Today’s offering is a very festive one…Red Velvet Cake!
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 bottles (1 ounce each) red food coloring
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-1/4 cups cake flour
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
Preheat oven to 350°. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 5-7 minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in food coloring, vinegar and vanilla. In another bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition.
Pour into 2 greased and floured 9-in. round baking pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Cool layers 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely. Frost as desired.
Marisa Tomei’s birthday is this month, so I thought I’d look at little known facts about My Cousin Vinny, which I think is her breakout movie.
From Mental Floss:
My Cousin Vinny was inspired by an encounter with a guy hoping to pass the bar.
My Cousin Vinny was one of the earliest ideas screenwriter Dale Launer ever had. “In the very early ’70s, I met a guy who … was waiting the bar exam results,” he told ABA Journal in 2012. Launer asked what would happen if he didn’t pass, and the guy said he could just take it again, and if he didn’t pass that time, he’d just take it again. And again. Until he passed. “So I said, ‘What’s the most times somebody has taken and failed and finally passed?’” Launer recalled. “He said, ‘Thirteen times.’ … I always thought that guy who took 13 times to pass the bar, or girl, is probably out there practicing law in some capacity. Now, how would you feel if suddenly you learned that guy is your lawyer? … What if you have been accused of a crime and clearly, you have what appears to be the worst lawyer in the country?”
Robert De Niro was Launer’s first choice to play Vinny Gambini.
After the script was written, a casting meeting was called and Launer met with Fox’s president, vice president, and CEO. When Launer suggested Robert De Niro for the part of Vincent LaGuardia Gambini, “the prez looked uncomfortable, embarrassed that I would suggest such an actor,” Launer told Writer Unboxed. “‘De Niro, uh … well … he’s not funny. And … his movies don’t make money.’ … Now … the only movies De Niro acts in that make money? Comedies! So, I feel vindicated. But I wish I could’ve been given a big fat check when I [ended up] being proved right.”
Joe Pesci based Vinny on guys from his neighborhood.
“There’s a lot of people around like that in smaller neighborhoods, so I put a few of them together and [came] up with Vinny,” Pesci, who grew up in New Jersey, told The Movie Show in 1992.
The studio initially wanted to cut Mona Lisa Vito from My Cousin Vinny.
n 2007, Launer told Writer Unboxed that the studio had wanted to get rid of Vinny’s Chinese-food-loving, unemployed hairdresser/car expert girlfriend. To keep the character, Launer reluctantly added a scene, requested by the studio president, to the second draft: “He wanted Vinny’s girlfriend to complain that he’s not giving her enough attention,” Launer said. “You often see movies where some guy is hell bent on accomplishing something, and you’re on the ride with him—and his wife/girlfriend/mother is feeling neglected. And she complains. And I HATE this! … Watching those scenes is simply boring. You want to fast forward it. Awful.”
Eventually, he said he “figured out a way where they’d HAVE to keep her and embellished her character … she does complain, but at least apologizes for bringing it up, and you don’t hate her for bringing it up largely because it’s funny. … Now, I thought if she brought this up at this point where he is simply going through hell—he should be pissed off. And he is. So he kinda tears into her.” Mona Lisa’s “biological clock” rant (above) became one of his favorite scenes in the script.
The studio took a chance on Marisa Tomei.
Tomei didn’t have a lot of film experience when she landed the part of Mona Lisa Vito. “I’d seen her [on the set of Oscar] working with John Landis and [had] gone with [him] to the cutting room to look at her performance,” Lynn said in DVD commentary.” She was playing a 1920s blonde flapper, very different, but I could see how funny and talented she was. And we got her in to read. She read wonderfully and we persuaded the studio to let me go with this unknown actress in the role. It was the best decision I ever made.” Lynn said he knew they’d gotten the right actress for the part when he saw the dailies from the first scene they shot with her—Mona Lisa and Vinny’s arrival in Alabama, when she tells him, “Oh, yeah, you blend.”
Marisa Tomei is from Brooklyn, but she doesn’t sound like her My Cousin Vinny character.
Tomei grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, so “I really knew the neighborhood,” she told The New York Times in 1992. But that doesn’t mean she sounded just like Mona Lisa. “I don’t think that extreme, but I could be wrong,” she told NPR’s Fresh Air in 2010. “My mom was an English teacher, and she was on my butt about that kind of thing and correcting my speech from a young age.”
The legal system is portrayed very accurately in My Cousin Vinny.
Lynn has a law degree from Cambridge University, and, he said in DVD commentary, “I get terribly irritated when I see films in which the legal procedure is obviously wrong.” In addition to Launer’s research, Lynn made adjustments to make sure the legal proceedings were correct. “I’m very pleased with the fact that, although this is heightened for comedic purposes, everything you see legally in this film could happen and is approximately correct,” he said. “Which, by the way, makes it the more frightening.” Lynn even sat in on a murder trial in the Monticello, Ga. courtroom that served as the inspiration for the Vinny courtroom set. “Some of the lines in the [Vinny trial] came directly from that trial,” he said, including Lane Smith’s pronunciation of heinous (“high-a-nus”) and his line about “our little old ancestors” in the opening remarks.
One scene in My Cousin Vinny was lifted from a book about comedy and the law.
The book featured real moments from actual courtrooms. Launer lifted the memorable voir dire scene of a potential juror for Vinny. The lawyers “ask them their opinion on capital punishment, and they said something like, ‘I think it should be left up to the victims’ families,’” Launer told Abnormal Use. “Then they then described exactly what the murderer did, and then that the juror actually said, ‘Fry them.’ So I put that right in the movie.”
My Cousin Vinny shot scenes in an actual prison.
The cast and crew shot for several days in a state prison in Gainesville, Georgia, in the wing where prisoners are kept in solitary confinement. “It does have a death row, right beside the wing where we were shooting, and I looked all around death row,” Lynn said in DVD commentary. “It was a very frightening building, and we were all pretty scared when we were there, even though we had guards with us at all times.”
It took up to 40 minutes to get from the outside of the building to where they were shooting inside. Whitfield told Abnormal Use that “When Ralph and I were walking through the prison the first time like holding our blankets and walking to our cell and you hear the prisoners screaming at us. Those are real prisoners, and they really were yelling at us. … They had to tone it down with what they put in the movie because they were saying some horrible stuff. Ralph and I were petrified.”
The prison guards in My Cousin Vinny aren’t actors.
The guards in the movie were real prison guards. The production used real prisoners as extras twice: once in the background when Stan and Bill are being brought into the prison, and during a short scene where the duo plays basketball during exercise time. “The prisoners were all extremely cooperative and did exactly what we asked,” Lynn said in DVD commentary. “I don’t know what incentives or threats were made in order to achieve that.”
Joe Pesci learned how to do a card trick for My Cousin Vinny.
In the scene where Vinny is convincing Bill to let him represent him, Vinny does a card trick. “It was important to me that the card trick wasn’t faked,” Lynn said in DVD commentary. “Of course you can fake anything by cutting and showing another shot, but I talked about this to Joe before we started shooting, and he learned how to do this card trick. So the scene in which he does it does not have any cuts in it. He actually fools the audience before their very eyes. He did it beautifully. I thought Vinny’s argument would be much less powerful if the audience could say oh well that was just faked by the way the scene was cut.”
The word yutes came from a real conversation with Joe Pesci.
The conversation between Vinny and Judge Chamberlain Haller about “two yutes” became “perhaps the most quoted piece of dialogue from the film,” Lynn said in DVD commentary. It was inspired by a conversation that Lynn and Pesci had when they were prepping the film at the Mayflower Hotel in New York City. “He said something about ‘these two yutes’ who were on trial and I said ‘what?’ and he said ‘what?’ and I said ‘what’s a yute?’” Lynn recalled. “I realized as we were having that conversation that that was something that ought to happen between Vinny and the judge, so I simply wrote it in the way it happened naturally.”
You can visit many locations from My Cousin Vinny.
Though the film is set in Alabama, the production actually shot in three separate small towns in Georgia. “Apart from the courtroom,” which was a set, “virtually everything was shot on location,” director Jonathan Lynn said in Vinny’s DVD commentary. “It wasn’t a very expensive movie, and that was the cheaper way to go. It also had more authenticity.” Which means you can visit a number of the film’s locations—including the Sac-O-Suds convenience store.
My Cousin Vinny was praised by the law community.
“The movie is close to reality even in its details,” lawyer Maxwell S. Kennerly wrote on his blog, Trial and Litigation. “Part of why the film has such staying power among lawyers is because, unlike, say, A Few Good Men, everything that happens in the movie could happen—and often does happen—at trial.” Professor Alberto Bernabe of The John Marshall Law School, who hands his students a list of law movies organized by category, puts Vinny under “Education,” not just because “it provides so much material you can use in the classroom. For example, you can use the movie to discuss criminal procedure, courtroom decorum, professional responsibility, unethical behavior, the role of the judge in a trial, efficient cross-examination, the role of expert witnesses and effective trial advocacy.”
The film has also been praised by a Seventh Circuit Court Judge; referenced by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; and made it into a legal textbook.
Maria Tomei found out about her Oscar nomination for My Cousin Vinny in an unlikely place.
Tomei was sleeping on a friend’s couch—a friend who was pregnant and due at any moment—when she found out about her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Her friends were watching TV, and “there were shouts from the other room, and they awoke me,” she told David Letterman in 1993. “I didn’t know if she was going into labor or what.” Tomei would go on to win the Oscar—and yes, despite the urban legend that 74-year-old presenter Jack Palance announced the wrong name, the actress really did win.
There could have been a sequel to My Cousin Vinny.
In 2004, Lautner’s bio noted that “Joe wanted to do it, but Marisa didn’t. Now she does, and so does Joe, but the studio isn’t terribly interested in the remake, feeling too much time has passed since the initial release. Perhaps everyone who liked it has passed on. Or changed their minds. Launer hopes they will see the light.” According to Whitfield, the sequel might have involved Vinny going to Europe.
Joe Pesci made an album as Vinny Gambini.
Before he was an actor, Pesci was a lounge singer; six years after My Cousin Vinny came out, he released an album called Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You. It features the songs “Wise Guy,” “Take Your Love and Shove It,” “Yo Cousin Vinny,” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” a duet with Tomei as Mona Lisa. It debuted at No. 36 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart.
Patriots coach Bill Belichik referenced My Cousin Vinny during Deflategate.
Rudy Guiliani isn’t the only person who has randomly referenced My Cousin Vinny during a press conference. “I would not say that I am Mona Lisa Vito of the football world,” Belichik said when asked what he knew about football pressure. When she heard, Tomei texted Pesci. “We thought it was pretty funny,” she told The Rich Eisen Show.
Your socks should fit over your hands, so put one on when it’s time to clean the house. In addition to using it to dust the furniture, socks are especially suited to wiping baseboards, shutters, blind slats, ceiling fans and even houseplants. In the garage, use single socks to clean and polish your car inside and out. When you’re finished cleaning your house or vehicle, remove the sock from your hand by pulling it off inside-out, so the mess stays off your hand.
Wipe a Dog’s Paws and Toys
If your dog comes back from a walk wet or dirty, slip a sock on your hand and wipe off her paws and any other affected areas. You may also wish to put a sock on your hand when you’re tossing a ball, Frisbee or other toy that may be returned to you full of slobber.
Rejuvenate Dry Skin
Do you have a problem with dry and cracked skin on your hands or feet? One of the best ways to heal your skin is to cover the affected area with an appropriate moisturizer or petroleum jelly before you retire for the evening, then cover with a sock. The sock will keep the lotion or salve from getting all over your bedding, plus help your skin better absorb the moisturizing agent. (If both feet need moisturizing, just use two odd socks.)
Roll Out Knotted Muscles
One of the more annoying things in life is having a tight muscle in an area you can’t quite reach, like the middle of your back. When that happens, place a tennis ball into a long sock, knotting the end. Find a hard surface like a wall or door, then toss the sock over your shoulder and position the ball over the knot in your back. Press against the ball as you move it all over the knotted area to roll out that muscle.
Bust Bad Smells
Fill a stray sock with cat litter, knot the end, and place it in your tent before rolling it up for the season. This will keep mustiness at bay. You can also put coffee grounds or baking soda in leftover socks, knot them, and stick into your shoes for an overnight deodorizing. One more odor-buster: Place potpourri or lavender into a sock, secure the end, then place in a dresser drawer, gym bag or closet — any place where you’d like a fresh scent.
Create Kids’ Toys
Sock puppets have been around for centuries, although they haven’t always been crafted from stray socks. Take those strays (longer socks work best) and add whatever embellishments you’d like, such as eyes, hair and glasses, to make your own puppet. You can also make stuffed animals from socks.
Prevent Drafts
If your home has a drafty door or window, take a sock (long ones and tube socks work best) and fill with popcorn kernels or dried beans, plus stuffing; e.g., quilt batting or polyester fiberfill. Sew the open end closed, then place against the bottom of your drafty door or window. The popcorn or beans will weigh down the sock so it stays in place, while the stuffing will block the wind from getting through any cracks or crevasses.
Make Dryer Balls
Typically made of compressed wool, plastic or rubber, dryer balls bounce between your clothing and sheets to prevent them from clumping together. They also combat static and wrinkles, soften clothes and fluff them out. But dryer balls can be pricy. To make your own, fold up one sock into a small ball, then place it on top of another sock. Then, roll the first sock up into the second, pulling the cuff over it all to make a larger ball. A slightly easier way to make a dryer ball is to drop a tennis ball into an old sock and secure the top. If you prefer store-bought dryer balls, you can still use a leftover sock to clean the dryer balls monthly. Simply place the balls in a few socks, tie the tops and toss into the wash.
Organize Wrapping Paper
Take a sock with a cuff several inches tall and cut off the cuff. Slip the sock cuff over a roll of wrapping paper to keep it tidy and in place.
Today’s project is SUPER EASY, but it’s one you can certainly dress up in many ways if you like!
The basic reindeer is a couple of wine corks—one for the body and one cut slight shorter for the head, several twigs for the legs, neck and antlers, a red bead for the nose (or brown bead if you’re not making Rudolph) and a little garland if you want for a decoration.
If you really want to jazz up your creations use beads for the legs and neck, pipe cleaners for the antlers and tail, and add a larger bead for the nose.
This version uses a thumbtack for the nose, some flannel scraps for scarves and added pompoms for earmuff or a little knitted hat.
Then there’s this one, which focuses on the reindeer head, although I’m not so sure about their antlers.
Finally, there’s the Village People Version…
Today is also GA/FL’s birthday!!!!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a woman who is giving and loving and patient!!!
Located on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, Pearl Harbor is best known as the site of the Japanese military strike that propelled the United States into World War II. But Pearl Harbor’s contributions to history didn’t begin—or end—on what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called “a date which will live in infamy,” December 7, 1941. From epic rock concerts to astronaut visits, the storied lagoon has seen quite a lot. Here are 10 things you might not know about it.
Pearl Harbor’s Hawaiian name is Wai Momi.
Unfortunately, overharvesting, pollution, and human-induced sediment changes decimated the harbor’s native oyster population by the end of the 19th century. But in February 2019, the U.S. Navy announced that it was teaming up with the University of Hawaiʻi’s Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resources Center and O’ahu Waterkeeper to reintroduce two native bivalve species: The Hawaiian oyster and the black-lip pearl oyster. Since they filter out pollutants, their presence may help clear the water in the Pearl Harbor area.
A shark goddess was said to live in Pearl Harbor.
According to Hawaiian legend, Kaʻahupahau was a former human who had transformed into a shark. It was said that she lived with her brother (or son) in the caves beneath Pearl Harbor. Together, the pair defended the scenic lagoon and the Indigenous people who fished there. In 1902, the entrance channel was artificially widened so large American ships could pass through. (Hawaii wouldn’t become a state until 1959, but it was annexed in 1898.) Locals became concerned that the project would upset Kaʻahupahau. When a newly finished dock collapsed in 1913, it was said to be the irate deity’s work. Others speculated that damage to the harbor caused Kaʻahupahau to leave—and she took the oysters with her.
Pearl Harbor’s resident naval station was established in 1908.
In 1887, 11 years before Hawaii’s annexation, the United States was given the exclusive right to set up a naval base in Pearl Harbor. But the federal government didn’t formally establish one there until 1908. Decades later, in 1940, that naval station became the main base of operations for what would soon become the U.S. Pacific Fleet, where it was intended to curb Japanese expansionism. The fleet’s relocation to Oahu set the stage for the devastating surprise attack.
The December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor came in two waves.
Before the assault on Pearl Harbor, Japan stationed six of its Imperial Navy’s aircraft carriers, which carried 414 planes in total, at a pre-chosen locale 230 miles north of Oahu. The ships maintained radio silence to keep their movements a secret. On December 7, 1941, at 6 a.m., the first wave of Japanese planes took to the air, and just before 8 a.m., they began an all-out assault on the Hawaiian base. Caught unaware, the American forces were pummeled by bombs and torpedoes.
A second wave arrived on the scene at about 8:50 a.m. Unlike its predecessor, this one didn’t include any torpedo planes and it inflicted less damage. Still, by the time Japan’s second wave pilots returned to their carriers at 9:55 a.m., the U.S. had lost 188 airplanes while 159 more sustained damages. Some 21 American ships were sunk or damaged. And then there was the human cost: 2403 Americans died in the attack, and an estimated 1178 others were injured.
Thirty-eight sets of brothers were on the doomed USS Arizona.
Nearly all the American vessels that were hit during the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack were later repaired, but the USS Arizona wasn’t so lucky. The 608-foot Pennsylvania-class battleship went under after an ammunition magazine exploded. Some 1177 marines and sailors perished aboard the Arizona. Altogether, there were 38 sets of brothers, representing a total of 79 men, on the battleship at the time. Within that group, 63 individual men were killed.
Pearl Harbor was rocked by mysterious explosions in 1944.
On May 21, 1944, a tank landing ship (or Landing Ship, Tank) in the lagoon’s West Loch suddenly burst into flame. Next came a string of explosions that killed 163 people, damaged more than 20 buildings, and took out a grand total of six LSTs. The disaster’s cause has never been verified, but it has been theorized that someone may have accidentally set the whole thing off by dropping an explosive mortar shell.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida visited Pearl Harbor in 1951.
By all accounts, the visit was a muted affair. Yoshida was returning from a diplomatic visit to San Francisco when he opted to spend a little time in Hawaii. On September 12, 1951, the prime minister briefly met up with Arthur Radford, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, at Pearl Harbor. Three other Japanese prime ministers have since visited the lagoon. Ichiro Hatoyama dropped by in 1956; Nobusuke Kishi made the trip in 1957; and Shinzo Abe gave a speech there (with Barack Obama by his side) in 2016.
Elvis Presley helped raise money for the USS Arizona memorial fund.
In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the building of a USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. Three years later, the king of rock ‘n roll put on a benefit concert to raise money for the project. Presley sang “Hound Dog,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” and 13 other classic songs before a roaring crowd of around 5000 fans in Pearl Harbor’s Bloch Arena. The big event raked in over $64,000 and created public interest in the memorial—which was officially dedicated in 1962.
After returning to Earth, the Apollo 11 crew made a pit stop in Pearl Harbor.
Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969. Due to concerns about lunar diseases, the astronauts were confined to a quarantine trailer—which was ferried to Pearl Harbor aboard the USS Hornet. The contraption was later transported to Houston, Texas, with all three space travelers still inside.
The naval base at Pearl Harbor merged with another military property in 2010.
Prior to 2010, Pearl Harbor’s resident naval base and the neighboring Hickam Air Force Base were two separate properties. But that year, they were combined into the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. According to its website, the base “provides services comparable to a large city to a population of active duty from all services, guard, reserve, family members and retirees.”
A version of this story originally ran in 2019; it has been updated for 2021.
As you make your way through Wyoming’s Wapiti Valley, perched upon a hill just outside of Cody is a strange looking building known to locals as ‘Smith Mansion.’
The home was built over eighteen years by local man Francis Lee Smith. Smith, who worked as a full-time engineer in Cody, made the property in his spare time.
Francis Lee Smith, designed and built ‘Smith Mansion’ from scratch.
Unfortunately, the house didn’t have a fairy-tale ending one would hope for. In 1992, disaster struck, and construction on the property came to an end, forever.
THE HISTORY OF THE SMITH MANSION
In the 1970s, Smith was inspired by an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. After a huge fire on the nearby Rattlesnake Mountain, much of the timber was left up for grabs for anyone willing to lug it away.
Smith had a truck and two willing associates who helped him start loading up. Yet it appears Smith could never stop!
At first, Smith wanted to build a comfortable home for him and his family. But once the house was completed, the project just kept growing. Over the years, what was supposed to be a small family home, became a large tower featuring balconies and viewing platforms.
In the lower floor living spaces, you had named rooms, such as the “hot room” and “cold room.” Through the colder months, they would spend their time in the “hot room” which featured a wood-burning stove. In warmer months, they would use the cooler temperatures of the “cold room.” The house had no running water, and no plumbing or electricity, except for that provided by a small generator.
Unfortunately for Smith, the family home wasn’t to be. Despite living there with his family for some time, his obsession with it became a strain on his marriage, which lead to divorce. His wife, son, and daughter moved back into the nearby town of Cody.
This however, only drove Smith to focus more on completing the building. However, it wasn’t to be, one day in 1992, the 48-year-old was working on one of his slanted roofs when he fell (not for the first time) and died. Smith’s body wasn’t found until two days later.
THE SMITH MANSION TODAY
After the death of Francis Lee Smith, the Smith Mansion passed on to his family. The home is now looked after by Smith’s daughter Sunny Larsen, who was just 12 when her father died but still remembers living in the property as a child.
She said: “His original intent was to build a home for his family, and it just took on a life of its own.” It was only in later years that she realized her father had no blueprints, every addition was off-the-cuff. “He never knew what his next step was going to be.”
His daughter also rejects the idea that mental illness played a part in her father’s obsession. “He built,” she said. “He was an artist in every sense of the word.”
The property has been empty now for almost 30 years, exposed to the elements the wooden structure has begun to decay slowly. Teenagers from the nearby town of Cody routinely visit the property on the weekends and vandalize it.
This decay hasn’t stopped Ms. Larsen from trying to sell the property though. In August 2018, Smith Mansion was listed on the market for $750,000, as of yet it still has no buyer.
How a half-finished wooden structure with no plumbing or electricity on a hill in Wyoming could fetch $750,000 we don’t know. However, it would be a cool property to finish if you had the cash burning a hole in your pocket.
On the seafloor of the Northwest Pacific Ocean lives a very angry fish with a bizarre name and a parachute on its face, which it uses as a weapon. Named for its huge mouth and aggressive temperament, the sarcastic fringehead is a fascinating small saltwater fish, which exists in perpetual intense competition with others of its own kind.
They are found in the Pacific waters from San Francisco to central Baja California in the USA between 10 – 250 feet in depth. The sarcastic fringehead is a species of blenny, belonging to the order Blenniformes; a diverse group of species which can be found throughout the world in marine, brackish and freshwater habitats.
The family Chaenopsidae, of which the sarcastic fringehead is the largest member, is a group of scaleless, elongated blennies that strangely lack the lateral line found in the majority of other fish species. There are over 900 species of blenny, most of which are relatively small, benthic dwellers.
Blenniformids tend to be reclusive, either burrowing into soft sediments or occupying cracks, crevices and burrows. The sarcastic fringehead spend much of their time in their ocean floor dens, but when they do swim it’s in short, dart-like movements – to diet on small crustaceans, or fiercely defend its territory.
Interesting Sarcastic Fringehead Facts
‘Fringehead’ refers to the floppy tissue above the fish’s eyes
While ‘sarcastic’ is thought to derive from the Greek word sarkázein, which means ‘to tear flesh’ – referring to their aggressive behavior.
Sarcastic fringeheads are territorial homeowners
Many species within Chaenopsidae live permanently in holes or cavities, and sarcastic fringeheads are no exception. They stake a claim over a territory centered around an abandoned clam burrow, large empty snail shell or other suitable crack or crevice.
They’ll even live in man-made homes
As long as their home has the right dimensions, sarcastic fringeheads are not fussy over what it’s made from. They are often spotted living inside cans, bottles and other human rubbish that has made its way into the ocean.
They are fiercely protective of their homes
To a sarcastic fringehead, a high-quality home is a secure space of just the right size, positioned in an area with a dependable food source. These are few and far between, so fringeheads aggressively defend their territories against conspecifics, other ocean creatures and even human divers!
The best homes are worth competing for
Female sarcastic fringeheads choose males with the most desirable homes as their mates. This makes competition between males particularly intense, and is thought to be a large factor in the evolution of their extraordinary mouths.
They have an infamous ‘Demogorgon’ from Stranger Things mouth
When threatened by other Sarcastic fringehead, they are able to open their mouths to horrifying circumferences – larger than their own head, displaying two rows of sharp teeth. This is in an effort to say ‘I am bigger than you’ and scare away the competition.
Sarcastic fringeheads fight each other with a ‘kiss’
Riled individuals face-off by slamming their huge, open mouths together in a strange ‘who has the biggest mouth competition’. When sarcastic fringeheads perform their famous gape display, they emphasize their physical size, reveal their double row of teeth, and also flaunt muscles belonging to the adductor mandibular complex. These muscles are responsible for closing the mouth and their size gives an accurate measure of their bite force.
Evolving their weaponry has had its drawbacks
Their disproportionate jaw morphology of the sarcastic fringehead is thought to actually hamper its ability to feed compared to the smaller-mouthed species with which it shares its genus. This reflects the extreme selective pressure faced by males; when it comes to reproduction, being able to see off rivals is more advantageous to sarcastic fringeheads than being able to feed efficiently.
There’s more to their displays than meets the eye
The skin stretched around the elongated jawbones of the sarcastic fringehead is known as the buccopalatal membrane, and has been observed to reflect ultraviolet light. The yellow outer edges of their mouths are also fluorescent, and it is thought that the brightness of these pigments relates to the fitness of an individual.
When displays don’t work, sarcastic fringeheads resort to wrestling
If two males find each other to be physically well matched, the only way to resolve their disputes is by entering into single combat. Flaring their mouths as wide as they can, the two fish swim directly against each other, each trying to push the other backwards and thereby prove their superior strength.
Their aggressive nature has a purpose
The famous bad temper of the sarcastic fringeheads isn’t just because they’re feeling grumpy. Through their elaborate displays, individuals are able to accurately size each other up and avoid entering mismatched physical confrontations that could lead to injury.
Sarcastic fringeheads are caring fathers
Once a female has found a male with a desirable territory, she lays her eggs inside the male’s home and then leaves. The male then guards the eggs on his own until they hatch.
Their bizarre adaptations have evolved twice
Compared to their close taxonomic relatives, sarcastic fringeheads are larger, have particularly high levels of aggression, and are equipped with some freaky jaw morphology. Some truly unique adaptations? Nope! The long-jawed muscucker (Gillichthys mirabilis) has evolved a spookily similar set of features through convergent evolution; it is thought that their comparable burrow-dwelling lifestyles, extreme competition between males and a hefty dose of pure chance have driven these remarkable resemblances.
The Cheetah is a large, slender cat that live in sub-Saharan Africa, and in eastern and southern African parks. Cheetahs can also be found in small numbers in southern Algeria, northern Niger and Iran. The Cheetah is the fastest land animal on the planet. They are members of the family Felidae, which includes the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, snow leopard, and other big cats.
Cheetahs are found in open and dry grasslands in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa, although they were once widespread throughout Africa and Asia. The majority of Cheetahs today inhabit natural reserves or parks. Cheetahs in the wild typically live between 10 – 15 years in the wild. Some can reach 20 years of age while in captivity.
The Cheetah has a slender body with long legs and is clearly designed for speed. They are tan in color with a massive covering of black spots all over the body. The unique patterns of the spots are as distinctive as fingerprints are on humans.
Cheetahs areeasy to distinguish from other large cats as they are smaller in size, have a smaller head and ears than most other cats, have a spotted coat – and carry what are known as tear stripes that run from the corner of each eye to the side of their nose.
These meat eaters typically hunt and feedon impalas, wildebeest calves, gazelles and other smaller hoofed animals. They are diurnal, which means they hunt during the day and rely on tall grasses to hide when on the hunt. Cheetahs mostly hunt in either the late morning or early evening. A typical chase can last between 20 and 60-seconds with only half of them being successful. They have large non-retractable claws that are used to prevent skidding when cornering quickly, and to pull down an animal.
Interesting Cheetah Facts
Cheetahs are the fastest land animal in the world.
These cats are fast. They can typically reach speeds of up to 61 miles per hour, and can go from 0 to 60 Mph in just 3-seconds, which is faster than most super-cars. Their stride length becomes as long as 23ft at full pace, which means the cheetah spends more than half the time airborne.
Cheetahs don’t simply rely on their speed, they anticipate the escape tactics of different prey when hunting.
A team or researchers found that Cheetahs hunting tactics were specific to characteristics of their prey, and are far more sophisticated than thought. Research suggests that cheetah chases comprise two phases – the first phase involves rapid acceleration to catch up with prey. The second phase involves slowing down five to eight seconds before the end of the chase, where the cheetah will predict and match movements of the prey, as the distance between them closes.
The Cheetah tail helps them steer at high speed.
It may look large and cumbersome, but when on the chase, the tail of the Cheetah plays an important role. It actually helps to steer the cheetah as it runs, like a rudder on a boat.
It’s not a cheetah’s speed that’s their greatest attribute when hunting, it’s this agility — their skill at jumping sideways, changing directions quickly and slowing down almost instantly.
Cheetahs tire quickly.
Due to the energy required to run at such speed, cheetahs can only maintain a chase for a short time. If a hunt isn’t successful after 1 min, they usually stop to rest.
Fossils have revealed that Cheetahs date way, way back.
Carbon dating has estimated the age of some cheetah fossils as being between one and two million years old.
Cheetah can’t roar.
Unlike big cats like the lion, cheetahs are unable to roar. They are closer to your domestic house cat in that they can purr, both inhaling and exhaling.
Female adult cheetahs often live alone.
Known to be typically solitary animals, females raise their cubs alone for about a year before they leave. Male cheetahs sometimes will live in a small group of brothers from the same litter.
Cheetahs abandon around 10% of kills to larger predators.
In order to prevent losing their kill to another big and nasty carnivore (lions, hyenas or even vultures), Cheetahs will move their prey to a secluded spot, and eat quickly.
They will also hunt during the day when predators are generally asleep, and only end up abandoning a relatively small number of kills.
The cheetah’s spots act as camouflage.
The cheetah can have between 2,000 and 3,000 spots, to help it blend into surroundings when hunting or hiding from predators.
Cheetahs can mate any time of the year with gestation lasting just three months. A litter can range between 2 and 4 cubs.
Cheetah cubs have a very different coat to that of adults.
The cubs have a smoky colored, long, wooly coat called a mantle. It runs down their backs and acts as a form of camouflage. It helps to conceal the cubs and their mothers assist in this by constantly seeking places to ‘hide’ them to protect the cubs from predators until they are old enough to take care of themselves.
Female cheetahs will move their cubs to different hiding places every few days. Once the cubs reach 5 or 6 weeks of age, they will follow their mothers and even start eating from their kills. By the time the cubs reach one year of age, they are hunting on their own. At 15 months, they will move away from their mother and either find a mate or sometimes live in a small group.
Cheetahs don’t need to drink lots of water.
Having adapted for life in an environment where there is little water, cheetahs can go three to four days without a drop of it. That doesn’t mean that they don’t actually get any liquids at all. As it turns out, cheetahs are able to draw water from the animals they hunt, kill and eat.
Cheetahs start families early.
The male can reproduce at the age of one, while females can begin rearing families at the age of two. The pairing is mostly random as cheetahs will mate with many different cheetahs during their lifetime.
Females end up raising their young alone.
Males do not participate in the rearing of their young. Female cheetah are caring, affectionate and dedicated mothers.
Cheetah cubs have a shockingly high mortality rate.
One study in the 90’s the Serengeti found that 95% of cubs died before reaching adulthood. Many deaths were due to lions, but also other predators and disease.
Cheetahs are capable of turning mid-air.
The Cheetah is the only big cat that is capable of turning in mid-air while sprinting. Studies concluded cheetah are able to use their tails to change body orientation in mid-air, which further aids their incredible agility and hunting prowess.
It’s a myth that cheetahs abandon hunts due to overheating when running.
Two Harvard scientists in 1973 set-up an artificial experiment in a laboratory, that that concluded a cheetah would be forced to stop running when their body temperature reached 40.5 degrees Celsius. However, new research in real world conditions shows that cheetahs body temperatures never rise that high in the wild, and they don’t abandon hunts due to overheating.
Cheetahs were considered sacred.
Sumerians trained cheetahs for hunting back in 3000 BC. The Indian (then Hindustan) ruler Emperor Akbar had 1,000 trained cheetahs he used for hunting while in power from 1556 to 1605. Even King Tut’s tomb (1400 BC) contained various cheetah artifacts. It was because of this that historians believed that the cheetah was a sacred animal to ancient Egyptians.
Cheetahs are slowly disappearing from the planet.
At the turn of the 20th century there were well over 100,000 cheetahs. Today the numbers are considerably less with roughly 7,000 in Africa and a few hundred in Iran. They have been driven out of their historic range by humans, and are now only found in Algeria, Angola, Northern Niger, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, and Mozambique. The species is already almost extinct in Asia, with fewer than 50 individuals remaining in one isolated pocket of Iran.
American holly is the familiar Christmas holly with glossy green, spiny leaves, and bright red berries. Native to the bottomlands and swampy margin areas of the eastern and central U.S., this tree forms a pyramidal shape and can grow to notable size in the wild. This tree is dioecious, with separate male and female plants. Pollination from male pollen is necessary for the female trees to flower and produce the signature red or orange berries. If you grow it in your landscape, you will need plants of both sexes if your goal is to have berries.
American holly is normally planted from potted nursery specimens in the spring or early fall. It has a medium growth rate, adding 12 to 24 inches per year until reaching its mature size of 30 feet or more.
American Holly Care
Although American holly tolerates a wide range of soils, it does not accept alkaline conditions or dense, poorly drained soil. But if you have a well-drained soil that you can acidify, this plant will do marvelously in most sunny or part shade locations. The plant generally loses density in shady conditions, but in hot southern climates, it likes a few hours of shade in the afternoon. In cold climates, plant American holly where it will get some shelter from winter winds.
If planting for a screen or in groups, space the plants about 5 feet apart in a prepared hole two or three times larger than the container root ball. Backfill the hole with soil blended with organic material plus an acidifying amendment, if needed. Keep the plant moist until established.
Light
American holly will grow nicely in most full sun to part shade locations. In hot climates, plants will do best if they get some afternoon shade.
Soil
Give this plant a well-drained, acidic soil. If necessary, amend the soil to acidify it, or be prepared to feed it regularly with an acidifying fertilizer.
Water
American holly needs to be kept moist while it getting established, but after the first year or so, watering once a week (about 1 inch) is sufficient. This plant has a good tolerance for occasional drought.
Temperature and Humidity
American holly generally does well throughout the temperature range of its hardiness zone, 5 to 9.
Fertilizer
Early each spring, American holly will appreciate an application of an acidifying fertilizer.
American Holly Varieties
There are hundreds of different cultivars of American holly; the pure species plant is almost never planted. Holly cultivars are normally sold as either female (berry-producing) or male plants (necessary to pollinate the females). These are some popular varieties:
‘Cobalt’ is a male cultivar with good cold hardiness (down to minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit).
‘Jersey Knight’ is one of the most popular male cultivars, growing to 7 to 10 feet over 10 years.
‘Miss Courtney’ is by some standards considered the best female cultivar. It grows 20 to 30 feet and is cold hardy down to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
‘Morgan Gold’ is a yellow-berried female cultivar growing to 25 feet.
‘Maryland Dwarf‘ is a diminutive, 2-foot-tall plant with few berries.
‘Cardinal Hedge’ is a dwarf cultivar, growing to only about 4 feet, excellent for foundations and small hedges.
In order to produce berries, female hollies will require a male plant within 30 to 40 feet. It is fine to plant a single male to pollinate all your female hollies.
Zircon is a gemstone that’s not commonly known among jewelry buyers, which is a shame considering the number of beautiful colors it comes in. These include earth tones such as cinnamon, sherry, yellow, orange, and red. Among those who are familiar with this gem, zircon is especially admired for its attractive blue colors.
Some zircons display warm autumnal earth tones such as yellowish and reddish brown, inspiring fashion trends. Red and green zircons have market value as collectors’ stones, and cat’s-eye zircons occasionally appear on the market. There are also colorless zircons.
Although collectors clearly love zircon’s color variety, consumers seem most enamored of just one hue: blue. Gem dealer reports indicate that at least 80 percent of zircons sold are blue.
Because they’re in greater demand, blue zircons usually command higher prices than any of the other varieties. Even though gem buyers can satisfy their demand for blue gems with top-grade topaz at significantly lower cost, blue zircon continues to sell well. Industry analysts believe that blue zircon has yet to reach its full market potential.
Zircon’s blue, almost always the result of heat treatment, comes in a range that includes very slightly greenish blue, greenish blue, and very strongly greenish blue.
Clarity Zircons are relatively free of inclusions, but many untreated zircons have a cloudy or smoky appearance. If it’s extreme, it can be a negative factor with buyers. In Victorian times, this smokiness made zircon a popular gem for mourning jewelry.
Today, most zircon that is faceted for use in jewelry is free of inclusions that are visible to the eye. Eye-visible inclusions cause a drop in zircon value.
Rarely, zircon might contain long parallel inclusions that create the cat’s-eye effect when the stone is cut as a cabochon.
Cut
It’s a challenge to cut zircon because the gem is brittle. Cutters usually fashion zircon in the brilliant style to take advantage of its luster and fire. A modification of the brilliant cut, known as the “zircon cut,” uses eight extra facets around the gem’s lower portion, called the pavilion. This isn’t seen very often today because of the extra labor costs involved. Zircon can also be found in step cuts, which have rows of parallel facets, and mixed cuts, which are a combination of brilliant and step-cut facets.
Carat Weight The supply of zircon is generally limited, and typical sizes depend on color. Blue or green stones normally range from 1 carat to 10 carats and yellows and oranges up to around 5 carats. Reds and purples are usually smaller.
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