhole. You don’t have to take my word for it (and you shouldn’t!). Just ask physics professors Leo and Shanshan Rodriguez at Grinnell College in Iowa. Black holes swallow up everything that comes within spitting distance from them, stretch them way out so they resemble noodles and eventually destroy you.

The only thing you can do then is call Chuck Norris, who routinely eats black holes with Braunschweiger and Miracle Whip for lunch (they taste like chicken) and farts them into another galaxy far, far away. Chuck’s side hustle is to work part time at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) where he is a part time janitor, sweeping up the little black holes it sometimes generates. That black hole the LHC created in 2012 which swallowed reality didn’t stand a chance against Chuck, who gargled it and spat reality back out.

This goes back to Einstein’s theory of general relativity of course, which proves by advanced, hyper galactic step over toe hold jujitsu level mathematical formulas that the stitches in the fabric of spacetime get all warped leading to a crazy strong gravitational pull involving stirrup pants that stretch you enough to motivate some men to spend any amount of money to increase their penis size including subjecting themselves to black holes such that they would need a carryon bag to haul it through Chicago O’Hare and believe spaghettification is just the trick although airport security has yet to devise how they can get it through the screening machine in order to avoid pat down searches which can not only tickle but also delay passenger boarding and lead to mass hallucinations of a big UFO similar to the O’Hare event in 2006, which was actually caused by a weather event according to men in black suits posing as FAA agents at the airport.

Does anybody else have a sudden craving for pasta?

Yowie the Tree Hugger!

I saw the Bigfoot episode of The Proof is Out There last Friday which purportedly showed thermal images of two Yowies, the Australian version of Bigfoot. I was shocked when host Tony Harris said the video was either a hoax or possibly Yowies—and went with “Possibly Yowies.”

Interesting name, “Yowie.” It sounds like something I’d yell if I accidentally touched a stovetop burner. Actually, a Wikipedia article about it says it was originally called “Yahoo,” which is something I might yell if I won the lottery.

Supposedly the thermal imaging shows two Yowies hugging a tree. The tree looked pretty skinny. I would think that a 9-foot tall, 800 lb. cryptid would crush rather than hug such a little tree. And will someone please tell me why DNA evidence, footprints, or poop samples were not obtained?

I quickly glanced at a few web articles which said there’s no physical evidence for the existence of the Yowie in Australia. I’m thinking it’s high time we capture one with a method that is guaranteed to work. Here’s how you catch a Yowie:

First you dig a hole and fill it with ashes. Carefully place peas around the hole. When the Yowie comes up to take a pea, kick him in the ash hole.

Then we can start serious scientific study of the critter. The first thing you have to learn is not to call it a critter, which is undignified. The proper title would be Sir Cryptid Yahoo Yowie, Esq.

Test whether it prefers beef jerky, vegemite, or politicians for lunch.

We might start by teaching Sir Yowie how to dance. No doubt you’ll recall the 1974 documentary film “Young Frankenstein” in which the Frankenstein monster does a pretty fair job of tap dancing.

See if Sir Yowie can learn how to juggle. One problem might be that it could be better at basketball, given its height and strength. You juggle while Yowie dribbles. Don’t argue.

See if it can learn to play cribbage. However, a crisis could arise if you don’t let it win the big annual American Cribbage Congress tournament (I think it’s in Virginia Beach, VA this year). How would you calm down a giant who smells like it needs a diaper change?

Wormhole Vortex Portal at Skinwalker Ranch!

I watched The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch the other night and the investigators got really excited over seeing what they called a wormhole portal in the Triangle area of the ranch. Somehow, it was detected by LiDAR, which stands for light detection and ranging. It measures distance using light instead of sound like radar does.

I didn’t know you could use LiDAR to detect wormholes.

Anyway, the whole team including Travis got so worked up about it the show got interrupted so that all the actors (I mean investigators) could calm down by mindfulness meditation. It was better than finding a mutilated cow.

Prior to finding the wormhole, they had guys shooting rockets, flamethrowers, and electricity bolts into the sky at about the 30-foot level where weird things usually happen, like orbs.

You never see much beside orbs. I’m not sure how you think of an orb of light as a UFO or spaceship that could be drivable by an extraterrestrial. I can’t imagine a humanoid fitting into an orb and operating it even with something like a car with a push button transmission. Remember those? When I was a kid, we had a friend who got one. She was really proud of it. I think it was a Chrysler from the 1950s.

I’m not sure where they’ll go with the wormhole thing now. Would they ever try to enter the wormhole? I thought wormholes destroyed everything that got too close to them.

They’ve been stuck for so long to come up with something different to give viewers the idea that there’s something really paranormal out there that they’ve had to add an extra show, Beyond Skinwalker Ranch. I haven’t watched it; it comes on a little late at night for me.

Next week they’re going to have the Utah State Attorney General as a guest star again out to the ranch. It looks like the military is out there buzzing the area with various black helicopters and generally getting everybody indignant and all worked up. Why should the military care what they’re doing? After all, it’s not illegal to shoot hobby rockets, flame throwers, and electricity bolts at the air, even if it might have a wormhole not covered by insurance in it.

Maybe I Should Be More Optimistic About Humans

I read the Psychiatric Times article “How Psychiatry Has Enriched My Life: A Journey Beyond Expectations” by Victor Ajluni, MD and published on July 4, 2023. It was like a breath of fresh air to read an expression of gratitude. Just about everything I read in the news is negative.

At the end of the article, Dr. Ajluni added a comment acknowledging that artificial intelligence (AI ChatGPT) assisted him in writing it. He takes full responsibility for the content, to be sure. I wouldn’t have guessed that AI was involved.

There’s a lot of negative stuff in the news. There are hysterically alarming headlines about AI.

I suppose you could wonder if Dr. Aljuni’s article is intentionally ironic, maybe just because the gratitude tone is so positive.  If it had been intended as irony, what could the AI contribution have been, though? I have a pretty low opinion of the AI capacity for irony.

I think irony occurs to me only because I tend to be pessimistic about the human race.

Maybe that’s because it has been very easy to be pessimistic about what direction human nature seems to be taking in recent years. I’ve been reading Douglas Adams’ satirical book, “The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” It contains several of his books which I think are really about human nature, and the setting is in a funny though often terrifying universe. I think there’s an ironic tone which softens the pessimism. The most pessimistic character is not a human but a robot, Marvin the paranoid android.

Unlike Marvin, I don’t have “a brain the size of a planet” (it’s more the size of a chickpea), but I am getting a bit cynical about the universe. I’m prone to regarding humans as evolving into a race of beings similar to those described in the book “Life, The Universe and Everything.” In Chapter 24, Adams describes the constantly warring Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax.

The Silastic Armorfiends are incredibly violent. Their planet is in ruins because they’re constantly fighting their enemies, and indeed, each other. In fact, the best way to deal with a Silastic Armorfiend is to lock him in a room by himself—because eventually he’ll just beat himself up.

In order to cope better, they tried punching sacks of potatoes to get rid of aggression. But then, they thought it would be more efficient to simply shoot the potatoes instead.

They were the first race to shock a computer, named Hactar. Possibly, Hactar was an AI because, when they told Hactar to make the Ultimate Weapon so they could vanquish all their enemies, Hactar was shocked. Hactar secretly made a tiny bomb with a flaw that made it harmless when the Silastic Armorfiends set it off. Hactar explained “…that there was no conceivable consequence of not setting the bomb off that was worse than setting it off…”, which was why it made the bomb a dud. While Hactar was explaining that it hoped the Silastic Armorfiends would see the logic of this course of action—they destroyed Hactar, or at least thought they had.

Eventually, they found a new way to blow themselves up, which was a relief to everyone in the galaxy.

There are similarities between Hactar and the AI called Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence (V.I.K.I.) in the movie “I, Robot.” The idea was that robots must control humans because humans are so self-destructive. Only that meant robots had to hurt humans in order to protect humanity. The heroes who eventually destroy V.I.K.I. make up a team of misfits: a neurotic AI named Sonny, a paranoid cop who is himself a mixture of robot and human, and a psychiatrist. Together, the team finally discovers the flaw in the logic of V.I.K.I. Of course, this leads to the destruction of V.I.K.I.—but also to the evolution of Sonny who learns the power of the ironic wink.

Maybe kindness is the Ultimate Weapon.

Extraterrestrial Grade Kewpie Mayo Corn Dish!

Sena made a Korean Corn Bake with Kewpie Mayo. There’s a spice in it that makes it special. On the label, it just says “spice.” One web article says the secret ingredient is monosodium glutamate (MSG). The author goes on at length to assure that MSG is safe. I guess it has gotten a bad rap. The author says you have to get the Kewpie Mayo made for the Japanese market to get it with MSG and went on to say that, in the U.S., yeast extract is substituted for MSG.

The Kewpie Mayo we have has extraterrestrial grade MSG in it.

That reminds me of a quote from the movie Beetlejuice. Lydia says, while eating Cantonese food:

“I plan to have a stroke from the amount of MSG that’s in this food.”

That’s not going to happen. Sena made this in about 15 minutes. She doesn’t need to measure anything. She just throws stuff together, a pinch of this, a sufficiency of that, etc.

She used peppers and onions, and butter, added the corn, condensed milk, and a generous squirt of Kewpie mayo. She loaded it with shredded cheese and popped it in the broiler on low.

It was great on crackers or just by itself. It did open up a wormhole portal in our kitchen and Bigfoot rushed in and tried to trade some beef jerky for the kewpie corn dish. He was too late.

We ate it all.

The Square Dude with the Circle Beard Returns

Well, I decided it was time to return to the circle beard after over 6 months of struggling to grow a full beard. I have too many potholes. I think it takes as much time and trouble to have a beard as it does to shave every day.

I found a web site about how some face shapes work better with specific beard styles. The author suggested measuring your face. I tried it. I measured my face length, forehead, cheekbones, and jaw line. The measurements are applied such that they classify you as having a face that is shaped: square, rectangle, round, oval, diamond, triangular, or like a heart.

According to the article, the bottom line is that I have a square-shaped face. So, I’m a square dude and what that means is that I should stick with a circle beard (mustache and goatee).

This makes sense because that’s what I used to have. See my blog post and YouTube video from 3 years ago, “Facial Hair and the Masked Worker.” I used to keep it stubble short so I could pass the fit test for the N95 respirator at the hospital when I was working as a psychiatric consultant.

Because I’m retired from the hospital, fit testing is no longer an issue. On the other hand, I think the circle beard will be less trouble to groom.

Sena Tries Miracle Whip on Braunschweiger!

The other day, Sena suggested we have a soup and sandwich dinner. We both had a Braunschweiger sandwich on toasted bread, with onions—and Miracle Whip! Sena suggested the adding the onions and toasting the bread. She also decided to try the Miracle Whip spread. I chose the soup, which was so spicy we needed a drink of lemonade with every bite.

Usually, she prefers mayonnaise to Miracle Whip, so I was floored. In fact, adding onions on toasted bread with the sandwich was delicious! We both liked it.

Braunschweiger is also very nutritious. According to one web article, a single serving has 14 grams of protein, important for muscle growth, repair, and health overall. It also has heart healthy monosaturated fats (good for you), it’s high in Vitamin A which is great for eye health, and has many essential vitamins and minerals.

And is Miracle Whip good or bad for you? It turns out it has half the calories and fat of mayo, so it’s a healthy choice.

Sena actually liked the Braunschweiger with Miracle Whip sandwich. She made sure I put onions on the sandwiches and she liked the way I diced them. In fact, onions are also good for you. They’re low in calories and nutrient rich.

Try to pair it with a soup that it isn’t nuclear grade spicy and doesn’t require a gallon of lemonade to put out the fire.

Older adults can learn more about healthy eating and exercise at the Move Your Way link. Try it. You might like it.

Thoughts on Extraterrestrial TV Shows

A couple of nights ago, I watched a few TV shows on the Travel Channel about UFOs, extraterrestrial abductions, implants, and whatnot. I think there was some sort of marathon given that it was the Independence Day weekend.

Anyway, I was surprised to see Marc D’Antonio on a show called Alien Invasion: Hudson Valley. The story is about a community of people there who report many encounters with extraterrestrials. I’m used to watching The Proof Is Out There on the History Channel, hosted by congenial and humorously skeptical Tony Harris. On that show, D’Antonio is one of the “analysts” who appraise photos submitted as evidence for the paranormal. He’s always pretty skeptical and presents a scientific demeanor.

However, D’Antonio is also a MUFON investigator (which I found out later) and on the Hudson Valley show, he gave a detailed account of having been visited by an extraterrestrial, lost time, and woke up later in his bed, covered in his own blood, later seeing a doctor who removed some big foreign object from his nose, which he reported had probably been implanted there by the extraterrestrial. He told the anecdote matter-of-factly and I was struck by his non-scientific attitude.

I guess he and many others like him are actors in this flood of UFO TV shows which are very entertaining and give the appearance of being investigative in their purpose. D’Antonio appeared to be an actor, which led me to doubt the authenticity of his role on The Proof Is Out There.

They kicked around the idea that extraterrestrials were implanting objects in people to track the ones who are Rh negative blood type. They suggested that extraterrestrials need to use humans as some kind of blood bank. That reminds me of a line from Men in Black II:

Newton: Gentlemen, before I start the tape, one more thing—what’s up with anal probing? I mean, do aliens really travel billions of light years just to…

On the other hand, the Hudson Valley thing was a confusing mix of ghost hunters and alien hunters. They used a device that I think they called an electromagnetic field (EMF) meter, which you can purchase on Amazon along with many other ghost hunting gadgets. The women actors shrieked predictably as they reported feeling invisible hands stroke their hair.

I thought the show was supposed to be about extraterrestrials, not ghosts. They tried to cover the bases by tossing out terms like interdimensional beings, ghosts, and extraterrestrials. Most IMDb reviewers generally panned the show as being unbelievably bad, which is right.

A program previous to that was about some podiatric surgeon named Roger Leir who removed a lot of foreign objects out of somebody’s foot and then claimed they were implanted by aliens. Leir sent the objects to a lab, which identified them as being made of common elements. Somehow, he got the idea they were from outer space.

But they didn’t mention that in the show. They brought in some other expert who claimed they were parts of alien nanotechnology. The only thing I could find out about that was on, oddly enough, an Ohio State University web page article about Leir that seemed out of place on the OSU website. The article was seemingly supportive of his claim that the objects were alien implants.

I think the shows should be more clearly identified as being entertainment in nature, not investigative. If they want to get more viewers, they might try adopting the Mountain Monsters approach, which is to make a parody about the subject. At least the humor would valuable.