- My last name is Latin, not Italian. The Italian equivalent would be De Benedetto, which is in fact a common name. Also, the "-is" ending on my name is plural, whereas an "-us" ending would be singular, so DeBenedictis means "of the blessings" rather than "of the blessing".
I feel so ecclesiastical.
- According to StatCounter, someone arrived at my blog after Googling the phrase "i want to stalk and kill someone".
Well. I hope they got side-tracked completely and are now pursuing their vengeance via a writing career. Brrr...
- On average, women taste bitter things more sensitively than men do. This possibly came from being the "gatherer" half of the hunter/gatherer equation; we were the ones tasting the mushrooms to judge their toxicity.
Thus, this might explain why women go mad for chocolate and men don't. To women, chocolate is an amazing amalgum of bitter and sweet, but to men, it's just another sugary treat.
It also might explain why men go mad for bitter ales and women choke on them.
- There are 12 tests you (or your body, rather) have to flunk before the doctors consider you brain dead and start harvesting your organs.
- Ooh! Ooh! Did I ever tell you about the time, at a party, when I met someone who worked for the eye bank and who went around, sometimes in the middle of the night, harvesting eyeballs from corpses?
Yeah. I was utterly fascinated. But other people at the party eventually told me to stop asking questions.
(Hey, guess what! Apparently the white part of your eyes, the sclera, feels like really soft, supple leather once it's cut free.)
- The term "snake oil"--referring to a scam cure--comes from a supposed cure for gallstones. The patient was asked to drink a combination of oil and acid (lemon juice and olive oil would work), and this supposedly caused them to excrete their gallstones.
In fact, they were excreting teeny bubbles of soap that formed in their stomachs. For the record, nothing you eat or drink gets into your gallbladder unless it's by way of your bloodstream. That little duct is a one-way street.
Wow, this post turned all biological on me.
