Things everyone believes that aren't true.

Here are a few things we think people should know about common myths in child raising.
1. Don't swim for an hour after eating.
This one really irritates us. There is no valid reason to not swim after eating, Sure some blood goes to your stomach to aide digestion, but not enough to effect any other organs or muscle processes. We say feed the kid a large meal and shove em in the pool.
2. The 5 Second rule for food on the floor. Some bored scientists who had nothing better to do tested this hypothesis by dropping food on various surfaces and leaving it for up to one hour. They then tested to food for bacteria and contaminants. They found firstly that food that was on the floor for 5 seconds was just as likely to pick up contaminants as food that was on the floor for one hour. They also discovered that even though some contaminants were picked up in none of the cases were the foods dangerous to consume, which the scientists proved by consuming the food.
3. You will catch a cold if you don't wear a coat in cold weather. Studies on this one were done for years and until recently were inconclusive, sometimes colds were gotten sometimes not. But recent studies have suggested that having a cold sinus cavity allows more oxygen into the local blood vessels which can allow viruses or bacteria to more easily enter the bloodstream, but having a cold nose is unaffected by wearing a coat or hat so again a false statement.
4. Sitting too close to the tv will ruin your eyes. Not true at all, if this were the case millions of people who have spent hours a day in front of computer screens for years (yours truly for example.) would have major eye damage by now. There was some truth to this myth before 1968 when televisions emitted x-rays but their is no truth to it now.
5. Stranger Danger. This one really burns our brioche and is the most harmful of all the myths. Stranger danger. Parents all across the country, (and the world) have been filling their children full of fear that they will be abducted or raped or worse by every stranger they meet. In reality a child has a better chance of being hit by lightning or killed by a bee sting. Of the 73.7 Million children in America last year there were 115 Stranger abductions which means 1 in about 610,000. Your child getting killed in an airplane crash 1 in 310,000. Hit by lightening 1 in 240,000. Your child is twice as likely to get hit by lightening as being abducted by a stranger. So please, PLEASE do not fill your child with fear. A child needs to feel that the world is a safe place as they grow up. Their are all sorts of psychological problems that can result from spending their days worrying about every stranger. If you want to scare your child do it honestly, rent Ju-on. But cut the stranger danger crap.

And we think we have problems!

Here in the Good Old U.S. of A. we have some problems to be sure, most of them political in nature, the left and the right sputter nonsense at each other in ever louder and more vulgar tones. But the people of Australia have serious problems of their own. Camel problems, It seems roving gangs of wild camels are terrorizing towns in the outback. People are actually afraid to leave their homes for fear of being trampled or bitten, or possibly stepping in what must be innumerable piles of camel dung. So this morning when you leave your house stop and take a deep breath and enjoy your camel free environment, and take a moment to reflect on those poor Australian citizens living in fear of the dreaded dromedary, (if only they were allowed to own guns.)

Going first person here for a minute.

Ever had one of THOSE nights. I had a very busy day yesterday and were what some might call bone tired. So at 10:30 or so I decided bedtime was in order, sleep came easily but not so rest. 2:30 and the sandman sneezed, and I lay wide awake and wondering what the heck do we do now. A little milk, get online try to find something a little boring to put myself back into sleep state. And what do I come across but a news story from Pascagoula Mississippi. In 1942 Pascagoula had expanded to about 15,000 population due to manufacturing, specifically warships. In early June of that year a strange terror struck the town. They called him The Phantom Barber. He first struck at The Convent of Our Lady of Victories entering in the middle of the night and cutting the hair of Evelyn Marie Briggs and Edna Marie Hydel, this on a friday night. On the following monday he entered the home of Carol Peatie and cut what the papers called her blonde locks, the babysitter (who was watching the house while Carol's mother was in the hospital)was stirred by a noise and entered to find a just awakening Carol sitting in bed asking "Why, Why, Where's my hair?" The sitter found a mans bare footprint on the empty bed by the window. The Barber Struck a total of ten times, he would enter on a monday or friday night,
cutting a screen in almost all cases to gain entry. He would cut some hair and depart. One victim described waking to a faint feeling of something passing over her face and then waking up later violently ill. Police guessed chloroform. One attack that seemed unrelated was that of the Heidlebergs who were attacked in the night with what they believed was a solid iron bar. Mrs Heidlberg lost two teeth and Mister Heidleberg was knocked unconscious. Neither saw the attacker.
Two months later an arrest was made in the Heidlberg attack. William Dolan a 57 year old german chemist. He had a grudge against the Heidlbergs father who was a magistrate and had refused to lower the bail in a case against Dolan for tresspassing. The general agreement was that the Heidlberg attack was out of character for the Barber but the Police Chief was convinced he did it. As to motive, the chief believed it was to impair the morale of war workers. Other rumours of motive, He was using the hair to make bomb sites for the axis, or he was placing a Hex on someone. Personally I think Dolan was a victim of wartime hysteria, neighbors signed statments mentioning his german sympathies. He was sentenced to 10 years for the attack on the Heidlbergs, he went to prison denying his involvement,
and six years later was given a limited suspension by Mississippi Governor Fielding Wright who then had a lie detector test administered which he passed. Three years after that he was freed. The only description of the Barber was by young Mary Evelyn Briggs "He was sort of short, sort of fat, and wearing a white sweatshirt." So who was this crazed hair fetishist wandering the midnight streets of Pascagoula. We will never know. On another note, Pascagoula is also the town where in 1972 two fisherman Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claimed they were abducted by aliens who they described as having no legs or having their legs fused together, they floated above the ground, they had no eyes or mouth. Where their nose and ears would have been were "carrot-like" growths instead. The local Sheriff left the two men alone in a room recording them without their knowledge and they continued to speak to each other in frightened confusion. Which convinced him that they at least believed thier story. Some advice then, If you ever go the Pascagoula Mississippi, don't drink the water. I think I'm going to try to get some sleep now.

It's about to get more confusing.

If your mind was bending slightly yesterday when we discussed Schrodinger Wavefunction wrap your brain around this. It's called the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment.
The basic idea is you put a cat in a box with a randomly decaying material that may or may not decay and cause a poison to be released which would kill the cat. The experiment states that until you open the box to view the cat it is both Alive and Dead. We have a cat who we have named Bowser, he is hard to describe personality wise, he shows affection by grabbing on with his claws and biting your hand, he never draws blood (well almost never.). We feel that our cat Bowser would have another interpetation which we will call Bowser's Corollary of Schrodingers Cat thought experiment. In Bowser's Corollary the question would become will YOU survive opening the box to see if the cat is alive or dead.

If this is confusing, don't feel alone.

If you are about to read this blog entry, Beware!, we are about to discuss Physics, and it won't make much sense. The actual name of the theory we are going to discuss is 'QUANTUMN ENTANGLEMENT AND NONLOCALITY', which could mean anything and sounds a little dirty. The actual theory behind this has been proven scientifically by a number of men in white lab coats with pocket protectors and bald spot comb overs (the bald spot comb overs are a requirement when entering the field of physics.) The theory states, and we are quoting here "In quantum theory, certain physical systems can become "entangled," meaning that their states are directly related to the state of another object somewhere else. When one object is measured, and the Schroedinger wavefunction collapses into a single state, the other object collapses into its corresponding state ... no matter how far away the objects are (i.e. nonlocality)." Think intergalactic instantaneous phone calls, which could actually be a possible outcome of the use of this theory. But we think our old friend Einstein (see picture) said it better. He called it "Spooky action at a distance." and that's why we think he was a genius.

I am an admitted hamster lover.

We came across a news story in our bleary eyed coffee chugging attempt to wake up our brain this morning. It seems the madison avenue money machine has already decided what the "OMG I gotta get one of those!" toy is going to be this year. A little artificial hamster called a Zhu Zhu pet. The commercial for the Zhu Zhu pet is available at http://www.zhuzhupets.com/. The last line of the commercial jingle is "You will love your Zhu Zhu pets cause they're so real without the mess." You can buy one of 5 different artificial hamsters and sold seperatley (of course), nine different hamster habitats.
Do we have a problem with buying artificial hamsters for your child? Well... Yes.
The hamsters make pooping noises, but no poop, you don't have to feed them water them or clean their habitat. We were taught that having a pet is a reponsibility. It was a way for a parent to teach a child that caring for another creature required you to pay attention. Because if you didn't it would die. An important life lesson that is slowly being taken away from our children. By owning and then eventually losing a beloved pet, we learned a little bit about how fleeting and important life is. So if you are planning on buying a Zhu Zhu pet for your children, please also buy a goldfish. And on another note, Our cats are gonna love Zhu Zhu pets for christmas. (The preceding rant was payed for by The American Goldfish Board, and donations from readers like you.)

What is the opposite of writers block?

Back on September 21, 2009 Netflix awarded a 1Million dollar grand prize in a contest designed to improve the accuracy of predictions about how much someone is going to enjoy a movie based on their movie preferences. The prize went to an group of people who called themselves BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos. Yesterday while searching for an instantly streaming movie on Netflix we came across this little spontaneous laughter event. The movie title we were looking at was in documentaries, 'Mysteries of the Bible: Apocalypse'
and beneath it '3.9 Stars Our best guess for Kenton, Recommended based on your interest in 'Scooby Doo and the Goblin King'. Money well earned gentlemen.