Fun Fact Friday - Flush Today Goodbye

I organized some buttons today, dear reader. Because I lead a rich and full life. And what better way to celebrate life than with toilets?

Fun fact: Most toilets flush in E flat.

A toilet, modeling.

At this point I like to imagine you running to your fine set of tuning forks and then rushing to the restroom. I myself thought of finding my tuner, but I think it may be in a shed. And it is a somewhat brisk fall evening in the wilds of New Hampshire. I can't be bothered to rummage around in a cold, dark shed so I can attempt to check if my toilet does, in fact, flush as one particular note. I can't help feeling it would also be somewhat cruel of me to visit Stanley, my long-neglected trumpet, just to leave him wallowing outside while I gallivanted about with the tuner. I can imagine him trying to curl deeper into the lining of the case to fight off the cold and muttering to himself, "I wonder what she's going to use the tuner for. Is she playing something else? After all we've been through? I don't ask for much, but I wish she'd blow me once in a while!"

Stanley and me, in better times.

It's probably been four years since I even touched him. We used to spend holidays together - Halloween, Christmas, and the entirety of National Goat Cheese Month. His heartbreak is raw without me adding to his pain. So I just can't do that kind of shit to Stanley in the pursuit of toilet knowledge, dear reader! I hope you'll understand.

And in any case, I am only one person. My toilet would prove nothing alone. I cannot tune all the toilets in the world. And I am also unable to fathom why this fun fact came into existence. It seems more useless than my usual fare of frivolity. I have no personal experience to corroborate it with.

But if you wish, dear reader, you can polish your tuning forks and plop down next to the toilet. You could flush again and again, listening for the wonderful, life-affirming consonance that means your arrangement of Beethoven's 3rd with a part for a potty can finally be played. You could, in my stead, see if your toilet sings a clean, clear E flat when called upon. But when your loved ones inquire after your wellbeing, may I recommend not mentioning that you're tuning the toilet to spare a tender trumpet's heart?

Fun Fact Friday - Acting the Goat

Marbits, bananas, dolphins, toilet paper, John D. Rockefeller, and face arsenic!

"Goodness! What a fine list!" I like to imagine you yelping. Thank you. It is a lovely list and any one of those would have probably made a perfectly adequate subject for today's fun fact. But I was being fickle and rather hard to sate, which I hear are desirable qualities in any potential mate. So good for me. And you. You might not be able to tell, dear reader, but I am using my seductive voice. And winking. For you.

But enough of these lists and my somewhat aggressive internet flirting! To the Fun Fact Mobile!

Fun fact: Goats have accents.

"Holy shit!" - Gulliver T. Goat

I'm sorry if I just blew your mind. I'll give you a minute to put it back together. Because I am going to blow it again. But first, here is another goat. To melt your heart while you reassemble your mind.

"I'm the cutest fucking thing you've ever seen." - All baby goats ever

Elephants and dolphins apparently also have accents! I mean, we all knew people could get accents. But animals?

Goat, goat, goat, goat, goat!

Apparently goat accents were discovered by researchers from Queen Mary University in London last year. I like to believe that this is not what they set out to study. Mostly because it is a weird thing to set out to study. But now that we know goats have accents, I really think it would be worthwhile to find out if goats think certain types of goaty accents are sexier than others.

A ranking of America's sexy accents. Human accents. Not goat accents. But it is still worth noting that it is wrong.

Also, I don't have a whole lot else to say about goats. But I want you to see this:

I like to imagine that if I were a goat, I would be that goat. Sure, I'm kind of a dick, but look at me doing flips and shit!

Related: If anyone wants to help me steal that goat, which lives in Maine and was called an "asshole" by the Huffington Post, I'm free pretty much whenever.

Fun Fact Friday - The Fastest Growing Hair

You think it's pubes, don't you, dear reader? I'm here to tell you it's not.

Fun fact: Beard hair is the fastest growing human hair!

A handsome, bearded motherfucker.

I know this will come as a surprise to my large audience of impatient, pre-pubescent boys. Give it time, gents! You'll be scruffy soon enough! My beard hair, however, may never grow. It's something I am trying to accept.

But the really fun part of this fun fact will blow your beard clean off and into your spaghetti! A lifelong pogonotrophist (beard-grower/non-shaver) could grow a beard that is up to thirty feet long. I would do so many things with a thirty-foot beard.

Rocking presidential whiskers. And faraway eyes...

Let's for a moment, imagine me as an old lady. With a beard. (Because yeah, I don't need a penis, just a beard.) I'm just walking around town on a blustery day with my beard scarf keeping me warm as toast, when ahead of me, I see a sexy younger man trip. And fall. And slip off an icy bridge into frigid waters below.

Now, I'm old. My lifeguard swimming skills have long since become a thing of legend. But my beard? Strong. Like floss. And maybe you don't think floss is strong, but it is. Try tying someone up with it. You'll see. But back to this sexy man and my sexy beard. So I see this guy, let's call him Henry because the man of my dreams happens to be named Henry, fall off the bridge. I hobble over and throw my beard to bedraggled Henry.

"Sir, grab my beard!" I exclaim as I brace my body against the bridge. Henry struggles through the cold water, slowing all the while, but finally reaches out and takes hold. He climbs up my beard while anxious passersby help to hoist my beard back onto the bridge. When we finally get my shivering Henry over the railing, I swaddle him in my beard. He murmurs a quiet thank you before succumbing to the exhaustion his ordeal just produced.

Now, I know what you're thinking, dear reader. I am planning to live the blissful life of a bearded cat lady. But there comes a time in every cat lady's life where she must herself become a cat of sorts: a cougar. And now I like to imagine you asking, somewhat incredulously, "But Jes? What about your beard? Who would ever fall in love with a much older, bearded woman?"

Besides, of course, my ever-doting cats.

The answer to that, I am pleased to say, is Henry. Henry would.

But he can't. Because my beard hair will probably never grow. And Henry will slip, fall, and plummet into the river. I'll try to save him, but I'm doomed to fail. Then I will return home to my future cats, Roosevelt 1 and Roosevelt 2. I will stroke their fine kitty whiskers and murmur, "If only, if only..."

Happy Beardvember, dear reader.

Flirting in German - Halloween Edition

I know it has been a while since we've got our flirt on, dear reader. But what better time than Halloween? Sometimes it's easier to flirt if you at least look like a superhero...

So learn some sassy (and probably somewhat correct) German and get out there!

Fun Fact Friday - More Than a Mouthful

There are Halloween facts all over the place, dear reader. But I want something special for you. Something fun. That doesn't involve the percentage of people who plan to hand out candy. Because people no longer give me candy. So those facts are no longer fun. But, of course, it turned out that what I thought was just going to be a delightful little fun fact has its own kind of macabre twist.

Fun fact: Barmbrack is a traditional Halloween fortune-telling bread.

Barmbrack trying wicked hard to tell your fortune.

I know, at first take, this fact doesn't seem that fun. I mean, last year I told you about turnips for fuck's sake! How could Barmbrack ever be as fun? Because it had choking hazards baked right into it!

Barmbrack, a semi-sweet bread with raisins and sultanas, was baked to be eaten as part of a Halloween feast and had trinkets inside it. Whatever bric-a-brac came in your slice of Barmbrack was meant to indicate your year ahead. The objects generally included a pea, a bit of cloth, a coin, a stick, and a ring. And don't worry there was something for everyone: riches, spinsterhood, or even a year of wife beating! Oh, tradition!

But the ring? Oh, the ring!

Damn, reader! You look nice today. So, what do you think?

As you might have imagined, the ring in your slice meant you'd be wed within the year. Please enjoy this sample sentence that illustrates what a fucked up Halloween tradition this is a part of:

"Everyone longed for the ring which meant certain marriage before the year ended even if you were only five!" - CatholicCulture.org

So there's that.

But beyond the obvious problems with serving up slices of spousal abuse and child marriage, I wonder what happened if you got conflicting symbols in the same slice of bread. What if you got the rags and the coin? Or the pea of spinsterhood and the ring? I mean, when I bake bread I stir everything up very well. Baking and shit! Also, I don't like sticks in my bread.

I feel obligated to point out that at some point there was also a saintly symbol stirred into the mix, which was supposed to indicate that the winner of that slice would go on to religious life. That particular symbol has apparently been rejected in the modern version of the tradition. But the wife-beating stick? Nah, let's leave that in the fucking cake.

Secular Sunday - Om Nom Nom

Earlier this week an old chum of mine saw this:

You may be too distracted by the bold claim obscuring the rear window to notice that you can learn more about tasty, tasty pets at what I have found to be a surprisingly low-budget website.

To save you the trouble of downloading the file about preparing your pets for dinner, I have some excerpts:

Bonus surprised animal, clearly warranted.

There was some shit about Noah's ark and God telling bitches that we could eat any of the creatures because that's what he made them for. But then later he apparently changes his mind about the pigs... I don't know. Fickle, I guess.

I would like to note that the "PETS ARE DELICIOUS MEAT" campaign provides no recipes. Come on! Those recipes aren't on instagram! And some of you may be saying, "But, Jes! You're Swiss! And this truthful grace lady says your people have been om nom nomming cats and dogs for years!" Unfortunately, the Pikant Katzen recipe is not one that has been passed down in my family. If pets really are delicious meats, I would think this lady should have some meat pies and shit I could make. She does not, which is just rude. Rude, I say!

Also, I think this is the first time I've been told to eat pussy for Jesus.

Fun Fact Friday - Undying Thanks to Croatia

You may or may not know this, dear reader, but men in ties are handsome. Bow ties, long ties, twist ties... I just... sometimes I can't handle the handsomeness.

Fun fact: Neckties were first worn in Croatia, which is why they are called cravats.

Get it? Cool. That's really all of the fun fact info I have, but I wanted to say thank you to Croatia. For bringing me this:

Smile.

And this:

Snicker.

And this:

Smolder.

Related: Nothing soothes a woman's heart like Brian Williams in a purple tie.