“Where did I come from?” asked Shadrach as we pulled up to his football game at Fleigenbaum Field. Having never been married, I thought I’d be exempt from ever having to discuss the birds and the bees with a 6-year-old quarterback, so I never put much thought into what I’d say if asked. Looks like I was going to have to punt. “Well, Shadrach, each month, in one of your mommy’s two ovaries, a few immature eggs develop into follicles. The mature follicle releases an egg during ovulation, which turns into the corpus luteum. Progesterone prepares the endometrium in anticipation of the embryo. Then, your daddy’s sperm travels up the…
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Help on the Home Front On television, there’s always an easy, happy ending to alcoholism. Ah, if it were only that way in real life.
The scene opens with a small, emotional group of family and friends huddled around the struggling alcoholic about to perform an intervention – a showdown of sorts – aimed at helping the afflicted change their ways. After an hour, the tears flow, everyone hugs each other and the alcoholic makes a miraculous recovery. On television, there’s always an easy, happy ending. Ah, if it were only that way in real life. To the uninitiated, the portrait of the alcoholic or drug abuser (who, we’ll refer to as addicts) is evident: the scruffy, unemployed middle-age man sleeping under a bridge with his bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 in a brown paper…
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Speed Dating Cougars, MILFs and Chihuahuas Scoring the woman of your dreams from your Barcalounger and iPhone
Ten minutes after my divorce was final, I decided that I’d waited long enough to go looking for the woman of my dreams. Or, at least the next woman of my dreams. It was time for speed dating. I heard from my friends that dating in the 21st Century might be a tad different than I remember it. Guys don’t cruise the boulevard looking for chicks at the malt shop anymore and it’s not cool to leave large hickies on their necks. So, I decided to do some research before I got busy. The Internet has made dating infinitely easier than it used to be. Thanks to my Comcast account,…
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Watching Grandma Circle the Drain Alkaline hydrolysis: the latest way to get rid of a dead body
There’s only so many ways you can get rid of a dead body. Regardless of how it got that way – stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, run over by a truck, pummeled, poisoned, choked, tossed off a building or just withered from old age – its final demise has to be handled with care. Up until recently, you only had two choices. You could bury Grandma in a casket or cremate her. Both cost a lot of money and take weeks of planning. Or, if money’s tight, you could always drive into the middle of the desert in the dead of night, dig a hole by the glow of your car’s headlights…
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The Popsicle Story Eppsicles, fudgesicles and popsicles: the true story behind the frozen treats
As luck would have it, some of the best inventions that are part of our lives actually happened by accident. Who could possibly imagine going through a day without Kool-Aid, penicillin, microwave ovens, ice cream cones, Post it notes, potato chips, Super Glue, Slinkies or heaven forbid… no Popsicles? The Cold Start of a Legend The Popsicle was “invented” in 1905 by an industrious 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson during an unseasonably cold San Francisco evening. After accidentally leaving his fruit drink in a cup on the front porch overnight, he discovered that the juice had frozen around the wooden stir stick. The next morning, he pulled the frozen drink…
