Monday, January 31, 2022

Science serving humanity

Scientists collaborating at Tufts and Harvard have made an amazing medical advance. I quote: “On adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs, the researchers were able to trigger regrowth of a lost leg using a five-drug cocktail applied in a silicone wearable bioreactor dome that seals in the elixir over the stump for just 24 hours. That brief treatment sets in motion an 18-month period of regrowth that restores a functional leg.” Sure, it’s a limited study, and still in trial stages. But for those of us who enjoy frogs’ legs, this could be very big news indeed.

Monday, January 24, 2022

Spicy Stories

I rang the doorbell, didn’t I? Because he can. I never had five dollars before. I just wanted to tell you your sign fell down. You’re gonna hate Wednesdays. Got singles for a ten? Scream all you want, I’m keeping the umbrella. Paint my house. Go ahead, it’s your cow. Now we’re banned from Ikea. I don’t know, I never looked. Dang, my watch is an hour fast. You don’t come here just for the hunting, do you? Well, son, your mother is spoiled. Twenty dollars, same as in town. It’ll keep the sheet off your legs. I’m telling everybody!

Monday, January 17, 2022

Check the couch cushions

So I was reading about mammals – actually most everything you’ll ever read, from the New York Times to Great Expectations, is about mammals – but I mean I was reading about mammals as critters, when I came across this sentence: “This group of vertebrates ranges in size from tiny shrews or small bats weighing only a few grams to the largest known animals, the whales.” And I see where they’re going here, wonders of nature and all, but do they really have to specify that whales are the largest known animals? Are there possibly larger, unknown ones? Where are they hiding?

Monday, January 10, 2022

Lower your expectations... more.

So, I went to a wedding the weekend before last and one of the folks there tested positive so I hunkered down and then got a drive-through test and felt kinda crappy so I cancelled my dental appointment for this morning but then the test came back negative so I guess I just had some generalized crud and the dentist it turns out hadn’t filled my slot so I’m headed over there in a couple minutes which is why I don’t have time to write a rant, just this lame excuse. Maybe I should re-christen these the “100 word alibis.”

Monday, January 3, 2022

This will have to do

Wow. I almost forgot to write the first rant of this new year. I mean, usually I write one first thing but somehow I spaced out and it didn’t occur to me till moments ago that was in fact Monday and that it frickin’ behooved me like a goldurn banshee to get on the stick and get to rantin’. Let’s see. There’s nothing to report on the usually reliable Big Pencil front, so that’s out. It looks like I’ll have to fall back on how little I really have to rant about. It’s an inauspicious beginning to our 15th season.