A super-fast roller coaster in Japan is charged with breaking the bones of riders, evidently just due to the triple-digit acceleration:
I suppose it’s only a metter of time before the Euthansia Coaster is a reality
My favorite line in the real news story:
“Please Scream Inside Your Heart” has a nice ring to it. Might make a good title for a horror film.
Bizarre…according to the article, the American Chemical Society says it’s true.
“A teenager who rescued a bumblebee says it is now her loyal pet - sleeping by her bed and even following her to the shops and bowling alley.”
That’s a pleasant and polite Japanese alternative to telling people “screaming not permitted”. As a cultural generalization, they prefer to not tell people not to do stuff. And, as a cultural generalization, they think that Americans are rude and ill-mannered for doing so.
Much as I enjoyed Japan, it was a relief to get back to Singapore, where I wasn’t the rudest person in the room…
Telling people what they should do is generally a more effective management method than telling people what they shouldn’t do, which is part of the reason Japan manages to be more generally polite, in spite of consisting of basically normal human beings.
What was huge, had four legs and swam in Eocene Oceans?
According to something that I heard on the radio this morning, while the writers were researching the role for his biopic, Mister Rogers’ wife Joan revealed that Fred liked to fart in public.
Apparently, in social situations, Fred would wink at her, then slyly raise a cheek to let one rip.
Also, he apparently loved dirty jokes.
Alan Hale Sr., father of ‘The Skipper’ was an inventor of sorts. He came up with greaseless potato chips, sliding theater seats, hand-held fire extinguishers, and a lamp that was supposed to treat athlete’s foot and shingles (eh, OK on that last one).
Alan Hale Jr (the Skipper) called people “little buddy” all the time. Series creator Sherwood Schwartz heard him say it on the set and incorporated it into the show.
He loved playing the skipper.
He owned a restaurant in LA called The Lobster Barrel. He often dressed up in his skipper clothes and greeted people as they came in. He would also walk around the restaurant, talk to customers, and give out skipper hats to children.
Three years after The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Harrison Ford got his chest hair waxed for a PSA about saving the rain forest. He didn’t even wince.
Pretty sure his body was 40% THC at that time.
Speaking of daddy longlegs…I read in an article recently that some scientists deliberately mutated some into “daddy shortlegs.” Controversial, because these critters look pretty helpless…
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/how-scientists-turned-daddy-longlegs-daddy-shortlegs
It’s the Munchkin of the Arachnid world!
Cellophane was originally intended to be a hydrophobic tablecloth.
The TV show known as “Shark Tank” in the USA and Australia is based on a Japanese program called “Money Tigers.” The British and Canadian versions are called “Dragon’s Den,” in Egypt as “The Project,” in Germany as “The Lion’s Cave,” and in many pother countries under totally different names or the local words for “Shark Tank” or “Dragon’s Den.”
Let’s be honest - we all want to try this, but we’re all a bit worried that the wife will suddenly come in while we have our feet in plastic bags full of garlic and say ‘Um, is everything all right, darling’?
I told the fact to Mrs. L and she said, “Oh yeah, I believe it.” Maybe she’s secretly kinky or something?
Speaking of feet:
A Turkish legend says that when Satan left the Garden of Eden after the Fall, onions grew from the spot where he set his right foot and garlic from where he set his left foot.
The world’s busiest airport for cargo tonnage is Hong Kong.
In second place is Memphis.
Late breaking 2020 Covid news - Memphis is back in first place.
Not surprising, FedEx has their ginormous hub there.
The engine in my 2007 Saturn was running real rough. Long story short, one of the valves in the cylinder head was “burnt.” (And what a fun job it was replacing the that. 
)
I mentioned this to a friend of mine, and he told me something I didn’t know: every time a valve opens and closes, it is supposed to rotate a little bit. It is designed to do this. The reason is that some areas of the valve head see higher temperatures than other areas, and keeping the valve rotating will evenly distribute the heat load. He hypothesized the failed valve wasn’t rotating. And indeed, there was one spot on the valve that looked like it had been subjected to higher temperatures vs. other areas.