Archives for 2023

Please excuse Fred’s absence.
While on the last crusade raiding the lost ark he inadvertently ended up in the temple of doom, a known hot bed of Staphylococcus aureus.
Dr. Indiana Jones

Please Excuse Fred’s Absence.
He got the bad feelin’ but it ain’t Nuthin’ but a “G” Thang!
Dr. Dre

Please excuse Fred’s absence.
He is sick and NOT from one my phony weight loss pills I sell to idiots that are dumb enough to believe my lies.
Dr. Mehmet Oz
Charlatan, Failed PA Senate Candidate and DJT Toady

Please excuse Fred’s absence.
He vas only following orders but…Mein Führer! I can walk!”
Dr. Strangelove

No Post today…Of course I can, it’s my website…You are not the boss of me…What makes you think you can tell me what to do?

Well Dean Wormer, I am invoking the little know codicil in the Faber College Charter.  Let’s just say I am on “Double Secret Probation!”

While most fruits have seeds on the inside (such as blueberries, tomatoes, watermelons), the strawberry is unique in that its seeds are on the outside of its surface. The truth is that the small “seeds” on the outside of the plant are actually the fruit itself, each containing an even smaller seed of their own. The large red part of the strawberry that we commonly consider the “fruit” is an overgrown receptacle tissue. This is the part of the plant that connects the flower to the stem.

As with us humans it takes a certain kind of intestinal fortitude for a fruit to scoff in the face of convention and be a trailblazer, someone or thing that dares stand out far from the madding crowd. (I do turn a phrase, even if it is someone else’s phrase!)

Strawberries, a nation in need of a new hero salutes you!

While fear of the dark is most common among children 3-12 years old (affecting nearly 3 out of 4 kids, according to one study) many adults are also prone to fears of darkness.  An estimated 11% of adults were already struggling with this fear before the pandemic, and experts say COVID-19 has made matters worse.  “Fear is triggered by a real or perceived threat. The global pandemic has evoked much uncertainty in different aspects of all our lives,” said Gifty Ampadu, a psychologist for the Montefiore Health System.  And because research shows that fear of the unknown compounds other anxieties, fears of the dark and other phobias have increased exponentially.

My guess is that #2 greatest fear is that s straw headed scarecrow from Palm Beach, Florida, will win his second presidential elect and America will be dead.

Graying hair is an inescapable part of growing older for most.  The first strands of silver appear to sprout for many people in their mid-30s — and by age 50, it’s not unusual for half their hair to be gray.   Known by scientists as canities or achromotrichia, the graying of hair is a long-studied phenomenon that has a variety of causes but the number one cause is so obvious it has been verified without scientific research:

Your children!

Of the 73 species of Kangaroos in the world 48 can be found in Australia.  And of the 48 only four can be harvested commercially, (nice way of saying meat wrapped in cellophane at the local market so you can throw a Roo Burger next to the shrimp on the barby; yum!).  The four edible species that have a total population in excess of 50 million are>

• Eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)
• Western grey kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus)
• Red kangaroo (Osphranter rufus)
• Common wallaroo (Osphranter robustus ssp.) whose coat color varies from shades of brown to a very dark, almost black, shade of blue.

Scientists believe that when the other species heard about the harvesting legislation they began dying their coats bright red so that hunters can easily and quickly identify them as inedible and refrain from blowing their heads off for commercial use.  A definite Win-Win!

“Legend has it that Sir Isaac Newton formulated the gravitational theory in 1665 or 1666 after watching an apple fall and asking why the fruit fell straight down rather than sideways or even upward. According to Martin Rees, a former president of Britain’s Royal Society, which was once headed by Newton himself, Newton showed that the force that makes the apple fall and that holds us on the ground is the same force that keeps the moon and planets in their orbits.”

Yet, as with all laws of nature there are exceptions.  As you may know I have been pondering the wonders of The Road Runner these days.  Why does his anvil always hit the mark when dropped on Wile E. Coyote and yet when Mr. Coyote responds with an item equal in weight and circumference, it suspends above the Road Runner and never causes any damage?

Explain that Mr. Big Shot Gravity Man!