Drawing a Cat

Haven't done an art related post for a while so here is an instructional guide for any budding artists.



French Kissing Kangaroos

It's Australia Day again, so for this months book is: The Kangaroo from the Greek language Animals of the World Series.

Help teach your children Greek with this illustrated book of tongue pashing kangaroos.  That should be Australias new Olympic mascot the Pashing Kangaroos.

French Erotic Film

In 1999 a thirteen year old called Neil Cicierega made a flash animation mashing his favourite pop culture images with misheard interpretations of music from the original Japanese Pokemon.  In doing so he created a new art form which, years later, was given the name Animutation.

One of my favourite animutation artists is Andrew Kepple, in particular his three-part Flash series entitled, Colin Mochrie versus Jesus H. Christ.  Here's the youtube version of the first instalment of the series entitled "French Erotic Film"

Despite the Scottish overtones in the Animutation video, the song by Ome Henk is actually in Dutch.

Genital Cleanliness

I have a new hygiene theory.

When you’re a guy and you go to the toilet, you need to touch your genitals to point yourself in the right direction.  When you’re done it is common practice that you wash your hands after (although studies show that about 20% of adults don’t). My theory is though, for the average person, the hand is actually less clean than their genitals.

Have a think about it, all day you walk around touching grubby door handles and hand rails then you go touch your genitals when you go to the toilet, clean your hand then go handle some germ covered money, open bin lids and go touch yourself in the toilet and make your penis even more germ contaminated.  Then you go home and you want your partner to put it in their mouth.

What would be much better would be to wash your hands before you go touch yourself in the toilet.  That way the only filth on your genitals is the crusty stuff from the previous night that wouldn't wash off.

Here's a nice sign:

Because the last thing you want is dirty genitals touching your food.

Super Shower

Being Super Friends is one thing, but that's just a little too cosy for my comfort levels. Even with out the creepy expression it's still not the sort of thing you want to walk in on when visiting the Hall of Justice bathroom.



Quatopygia

This year instead of quoting the Urban Dictionary, I'm going to go old school Oxford and post uncommon words I've come across. To start with:
Quatopygia

The enticing, shaking movement of a persons buttocks that occurs while walking. Also an algebraic equation or function of the fourth degree.

Turns out both definitions consolidate better than expected:

See.

Go 2 XTC

...and the record shop owner yells out "Are you going to buy that or just stare at it all day?"

Measuring The Burn

I've had four conversations in the past three weeks involving chilli and chilli sauce, so I decided to do a blog post that includes an example of the Scorville scale. 

The Scoville scale is a measurement of the spicy heat of a chilli pepper. The number of Scoville heat units indicates the amount of capsaicin present in a chilli or chilli sauce.  Capsaicin is the chemical compound that stimulates the nerve endings in the skin and create the burning sensation. The Scorville scale measures chilli peppers and their products by how much water is required to dilute the capsaicin.  Due to variations in growing conditions, soil and weather, etc, the heat scale can vary between harvests.

Here's a small selection of chilli peppers and their Scorville rating.

Sweet Bell pepper  0
Pimento  100 - 200 
Tuscan peppers  100 - 500
New Mexico pepper  500 - 1,000 
Jalapeño  2,500 - 5,000 
Hot Wax pepper  5,000 - 10,000 
Tabasco pepper   30,000 - 50,000 
Thai pepper   50,000 - 100,000
Habanero  100,000 - 350,000
Caribbean Red  120,000 - 400,000
Ghost Chilli   800,000 - 1,041,000
Common Pepper spray  2,000,000
Police grade Pepper spray  5,300,000
Homodihydrocapsaicin  8,600,000
Nordihydrocapsaicin  9,100,000
Pure Capsaicin  16,000,000

Capsaicinoids are not soluble in water, but very soluble in fats, oils and alcohol, this is why drinking water won't stop the burn.  To get some relief from a chilli burn, drink milk or eat ice-cream. Milk contains casein, a substance that surrounds and washes away the fatty capsaicin molecules the same way that soap washes away grease.

When you eat chilli you experience the burn as the capsaicin binds to receptors in your mouth, but the rest of the gastro intestinal tract are not lined with the same receptors and hence you do not experience burning as the hot meal makes its way through you.  Capsaicin is not broken down completely by digestion so what exits through the back door still contains a reasonable amount of the chemical. 

Where the intestinal tract ends (you know which part I'm talking about) there are large numbers of nerve receptors which is why you get ring burn the following day.  If it gets too bad you could make yourself an icecream enema.  But the important thing is that  you don't start dragging your arse around on the dining room carpet like your pet.

Another Year