News (later to be history)
If you live in South Africa you apparently need to worry about having a bunch of baboons move into your house while you aren’t home. The video below depicts the baboon invasion in full force while two guys who are speaking some sort of language (maybe English) get all tough with the monkeys (or whatever they are) and try to roust them.A few thoughts.
- In order to identify oneself as South African, you should have to say: DIPLOMATIC IMMMUNITYYYYY instead of hello. And hope Danny Glover doesn’t shoot you.
- I watched the Omen and the baboons in that movie were badass. These ones just eat cookies and get chased with a broom. I guess if nothing else it proves the two Invictus guys aren’t the anti-christ.
- I wish the Baboons had kicked the guys butts. But not in a weird “pull your arm off” way. I wish they would have just put on big boxing gloves and punched the two dudes and then maybe suplexed them a few times.
- If you live in a place where baboons getting into your house is a problem, would you ever go outside? What if they learn to get enough money to take the bus. Or they find shirts. You want them infiltrating your society? What is WRONG with you South Africa?
Anyway – house full of baboons. Just part of the splendor of a country that is only known for apartheid and putting aliens in slums. Get a PR firm, South Africa. Jesus.
The Best Basketball Team in History
Boston has gone though enough today. So to remind everyone about good things associated with the city, here is a picture of the ’86 Celtics, the best basketball team of all time and “Since You’re Gone” by The Cars, the best band from Boston ever. Sorry Aerosmith. I know that I will probably get in a lot of fights here on the Internet about what happened today, but that will come later. For now, let’s hope that the doctors in Boston (too bad St. Elsewhere isn’t real) can fix the people who didn’t do anything worse than go see a race and that they catch whoever did it. There’s probably a lot more to hope for, but for now I am sticking with that.
I always wanted him to like the movies I liked. Not because his opinion meant more than mine (even though it did), but because he seemed like he would be a cool guy to watch movies with. I didn’t like Siskel when I was a kid. Don’t know why.
I hope someone comes up with a conspiracy theory about movie theaters giving you cancer now. I want Gene Shalit to be a little worried.
March 13, 1781 – Uranus was discovered by William Herschel.
On this day in history in 1781, composer, astronomer, and general man-about-town William Herschel discovered the 7th planet in our solar system, Uranus. Now, we’re all adults here and far too mature to laugh over the word “Uranus,” right? Oh, no, wait. I mean the exact opposite of that.
Uranus.
*snickers*
So in honor of 6th grade humor everywhere, here are 13 things you didn’t know about Uranus (which isn’t surprising, really, since it’s pretty dark up there and you’d need special equipment to get a close look, amirite?)
- The interior of Uranus is mostly made of ice and rocks.
- Uranus has a blue-green color due to the presence of methane.
- With careful observation, Uranus is visible to the naked eye.
- Uranus has several small rings around it made up of dark particles and ranging in color from red to blue-grey.
- In 2006, a dark spot was observed on Uranus.
- Uranus is sideways, with a slight bulge in the center.
- If someone were to spend a year on Uranus, it would last 84 times longer than a year on Earth.
- Uranus is surrounded by numerous moons.
- It is very cold on Uranus, with temperatures as low as -371.2°F.
- Uranus is 14.5 times more massive than the Earth.
- French astronomer Pierre Lemonnier observed Uranus multiple times in the mid-18th century.
- Uranus is known as a gas giant.
- In 1986, Uranus was explored by NASA’s Voyager 2 interplanetary probe.
March 6, 1912: The first Oreo Cookie is sold.
On this day in history in 1912, the first Oreo cookie (then known as the Oreo Biscuit) was sold to S.C. Thuesen, a Hoboken grocer. In the 101 years since, Oreos have become one of the most popular cookies in the world with over half a trillion sold. Not that we’re here at Superficial Gallery to shill for Nabisco – Acadia has already made everyone think twice about eating Oreos, and I’m really more of a Peppermint Joe Joe’s gal myself. However, you can’t deny that the Oreo has become one iconic cookie. So in honor of more than a century of twisting and licking, here are 13 facts you didn’t know about the Oreo.
- The Oreo was launched as an imitator of the Hydrox cookie, which had been introduced in 1908. Hydrox were discontinued in 2003. Oreos remain the best selling cookie in the United States.
- Oreo C. Collins is a tuxedo cat who received a diploma from Jefferson High School Online in 2009 in a sting designed to bust online diploma mills.
- Oreos were originally available in vanilla and lemon-filled flavors, and were sold in bulk for 25 cents per pound.
- 20.5 million Oreo cookies are eaten in the U.S. each day.
- Wafer cookies are commonly “docked” or stamped with a pattern to ensure even texture. Cookie conspiracy theorists link the Oreo’s design to secret societies from the German military to Freemasons and the Knights Templar.
- Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th street in Chelsea is known as “Oreo Way” in honor of Nabisco’s one-time New York City factory at that location, which produced the first Oreo cookies.
- More than 500 billion Oreos have been sold since their 1912 introduction.
- To promote sales in the Asian market, 300 Chinese “brand ambassadors” were hired to hand out free cookies and spread the Oreo gospel on cookie-themed bicycles. The Oreo is now the best selling cookie in China.
- Besides the original vanilla cream filling, other filling flavors have included green tea, dulce de leche, blueberry ice cream, banana, creamsicle, rainbow sherbert, orange-mango, gingerbread, and coconut.
- Annual Oreo revenue topped $1 billion world-wide in 2007.
- William Turnier, unconfirmed designer of the Oreo cookie pattern, also contributed to the design of Nutter Butters, Ritz crackers, and Milk-Bones.
- Oreo is in the top 20 most popular names for cats. It is #90 for dogs.
- The lard in the original Oreo recipe was replaced with oil in the 1990′s. With pork fat no longer an ingredient, Oreos were certified kosher in 1998.
Oreos: Alarming in any decade.
I will use the flimsiest of excuses to post Melissa Rivers Pics.
You might have heard about all the trouble Joan Rivers got in this week when she made fat jokes about Adele and a Holocaust joke while talking about Heidi Klum. What did she say about Adele?
“What is her song, ‘Rolling in the Deep’? She should add, ‘Fried Chicken’.”
She also did the “arms way out to the sides and puffing her cheeks out” fat person mime. As for the Holocast, she said (about Klum):
“The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens.”
And everyone freaked out. I saw people going crazy cheering for some British guy who went on a rant about her and her plastic surgery. He sent out a big F*** YOU to the old lady for being so mean to Adele. How dare someone joke about her weight! And she got called out for the Holocaust joke by the Anti Defamation League. Her replies?
Regarding Adele:
“People got angry about me calling Adele fat, but she is chubby, come on it’s okay,” Rivers said. “The only book she reads cover to cover is the menu.”
And what did the proudly Jewish comedienne have to say about her German joke? On “Showbiz Tonight” she said:
“It’s a joke, No. 1,” she told host A.J. Hammer. “No. 2, it is about the Holocaust. This is the way I remind people about the Holocaust. I do it through humor…. Your generation doesn’t even know what I’m talking about…. Didn’t bother Heidi, doesn’t bother me.”
When she was asked about offering an apology, she asked back, “For what? Why don’t you worry about Mel Gibson? Why aren’t you worried about the anti-Semites out there, and not pick someone who doesn’t have a single living relative, hmm?”
Joan Rivers’ husband lost most of his family in the Concentration Camps. Who would Joan apologize to? Herself?
Honestly I don’t get what all the fuss is about in this case. Maybe I am missing something but out of all the terrible crap that we as a country were so offended by with the Oscars and their aftermath the one thing I thought was wrong was McFarlane pointing out rape scenes in the boobs song. But I am sure that there are some people that think that was fine but get all bent about something else. There is always going to be someone who is offended by whatever happens. And when you come right down to it, offending someone is not a crime. You might pay a social or economic penalty if you do it, but beyond that there is nothing anyone can do if you want to be mean. So if you want to minimize the impact, try to be funny. You will still make some people mad, but if you are funny enough some people will be extra happy so it might even out.
And finally, please appreciate the fact that Joan called Adele fat on David Letterman. David Letterman has spent the past year and a half making fun of Chris Christie for being fat. There was no outrage there. So I guess the whole thing where it is not the nature of the insult, but the target. Poor Adele will have to sit there among her Grammys and her Oscar and her millions of dollars and decide to not get a personal trainer because she is 24 and rich and if anyone calls her fat all of America and Britain freak out. That’s a good role model for young girls. I bet a 24 year old girl who works at Target and is the same size as Adele and is trying to figure out how to pay for a gym membership and make time to work out really feels better that Adele does nothing and gets defended by all of America and the UK if someone teases her. Don’t believe me? Here’s a quote from Adele herself:
“I’ve got enough money for a personal trainer or nutritionist [but] I’m not going to stop eating the food I like just because I can’t be bothered to exercise … My life is full of drama and I won’t have time to worry about something as petty as what I look like.”
So shut up America and the UK. Leave Joan Rivers alone. Adele is too busy being rich and famous to pry the burger out of her gob and do some exercise so she is not an inspiration to young women who want to get healthier. She is just rich and fat.
And if a Jew wants to make a Holocaust joke she can damn well make one.
Not that Joan gives a crap what any of us think. She really doesn’t. She is 79 and still pissing people off and being funny and works her (probably fake) butt off. And when faced with the standard “I’m sorry if anyone was offended by what I said” apology opportunity she passed. She knew she offended people and didn’t care. So if you don’t like her don’t watch her. That’s your right. But I don’t think she will lose any sleep.