I wish I could've been present at the meeting where they came up with Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick, a frozen microwaveable foodlike product that's also a great euphemism to yell when expressing vexation. The next time I hammer my thumb or your team beats my team in a sporting event -- a possibility which is, of course, unlikely -- I will exclaim "Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick!" instead of "Jesus Christ on a Pogo Stick!" The Chocolate Chip flavor of Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick weighs in at 13 grams of ... read more

The estate of science fiction and film collector Forrest J. Ackerman is being auctioned off this week by LiveAuctioneers.Com, and among the items up for bid tomorrow is a 1926 membership card from the Society of American Magicians signed by Harry Houdini, the president of the organization. The group offered the following "hospital benefit": If a MEMBER IN GOOD STANDING is compelled to undergo hospital treatment as a result of accident or disease (other than venereal or chronic and incurable) he shall notify ... read more

If you're looking for solid information on swine flu from sources who haven't lapsed into hysterics, Professor Vincent Racaniello of Columbia University Medical Center, who has studied viruses for 30 years, publishes an excellent Virology Blog that's heavy on facts and short on panic. Racaniello believes the flu will stop spreading soon in the U.S. for the same reason that ordinary seasonal flus fade every year around this time, but it could come back stronger in the fall: Flu season is basically over in the ... read more

I'm not a joke person, but I liked this one passed along by the science fiction novelist Joe Haldeman: This guy goes to the doctor to get his first prostate exam. The doc puts on his glove and sticks his fingers in to take a look. After awhile he says, "Son, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is you don't have prostate cancer!" The guy says "So whats the bad news?" Doc tells him, "You'll have to stop masturbating." "Why?" the guy asks. Doc says, "Because it's making me nervous!" ... read more

Today's healthy living tip from Primate Brow Flash: Matt turned me on to a use for old sippy-cups. They work perfectly as Neti Pots! Fill with warm salt water (1/4 teaspoon salt to 1 cup warm water), lean over a sink, tip your head sideways and jam the nozzle of the sippy cup into the higher nostril and pour. You will feel the salt water fill your nasal passages and then it will fall out of your other nostril. It left me with feeling of cleanliness in an entirely new place. ... Note. If water steadily rises ... read more

My three-day-old newborn niece has been battling a bacterial infection since she was 12 hours old. They confirmed a preliminary diagnosis of Group B Strep yesterday and have her in the hospital's neonatal ICU while she's treated with the antibiotic Penicillin G. She's had some setbacks, but the last 24 hours have gone well. As you can imagine, we're fishing for information on what can be done to help her beat the infection and fully recover. I've found a Group B Strep mailing list on Yahoo, but I wanted to reach ... read more

One of the more interesting blogs I've discovered recently is Weighty Matters, a weight-loss and wellness blog by Yoni Freedhoff, a Canadian doctor who exposes efforts to make unhealthy food sound like it's good for you. Freedhoff began his career as a family physician, but switched gears and started the Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa, Canada, because he "quickly became frustrated prescribing medications for conditions that could be controlled with lifestyle changes. ... It's much more fun to stop drugs ... read more