Just a brief update...
Some dear friends have moved to Florida, and now have easy access to exotic fruits. The last time i was in town, they introduced me to rambutans, which look like small, particularly hairy alien eggs, and once peeled, remind a person very much of a grape that tastes like combination of cherry and peach (complete with tiny pit). Apparently, rambutans belong to the curiously-named family of soapfruits (sapindaceae), so called because sometimes the roots/foliage contain saponins and latex. (The threat 'to have ones mouth washed out with soap' would be much less terrible if the soap in question was actually rambutans.) Longans and lychees also belong to this family. Also, maples and buckeyes belong in this family, though those, of course, are known for other products.
Jack and Leslie, here is a clip to the 'I Like Bananas (Because They Have No Bones)' song that i kept singing on that shopping expedition.
Since we're on the subject of fruit, i came across an ad the other day for 'jelly apples' This did not reference apples used to make jelly, but rather a product similar to candy apples, only with a softer coating akin to caramel. Apparently, " Jelly apples became popular at Coney Island as a seaside treat many
years ago and are well known in New York and on the East Coast of the
United States ", as stated by a jelly apple manufacturer. Can any East Coast folks confirm this?
A common phrase 'the whole shebang' typically refers to the entirety of something, but what is a 'shebang'? Looking further into this, the exact origins are somewhat obscure, but the earliest reference is in a 1920s poem by Walt Whitman.
'Christmas factor' is a term i came across the other day while doing some (science) research. Apparently, it's a coagulation factor that was discovered as lacking in a man named Stephen Christmas, who was (thusly) a hemophiliac, with the specific form (B) called 'Christmas Disease'. Anyway, this caught my attention mostly because i read of an antibody made against it, for further research, meaning that somewhere there is a tube labeled 'anti-christmas'.
My brother texted me today to ask about some plush toys from our youth, Popples, which turned into a ball-shaped plush via folding into a pocket (his turned into a soccer ball, and mine ended up as a teal-and-white striped ball). He said he had just seen an infomercial for something called Pop Out Pets, a similar type plush that flips into three separate animals (reference this, but warning, there is a video clip that starts automatically). Anyway, i was minorly relived that they weren't billed as 'vintage' or 'retro', as i'm not yet ready to feel that old.
Here is a really interesting fact page regarding various facts about the Atlanta airport, including the fact that they average 230,000 passengers daily, and that there are 30,000 parking spaces (of which i'm pretty sure i got one of the last 10 free spaces available on Thanksgiving morning).
One of the webcomics i have read every morning (okay, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning) for the past decade is xkcd. i have been pleased to lately read that it's getting more popular as the STEM fields become "cooler", and there have been three different interviews with Randall Munro appearing recently to promote his new book, one at the NYTimes, another in the Wall Street Journal ( i was delighted by his mention of Calvin and Hobbes comics), and a different one with the awesome astronaut Chris Hadfield.
Something amusing that i tripped over the other day was this analysis of the hazards James Bond faces in his line of work, as set forth in a CDC blog post. (Another CDC awesome blog post is their zombies attack emergency prep sheet from a few years back, and a more recent 'teachable moments' update featuring Walking Dead shots, which includes the awesome line "Being true zombie fans, we love The Walking Dead on AMC, so much so that
we’ve looked past the fact that they blew us up at the end of the first
season and we assure you that our work here at the CDC continues").
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