I have always riled at how every kid in the US “needs” the services of the orthodontist (I’m sure it has nothing to do with having to pay thousands of dollars for my two daughters to have perfect smiles) - whereas growing up in England I don’t remember anyone ever needing braces.

I’m not sure that I am entirely wrong; that it is because American orthodontists have such an effective and avaricious marketing machine.

But a researcher at the University of Kent in the UK examined the skulls of 11 different cultures around the world and noted the lower jaws (mandibles) of farm fed people were shorter and the teeth more crowded as opposed to hunter gatherers who had longer roomier mandibles.

The conclusion is it’s all to do with how much you chew. The food you get from the farm is all soft and mushy and doesn’t need so much chewing as big chinks of meat, roots and leaves.

So raw steak and cracking walnuts with your teeth and we could put the orthodontists out of business.

The One That Got Away

Asperger’s Syndrome leads to some quirky stuff. One wife complained about her old man playing air guitar in the car or at formal dinners where there was no music.Another that her husband would practice his baseball swing when uncomfortable.

And these same guys get obsessed with numbers.

David Finch (whose wife Kristen put him through a home questionnaire assessment and diagnosed him) just wrote a book The Journal of Best Practices, about what not to do (like “Don’t change the radio station when Kristen’s singing along”). He says he remembers the date his niece was born “because she was born on March 14, 2008, which is well-known among my fellow nerds in the math and science communities as “Pi Day” because pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is equal to 3.14. Also 3 + 14 + 2 + 0 + 8 totals 27, which is divisible by 3, and I love numbers that are divisible by 3, particularly numbers whose digits sum to 27, of which 3 is the cube root.”

That’s how their brain works.

They tend to have rituals and be over sensitive to sensations, feel tortured by clothes tags, clothes that are too tight or made in the ‘wrong material’.

Or David Finch wore swimming goggles when bathing the kids because he couldn’t stand it if water got in his eyes. The kids thought it was quirky and cool.

When getting his daughter to help him with breakfast he asked if she knew what to do - so she showed him. She lined the egg carton exactly on the counter, filled the pot and “she closed the faucet, opened it, closed it, opened it, closed it, tapped her forehead, opened it and closed it the same way that I do.”

Einsteine, Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Keanu Reeves, Al Gore, and Garrison Keillor are some of the many notable public figures that experts believe show symptoms of Asperger’s syndrome

But the claim is, all women who hear about the symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome for the first time. Hear about he difficulty in social interactions, missing of social cues, egotism, blunt speech, a need for ’space’ fear of confrontation and obsession with subjects like sports scores. They are all are convinced their husbands have it.

 
It makes you do wierd shit

There is one particular item notable amongst the detritus for sale at yard sales - and we are just now getting into the early phases of this particular hunting season, which can be dangerous, though wearing blaze won’t help. I note many many exercise machines.

It’s the step after you get fed up with using it as a clothes rack.

But can you caste off the guilt of the failed resolution to exercise, as easily as you can caste off the machine?

He sold his exercise machine