Posts by Dr. Boli

UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA.

IN SHAMOKIN, PENNA., the sun rises in the west and sets in the east every third Tuesday in May.

Atlantic perch are born left-handed, but since they have no hands this anomaly escaped the attention of ichthyologists until recently.

A flurry of absolutely identical snowflakes fell over Bangor, Me., in February of 1877.

The LaFond twins, Napoleon and Louis Philippe, became famous in the 1930s for their ability to communicate telepathically, but only when a radio station nearby was transmitting programming from the NBC Blue Network.

Nostradamus predicted the career of Duke Ellington with otherwise perfect accuracy, but somehow failed to mention Barney Bigard.

A POPULAR NURSERY RHYME.

AS IT WAS first printed in Songs for Rotten Children, London, 1859.

Boucicault, Boucicault, where have you been?
I’ve been down to London to play for the queen.
Boucicault, Boucicault, what did you there?
I bored the poor woman out of her chair.

Advertisement.

WILDLIFE ENCOUNTER TOURS. Are you looking for adventure? Do you want an experience you’ll remember for the rest of your life? If you’re a wild animal and have reached the age of majority for your species, join us for a fascinating encounter with Homo sapiens in its native habitat. See their rows of identical nests in the suburbs, the busy hives in which they build their “cubicles” and labor incessantly, and their pathetic attempts to amuse themselves on Saturday nights. Transportation and accommodations included. Predators may be interested in our “Hunter’s Safari Special,” in which you may have the chance to bag some of the old and weak of the species. Wildlife Encounter Tours, Behind the Tall Reeds, Okavango Delta.

POLICE BLOTTER.

From a file woodcut.

BOZAR THE CLOWN has been arrested and charged with turning off televisions in public places. Police say that, in the course of a one-day crime spree, Bozar turned off more than a dozen television sets, including one in a dentist’s waiting room, one in a coffee shop on Brackenridge Avenue, one in the Carnegie Museum of Art, and one in the holding room at the District 12 police station. According to police, Bozar confessed that he did not like to watch television, which added several more charges to the list.

DID YOU KNOW…

…that Scots botanists worked for fifty-three years to breed a plaid thistle, only to have their work scuttled when they could not agree on which plaid to specify?

…that the judge at the first Westminster Kennel Club show narrowly avoided being crushed by the paw of a giant schnauzer?

…that there are now more fruit flies in undergraduate biology laboratories than there are in all the wholesale fruit warehouses in the world?

…that James Buchanan was actually a crude clockwork automaton operated by John C. Breckenridge?

…that Julius Caesar’s Gallic War was mostly ghostwritten for him by a professional agency in Ostia?

…that the last heir to the Kingdom of Hanover is a Welsh corgi named Pips, currently in the possession of Queen Elizabeth II?

…that no explorer has ever returned alive from Perth Amboy, New Jersey?

…that false assertions outnumber true ones on the Internet by nearly 138 to 1?

COOKING FOR ONE.

HERE WE ARE again with Herb’s Cooking for One, the show where we cook things guys like to eat. I’m Al, filling in for Herb, who’s starting to get some of his hair back, at least in spots, so things are really coming along there.

Today we’re going to make something a lot of guys like to have for lunch. It’s called peanut butter and jelly, and I’ll bet your mom used to make it for you. But some guys don’t live with their moms anymore, so I’m going to show you how you can make it for yourself. It gets a bit tricky in places, so pay attention. I don’t want any letters from personal-injury attorneys like I got when I showed you how to make chocolate milk, okay? So here we go.

Now, the first thing you need is some bread. Normal bread comes in slices like these right here, but if you’re not careful you can end up with bread where they’ve stuck all the slices together with glue or something, so it’s like just one big lump of bread. I was over at my fancy-pants sister’s house the other day, and she had bread like that, and she had to use a knife to get the slices apart. I said, Why don’t they just leave the slices apart in the first place, instead of sticking them together like that? She looked at me like I was crazy. Women, huh? They always make everything ten times more complicated than it has to be.

So we have our peanut butter over here, and our jelly over here, and there’s a reason for that, so pay attention. Now, you see how I’m putting these two slices of bread side by side like this? That’s cause the peanut butter goes on the right side, and the jelly goes on the left side. That’s what my mother taught me, and that’s what I believe. You don’t want to get your peanut butter on the left like some sort of commie pinko Islamofascist liberal atheist nazi Mormon. So you take your knife—I mean the dull kind you find in the silverware drawer, not the sharp kind, cause if your wife is like mine she won’t even tell you where the sharp ones are anymore—and you stick it in the jar and come out with some peanut butter. And then you sort of smear it all over the bread, like this. It’s sort of like laying bricks, except you don’t want to lay bricks with peanut butter, cause I can tell you from experience that doesn’t work.

Then we do the jelly. Some people say they can get the jelly out of the jar with a knife, too, but I never can. It always slides off. I mean, maybe if you’re a brain surgeon you can do that, but what I always do is turn the jar over above the bread and bang it like this until some comes out. I just keep banging it like this, and some more, and—well, there, that was most of the jar, but that’s all right cause I like jelly.

So now you’ve got your peanut butter on the right and your jelly on the left, and I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Which side does the mayonnaise go on?” Well, obviously it goes on the right. I mean, that’s way easier than trying to make it stick to a great big pile of jelly.

Well, that’s all we have time for right now, so you’re just going to have to figure out how to put the halves together yourselves. Keep those cards and letters coming for Herb, and I want you to know his nurse reads every single one of them, although she doesn’t understand them very well unless they’re in Ukrainian. Until next time, this is Al, saying what Herb always says, which is, “Remember, cooking is for guys, too.”

ANNOUNCEMENT.

THE DEPARTMENT OF Homeland Security reminds everyone to speak clearly and distinctly at home. Recently some of our surveillance experts have been complaining of mumbled or inarticulate conversations in private homes here and there. Such sloppiness makes it doubly difficult for our agents to do their jobs. Enunciate your words clearly, paying particular attention to the consonants, and it would help very much if you would face the nearest table lamp when you speak.