Lent starts tomorrow with Ash Wednesday — don’t forget to stock up on fish! — so here’s a cute story about a boy who decided to spend all of Lent in a tent.

And here’s why Pepper won’t go anywhere near the cows when we take her to the farm:

image from icanhascheezburger.com

Cows are mean critters where dogs are concerned.

This is just too funny not to share:

From icanhascheezburger.com

GraphJam.com

I just had to share this one, for all the times I’ve heard, “Wow, you’re left-handed?”  I’ve heard it so many times that I came up with a snappy comeback:  “All the best people are.”

You’d think it’s something rare, the way people say it like, “Wow, you’ve got a Super Bowl ring?”  About 8% of people—1 in 12—are left-handed, so if you work at a checkout counter or somewhere where people write checks and sign their name, you’re bound to see several every day.  It really shouldn’t seem that weird.

Fun left-hander fact: the Latin word for ‘left’ is sinister.

Well, Sunday’s dinner at St. Rose went pretty well.  We fed about 230 people, which was definitely more than last year’s January dinner.  There was leftover pork and potatoes, but I’m sure they’ll all get eaten.  None of my raffle tickets won, so I guess no one missed out by not taking me up on my “comment and get a raffle ticket” offer.  I’ll try that again next month. Read more »

Here’s a story that shows how little evidence there can be behind the things we’re taught as settled fact by governments and media.  (Hat tip: Illinois Pedant.)  The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which wants the power to tell us all how big a car we can have and how often we can use our backyard grills, made a claim that all the glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by the year 2035 due to global warming, with a 90% degree of certainty.  And of course, therefore we must Do Something.  Now it turns out that claim was based on one guy’s guess.  The meat of the article: Read more »

Apparently Mark McGwire has finally admitted to taking steroids, including during his record-breaking year in 1998—just in case anyone out there still thought the guy who hit 70 home runs in one year was somehow the only one in the league who wasn’t juicing.  I  believed him at the time, but now we know that pretty much everyone including the ball boys were taking steroids during that era, so it was a little much to think he was the only exception. Read more »

I think my desk is in the coldest corner of the house.  It’s definitely the furthest from the furnace, and I think the square of floor under my desk is influenced more by the outside temperature on the other side of the wall than by the heated air blowing down from above.  A slab foundation, hardwood floors, and forced air heat from the ceiling just aren’t a good combination for warm feet.  Any concrete floor that I ever pour for myself, even for a chicken house, is going to have pipes for radiant heat.  That would feel really good right now. Read more »

My tip for today: if you ever accidentally put something other than brake fluid in the brake fluid reservoir of your vehicle, don’t drive it.  Take the reservoir off immediately, dump it out, and make sure you get it cleaned out well and filled back up with proper brake fluid. Read more »

I don’t think this is my first “Catching Up” post, and it probably won’t be my last.  I promised myself that when all the holiday parties were over (I attended nine get-togethers between Dec. 20th and Jan. 2), I’d get back to blogging regularly.  So I’ll start by catching up on the past couple months. Read more »

This made me laugh out loud, so I had to share it:

Image from ICanHasCheezburger.com