Pop Culture Frenzy, Round 35

Welcome once again to Pop Culture Frenzy.  The folks that make Oreo Cookies are releasing a new flavor to celebrate the season.  The cookies will be available May 22nd where ever seasonal cookies are sold.  I guess.

What is this special addition Oreo flavor?
Molly?

 

Squirrel?

 

 

Hostmaster:  incorrect.

Cyndi?

 

 

 

Margarita?

 

 

 

Hostmaster:  incorrect.

Bryan?

 

 

 Bacon?

Hostmaster:  incorrect.  You surprise me, Bryan.  You usually think out of the dog box.

 

 

 

 

Ok.  Let's see.  Late spring.  hmmm.

Strawberry?

 

Hostmaster:  incorrect.  Nice effort though.

 Cyndi?

 

 

  

 

 

 Strawberry Daiquiri ?

 

Hostmaster:  incorrect.  Sounds like somebody likes boat drinks. 

Fluffy?

 

Cotton Candy?

 

 

Hostmaster:  incorrect.  Though it may be correct.  There is rumor that they made a Cotton Candy flavored Oreo Cookie at some point.  Maybe it's an urban legend.   Ah, who cares?  I could give you half a point but well, I don't care.

Molly?

 

 

Ground hog?

 

Hostmaster:  incorrect.  To date, Oreo has made no road kill flavors.

 

 

 

They will be getting none of my business!

 

 

 

 

Hostmaster:  Fluffy?

 

 

 

 

Smores?

 

 

 

 

 

Correct.  So ends another round.

Cyndi what do you drink with

Smores?

 

 

 

 

 

I hate camping.  Any drink will do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's sing some camp fire songs!

 

 

 

 

 

Round 35

Fluffy/Molly 16

Bryan/Cyndi  13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's take this Outside

Take what outside, you ask?  The ducks!

They've been in the basement growing under a brooder light.  You don't realize how smelly ducks can be till you've shared your home with them for a few weeks.  Now they've feathered up and are officially the outdoor birds they were hatched to be.

The ducks show no sign of missing the hard basement floor.  There is lush grass outside.

And the water dishes are bigger.

Ticked

Ah, spring.  The grass is greening up, trees are budding.  Hungry ticks lie in wait.

Ticks have four life cycles: egg, larval, nymph and adult.  They eat nothing but blood throughout their lives.  There are two general types of ticks: hard and soft.   Adult hard ticks look roughly like a sunflower seed.  They have a hard shell behind their mouth parts (mouth parts -as in- what looks like it's head.  As though ticks aren't creepy enough, they sort of don't have a head.)  Soft ticks resemble a raisin.  Hard ticks tend to feed on dogs and cats and people while soft ticks prefer birds and bats.

The usual scenario finds a tick waiting in the grass or on a shrub.  When a warm blooded animal passes close by, the tick climbs aboard.  Then the stowaway tick makes its way to a spot on that animal to settle in, bite into the skin, then hang there and eat.  It takes several days for a tick to eat it's fill.

Ticks are Arachnids.  Other members of the Arachid family are spiders, mites and scorpions.  These creatures, when full grown, have fours pair of legs and no antennae.  (Insects have three pair of legs and one pair of antennae.)

 

 

When you find a newly arrived tick on you or your dog you can remove it with the sticky side of a piece of tape. However, if the tick has been on the body for a while, it'll have dug it's fangs in, so you'll need to pull it off, ideally with tweezers, aiming close to the skin so as to get all of the tick off.

Now.  Kill it.

Less than one finger of alcohol does the job.  Teetotalers find soapy water works too.



Not only do ticks leave their unwilling host feeling an awful bodily violation, there's also a grim chance the tick will leave a disease behind.  Then there's the unpleasant paranoia that comes after one finds a tick on the body of oneself or a loved one.  Every smallish object from a pebble to a piece of lint becomes the specter of doom and defilement.

Then there's the formication.  You know, that ghastly tactile hallucination whereby one feels there is something crawling on the skin.


To paraphrase Waylon Jennings.  Are you ready for the country, are you ready for ticks?

Ducklings, Week Three

When living with incredibly cute baby critters, you are duty bound to show pictures.

Legs and feet are markedly bigger and probably coincidentally, markedly clumsier.

Feathers are just starting to poke through the fluff.

Speaking of fluff.  Check out the tuft of fluff on the head of the middle yellow duck.

They've gotten tall enough to almost reach the top of the enclosure.

Stay tuned.  More gratuitous duck shots are virtually inevitable.

Ducklings

Fun stuff happening at the homestead.  Last week each of these ducks were still inside of an egg.  Now they have taken over a section of the basement where they are busily growing.  (Until they grow feathers, they need warmth.  That red glow upon them is coming from heating lamp.)

Why ducks, you ask?  Because ducks are not only delightful to behold, they also lay delicious eggs and eat bugs in the garden.

Henry is a Grown-Up

When I was a child, my grandparents had a Pomeranian, who by the way, wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.  Nonetheless, I thought Tinker was an incredibly cool dog and vowed that one day I would have a Pomeranian of my own.  It took decades to consummate, but Henry joined our family about a year ago.

Though Pomeranians are not considered lap dogs, Henry frequently invites himself unto laps and makes himself comfortable.  Pomeranians are often described as eager barkers.  Well, Henry has shown a tendency to vocalize at will.


It must be said, Henry is basically a good boy.  For some weeks, I've been easing out of puppy vigilance mode.  Still, I maintain surprise checks on what Henry is up to when he isn't under my feet.  More and more,  Henry gets caught in the act of not being bad. 

 

 

Pomeranians are not known for their herding abilities.  It will be interesting to see how he responds to the ducks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ducks?  What ducks?

 

 

Stay tuned. 

Pop Culture Frenzy, Round 34

Welcome once again to Pop Culture Frenzy.  Today's question is about to bust.  I mean, it's about a bust.

 
Sometime early Monday morning in Brooklyn, New York's Fort Green Park, some guys placed a four foot high, one hundred pound bust on top of a Revolutionary War monument and wrote the bustee's name on the monument column.  The tribute was short lived.  Park officals called the cops.  The cops busted the bust.  The bust is currently on display in a cell at the 88th Precinct.

Who's head is the subject of the bust?
Bryan?

 

hmm.  Park.  Revolutionary.

The bust was of one of the Occupiers?


 

 

Hostmaster:  incorrect.

Molly?

 

 

 

 

 

Those guys must have

been pretty strong to lift

a hundred pounds up on

a column.  ha!  They

had to bust a move!

 

 

 

Occupiers are patriots.

They let people know about

injustice.

 

 

Injustice, like having to

work, sometimes even
at a job that is not your
dream job?
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not fair that some

people only make

minimum wage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uh huh.  It's not fair to have to
work at a minimum wage job

while you go to school or
to work at minimum wage to
earn experience, enabling you
to move on to a higher paying job.

So the heroic occupiers raised

awareness of this injustice by
littering, loitering and
deficating on police cars.

 

 

 

Eww.  I wouldn't do that. 

And I'm a dog.

 

 

Hostmaster:  back to the question.  Whose face is on the bust?

Bryan?

 

 

 

Well, we're friends with Cuba
 now, right?  So....

  Castro?

 

Hostmaster:  incorrect.

Cyndi?

 

 

 

My favorite revolutionary, 

Gloria Steinam?

 

 

 

 

Hostmaster:  oh the irony.  A bust with no bust.  Ahem.  Incorrect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is so sexist.

 

 

 

 

 

 



   You know the trouble with feminists?

They have NO sense of humor.

 

No means no!


 

 

 

  

 

 

 You are a disgrace to your gender, Fluffy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you, Cyndi.  Coming

from you, that is a

compliment. 

 

 

 

  

 

This round is busting my chops.  We bust move on.  OK.  Here's the story.  The bust is Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower -or traitor- depending upon your point of view.  He currently lives somewhere in Russia.  Some guys who admire Snowden arranged for his bust to be made.  Soon, bust in hand, they busted into the park and installed the bust.     

 

If you'd like to see the Edward Snowden bust click here -  

 

This round is a bust.  Nobody wins.  We bust go now.   

 

 

Round 34

Fluffy/Molly   15

Bryan/Cyndi    13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Happy Easter!

I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

-John 11:25-26