Killa Chem

I was looking at the ingredients on a food package today and I noticed "Manganese" was listed. I hadn't thought about this chemical element since 10th grade, so I decided to look it up on Wikipedia. Much to my chagrin, the etymology section of the entry was all wrong.

'Manganese' actually got its name when a Prussian alchemist misheard Beneficent Allah say that he was from "Laos Anggeleese"

10,000 BC

I was talking to some of the Splayas the other night about how there are certain sort of awkward situations in which you know that what's happening isn't a big deal, but somehow on a visceral, almost reptilian-brain level, your body responds with a strong physiological response of upset stomach and increased heart rate. I was thinking about why this was, and then it hit me--

Let's say it's 10,000 BC and you are a caveman living on the open plains. You live a hunter-gatherer nomadic existence and the women in your tribe have extremely saggy boobies (hat tip to Natural History Museum). OK. Now, you're sitting on the subway and an elderly woman walks on the train but you've printed out a lengthy Becker-Posner blog post that you can't read standing up and you are averting making eye contact with her because you know everyone on the train expects you as the youngest person seated to give up your seat but you just don't want to do it. So without the fight-or-flight visceral response, how the fuck are you going to survive that situation?????

Mystery solved.

The Big Lie

Oh... my... god. I have just had my eyes opened. All of this Urban Planning shit is NONSENSE. New York City is a FUCKING SHITHOLE! Oh great let me sit on a crowded subway for 45 minutes to go 4 miles- that's what I call paradise. NO NO NO

Now I have seen the light. I just came back from DRIVING to BLOCKBUSTER in a STRIP MALL and then drove through the TACO BELL DRIVE THRU and got a GORDITA and a DP! What a fucking thrill! Urban planning and New York - what a fraud- I have been lied to by the wormsy-ocracy!

UPDATE: Just drove to the driving range and LISTENED TO NPR in the car. This suburban thing just gets sicker by the day...

I Defer to the Expert

I have never found Bill Maher to be a particularly insightful guy. Sure, if you're at Finnegan's house and he is changing into a rugby shirt for an American Gladiators audition tape, yes of course you watch Real Time - that's a given. But I generally find Maher to be a pretty straightforward smug liberal who makes easy Bush jokes. And what really irks me about him is when he is just obviously not an expert in a subject but still is very smug. He will arrogantly make jokes about the economy under Bush versus under Clinton that are pretty simplistic considering all the factors that come into play - technological change, outsourcing, the timing of various bubbles and credit cycles. I am as anti-Bush as the next guy but the economy is just a complicated beast that can't be so easily simplified.

That is why I was so pleased to open up my Sunday Huffington Post and find this piece by Maher about a topic he is actually an expert in- banging hookers! Here is the "nut" graf in this piece about Eliot Spitzer:

Oh yes, let's convene a panel of experts for that. Let me help you: because he wants to get his nut off! Stop with all the analysis! It never ends, I hear all these people talking about how powerful people think they can get away with anything, so it's a thrill, or that it's for this psychological reason or this one -- please, he wanted to CUM WITH SOMEONE!

Now Maher is on firmer ground. It is always good to hear from a connoisseur on matters such as these. This reminds me of The Onion's classic take on Maher's own mixing of prostitution and politics, which I encourage you all to read in full.

But finally, I have to note Maher's odd phrasing, "get his nut off." The Delino Krew usually says "nut" or if we're feeling particularly haughty, "bust a nut." So I looked this phrase up on Urban Dictionary, only to find absolutely nothing. A further Google search, however, took me to this Yahoo! Answers page. Here, "Answerer 19" informs us:

I don't know how "bust a nut" came to be confused with expression "get your nuts off". But it does seem to be a common misinterpretation of this very old phrase. I first heard it some 50+ years ago as a teenager. It was an old phrase even then.

Sometimes you read something that just changes your whole take on history- like when you found out that segregationist Strom Thurmond actually had a black mistress. Well, this is one of those game-changers. If the phrase "bust a nut" was already old 50 years ago, a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me that it was probably around in the 1910's. So that means a conversation such as this one might have taken place:

Moustachioed Man #1: I do say, my good man, how was your evening?

Moustachioed Man #2: Well, well. Very fine indeed. Very fine. I attended a meeting of the Bull Moose Party- that Roosevelt, he's the kind of fellow we need back in office! And you?

Moustachioed Man #1: I took in one of those new moving picture shows. Edison's filmed Henry VIII- a splendid production, given the limitations of the medium.

Moustachioed Man #2: Henry VIII you say? Oh my, I must see that. Did anything else happen of which I should be aware?

Moustachioed Man #1: Oh yes, I nearly omitted the best part of my evening. When I busted a nut. It was an exquisite nut really, absolutely exquisite.

Moustachioed Man #2: Why I haven't heard about an exquisite nut-busting from you since the McKinley Administration! Congratulations, ole boy.


NB: Audio content from the Delino Vault is coming soon...

The Munzo-sphere...

...No, I'm not talking about his left nut. It seems that Munz has shaken himself from his marital bliss for long enough to bless us with some of his unique political commentary. And the post's about Romney no less. But wait! I can't find it on the Google cache now, but I swear on Rich's life that Munz originally posted this in LATIN! What gives? I'll get my crack team on this caper- Eric, you are the only one with the requisite knowledge of Google cache technology, Latin grammar, and Red Lobster jingles from the early 2000s - get to work!

In the mean time, enjoy Urban Dictionary's definitions of "munz." Something tells me that former Delino blogger Al was the source of one- no, make that both- of these definitions...


1.Munz
Internet slang for "money". Also commonly referred to as "mun-munz".
Andrés Echeverría is gonna buy himself a Flying V when he has enough mun-munz.
Dude, I'm out of teh munz :(


2. Munz
spreader of homosexual propaganda
I can't belive you did that, you f***ing munz!