And the base really stands tall. Bark up the volume.
-via Tastefully Offensive | Photo: Teckelwereld
John Farrier's Blog Posts
(Photo: Richard Heyes)
Don't throw away that squirrel head! You're not limited to just flank steak and thigh meat when you have a squirrel. You can also eat the brains. And if you don't know how, don't worry. Larry Woody of the Lebanon Democrat, a newspaper in Tennessee, can show you how. He writes:
When you dress your squirrel, simply skin the head and leave it attached to the body. When you cook the squirrel -- fired, or stewed in dumplings -- include the head.
Once it's cooked, use a knife handle to crack open the skull, like cracking a walnut, and scoop out the brains. Squirrels don't have a large brain -- I'd compare it to the average politician's -- but what little there is, is delicious.
If you've never tried squirrel brains, it's comparable to hog brains.
Yummy! I've never had squirrel brains, but I'd love to try them.
-via Dave Barry
Pictured above is a screenshot from a course syllabus produced by Dr. Spring-Serenity Duvall, a professor of media and gender studies at Salem College in North Carolina. During the Spring semster of 2014, she prohibited students from emailing her unless they were requesting an appointment to speak with her face-to-face.
Dr. Duvall is no Luddite. She's simply tired of students asking her questions that she already answered in class or in the syllabus, or addressing her in an overly familiar manner. She explains what she changed:
In a fit of self-preservation, I decided: no more. This is where I make my stand! In my senior-level gender and media course, I instituted a no-email policy and (here’s the hard part) stuck to it religiously. I explained to my students that there were a few very solid reasons for this policy:
1. They needed to read and know the syllabus and pay attention in class, rather than use email as a crutch to ask superficial questions. Taking these small yet seemingly impossible steps would make them more aware and engaged in the class.
2. Reading assignment instructions carefully and asking questions about the assignments in class or in office hours would force them to begin working on papers early, thus eliminating last-minute emails about instructions.
3. More of our conversations would take place in person – whether in my office or in class – rather than via email, thus allowing us to get to know each other better and fostering a more collegial atmosphere.
Did it work? Yes!
I am happy to report it was an unqualified success. It’s difficult to convey just how wonderful it was for students to stop by office hours more often, to ask questions about assignments in the class periods leading up to due dates, and to have students rise to the expectation that they know the syllabus. Their papers were better, they were more prepared for class time than I’ve ever experienced.
It is also difficult to tally the time I saved by not answering hundreds of brief, inconsequential emails throughout the semester. I can say that the difference in my inbox traffic was noticeable and welcome.
(Photo: eristerra)
In an interview, Dr. Duvall explains that, like many professors, she suffers from "syllabus creep." That's "where the syllabus just gets longer and longer and you try to account for everything." The longer a syllabus gets, the less likely a student is to read the whole thing.
And course syllabi are getting a lot longer. Slate's Rebecca Shuman offers an explanation of why syllabi are now often 20 or more pages long:
First, the helicopter generation—raised on both suffocating parental pressure and the teach-to-the-test mandates of No Child Left Behind—started coming to college. Everyone needed A’s, and everyone needed to know exactly what needed to be done to get one. When that wasn’t abundantly clear, that made schools vulnerable to lawsuits.
Second, syllabi went from print to online, thus freeing the entire professoriate to capitulate to the aforementioned demands for everything from grading rubrics to the day-by-day breakdown of late assignment policies, without worrying about sacrificing trees or intimidating the class with a first-day handout they could barely lift, much less peruse in a mere 75 minutes.
Third, the skyrocketing percentage of hired-gun adjuncts—as opposed to tenure-track faculty, who have both a modicum of security and a minuscule say in university governance—meant that a substantial number of instructors were taking on courses a matter of weeks (sometimes days) before they began. Thus, they relied heavily on extensive syllabi already in existence.
Here's an unexpected event! But I suppose that, in retrospect, it shouldn't be. These two black swans reach into the trough and drop food for their friends, the koi. They're all residents at the Swan Lake Resort in Kenting, Taiwan.
-via Lustik
(Fowl Language Comics/Brian Gordon)
While they were alive, I loved my rabbits dearly. But after they passed, I had a lot more money, more time, and less stress.
When you get a pet, you're not just getting an animal companion. You're also buying a set of vet bills.
Redditor UranusExplorer needed a book for his students. He ordered it through Amazon. Although Amazon gave an online notification showing that it was delivered, UranusExplorer had not received it. So he logged into Amazon's help chat.
The customer service representative who answered was none other than Thor, the Norse god of thunder and strength. This was fortuitous, for it turned out that UranusExplorer was his father, Odin. They conducted an in-character conversation about this failed delivery of the sacred book. You can read a larger version here.
-via Daily of the Day
(Photo: Miki J./National Geographic)
As I've mentioned before, last Sunday marked the two hundredth anniversary of the burning of Washington by British troops.
To mark the occasion, some Americans in Washington, D.C. conducted a 3.1-mile race on Sunday. Participants ran from the Congressional Cemetery in pursuit of a woman dressed as Dolley Madison bearing a copy of the Lansdowne portrait of George Washington. Historical reenactors dressed as as British soldiers waited with Mrs. Madison at the finish line.
It's like an inverted marathon.
-via Marilyn Terrell
This is Faa Mei, an elephant that lives at the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. When we last saw her, she was dozing as a human sang her a lullaby. Faa Mei got her energy back and bounded into play. Here she is with a long strip of cloth. She tosses it around with her trunk, playing with the sensations of movement and the texture of the fabric.
-via Twisted Sifter
Link from The Legend of Zelda
Kiba is not the typical stay-at-home dog. He's a therapy dog and a service dog to his human caregiver. But he's not all work. Kiba is also a geek with a passion for cosplay. His Facebook page is filled with pictures of him at cons. Some of the best show him alongside humans who are cosplaying the same character.
Desmond Miles from Assassin's Creed
Mario from Super Mario Bros.
Yoda from Star Wars
Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
-via Fashionably Geek
I mustache you a question: how did this happen? Well, redditor RyanHasWaffleNipples explains:
My buddy jokingly decided to get a henna tattoo of a mustache while at the beach. The foreign worker didn't understand what he was saying, so she asked him to write down what he wanted. This was the result.
The labelling is accurate.
-via Tastefully Offensive
At the request of Discovery Channel host Patrick Norton, the engineers at TechShop built the most American grill ever made. It's a trailer with a propane grill, a beer keg tap, and a stereo. On the table is a majestic image of George Washington astride a bald eagle, leading the way with a hot dog in his hand.
TechShop used a 3D printer to build a condiment station. There are four major condiments in hot dog preparation: mustard, ketchup, relish, and onions. So the designers selected the four Presidents on Mount Rushmore as the guardians of those condiments.
It's a beautiful piece of work. You can watch a video about its design and construction here (warning: auto-start).
-via 22 Words
(Photo: As Eaten on TV)
The Canadian hamburger chain Tim Hortons is breaking into the state fair food business with this outlandish dish: the Buffalo Crunch Doughnut. It's a series of interlocking doughnuts dipped in buffalo sauce, then sprinkled with tortilla chip crumbs. The hole the center serves as a bowl for more buffalo sauce, in which you can then dip more totilla chips. You can choose either the hot or the mild flavors, the latter of which includes ranch dressing.
(Ranch dressing on a doughnut? Yuck!)
Tim Hortons is currently selling this delight at the New York State Fair, which ends on September 1. It costs $2 and your soul.
If it is possible for there to be a "classic viral video," then one example is definitely SlackCircus's "What's Going on?" using scenes from the 80s cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. It is good. Nay, it is great. It was a gem of internet culture in 2005 and remains rather fresh even now. You can watch it below.
Embedded above is a live-action remake of that video by cosplayers at Anime Fest in Dallas. Trevor Lawrence and Thien Vuong led the effort, but they required the assistance of many elaborately-costumed attendees who kindly contributed.
-via Uproxx
Siblings in any home are like this. They should follow the rule that a lot of kids have: one child cuts the food in two and the other chooses which piece he wants.
Instead, they become locked in a fierce tug-of-war over possession of this dairy grail. My money is on the parrott for sheer aggressiveness.
(Image: Yerka Project)
On the Yerka bike, you'll never forget to take your bicycle lock with you because it will always ride along. It's built into the bike frame. The down tube splits in two and pivots away from the bike. The seatpost slides into holes drilled into the two pieces of the downtube, forming a lock around a solid object, such as a lamp post.
Juan José Monsalve, one of the designers, explains that the only way to steal the bike is to destroy the frame:
You can break a lock and leave the bike intact, with our system if you break the lock you are breaking the bike, making it useless to ride or steal afterwards.
A very determined thief might do so, but most criminals are more likely to abandon the effort.
-via Lawrence E. Forbes
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