Man Martin's Blog, page 164

True Beliebers

Thousands were outraged when Justin Bieber payed a visit to Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam and left a rather big headed note in the guestbook...  "Truly inspiring to be here.  Anne Frank was a great girl.  Hopefully she would have been a belieber."  - Huffington Post, UK

Personal diaries confirm Gandhi was a "Biebermaniac."  During a lengthy criticism of the national salt tax, Gandhi interrupts himself to write, "Bieber, Bieber, Bieber!  I can't stand the oppression of a colonialist hegemony but Justin can tread on my sovereign rights any time!"  Gandhi's enthusiasm for the pop icon is astounding given he died forty-six years before Bieber was born.  Another surprising revelation is that Gandhi dotted his i's with little hearts.

Sister Mary Eglentyne of Caracas claims that the spirit of Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, better known as "Mother Teresa," has appeared to her several times as "a gleaming ethereal presence, like the moon glimpsed on a foggy night, only shorter and not so broad across the shoulders."  Sister Eglentyne says the Blessed Teresa is a "huge Bieber fan."  Eglentyne explains, "Terry, that's what I call her, she says they're very informal in Heaven, says she is a Bieber-o-holic, and if she weren't already a Bride of Christ... rrow!"

Rosa Parks, the Alabama woman who stood up for a principle by sitting down, would definitely have been a "regular Bieber nut, a Bieber-lover, a Bieber-hieber-jieber-can't-get-enough-of-Bieber-o-phile," according to Civil Rights scholars.  "She would have completely dug all Bieber's music, but especially My World 2.0, where Bieber gets edgier and shows a greater Rhythm and Blues influence."

Knowledge is Power

Knowledge is power.  Yes, it's true.  For example, I happen to know that in a right triangle, if the hypotenuse is five inches long, and another side is three inches long, then the last side will be six inches.  Or possibly four.  Something like that.  This sort of thing is very powerful.

Of course, some knowledge is more powerful than other knowledge.  For example, one thing I know is where Josh Grogan really was Saturday night when he told his wife he had bowling league.  You'd be surprised just how powerful that knowledge is.
Or take parallel parking.  Knowing how to parallel park is very powerful.  Unfortunately, this is knowledge I do not possess.
Some other knowledge I do not possess is exactly where I put my wallet.  My wife possesses this knowledge, but she will not share it with me.  Compared to me, this makes her very powerful.  "Where did you leave it last night?" she asks, in that teasing sort of voice that says she knows where it is, but isn't telling.
Gorillas don't seem to have much knowledge, yet they are very powerful.  For example a gorilla can lift 2,000 kilograms - (knowing how much 2,000 kilograms is isn't a power I have, so I looked it up, and it's about as much as the weight of ten people.)  As stupid as gorillas seem, they have the knowledge of how to lift the weight of ten people, which is probably not something most of us know how to do.  They also know how to tear your arms off your body and hit you over the head with them if you point at them.

Now who's the stupid one?
Which is why school is so important.  Schools provide knowledge and knowledge is power.  This is also why you should pay attention in school.  You never know when the teacher will tell you how to remember where you left your wallet or how to lift ten people over your head.  Or the thing about right triangles.  I'm pretty sure the answer is four.

Superheroes for the Modern World

Handy Man: Raised in a cave by an ancient Guru who taught him the secret of immortality and water-heater maintenance, Handy Man travels across city helping people in distress.  Actually shows up when he says he will.  Superpower: Magic Duct Tape in tool belt.















Mail Person: Delivering urgent messages and credit-card offers at the lightning-fast speed of twenty-five miles an hour, except when stopping every hundred feet or so at the next mailbox.  Rushes each day from the Fortress of Solitude at the Post Office with the words, "Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night shall stay this courier from her appointed rounds.  Except Sundays, federal holidays, and Saturdays if Congress would just see reason."







Toll Booth Lady: Secret medical experiments gave her a powerful right arm and a razor-sharp intellect capable of calculating how much change is left over from a dollar after paying a fifty-cent toll.

















The Roadside League: These costumed defenders of justice stand by busy roads everywhere across the land, upholding the American way and also holding up signs indicating where you can sell your gold or have your taxes done.

E-Z No-Fuss Recipes

E-Z No-Bake Banana Bread
Ingredients
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
3 to 4 Bananas

Directions
Allow bananas to ripen on counter.  They should be good and soft.  When someone says the bananas are turning rotten, explain you're saving them for banana bread.  Bananas will eventually turn black.  When fruit flies arrive, throw out bananas.


E-Z No-Mix GuacamoleIngredients

1 Lime, juiced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
3 Haas Avocados

Directions
When avocados come from Costco, they will be too hard to use in recipe, so set on counter and allow to soften.  Warn others not to eat avocados because you're saving them for guacamole!  Check periodically for ripeness.  Nope, still too hard.  Go away for weekend.  When you return, avocados will be mush.  Throw out.


E-Z No-Hassle Sun-Dried TomatoesIngredients

5 to 10 pounds fresh tomatoes

Directions
Slice tomatoes in half and lay face up on baking sheets or shallow baking pans.  Sprinkle lightly with sea salt, cover with cheese cloth, and allow to sit in warm, dry place.  After three days, check on tomatoes.  Ugh.  What were you thinking?  Throw out and go to the Kroger for sun-dried tomatoes like a normal person.

My Permanent Record

Saudi Arabia... made headlines earlier this month after supposedly deporting three men for being too handsome.  (There were reportedly concerns their good looks would prove too tempting for Saudi women.) - Ryan Grenoble, Huffington Post

May 20, 1959: Maternity nurse states newborn Emanuel Martin is just "too, too adorable."  Authorities are notified.  Mr. and Mrs. Martin, as the responsible parties, are fined.

April 13, 1966: Class picture features young Mannie Martin in a red bowtie and a cowlick, grinning with a missing tooth.  The picture is "just precious."  Fistfights ensue over possession of the photograph.  The photographer is tracked down to his apartment, jailed, and his equipment confiscated.

September 15, 1968: Arrives at school looking "too cute for his own good."  Advised to return home and "ugly up a little."

November 3, 1970: Removed from school for causing a school disturbance, "too cute."

October 5, 1971: Too cute.  Suspension from school.

September 18, 1972: After a dangerously escalating trend toward criminal handsomeness, Man Martin develops a chronic case of acne which is to last the next four years.  Authorities breathe a collective sigh of relief.  Martin disappears from the records.

April 18, 1976: Campus-wide panic ensues during freshman orientation at Georgia College.  Moments before the National Guard can be mobilized, the source of the disturbance is traced to "that guy with the curly brown hair, those green eyes, and that impish smile."

August 3, 1980: The FBI begins surveillance of Martin for looks that "threaten national security."  Three female agents take disability leave for documented heartbreak before the bureau can specify "no cameras or telephoto lenses" can be used in the investigation.

October 15, 1984: Working jointly the CIA and FBI develop secret plan, code named "Operation For-God's-Sake-If-Man-Martin-Gets-Any-Better-Looking-The-Rest-Of-Us-Won't-Ever-Stand-A-Chance."  Scientists believe by introducing male-pattern baldness gene into DNA, crisis can be averted.

June 8, 1986: Aerial photographs confirm sightings of "widening bald spot" on Martin's head.

May 21, 1992: Martin attempts hairstyle known as "comb-over."  That night there is a champagne celebration at FBI headquarters.

February 2, 2001: Martin begins wearing reading glasses.  Newly-appointed Director of FBI, Robert Mueller gives speech to staff, "Mission Accomplished."  File on Martin officially closed.

Selections from the George W Bush Presidential Libary

Weird Tricks for Weight Loss

Have you tried the same non-effective "yo-yo" dieting schemes (one yo-yo for breakfast, two yo-yo's for lunch, and a light salad at dinner) and useless exercise routines?  (Bench-pressing actual benches, swimming laps in the Kardashian gene pool)  Still can't lose weight?  If you're really sincere about weight loss, desperate, or simply deranged, try these quick tips.

1. Carry Twenty Helium Balloons: Not only will you weigh less on the scales, looking like a circus clown will distract people's attention from you gut.

2. Install Rabid Ferrets in Your Home: Highly aerobic and great conversation pieces.

3. Hang From a Chin-Up Bar with Fifty-Pound Weights Tied to Your Ankles: You're not overweight, you're just under-tall.

4. Carry a Hammer With You at All Times: Every time you come across a fattening food, hit yourself on head until temptation passes.

5. Strap a Tabby-Cat to Your Back When Jogging: This will cause you to run faster and thus burn more calories.

6. Turn on the Autopsy Channel at Dinnertime.

Consider the Cuttlefish

Cuttlefish are Cephalopods, along with squids and octopi.  (Wikipedia says it should be octopuses, but that just sounds wrong to me, so I'm sticking to my guns.)  Before discussing the origin of cuttlefish, I will point out that Cephalopod comes from Greek roots meaning head-foot, suggesting the Greeks believed octopi use their heads for feet, an inexplicable conclusion given the fact that they are just dripping with tentacles.  Perhaps Cephalopod refers to the way the "feet" grow out of the head, but where else would they grow?

In any case, the name cuttlefish is much less perplexing.  The cuttle bone, a unique feature in the animal kingdom, is a porous internal shell that the cuttlefish uses to regulate its buoyancy by altering the ratio of gas and liquid therein.  Even octopi and squid don't have cuttlebones.  How they regulate buoyancy is their own business.  As far as the -fish part of cuttlefish, this comes from the fact the ancients were much more broadminded about what constitutes a fish than we are today.

Cuttlefish have so many odd-ball traits, it's hard to know where to begin with them.  Their blood is blue-green, because instead of using iron-containing hemoglobin like us red-blooded vertebrates, they use copper-containing hemocyanin.  Cuttlefish also have three separate hearts, one heart for each set of gills and one for the rest of their bodies.  This is what they get for not having hemoglobin like the rest of us.

The most remarkable thing about cuttlefish, however, is their ability to change color.  In fact, they are sometimes known as chameleons of the sea because of this, but chameleons can't hold a candle to cuttlefish.  Description cannot do the cuttlefish justice: I attach a video of one "hypnotizing" its prey.

As you watch, you may think bands of light and shadow are shining on the cuttlefish from above; nope, that's all cuttlefish.  I've got my doubts that crabs can be hypnotized by anything, but if they can, it's certainly a cuttlefish.  One more bizarre thing about cuttlefish, is they can do all this and yet evidently colorblind, as has been demonstrated in scientific research by Lydia Mathger, Alexander Barbosa, Simon Minor, and Roger Hanlon.  How cuttlefish are able to so thoroughly camouflage themselves without seeing color is a mystery.  Another mystery is what led Mathger et al to suspect cuttlefish were colorblind in the first place.  This is like investigating eagles to see if they are flightless.

Cuttlefish can not only fool prey and predator, but each other.  The ratio of male to female cuttlefish is approximately five to one, which is something God did to ensure life is interesting for cuttlefish.  During mating season, the male cuttlefish must jealously guard its mate from potential intruders.  Some, however, sneak in anyway, by tucking their extra tentacles (males have eight, and females have three) under themselves, changing their coloration to a more feminine hue, and even pretending to carry an egg-sack, and otherwise doing anything to give themselves "female" traits and thus to appear harmless.

Among humans, this is known as "being a good listener."

The Golden Age of Humor

Scientists have calculated the Golden Age of Humor was July 10, 1955.  On that day, the level of irony reached its highest peak, coinciding with the World Condition reaching an optimal point of going-to-hell-in-a-handbasketness.  Since then, the World's Condition has deteriorated significantly, corresponding with a gradual decline in irony, replaced by snarky smugness and boorishness.  Geezers old enough to remember the day confirm it was a high point, reporting they "couldn't stop laughing," and "everything seemed funny."  Reportedly, even actor Bob Hope was considered amusing.

Humor researches at Cal Tech have determined that humor is formed by a matrix between just how crappy things are and the level of ironic detachment.  "In July of 1955, these two reached ideal proportions," said Josh Merkin, Humor Department Chair.  "Since then things have gotten so bad you just can't make a joke about it.  At the same time, our ability to be witty about it has been sadly diminished."  While many deplore the state of humor in this country, Merkin is cautiously upbeat.  "These things come in cycles," he explains.  "Around 100,000 BC, sometime around the last ice age, things were even funnier.  Irony levels through the roof, and the human condition right at that sweet spot.  It must have been hilarious back then."

Getting RId of Voles

There are voles in our yard, and they are killing our knock-out roses.  The next part of this blog may make the excessively tenderhearted squeamish, because I am going to explain how to kill voles.  I need to state beforehand, that none of this I am making up, but was learned from the internet and actual You Tube videos, which are the source of all knowledge.

Voles are like mice except they live underground.  Once you know this, evidently, you have all relevant knowledge regarding voles and could probably figure out everything else on your own.  To start with, this explains how they are killing our knock-out roses.  They don't chew the roots, but just tunnel down amongst them to the extent the plant just dies.

Having determined you have voles - dead roses, holes in ground - the second step is to find out if the holes are still "active."  You might expect that having a perfectly good tunnel, voles would stay put and continuing adding on, but this is not necessarily so; voles sometimes leave their current domiciles and start new holes elsewhere; "the knock-out roses," goes an old vole proverb, "are knock-outier on the other side of the hole."  So what you do is put an apple slice on top of the hole, and cover it with an overturned plastic plant pot.  The pot you cover with a rock to make sure it does not blow away.  This is known in vole-extermination circles as "the apple test."  When the vole leaves his little hole, he is perplexed, he is bemused.  Things are not as he expected.  He thought he'd find himself in the great outdoors, and instead he is inside an overturned flowerpot.  But, he thinks, things are not all bad, because what have we here - a tasty apple slice!  He nibbles the apple as he ponders the strange new configuration of his tunnel's exit.  When you check the flowerpots later, if the apples are nibbled, you know - aha!  Voles!

Step two, is killing the voles.  I watched this on a You Tube video made by a man who seemed eerily enthusiastic about the process, but I have to admit it was kind of intriguing.  What you do is take two ordinary mousetraps, which you secure to the ground with nails (this is to keep them from flipping up in the air when sprung and injuring rather than killing your vole) with the trigger mechanisms pointing toward the hole.  One trap is on the left side and one on the right.  Are you visualizing this?  Now you form a sort of tunnel over these with a section of downspout that's had one side sawed off to make a sort of U-shape.  This you also secure to the ground with spikes.

When the vole leaves his home this time, there is no apple slice, but nevertheless, things are not exactly as they were.  Now he finds himself in a tunnel, but no matter, he is used to tunnels.  Heck, he lives in tunnels.  Moreover, this tunnel has two exits.  Choosing one that looks convenient, he heads toward it and snap!  Dead vole.  Perhaps in the last nanoseconds of consciousness, the vole thinks he should have gone the other way, but he is only fooling himself.  There was a trap waiting for him in that direction also.

Too bad for the vole, I guess, but he should have left my roses alone.  Perhaps when I meet the vole in heaven he will be angry at the trick I played on him.  But I will tell him his experience is nothing special; my life was much the same as his.  Some mornings I woke up and my expected routine was altered.  Sometimes in good ways, sometimes bad.  Sometimes there was an unexpected apple slice.  (The apple slice in this case is metaphorical; being a human, I can get an apple slice anytime I want and don't have to depend on finding one outside my hole.)  Then one day, I died.  Maybe as I expire I'll think about choices I made and regret some of them: I should've ordered the salad instead of the burger, I should've waited for the light to change before crossing.  But it really doesn't matter.  There was a trap waiting no matter which way I went.