Fun Fact Friday - Spud Love

I love potatoes. I always have; I always will. I think I once had a pet potato. Then we ate him at dinner. This is getting a little too real. Time for a fun fact!

Fun fact: Mr. Potato Head was the first toy marketed on TV.

Please note the absence of a potato.

Mr. Potato Head, which I keep accidentally writing as "my potato head," was created in 1952. He was originally just a bunch of push pin parts of a face - that's right, no potato included. This makes my pet potato a little less weird right? And it's okay that we ate him before he rotted? I'm going to say yes.

Apparently Hasbro received complaints about kids playing with rotting food and had to start including the plastic potato body. Also, Mr. Potato Head used to be a smoker, but he quit in the 1980s. Now, Mr. Potato Head is masquerading as Darth Tater (full disclosure: not my pun, that's really his name).

"I'm too adorable to be evil, bitch." - Darth Tater

Darth Tater gives parents a great opportunity to teach their children about the dark side. And carbohydrates!

Fun Fact Friday - Blessed Balls and Lady Bits

Do your kibbles and bits feel unlucky, dear reader? Are you worried about volatility in your pants? Well, I have just the thing!

Fun fact: In 2005 (the year of the rooster) a Hong Kong company began marketing feng shui underwear.

When I first heard about feng shui underwear, I was excited of course but also curious. In my ignorance, I though only furniture could be feng shui-ed. Would this underwear arrange one's balls for positive qi? Can you get a feng shui thong? Could thongs ever really lead to positive energy?

Unfortunately, my questions have not been answered. I've only been able to locate a few archived news stories about this underwear, which was marketed to men and women and had a dragon on the front. Apparently dragons are good at combatting the unpredictable nature of roosters.

I don't think this underwear is feng shui, but the dragon sure is handsome.

So why not shroud your mercurial cock with a be-dragoned pair of underpants? Why not cover your vagina with a fire-breathing beast? I certainly can't think of a reason! As a company spokesperson made sure to point out, "If you have a dragon on your underpants, you will be protected."

Satire Saturday - MathemaTRICKS!

Math.

If you're still with me, congrats. Some people do not care for the mathematics. Or knowledge in general, it seems. I am speaking, of course, of Fox News.

Fox has long shown us their distaste for math. I speak of course of that time they decided polls could add up to 120%.

That pesky math!

But now, Fox News is lashing out against the distributive property. I recommend the full six minutes of video. You'll want to violently lash out at inanimate objects in your general vicinity, but you'll gain a new perspective on the state of American education:



Putting aside for a moment the obvious failure of American education in that five reasonably successful television personalities say they don't think they can do math at a fifth grade level even when presented with written instructions and an example problem, we must confront the indoctrination of children in schools.

Scholastic (and teachers) clearly want to raise a bunch of little communists by distributing "Distribute the Wealth" worksheets to fifth graders.

Then again, they do also have a worksheet called "Money! Money! Money!" I don't know about you, but I smell the stench of capitalism on that one.

Gah! Scholastic! You're fucking everything up by trying to have semi-creative but ultimately lame names for math exercises! And now I don't know if you think kids should share their money or should hoard it all away with unabashed enthusiasm.

But regardless of Scholastic's bias, I think we can all agree that math is inherently biased toward the liberal agenda. I mean, the "Distribute the Wealth" worksheet is about the distributive property after all. I think we'd all feel safer if it were called the "fuck socialism property" or the "only pussies give a shit about the less fortunate property." It would probably be better if we gave up on math altogether and just said, "God did it!" It worked for science education after all.

Of course, Fox News isn't just against bias in the math world. They advise vigilance against history books that contain factual information. Of all the nerve!

Also, I think it's worth noting that Scholastic is a little too into cocks.

It seems to me like a certain publishing company is in bed with the gays too.

Fun Fact Friday - There's a CrApp For That

Poop and technology? Well, I certainly can't think of two things that go better together. Especially when children are involved. Get your big boy pants on, dear reader, because this shit's about to get real.

Fun fact: The company CTA Digital has created a toilet training potty with an iPad attachment.

I know this just a display picture, but let's get it off the goddamn carpet.

Yeah, that's it. And sure, maybe incontinent tots will be tricked into pooping appropriately by mid-dump entertainment options, but at a certain point, I think someone in development meetings should have stood up and said, "What the fuck are we doing with ourselves?"

Of course I have never toilet trained someone, and (spoiler alert) I hope I never do. But really? An iPad toilet? I don't know the specifics of my own toilet training days, but I can tell you with complete certainty that I am not currently wearing an adult diaper. So something must have worked even without Dora the Explorer whispering, "Tu puedes hacer caca," to me from a toilet-attached iPad.

Perhaps CTA Digital's touch screen protection will be enough to keep poop smears off technology that costs a couple hundred dollars. It is also possible that children don't smear poop as much as I feel like they do. But there are some things that I just wouldn't mix. By which I mean basically anything and excrement.

You might think this makes me old fashioned, but I'm standing by my potty training/iPad opposition. Say what you will, dear reader. As much as I love you, I don't give a shit.

Fun Fact Friday - Carl Kasell is God

This blog post will be almost entirely written in NPR nerd. If you hope of knowing the gentle touch of another human being, I suggest turning back now. Because today's fun fact is in honor of the fifteenth birthday of what some (by which I mean me) have described as the greatest radio program ever, Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me.

Fun fact: When Carl Kasell was a kid, he hid behind the radio and spoke in order to trick people into thinking he was on the radio.

I'd explain who Carl Kasell is for those of you who don't know, but I don't like to think that I live in a world where people don't know who Carl Kasell is. So may I suggest the google, if you did not heed my NPR nerd warning.

Carl Kasell and a duck. I once asked him about that duck. True story.

And sure, this fun fact may be more than usually useless for daily life, but you know, most of the time when I know something random and almost entirely unnecessary, it is because of NPR. I owe them a debt of gratitude. So as a special bonus on this, the anniversary of the radio program whose archives I listen to every night at bed time, I offer you a limerick:

There once was a young NPR nerd,
Who listened for each Wait, Wait word.
As she listened each night
She sighed with delight,
"That was the best thing I've ever heard."

So, yes. I'm proud to be an NPR nerd who is soothed to sleep by the dulcet tones of Carl Kasell. Sure, I'm alone, but I find that Peter Sagal and the panelist's quips provide a more than adequate remedy for the cold clutches of perpetual loneliness.