That we hate parasites but love pregnancy?

Undeniably.

I recently viewed a show called Monster Inside Me. The show, documenting the journey and existence of parasites within the human body. Now let me tell you, I’ve seen some gross and disturbing things in my life. But I can tell you that Monsters Inside Me would rank very, very highly on this list.

“Mike Hale of The New York Times said that ‘there’s science amid the frightening stories and said that the series really grossed him out.’ Anne Louise Bannon of Common Sense Media said that ‘parents need to know that there is a lot of gross stuff in the series and the show has good educational content except for the tips on how to protect yourself from parasites because the information is vague.’” *

So I’m not alone in this. Most of us aren’t extraordinarily comfortable knowing that at the drop of a hat, our body may be taken prisoner by some sort of hungry parasite.

On a seemingly unrelated note, America loves pregnancy. A lot. Maybe as much as baseball. Or bald eagles.

But really, what is pregnancy? Would I be lying if I were to define pregnancy as, “[when] an organism that lives on or in an organism…known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment.” **

Hmm. Also the definition of parasite.

If someone were to develop a tumor that continually grew in size for 9 months, a tumor that fed off of what you ate, people would probably be slightly concerned, to say the least. But strangely enough, once that tumor is alive (and a fetus), we LOVE it.

While I’m on the subject, can I address the fact that sonogram pictures of fetus’ are about one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen? A four-fingered see-through half-man half-alien doesn’t exactly induce feelings of irrepressible adoration for me. And yet. Some people look at sonogram pictures as if they just saw the Mona Lisa.

Just some food for thought. Next time you see an abnormally large-stomached woman, a pregnant woman, your intuition may tell you say “awww” and touch her. But just remember, a tiny person is floating around in there, sucking all of the nutrients from its host.

You wouldn’t say “awww” if you saw a tick would you?

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_Inside_Me

** http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/parasite

Weird Picture Wednesday!!!

Strange Video Sunday!!!

That the only animal we choose to commemorate with a national holiday is the highly insignificant groundhog?

Without a doubt!

Every February, millions of Americans impatiently anticipate the emergence of Punxsutawney Phil from his temporary Pennsylvania home, Gobbler's Knob. Phil then has an important decision to make. If Phil sees his shadow, he returns to his hole, and we’re faced with six more months of winter. If not, spring will arrive early!

There’s definitely something creepily weird about this. Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog, mind you, is actually a census-authenticated resident of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.* During the year, Phil lives with his groundhog wife, Phyllis, in the town library. What’s more is that there’s actually a group of caretakers, known as the Inner Circle, who cater to Phil and Phyllis’ every need during the year. These men don top hats and tuxedos (out of respect for Phil, perhaps?)

Again, I can’t reiterate enough to you, that Phil and Phyllis are groundhogs. Not people, not even awesomely BA fighting puppies, but groundhogs.

The weirdness doesn’t stop there. America’s obsession with Groundhog Day has pervaded many aspects of popular American culture, most infamously with 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. As far as comedy films go, Groundhog Day is highly acclaimed, garnering numerous accolades, including it being named the 34th funniest film ever produced.

Another weird aspect of this holiday is the fact the fact the groundhog is the animal we choose to commemorate. This is America! Why not the eagle? Or golden retriever puppy? Or even Bambi or something like that. The groundhog seems like an extraordinarily random animal to commemorate.

Or not?

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punxsutawney_Phil

That dolphins sleep with one eye open?

Mos def!

When we think of those who sleep with one eye open, a couple of characteristics come to mind:
• Suspicious
• Insane
• Panicked
• Sleep-deprived
• Medically sick – “This symptom [eye-open sleeping]…should prompt a search for an underlying neurological problem, namely bilateral facial weakness. One of the more common causes of such a problem, particularly if it has gone unnoticed by the individual, is a form of muscular dystrophy called facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.”*

Well, to my knowledge, dolphins don’t generally posses any of the preceding characters. In fact, if I were to characterize dolphins, I might call them:
• Cute
• Nice
• Adorable
• Friendly
• Nice
• Cute
• Uber Friendly
• Super Adorable

I would never even consider characterizing them in any similarly to the open-eye sleepers (aside from being suspiciously awesome, insanely legit, or sick how cool and nice dolphins are).

So when considering the gaping disparity between open eye sleepers and dolphin cuteness, we are presented with a weird divergence. Dolphin’s are crazy delightful while in their waking hours, and oddly neurotic during their sleeping hours.

Edgar Allen Poe had some thoughts about open eye sleepers, most famously occurring in his short story, The Tell Tale Heart. In this story, the narrator finds his roommate sleeping with one eye open. Check it out:

“I moved it slowly, very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this? And then when my head was well in the room I undid the lantern cautiously -- oh, so cautiously -- cautiously (for the hinges creaked), I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.”

After doing this for seven nights, the narrator decides that such open eye sleeping is such a problem so as to merit a murder.

Does this mean, then, that if such a narrator were to see a dolphin sleeping with one eye open, and his lantern were to shed light in the dolphin in just the wrong way, would he murder this dolphin? We'll never know I suppose.

* http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Neurology/Sleeping-with-Eyes-Open/show/897018?forums=forums

Weird Picture Wednesday!!!

That we love iambic pentameter?

It is, in fact, so weird that this is true!

For those of you whom have no idea what iambic pentameter is, I will explain it, but for those whom do, you can skip head a bit.

Iambic pentameter is a style in which to write poetry. It was very popular with Shakespeare, who wrote most nearly all of his sonnets in this style. In this style each line of poetry has ten syllables, with five stresses that occur on every other syllable, starting with the second. For example:

These words are an example of the thing!

(da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM)

Or, in more literary sense:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
(Shakespeare’s 18th Sonnet).

Because the pattern specifically follows the pattern of “da DUM” is said to be iambic. Because there are five “DUMs” total the line is written in pentameter.

So, now you know what iambic pentameter is. What you may not know is that we as people LOVE it! An insane amount of work published today is written in Iambic Pentameter. In fact there are entire poetic forms that demand iambic pentameter in their execution (the sonnet and blank verse, to name two). Furthermore, some linguists have contended that iambic pentameter is the most pleasing metrical pattern possible.

Well, this is weird. Poetry is supposed to sound like/emulate/reflect music, and the “iambic” aspect of this metrical pattern does this. What doesn’t do this, is the “pentameter” part. As stated earlier, pentameter means that there are five stresses per line. Musically, we could say that there are five “beats” per line.

Closing a thought with five beats is severely contradictory to almost all Western music. Most Western music contains four beats per “thought” creating a seamless and free flowing rhythm without interruption. In fact this system is known as “common time” because it occurs so frequently.

For any music buffs out there, you probably recognize this as 4/4 time, because there are four quarter notes per measure.

If this idea were translated into poetry, it would be written in iambic tetrameter (as opposed to pentameter) and would read something like this:

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
(To Helen – Edgar Allen Poe)

Read that out loud a couple times. Seamless, right? No breaks, no pauses, just a perfectly flowing combination of words and rhythm.

This is because tetrameter mirrors most general conventions of musical phrasing and pauses.

On the other hand, pentameter would translate musically as something written in 5/4 time, meaning that there are five beats per measure. Such a time signature is known in music theory as a “complex time signature” and is sometimes even refereed to as an “unusual time signature.”

But while unusual in music, five “beats” per idea is far from unusual in poetry, as emphasized so adamantly before.

And that’s what’s weird. For being so wildly popular and “pleasing” iambic pentameter forces the speaker of the poem (when read out loud) to take awkward pauses between lines. Unlike tetrameter, which may be read without pause or cease, iambic pentameter demands breaks in speech to sound cohesive. In fact, I would challenge anyone to read a Shakespearean sonnet completely fluidly (without pauses, that is) and see how pleasing it really sounds.

Perhaps we, as aesthetic judges, should seriously consider how “pleasing” iambic pentameter really is, or in the least, analyze how closely music and poetry actually relate. Because as of now, there is certainly a weird discrepancy between our musical tastes of rhythm and our poetic tastes of rhythm.

And that concludes my blog post for today!

(Or in a more pleasing conclusion:

And that concludes my blog post now.)

That evolution hasn’t ousted the appendix?

You’re tellin’ me!

According to WebMD, “The appendix sits at the junction of the small intestine and large intestine. It’s a thin tube about four inches long. Normally, the appendix sits in the lower right abdomen. The function of the appendix is unknown.”* Essentially, the appendix serves no clear purpose, and is about as useful as the cartilage on your ear.

Recently, though, some experts at Duke released some interesting information about the functionality of the appendix. “According to the researchers, the appendix's job is to "reboot" the digestive system.”^ Your guess is as good as mine.

And, even despite this medical revelation, these scientists still admit, “The appendix is routinely removed without any notable ill effects or side effects and the scientists stress that even though the appendix seems to have a function, people should still have them removed…”^

So whether or not the appendix has any functionality whatsoever, having it removed has zero visible adverse effects on human health (begging me to ask question, what functionality could the appendix possibly have in the first place.)

Weirdly, having the appendix removed has no effect whatsoever on the stability of human health. But keeping your appendix, now that’s a different story.

In fact, the most common effect that the appendix has on human health is its ability to act as a killing machine. Every one in a while, this organ will decide its time to swell up like a balloon, explode, and threaten to murder the body in which it sits. In fact, if left untreated the mortality rate of appendicitis is abnormally high. This is certainly a weird fact.

1 in 15 people will fall victim to appendicitis in their lifetime. Appendicitis demands a relatively intense surgery that demands at least an overnight hospital, and painful recovery.

But appendicitis isn’t the only disease associated with this pesky organ. Cancer of the appendix accounts for 1 in 200 of all gastrointestinal tumors.

All of the above brings us to the ultimate weirdness: the fact that the appendix even still exists!

Picture this: you are an architect, and you decide to build a skyscraper. In a locked room, you put an enormous bomb that usually just dawdles aimlessly, but 6.6% of the time, threatens to detonate and collapse this skyscraper. Because the bomb is in a locked room, getting to it will demand some intense prodding, probably leaving some blemishes on the skyscraper’s exterior structure.

If you were a smart architect (a smartchitecht?), you would realize that locking up a pointlessly threatening bomb in your building was, in the least, inefficient. But if you were a somewhat stupid architect, you would continue constructing all of your buildings with a locked bomb inside, just waiting to explode.

Well, to me, this makes evolution is a somewhat stupid architect. Sure it’s done some great things, like let us walk solely on our legs, but still, I have to wonder what has possessed evolution to hold on to the appendix.

Oh well! For now, we can just wait patiently, I suppose.

*http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/picture-of-the-appendix
^http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/10/08/30907.aspx

That, for all intents and purposes, children’s show quality has declined significantly?

Totally!

When I think of the golden age of children’s television, three or four shows come to mind. One of them being Sesame Street. In this show, aesthetically appealing anthropomorphic animals teach children many important lessons. These include literary lessons (the alphabet), numerical lessons (numbers), and moral lessons (sharing/friendship). While this T.V. show owes a lot some very important predecessors (especially in the vain of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood), it spawned a great deal of productively educative followers like Barney, Reading Rainbow, and others.

Since then, the priorities of children’s shows have shifted greatly.

Case in point number one: encouraging sensible language development has pretty gone by the wayside. This can be seen even in just the names of recent children’s programming: Teletubbies, Boo-bah, and Yo Gabba Gabba. And the insane lack of English coherency doesn’t stop at the name. Rarely do these promote any form of modern English for more than 20% of the content. Apparently, nonsensical gibberish is now held on a higher educational pedestal than English. Weird.

Case in point number two: most children’s television has completely distanced itself from any form of reality. A prime example may be seen in the British T.V. show In The Night Garden. Essentially, the show chronicles a character named Igglepiggle as a he journeys to a secret garden. While there he meets many oddly shaped talking objects including Makka Pakka and Ninky Nonk. When I remember my favorite T.V. shows, I remember a human being guiding me through learning (potentially surrounded by other non-human characters), but still, being able to relate to another human helped attach me to at least some form of reality. Unfortunately, this mentality has disintegrated. Weird.

Case in point number three: children’s shows have become horribly inefficient. Aside from being dominated by gibberish, most children’s shows will completely replay certain clips multiple times. For example, in the ever-popular television show Teletubbies, the character’s stomachs display childhood interactions for about five minutes. Then the producers of the show replay the clip in its identical entirety. Does that seem like a slight waste of time? Probably.

Case in point number four: View the following:

Boo-Bah
Sean Kingston on Yo Gabba Gabba.
Party in my tummy?
WARNING: Terrifying

That smoking exists?

Hecks yes!

Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to roll some crops up in a piece of paper, light it on fire, put it in their mouth, suck on it, and fill their mouth up with the smoke? History generally credits the brilliant John Rolfe to popularize smoking, and people referred to tobacco as the “golden weed.” Since then, sucking on flaming paper has been an enormously popular recreational pursuit!

Many things can be smoked, including, but not limited to, marijuana, tobacco, and hookah. Smoking this range of natural plants will give the smoke a range of feelings, depending on the object. Seems weird that lighting a plant on fire and breathing it in could make you feel anything but wholly dismal.

But what’s even weirder: the fact that someone thought smoking wouldn’t affect his or her health in a negative manner. In fact, it wasn’t until the ‘60’s that the U.S. Government (the surgeon general specifically) released any documentation classifying smoking as a potentially health-destructive habit.

That’s pretty weird. Wholly avoiding any attempts to promote an agenda here, but did it really take until the 60’s for the Government to realize that sucking on flaming paper could have potentially detrimental health effects? We invented a cure for polio, but neglected to realize the dangers of turning our mouth into a fireplace? After-all, our ears don't double as chimneys!

Weird indeed.

That there’s always one dentist, out of five, who doesn’t support a certain type of oral hygiene product?

Indubitably!

You hear it everywhere. “Four out Five dentists recommend (insert dental product brand mane here).”

In fact, the chewing gum company Trident initiated a campaign in the mid-60’s that claimed this fact to be true of their sugarless chewing gum. Since then, a weirdly copious number of dental products have also attested to this fact, including Colgate, Crest, Listerine, and many others.

First of all, how is this possible? There are only so many dentists in the world. Scratch that. If 80% of Dentist’s agree to support a certain type of a certain product, how can they also agree to support a competing product within the same market? It seems weird that the entire demographic of dental hygienists could be so wishy-washy.

Yeah, that seems too weird. Perhaps I should give all of these companies a bit more credit.

Maybe each of them only surveyed five dentists! If this were the case, than all of them could possibly be telling the truth.

But if this were the case, it was also be absurdly weird that each multi-billion dollar corporation chose to resourcefully interview a grand total of five people. After all, any statistician knows that five is far below the appropriate sample size to yield statistically significant results.

And, what possesses either the 20% or the single dentist to consistently dissent? Is he/she that disagreeable? Does this dentist really take so much pride in his/her opinion so as to avoid submitting to any popular belief? Who knows! I mean really, if four of the five dentists agree that it’s a good product, then it must be pretty darn good. Perhaps this fifth dentist just isn’t quite as educated as the other four. Or maybe, even more terrifying, this dentist possesses a bank of secret knowledge that could change the face of oral hygiene for eternity, and isn’t sharing it.

Perhaps in the world of dental hygiene 100% doesn’t cover the entire dentist demographic. Perhaps 160% is needed to fully encompass the entire population of dentists. While a weird postulation, this could perhaps explain why 4 out of 5 dentists can both support Crest and Colgate, completely oppositional products.

This is all weird speculation to a weird fact, mind you, but it certainly is worth pondering. Until next time, rest in piece knowing that, whatever dental product you use, chances are, four out of five dentists agree with your decision!

That we celebrate the day of our birth?

Certainly!

Once upon a time you were born. You emerged from your mom, and transitioned from fetus to baby. Congrats!

You didn’t really do anything, besides wiggle on out, cry, and don an adorably cute hat. Aside from this fact, you choose to accept a shower of gifts annually on that very day you did.

Strangely society has established this perspective, creating a portmanteau and enormous fad based on the day you were born. It is known universally as, “The Birthday!”

The effects of birthday excitement have pervaded our environment left and right. For example, you will see the prominence of birthday culture in drug stores, particularly in the greeting card section. In fact, there is a whole area of cards labeled, “birthday.” That’s right, entire pages of cute messages congratulating you on being born that very day however many years before.

Other products encouraging birthday joy include: balloons, colored rolls of weird-textured paper, pastries, and whatever the birthday boy/girl desires.

But it doesn’t stop there. Birthday culture is very visible in American folk music, particularly with the song, “Happy Birthday.” This weird song involves repeating the phrase, “happy birthday to you,” addressing this “you” dearly and personally, and then concluding with a final “happy birthday to you.”

Another weird fact about birthdays is that they are completely generic. By that I mean that we, as thinking people, created a calendar and representation of days and years. This means we invented our “birthday”. Try to wrap your mind around that weird fact!

Another weird fact about the day you were born is that for it to be a success, it must be “good.” A good birthday includes, but is not limited too, many congratulations on being born (generally expressed in the colloquial phrase, “happy birthday”), being treated well by ALL, and possibly having a party thrown for you. Weirdly enough, the day on which we were born allows us an extraordinary sense of entitlement.

For example, a good deal of this post was inspired by one of my favorite comedians, and normally I wouldn’t feel worthy enough to post this. But it is after all, March 17th, the day of my birth! Readers - weirdly enough, I expect many comments congratulating me on being born this day 19 years ago.

That we sneeze?

Of Course!

You’re sitting at your desk quietly paying your mortgage, or possibly reading Cosmo Girl, when suddenly, for no wholly apparent reason, you can’t see straight. You seem to have lost control of your very essence, and your eyes begin to tear. And then it happens. You shriek; You slouch; Your eyes close; Air is expelled from your body at 100 miles per hour.

Such passion! Such intensity! And this all provoked by the infiltration of several dust particles into the nose.

What’s weirder: sometimes even just the noise and dramatic motion isn’t enough. Occasionally, any sneeze-victim will find their extremities coated in liquid! Weird.

After said screaming convulsion, any polite passer-by chooses to bless the person who has sneezed. Apparently, such an intense explosion of humanity warrants religious affirmation. Why the heck not?

Normally, if you were to pass someone on the street begin to thrust and shout, you would laugh, call 911, or tell your child not to stare in a hushed voice. Though when someone does the exact same thing in a sneezey context we ask a deity to bestow them with blessings.

Aside from sneeze reactions and initiations, many components of general sneeze culture are fascinatingly weird. For example as with many bodily functions, the sneeze has an onomatopoeia associated with it: the infamous, "a-choo." First of all, it isn't extraordinarily common to meet a sneezer who very accurately emblemizes the "a-choo" sound. Second of all, what is this "choo" that the sneeze addresses? Is sneezing a subconscious expression of "chewing?" Who knows?

So friends, sneeze on! But be sure never to discredit the oddness that is the sneeze. Bless you.

That almost half of all winter olympic sports are based on not moving?

Absolutely!

In fact, most are based on either standing, laying down, or sitting.

What do I mean? Let me elaborate.

Luge. Who would've ever thought that society's representation of the ultimate culmination of athletic ability would be lying down on a square piece of plastic? Remember when you where a little kid, and you used to tie your friends to a skateboard or wagon and send them down a hill to be funny/a jerk? You probably didn't realize that you were potentially preparing them for the pinnacle of snow sports showdowns!

What about Bobsledding? You sit in a hyper-futuristic looking mini-car (with rudders) and book down an icy pathway either alone or with some of your buddies. It sounds epic. But really, your sitting. Pardon my overt expression of opinion, but nearly every bobsled run looks the same! Some surprisingly unathletic-looking men in wetsuits jump into a bobsled and enjoy a thrilling speedride. Its the equivalent of a retired surfer reunion event at Cedar Point.

What about snowboarding? Standing on a plexiglass board. Skiing? Standing on two plexiglass boards.

Fortunately, curling is based on moving. Weirdly, this movement involves delicately pushing a rock and sweeping ice as if its an infected and fatal scab.

And of course, one mustn't forget skeleton.

Well, actually, its the same as luge, except on your stomach.

Fortunately, The Winter Olympics do redeem the possibly underrepresented spectrum of "athletic" sports with men's ice dancing.