science

Paul’s Awesome English Dictionary – Today’s Phrase – Pit of Time

Posted on February 24, 2025 by pauldelancey

How many times has this happened to you? You wanted to do something, but you ran out of time. All of a sudden, you got old. You feel as if time is always getting away from you.

You are not imagining things! Occasionally, something takes away the time you’ve been carefully hoarding.

If only there was phrase to describe this thing. And now there is.

TODAY’S AWESOME PHRASE

Pit of Time

Awesome entry #58

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: explanations, science | Tags: apocalyptic, Chef Paul, cookbook, Earth, English dictionary, getting old, hoarding, Lutheran, Paul's Awesome English Dictionary, pit, pit of time, remaining time, singularity, thriller, time | 1 Comment

Deep Fryer French Fries

Posted on February 15, 2025 by pauldelancey

American Entree

DEEP FRYER FRENCH FRIES

INGREDIENTS

1¼ pound russet potato

13 cups vegetable oil*

* = My deep fryer uses this amount. Amounts vary with each deep fryer. See instructions that come with deep fryer. Duck fat or beef tallow gives a better taste, but it should be completely melted before being put into the fryer.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

french-fry cutter

deep fryer

4 4-cup Mason jars

Serves 2. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

If desired, remove potato skins with potato peeler. Use French-fry cutter to cut potato into strips. Place these French fries in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 40 minutes or until ready to fry.

Add oil to deep fryer. It should be between the MIN and MAX level on the bowl. Set temperature to 325 degrees. While temperature rises to 325 degrees, drain water from fries. Pat fries dry with paper towels.

Once the oil’s temperature reaches 325 degrees add French fries to frying basket. Carefully lower basket into oil. Put lid on fryer. Deep fry for 10 minutes or until fries just start to show color. Raise temperature to 360 degrees. Deep fry for another 3 minutes or until fries become crispy and turn golden brown. Drain oil. Sprinkle with salt, if desired. Serve with condiments such as ketchup, mustard, or mayonnaise. Serve hot.

Strain and drain oil into Mason jars. Reuse the oil until it has a foamy surface, dirty, dark appearance, or a fishy aroma.

TIDBITS

1) How does NASA know if teeny, tiny objects exist in apparently empty stretches of outer space? It flings billions of potato strips into the apparently voids out there. NASA ensures uniform shapes and weights of these tater strips by employing French-fry cutters. The space agency flings these spud bits into space and tracks their orbits. If the orbit wobbles, another object exists close to the erratic fry. By such means NASA hopes to find every teeny, weeny, itsy, bitsy, speck in outer space.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: cuisine, international, science | Tags: American, Comic Chef, cookbook, cutter, deep fryer, entree, French fry, good food, Mason jars, NASA, orbits, outer space, potato, space agency, tater | Leave a comment

Tap the Amazing Healing Properties of Farts

Posted on December 13, 2024 by pauldelancey

For too long people have turned up their noses at farters, even putting distance between themselves and the sonorous tooters. Unfeeling oafs have even given farters names reeking of distain, such as Farty Barty, Stinky Blinky, Mel the Smell, Jean the Bean, Bart the Fart,and so on.

Well such a world view stinks. And its short sighted. Now take a deep breath, relax, and savor the powerful benefits of the rectal blast.

Yes, it’s time to tap the Amazing Healing Properties of Farts.

1) Farting is good for you as it expels toxins.

2) Farting is good for you as your toxic-laden toots gets your nemesis off your ass for a while.

3) Farting is good for you as it helps you lose weight. After all, even the humble fart has mass.

4) Farting is good for you as it releases pressure building in your intestines. Do you really want to be in a crowded theater only to cry out, “Ow, ow, ow, I feel such pain in my abdomen. Such, such pain. If only I could release the pressure with a powerful fart.”

5) Farting is good for you if you’ve fallen face down on super smooth ice. As every action yields an opposite and equal reaction, a goodly barrage of farts will propel you to edge of your frozen lake.

6) Farting is good for you. People who can fart “The Stripper” can always find jobs in gentlemen’s clubs.

7) Farting is good for you. The CIA always searches for people to fart coded messages.

8) Farting is good for you. A vigorous fart bombardment will get you to the head of the line in no time.

9) Farting is good for you. If you’re too shy to say “no,” the non-verbal fart will always convey your response.

10) Farting is good for you. Enough counter farts will repel a tornado.

11) Farting is good for you. Your farts can mask a worse odor.

Well, those are all the benefits that come to nose. Please list any other properties you’ve sniffed out.

- Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: Butt Munch, fitness, science | Tags: beneficial, CIA, coded messages, Comic Chef, crowded theater, farts, frozen lake, gentlemen's clubs, healing properties, intestines, lose weight, odor, relieve pressure, tornado, toxins | 1 Comment

Persimmon Bread

Posted on December 5, 2024 by pauldelancey

American Entree

PERSIMMON BREAD

INGREDIENTS

3 Hachiya persimmons

½ cup butter, softened

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1⅓ cups sugar

3 eggs

1¼ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

½ cup chopped walnuts

no-stick baking spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor

electric beater

9″ * 5 ” loaf pan

Makes 1 loaf. Takes 1 hour 55 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut tops off of persimmons. Scoop out pulp. Add pulp to food processor. Puree pulp. Add butter and vanilla extract to large mixing bowl. Use high setting on electric beater until butter becomes creamy. Add sugar. Use high setting until butter and sugar become thoroughly blended Add eggs. Use medium setting on electric beater until well blended.

Add baking soda, flour, and salt to medium mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Gradually add flour mix to the butter/sugar mix while blending with electric beater set on medium. Add persimmon pulp. Mix completely with electric beater set on medium. Fold in walnuts with spatula. This is the batter.

Spray loaf pan with no-stick baking spray. Pour batter into loaf pan. Smooth surface with spatula. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes. Run knife or small spatula around loaf’s edge. Remove bread from loaf pan and place cupcakes on wire rack for 30 minutes or until cooled completely.

TIDBITS

1) Persimmon bread tastes great It makes you so happy that you burst with get up and go. NASA’s scientist Carl La Fong theorized that the energy in persimmon bread would make NASA rockets get up and go easily out of Earth’s gravitational field. But the persimmon-bread powered rocket got up and went out of the Solar System in just one week. Now no one knows where the rocket might be.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: cuisine, science | Tags: American, appetizer, bread, Carl La Fong, Comic Chef, energy, get up and go, gravitational field, Hachiya, NASA, persimmon, recipes, scientist, solar system, walnuts | Leave a comment

Tomato Rules of Thumb

Posted on September 6, 2024 by pauldelancey

No one likes an unruly tomato. The really bad ones escape to outer space. So here are rules to keep them on Earth.

1 pound = 2 big* tomatoes = 8 plum tomatoes = 3 Roma tomatoes = 25 cherry tomatoes

1 pound = 1¾ cups diced** tomatoes

1 cup canned tomatoes = 1¾ diced, cooked tomatoes

1 cup tomato sauce = ⅓ cup tomato paste plus ½ cup water

* = This is an approximation. Tomatoes come in all shapes and sizes even within the same type of tomato, such as Roma. It would be nicer for chefs around the world if tomatoes displayed a greater degree of uniformity. However, the tomato world is a fractious community. Perhaps you can convince them to be the same. Then you will be the long awaited Tomato Whisperer.

** = Again, an approximation. The number of cups you get from a pound of tomatoes depends on how finely you slice them. You can’t blame all your culinary uncertainty on the tomato.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves. . .”

– Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: cookbook, Paul De Lancey, science | Tags: Brutus, cherry tomatoes, Earth, Julius Caesar, orbiting, outer space, plum tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, rules of thumb, Shakespeare, tomato, tomato paste, tomato sauce, uncertainty, unruly | Leave a comment

Amazing Way to Always Find Your Car Keys

Posted on August 13, 2024 by pauldelancey

How many times has this happened to you?

You’re late to:

1) Meet the love of your life at a super fancy restaurant. You’re going to propose to her.

2) An interview for your dream job.

3) A meeting with a hostile foreign ambassador. You’re hoping to avoid global armageddon.

But none of these things happen. You spent an hour looking for your care keys.

1) You love leaves the restaurant before you arrive, vowing to hate you forever.

2) Your would be boss gives the position to a lutefisk vendor because no other applicants showed up.

3) You thought that the stand up ambassador would relay the unforgivable insult to his country. The almost certain missiles never get launched against you beloved country, only because the foreign ambassador couldn’t find his car keys either. But it was a near run thing.

Face it, you’re disorganized. The keys you placed on the hook devoted to them fall to the floor. Or you put the keys down, well you can’t remember where. Then use put some papers on top of them. Now you have no chance to find them.

What to do? Simply buy Bushell’s Model 303 Household Balloon. Simply attach your keys to the little hook beneath the ballon. When you want to find your car keys, simply look up. It’s that easy. You’ll say, “Thank you, Bushnell.”

Or splurge for the enhanced model, the Bushnell Model 303E Household Balloon. The battery powered 303E will follow you as you move from room to room. Your keys will always be right above your head.

So get yourself a 303. You’ll never have to worry starting World War III ever again. Heck, you might even get married.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: science, you need to get | Tags: ambassador, armaggedon, balloon, battery powered, car leys, Comic Chef, enhanced, fancy restaurant, foreign, global war, insult, job interview, keys, love, propose | Leave a comment

Weight Loss Through Anti-Fat Matter

Posted on August 2, 2024 by pauldelancey

welcomes scientific advancement

The universe is composed of matter and anti-matter. When anti-matter contacts matter, matter disappears.

It stands to reason that our universe (Three cheers for it, hurray, hurray, hurray) is also made up of fat matter and anti-fat matter. Then when anti-fat matter collides with fat matter, fat disappears. All we need to do is find anti-fat matter. I applaud this search.

Such instantaneous disappearance of fat would be much preferable to dreary, difficult diets.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: science, Secrets of the Universe | Tags: advancement, anti-matter, apocalyptic, Comic Chef, diets, disappears, fat, Lutheran, matter, murders, reason, science, scientific, thriller, universe | Leave a comment

I Attempt Time Travel

Posted on July 20, 2024 by pauldelancey

It is now 6:35 pm, August 21, 2024

I hope to use my time machine to publish this post of July 19, 2024

Wish me luck.

Think of all those milk bottles and produce that went bad. Simply go back in time and consume them then.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: science, Secrets of the Universe | Tags: milk, produce, time machine, time travel | Leave a comment

New and Improved Way to Measure Time

Posted on July 8, 2024 by pauldelancey

Invented .0001000634 MYA

It is high time to resolve the swirling, seething controversy over what to call our years, AD or CE. The two camps remain armed to the teeth or seem to be in no mood for compromise.

For longest time the year 1963 was simply 1963. If we felt the need to tart it up a bit, we called it year 1963 AD. Here, AD is an abbreviation for the Latin words, Anno Domini, or the Year of our Lord. 44 years before year 1 was 44 BC. Here BC is an abbreviation for Before Christ.

But not everyone is a Christian or even okay with dating our times with BC and AD. So many people starting referring to BC as BCE and AD and CE, where BCE means Before Common Era and CE represents Common Era

But these appendages to the years can offend Christians or old-school historians. And this nomenclature doesn’t even change the numbers.

Bah! I will solve everything. We can all agree that if the time is now 4:15pm, then 12 noon is 14,400 SA (seconds ago) and that it is also .0000000005 MYA (million years ago.)
MYA is a time scheme used by archeologists, so it is a system we are all familiar with.

And here it is

MYA (Millions of Years Ago)

*This whole time scheme and table is based on July 8, 2024, 4:15pm being time zero. Please note; all numbers goe up by one second every second, and the MYAs** increase by a corresponding amount.

Years Called

Year SA or Seconds Ago* MYA** Important Event

AD or CE

2024 0 0.0000000000 Now – 4:15p
2024 14,400 0.0000000005 Today, High noon
2024 619,200 0.0000000196 Last Taco Tuesday

2024 5,551,200 0.0000001759 Cinco de Mayo

2024 12,463,200 0.0000003949 Valentine’s Day

2023 21,603,600 0.0000006846 Halloween
1945 2,498,335,200 0.0000791675 VE Day
1924 3,157,761,600 0.0001000634 First cheeseburger made

1918 3,334,237,200 0.0001056556 Armistice Day
1865 5,019,314,400 0.0001590525 Juneteenth
1648 11,856,340,800 0.0003757048 Treaty of Westphalia

1492 16,780,363,200 0.0005317376 Columbus Lands in New World
1066 30,223,706,400 0.0009577315 Battle of Hastings
476 48,856,708,800 0.0015481757 Rome falls to Goths

1 63,844,236,000 0.0020231018 Baby Jesus

BC or BCE

44 65,260,526,400 0.0020679813 Beware the Ides of March

753 87,640,999,200 0.0027771757 Founding of Rome
2,600 145,927,886,400 0.0046241757 First 4-sided Pyramid Built

176,000 5,618,015,726,400 0.1780241757 Ogg the Neanderthal

3,200,000 101,048,195,448,000 3.2020240908 Lucy of Olduvai Gorge

63,000,000 1,988,192,672,856,000 63.0020240087 End of the Dinosaurs

As you can see, I had too much time on my hands. Hee, hee.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: science, There Comes A Time | Tags: AD, B&C, Battle of Hastings, BCE, CE, cheeseburger, Common Era, dinosaurs, Great Pyramid of Giza, Ides of March, Lucy of Olduvai Gorge, Neanderthal, paleiontologists, Rome, taco Tuesday | Leave a comment

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Strawberries in Uranus

Posted on July 6, 2024 by pauldelancey

Uranus is on the right

This blog derives from quite a similar blog called, “How Many Strawberries Will Fit in Uranus?” There, I calculated the number to be 9.626 * 10^27 strawberries. Afterward, my mind naturally thought of a way of confronting my arch enemy, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Why is he my arch enemy? He helped engineer the downfall of our beloved Pluto from planet to mere dwarf planet. Such a debasement of celestial status!

How would I confront Mr. Tyson? By attending a conference of astromers and engaging in the following conversation:

Me: Mr. Tyson.

Tyson: Yes, do you have a question?

Me: Yes, I do. Thanks (Always start out respectfully.) Did you know Uranus was originally called George?

(People titter. Mr. Tyson looks both annoyed and a tad worried.)

Me: Did you know that 9.626 * 10^27 strawberries could fit in Uranus?

(The auditorium erupts into laughter. The shaken man recognizes the absurdity of his views on Pluto. He withdraws his assertion that Pluto is a dwarf planet. The other astronomers follow his lead. They vote again. The magnificent Pluto regains its rightful place in the heavens as a proud, glorious planet. I’d then bask in the knowledge that I had righted a grievous wrong.)

Well no. In “How Many Strawberries Will Fit in Uranus?” I had used the figure of 6.83 * 10^13 cubic miles for the volume of Uranus. This was incorrect, Uranus’ volume is 6.83 * 10^27 cubic kilometers. The true volume of Uranus in miles equals 1.639 * 10^13 miles. This adjustment lowers the number of strawberries fitting in Uranus to 2.311 * 10^27.

Oh gosh, I’m ever so glad I didn’t cross words with Mr. Tyson back then. Eventually some astronomer would have checked my calculations and detected my error. He, probably Bob, would have published my error. The whole community of astronomers would have laughed and laughed at me. I’d have be mortified. The astronomer cabal would have taken my humiliation to dethrone Pluto, once again, to dwarf planetar status. And once again, life would have been bereft of joy.

But I didn’t see Mr. Tyson at such a conference. My goof has gone unnoticed. (Unless, of course, the learned man reads this blog.) Now, I have the opportunity to alter one line of my conference conversation to:

Me: Did you know that 2.311 * 10^27 strawberries could fit in Uranus?

And the conference will surely erupt into laughter. Pluto will once more be a planet. And I will win a Nobel Prize. Yay! The Sun will again shine over our lives.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: Nobel Prize, science | Tags: astronomers, celestial, Comic Chef, de Grasse, dwarf, joy, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Nobel Prize, planet, planetary status, Pluto, strawberries, Sun, Tyson, Uranus | 1 Comment

science

Paul’s Awesome English Dictionary – Today’s Phrase – Pit of Time

Deep Fryer French Fries

American Entree

DEEP FRYER FRENCH FRIES

Tap the Amazing Healing Properties of Farts

Persimmon Bread

American Entree

PERSIMMON BREAD

Tomato Rules of Thumb

Amazing Way to Always Find Your Car Keys

Weight Loss Through Anti-Fat Matter

I Attempt Time Travel

New and Improved Way to Measure Time

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Strawberries in Uranus

Follow Blog via Email

Paul’s archives

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