SpinnyNuNu

Hopefully the military is prepared to get smacked with a trademark lawsuit

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Remember back in June of 2018 when Trump unveiled his plan for a new branch of the military, the Space Force, and we all laughed it off because, uh, it’s absurd? Well, today President Trump just dropped a Space Force update on us. What is this update? Is it, oh, I dunno, details regarding what the actual function will be? Or, like, any sort of actual information that could shed some light on his grand plans to conquer the galaxy?

Of course it’s not.

The big Space Force announcement Trump shared with the world via Twitter today is...

The logo.

Hey, look, sure his impeachment trial is literally underway in the Senate as we speak. Sure he’s edging us closer and closer to World War III. And yeah he’s also speeding up the climate apocalypse with every single environmental protection act that he shreds up.

But at least we know what the Space Force logo is going to look like, thank god.

If you’re looking at this and thinking, “Wait... I’ve seen this somewhere before,” it’s because you have.

Because this is basically the goddamn Star Trek logo.

Did he think we wouldn’t notice? Did the team of designers he commissioned manage to sneak it by him without him noticing??

Is Donald Trump a trekkie????

Who the hell knows.

When was the last time you hand washed your mug? Exactly.

The iconic jelly bean brand Jelly Belly is releasing a sparkling water with zero calories and zero added sweeteners that tastes just like eight of the company's jelly bean flavors.

The woman told police she was driving for several hours, waiting for a "calling from God," when she decided to drive into oncoming traffic.

"Voters, regardless of location or ability, will be able to access and cast their ballot from a smartphone, a tablet, a computer or any other smart-enabled device."

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Thursday banned state-funded travel to California in response to a similar ban California placed on travel to the Sooner State.

There are many examples of sports bar-style appetizers, and snacks that I have no problem making at home, with things like chicken wings, and nachos being the most obvious, but there’s one item found on almost all those menus that I don’t attempt, and that would be the ... to read the rest of Chef John's article about Fried Mozzarella Puffs, please follow this link to become a member.)

Follow this link to get a complete, printable written recipe for Fried Mozzarella Puffs!

And, as always, enjoy! 

If you want more information about why the blog format has changed, and why we're now offering complete written recipes, please read all about that here. 

As reported by The Guardian:

Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who performed the “Miracle on the Hudson”, has told Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump to “grow up” and “show some decency”, after she mocked Joe Biden for stuttering.

Biden, a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to face President Trump in November, has spoken openly about his lifelong experiences with a stutter.

Lara Trump, who is married to the president’s second son Eric, works for the Trump re-election campaign and spoke in that capacity at an event in Iowa on Friday, the day after the seventh Democratic debate.

“I feel kind of sad for Biden,” she said. “And you know that’s when it’s not going well for him, right, because I’m supposed to want him to fail at every turn. But every time he comes onstage or they turn to him, I’m like, ‘Joe, can you get it out? Let’s get the words out, Joe.’”..

“Regardless of how you feel about Joe Biden,” he wrote, “or his chances of becoming the Democratic nominee for president; whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, or none of the above; whether you stuttered as a child or laughed at one who did; whether as a parent you try to protect your own stuttering child from taunts such as those made by the president’s daughter-in-law; these words come without hesitation: Stop. Grow up. Show some decency. People who can’t have no place in public life.”

Trump’s words, he said, were indicative of a “culture of cruelty” which “drives decent people from public service and … makes millions of Americans recoil from politics, and even from participating in our democracy”...

Sullenberger concluded by saying “a speech disorder is a lot easier to treat than a character defect” and telling any children reading to “ignore kids (and adults) who are mean, or don’t know what it feels like to stutter.

Corned beef and cabbage is a classic St. Patrick’s Day meal. Make it even easier by cooking the corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes in the Instant Pot or pressure cooker.

Continue reading "Instant Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage" »

Australia, 2018, some as big as tennis balls - and a visual reminder that hailstones can have sharp(ish) points on them.  Story at The Independent.

Happy Birthday Betty White! Take a look at some of these photos from throughout the years as star celebrates her 98th birthday!

Created by bonsai master Masahiko Kimura

His unconventional bonsai creations have stirred controversy at first. Deemed by some traditionalists as a non-conforming artist, Kimura continued to break the traditional rules of bonsai making. Typically, the art involves cultivating a single tree or shrub planted on a container. Instead of planting just one miniaturized tree, Kimura brilliantly created a mini-forest sprouting from a slanted deadwood. He has produced and sold several versions of the Hinoki Forest. But the original version, which he created more than 20 years ago, still sits proudly in his garden. His garden is located in Omiya, Japan and is open to the public upon request.

Image via. 

Clever marketing.  I need to find more humor today in an internet that is filled with gloom and doom.

Via Bad Newspaper.

A tarantula hawk wasp carrying away a huntsman spider.  Via Reddit.

Video: man allows himself to be stung by a tarantula hawk wasp (skip to the 10-minute mark)

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging hat to Australian reader Jim, who attests from personal experience that this is not a tarantula hawk wasp, but rather Cryptocheilus bicolor (the orange spider wasp) -

This wasp is a predator of the huntsman spiders (family Sparassidae) and wolf spiders (Lycosidae). It paralyses the spider by stinging it in its underside. The prey is then dragged to a burrow, dug by the female using shovel-like hairs on its front legs.

When you're surrounded by religious bigots, this is bound to happen.

They’re just so... so beautiful

Originally published 11 December 2019

People celebrate the holidays in all sorts of different ways, and that’s what makes this time of year so wonderful. For some, making merry means gathering with loved ones to sing carols, for others it’s reading certain stories or watching particular movies, for me it’s giving in to peer pressure and doing sambuca shots with my family at 8am on Christmas morning so my dad will stop heckling me. All festivities are special in their own way!

Some folks really take things to the next level, though, like those insanely committed people who cover their homes with enough lights and decorations to flag down an aircraft, or this couple, who really put the “oh Jesus Christ” in “Christmas”.

Most families who celebrate Christmas commemorate the occasion with photos, and Mike and Laura Bergeron are no different. The photos they take, however, are a lot different.

Since 2004, Mike and Laura have made it their mission to take the ultimate Christmas photos, whether they’re based on characters or just good ol’ fashion cringey. And, look, I know the holidays aren’t a competition, there are no winners, but at the same time... Mike and Laura have absolutely won.

Feast your eyes.

Mike Bergeron

Mike Bergeron

Mike Bergeron

Mike Bergeron

Mike Bergeron

Mike Bergeron

Mike Bergeron

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*Ahem* you can also check out Funny Or Die’s holiday apparel right here

IMDb

HAPPY NEW YEAR Y’ALL

In 2015, Grace and Frankie first arrived on Netflix. The unconventional sitcom centers around two women who are diametrically opposite but are brought together by the fact that both their worlds were flipped upside down when their husbands announce that they’ve fallen in love with each other. Grace and Frankie has been breaking down stereotypes and fighting ageism for six seasons, with the incredible and legendary women Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin at the helm. Back in September it was announced that we are getting a seventh (and final) season, and through a Facebook post from the official Grace and Frankie page today, we have just learned that season six is arriving on Netflix on January 15th.

YAAAAAAAAAAS.

I know Christmas hasn’t even come yet but I am honestly ready to skip right ahead into the new year. I sped through all of season five in probably a week because I have no self control and I NEED me some more of the badass, whimsical, entrepreneurial, unstoppable forces that are Grace Hanson and Frankie Bergstein, and all-new hilarious, ultra quotable moments like these.

(PS. If you aren’t on the Grace and Frankie bandwagon yet, what are you DOING??? It’s such an amazing show that SNL even wrote a rap song about it.)

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Excerpts from an absolutely fascinating report in the New York Times:

Three months after his bone marrow transplant, Chris Long of Reno, Nev., learned that the DNA in his blood had changed. It had all been replaced by the DNA of his donor, a German man he had exchanged just a handful of messages with...

But four years after his lifesaving procedure, it was not only Mr. Long’s blood that was affected. Swabs of his lips and cheeks contained his DNA — but also that of his donor. Even more surprising to Mr. Long and other colleagues at the crime lab, all of the DNA in his semen belonged to his donor. “I thought that it was pretty incredible that I can disappear and someone else can appear,” he said...

Mr. Long had become a chimera, the technical term for the rare person with two sets of DNA. The word takes its name from a fire-breathing creature in Greek mythology composed of lion, goat and serpent parts. Doctors and forensic scientists have long known that certain medical procedures turn people into chimeras, but where exactly a donor’s DNA shows up — beyond blood — has rarely been studied with criminal applications in mind...

He added that patients also sometimes ask him what it means for a man to have a woman’s chromosomes in their bloodstream or vice versa. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

But for a forensic scientist, it’s a different story. The assumption among criminal investigators as they gather DNA evidence from a crime scene is that each victim and each perpetrator leaves behind a single identifying code — not two...

In 2004, investigators in Alaska uploaded a DNA profile extracted from semen to a criminal DNA database. It matched a potential suspect. But there was a problem: The man had been in prison at the time of the assault. It turned out that he had received a bone marrow transplant. The donor, his brother, was eventually convicted...

In 2008, he was trying to identify the victim of a traffic accident for the National Forensic Service in Seoul, South Korea. Blood showed that the individual was female. But the body appeared to be male, which was confirmed by DNA in a kidney, but not in the spleen or the lung, which contained male and female DNA. Eventually, he figured out that the victim had received a bone marrow transplant from his daughter.

More worth reading at the link.

Mini Crochet Hats

It's that time of year again when your list of gifts to give get longer and your time to make something gets smaller.  I love making things for everyone on my list, but I know I can't get them all done.  That's when I grab my crochet hook and try to whip up something fun and that is also quick.  This year I have a few gifts that I made and can share with you.  

First up are these very simple Mini Crochet Hats.  They can be used for ornaments, gift tags, gift card holders, or even as a doll hat. 


Supplies
-Worsted Weight Acrylic Yarn (I used mini balls from Knit Picks Brava), 22yds total  (8 yds of the Main Color, 6 yds of Color A, 4 yds of Color B and C)
-I/9 (5.5mm) hook
-Yarn Needle
-Scissors

Finished Size
Around 2" wide and 3" tall

Gauge
Not critical, if yours is larger or smaller it still will be cute!

Pattern
Make an adjustable ring with Main Color.
Rnd 1: Ch 1, 8 sc in ring, pull ring closed, sl st to first sc, do not turn. (8 sc)
Rnd 2: Ch 1 (does not count as a st), 2 hdc in each sc around, sl st to first hdc, do not turn. (16 hdc)
Rnd 3: Ch 3 (counts as a dc), dc in next hdc, *2 dc in next hdc, dc in next 3 hdc; repeat from * around to last 2 sts, 2 dc in next hdc, dc in last hdc, sl st to top of beg ch-3, do not turn. (20 dc)
Rnd 4: Ch 3 (counts as a dc), dc in each dc around, sl st to top of beg ch-3, fasten off main color. (20 dc)
Rnd 5: Join Color A with a sl st in any st, ch 1 (does not count as a st), hdc in same st as join, hdc in each dc around, sl st to first hdc, fasten off A. (20 hdc)
Rnd 6: Join Color B with a sc in any st, sc in each hdc around, sl st to first sc, fasten off B. (20 sc)
Rnd 7: Join Color C with a sc in any st, sc in each sc around, sl st to first sc, fasten off C. (20 sc).

Finishing
Weave in all ends
Make 1.5" pom pom with Colors A, B, and C
Sew pom pom to top of hat


Want to make these in person with me?  I am teaching Learn to Crochet Top Down Hats at the Mt Lebanon Library this Saturday at 10:30am.  It is part of my current series of classes on Learn to Crochet.  All you need is basic knowledge of how to single crochet and double crochet.  I bring the yarn and hooks.  Registration is at their website.

Looking for this hat in Adult and Child size?  Come back next week for the pattern.


Looking for more quick gifts?  Check out my wonderful friend, Marly Bird, and her 24 Days of Quickies.  And come back tomorrow for another quick gift from me!  You can also check out Marly Bird's Facebook Page where we will be chatting about my next quick gift tomorrow at noon. 

Comments closed.  Moving on to other things...

Oh COME ON

Whether you love or hate the holiday season, we can all showcase our feelings in the same way: ugly sweaters, yeaaaaahh babyyyyyy.

I’m not sure when the first ugly holiday sweater came to be, but I’m sure it was a sweater that someone’s Nan knitted for them and they were forced to wear to every holiday gathering from then on. However, over the years (and especially once you get older and realize that 1. wearing things that are ugly for the hell of it is actually fun and 2. your Nan is a goddamn treasure and you should wear anything she makes you with PRIDE and get the hell over yourself) the Ugly Holiday Sweater has become the quintessential part of pretty much everyone’s attire from November through January. Maybe your sweater says “Bah Humbug”, maybe it says “Hail Santa”, however you feel, there’s a way to express it through scratchy fabric. Ugly sweaters are the great unifiers, and, in my opinion, are what really bring us together during this season.

And, folks, get ready for the mother of all festive gear.

You’d expect Walmart, like most big box stores, to be pretty wholesome vendors during this time of year — but I am so, so excited to say that this is absolutely not the case.

This year, Walmart Canada had to pull a certain sweater off its shelves that depicted Santa Claus really... enjoying a big ol’ snowstorm.

Yeah, Santa was doing cocaine.

Ohhhhh so THAT’S how he manages to get around the world in one night.

The sweater depicts probably the most horrifying version of Santa I’ve certainly ever seen, like he’s got razor teeth, sitting in front of three fat lines of coke next to what appears to be more cocaine in snowball form (teach me your ways, Santa), and you can tell from his massive grin and huge buggy eyes he’s having a good time, and that’s all that counts.

Walmart Canada released a statement saying that these sweaters, which were sold by a third party on Walmart.ca, “do not represent Walmart’s values and have no place on our website.” Which is a shame, because I think this is exactly what Santa would want us to indulge in — laughter! I’m talking about laughter, you heathens! Sheesh.

*Ahem* you can also check out Funny Or Die’s holiday apparel right here

I'll close comments.  Res ipsa loquitur.

A driver of a sedan walked away from a scary, fog-related crash with a big rig Tuesday morning, the California Highway Patrol's Fresno office said.

A juvenile sperm whale, found on a Scottish island beach, was found to have an immense bezoar in its stomach.

The young whale had ingested a large amount of refuse, including bundles of rope, plastic cups, bags and gloves. Examiners also found packing straps and tubing inside his stomach...

The bezoar may not have been the proximate cause of the whale's death, but it is still an indictment of humans' treatment of our marine resources.

Related: Immense trichobezoar and Hairball Awareness Day (April 27).

Instagram influencers are promoting "perineum sunning" as a health practice.

“In a mere 30 seconds of sunlight on your butthole, you will receive more energy from this electric node than you would in an entire day being outside with your clothes on,” says an influencer, who goes by Ra of Earth. In a viral video that has racked up more than 35,000 views, he gestures toward the sun as three naked men lie down, point their backsides to the sky and make sounds of pleasure.

“[Thirty] seconds of direct sunlight injection to the anal orifice is equivalent to being outside in the sun all day!”

You can read more about this in the New York Post.

Addendum:  complication reported (anal tissue is very sensitive to sunburn)

As reported in The Guardian:

A teenage boy in North Carolina has been prosecuted for having nude pictures of himself on his own mobile phone. The young man, who is now 17 but was 16 at the time the photos were discovered, had to strike a plea deal to avoid potentially going to jail and being registered as a sex offender.

Experts condemned the case as ludicrous. The boy was, however, punished by the courts, and had to agree to be subject to warrantless searches by law enforcement for a year, in addition to other penalties.

The young man was also named in the media and suffered a suspension as quarterback of his high school football team while the case was being resolved.

[redacted], of Fayetteville, North Carolina, was prosecuted as an adult under federal child pornography felony laws, for sexually exploiting a minor. The minor was himself...

[redacted] was charged with four counts of making and possessing images of himself and one count of possessing a naked image of his 16-year-old girlfriend.

His girlfriend, [redacted], took a plea deal after being prosecuted on similar charges for having naked, suggestive pictures of herself on her cellphone.

While the pictures were technically illegal, actual sex would not be – the age of consent for sexual intercourse in North Carolina is 16...

He was prosecuted for having his own and his girlfriend’s image, despite them not having been shared further...

The legal bind came because the two were over 16 and so could be charged as adults in North Carolina, as is common with some felonies – but the crimes they were being charged with related to laws against sexually exploiting minors.

Each was therefore simultaneously the adult perpetrator who is considered a predator and the minor victim who needs protecting by the law...

“There are about 10 or 12 mostly conservative states where they will prosecute kids for this,” said Lane, “and it’s a kind of moral values thing – they are trying to make an example of them because it’s believed to be inappropriate behaviour.

Thanksgiving is cancelled

It’s the day before Thanksgiving, many people are now enjoying a delightfully short work week, others took the whole week off, in any case, folks all over this country are getting ready to eat their way into a food coma tomorrow. So I, like the rest of you, woke up this morning feeling nice and relaxed and ready for a leisurely, probably uneventful day.

Silly me.

I foolishly expected a normal day, I let my guard down, and while scrolling through my phone over a cup of coffee, Twitter delivered a swift roundhouse kick to my jaw, then grabbed me by the shirt collar, pulled me in close, and said, “Surprise, motherfucker, shit is gonna get so goddamn weird.”

Just before 8am PST / 11am EST, President Trump tweeted a photoshopped and deeply, deeply cursed image of his head on Sylvester Stallone’s body from the 1982 classic Rocky III, with absolutely no context.

Yeah, sit with that for a minute.

Trump managed to ruin literally everyone’s day, coast to coast, before noon. Subsequently, he also ruined Rocky III and effectively destroyed Thanksgiving, possibly even Christmas. Who knows if we’ll have healed as a nation by then.

I’m just... I’m so fucking done, man.

Unsurprisingly, this confused the living hell out of (and thoroughly traumatized) everyone. Not that any caption could really explain this photo or make it hurt less, but by spewing it out into existence without so much as a word, he turned something that could have just been deeply upsetting, like waking up to a cat’s asshole in your face, into something that is deeply upsetting as well as ominous and vaguely threatening, like waking up to find someone slid a picture of a cat’s asshole under your door.

It’s bad either way, but one’s gonna be way harder to scrub from your psyche.

With a bit of digging that I did not want to do and am now worse off, in all ways, for having done, I learned that apparently this is in reference to a comment Trump made at a rally in Florida last night. His recent impromptu hospital visit sparked rumors that he perhaps had a heart attack, or at least some form of heart troubles.

Trump denied these rumors and explained that the doctors did give him a physical, but not to examine his heart, no no. Supposedly quoting the doctors, Trump said, out loud, with his mouth, into a microphone,

“Show us that gorgeous chest. We want to see it. We’ve never seen a chest quite like it.”

Yes. Trump, the man with the launch codes, did say he has a “gorgeous chest” and then tweeted a picture of himself as Rocky Balboa to prove it. It did not prove anything, but we all had to suffer through it anyway. If anyone needs me, I’m going to go sit in a dark room and stare at a blank wall, contemplating death.

You know it’s gonna be good when a speech starts with “my husband always says I was born with a horseshoe up my ass”

Kristen Bell is 5’1 yet contains the sheer power of a thousand suns, and is able to completely nail being both a crass reprobate doomed in the afterlife as well as an adorably naive Disney princess. Truly she is an enigma, and as is the way with all mysteries of the universe, like going to bed with wet hair and somehow waking up with it actually looking really good, or hitting every green light on the way to work, we don’t have to fully understand how it’s possible in order to appreciate it.

Yesterday Kristen was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame (it’s about damn time) and the speech she gave upon receiving it was equal parts hilarious and touching, and just so, so good — like pretty much everything else she does.

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“Thank you, I am so grateful to be accepting this honor today on these hallowed streets where Pretty Woman sold her body for money, it’s really a dream. You know, my husband always says that I was born with a horseshoe up my ass, and I tend to fight that claim, but looking around here today I’m not sure, because he may be onto something — I am suspiciously lucky, and not because I have a career worthy of this star, but because of all the people I’ve been able to orbit along the way.”

After many heartfelt anecdotes and sharing some advice that she picked up from Cher, she closed with a sentiment so eloquent and witty that should probably be engraved on a placard and showcased alongside the star itself.

“Thank you all for being here and for this honor today, this star will really only know its true value when, inevitably, someone is mugged in that very spot, and as they clutch their purse, the assailant screams, “LET IT GO!” And the victim will look up and say, ‘That’s not even her song, you son of a bitch.’ Only then will I know that I’ve truly made it.”

Amazing.

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You can check out Funny Or Die’s sketches with Kristen Bell as well as more funny articles right here.

An Oscar-winning performance

The best part about the holiday season is the food, which is also the worst part about the holiday season. November to January is pretty much just one giant carb-filled, gravy-covered blur, so to try and balance that out, it’s good to make little adjustments like, say, taking the stairs more. Which sounds easy enough, but one dog owner tried to put this into practice and so far it’s been an uphill battle — literally and figuratively.

Nala is a very sweet husky, but the vet recently told her human, Aurora Angel Beste, that she’s, um, getting a little too husky. So, instead of taking the elevator each day when they come home, Aurora decided that they’d take the stairs, and Nala decided that she wasn’t having any of it.

As you can see, the lady doth protest.

To be fair, if I could handle my problems by simply pressing my face into a wall and choosing to ignore them, I definitely would.

I feel you, Nala.

It was a journey for everyone involved but eventually Nala conquered this flight of stairs, her own personal Everest, and apparently she’s gotten better since this first attempt, but is still begrudging about it. Apparently stairs still suck even if you have four legs to climb them with.

Getty Images

Move over, Helvetica

Trump is unlike any president the country — and the world, frankly — has ever seen. I’m not going to throw out all the examples, because we’re all well aware of the ways in which he’s baffled and astonished the nation, every time in the worst way possible, but I am going to focus on one particular thing that sets him apart from his predecessors.

Let’s talk about the way he takes notes.

It’s well known at this point that Trump does not know how to use computers, Twitter on his phone is pretty much the extent of his tech-skills, and we’ve all seen how he tweets so even that’s generous. Suffice to say, when the president needs to make notes, he doesn’t open up Microsoft Word, which is a shame because the little spell-checking paper clip would probably do him a lot of good. But that’s fine! Handwritten notes are probably the way to go for someone in that kind of position anyway, paper is a smidge less cumbersome than computers with printers, notebooks and pens are a necessity.

Except Trump doesn’t use note paper and pens.

Trump writes his notes with a fat Sharpie on loose sheets of printer paper or the complimentary pads of paper on his plane, y’know, as one does.

Getty Images

Why even make the speech at that point? Why not just hold up the pad to the cameras like a guy at the airport trying to flag someone down with a handwritten sign he whipped up with whatever was in his car’s glove box?

This isn’t a new thing, that’s just the latest photo in a long series of instances where members of the press has captured his entire speech outline with literally no effort. At least this one doesn’t have any spelling mistakes, probably because he stuck to small words this time around. Smart move Donny, play to your strengths. Getting back on track here, Trump’s been taking notes and writing speeches in this fashion for so long, and there have been SO MANY readily available samples to work with, that Mark Davis, a graphic designer, actually created a Trump font... Two years ago.

And it’s FREE. YOU CAN HAVE IT.

Oh, and that’s not even the best part. He called the font Tiny Hand.

It’s... it’s just perfect.

You can download Tiny Hand right here, for any and all incoherent ramblings notes you need to make on official business or otherwise.