Greetings. My birthday was last weekend so I must admit I’m still recovering from the existential dread of being one year older now.
But I did learn one fun fact: if you go to Texas Roadhouse on your birthday, they’ll make you sit in a saddle while the whole restaurant yells “YEE HAW” and the waitress tells you to swing your napkin above your head like a lasso. If you’re lucky, you’ll be drunk and full of rolls while it’s happening.
Anyway, here are some other things I learned during my last week of being 21.
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Moon dust is actually a really big problem for astronauts. The stuff cuts like glass and can cause damage to space suits, boots and the like. It also absorbs heat really well, so it can be dangerous for electronics. Sometimes astronauts even bring brushes with them into space to get the dust off their suits and equipment.
This week, NASA announced that they’re working on a special paint to combat the space dust. I guess we shouldn’t worry about aliens as long as the environment continues trying to kill us.
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Meanwhile in Wisconsin, there’s a county out west that uses cheese brine to help salt the roads in the winter. In 2013, they put down 38,000 gallons of it. Not sure if they still do this, since the article I read about it was from 2014, but one can only hope that the roads of Polk County are still cheesy and free of snow.
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Here’s another thing I learned about the Midwest: fried brain sandwiches used to be a popular delicacy here. They’ve become pretty hard to find, and this Chicago Tribune article lays out the grand hunt to find them. The elusive sandwich likely started as a craze in St. Louis during the mid-1900s, but also became a staple for people living in Illinois.
Honestly, my first reaction to learning about this was “wow that’s gross!!!!!” but then I realized I eat meat anyway. Catch me in St. Louis next year hunting for brains when I finally have some vacation time and a little bit of money.
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Title Ticker (or, what I read this week):
The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster — Richard Brautigan
Why Poetry — Matthew Zapruder
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“Gently Disappear” — Shintaro Sakamoto
“Who I Am” — Toro y Moi
“Gotta Have You” — The Weepies