Month: October 2021

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Groan.

Readers were asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners:
1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a
nightgown.
7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been
run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon , n.. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up
onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of jockey shorts worn by
circumcised men.
17. Arbitrator, n. A cook that leaves Arby's to work at McDonald's
18. Bernadette, v.The act of torching a mortgage.
19. Burglarize, n. What a crook sees through.
20. Left Bank, v. What the bank robbers did when their bag was full of money.
21. Heroes, n. What a man in a boat does
22. Parasites, n. What you see from the Eiffel Tower
23. Paradox, n. Two physicians
24. Pharmacist, v. To help on a farm
25. Polarize, n. What penguins see through
26. Primate, v. To remove your spouse from in front of the TV
27. Relief, v. What trees do in the spring
28. Rubberneck, v. What you do to relax your wife
29. Selfish, v. What the owner of a seafood store does
30. Sudafed, v. Brought litigation against a government official
31. Paradigms, n. Twenty Cents
32. Avoidable, n. What a bullfighter tries to do
33. Eyedropper, n. A clumsy ophthalmologist.
34. Control, n. A short, ugly inmate.
35. Counterfeiters, n.  Workers who put together kitchen cabinets.
36. Eclipse, v. What an English barber does for a living.
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Apparently Bees Have Gods

I don't know if any of this is true, but it's still fascinating reading.

Apparently a part of the reason why farmed bees stay in the beehives that humans build for them is because the farm hives are safer and sturdier. I don't know how a busy Discord server's worth of bugs that only have one brain cell each would logically conclude that the humans protect them from outside threats, illness and parasites, but if I understood right, the bees would be free to move away and build a new nest somewhere else any time they'd want, and they simply choose not to.

You know how in almost every culture, people have some concept of "if I sacrifice something that I made/grew/produced to the Gods, they will ward me and my harvest from evil"?

So, in a way, don't the bees willingly sacrifice a part of their harvest to an entity not only far greater than them, but nearly beyond their comprehension, in exchange for protection against natural forces wildly outside of their own control?

So tell me, beekeepers, what are you to your bees, if not a mildly eldritch God?

I don't know about other cultures, but in English folklore, when a beekeeper dies someone has to go out and tell the bees.

Imagine you're a neolithic hunter-gatherer, just hanging out, sacrificing stuff to your god, when a new god you've never met before shows up and tells you that your god is dead, it's not your fault or anything, and maybe a new god will come along to take care of you, maybe not, it's gonna be touch and go for a while

Apparently in medieval Europe they also whispered secrets to the bees.

So imagine the mildly eldritch God you worship talks to you and tells you secrets, but these secrets make no sense to you and are incomprehensible to understand or even know they are secrets. But your God does make vibrations at you, so thats probably a good thing right?

Also occasionally the Swarm decides there is not enough room in the Hive because the eldritch god didn't take the offering of Honey at their normal time. So enough of a Swarm builds up that the second queen is able to leave without decimating the first Swarm. They are all set to search out a new place that will likely not have your God anymore (but really that's not too much of a struggle, they have abandoned you, that's part of why you've left, even though the first Swarm still holds out hope for their return).

And then, the scouts find another Hive right next to the old Hive. Literally right next to it. So the Queen lands to inspect it and wow, it's a good deal. The area already has enough food to support 2 Hives, so it's a not problem to stay in the area now that they have the space, but…this wasn't here before.

And then you see God, they've come to help the Swarm move to the new Hive and take the offering from the old Hive. Truly this must have been their plan all along

In English folklore, you also have to invite your bees to your wedding, and decorate their hive, and leave a slice of cake for them, and also bring your new spouse by to introduce them to the hive straightaway. Imagine your eldritch god doing that.

[Source]

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Why Are Giraffes So Violent?

Most big herbivores are, frankly. If you have a pretty steady supply of food and don't have to worry about missing a hunt and starving to death, you can afford to throw your weight around more and generally be more aggressive!

That's why the most dangerous big animals in the world are almost all herbivores.

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This is also why walking right up to these things in Jurassic Park would have been a fantastically bad idea

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Sauropods would be fucking terrifying and it annoys the hell out of me that media constantly portrays them as passive and harmless. That Indominus Rex from Jurassic World would have been slaughtered against an Apatosaurus—let alone a whole herd of them.

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Ok but, bringing it back to sauropods, people dont really understand just HOW terrifying they were

First, size. And yeah most people understand that sauropods were bit, but it really needs to be reinforced just how big they were.

This is Camarasaurus lentus, around 15 ish meters and over 16 tons, for reference sake, the largest african elephant bull EVER recorded was 11 tons.
pretty decent difference right?

Well, except one thing.

This is a small sauropod.

Want to see a large one?

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Yeah, you're reading that right, 53 tons. Almost five times heavier than the largest recorded african elephant ever.

And they get even larger.

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This bastard was last estimated at 73 tons, the largest animal ever to walk the earth.

And they didn't just get big, they got long, too

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That right there, is BYU 9024, it (among with a few undescribed remains) shows an animal in the size range of 130+ feet (40+ meters), this one here clocks in at around 130, and the funny thing is? this is the conservative estimate, larger specimens are not unreasonable in the slightest. It's not quite as heavy as the big south american bastard above it, but at 67 tons, its close.

Secondly, speed.

We've all seen it, lumbering behemoths that were dumb as rocks and probably about as fast, with a tailwind, going downhill.

Well…. Not really, the latest studies done as of Asier larramedi's sauropod facts and figures book gives some… Horrifying estimates.

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I'll spare you the complete explanations, there will be a paper out soon that goes into greater depth, but I'd like to draw your attention to the speeds, specifically fo the animal called Giraffatitan.

Most people are familiar with it in some way, shape or form, but to clear up what exactly Giraffatitan is.

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They're not the small ones in the foreground, they're the big ones in the back. 33 tons of pure muscle, moving at 16 mph (25 kp/h). Again, to provide further reference.

This is how fast that is. It's a house running at you, forget a hippo charging you, this would be a tidal wave of flesh and hatred bearing down on you.

And finally, weapons.

Like it was earlier pointed out,  Apatosaurus should have absolutely trounced the Indominus, because quite frankly at such a size anything you do will hurt. Kicks with the front or hind limbs will be utterly devastating to anything except another of their kind, but Apatosaurus had another thing going in its favor.

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One thicc-ass neck. Pictured here with speculative keratin spikes on the bottom, whilst the spikes are speculation, the neck itself would have essentially functioned like a fleshy battering ram, capable of pulping ribcages and smashing anything that could have "preyed" upon them.

But that's not even the most terrifying thing, though this is not specific to Apatosaurus itself, but to all diplodocoids (Apatosaurus, Barosaurus, Diplodocus, etc.)

Specifically, the tail.

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This is Diplodocus, as you can see, this animal is half tail, as you might also be able to see, the latter half of that tail tapers down to what can, in all essence be described as—a whip.

A serrated whip, powered by some of the largest muscles in the largest animals that would have walked on earth.

But it gets even more horrifying.

You see, there have been studies that have come to a conclusion, and though there are those that have doubted them, that the tips of these tails, could have—and would have—broken the sound barrier. Yup, you heard that right, and as soon as that fact begins to seep in, you'll realize the horrifying implications.

A diplodocoid whipping its tail, would blow out the eardrums of any animal close by and unfortunate enough to draw its ire, the sauropod itself would possibly not come out unscathed, but when you can literally give a would-be predator internal hemmorages by, what to them would be essentially like snapping a finger, the benefits begin to outweigh the risks involved.

And that's not even mentioning what would happen if it hit anything, an impact at such velocity, with such mass driving it would be—quite frankly— devastating beyond words.

Flesh wouldn't just tear, it wouldn't just break skin or bones, flesh would melt, bones would shatter, if not simply cease to be. And this is on a sufficiently sized animal such as Allosaurus or Torvosaurus.

On a human? They would be ripped in half.

So yeah, Sauropods get shafted in popular media to an extent that isn't even possible, if you think hippo's are scary, imagine something fourty times its size, faster than you, and able to kill you without even touching you.

Sauropods are kaiju, plain and simple.

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The babies were really cute though. This is Andrew, and he's a baby—the size of a horse.

If you want to know just how tiny they began, this is probably a good reference.

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Yeah, the largest animals ever to walk the earth started out life at about the size of a dachshund. Eat your greens everyone.

[Source (edited for spelling, grammar, and content0}

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I Think I Need to Add a "Dad Jokes" Category

A Sunday school teacher was reading a passage that included the word "bastard." One kid said, "Oh, that's a bad word!" Another chimed in with, "No, it's just a bad driver."

In an emergency, coffee filters can be used as toilet paper.
But it will change the taste of the coffee.

Where's my chiropractor joke?
I posted it about a week back.

During a nuclear explosion, there is a certain distance of the blast wave radius where all the frozen supermarket pizzas are cooked to perfection.

Does a railway worker have to be trained?

Two Americans and a German gynecologist were having a drink…
After a few, they start sharing stories from their professions.
American 1: "I once had a patient who had a clitoris like a blueberry!"
American 2: "That's nothing, my last patient had one like a cherry!"
German: "I would say the most unusual was one woman who had a clit like a melon!"
American 1: "That's ridiculous, how'd she walk?"
German: "Oh I see. You Americans are obsessed with size. I thought we were talking about flavor."

I have an inferiority complex.
But it's not a very good one.

I have a hunch, I have scoliosis.

Aliens arrive on Earth. Delegations from different countries, religious leaders gather around and ask the newcomers about their lives. When the Pope's turn comes, he asks: "Do you know about the Savior and our Lord our God, Jesus Christ?" "Ah, Jesus," the alien replies. "Of course we know him. He visits us every year to make sure we're okay." Surprised, the Pope exclaims: "Every year? We have been waiting for his second coming for 2000 years!" The newcomer sees that the pope is beginning to get angry, and tries to calm him down: "Well, maybe he likes our chocolate more than yours." The pope is amazed: "Chocolate? And what does it have to do with it?" "Yes, chocolate. When he first visited our planet, we gave him a nice box of chocolates. Wait, what did you do?"

Every day I say to myself, John you have to quit drinking.
Thank god my name isn't John.

When the head of the Oxford English Dictionary published a new version, a group of Christian women came in and congratulated him on not including any dirty words, to which he replied, "And I congratulate you on your persistence in looking them up."

At a certain age, life is like a game show and it's called:
"Guess which part of your body is going to hurt today".

She says I keep pushing her buttons.
If that were true I would have found mute by now.

I hate it when I tell someone that I'll be there in 15 minutes and they keep calling every 30 minutes wondering where I am.

One day at school the kid that sat next to me swallowed his calculator!
I stood up for him when everyone else said he was a weirdo!
I said, "He may be a bit weird, but it's what's inside him that counts!"

I came home and my dog peed a little because he was happy to see me.
How come none of my friend's pee when they see me?

Why is it there are poptarts but no momtarts?
Because of the pastryarchy.

I have some skeleton puns. They are very humerus.
I also have some vampire puns, but they suck.

I'm trying to put some Frankenstein puns together.

There are pecans.
And there are pea cans.

"Why the hell did you tell your father BDSM stands for Burgers, Drinks, and Salsa music? He just invited Bob and Mary to come over tonight for a BDSM party. We are NOT done talking about this!"

A woman was arrested for bringing her own popcorn, candy, and soda to the movie theater. She was fined and had to pay court fees.
The good news is, she still came out a few bucks ahead if she would have bought the popcorn at the theater.

Two little boys were at a wedding when one of them asked the other, "How many wives can a man have?"
"Sixteen; four better, four worse, four richer, and four poorer."

As I was getting ready to get into bed, she said, "You're drunk".
I said, "How do you know?"
She said, "You live next door".

I told my daughters' new boyfriend to stand at the end of the picture so I can crop him out when she dumps him.

One day an IRS employee stops in to visit the local pastor. He asks the pastor if he could please show him around the church as he's been just dying to see it for some time now. The pastor says of course he'll gladly show him around. So they head over to the church and the pastor gives him the full tour. They walk through every inch of the church. After the tour is over the pastor notices the IRS man is very quiet.
"Didn't you enjoy our church?" asks the pastor.
"Well, to be honest, I'm very disappointed", says the IRS employee. "Based on how much money your parishioners say they donate to you I would have thought it would be entirely covered in gold."

I heard of the chairman of a pastoral search committee who prayed, "Lord please just send us a poor and humble preacher. If you keep him humble, we'll keep him poor."

Her: Do men still open car doors?
Him: How do you think we get inside?

Every time I ask someone what the lowest rank in the army is, they tell me, "It's private".

Her: Did you really dip your testicles into glitter?
Him: Pretty nuts, right?

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