I suppose this is a major milestone… for evil? Anyway, due to circumstances beyond our control, your regularly-scheduled podcast has been replaced with… the same podcast, wearing a goatee, and not giving pennies. Enjoy!
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You’re thinking of Ed Gein, inspiration for both Norman Bates and Leatherface.
You are correct, Sir.
I think Tim Allen also does some of the commercial voice overs for Campbell’s soup. I do really like his Pure Michigan commercials. They almost always make me want to plan a trip to Michigan – good on you commercial writers.
Oscar the Grouch – I think Caroll Spinney played both Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for the majority of Sesame Street’s run. I remember reading in his book that Caroll invented the mute character of Bruno the trash man as a way to make Oscar mobile (Bruno’s job was to carry Oscar’s can around). I’m not sure if there were some times when Oscar’s feet actually appeared.
Ancestry kits – I was talking with my husband’s aunt about these last weekend. She told me her biological sister did it, and got results that she’s not Italian. The aunt I was speaking to told me she wanted to do it, but was worried it might say she wasn’t Italian either. I asked her if she thought she’d get different results from her sister, and she told me she thought she might (even though she believes them to have the same parents). I started to explain that the “where you’re from” part is based on markers, and while they keep refining it, it’s not perfect (i.e. you could actually be Italian even if the test doesn’t say you are), but my understanding is they are fairly accurate in that biological siblings should receive the same heritage results. Right? It was a very odd conversation.
I was looking for an inexpensive desk calendar and happen to have the 2019 National Day calendar. Today, March 22 is Bavarian Crepes Day, Goof Off Day, and West Virginia Day. According to the National Day calendar people, there are a few National Donut Days; the first Friday in June and November 5 for all types of donuts, and September 14 for creme filled donut day (just five days ahead of National Talk Like a Pirate Day). I don’t think there’s anything to prevent you from celebrating National Hat days/months (January 15 (all hats), the month of September (fall hats), the month of April (straw hats), September 15 (felt hats)) by eating donuts.
One thing I was going to say that I, for some reason, didn’t say… the DNA service I use does a great job of informing people about the incredibly speculative nature of some of the information they provide. So I never feel like they’re lying or being misleading in any way.
My father was tested by the same service, and while our DNA matched enough to prove he’s my father, his heritage profile and Y haplogroup were slightly different from mine because of the speculative stuff involved in the generation of that information. (For those who don’t know, my and my father’s Y haplogroup ought to test identical, but it only tested as nearly identical… in spite of that, he and I are a 50% match overall, so he still tests positive as my father.)
So, if the service a person is using is worth anything, it ought to explain things well enough that if a person who knows they have Italian ancestry doesn’t test as being Italian, they’ll know that it’s (probably) because interpretation of genetic data is still rather imprecise, and not (necessarily) because someone was wrong/lied to about being Italian.
The test also confirmed that my ancestry is 100% evil, which, not gonna lie, was quite a relief.