the justice leaf

Plants are amazing. Just look at them! They’re so cool! And science wants to make them even cooler! With carbon nanotubes!

They decided to try making super plants by adding carbon nanotubes to the chloroplasts of the plants. Once they were able to get the nanotubes in there, the plants increased their photosynthetic activity by 30%!

Usually the leaves reflect a lot of green light. That’s why they are green. For some reason, the nanotubes seem to allow some of that light to be absorbed by the plant.

And that’s just the beginning! If they can start making these plants with magnetic particles, they could make plants into tiny communications antennae! Got a bad cell signal at home? Just get a plant!

And instead of painting cell towers on the highway green to LOOK like pine trees, your cell tower could actually BE a pine tree!

Pretty awesome, right?!

For now, we just have super photosynthetic plants. They’re like the Superman of the plant world. They absorb the sun for more power.

Wait…did we just create Superman?! This might sound crazy, but just listen for a second.

If these plants start growing stronger and absorbing more light, they could eventually evolve into a super creature. Then it turns out that Earth is really Krypton where the plants evolve into people! After the planet explodes, Superman is sent back in time and lands on Earth which is really just an early Krypton with his relatives just getting their first nanotubes into their chloroplasts!

Wow. I just blew your stomata for a loop, didn’t I.

Next time you’re about to mow the lawn or trim a tree, maybe you should think about the future. A future without Superman. Is that what you really want?

I didn’t think so. Unless you're Lex Luthor.

I’m off to absorb 30% more light.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

beware the power of cheese

So…um…what’s your name? Is it Cheese? I truly, madly, deeply hope not.

I just found out that the name “Cheese” (yes, people actually consider that as a viable name for a human baby) has had a 450% increase over the past year.

I can’t find the actual numbers, but it does say that out of every 500,000 parents, nine babies are named Cheese.

I do believe that is eight too many. I think one per 500,000 is an acceptable number of Cheese babies in the world. I understand there are some people who REALLY love cheese. Like, insanely love it.

For those few people, name your baby Cheese. I’m surprisingly ok with that.

But the rest of you! WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE THAT YOU NEED TO NAME YOUR BABY "CHEESE?"

Looking into strange baby names, fewer people named their children Superman than Cheese. Seriously. Cheese beat Superman! How does that even happen?!

I have no idea how to react to that news. Other names that are less popular, but still used, include Butterbean, Hotdog, and Elbow.

Now, I like creative names for kids. I don’t even mind different spellings of names. Or combining two names to make some strange new one. Whatever. They’re your kids.

But what happened this year to make Cheese so popular? Did I miss some big cheese-related occurrence? Is there a famous actress named Cheese? Did people forget that cheese is a dairy product and think it is a brand name of some orange or moldy snack?

The world confuses me sometimes. Almost as often as cheese does.

I’m off to be the cheese.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

more canadian currency

Canada has this annoying habit of being TOTALLY AWESOME ALL THE TIME.

A brief recap on why I love Canada. Amazing candy and fun money. And NOW they are making money even more funner!

Recently they made a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur quarter and Superman coins. I know what you’re thinking, “Five of my most favoritest things are dinosaurs, space, Superman, robots, and unicorns.”

Well, Canada is bringing more of your favorite things to you! Not just one, but TWO!

The new $5 note will have robots IN SPACE. They made robot arms for the International Space Station and they will be pictured on the bill.

The arms have names, too. One is Dextre (the Canadian spelling of Dexter), and the other is Canadarm2. It’s a clever mash-up of the words “Canada” and “arm.” And since Canadians have two arms, there is a 2.

These space robots are on the new $5 bill! Once they do a unicorn bill, I WILL move to Canada and spend lots of money!

It will be so much fun!

Clerk: “That awesome candy will cost one space robot, a Superman, and a dinosaur.”

Me: “Can you break a unicorn?”

Clerk: “Is a maple syrup?!”

Me: “I have no idea what that means, but I’m gonna say yes!”

Oh, and if trains are on your list of favorite things, you’ll be happy to know that the $10 bill has a train on it. I’m not a huge train person, but I do know a meteorologist and a chemical engineer who are BOTH railfans. So they may also enjoy Canada.

I’m off to syrup my maple.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

candy, catsup, coins, and canada

What’s up with this?! How come all the good stuff happens in Canada?!

Seriously. I mean, I’ve praised Canada a million times for the amazing candy they sell there.

Sugar is practically the major food group in these United States! (At least, it is for me. It should be for you, too.) But for some reason, you can’t find a Wunderbar or a Coffee Crisp here. I have NO idea why.

Editor’s Note: If you never had a Wunderbar, find one. Imagine a Butterfinger and a Caramello having a baby. THAT is a Wunderbar. Also known as heaven.

Another Editor's Note: It's not a real baby. Don't eat babies.

If we’re not eating candy, we’re probably having potato chips. Lately, I’ve seen more and more catsup/ketchup chips in the United States. But I couldn’t find them for years. And even now that I CAN find them, none taste as good as the Canadian ones.

It’s weird that it took so long. I mean, we put catsup/ketchup on fries all the time. Why not chips?

But I digress. More than usual. The REAL reason I’m alliterating my headline comes down to money. Specifically…coins. Even morer specificallyer…Superman.

Canada is minting Superman coins! For his 75th birthday! Why isn’t the United States doing this?

If you don’t know, Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Joe was born in Toronto, but Jerry was born in Cleveland! And Superman was created in Cleveland!

I think it’s only fitting to put Superman on every denomination of our currency. Presidents on bills are lame. Supermans on bills is AWESOME.

Can I order Superman coins from Canada? Sure. Would I rather get Superman from my ATM. YES!

At least Canada knows how to mint money!

I’m off to make it minter.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

on my world, it means hope

I guess that’s only on your world. I finally saw “Man of Steel” the other day. (Yeah, it takes me a while to finally get to the movies! I’m busy reading comics!)

So, was there any “hope” in this movie? Not really. Am I a movie critic? Nope! What I say here is just one comic book fan’s rant. Nothing special. Oh, and if you’re even lazier than I am going to the movies, there are spoilers. Also, this is really long and boring. (I just finished writing and realized that it’s REALLY, REALLY long! Like, too long to even bother reading, so go do something productive! Like, swim a marathon or play drums on your belly or something.)

I liked the movie. It was a good action movie. Not a good Superman movie. Superman is supposed to instill hope in us! This Superman did nothing like that!

I’ll start with the gooooooood stuff! The action was great! It was some of the best “super” fighting I’ve seen. Fast, but clear. Really well done. Almost as good as the end of “The Avengers,” but not as fun. Still, super cool! (Get it? Super? HA!)

The new Krypton origin was clever and totally worked. I liked it a lot. Also, all that stuff about the government not trusting an alien coming to Earth and the crazy amount of military in the movie made a lot of sense. So that was good. Especially Christopher Meloni doing what he does best. Being awesome.

Smallville? Not so awesome. Pa Kent keeps telling his son NOT to save lives! Don’t show your powers! Soooo...what could possibly inspire young Clark Kent to actually become Superman? Nothing. There is NO inspiration for him to be a hero! Way to be a buzzkill, Pa!

Like I said, the fighting was cool, but the amount of destruction was crazy! And, sure, Superman may have saved the planet, but Metropolis is gone. Literally gone. With maybe 4 people from the Daily Planet alive. Seriously. Superman made absolutely no effort to worry about humans. He actually only caught two people falling. Two.

Then, at the end, Zod is using his heat vision all over the place. Superman holds him back from killing a few people (finally, he’s saving somebody!) and to save the day, he snaps Zod’s neck.

No. Just…no. Superman doesn’t do that! I think they were trying to make it seem like he had no choice. Really?! Um…how about JUST TURNING HIS HEAD A LITTLE INSTEAD OF ALL THE WAY AROUND! Clearly that’s an option! Or making him look upward. OR STANDING UP AND FLOATING A FEW INCHES TO LET THE PEOPLE RUN AWAY! YOU CAN FLY!

Then, at the end, the military trusted Superman. But I can’t believe that the human race could possibly like him at all. Hope? Nope! (I just thought of that clever rhyme!)

So there. That’s my rant. This would have been a perfect alien invasion movie. I guess starring Will Smith or Keanu Reeves as a good super-powered alien who saves the day, but is kinda “meh” about destruction. Again, not a good Superman movie.

I never thought I’d say any Superman movie could be worse than “Returns.” But “Returns” is actually looking like a great movie now! Sure it had its flaws (boy howdy, did it have flaws!), but at least Superman was Superman!

I remember having many complaints about Batman not being very “Batman” in the recent trilogy, also. For some reason, almost every Marvel Comics movie keeps true to the character AND makes a great movie. DC Comics just can’t seem to do that.

But, people are still seeing the movies, so I guess that’s good. Whatever brings money to the company to keep making comic books! Go spend your money on “Man of Steel” movies and DVDs and Blu-rays and laserdiscs! I’ll keep buying the comics. (Sorry this is so long! I'm a little crazy. But, I warned you!)

I’m off to take a deep breath and find the real Superman. (Which I did by reading good Superman comic books all weekend!)

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

no sitting down on the job

I’ve read comic books for a long time. Probably 99.99999999999% of my life. I love them. From super heroes to crime noir, comic books are the bestest!

I like to think I know a few things about comics. I may have trouble remembering everything, but I know a good amount. Especially things that are “common knowledge.”

Like, Superman comes from Krypton. Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider. Wolverine is the best there is at what he does. You know, random stuff like that.

Now, I love super hero comics. I really do. But I understand that they are from big companies and the editors have more say than the writers most of the time. Which is too bad. That would NEVER stop me from reading them, though!

One writer dealt with all the rewriting that he had to do and a scene where Batman sits next to somebody on the roof had to be changed last minute. He asked why and the editor said that Batman never sits down. Common knowledge!

WHAT?! How is that common knowledge?! He HAS to sit sometimes! He drives a car! And a plane! And a submersible!

I understand that Batman is generally jumping around beating up evil and stuff. He can still sit if he needs to! Everybody loves a good sit!

Luckily, the internet has responded by making a tumblr page with pictures of Batman sitting down.

So, please, don’t be afraid to have Batman sit. He can do more sitting down than I could do in...probably any position. And please, editors, I understand that shareholders are important, but I’m also pretty sure they’ll be fine if Batman rests his legs for a minute.

Or not. I don’t really know what happens in shareholder meetings. Maybe they all stand around and fight crime. When I say “stand,” I mean “sit.” When I say “fight crime,” I mean “make tons of money.”

I know this was a little too “comic booky” for the average person to care about. But sometimes I just need to rant a little. Publicly. For all the shareholders to see. Because shareholders are some of my biggest fans.

I’m off to sit down for a minute and hold a good share.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

food in 3d

NASA is super cool. I love NASA. For 317 reasons. The latest reason is that they have given a grant to a company that wants to make food. IN 3D!

No special glasses required! And this isn’t post-production 3D like the movies! This is actual food in full-on three dimensions!

If I had to choose my dimensionally favorite food, it would have to be the 3 kind. It’s too hard pick up anything 2D. 4D is always tough to hold onto since it’s going through time. And 5D is just a mess until you say its name backwards! Kltpzyxm! (A Superman fan will find that funny! Everyone else is allowed to continue to think I am not funny.)

This NEW 3D food will be made with a printer. Kinda like a replicator in Star Trek! (Second Star Trek reference of the week! Score!) This 3D printer will have proteins, carbohydrates, and sugars instead of ink to make “edible food products!”

Instead of printing out a picture of a pen for your “Pictures of Pens” scrapbook, you can print out a pen made of proteins, carbohydrates, and sugars for you “Eatings of Pens” edible food products...book!

Edible food products are great. So much better than inedible food products.

Of course, I’m a huge fan of edible non-food products. Nothing is more fun than eating not-food!

Except maybe ninja robot penguins. They’re really fun, too.

I’m off to eat my food in the third dimension.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

look to krypton

Um...if you have a green rock that fell from space what's the first thing that comes to mind? Krypton, right? Am I the only one thinking this?!

A green rock landed in Morocco last year. They call it NWA 7325. I'm not kidding. I guess the scientists were straight outta Compton. (Though Kryptonians Wit Attitudes might be straight outta Kandor.)

I don't know why I didn't hear about this before, but I just found an article telling me that it came from Mercury.  Mercury?! Really?! You're going to tell me that a GREEN ROCK, that came FROM ANOTHER PLANET, is from Mercury?!

And get this, for a few minutes, they thought it could be from Mars! Then they studied it and found that it didn't have all the aspects of a meteorite from Mars.

But "Meteorites From Mars" would be a great name for a band.

So they decided that it's probably from Mercury. Because, yeah, that totally makes sense. Since it has low magnetic intensity and is low on iron.

Firstly, NWA should get more iron. Because you can't give blood if your iron is low. Spinach helps.

Secondly, green rocks from space are ALWAYS from Krypton! Because it blew up! If these "scientists" wanted to find out where it was from, they should have just called Superman. If he started getting weaker, we would have our answer.

Also, Krypton has a low magnetic intensity AND Superman is always having problems giving blood. I'm pretty sure it's because of low iron. So I just kinda proved that it's Kryptonite.

I'm like a scientist. In Compton.

I'm off to express myself.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

in the mood for food that's good

Make sure you say "good" like "food" and "mood." It's funner that way.

I sometimes think that I should start my own food blog. Not that anyone reads my non-food blog. And not that anyone likes any of the food choices I make. But, I do often write about my adventures in fooding because every new food experience is an adventure!

Sometimes it ends with a new favorite food. Other times...well...my tummy doesn't like me so much and questions my decisions.

I DID try some new things recently that I encourage you all to do. Today. And again tomorrow.

Apples and hummus! Not just ANY hummus. SUPER HUMMUS! I found this stuff the other day because I was looking to get into hummus. I know I've had it before and I've always liked it, but I never really kept up with it. We casually hung out, but I wanted to make us a little more BFFy. Luckily, I found Super Hummus.

I like to think that if Superman or The Hulk or Wolverine had a hankerin' for hummus, they would eat Super Hummus. Therefore, since I'm part super, I had to buy Super Hummus.

Now that I AM a regular hummuser, I decided to go off the vegetable path and try it with an apple. Bear with me, it gets a little complicated here. It tasted good...after the first few slices. See, the apple had to dry a little before it was good. It started too juicy and that didn't work well with the hummus.

As you may or may not know, I've been experimenting with peanut butter and honey. I love the combination of the two. I also love cinnamon. The word and the spice. One of my favorite things to say is "cinnamon in it."

Go ahead. Say it really fast. Fun, isn't it! I can't stop saying it! Cinnamoninit!

Now I CAN say it all the time! My mom suggested some honey AND cinnamon AND peanut butter on toast. Four of my favorite things combined! My mom is a genius. It is amazing!

And now, if I ever have company that wants a snack, I will make this for them. Wanna know why? I'll show you...

You/Guest: "This is great! How did you get toast to taste so fun?"

Me: "It has cinnamon in it!"

You/Guest: "CINNAMONINIT!"

As a bonus, I just found out that "Toast To Taste" is also really fun to say.

I'm off to toast to taste cinnamon in it.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

earn your stripes

I have stripes! Like a zebra!

You also have stripes! We all have stripes! I just found out that all of us have these things called Blaschko Lines. They are invisible stripes on our skin.

Yeah...they're invisible...but we do have them!

I'm like a tiger! On the prowl! With stripes! Rawr! Striped Rawr!

There are a few people who DO have visible stripes, but it's from rare skin conditions. So if you ever feel weird about a skin condition you might have, DON'T! If somebody says, "What's that weird birthmark you have?"

You say, "Birthmark? Oh! You mean my stripes! I'm half tiger. And half zebra. And half human. Don't mess with me. I am graceful and deadly with opposable thumbs."

Then you pause for three seconds and quietly, but quickly, put your hands in a claw pose and say, "Rawr."

THAT will totally freak them out! It's seriously the most fun you'll have every single day.

I guess these lines are in different shapes and patterns on your body. And on the chest it follows an "S" shape! Like Superman!

I have an "S" on my chest! I'm Superman! I had no idea!

I mean...I totally knew I was Superman. Because I do Supermanny things all the time. Like lift things and stuff.

Oh...that "S" on my chest? I'm just Superman.

one...two...three...

Rawr.

I'm off to oppose my thumbs.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj