Posts Tagged With: Uranus

What I Did Today

 

Klingons were here.

I saw to and took care of finances. They needed tending to. “You never spend any timewith us anymore,” said my finances. “We don’t think you stopped liking us.” So I spent a while with them. We frolicked and gamboled together in the meadows and along sparkling white beaches, metaphorically of course. We parted great friends once more.

Full of the joy that only dancing with finances can yield, I tackled the paper swamp that was my office. It took a long time.

Halfway through I noticed there were Klingons around Uranus. “What the dickens are you doing there? It’s gassy and out of bounds. “Oopsie,” said Commander Frances, “I got lost.” Captain Desdemona Death Defying Daughter of Dangerous Destiny snorted. “I told him he was lost, but does a male Klingon ask for galactic directions? Noooooo.”

And soon, the Klingon spaceship puttered away.

I turned my attention back to my office. I shredded and shredded documents and the like. I shredded enough paper to make a vacation home for a dozen hampsters.

Then I made spaghetti. Ingredients were: tomatoes, leeks, green onions, onion, carrots, ground turkey, mozzarella cheese, allspice, poultry magic, and epicieres. The meal passed in pleasing conversation

And now to relax.

I hope you had a fun day. I’d like to hear about yours.

 

– 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: about me, what I did | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Strawberry Shampoo

STRAWBERRY SHAMPOO

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INGREDIENTS
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½ cup Castile Soap
2 teaspoons coconut oil
½ cup distilled water
15 drops strawberry fragrance oil
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SPECIAL UTENSIL
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1 cup bottle
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PREPARATION
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Add all ingredients to bottle. Stir with fork, or shake, until well blended.
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TIDBITS
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1) This shampoo uses strawberry fragrance oil.
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2) The medium-sized cargo box for Ford’s F150 can haul 59,653 medium sized strawberries.
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3) However Uranus, which is much larger than the F150’s cargo box or even this entire truck, occupies the same space as 2.31 * 1027 strawberries.
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4) From this we can deduce that 3.87 * 1022 F150 medium sized cargo beds can fit in Uranus.
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5) You didn’t think Uranus was that big, did you?
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6) NASA never divulges this information.
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7) Our space agency doesn’t even show us Santa Claus’ path on Christmas Eve. Just another thing they keep to themselves..
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8) However NORAD, North American Aerospace Defense Command,  does on noradsanta.org.
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9) Well! I know which agency is getting chocolate chip cookies for Christmas and which isn’t.
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10) In flagrantre dilecto is Latin for “Getting caught in the act of committing a crime.” However, In flagrantre oderem means getting caught in the act of adding a fragrance to something.
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11) Knowing all these awesome tidbits will give you a leg up, should you ever compete on Jeopardy!
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– 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: recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Strawberries in Uranus

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.

­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: Nobel Prize, science | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

What I Did Today

Eyes on the prize

Woke up feeling a tiny bit better than the previous three days. Not starting the day with a big headache is a definite plus. Took a nice warm bath while doing New York Times’ Thursday crossword puzzles.

Didn’t do finances as nearly all of the world’s financial markets and stuff were closed. So, I took the car out for a spin. Even though I had no particular place to go, I still managed to get lost. I almost landed on Uranus. Horrors! As contrived luck would have it, an alien* took pity on me and hurried me home. Left me tell you, the current UFO models are sleek and fast.

* = The alien asked me not to give his name.

Anyway, I spent about seven hours collecting sourdough recipes, understanding them, and making my own recipe.

Also bought sourdough  things. I’ll be receiving them late tomorrow. They are:

flour-sack towels
banneton or bread proofing basket
6-quart enameled cast iron Dutch oven
bread lame (This is basically a razor blade attached to a stick. You won’t want to meet me in a dark kitchen.)

Then I made Cuban Garlic Bread Soup for dinner. I celebrated with a piece of chocolate cake.

That’s it for today. Try not to get into mischief.

 

– 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: what I did | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yoga Instructor On Aging

And you’d only be 285-days old if you lived in Uranus

 

­– 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: yoga instructor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dinner Rolls

American Appetizer

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DINNER ROLLS

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INGREDIENTS
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2¼ teaspoons dry active yeast
⅓ cup lukewarm water
¼ teaspoon sugar (7 teaspoons more later)
2½ tablespoons melted butter (2 tablespoons more later)
½ cup milk, lukewarm
½ teaspoon salt
7 teaspoons sugar
2¼ cups flour (2 more tablespoons later)
1½ tablespoons flour
no-stick spray
2 tablespoons melted butter
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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electric beater
8″ round casserole dish
bench scraper/chopper or long non-serrated knife
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Makes 15 rolls. Takes 2 hours 35 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Add yeast and lukewarm water to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Sprinkle ¼ teaspoon sugar on top. Let sit for 10 minutes or until bubbles. Add 2½ tablespoons melted butter, milk, salt, and 7 teaspoons sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with spatula until salt and sugar dissolve. Let cool to room temperature.
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Add yeast mixture to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Gradually add 2¼ cups flour while mixing with electric beater set on medium. Mix until a slightly sticky dough ball forms. Dust flat surface with 1½ tablespoons flour. Remove dough ball to flat surface. Knead for 5 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. Spray large mixing bowl with no-stick spray. Add dough ball to large mixing bowl. Rotate dough until covered with spray. Cover bowl with towel. Let sit for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.
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Push down on dough. Roll dough into a log 15″ long and 1″ wide. Use bench scraper to cut log into 15 pieces. Shape 15 pieces into smooth balls. Spray casserole dish with no-stick spray. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add smooth dough balls to casserole dish. Cover with towel and let sit for 1 hour or until fluffy. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until tops of rolls turn golden brown. Brush tops of rolls with 2 tablespoons melted butter.
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TIDBITS
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1) Doing dishes makes the kitchen clean, which makes you happy.
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2) But, pondering the infinite brings enlightenment.
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3) What will you chose?
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4) May I suggest alternating 5-minute bursts of each activity?
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5) While achieving enlightenment, I had the following stream of consciousness.
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6) Can you have a stream of consciousness while asleep or even unconscious?
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7) Unconscious is a hard word to spell.
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8) You can see that I spelled it right.
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9) You’ll have to take my word for it that I spelled it right on the very first try. Go me.
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10) Somehow this segues into how we developed before birth.
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11) Prehistoric peoples believed we started out as very tiny version of the baby that would eventually pop out of mama.
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12) How do we know this? Go to the Courgette Library in Bordeaux, France. Find the research department and ask to see the ground breaking Greatest Texts of Prehistory by Farine du Ble.
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13) Nowadays, culinary biologists say that we began as a single, undifferentiated cell.
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14) This cell doubled into two slightly unlike* cells.
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15) * = I used my thesaurus to come up with a different word for different.
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16) This doubling process kept going until we had nearly 15 slightly dissimilar cells like in the above photo.
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17) Eventually this doubling process stops. We don’t increase twofold the day before birth.
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18) But what if this repetitive course continues after birth?
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19) Eventually, we’d get as big as Uranus.
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20) We’d also possess a staggering number of specialized cells.
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21) We’d most likely quite sport an impressive number of super-hero skills.
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22) Which we’d need if we were truly as enormous as Uranus.
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– 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: Chatting With Chefs, cuisine, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

How Many Strawberries Will Fit In Uranus?

Dear Reader,

Quite a few! Uranus is incredibly huge. So we’ll need to use a lot of large numbers to find the answer. Fortunately NASA, took a lot of accurate photos of Uranus. Hey, did you know that Uranus was originally called George? It’s true! Anyway,  . . .

1 cup = 8 medium strawberries
1 cup = 14.4375 cubic inches
1 cubic mile = 254,358,061,056,000 or 2.544 * 10^14 cubic inches
1 cubic mile = 17,617,874,358,857 or 1.762 * 10^13 cups
1 cubic mile = 140,942,994,870.857 or 1.409 * 10 ^10^14 strawberries
Uranus = 68,300,000.000.000 or 6.83 * 10^13 cubic miles

So, ta da!

Uranus = 9,626,406,549,679,540,000,000,000,000 or 9.626 * 10^27 strawberries

There! That’s how many strawberries would fit in Uranus.

Now, you don’t have buy oodles of strawberries for a hands-on experiment. Besides Uranus is a cold and gaseous place.

 

Strawberry…………………………………… Uranus

 

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: observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why There Is Life On Earth and Nowhere Else

 

 

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: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Secrets of the Universe #2, Asteroids Are Cocoa Pebbles(tm)

Asteroid or Cocoa Pebble?

Yesterday’s blog proved that the Universe arose from an exploded egg. But maybe not. For cereal astrophysicists maintain just as vehemently that all galaxies derived from one giant cereal bowl. Of Cocoa Pebbles.

According to these plucky scientists, nothing happened until at 12am, January, 0 CBS (Cereal Bowl Spilling) the cereal bowl tipped over. Speculation runs rampant and tensions flare over how exactly the bowl tipped, but all cereal astrophysicists agree that it did. Out flew the Cocoa Pebbles. When they coalesced over billions of years through gravitational forces, they became solid planets like Earth and Mars. Whenever Cocoa Pebbles didn’t come together, they remained Coca-Pebbly Asteroids.

Milk from the cereal bowl expanded in all directions and in great amounts.  The Milky War formed from this very same milk. Gaseous giants such as Jupiter and Uranus formed from this milk as well. The Great Red Spot and other colors in Jupiter, however, derive from Fruity Pebbles(tm). The gassy giant Uranus is also a breakfast cereal. Did you know that NASA’s deep-space probes took photos of Uranus? Heh, heh.

All those stars in the night-sky are gigantic balls of milk that became so massive that their very own gravitational fields compressed the milk molecules to such an extent that they generated heat and lights. So, we are seeing milk rays that have traveled thousands of light years to get to us.

There you have it. Look at the photo to the right. Can you tell if it is a Cocoa Pebble or an asteroid? You can’t. They’re the same. Proof you cannot deny.

And every time you eat a spoonful of delicious Cocoa Pebbles, you’re devouring a building block of our universe. Heavens, space is tasty.

– 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: Secrets of the Universe | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NASA Set to Make Perfect Landings Every Time

We all know that if we drop a slice of buttered bread, it will land buttered-side down. Pizzas, however, often fall dough-side down. But it’s a certainty that something will land atop the newly dropped pizza.

We know this. So does NASA. Sure, their geniuses delight in solving mathematical formulas, after all who doesn’t? But their staff also prides itself on its powers of observation. They will be using the pizza observation to perfectly land their Landing Modules. For NASA does cranky if after untold hours of development at a cost of several billion dollars, their Landing Module lands upside down or tips over.

NASA’s solution? Their New Landing Module  (NLM) ejects four pizzas 100 feet before they want to land. The only possible way for the Landing Module to make contact with each and every pizza is for the module to pierce the pizzas with all four landing arms , as shown in the picture below. They plan to use this technique on their next mission to Mars. They also have a long run plan to do this on Uranus.

20 weeks or your pizza is free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– 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: observations, science | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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