Vikings

Vikings believed that a giant goat whose udders provide an endless supply of beer was waiting for them in Valhalla (Viking Heaven).

How to Stop Hiccups

Hiccups are caused by a spasm in the diaphragm. The diaphragm is the muscle that separates your thorax (including your lungs and heart) from your abdomen (including your stomach and intestines). When you breathe in, your diaphragm contracts and pulls down and becomes flat in order to make room for more air in the lungs. When you breathe out, your diaphragm expands and forces air out of your lungs.

During a hiccup, your diaphragm spasms causing you to take a quick breath in. This breath in is then interrupted by the epiglottis closing and causing a “hic” sound. (FYI, the epiglottis is a flap that covers the space between the vocal cords).

It is possible to stop them within 60 seconds or so by swallowing a teaspoon filled with dry sugar. Specialists believe the abrupt sweetness on the tongue overloads the nerve endings in the mouth and blocks the hiccup spasm.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and also found on Medicine.net showed when a spoonful of granulated sugar is eaten, it was found to be effective in 19 out of 20 patients.

Fur and Hair

There is no difference between fur and hair; it is all just hair. Most refer to animal hair as fur, while referring to our own hair as just hair.  However, hair and fur are chemically indistinguishable, both made up of keratin.

Human hair does not grow forever nor does animal hair/fur, although the length of the growing cycle can be longer or shorter for both. Various mammals have different growth cycles for their hair than humans do. Cat hair seems to stop growing at a relatively short length, similar to the growth rate and length of the hair on a human’s arms and legs.

The maximum length of hair on various parts of a body is entirely determined by genetics and varies widely from person to person and animal to animal.

A cat’s whiskers are just hair, though these hairs are attached to special nervous system connections allowing them to work as sensory receptors.

A Porcupine's quills are extremely enlarged hairs.

Incidentally, shaving does not make your hair grow back thicker, stronger, or faster. It has been proven by numerous studies that shaving has absolutely no effect on hair growth rate or shape

Google Translate

I recently received an email in French and needed to translate it. Went to Google, and typed in the word translate. The first result showed two boxes next to each other. The first box had a caption 'enter text' the second was 'English'. I pasted the text into the first box and it detected French and populated the second box with the English equivalent. The second also had a microphone icon. When I pressed it, a female voice correctly read aloud the English text. The amazing thing to me was that the translated text was so accurate. Not something we use everyday, but nice to know it is available when we need it.

Free Friday Smile

Happy Friday

"Without love, intelligence is dangerous; without intelligence, love is not enough." ~Ashley Montagu

I have the intelligence to always love a Happy Friday!

National Rum Day

We celebrate National Rum Day on August 16 in the US. The origin of the word rum is unclear. The name may have derived from rumbullion meaning "a great tumult or uproar". Some claim that the name is from the large drinking glasses used by Dutch seamen known as rum rummers. Other options include contractions of the words saccharum, latin for sugar, or arôme, French for aroma.

In current usage, the name used for rum is often based on the rum's place of origin. For rums from Spanish-speaking locales the word ron is used. A ron añejo indicates a rum that has been aged and is often used for premium products. Rhum is the term used for rums from French-speaking locales, while rhum vieux is an aged French rum.

Go ahead and sip a bit of rum all day long. Or start today and make your own spiced rum.

    1 (750-mL) bottle light Rum
    1 Vanilla bean
    3-inch slice Orange peel, white pith removed
    1 Cinnamon stick
    2 Allspice berries
    4 Cloves
    6 Black peppercorns
    pinch ground nutmeg
    1 slice fresh ginger, about the size of a quarter

Add all the ingredients to a wide-mouthed, airtight container and seal. Let stand for about two days and taste. Strain the spices out and re-bottle the liquid.
Note - some lower-quality commercial products tend to overplay the vanilla—cut back on that and the other flavors emerge nicely.

Four Rum Myths Dispelled

Rum is not always sweet, all rum is made from sugar. No, that does not mean it is sweet. Yeast converts sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide before it goes into the still. A white rum can be as dry as any liquor. And aging in oak adds tannins and other wood flavorings that can produce dark rum as flavorful as Scotch.

Rum is not only best mixed with fruit juices. Rum has traditionally been a cheap spirit, and so was often mixed with cheap juices for frat parties. A good rum holds its own in classic cocktails like a rum Manhattan or a rum Old Fashioned. The finest aged rums are best appreciated neat.

Rum is not just a Caribbean/West Indian spirit. Rum’s commercial birthplace may have been the sugar cane fields of the islands and the tropics, but prior to the American Revolution, dozens of rum distilleries existed in New England. Today, rum is a North American product, with craft distillers making distinctive rums from Boston to Hawaii.

Pirates did not always drink rum. Pirates drank whatever they could plunder, and in the early days, that was chiefly Spanish wine. Contemporary accounts of the dreaded Captain Morgan do not even mention rum. It was not until the late 17th and early 18th centuries that pirates started to drink rum, concurrent with the rise of the West Indian rum trade.

Buccaneers

An offshoot of the name, ‘buccaneers’ of the Caribbean derived their name from the Arawak Indian word buccan, referring to a wooden frame used for smoking meats. The French changed this to boucan and called the French hunters who used these frames to cook and preserve feral cattle and the offspring of Columbus' pigs on the island of Hispaniola boucaniers. English colonists anglicized the word to buccaneers. This was taken from my soon-to-be-released Bacon Orgazmia book.

Airline Lingo

A nonstop flight takes off from one runway and does not land until it reaches its final destination. A direct flight refers to a flight that does not require a plane change, but does stop along the way to its destination, sometimes more than once.

Reservation systems use a hierarchy. Nonstop flights get top priority, followed by direct flights, followed by “through” flights (which use one flight number, but involve a change of planes), followed by connecting flights.

Cheese Posties

This is the name for a subscription service that delivers grilled cheese sandwiches to your door. The company was started by
Dave Rotheroe of London, UK who has a background in IT project management. It will begin shipping at the beginning of September.

Subscribers will be presented with a series of questions including ‘Sweet or savory?’ and ‘Are you vegetarian or gluten free?’ Cheese Posties will then determine which gourmet grilled sandwich to ship to them that week.

The actual sandwich will be delivered in a box, inside a vacuum-sealed pack with two slices of bread, cheese and, the condiments required to put together that particular creation. The package will also include a Teflon toaster bag. Prices were not listed. Sandwiches can be shipped to the US, UK, and Europe. Sounds like a fun idea and a great way send a unique gift to friends. Hey Dave, why not offer to substitute bacon weaves instead of bread.

Chinese Currency

With the recent devaluation of China's currency, many articles have been written about the Renimbi and the Yuan. Renminbi is the official name for the currency, and Yuan is the main unit of currency. This is akin to the British currency being pound sterling and the units are pounds.