Offbeat

One of my best friends from childhood who ended up transferring into my college and joining my fraternity was excellent at finding a dozen reasons why ANY girl, no matter how wonderful or smart or funny or beautiful, was fatally flawed. So I laughed out loud when my older son shared this with us last night, and immediately my wife and I called out that same person’s name! Apparently this meme is becoming ‘a thing’, and over at Uproxx they have a slideshow of a number of beautiful women with tiny or imagined or potentially paranoid ‘flaws’ pointed out. Here…

When I think of Paula Deen, I think fried food. Lots and lots of fried food. And any number of satires about how unhealthy her cooking is. But if a rumor from The Daily is to be believed, Paula may be facing the fact that she needs to change her diet. Apparently she, like many Americans, has been diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. According to the report: The Georgia-born chef — a Food Network star who has written five best-selling cookbooks — has been trying to keep her condition a secret, even after the National Enquirer reported in April that…

I remember seeing the YouTube video below last year when it was posted and noted as a ‘world record’. Apparently now it has been certified by Guiness as a world record, and the guitarist – John Taylor – has demonstrated his massive speed technique for Wired as part of an article. Thrashers, shredders, and heshers, lend me your tinnitus-damaged ears! The Great Question has been settled. The fastest guitar player alive is not Eddie Van Halen nor Yngwie Malmsteen nor that guy from Morbid Angel. Nope, it’s John Taylor, a 28-year-old music teacher in Westminster, Colorado, who last spring claimed…

Growing up, Hostess was EVERYWHERE – Twinkies, Ho-Hos, Sno-Balls, Suzy-Qs, Fruit Pies and so on. Not to mention Wonder Bread, the enriched white bread that got good mileage out of touting nutrients added to notoriously deficient product. I even remember the advertisements in comics featuring Batman and the Archie gang. But then people realized that regardless of enrichment white bread was deficient, and moved more to whole grains. Also, the infamous ‘infinite shelf life’ tests for Twinkies didn’t help the company, and as more and more low-price competitors such as Little Debbie found favor in traditionally strong Hostess (and Drakes,…

OK, so I admit I have been a bit on the serious front with my concerns about the erosion of freedoms in our country. I do think it is important, and too easy to just let our freedoms disappear in the name of ‘security’. However, sometimes it is funny to look at something that is at once satirical and in some ways hits a bit close to the truth. Enjoy the image! The quote from the bottom of the image is worth sharing: “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the…

Have you ever wondered how to shrink a head? Yeah, me either. But this month’s National Geographic Magazine, downloaded via Zinio of course, has a one page explanation of the how, and the why, of the process.