Archives for February 2013

As you can tell by the photo caption it is time to celebrate another new year in China. There are twelve designations for Chinese years, Shǔ – Rat, Niú – Ox, Hǔ – Tiger, Tù – Rabbit, Lóng – Dragon, Shé – Snake, Mǎ – Horse, Yáng – Goat, Hóu – Monkey, Jī – Rooster, Gǒu – Dog & Zhū – Pig, and they rotate on a predictable schedule. This year is the year of the Shé or Snake. For the record, I was born in the year of the ox. That makes me a good friend to people born in the year of the snake. Yet more trivia you didn’t need. In America snakes get a bad rep. Of course, with the whole Florida python hunt going on it’s easy to see why. First, because the snakes are winning (authorities have been forced to air lift out injured hunters) and, second, because the idea of letting untrained, heavily armed, people loose in a swamp was really dumb in the first place. But that’s placing undue blame on our reptilian cousins. As noted on How Stuff Works, “Snakes do plenty of good things, especially for farmers. Snakes eat mice, rats, gophers, and other small mammals that eat farm crops. Snakes also help scientists and doctors. Snake venom is used in research and in making medicines. One medicine made from venom helps treat certain types of heart attacks.” Snakes also aerate the soil which makes crops grow better. So, as you can see, snakes are a pretty cool friend of man. Well, unless they’re poisonous and they bite you. Then they aren’t so nice. But only 15% of all species are poisonous so the odds are in your favor. Unless you’re in Florida on that hunt surrounded by deadly water moccasins. Yes, those people are a whole new level of stupid.

Anyway, 2013 is the year of the snake. The Chinese web site, Han Ban, has a nice primer on what that means.

The Introduction of 2013 Year of Snake
2013 is the year of the black Snake begins on February 10th shortly after the New moon in Aquarius, the humanitarian of the zodiac. This 2013 year of Snake is meant for steady progress and attention to detail. Focus and discipline will be necessary for you to achieve what you set out to create. The Snake is the sixth sign of the Chinese Zodiac, which consists of 12 Animal Signs. It is the enigmatic, intuitive, introspective, refined and collected of the Animals Signs. Ancient Chinese wisdom says a Snake in the house is a good omen because it means that your family will not starve.

The Common Character of People Born in the Year of Snake
People born in the Year of the Snake are reputed to be thoughtful and wise and to approach problems rationally and logically, seldom instinctively. Such people are complex beings, they are clever and men of few words from their birth. Their business is always going well, but they are stingy very often. They are sometimes egoistic and conceited. However they can be very active in their friends’ life. They are often too active, not believing other people and relying only on themselves. Snakes are also very insightful and naturally intuitive. If anyone has a sixth sense, it’s those born in the Snake year. This is partly what makes them so mysterious. Snakes come in all varieties of colors and patterns. And maybe that’s why people born in the Snake year love to appreciate beauty. People with the Chinese zodiac snake sign are very stylish, fashionable and have exceptional taste. People born in the Year of the Snake also have a sure touch in money matters but are also inclined to be greedy and somewhat egoistical. Determined and ambitious characters of Snakes take their failures hard. They are usually very attractive on the outside and inwardly, that, taking into consideration their frivolity, can lead to some family problems.

In other words, they’re a mix between Donald Trump and Conan O’Brian.

Yeah, I’m a bit uncomfortable with that too.

But as reliable as Chinese horoscopes are change still occurs, And, sadly, an era is dying in China. The last generations of snake kings are fading into history.

When a king cobra lunges at Chau Ka-ling as the door to its wooden cage falls open in her busy Hong Kong restaurant, she just laughs, then pulls it gently into her arms.

For Chau is a “snake king,” one of scores in Hong Kong who have through generations tamed snakes to make soup out of them, a traditional cuisine believed to be good for the health.

Yet the people behind providing fresh snakes for the savoury meal thought to speed up the body’s blood flow and keep it strong in the cold winter months may be doomed, with young people increasingly reluctant to take on a job they see as hard and dirty.

“He is my boss, he supports my living,” said Chau of the snake she cradled at Shia Wong Hip, a popular shop that serves over 1,000 bowls of hot snake soup on the busiest winter days.

Trained by her father in childhood to handle snakes, Chau, now in her early 50s, took over the business he founded, serving up a small bowl of soup for 35 Hong Kong dollars (2.8 pounds).

From boiling the essence out of snake, chicken and pig bones, to spicing it up with an array of ingredients that include five types of snake meat, the traditional southern Chinese snack can take more than six hours to make.

Yet as the cold deepens in the weeks leading up to the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Snake it ushers in on February 10, Hong Kong locals huddle inside small street shops like hers.

The thick soup is flavoured with hints of lemongrass, while the snake itself tastes like chicken but is tougher.
“Snake soup can help you stay healthy, and when the weather is cold it helps keep you from catching the flu,” said customer Stephen Lau.

While soup stalls remain popular, scattered across the former British colony, retail snake shops have diminished to a slithery few, such as the 110-year-old She Wong Lam.

Inside, more than 100 snakes lie quietly in wooden cupboards labelled “poisonous snakes” as the clicks of an abacus echo through the dimly lit shop.

Shop owner Mak Tai-kong, 84, has been working there for 64 years. He sells an average of 100 snakes a week to restaurants and snake soup shops that could otherwise buy pre-butchered meat, but prefer the freshness he offers.

Over the decades, he has trained about 20 people to become snake handlers – and said he has a few tried and true tips to help people put aside their fear of the venomous creatures, including starting them out on snakes whose fangs have been pulled and thus are no longer dangerous.

“Then, after he has been bitten a couple times by a snake that is no longer poisonous, he will think, ‘Oh, this is not painful, this is nothing, this is like being bitten by an ant,'” Mak said.

“Then he will no longer be scared, and as he works more he will get more used to it.”

But new blood is hard to find. The youngest employee in the shop has now been there more than 30 years.

“There won’t be many. Firstly, it’s crummy and dirty, and snakes smell,” Mak said. “Secondly, the wages aren’t high. So not many people enter the field.”

Mak feels his job is less about making money and more about providing a service to society by keeping a tradition alive.

Yet even fellow “snake king” Chau says she has no successors trained, and in fact has refused to do so.

“I’ve killed snakes for so many year, but actually I don’t want to. Because there are fewer and fewer snakes now,” she said. “But I can’t make a career change. There’s nothing else I can do.”

I have had fresh snake soup. It is everything they claim and more. It is flat out delicious. I have also had the more common processed variety. While okay, it is nowhere near the same. But that doesn’t mean I am going to pack to go to Hong Kong to work for minimum wage and handle poisonous reptiles. And, sadly, neither are millions of Chinese youth.

Simply put, an era will die and we will mourn its passing knowing full well that its demise was a conscious choice.

So, while you still can, head on over to Ser Fong’s in Hong Kong (you can’t get fresh snake soup in the US) and enjoy a treat. It’s worth the trip.

Rihanna – Cockiness MTV VMA 2012 from SHED

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Ah, where to begin today. After the British government attempted to lure women into scientific fields with an ad more demeaning than anything ever released by Victoria’s Secret a group of actual female scientists responded with an ad of their own. Their ad features real scientists having fun with science and dancing to “I’m Sexy and I Know It.” Ladies, there is a career for you in science and it does not require you to do math on a bathroom mirror or wear heels. The fact that I need to point that out simply proves that there is another category where we have a long way to go. Consider it added to my “to do” list. Put it this way, the first video, stripped of its techno soundtrack and embellished with David Lee Roth in his prime would have been great fun on MTV in 1985. Much like Hot for Teacher was in its day. In fact there are a couple of scenes in the first video that appear to have been outtakes from the Van Halen classic. That is not actually a good thing in this case.

This is not to say that science can’t be sexy. Daan Rosengarde has designed the ultimate example of sexy science. He has designed a dress that becomes more and more transparent the more excited a woman gets.

You don’t get to choose whether this dress is revealing or not — your carnal instincts do.

The ‘Intimacy 2.0’ dress, designed by Daan Roosegaarde, is getting a rise out of the fashion world because its opaque fabric becomes transparent when you get aroused. Finally, all the cards will be on the table. You’ll have your date saying, “Is your dress disappearing, or are you just happy to see me?”

The already barely-there garment features ribbons of leather and opaque “e-foils,” which can detect the model’s heartbeat, the Daily Mail reports.

Another caveat: Though Roosegaarde has said he’s “in talks” to produce a ready-to-wear line of Intimacy clothing, the current dress is only a prototype and a project.

Not to be a noodge or rain on anyone’s parade, but doesn’t a heartbeat increase if you see a car crash, hear some exciting music or in any of a hundred other situations? You might find yourself being the hit of the party for all the wrong, yet oh so right, reasons.

So what can I do to get your heartbeat down? Easy. Let’s discuss the joys of whale poop.

What’s yellowish-gray, stinks to high heaven and is worth tens of thousands of dollars per pound?

Just ask Ken Wilman, whose dog Madge went nuts over a dirty old rock the pair found on a lonely, windswept beach near Morecambe, England. But it wasn’t actually a rock: “When I picked it up and smelled it, I put it back down again, and I thought ‘urgh,'” Wilman told the BBC.

Wilman didn’t think much of the strange blob until he got home and, like any enterprising treasure hunter, immediately did a Google search. The chunky object, Wilman learned, was probably a valuable piece of ambergris, which comes from the digestive tract of the sperm whale and is a very expensive ingredient in luxury fragrances such as Chanel No. 5.

Realizing the foul stench emitted by the lump was actually the scent of money, Wilman sprang into action. “When I saw how much it could be worth, I went back to the beach and grabbed it!” Wilman told the Metro.

One French ambergris dealer has already offered Wilman $68,000 for his beach find, though it’s probably worth much more. “It’s quite a find,” Chris Hill, curator at the Aquarium of the Lakes in Cumbria, England, told the Mirror.

“There are places in Europe that will buy it from you,” Hill said. “They will age it, like a fine wine, and then test it for perfume. “How much it’s worth will depend on how fresh it is, but it’s potentially $180,000.”

Despite the centuries-old passion for ambergris, nobody’s really certain how the sperm whale produces it, or how the whale excretes the lump.

Most experts agree that whales create ambergris inside their intestines as a kind of fatty coating around sharp, hard-to-digest items, like the beaks of giant squid (a favorite food of the whale), the BBC reports. And squid beaks have been found inside pieces of ambergris.

But while some reports call ambergris “whale vomit,” others insist it’s not puke. “It’s poop,” molecular biologist Christopher Kemp told ABC News.

Kemp, the author of “Floating Gold: the Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris” (University Of Chicago Press, 2012), notes that the stuff commands a high price because “only one percent of the 350,000 sperm whales can actually make it,” he told ABC News. “Because it’s so rare, it’s very valuable.”

Fearing a flood of fortune hunters looking for ambergris, local authorities in Morecambe are now warning beachcombers of some potential risks involved in their search.

“The tide comes in so very quickly that it catches people unaware,” Mike Guy, manager of lifeboat operations for Morecambe, told the BBC. “We’re really worried about people just wandering off on the beach searching for ambergris. They’re very, very unlikely to find any because it’s very rare.”

Just when you think that people getting killed hunting pythons was the dumbest way to die ever invented, along comes a group who could die hunting whale poop. A quick update on the python hunt. As of this writing there have been over 1,000 hunters and under 50 pythons killed. Many humans have suffered various injuries but no fatalities yet.

This is like a real life episode of Benny Hill.

So, what to do about all of this? Well, the best solution I can see is robots. Unfortunately, as Jerremy Hsu points out, robots are meant to be feared and some may want to kill us.

Metal Madness
Real robot names such as Roomba and Asimo don’t evoke as much fear as the fictional “Terminator.” But consider that Roomba, the automated vacuum cleaner, is manufactured by iRobot, creator also of armed robot warriors for the U.S. military. And Asimo represents just the first wave of an incoming tsunami of robots that strive to look and act eerily human.

It goes beyond automated vacuums and mildly entertaining dance-bots. Japan and Korea plan to deploy humanoid robots to care for the elderly, while the United States already fields thousands of robot warriors on the modern battlefield. Meanwhile, plenty of people have enhanced their bodies technologically in ways that bring them closer to their robotic brethren.

So it’s OK to become a bit of a paranoid android, because many experts say that the robotic future is rapidly approaching, if not already here. Robots probably won’t completely take over or annihilate the human race anytime soon, but they may supplant us by other means — and LiveScience is here to count the reasons why you need not hide your fear of the metal ones.

Your Grandkids Will Be Robots
Whether humans and robots fight or make love, the most probable scenario involves marching toward a convergence point in the future. On one hand, humans continue to add more technological gizmos and tiny computers to their daily wear. You can already see many such 21st-century cyborgs playing around with their iPhones, or staring off into the distance with earbuds piping music into their heads. Artificial limbs, organs and bionic eyes? Check. Coming from the other direction, robots have steadily improved in almost every possible way: walking, talking and learning. Man and machine increasingly look alike, and at some point the difference may not exist. But on a brighter note, humans won’t worry so much about robots once they’ve merged with them. See you on the other side.

Robots Take Our Jobs
Anything you can do, they can do better. Well, lots of things, anyway. Modern humans have not gone obsolete just yet, but robots have already found their place as space explorers that can endure harsh environments off and on Earth. They have also brought their tireless efficiency to everything from assembly line work to humdrum gene sequencing in labs, and have appeared in growing numbers on real-life battlefields — although the latter can lead to the different problem if robots stage a rebellion, or even just have a weapons malfunction. For now, robots complement rather than replace elements of the human workforce and armed forces due to limits on their intelligence. But they’re evolving quickly, and a few have even begun tinkering with science themselves.

Robot Insurrection: Kill All Humans
A scenario where machines rise up against their makers presents perhaps the least appealing convergence of science fiction and real life. That doesn’t mean preliminary signs of an incipient insurrection don’t exist, though. Thousands of drones and ground robots have been deployed by many nations, and particularly the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. An automatic antiaircraft gun killed human soldiers on its own when it malfunctioned during a South African training exercise. Military researchers refer to “Terminator” scenarios, and seriously discuss how armed robots are changing the rules and ways of modern war. If that’s not enough to make you a bit leery, consider that Great Britain has established a network of satellites for the purpose of coordinating all those drones and other military assets. It shares the same name as a certain villainous artificial intelligence that dominates the “Terminator” movies — Skynet.

Humans May Prefer Robot Lovers
Experts aren’t wondering if humans will ever make love to robots — they’re already discussing what happens when that day comes. It may sound snicker-worthy, but consider that many people have had online relationships that get pretty intimate through Internet chat rooms and participate in socially intense massively multiplayer online games for years. A flesh-and-steel robot that feels, looks and sounds like a human would have even greater appeal, robotics researchers say. And if history serves as any guide, you don’t need the perfect Stepford Wife to tempt spouses or significant others into a little robotic addiction and strain existing human relationships.

Robots Steal Our Hearts
Robots don’t need to take over by force, if humans have already fallen for their cute, clumsy antics. Blame the human brain for allowing toddlers and soldiers alike to feel warm fuzzy feelings for robots. People are hardwired to perceive faces and get emotional about almost everything, whether it’s a stuffed animal or a car. However, robots still have to navigate one tricky obstacle of the mind — the “Uncanny Valley” phenomenon where a robot looks almost human, save for a bizarre twitch or stutter or glassy-eyed stare which can creep people out. Many researchers currently try to bypass the issue by simply designing robots to look less human, and retain that clunky robotic cuteness

Number 5 is Alive!!!

If you know that phrase you know how cute our eventual overlords can be.

And, yes, you read that article correctly. The nice people who build your vacuum are the same people who build death dealing cyber warriors. Bonus for you? Most of the technology is interchangeable. It would take no effort at all to make your vacuum cleaner kill you in your sleep..

How’s your heart rate now?

Robots of Brixton from Kibwe Tavares on Vimeo.

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It is amazing how diverse our world is. As I sit here this morning, having my first cup of coffee, I am wading through various stories from around the world. A dear friend of my dear friend, Mr. Ron Jeremy, is in the hospital recovering from surgery to remove an aneurysm from his heart. I mean he’s a dear friend to my dear friend. Memo to Ron: you’re supposed to stop living la vida porn star after you turn thirty. Get well soon. In other adult entertainment news, Coco Brown is going to become the first porn star in space. Sadly she paid $100,000 to be a passenger, and only a passenger, so there will be no weightless nookie for us to view later. Still, for those considering careers, keep in mind that Ms. Brown had the $100,000 available with no problem. She launches from the Netherlands next year. Seeing this much adult entertainment stuff in the regular news you might be forgiven for thinking we, as a society, have become more accepting of sex and less of violence.

You would be dead wrong, but I can see how you might think so.

The world around us may be espousing those values but closer to home contrariwise is more the norm. Take Virginia for example. No, scratch that, just take Virginia and leave it somewhere where we won’t find it.

Only one or two centuries late, Virginia lawmakers have decided it is none of their business if unmarried couples share a roof. So the legislators are now working diligently to repeal the state’s law against “lewd and lascivious cohabitation.” Huzzahs all ’round for that.

But do not unclutch thy bodice yet. Virginia law is riddled with antiquated provisions meant to govern the “morals and decency” of the fair people of the commonwealth. And while the law against shacking up apparently never gets enforced, others do.

Just for starters: While it might soon be legal to live in sin, that doesn’t mean you can, by gad sir, fornicate. Fornication remains forbidden under the Code of Virginia, Section 18.2-344. So keep your hands and whatnot to yourself. Especially the whatnots.

And don’t even think of doing other stuff. Virginia’s “crimes against Nature” statute — Section 18.2-361 — still prohibits oral sex. Even between married straight couples. Moreover, state lawmakers seem particularly opposed to that practice — because in Virginia, it’s a felony. Efforts to repeal that provision or even to reduce oral sex to a misdemeanor have failed repeatedly.

Also: Don’t try to open a “bawdy place,” which the code defines as any place “used for lewdness, assignation or prostitution.” (Assignation?)

If you happen to be, say, a cab driver, you had better be careful whom you’re driving where. Virginia law prohibits you to drive anybody to any place (bawdy or otherwise) if you think that person might be going for “illicit sexual intercourse.”

But the law doesn’t end there. If you happen to be a person who happens to know things — such as, oh, the location of bawdy houses or other loci for the commission of illicit woo-hoo — and you happen to impart such information to a fellow who is just passing through, then you are breaking the law. Virginia forbids divulging “any information or direction to any person with intent to enable such person to commit an act of prostitution.”

Also, you’re not allowed to let anybody have sex in your car. Says so in black and white, right there in Section 18.2-349.

Then there’s adultery. Adultery is a violation of God’s commandments. But whether your affair should be the state’s affair as well is another question altogether. Virginia lawmakers think it should be — adultery here is a Class 4 misdemeanor. Nine years ago the town attorney in Luray was convicted of adultery and had to perform 20 hours of community service to expiate his sins.

Obscenity is technically illegal in Virginia, too. That means no dirty movies, dramas, plays or photographs. Or at least it might mean that, depending on what the meaning of “dirty” is. The law prohibits material whose “dominant” theme appeals to a “shameful or morbid” interest in sex and does so in a manner “substantially” exceeding “customary limits of candor.” The modifiers leave a lot of wiggle room — though maybe that depends on what kind of wiggling we’re talking about.

Advertising or promoting obscene works or performances is against the law, too. As are dirty books: In Virginia, “any citizen … may institute” judicial review of any book. If a court thinks the book is obscene, then “the court may issue a temporary restraining order against the sale or distribution” of the book. So anyone who wants to ban “Fifty Shades of Grey” has legal recourse to try.

All of this might leave you tempted to let fly a few guttural Anglo-Saxonisms. Don’t — at least not on the street. Section 18.2-388 makes profane cursing in public a Class 4 misdemeanor.

But nobody enforces these laws, right? Wanna bet? Don’t do that, either: Great chunks of prose in the Code of Virginia are given over to regulating how and when people can wager. Gambling — in a manner not approved of by the state, such as by purchasing state lottery tickets — qualifies as a Class 3 misdemeanor. “Abetting” gambling also is illegal. You’re allowed to play games of chance in the privacy of your own home. Bingo, duck races, raffles and the like are allowed under exhaustively spelled-out conditions.

Some may think these Victorian proscriptions serve some purpose, such as supporting the institution of marriage. If so, then they don’t seem to be working: Virginia has one of the higher divorce rates in the nation. That matches a trend nationwide. Conservative Southern states tend to have higher divorce rates than those godless liberal enclaves in the Northeast.

Anyway. It has taken Virginia 136 years to reconsider the lascivious-cohabitation law. At this rate, lawmakers should be able to drag the commonwealth into the 21st century sometime around the 27th.

In other words, getting head in your car on the way to a party is a triple felony in Virginia.

Seriously. How many of us would be doing life in prison in Virginia?

“Just throw away the key Clem-Bob, these perverts will never see the light of day.”

While Virginia may be the leader of stupid laws that are nigh on impossible to enforce, they aren’t alone. Check out these lovely 11 laws, because top 10 lists are for wimps, from around the country.

1. Anniston, Alabama: If a woman loses a game of pool, it is illegal for her to settle her tab with sex.
2. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: It is illegal to have sex with a truck driver in a tollbooth.
3. Cottonwood, Arizona: Couples having sex in a vehicle with flat wheels will be fined. The fine will be doubled if the sex occurs in the backseat.
4. Newcastle, Wyoming: Couples are banned from having sex while standing inside a store’s walk-in meat freezer.
5. Tremonton, Utah: No woman is allowed to have sex with a man while riding in an ambulance. In addition to normal charges, the woman’s name will be published in the local newspaper. Um… discrimination, anyone?
6. Oblong, Illinois: It’s punishable by law to have sex while hunting or fishing on your wedding day.
7. Bozeman, Montana: All sexual activity between members of the opposite sex in the front yard of a home after sundown is illegal — if they’re nude.
8. Connorsville, Wisconsin: It’s against the law for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner has an orgasm.
9. Utah: Sex with an animal — unless performed for profit — is not considered sodomy and therefore is legal.
10. Oxford, Ohio: It’s illegal for a woman to strip off her clothing while standing in front of a man’s picture.
11. Minnesota: It is illegal for any man to have sexual intercourse with a live fish — ladies, apparently, you’re in the clear.

No, you really don’t want to know why those specific laws were written.

SLEEPCHAMBER “INFATUATION” (official video) from JOHN ZEWIZZ on Vimeo.

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It is that time of year again. The time when manly men do manly things in a manly way so they get through their manly day until they sit down in their manly style and squeal like pre-teen girls at a Justin Bieber concert. Super Bowl Sunday has been doing that to men for 47 years and it shows no sign of relenting. This year’s epic battle features two brothers coaching against each other for the very first time. So why did I call it Bro Bowl II? Because the 2007 Super Bowl featured the first two African-American coaches, Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith. Yeah, I know it’s wrong on a lot of levels but I also know you laughed. To be fair both men would recoil in horror if you called either of them “Bro.” Unless you were genetically linked to them, that is. Given the incestuous nature of the NFL the only surprising thing is that this hasn’t happened sooner.

Well, now that it has we can settle back and enjoy the game which will be decided by the skill of the players and the guile of the coaches. Unless you live in the South. Then the odds are heavy that you think that God decides the outcome.

More than half of all Americans believe that God rewards athletes who have faith in Him, according to a recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, and isn’t that what Tim Tebow has been telling us all along?

That number is 53 percent, and isn’t really that shocking. But this one is, at least to me: according to the poll, 27 percent of Americans believe that God actually plays a role in determining which team wins a sporting event. Yes, God is waving that ball fair or foul, like an omnipotent Carlton Fisk. Or to put it another way, God spends all day playing Madden NFL 12 with real players.

Which means that David Akers must have really done something wrong in his life recently. God seems to be steamed at him.

The poll, conducted on Jan. 16, consisted of random telephone interviews with 1,033 subjects.

The percentage jumps even higher if you’re a white evangelical Protestant from the South.

Roughly 4-in-10 minority Christians (40%) and white evangelical Protestants (38%) agree that God does play a role in the outcome of a sporting event, compared to less than 3-in-10 (29%) Catholics, less than 1-in-5 (19%) white mainline Protestants, and approximately 1-in-10 (12%) religiously unaffiliated Americans.

More than one-third (36%) of Americans who live in the South agree that God plays a role in determining which team wins a sporting event, compared to nearly 3-in-10 (28%) Americans who live in the Midwest, 1-in-5 (20%) Americans who live in the Northeast, and 15% of Americans who live in the West.

That low percentage for the West is not surprising: that’s where Chargers and Raiders fans live.

But Democrats (28 percent) are slightly more likely to think that God is manipulating box scores than Republicans (25 percent) or independents (26 percent).

And try this on for size:

More than three-quarters (76%) of Americans agree that public high schools should be allowed to sponsor prayer before football games.

Wow. May God have mercy on us all.

UPDATE: Best reader comment so far:

datcrazybok
Goodell needs to ban prayer before games. That’s a performance enhancer.

I’m not sure how to convey how scary that line of thinking is. That means that 25% of Americans believe that God really, truly, hates Bud Grant and Marv Levy. Two devout men who have combined to lose 8 Super Bowls. Or, to be more accurate, 25% of Americans shouldn’t be allowed near sharp objects.

Marc Bona, a writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, had too much time on his hands so he took a look at all the useful trivia that surrounds the Super Bowl that 75% of Americans will find entertaining.

At least we’re still the majority.

Our annual amalgamation of Super Bowl XLVII tidbits is here. It’s everything you want to know about the trivia surrounding the game.

For those living under a proverbial rock, the game pits the San Francisco 49ers (13-4-1) against the Baltimore Ravens (13-6). It kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Sunday in New Orleans’ Mercedes-Benz Superdome. It airs on CBS — locally on WOIO Channel 19.

Even if you have been living under a rock, you probably have heard this year’s big story line: The game pits brother against brother. Jim Harbaugh coaches San Francisco; John Harbaugh coaches Baltimore. Almost immediately, the game was dubbed the “Har-Bowl.”

In honor of the 47th installment — XLVII for you purists who love formality — here are 47 items:

Big games, Big Easy: It is the 10th time New Orleans has hosted the Super Bowl — six times previously in the Superdome, three times in Tulane Stadium. The Superdome was home to two blowouts: the 1990 game (San Francisco 55, Denver 10) and 1986 (Chicago 46, New England 10).

Undefeated: The 49ers (five times) and the Ravens (once) have won every Super Bowl they have played.

Eyes on the screen: The 2012 game averaged more than 111 million viewers in the United States. About 160 million people in 200 countries are expected to watch Sunday.

#superbowl: The 2011 Super Bowl set a record for most Tweets per second for a sporting event — 4,064 — toward the end of the game.

Heads or tails? In 46 Super Bowls, heads and tails have come up 23 times each. Even more amazingly, the NFC had won 15 consecutive tosses until last year.

Dog of a game: The big game before the Super Bowl can be found from 3 to 5 p.m. on Animal Planet. Puppy Bowl IX features more than 60 pups scampering around a field. The network again will employ a kiss cam, water-bowl cam, hamster pilots in a “blimp” and a halftime show involving kittens.

March on: The Southern University marching band, nicknamed the Human Jukebox, will perform during pre-game.

National anthem: Alicia Keys will sing the national anthem. The 32-year-old singer was born the same day as Super Bowl XV, which was in New Orleans’ Superdome.

30 seconds of time: Hold on to your Doritos; some 30-second ad spots hit $4 million. That’s about $133,333 per second.

Onstage: Beyonce will perform at halftime. Whether she will sing with a prerecorded track as she did at the inauguration last month in Washington, D.C., remains to be seen. Or heard.

Happy birthday! Quarterbacks Fran Tarkenton (73) and Bob Griese (68) celebrate today. Both played in Super Bowls.

Game odds: San Francisco is favored by about 3.5 points, with an over/under at 48. (To bet the over/under, choose whether the teams combined will score more than or less than 48 points.)

Political leanings: Crab and other notable hometown cuisine like wine and cheese are at stake over the game’s outcome in a wager between four Democratic Senators. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California are betting against Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin.

The LeBron bets: One of the scores of wagers involves Cleveland’s persona non grata LeBron James. The bet is who will have more points: James in the Miami Heat game Sunday at Toronto or the 49ers team? Another: Who will have more, James’ points plus rebounds plus assists or both the 49ers and Ravens’ points combined?

Coast to coast: The home team officially is the 49ers. Even though San Francisco is almost 2,300 miles to New Orleans, while Baltimore sits about 1,100 miles away.

Ohio connection: Jack Harbaugh, the coaches’ father, played at Bowling Green State University and coached at Perrysburg High School. The brothers were born in Toledo.

Lights, camera, action! CBS divisions (television, radio, online) will have 15 different shows share in the sets constructed for coverage in New Orleans.

Great seats, eh buddy? A recent eBay listing had bidding for a suite at the game starting at $125,000. For those who didn’t want to bid, the buy-it-now price was $138,000. It included 32 tickets between the goal line and 5-yard line, food, beverage, program and parking. Free shipping was included.

Comparing cities: The cities have an odd symmetry. San Francisco is wine (Napa, Sonoma counties nearby); Baltimore is beer (Clipper City Brewing Co.). Baseball greats: Joe DiMaggio grew up in the Bay Area; Oriole great Cal Ripken is a Maryland native. San Francisco is known for Fisherman’s Wharf; Baltimore has the Inner Harbor. On the current literary front, Dave Eggers lives in San Francisco while mystery writer Laura Lippman is from Baltimore.

Long distance: Baltimore and San Francisco are more than 2,800 miles apart. Only twice before has a Super Bowl pitted two teams farther apart geographically — Miami-San Francisco in 1985 and Oakland-Tampa Bay in 2003.

Game vs. ads: A regulation game is 60 minutes. The 2012 Super Bowl had more than 47 minutes of commercials.

Ad bucks: From 2003 to 2012, the top-spending advertiser on the game was Anheuser-Busch. The brewing giant spent almost $250 million. This year, get ready for a new product, Budweiser Black Crown, to grace time between plays.

Who can Ohioans cheer for? San Francisco has four former Ohio State University stars on its roster; Baltimore has none. However, the Niners’ coach, Jim Harbaugh, played collegiately at Michigan. (Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh played at Miami University.)

Ticket prices: A seat at the game was running $800 to $1,200. Face value.

Pricey seats: On Jan. 22, Ticketmaster was seeking more than $13,210 for some seats.

The ticket pie: The Star Tribune in Minneapolis reports the breakdown this way — 25 percent of the tickets go to the league, 34 percent is split evenly by the competing teams, 5 percent goes to the host team (New Orleans Saints), and 36 percent is split among the remaining 29 teams.

Taking sides: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi represents San Francisco in Congress, but she was born and raised in Baltimore. Sunday, she will be cheering for the 49ers.

47 games: George Toma has been on the field for every Super Bowl. He is a master groundskeeper.

Players’ shares: Winners each get $88,000. “Losers” each receive $44,000.

International event: Armed Forces Television will broadcast to 175 countries. The game will be broadcast in 30 languages.

Szuper Tal: Sirius 94 / XM 230 / Online 961 will broadcast the game in Hungarian.

Color of victory: The odds on which color Gatorade will be dumped on the winning coach say clear/water (7/4); orange or yellow (5/2); and green, red or blue (13/2).

What’s in a name? A Baltimore Sun fan poll resulted in the name Ravens, derived from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem. The 49ers name is a testament to the “adventurous spirit” of pioneers in the 1849 gold rush east of San Francisco.

Sitcom moment: “Saved by the Bell: The New Class” featured Jim Harbaugh in a 1996 episode called “Little Hero.” He played himself; he did not win any acting awards.

A taxing day: About a third of the fans who attend the game reportedly deduct it as a corporate expense.

Donated winnings: Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake won a bet with the mayor of Boston after her hometown Ravens beat the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game two weeks ago. She donated the food items to a housing program for the homeless. Rawlings-Blake, by the way, graduated from Oberlin College.

What drives the ads: Vehicles were a big focus in new commercials last year, accounting for 34 percent of all ads.

And the winner is . . . Using 50,000 simulations through a software program, PredictionMachine.com forecast the game, with San Francisco winning 66.9 percent of the time. The likely score, it found, is 28-21.

To the victors: That trophy the winners hoist is the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The Tiffany-made football weighs about 7 pounds and is worth $25,000.

Attendance tally: The first 46 games have drawn a cumulative attendance of 3,581,385. That’s about the population of the city of Los Angeles.

Order to go: Pizza 4 Patriots, a nonprofit group, is sending 21,000 frozen, packed pizzas from Chicago to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Speaking of pizza: Revenue for pizza chains is up 35 percent on Super Bowl Sunday compared with a typical Sunday.

Freedom of the press: More than 5,000 media members were credentialed for Super Bowl Media Day on Tuesday.

Mascot mania: San Francisco’s mascot is Sourdough Sam, while Poe represents Baltimore.

Cheers! The folks at UV Vodka were among the first to name drinks for this game. Choose from a Raven on the Rocks (one part UV grape, one part lemon-lime soda, add a splash of sweet and sour mix) or the Bay Bomb (one part UV cherry, three parts cola.) Serve either over ice in a highball glass.

After the game: CBS will air “Elementary,” the Sherlock Holmes drama, immediately after the game. It stars Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu. Traditionally, the spot right after the final gun sounds is a coveted one for the network. Last year, NBC aired “The Voice,” and in 2011, the spot went to “Glee.”

Get ready: Super Bowl XLVIII will be Feb. 2, 2014, in East Rutherford, N.J., in MetLife Stadium. It will be only the fifth Super Bowl played in a city with a real winter and the first to be played outdoors in the north.

Sources: nfl.com, Los Angeles Times, Animal Planet, www.subr.edu, Associated Press, Hollywood Reporter, CBS, Mapquest.com, Toledo Blade, randmcnally.com, ebay.com, (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, American Profile, Sirius, fbnation.com, profootballhof.com, imdb.com, toknowinfo.hubpages.com, Baltimore Sun, baltimorecity.gov, Ace Metrix, Yahoo! Sports, infoplease.com, WWLP, smartbrief.com, UV Vodka, assorted sources

So there you have it. Everything you could possibly want to know about the Super Bowl.

Oh, before I forget, there never was a chicken wing crisis in the first place. It was just another fun Internet hoax that got life thanks to idiot journalists.

In other words, you didn’t see it here.

What you can see here is my bud Tehmeena’s video that she created to honor her favorite team, the NY Giants, last year.

TEHMEENA AFZAL / MS. MEENA SEXY NY GIANTS SUPER BOWL TRIBUTE VIDEO from TEHMEENA AFZAL on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
contact Bill McCormick

Happy Candlemas ya’ll. Because this is a deeply religious holiday that relates directly to Jesus’ first visit to the holy temple in Jerusalem millions of Americans will celebrate it by worshiping a rodent and drinking beer. Lots and lots of beer. If they go all out lederhosen and accordions will be involved. Not that I’m complaining, I’m a big fan of beer, but it does seem like an odd way to celebrate something so divinely inspired. Then again look at what happened to Christmas. I guess there’s precedent. Okay, if there’s going to be rodent worship, at least let it be a cool rodent. In that regard we struck pure gold. Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary, that’s his full name as decreed by the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club in 1897, is the groundhog in question and he has a wonderfully cool name. That makes our favorite rodent 116 years old this week. Either the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club has pulled the old switcherooo a couple of times or scientists might want to take a trip to Pennsylvania and test the water. Well, maybe not the water since groundhogs rarely drink it. They get most of their moisture from plant dew. Then again, knowing what fish do in water they may be on to something there.

Anyway, here are five annoying facts about Groundhog Day that you will never unlearn.

1. Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow 97 times, has not seen it 15 times, and nine years are unaccounted for.

2. The National Climatic Data Center reportedly stated that Phil’s prediction’s have been correct 39 percent of the time. This number is in conflict with Phil’s club, which states he’s been right 100 percent of the time.

3. According to the funny website groundhog.org, there’s a legend that during Prohibition, Phil threatened to impose 60 weeks of winter on the community if he wasn’t allowed a drink.

4. In the years following the release of Groundhog Day, a 1993 film starring Bill Murray, crowds numbering as high as 30,000 have visited Gobbler’s Knob, a tiny hill in Punxsutawney where the ceremony takes place.

5. Though groundhogs typically live only six to eight years, Groundhog Day lore suggests that Phil drinks a magic elixir every summer, which gives him seven more years of life.

Is it just me or does Gobbler’s Knob sound like a great name for a porno?

And, while the article mentions one funny web site dedicated to the day, I can assure you that there are hundreds. In fact the hullabaloo is so overwhelming that the Daily Mirror in London was forced to stop writing about the war in the Middle East and dedicate a page to the history of Groundhog Day.

It’s Groundhog Day in America, but – apart from the Bill Murray film – what does that mean?

In fact, the spring celebration has nothing to do with living the same day on repeat.

We’ve brought together all you need to know about Groundhog Day in ten handy hints.

10. Groundhogs, otherwise known as woodchucks, are rodents. They are one of the few animals that do truly hibernate throughout the winter, often building special winter burrows for their winter sleep.

9. The legend goes that when the groundhog comes out of his burrow from hibernation, he will look for his own shadow.

If it is sunny and he sees it, he will take fright and go back into his hole. Winter will then carry on for another six weeks. If it is cloudy and he doesn’t see his shadow, then spring will arrive early.

8. The tradition began in Pennsylvania in 18th and 19th centuries. Based in ancient European weather lore where badgers were used to predict the length of winter.

7. The legend of Groundhog Day has been spotted in two old British songs. In a Scottish couplet, it says: “If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.”

In an English song: “If Candlemas be fair and bright, come, Winter, have another flight; If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, go Winter, and come not again”

6. Every year on February 2, all across Pennsylvania there are early morning festivals to watch the groundhogs emerge from their burrows. Punxsutawney holds the biggest Groundhog Day celebration in America, where over 20,000 people attend each year.

5. In some areas there are German-Pennsylvanian Groundhog Lodges that hold big parties with traditional German food and skits. Pennsylvanian-German dialect is the only language allowed – if you speak in English you have to pay a small fine as punishment.

4. The most famous groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil, who has apparently been making predictions in Punxsutawney for over 125 years. Residents say that Phil is given a magical potion every year to give him long life.

3. The chosen groundhogs are kept in electric-heated burrows, and are said to utter their prediction in ‘groundhogese’ which is then ‘translated’ by a representative.

2. The groundhogs are looked after by the Inner Circle, which is a group of local dignitaries who are responsible for carrying out all of the Groundhog Day celebrations. They traditionally wear formal dress, including top hats, on Groundhog Day.

1. The accuracy of the groundhog predictions is a matter of dispute – some Pennsylvania residents say that the rodents are accurate up to 90% of the time, whereas some studies say they are accurate only 35% of the time.

Okay, first the movie. Not to be a noodge but if it were real Bill Murray would have been a serial killer before the second act. Think of it this way, it takes someone about 10 years to master a craft. Bill masters piano playing, ice carving and French. While director Harold Ramis claimed, on the DVD, that Murray only spent ten years in hell, you can easily see that number rise closer to 30. 30 years of dying over and over again only to reawaken to a town full of people who don’t remember anything.

Now to the rodent. You can see now how two very different holidays got glued together over time. On the one hand we have Mary, mother of Jesus, bringing her infant to the temple for her to receive the ritual purification and on the other we have a rodent who predicts the weather, badly.

I can see how they got confused.

But if you must head out to rural Pennsylvania as part of your pop culture Haj, what can you expect to do? Well, the Pittsburgh chapter of About.com has some suggestions.

Plan to arrive in Punxutawney no later than 6am in time to catch one of several shuttles providing transportation to Gobbler’s Knob (there is no parking at the Knob). Or, arrive a day or two earlier for a weekend of action-packed events including a chili cook-off, ice carving exhibitions, trivia contests, a Prognosticators Ball, groundhog day weddings, sleigh rides, woodchuck whittling, the Phil Phind Scavenger Hunt, music, food, fun and games. If you happen to be celebrating a birthday on February 2nd, then you are invited to join others who share the special day for Phil’s Birthday Celebration and a free souvenir.

Ah yes, not only are you another day older and closer to death, today you get to party with a rodent. From Mickey Mouse to Chuck E. Cheese, we do seem to be a culture that worships its rodents.

That is very weird, I hope you know.

Groundhog Day from David van Wert on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
contact Bill McCormick