Apathy: A Very Short One Act

[A man walks up to a house and pushes the doorbell. He's familiar with this area -- he's lived there for nearly a year, but still doesn't know many of the neighbors. He waits, impatiently looking at his watch as he notices he'll be slightly late for a dentist appointment. A small Jack Russell Terrier rushes to the glass storm door, followed by a partially dressed 3 year old girl. Moments later, a tall woman in a pink robe and not much else appears.]

Man: "Hi, I think we found your golden retriever this morning. I called the vet on her tag, she told us it belonged to this address."
Woman: "Yeah?"
Man: "I stuck her in my fenced-in backyard just down the road on ---- Drive."
Woman: "Okay."
Man: "My wife is still there so you can go pick her up whenever if you'd like."
Woman: "Oh, no. You can just let her out. She roams the neighborhood."
Man: "Oh. Alright."

[Man walks back to his car, shakes his head confusedly, and drives away.]

Questions From My Wife IV: Quickies

A bunch of quick hits:

1) Why does it make you sleepy to be warm?

This basically has to do with the human body's response to overexertion. Increased body temperatures have a tendency to "cook" tissues, so the autonomic nervous system activates a fatigue or tired response. This makes you slow down to hopefully decrease your body temperature to normal levels.

2) When did Sesame Street establish that Snuffleupagus was real and not a figment of Big Bird's imagination?

Aloysius Snuffleupagus was finally revealed to the adults on November 18, 1985. Apparently, according to Wikipedia, "Snuffy's performer, Martin P. Robinson, revealed that Snuffy was finally introduced to the main human cast mainly due to a string of high profile and sometimes graphic stories of pedophila and sexual abuse of children on shows such as 60 Minutes and 20/20. The writers felt that by having the adults refuse to believe Big Bird despite the fact that he was telling the truth, they were scaring children into thinking that their parents would not believe them if they had been sexually abused and that they'd just be better off remaining silent."

3) Why do I get a sinus headache when it's rainy/muggy out?

Apparently if you don't have a sinus infection, you can't really have a sinus headache. What you're experiencing is probably a migraine. Very little is known about this condition (sorry) but sufferers are often hypersensitive to a variety of internal and extrenal stimuli (certain foods, hormonal conditions, stress, and even weather conditions). High humidity and low barometric pressure have been shown to induce the headaches in a large number of migraine sufferers.

Until next time, sports fans.

Freedom Isn't Free

This is ridiculous.

Basically, during the 7th inning stretch of all Yankees games, the ushers run chains down all the aisles to prevent people from getting up while they play "God Bless America." I understand that as a privately-held company, the Yankees are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want in their stadium. But when people demand forced patriotism, I believe that's taking it one step too far.

The article mentions that the Red Sox and other teams encourage ushers to do similar things, but I don't recall anything like this at Fenway Park the last few times I've been. Besides, I would guess a few hundred people had standing-room-only tickets, so we had no choice but to wander about.

Just another reason to hate the Yanks.