Not five minutes ago while conducting a Facebook check along with other sites, there was the sudden realization that there was food stuck between my teeth. Actually, it wasn't so sudden since this is a frequent occurrence for me and most likely most of the planet. Look - these are important issues that aren't frequently thought about.
This occurrence wasn't surprising since supper was still being digested accompanied by remnants of the main course, which had lodged themselves between various molars and bicuspids and an occasional incisor. There was no uncertainty of committing a social faux-pas since the meal was 'in house' with only family members around to witness the movement of a finger placed on/between teeth to remove the offensive leftover food particle. Dining out, however, brings up the dilemma of how to disengage an item of food from one's teeth in public.
A common maneuver is a delicate movement around the teeth involved with use of the tongue. A successful outcome is dependent upon the extent and degree of food residue to be removed and whether the operation can be performed without drawing attention to the process. Unsuccessful attempts can result in a release of saliva and/or noise caused by air escaping between the teeth.
"Sorry - it's either this or a finger nail," explanation would not/does not suffice.
Using the contents of a glass of water as a tooth rinse aid is too obvious, especially when or if water is spit back into the glass. Neither is the explanation that one is merely testing the taste of the water. Bringing along an electric toothbrush is crass and too noisy.
Your common toothpick is specifically designed for this purpose but not visually palatable, especially when extricated food remnants are visible at its tip.
Thinking further (obviously too much time on my hands) another subject that has crossed my mind and has social ramifications is the issue of how or whether to blow one's nose amid a table of diners, and/or if it's socially acceptable to use a paper dinner napkin when a tissue isn't available. According to Emily Post of the Emily Post Institute, nose blowing at the table should be limited to small puffs. Big, noisy nose-blowing should be conducted away from the table. This leads one (me) to wonder whether it's advisable to sensitize fellow diners to this faux pas.
"Excuse me," you might say in the way of being helpful, "but you do realize that blowing your nose in public and drawing attention to yourself is boorish and gross."
Some people think deep thoughts about the future of our planet and its inhabitants and then some of us worry about the important issues in life like teeth cleaning and nose- blowing in public. It's just who I am.
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Ever wonder about the sex life of rats who wear pants or ..discerning liars...dead flies... .Ig Nobel Awards has the lowdown
Once again as has been my pattern, the awarding of the Ig Nobel Prize slipped by without my acknowledging the winners contribution to the world. There are the real Nobels where recipients are honored for distinguished achievements, and then there are the Ig Nobels. We're talking here about individuals with a penchant for thinking outside the box so to speak that definitely fall into the different but undeniably interesting category.
Organized by the Annals of Improbable Research Magazine, the Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements, which make people laugh and think, are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology.
Given that the winners travel to the ceremony at their own expense from around the world to receive their prize from a group of genuine Nobel Laureates, means, at least in my mind that the winners take their accolades seriously. Then again, given the nature of the awards, perhaps (just speculation) they take it with a grain of salt. In any case, judge for yourselves.
Some of the subjects of the awards struck me as requiring personal commentary. Then again, maybe not.
REPRODUCTION PRIZE (EGYPT): the late Ahmed Shafik, for studying the effects of wearing polyester, cotton or wool pants on the (wait for it) sex life of rats and for conducting similar tests with human males.
Don't want to cast aspersions on rodents but why would rats wear polyester, cotton or wool pants or any pants for that matter? Would it give them prestige in the sewers? Is there a call for designer outfits for them? Given their propensity for reproduction, rats don't need pants to breed.
ECONOMICS PRIZE (NEW ZEALAND, UK): Mark Avis, Sarah Forbes and Shelagh Ferguson for assessing the perceived personalities of rocks from a sales and marketing perspective.
Rocks have personalities? One surmises that perhaps, studying rocks from various visual points for a period of time and squinting one's eyes, a rock might or could resemble a family member or somebody famous. People have been known to see images in toast, spaghetti and other unusual places so rocks could be viewed in a similar category. Then again, why bother? A rock is a rock is...
PHYSICS PRIZE (HUNGARY, SPAIN, SWEDEN, SWITZERLAND): Gabor Horvath, Miklos Blaho, Gyorgy Kriska, Ramon Hegedus, Balazs Gerics, Robert Farkas, Susanne Akesson, Peter Malik and Hansruedi Wildermuth, for discovering why white-haired horses are the most horse-fly-proof horses, and for discovering why dragonflies are attracted to black tombstones.
Perhaps the dragonflies just like the color black being that it's night time. Who knows.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE (GERMANY): Volkswagen, for solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emission whenever the cars are being tested.
And what about the times when they're not being tested, one wonders...
MEDICINE PRIZE (GERMANY): Christoph Helmchen, Carina Palzer, Thomas Munte, Silke Anders and Andreas Sprenger, for discovering that if you have an itch on the left side of your body, you can relieve it by looking into a mirror and scratching the right side of your body (and vice-versa)
Upon experiencing an itch, it would be far more simple to just relieve the itch by scratching it immediately and cutting out the necessity to gaze into a mirror. Why look in the mirror for this purpose in the first place? Then again, how would that aid scientific research?
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE (BELGIUM, THE NETHERLANDS, GERMANY, CANADA, USA): Evelyne Debey, Maarten De Schryver, Gordon Logan, Kristina Suchotzki and Bruno Verschuere, for asking a thousand liars how often they lie and for deciding whether to believe those answers.
Can or should one believe a liar who won't necessarily admit she/he's a liar. There are some means to identify liars a BBC article claims, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150906-the-best-and-worst-ways-to-spot-a-liar
PEACE PRIZE (CANADA, USA): Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathanial Barr, Derek Koehler and Jonathan Fugelsang, for their scholarly study called, "On the Reception and Detection of Pseydo-Profound Bullshit."
BIOLOGY PRIZE [UK] — Awarded jointly to: Charles Foster, for living in the wild as, at different times, a badger, an otter, a deer, a fox, and a bird; and to Thomas Thwaites, for creating prosthetic extensions of his limbs that allowed him to move in the manner of, and spend time roaming hills in the company of, goats.
Since nobody has found a method to communicate with the animals in question, one (me) wonders how they (the animals) feel about the attempt by humans to bond with them. To diminish the chance of rejection. Thomas Thwaites created limbs that resemble goats, Check out the end result: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3612748/Why-decided-life-London-goat-Switzerland.html
LITERATURE PRIZE [SWEDEN] — Fredrik Sjöberg, for his three-volume autobiographical work about the pleasures of collecting flies that are dead, and flies that are not yet dead.
Really? Three whole volumes on fly collection? Dead AND alive?
PERCEPTION PRIZE [JAPAN] — Atsuki Higashiyama and Kohei Adachi, for investigating whether things look different when you bend over and view them between your legs.
Perhaps a case of too much time on one's hands, or legs?
And so, yet another year of - well - interesting awards in recognition of the Ig Nobels. Perhaps a special category should be created for those aspiring to enter the political realm. Couldn't hurt.
Organized by the Annals of Improbable Research Magazine, the Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements, which make people laugh and think, are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology.
Given that the winners travel to the ceremony at their own expense from around the world to receive their prize from a group of genuine Nobel Laureates, means, at least in my mind that the winners take their accolades seriously. Then again, given the nature of the awards, perhaps (just speculation) they take it with a grain of salt. In any case, judge for yourselves.
Some of the subjects of the awards struck me as requiring personal commentary. Then again, maybe not.
REPRODUCTION PRIZE (EGYPT): the late Ahmed Shafik, for studying the effects of wearing polyester, cotton or wool pants on the (wait for it) sex life of rats and for conducting similar tests with human males.
Don't want to cast aspersions on rodents but why would rats wear polyester, cotton or wool pants or any pants for that matter? Would it give them prestige in the sewers? Is there a call for designer outfits for them? Given their propensity for reproduction, rats don't need pants to breed.
ECONOMICS PRIZE (NEW ZEALAND, UK): Mark Avis, Sarah Forbes and Shelagh Ferguson for assessing the perceived personalities of rocks from a sales and marketing perspective.
Rocks have personalities? One surmises that perhaps, studying rocks from various visual points for a period of time and squinting one's eyes, a rock might or could resemble a family member or somebody famous. People have been known to see images in toast, spaghetti and other unusual places so rocks could be viewed in a similar category. Then again, why bother? A rock is a rock is...
PHYSICS PRIZE (HUNGARY, SPAIN, SWEDEN, SWITZERLAND): Gabor Horvath, Miklos Blaho, Gyorgy Kriska, Ramon Hegedus, Balazs Gerics, Robert Farkas, Susanne Akesson, Peter Malik and Hansruedi Wildermuth, for discovering why white-haired horses are the most horse-fly-proof horses, and for discovering why dragonflies are attracted to black tombstones.
Perhaps the dragonflies just like the color black being that it's night time. Who knows.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE (GERMANY): Volkswagen, for solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emission whenever the cars are being tested.
And what about the times when they're not being tested, one wonders...
MEDICINE PRIZE (GERMANY): Christoph Helmchen, Carina Palzer, Thomas Munte, Silke Anders and Andreas Sprenger, for discovering that if you have an itch on the left side of your body, you can relieve it by looking into a mirror and scratching the right side of your body (and vice-versa)
Upon experiencing an itch, it would be far more simple to just relieve the itch by scratching it immediately and cutting out the necessity to gaze into a mirror. Why look in the mirror for this purpose in the first place? Then again, how would that aid scientific research?
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE (BELGIUM, THE NETHERLANDS, GERMANY, CANADA, USA): Evelyne Debey, Maarten De Schryver, Gordon Logan, Kristina Suchotzki and Bruno Verschuere, for asking a thousand liars how often they lie and for deciding whether to believe those answers.
Can or should one believe a liar who won't necessarily admit she/he's a liar. There are some means to identify liars a BBC article claims, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150906-the-best-and-worst-ways-to-spot-a-liar
PEACE PRIZE (CANADA, USA): Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathanial Barr, Derek Koehler and Jonathan Fugelsang, for their scholarly study called, "On the Reception and Detection of Pseydo-Profound Bullshit."
BIOLOGY PRIZE [UK] — Awarded jointly to: Charles Foster, for living in the wild as, at different times, a badger, an otter, a deer, a fox, and a bird; and to Thomas Thwaites, for creating prosthetic extensions of his limbs that allowed him to move in the manner of, and spend time roaming hills in the company of, goats.
Since nobody has found a method to communicate with the animals in question, one (me) wonders how they (the animals) feel about the attempt by humans to bond with them. To diminish the chance of rejection. Thomas Thwaites created limbs that resemble goats, Check out the end result: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3612748/Why-decided-life-London-goat-Switzerland.html
LITERATURE PRIZE [SWEDEN] — Fredrik Sjöberg, for his three-volume autobiographical work about the pleasures of collecting flies that are dead, and flies that are not yet dead.
Really? Three whole volumes on fly collection? Dead AND alive?
PERCEPTION PRIZE [JAPAN] — Atsuki Higashiyama and Kohei Adachi, for investigating whether things look different when you bend over and view them between your legs.
Perhaps a case of too much time on one's hands, or legs?
And so, yet another year of - well - interesting awards in recognition of the Ig Nobels. Perhaps a special category should be created for those aspiring to enter the political realm. Couldn't hurt.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Recognizing special and somewhat unusual holidays
As a writer seeking out potentially interesting subjects to share, there are internet sites that provide background information about diverse holidays, some of which are well known while others are more obscure. It's the lesser-known subject matter that make for interesting reads.
In case you weren't aware and it was definitely news to me, but today being February 20th, is National Love Your Pet Day. This is a great idea especially since pets play an important role as extended members of the family. It's also interesting that the day of pet recognition falls right after Valentine's Day, a day set aside whereby humans demonstrate affection towards a special person in their life. Pets and humans are a natural go-together. Having shared our household with various pets over the years including a dog for fifteen years and various aquatic species many of which didn't last the night and received a two-flush funeral, their contribution to family life should and is noted. Moving along...
Chances are few people are probably aware that February 20 is also National Cherry Pie Day in addition to February being National Cherry Month, a good a reason as any to indulge and cut into a slice or more of juicy scrumptiousness. In searching for background information and according to the American Pie Council, the pie itself came to America with the first English settlers. The early colonists baked their pies in long narrow pans calling them “coffyns”. As in the Roman times, the early American pie crusts often were not eaten, but simply designed to hold the filling during baking. It was during the American Revolution that the term 'crust' was used instead of “coffyn”, which is preferable. I mean, eating cherry pie with a coffyn on top just doesn't do it.
National Hot Tea Month, celebrated for the entire month of January, slipped by without my notice, which is somewhat shameful being a confirmed tea imbiber. The Tea Association of Canada, who know lots about things tea-related, the custom of afternoon tea originated in the 19th century with Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford, who invited guests to join her for a cup of tea and goodies in the afternoon, to fill the long gap between breakfast and late dinners.
Although purists would probably advocate using loose tea when brewing a pot, tea bags are a personal preference. In spite of using a tea infuser, somehow stray tea leaves seem to work their way through the holes. Spitting the stray tea leaves into a napkin is viewed as a social faux-pas, as is filling up one's mouth with water to cleanse the mouth and returning it into the glass. Somehow, decorum always enters the picture where drinking tea is concerned. Moving right along...
Seems that February 20th has a lot going including - wait for it - National Handcuff Day. Handcuff Day marks the occasion back in 1912, when a patent was granted to George A. Carney for a revolutionary new style of handcuff. The source for this tidbit of information, www.daysoftheyear.com offer some suggestions in the way of celebrating with some trivia questions. I mean, who wouldn't know the answers to:
what kind of handcuff replicas are used in China
which handcuff brand(s) were discontinued and then brought back, and why
who introduced the Gill Flash Action manacle and when that happened
how much standard and other types of handcuffs weigh
which handcuff models are made from stainless steel
what kind of handcuffs people suspected of conspiring against Abraham Lincoln wore
Lesser known and/or more obscure celebrations, which took place earlier in February include Dump Your Significant Jerk Day on February 1. Thinking further regarding this holiday, one doesn't have to wait until February to accomplish this feat, Wave All Your Fingers At Your Neighbors Day on February 7 and National Lash Day on February 19. According to information gleaned from the internet, "This is a day to promote the love and need for true and false eyelashes. It is a day we all can honor our lashes." This leads one - me - to ponder: is it really necessary to honor our eye lashes? What about eye brows? Don't they deserver some recognition, also?
According to Wikipedia, who always seem on top of relating the source of unusual items and articles: "Eyelashes protect the eye from debris and perform some of the same function as whiskers do on a cat or a mouse in the sense that they are sensitive to being touched, thus providing a warning that an object (such as an insect or dust mite) is near the eye (which then closes reflexively)." Nothing unusual about the information however setting aside a day to honor eyelashes is somewhat...unusual, to say or write the least.
All of these diverse celebrations got me thinking that perhaps it's time to add yet another observance, National House Plant Day, to the list in recognition the contribution of houseplants in our lives. I mean, what would our world and lives be without these living organisms, which give us so much pleasure and ask nothing in return except routine doses of fertilizer, an occasional leaf cleaning, re-potting and insect control? Perhaps candidates running for political office should or could offer an adopt-a-plant program, promoting the concept of a house plant in every home to clear the air. Given the extent of promises that are made in an election year, it would be a laudable promise to keep. Right?
In case you weren't aware and it was definitely news to me, but today being February 20th, is National Love Your Pet Day. This is a great idea especially since pets play an important role as extended members of the family. It's also interesting that the day of pet recognition falls right after Valentine's Day, a day set aside whereby humans demonstrate affection towards a special person in their life. Pets and humans are a natural go-together. Having shared our household with various pets over the years including a dog for fifteen years and various aquatic species many of which didn't last the night and received a two-flush funeral, their contribution to family life should and is noted. Moving along...
Chances are few people are probably aware that February 20 is also National Cherry Pie Day in addition to February being National Cherry Month, a good a reason as any to indulge and cut into a slice or more of juicy scrumptiousness. In searching for background information and according to the American Pie Council, the pie itself came to America with the first English settlers. The early colonists baked their pies in long narrow pans calling them “coffyns”. As in the Roman times, the early American pie crusts often were not eaten, but simply designed to hold the filling during baking. It was during the American Revolution that the term 'crust' was used instead of “coffyn”, which is preferable. I mean, eating cherry pie with a coffyn on top just doesn't do it.
National Hot Tea Month, celebrated for the entire month of January, slipped by without my notice, which is somewhat shameful being a confirmed tea imbiber. The Tea Association of Canada, who know lots about things tea-related, the custom of afternoon tea originated in the 19th century with Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford, who invited guests to join her for a cup of tea and goodies in the afternoon, to fill the long gap between breakfast and late dinners.
Although purists would probably advocate using loose tea when brewing a pot, tea bags are a personal preference. In spite of using a tea infuser, somehow stray tea leaves seem to work their way through the holes. Spitting the stray tea leaves into a napkin is viewed as a social faux-pas, as is filling up one's mouth with water to cleanse the mouth and returning it into the glass. Somehow, decorum always enters the picture where drinking tea is concerned. Moving right along...
Seems that February 20th has a lot going including - wait for it - National Handcuff Day. Handcuff Day marks the occasion back in 1912, when a patent was granted to George A. Carney for a revolutionary new style of handcuff. The source for this tidbit of information, www.daysoftheyear.com offer some suggestions in the way of celebrating with some trivia questions. I mean, who wouldn't know the answers to:
Lesser known and/or more obscure celebrations, which took place earlier in February include Dump Your Significant Jerk Day on February 1. Thinking further regarding this holiday, one doesn't have to wait until February to accomplish this feat, Wave All Your Fingers At Your Neighbors Day on February 7 and National Lash Day on February 19. According to information gleaned from the internet, "This is a day to promote the love and need for true and false eyelashes. It is a day we all can honor our lashes." This leads one - me - to ponder: is it really necessary to honor our eye lashes? What about eye brows? Don't they deserver some recognition, also?
According to Wikipedia, who always seem on top of relating the source of unusual items and articles: "Eyelashes protect the eye from debris and perform some of the same function as whiskers do on a cat or a mouse in the sense that they are sensitive to being touched, thus providing a warning that an object (such as an insect or dust mite) is near the eye (which then closes reflexively)." Nothing unusual about the information however setting aside a day to honor eyelashes is somewhat...unusual, to say or write the least.
All of these diverse celebrations got me thinking that perhaps it's time to add yet another observance, National House Plant Day, to the list in recognition the contribution of houseplants in our lives. I mean, what would our world and lives be without these living organisms, which give us so much pleasure and ask nothing in return except routine doses of fertilizer, an occasional leaf cleaning, re-potting and insect control? Perhaps candidates running for political office should or could offer an adopt-a-plant program, promoting the concept of a house plant in every home to clear the air. Given the extent of promises that are made in an election year, it would be a laudable promise to keep. Right?
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