US scientists make pigs with heart-healthy fats
From the article:
Regulators have been debating for years if milk or meat from cloned animals is safe to consume, and some industry experts wonder if consumers would embrace it.
My answers: yes, and yes.
And exactly what level of familiarity with pork does one need to have to be considered a pork industry expert?
This happened over the summer, but I was just remembering it today while walking back from Spot Coffee and thought I would share it with you all.
It was a bright Sunday, late-morning, and I was walking down the sidewalk towards my apartment with a cup of coffee from Spot (over on East Ave). As I get towards my cross-street, I see this chubby little blonde girl, I’d guess 11 years old, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. She walks up to the newspaper box and starts putting money in. As I start to pass her, she turns around and says “Can you help me?” She sounds really upset. She’s hitting the change return thing and taking back her quarter.
I figure she’s having problems getting the money into the thing and seems like a bit of an overreaction but whatever. I’m not very good with kids by the way. I say “sure”. She says “Someone’s chasing me.” Immediately my scepticism kicks in. It’s not unheard of for people to involve their kids in a scam. There’s one guy that my friends encountered more than once that would have his wife and kid with him and say their car broke down and they need gas money. But this girl did look really upset. She’s practically sobbing, short of breath and looks really scared. So I say “what do you mean someone’s chasing you?” and I make sure my voice sounds like I don’t quite believe her. Maybe if she was making it up she’d crack under the pressure!! Hey, I watch The Shield. I know how to get people to confess! (Although I’m more like Dutch than Vic Mackey. Nevermind if you don’t watch it.)
She says a man is chasing her. I ask where he is. She says she was walking across a parking lot and he started following her. (I make a mental note of how he’s now “following” her instead of “chasing” her.) I ask what he looks like. He’s wearing a red jacket. That’s all the detail she gave.
Then she says that she’s scared and I say “alright, don’t worry. He won’t hurt you if I’m standing here.” Then I ask her “why are you getting a newspaper?” She says her mom sent her to get a newspaper. I’m thinking if someone’s chasing me I’m not going to stop to get a newspaper and when I saw her walk up to the thing she didn’t seem in a hurry. But then again, kids sometimes worry about weird things and maybe she was afraid her mom would be mad if she didn’t return with a paper. Or maybe her mom really would be mad, maybe she has abusive parents.
So then she says “can you walk with me?” I said okay. She starts walking away without getting the newspaper. Hmm, why not get the newspaper if it’s so important. I figure she must live on this side street. We turn the corner (my building is on the corner) and she starts crossing the street. I’m looking down the street feeling way uncomfortable. This block seems a lot longer than it had in my memory. My brain is now filing this situation into the Not Good category. I’m a 30 year old guy starting to walk down a deserted street with a little girl that I just met on the corner. Anyone looking out their window would be dialing 911 right about now. On top of that, I was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and dark sunglasses. Didn’t think about that until later!
I realize she never said she lived on this street, I was just assuming. So I ask her “where’s your house?” She mentions some street I don’t know. I ask where that is and she motions across this empty lot that she’s walking towards and says you cut through there. I look and on the other side of the lot is some trees and brush and I don’t know what’s beyond that. I stop and say “whoa, I can’t walk that far with you. Do you want me to call the police?”
She immediately shakes her head and says “no! It’s okay”. She seems to be sobbing a little less now too. I say “are you sure?” I pull out my cell phone. She says she thinks she’ll be all right from here. I say I’ll watch from here and I watch her walk across the lot. When she gets to the other side she looks back at me then walks out of eyesight.
Now the curiosity was killing me. I’m pretty sure at this point she was feeding me some b.s. story. But what was the scam going to be? How was she or her family going to get money from me? Was she just trying to play on my sympathy and going to ask me for money at some point? Was there going to be some big guy on the other side of that lot demanding to know what I was doing with his daughter and threatening to call the cops if I didn’t give him some money? Maybe it wasn’t even that sophisticated and some dude was just going to beat the crap out of me and take my wallet once I was led into some secluded area. And of course there’s still the possibility that she was telling the truth, she certainly was a good actress if she was lying, and I was hoping I wouldn’t see something in the news the next day about a girl getting murdered. It was definitely suspicious how quickly she changed her tune when police were mentioned - but she’s a kid, maybe she was just nervous that cops meant she’d be in trouble for something. Maybe. But I don’t think so. I should have called the cops anyway. Either way, she’s a girl walking by herself when she said someone was following her, or she’s part of a scam. But I didn’t.
A month or two later, I saw her walking across that same lot but with some lady with dark hair. Maybe her mom? Maybe someone she was pulling a scam on? I don’t know but at least she’s not dead. If anyone encounters this girl giving a sob story to them, let me know because I’d really like to know what the deal is. I’m hoping some day she tries that on me again so I know for sure she’s a liar and I can tell her off! Vic Mackey style!
There’s this little pizza place at Park & Oxford called Piatza’s Pizza. It’s in the little shack that used to be Pizza Pizza. I’m no business-savvy Apprentice contestant, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to put your phone number somewhere on your website? Just a suggestion.
Anyway, I like their pizza. One night I stopped there for a couple of slices of pepperoni. They were out of slices of pepperoni because 4 big guys came in right before me and took them all. I could wait 10 minutes for a new pizza to be done or just take cheese so I grudgingly took the cheese.
Then a couple of weeks later, I was driving home and again decided I’d stop in for a couple of slices of pizza. This time they were out of slices altogether. They had just put a pizza in so I decided I wasn’t going to be denied this time. I waited 10 minutes for the slices to come out and bought two slices of pepperoni for $2 each.
I found out later that they have a special going on until end of March: get a large pizza for $5 plus toppings. Of course no one told me about that. If I was going to wait for a pizza, I might as well have gotten a large and had leftovers for only $2.50 more. But it wasn’t a big deal because two slices is all I wanted, and in fact was more than enough because they’re big slices.
Which brings me to the best part. Once again, a couple of weeks later, I decide to grab a slice of pizza on my way home. I wasn’t that hungry so I figure I’ll just get one slice, and that way I also won’t feel like I’m getting ripped off as much as if I paid almost as much as the price of a large. I figure they can’t screw me over with the slices again.
I walked in and didn’t see any slices on the counter. I’m thinking “no way”. But it turns out they just came out of the oven and the guy’s slicing up the pizza using this wire-thingie he puts over it to guide where he slices it. He put this HUMONGOUS pizza on the counter. It was sliced into 8 pieces. The other guy says something about how they’ve been waiting for months for that big-slice thing and it finally came in.
The slicer guy tries to get one of the slices into the box and it doesn’t fit. He tells the other guy that the pizza’s too damn big and the other guy rearranges it so it’s diagonal in the box and it still barely fits. I’m looking at this thing in shock. I’ve never seen a slice of pizza that big before. Of course the price is $3 instead of $2 now. All I wanted was a slice of pizza! That may by definition be a slice, but there has to be some point where you stop calling it a slice. Maybe when it’s bigger than your head.
I snapped a picture of it next to my size 11 shoe so you can see just how big it is.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! I’m not Catholic, or even Christian, and I don’t see why St. Patrick converting Ireland to Christianity is worth celebrating, but on the other hand I’m of Irish descent so that’s good enough for me!
Of course everyone claims to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. I have had people with a straight face tell me they’re 1/16th Irish. Uh… huh… Look, it’s America. Almost everyone has some Irish in their family tree. Can we just agree to that and not go around claiming you’re Irish because you heard once that your great-grandmother on your father’s side was Irish?
I commonly say I’m 3/4 Irish when asked, because 3 of my grandparents were of Irish descent. (The other is Italian.) But really I don’t know exactly what percentage of Irish blood I have because both sides of my family came to America a while back and there’s probably some other blood thrown in there somewhere.
My family has some old letters from the McMillens in Ireland to the first McMillen family to come over. I don’t know all the details, but Robert McMillen came over with his family, early 1800’s. His daughter Anne died on the trip over. They settled down just down the road from where my parents live and used to farm. Each first-born son has been named the same so my cousin’s son is Robert Albert McMillen VIII. I don’t know what the original Robert’s father’s name was. It could go back even further for all I know.
Whenever I tell people that, someone either asks why I’m not named Robert or says I must have an older brother Robert. So I’ll explain it more clearly. My grandfather’s oldest son is my uncle, not my father. Therefore my father isn’t Robert and I’m not Robert. Clear?
I don’t know much about my mother’s father’s family history (Malone) but I think she said they came over around the same time. All I know is there’s a ton of ‘em living in my hometown.
Anyway, I’ve bored you enough with that. The other St. Patrick’s Day thing I wanted to talk about was a follow-up to my post about Fox’s. I had their “New York New York” sandwich today and it was deee-licious. It’s hot corned beef & pastrami on rye with slaw & Russian dressing. Mmmm.
I may be a Harry Potter fan, but I do have a gripe that I’d like to share. Oh how quickly my grief turns to anger.
These are supposedly “children’s books”. I don’t know if J.K. Rowling herself classifies them as such, but at the least they could be considered multi-age-range books. There are parts that could be dropped right into an adult book (but not the kind of adult book advertised on State St.), especially as you get further into the series. As the characters get older, the issues that the books deal with get more complex and mature as well, which is pretty cool. But when it comes down to it, they’re children’s books and I accept that.
If that’s the case, why does Rowling insist on inserting words into each of the books that I’ve never heard before? I’m always consulting my dictionary and I feel stupid because I’m thinking “This is supposed to be a children’s book!” How dare she use words that I’ve never heard before! I tell myself that must be some of those words are common in Britain. Yeah, that’s it.
The first time I came across an unknown word in this last book, it occurred to me that it might make an interesting blog entry so I jotted down every word I had to look up for that book. I found three. I now present them to you. I know there will be some know-it-alls out there (some Hermiones.. sorry, couldn’t resist) who will undoubtedly think I’m an idiot for not knowing these words. But I’m going to be honest and post them anyway.
Follow the links for the definitions:
If you say you knew what cravat and satsuma meant, then fine but gormless?? Give me a break. There’s no way you knew what that meant.
I saw this sentence from chapter 3 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I thought “HA! Who’s the idiot now, Ms. Rowling?”:
The misty fug his breath had left on the window sparkled in the orange glare of the streetlamp outside…
FUG??! I believe the word you’re looking for is FOG! Moron!
Then feeling all proud of myself, I looked it up online and found this. Drat!! Even if it’s a typo, it still could fit. I have nothing to do now but hang my head in defeat.
I’ve totally gotten into this band. In short: they rock! I mean look at that album cover. Don’t you want to just buy it based on that? It’s currently only $10.98 on Amazon.com.
If you’re not convinced, check out two of their music videos.
They’re opening for some other band (The Sounds?) in Toronto, April 16th at the Opera House. Anyone from Rochester interested in a little road trip?
I was late to join the whole Harry Potter bandwagon. I didn’t start reading the series until November. Prior to that, I really had no interest in it. In October, there was an article in the Rochester Insider about Harry Potter fans and I didn’t even read it. I just thought “whatever”. But a few people have told me it’s good and my sister offered to let me borrow the books.
After I finished the first book, I thought it was kind of a cute story, but I didn’t see what the big deal was. But the second book got me hooked. I read through the rest of them (there’s been six so far), and also saw the first three movies on DVD and caught the 4th movie at the dollar theater before it managed to stop playing. (I liked the 2nd & 4th movies the best.)
Last Wednesday I was nearing the end of the 6th book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It got to be 1:30 AM and I still had a ways to go so I went to bed. It’s not unusual for me to stay up until 1 AM because I have a pretty flexible work schedule and I like to stay up late, so 1:30 wasn’t outrageous. But after lying there for about 15 minutes and not any closer to sleep, I said hell with it, I might as well go read some more until I’m tired. Well you can guess where that led to. I sat in my chair reading until 4 AM. (Any coworkers reading this: Don’t worry, I was fine at work the next day! In fact I got in earlier than normal. OK, maybe I was a little tired.)
I won’t reveal what happens at the end that book, but let’s just say there’s some not-so-happy stuff. Some of it I was expecting because back in my pre-fan days I had stumbled upon it online. But what I wasn’t expecting was the funk I felt in after I finished the book. Not because of anything sad that happened in the book, although that might have been part of it, but because there’s only one more book in the series! Then that’s it! And I have to wait for her to finish it.
I know it’s pathetic. You don’t need to tell me that. But I seriously had a couple times over the few days after I finished where I’d think I’m going to read some Harry Potter, then I’d look over at my chair and there wasn’t a Harry Potter book sitting next to it and I remembered that there was no more Harry Potter. And a sadness would creep over me. See unlike most fans who are accustomed to waiting for the next book to be released, I read through them all back-to-back so I’ve just become used to there being a Harry Potter book to read.
I tried to fill the void by searching online for any & every tidbit of info I could: FAQ’s, interviews with J.K. Rowling. I stopped at the fan fiction, though. I just couldn’t go that far.
It was on the third day that I started drinking. It was the only thing that would kill the pain. OK, I’m exaggerating now.
Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I won’t turn into that woman from Misery, although I do understand where she’s coming from now. I can still remember the opening line to that book: “Yern umber whunn fayunnn. These sounds, even in the haze.” Well, close enough. I just checked it and the full quote is:
umber whunnnn
yerrrnnn umber whunnnn
fayunnnn
These sounds: even in the haze.
Not bad considering I read it back in high school. But I digress. The point is, I won’t try to chop off Rowling’s foot with an axe in order to get her to write an eighth book. Or something.