I was going to encourage you to read this post by Flea that says nice things about my superpowers (it’s a vanity thing, you know), but then I saw something there that sent chills down my spine: Jimmy Dean’s Pancakes and Sausage on a stick. With chocolate chips.
Excuse me while I run for the bathroom.
I have to draw the line somewhere.
The dish in front of me is grey and shiny.
“Russian dog,” says my waitress Nancy.
“Big dog,” I reply.
“Yes,” she says. “Big dog’s penis…”
We are in a cosy restaurant in a dark street in Beijing but my appetite seems to have gone for a stroll outside.
Nancy has brought out a whole selection of delicacies.
They are draped awkwardly across a huge platter, with a crocodile carved out of a carrot as the centrepiece.
Nestling beside the dog’s penis are its clammy testicles, and beside that a giant salami-shaped object.
“Donkey,” says Nancy. “Good for the skin…”
I’m sorry, but butchering random animals, sometimes endangered animals, for the purpose of consuming arbitrary small bits of their anatomy because of a perceived magical benefit…no, thanks. Besides, if driving a big car is a sign of a tiny penis, I suspect anyone caught needing to consume a tiger’s erectile organ is deeply inadequate, not just in the crotch, but the brain as well.
Oh, boy…Boingboing mentions something squid-related and everyone sends me email. Should I mention that I brought up Squid Soap back in August? (Hah! That Doctorow fellow thinks he’s so cutting edge. Poseur.) However, Craig Clarke just sent me some information on a holy cruciform-shaped scrub brush, and it seems to me that we have to get these two products together.
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If you’re going to wash away the sins of the world, you ought to do it with squid soap, I think.
It’s time for another edition of that popular game where I browse through the mailbag and see what peculiar images people have sent to me, prompted by my peculiar reputation. It’s not all flabby, slimy squid this week!
Now we’ve got unconfirmed rumors that Steve Irwin was born again shortly before he died. You may recall that Charles Darwin was also tarred with claims of a deathbed conversion, too.
The message is clear. Don’t convert, or you’ll die.
The only question is whether it’s Jesus that does the execution, or whether wandering evangelicals are actually serial killers. And since I don’t believe in Jesus…
We just had one of these!
Well, just to flesh it out a little more with some random links, here are some photos. I was told the second one made someone think of me (warning: body modification!). And, jebus help me, for some reason I thought this photo was very sexy. Or appetizing. I don’t know, something in the midbrain flickered.
Oh, and several of us sciencebloggers were interviewed for an article by Eva Amsen on “Who benefits from science blogging?” It doesn’t mention the benefit of people sending you pictures that tickle the cingulate.
This has been a bountiful week at Chez Pharyngula, and I have received generous gifts from several readers. A full accounting lies below the fold.
More information is always good, so I have to endorse this brand new initiative from our government.
It doesn’t go quite far enough, though. Evolution has screwed mankind over by making women’s fertility cryptic—many primates express overt signals as they become receptive, such as swelling and reddening of the vulva, and we don’t get any visible signs at all. Let’s use technology to return to those halcyon days, and imbed women with LH monitors that change color: from gray on infertile days, to pink as hormone levels rise, to flashing red to announce, “She’s ovulating, boys!” I wouldn’t suggest anything as crude as mounting the device on her vulva, though: on the forehead would be fine.
The device should also have some ports to enable coupling it to fashion accessories. Wouldn’t a police siren hat plugged into the fertility monitor be attractive?
I better patent this idea, quick.
