He’s a Sad Panda

Man, we’re dumb. I sometimes wonder why we do studies, because we never learn from them.

China is trying to replenish the giant panda population. So their plan is to breed a panda in captivity, give it 3 years of survival and defense training and then release it. They did, and released Xiang Xiang. Because his defensive training was pretty weak, some biting and howling, and they may have released him too close to another male panda’s territory, he was attacked by some wild pandas and died less than a year later. He was actually attacked twice during the year, and one of those times, people at the facility that released him came, rescued him, patched him up and rereleased him. They think that other males viewed him as a threat. I guess he wasn’t much of one.

Ok, I appreciate that the pandas’ numbers are low. But haven’t we learned already that things raised in captivity don’t have a chance in hell when you release them into the wild? I remember when I took the psych rat class, they told us that no matter what we may think, if we release the rat into the wild, it won’t survive. It won’t know how to fight, and it will wait for food. I know the panda at least was taught how to find food and how to make shelter, but I think humans teaching a panda something is different than being taught by another panda, I.E. its mother. It doesn’t understand that it’s going to be released some day. It just thinks that today’s session of how to build a den and how to howl at Chinese dude over there is just another game. It doesn’t know what it faces in the wild. It probably thinks that any other animal is its friend!

Now they’re saying they should have taught it how to fight. Gee, ya think? It’s going out into the *wild*! They think they should have released a female because she would have been more easily accepted into the wild panda population. They also think they shouldn’t have released him so close to another male’s territory. Did they do any research at all? I know I wouldn’t have had a clue about raising pandas, but I would have at least thought that releasing a friendly, practically tame panda with a collar next to a wild one might not be the greatest idea.

And is raising pandas in captivity and releasing them into the wild really smart anyway? What would be smarter, although I doubt it would work, would be to capture a couple of wild pandas, keep them until they breed and release them. Then the baby learns how to survive from its own mother. But sadly, the pandas would probably lose the will to live before they made babies. When will we learn that we can’t shape the future of another species? We just can’t. We can screw up the future of another species, but we can’t save it. It’s a sad fact, but I think it’s a fact.

My email Crashed My Car!

Ok, I don’t know how to feel about this story that Jen sent me. I feel like it’s a good idea, a bad idea and a really bad idea all at once. Let me try and explain.

Voice on the Go Inc. has come up with a system which people can use to check their email by phone. This, in itself, is cool. I have occasionally found myself thinking “Gee, I wish I could quickly check my email and zap the junk or see if Person X emailed me. But I can’t, I’m on a greyhound bus. It would be cool to check it by phone.” But it’s probably something I only wished for because, at that moment, I couldn’t check my email and felt I wanted to for some reason. I don’t know if I’d actually pay for the service though. But it might be a cool thing for someone who couldn’t use a computer for some reason or another.

The next second, I’m slapping myself, laughing at myself for wanting to be that connected all the time, and thinking about all those people with BlackBerries. Ug. Can’t people leave their email where it belongs? Maybe this is a bad idea.

And here’s where it falls into the really bad idea category. One of its selling points, according to Voice on the Go, is its ability for someone to safely dial in and check his email by phone, while driving! Nonononononononono! If you’re driving, you shouldn’t be doing anything else that requires a lot of concentration. End of story. Whether or not you’re looking at a screen is irrelivant. You’re thinking about your lunch with Bob, reading Sue’s funny poem, and composing a message to your boss. You’re not thinking about whether the light is green or red, fully paying attention to that kid that just ran in front of your car.

What is with people’s need to multitask while driving? Driving is supposed to take the majority of your focus. I’m waiting for the first email sent from one of these things that reads:

“Hey Bob. Lunch sounds…hey! Don’t cut me off! Good. Where would be good too…meeep meep watch where you’re going! go? Do you like Chinese food? I like this little place called erherherher smash clang clang clang honk…call 911!”

I wonder how long Bob would be wondering if that was the weirdest name for a Chinese restaurant known to man?

Don’t get me wrong, I think this thing has cool applications. I’m just not sure if one of them should be driving around reading email.

Have A Hotdog On Me My Friend

How is it, considering the speed at which new technologies are developed, that we as a society have not yet figured out how to make a decent hotdog bun? You’d think that as important as hotdogs have been to the lives of so many over the years that somebody would have tackled this issue by now, but for some reason that escapes even the part of my brain that will try to a ridiculous degree to understand every side of an issue, nobody has, and I can’t figure out why.

Has nobody but me ever tried to open one of those things only to have it split in 2 rendering it completely useless? Am I the only one who buys the kind that stick together as if somebody in the factory decided that it would be a good idea to glue them shut? Do the people at the grocery store see me coming and say to each other “hey, here comes Steve, put out the ones that go stale if you don’t use them after a day and a half”? That must be what’s going on, because I never hear about anyone working on the issue, and I have yet to hear any kind of protesting or complaining from people other than me calling for action to be taken.

Maybe I shouldn’t get so worked up over this since I know there are far more important issues in the world that deserve my concern, but it burns me up that in an age where with the touch of a few buttons you can find out that your Aunt’s friend’s third cousin’s great uncle’s barber’s accountant really really loves John Mayer or that Sylvia in marketing thinks that Kevin the custodian is sooo totally hot, nobody has given the slightest bit of thought to coming up with a bun that doesn’t burn to a lovely crispy ash flavour when you try to toast it or turn to dust when you decide you’re going to go all out and add toppings this evening.

I say it’s high time that some thought was put into it. The era of allowing the hotdog bun people to profit from our complacency has long since come and gone. It’s time that we the people stood up and made our voices heard. the so-called movers and shakers of the world need to hear about what really matters. They need to know that we will no longer settle for such an inferior product and that we demand change. And if they won’t go for that, we need to at least get them to sit down with the folks at Hamburger Bun HQ and listen to the story of how they managed to get it right.

They Say It’s Your Birthday Eh? Well We’ll See About That!

Here’s a strange one.

A texas man was
stabbed with a pitchfork
while trying to break up a drunken fight between 2 of his nephews.

According to police, the 3 men were drinking in their mobile home Sunday afternoon when a dispute broke out over which of the nephews was the oldest. No, seriously, that’s really what started it. The victim stepped in to calm things down when the pitchfork came into play and was stabbed in the arm by a man who reports said was 26. Sadly the age of the other man in the fight wasn’t mentioned, so we may never find out who would have won the argument.

I’m not sure if they are or not, but here’s something for you all to think about. Would this story be more retarded if these 2 guys were, or were not twins? I can’t decide.

And Now We Pause For A Little Music…Sort Of

Have you ever heard something so awful that no matter what you did, you couldn’t stop thinking about it? Well I just did, and being the nice guy that I am, I thought it would only be fair for me to share it with all of you. Besides, now that Miserable Melodies isn’t around anymore I figure it’s my duty to help fill the void however I can. So in that spirit, I present to you Shakira covering Back in Black. Trust me, it’s worse than you’re imagining.

But because I’m not a total prick [at least not right now], here’s something that will hopefully help you wash away the hatred you suddenly have for me. Have a listen to Kermit the Frog singing some Radiohead.

I’ll never look at Sesame Street the same way again.

You Live Where?

Here’s another one of those articles that made me laugh until I nearly cried.
The 22 Worst Place Names in the World

They left out a lot of the stuff that’s always on the weird town lists which makes it a lot more interesting, and the writing is the type that makes me wish I was half this funny on my best day. For example…

14.
Wetwang, Yorkshire… yep! England again!
Okay, so I’ll cut England some slack. It’s an old country. You know, if the United States is Google, then England is IBM. Their country is older than fucking dirt. They can’t be blamed for having names that sound funny in 2007. But this is kind of ridiculous. Wetwang? I’m surprised they don’t have towns called Squishy Vagina or Infected Scrotum.

Enjoy, and feel free to share any you think they missed.

He’s Well, Ok? No More Cards!

Wow. I always get annoyed with chain emails. I always tell people to stop sending them, especially the ones that ask you to forward it on, or send correspondence back somewhere. But I never knew how bad the consequences of people’s mindless responding to chain emails could be. Strangely, this story still makes me laugh, and it shouldn’t, but it does.

Let’s take a journey back in time. Bak in 1989, a request was made on behalf of a 9-year-old boy named Craig Shergold. He had a brain tumour, and he apparently wanted to break the record in the Guinness Book for number of get-well cards received. by 1990, he had received 16 million cards. By May of 1991, he had received 33 million, and they cried “mission accomplished!”

But the problem is the deluge of cards never stopped. In 1991, his tumour was removed, and he’s still with us to this day, completely healthy and no longer wanting these cards. But they keep on getting mailed. Now, business cards and compliment slips get sent too. Why? because people keep sending this damn email, in different variations, that asks for more cards!

Here’s what the email has caused:

  • The Shergolds had to move.

  • The Children’s Wish Foundation International had to relocate because they too were getting bombed with cards, as requested by the emails.

  • Another foundation, the Make A Wish Foundation of America, had to set up a toll-free number to tell people to not send cards anymore please please please!
  • The Guinness Book of World Records *retired!* this record. That means no one can try and break it. They don’t want anymore crap to happen.

  • The Shergolds’ old address had to be given its own postal code.

  • The Shergolds have now appeared on various talk shows to tell people to stop sending cards.

They think that they have received 200 million cards. Wow! Can you imagine receiving that much mail? You know what isn’t fair? The Shergolds are receiving zillions of unwanted cards, but No More AOL CD’s.com has been working for 6 years and still hasn’t managed to receive 1000000 AOL CD’s so they can send them all back to AOL. I know, it’s because a lot of people don’t know about them. but why couldn’t someone starta chain letter asking people to send them all their unwanted AOL CD’s? They’d have them in no time!

If this didn’t come from Snopes, I would think this was a tall tale. But this actually happened to people. So the next time you think you should forward a message because it couldn’t do any harm, remember the Shergolds. I sure will, even if it’s only to giggle at the idea of being driven from your home with kind words.

More About Pizza Beer

Yesterday I got the chance to talk a little with Tom Seefurth, who you’ll probably know better as the Pizza Beer guy.

He seems really nice, and from the tone of his emails, it looks like there’s nobody more surprised about how much attention this stuff is getting than him.

He mentioned a boatload of appearances and interviews that he’s done and looking to do beyond the ones he left in the comments on the original post, and he says he’s even hoping to get on Letterman to do is pizza from the roof of a building stunt. I hope they have him on and let him do it, it would be perfect for the show since they’ve done wacky stuff like that in the past.

He also told me that the beer has its own website now, located at www.MammaMiaPizzaBeer.com. It’s still a work in progress, but more info will be added soon. Unfortunately he’s not selling the beer through the site right now and I’m not sure if he’s planning to in the future, but hopefully he will at some point because I still really wanna try it!

Nose Thank You, that Snot For Me

I don’t really care how well
this thing
works or how safe they’re claiming it is, you can still count me out. No matter how much I love somebody, the odds of me ever sucking that person’s nose dry with a straw are pretty low, even if the filter is supposed to prevent me from ingestin’ a nice heapin’ helpin’ of snot surprise.

When your child has a cold with a runny stuffed nose, it can be frustrating when they can not blow their own nose. Congestion interferes with sleep, feeding and makes for an overall cranky child, and parent too.

Nosefrida is a plastic tube with a filter that the parent uses with their own mouths to get the mucous out of their children’s noses. WITH THE FILTER IN PLACE, THE PARENT DOES NOT COME IN CONTACT WITH THE MUCOUS FROM THE CHILD. There is no risk of bacterial contamination, in other words, you will not get the cold your child has.

And if you’re really in the mood to be sicked out, get a load [or perhaps a mouthfull] of these
instructions.

Place your child face up on a changing table or bed. You can also hold your child, tucking their arms in while you use Nosefrida.

Place the large tube at the child’s nostril and the red part at the other end in your own mouth. Apply gentle suction to begin with, increasing suction as necessary until you see mucous in the large tube. The filter will protect you from getting anything near your own mouth.

If mucous is very thick or crusty, please insert 1-2 drops of saline solution into nostril and then apply suction.

Clean Nosefrida after each use: wash large tube out with soap and warm water. Rinse well and allow to dry. Change the hygiene filter after each use.

Nosefrida should ONLY be used to clean children’s and babies noses of mucous.

Please keep Nosefrida out of reach of children under 3 years old.

This product is not a toy.

I love that they have to remind you to clean it out when you’re finished, and that they feel the need to explain that you’re not supposed to be using it for fun and games. What kind of people is that warning targeted at anyway? On second thought, forget I asked that question. It’s probably best if we never find out.