Four quickies directly out of my brain and into yours:
From the NY Times: “An early analysis of data from late stage clinical trials found that AstraZeneca’s vaccine was either 62% or 90% effective, depending on the manner in which the doses were given.” The higher percentage is for people who got the vaccine through a needle in their arms. The lower percentage is for people who had to throw a pill up in the air and catch it in their mouths.
I bet there are a lot of bridge players who have used particular emphasis for the last four years every time they made a bid like “Four No Trump.”
“Ear Worms” is the perfect phrase to describe those moments when you suddenly realize some song has gotten inside your head and you can’t get it out. When it happens to me, I’m baffled as to what brought it on. For instance, I haven’t left my house in two days, and thus haven’t been exposed to anyone else’s music (such as in a store). So how the hell did Gilbert O’Sullivan’s 1972 one-hit wonder “Alone Again Naturally” get into my brain? What makes ear worms even more frustrating is when you can hear the tune and remember a couple of lines of lyrics, but nothing else (like the next verse), so you get a loop of the same song segments over and over.
My wife read a Thanksgiving recipe that called for her to pre-heat the oven. I told her that’s physically impossible. Pre-heating can only be applied to everything else you’ve done before you touched the controls. In other words, you’re either heating it or you aren’t. Unless it’s Schrödinger’s Oven.