Dearest Mr. Snake

    Your claim of January 15^th, 2011 is under investigation for possible fraud. Our adjustor went to the site on Olde Pioneer Road and found your  property (chemical plant) had all the staples of insurance fraud. As you may not be aware of how numerous these obvious signs were, I will enumerate them:

·         A large number of lacquer cans found near blown up boiler. Inventory records show you do not sell this item to distributors. Additionally, chemical analysis of the plant shows you don’t use lacquer for the treatment of any of your wood fixtures.
·         Book on unburned shelf titled: So You Want To Rip Off Your Insurance Company.
·         Multiple discarded fire retardant sheathes to fuel storage tanks found in nearby dumpster.
·         Records proving regular maintenance for boiler mysteriously stop weeks after your spouse files for divorce and a freezing of all marital assets.
·         Remnants from Trinitrotoluene (TNT) found at key areas of shop, obviously meant to increase the blast radius of ill-maintained boiler.
·         Letter from dishonored former area fire chief on the best way to start a fast spreading grease fire.
·         Diary entry from you of January 12^th, detailing your plans to destroy the shop by fire, and make a claim against your insurance.
·         Printout of email from dear friend dated January 14th who read your diary, pleading  that your plan to commit insurance fraud was fool-hardy and for you to reconsider, or at least remove many of the more obvious signs of fraud before you enacted your plot. He then goes on to list all of the above items as examples. He also instructs you not to print this email, or leave it laying in a common area of the office.
·         In response to an indictment by the grand jury, your dear friend turns states evidence. Claiming that the printed email found on the coffee table in the break room of your installation, should in no way be interpreted as encouragement by him to commit insurance fraud. During the deposition he also stated that you two discussed the matter over drinks, and you would be implementing the final phase of your plan the next day.
·         Two days ago, after your attorney informed you of the outcome of the grand jury and deposition, your friend mysteriously had a hang-gliding accident  wearing a pair of cement shoes. His wife claims he was deathly afraid of heights, and has absolutely no proclivity toward masonry-footwear. She then showed the investigators a hand-scrawled letter, written in blood, with the words “You!” A small illustration on the bottom of the note depicts a fairly close approximation of said friend falling victim the very accident he died of. The handwriting matched the signature of the deed to the property on the claim, a deed you signed. The blood was typed and crossed to your blood type (AB- most rare), and a DNA test performed. The DNA matched 67 unique genetic markers to you.
·         Both the handwriting expert and the lab technician who tested your DNA, had separate freak accidents involving defective mai tais, those little umbrellas served with cocktails.
·         Through a Google search we learned that you own a small mai tai manufacturing company in Curitiba, Brazil.

This is not an absolute denial of your claim. There are strong probabilities that the miles of paperwork on my assistant’s desk will prompt her to just approve the claim. But this may slow some things down for your early retirement to Costa Rica. Please be patient.

Our Sincerest Apologies

Regards,

Stanley DePalma

Head-Adjustor

Hopping Mad Insurance Company

Omaha, Nebraska 

Here you numbers nuts. This is a mixture of the age old correlation vs. causation argument, as well as a little fun with statistics.

With the exclusion of the WNBA, because it's boring. A statistically significant number of athletes of national league level sports have both the X and the Y chromosomes. The statistic exceeds 51%. It also exceeds 99% but that is neither here nor there.

Now is this true because those people with both have an increased opportunity to gain placement on a sports team competing at a national level (cum hoc ergo propter hoc)? Or is it possible that the presence of both varieties of this genetic material are what make these athletes perform at such a high level in the first place (post hoc ergo propter hoc)?

Who knows? It's just science. And by science's very nature, it cannot be understood through the use of statistics, an appeal to the scientific process, or through an examination of various logical fallacies.

You all have a good day. Go Tamika Catchings, score all the points!

1^st and foremost – Sandwiches

This is the man widely credited with the advent of the modern sandwich.  His name is John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich. This First Lord of the Admiralty was known for his long card playing session. At the time, placing cards on the table to take a meal was tantamount to forfeiture. As a result, Sandwich would often have his chef bring him meat in between two slices of bread. A rudimentary forerunner to the modern sandwich to be sure; in that his chef was obviously ignorant to the fact that the hydrophobic properties of substances like Mayonnaise, and to a lesser extent Miracle Whip (bleck!) provide a sound moisture barrier allowing for the use of other blissful, yet water-rich ingredients like tomato or pickle. THANK YOU LORD ADMIRAL MONTAGU SANDWICH!

2^nd PIZZA

This man is also famous. He is Lord John Charles Herries, Fifth Duke of Supreme Pizza. He also figures prominently in preindustrial British government. But this Chancellor of the Exchequer had a much more ‘chequered’ past—if you know what I mean? A well-known confidence trickster, lothario and  all-around ne’er-do-well, Supreme Pizza also enjoyed a good card game now and again. As is often the case on those grueling bridge games, you get the hankering for massive quantities of complex carbohydrates covered in pizza sauce (it may have been called something else at the time). It was during one of these instances and having instructed the chef to leave the bread and sauce dish on a side table. Supreme Pizza reached down to his boot to retrieve a more favorable card. In doing so, he inadvertently spilled some grated cheese, olives, onions, chopped green peppers, sausage and pepperoni onto the still warm bread. Not wanting the faux pas to alert his fellow players of his cheating ways, he ignored the mess. Ten minutes later, when he had won the game, he went back to his dish. All the ingredients had combine perfectly to create what we now know as the Supreme Pizza. THANK YOU LORD HERRIES SUPREME PIZZA!

How to Annoy the Authorities in Your Local Prefecture

Lately I find myself browsing the Internet in search of local statutes of limitations on various types of crimes. I use this information to confess to crimes I did not commit that took place just past the deadline. It's fun to see the cop's faces when they realize they can't hold me on those federal racketeering charges or bootlegging. I think I was even some cop's white whale. It's a sickness really.

Women's Studies

"A woman without her man is nothing." Now my friends at the Lodge would say "Punctuate this thusly.": "A woman, without her man, is nothing." But my friends at the pet adoption place would intersperse in this wise: "A woman: without her, man is nothing." I rather like this interpretation: A: Woman, W: ithout-her, M: an, I: s, N: othing. This turns the sentence into an easy, if asynchronous vocabulary test question. Which the answer to the previously implied component to the question "Which is the real word?", is of course: N. Othing. I like to othing things. Othing.

UCMJ = (Something in Chinese)

Was reading reading through the eponymous Uniform Code of Military Justice, where it clearly states in chapter 10: Punitive Articles, subsection 94: Mutiny and Sedition, paragraph 3: Failing to Prevent, sentence 1, word 20, letter 4: "L". I found that very interesting, very interesting indeed. The Chinese analog to this same document and location reads: "简", you thought I was going to say "R" didn't you? Shame on you, you racist!

Somthing that I am really passionate about!

I am really passionate about mustaches.

The Randomness of Cheese

I like that cheese sometimes has holes and sometimes does not have holes, it's totally random. I might choose a delicious Swiss cheese sandwich and the cheese might have holes, alternatively, if I were to make that same Swiss cheese sandwich with Gruyère and maybe leave out the Swiss, it might not have holes, who knows. Because you see, holes in cheese is decided by the fates and not by some cheese making process whereby the cheese-maker adds Propionibacter Shermani that produces carbon dioxide which forms whole bubbles in the cheese, that when cut into thin slices manifest as holes in the slices of cheese.