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…
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She Can’t Forget You – or Anything Else How Jill Price conquered her memories of The Brady Bunch Christmas Special
At one time or another, most have us have forgotten where we left our car keys or paused in the middle of a sentence because we lost our train of thought. Call them lapses in memory or “senior moments.” But, wouldn’t it be nice if you could remember everything you wanted, going back your entire life? Well, for one California woman that capability is both a gift and a curse. Life on Automatic Rewind Jill Price can remember every detail of her life from the time that she was 14 years old to the present. Not just familiar memories but every minutia from the date, time and day of the…
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Customs, Laws and Faux Pas A short history of burps, sneezing, sex with porcupines
Have you ever wondered why when an infant burps after their morning bottle we all think it’s so cute? Yet, forty years later, the same guy belching after his eighteenth tallboy is absolutely disgusting? Why does a case of unbridled hiccups crack up everyone at the dinner table, but a well-placed air biscuit can clear the room? Like most other societies, American customs have resulted from generations of rules, laws, faux pas and in some cases, no reason at all. Many of our customs date far back before you were even a twinkle in your mother’s eye. These were times of unsophisticated knowledge and religious beliefs. Mores and values were…
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I Remember Hugh How African Pygmy Hedgehogs and FlexPetz changed my life
We lost Hugh today. Somehow, our pet cat managed to slither out of our second-story bathroom window and was run over by an 18-wheeler carrying a load of chickens headed for a KFC. Considering the amount of time he spent futilely chasing birds, it was a humiliating end to an otherwise, distinguished life. The only thing that could have been worse was if he had been flattened by a truckload of squirrels. Nevertheless, we’ll miss Hugh. But, it was his time to go. After all, he was 12-years-old and beginning to show early signs of dementia. From time to time, he’d confuse his water dish with his litter box, so…