The New Way To Covid-19 Herd Immunity?

Eat venison (well maybe only venison from select whitetail deer from among 40% of the population)! It may not be a foolproof way to get herd immunity, but maybe - just maybe it might work as side plot cure for what ails people in a Covid-19/Zombie movie. In actuality, who knows, it might do nothing or might be a way to contract Covid-19.

 

Folks, it seems that scientists (those guys often referred to as egg-heads) have discovered that 40% of whitetail deer populations have anti-bodies for the virus that causes Covid-19. The researchers who discovered this are worried that the virus, if in other beasties as in other than human beasties, could evolve to newer and deadlier strains unchecked and cause a threat to humanity. Don't believe me, then read about it at the source. Of course, with as much as the so called experts change their minds about the Novel Corona Virus (aka: Covid-19, aka: The China Virus, aka: The Wu-Flu, aka: Rona V) you may decide they are full of shit or at least as full of themselves as is the ultimate so called expert Dr. Fauci. He is both full of both himself and of shit. Oh wait, saying that was redundant as those are one and the same, are they not - Fauci = himself = shit!

 

As for me, I may go poaching hunting real soon. A venison steak sure could hit the spot and if it might make me immune to the latest strain - what one are we at now - D isn't it - that would be grand! I must point out, with all seriousness, if up to 40% wild deer populations have antibodies, meaning they were infected at one time or another by being close enough to spread it among themselves - just imagine how many swine (by the way which is the farm animal most like humans) and domesticated cattle have had it as well and thus how many of them may have antibodies and/or may also be carriers capable of spreading the virus to people. My guess would be the numbers would be higher, much higher, for them than for deer because they are kept in much closer proximity to each other and in higher numbers, than wild deer are in proximity to one another. 

That could be bad or could be good as far as domestic livestock and our economy go. If enough people think that eating them would be a way to acquire the antibodies in their systems - pork & beef prices will hit the moon. If, on the other hand, enough folks think holy crap - they have it too and eating them may be spreading it to humans - demand will plummet and I may once again be buying chuck steak for stew at .59 cents per pound and rib-eye steaks at $1.99 per pound. Then again, some arsehat politician maybe will demand the execution of every porker and beef head in the good old US of A - for our good of course. What would be next - family pets!

 

With this greatest and latest news from the experts, I am again wondering (as I kind of, sort of, just about really wondered - way, back close to when we in the USA were first hearing lots about the Novel Corona Virus - here & here) if this truly is about to become our 12 Monkeys moment. The 12 Monkeys moment being TEOTWAWKI or even our extinction and the our referring to the human race.

If anything, it has not been boring this novel corona virus, seems there is always something new about it!

All the best,

Glenn B

Not Sour Grapes - There Was A Point To Be Made

 

All the best,

GB

I Enjoy The Variety Of Different Cuisines...

...and excellent selection of restaurants up this way; it is one of the few things I truly enjoy about living so close to the cesspool known as New York City. Then again, I think I could get to like the eats down south too.

Of course, with all the different cultural influences here in NY, we have adapted well. For example, there is a lot of fine Italian cuisine up this way and we enjoy things like this one.

While you may not think there is much road kill in and around NYC and its outlying areas, let me tell you that pigeons, starlings, sparrows, dogs, cats, mice and rats - with an occasional deer or turkey thrown into the mix - all go well with this delicious Italian sausage flavored pasta mix.  

All the best,
Glenn B

I Had The Displeasure Of Eating A Pepperoni Pizza...

...that I bought at a Walmart this weekend. What can I say, I was really hungry and didn't feel up to looking for a restaurant, so I grabbed what the sign said was a fresh baked pepperoni pizza for only $5. Here is my opinion of that pizza: The crust was the most un-pizza like crust I have ever eaten. I think it was more akin to crumbly almost tasteless soda bread. My guess is that it was flour and water and little else except maybe baking soda or powder. The sauce tasted like something out of a can, and I would guess a very old and dented can of something that may have been stashed away in a fallout shelter back in the early sixties. The pepperoni slices seemed to me more like thinly sliced cardboard, flavored like pepperoni, that actually being pepperoni. The cheese, that may have been the best part if only because it was hard to tell exactly what it tasted like through the sauce and pepperoni and crust.

In my estimation, that pizza was not even fit for the prisoners at Gitmo and I would think they deserve little more than rancid swill. Of course, I am not trying to make up your mind for you in any way, shape or form by telling you all this, I am merely expressing my estimation of what I believe was the most terrible tasting pizza I have ever put through my digestive system. In fact, I think it may have tasted better after passing through me. In the future, I plan to never try one again but you go right ahead and try one for yourself ands ee what you think of it. Who knows - you may think it the most tasty pizza ever!

All the best,
GB

Hefe Weisse Bier, Good Eats, and Football...

...are on the agenda for today over at Onkel Han's house. This will be the first game of this season that I will have watched, but if the Giants win, maybe not the last. More blogging later. Right now I have got to run.

All the best,
Glenn B

Weekly Update - Soldiers' Holiday Package

I'll keep this fairly brief (for me), if only because most of my blog in the past week has been devoted to this effort.

To date I have received $425 toward the package fund, including my own $50 donation to the fund (excluding the cost I will pay out of my pocket for shipping and shipping materials). This money is from a total of only 15 donations (including my own). If you can or cannot afford it, think of our troops overseas who may possibly be wounded, killed, or just far from home either freezing their behinds off in a foxhole, or spending the holidays on an military base on foreign soil in a hostile land over the holidays. Am I trying to shame you into giving, nah no way, not my style. Am I trying to kick your butts into gear - you betcha. I am just trying to get you to remember these guys even if with only a dollar. By the way, one of the donations I received was from 2 young girls, sisters, who broke open their piggy bank to donate $9 and change, then their mom rounded it off to $10, and sent it to me via PayPal. Here is part of what the mom wrote to me:

"My daughters, age 6 & 7, are excited to donate the contents of their piggy banks, (9 dollars and 18 cents, which I am rounding up to 10 bucks) to this cause. "

These two girls and their mom did a really nice thing for our soldiers, my thanks to them. If they can do it, so can you, a buck probably will not even make you break your piggy bank. See the links at the upper right hand side of my blog to donate via PayPal. You do not need a PayPal account to donate, and PayPal does not charge you a fee to donate (they charge me the fee to accept payments, and I will cover those costs out of my pocket).

I also received 12 tactical flashlights, with extra lithium batteries, from STREAMLIGHT absolutely free of charge! Can you say THANK YOU STREAMLIGHT!!! Wow that was nice of them. I made a price inquiry and they sent free lights.

Today I went shopping for items for the package(s). I picked up: A 6 quart Crock-Pot (something these guys requested), Various seasonings and spices (they said they wanted to cook for themselves for a change, so I guess they can cook it slowly in the crock-pot while out on patrol), a package of Chap-Sticks, Zip Lock Freezer Bags (these have lots of applications in sandy environments), a box of chewing gum, hard candies, chocolates and other candies. I spent $150.87 today on the items mentioned above, the Crock-Pot was only about $40, but are spices ever expensive, and I got nice sized jars of them! Thank goodness for Costco (click on the receipt to enlarge).

Other items I plan to purchase are: at least one box of 25 good cigars, possibly 12 pairs of high quality wool socks (one pair per each person in the unit), 12 folding knives (I have the Buck Bantam 285 BLW model in mind), sharpening stones (12 - one for each guy in the unit), other snacks (something of a holiday nature), and whatever else I can think of with any funds left over.

I have decided to split this into 3 or 4 holiday packages - still all for the same unit. This will make the package less bulky, and in the event one of them gets delayed, lost or stolen, the others are likely to make it through. I will probably send some of the stuff before the end of this week, and hope to have everything shipped by December 10th or thereabouts.

I hope to remember to take pics of the contents of each package before I ship them, and to post the pics on this blog once the items ship.

To those of you who have contributed, and/or provided links to my page for this effort: THANKS.

All the best,
Glenn B

PS: if you are wondering why I input all the below keywords, well I want to get as many people as possible who read my blog to read this post.

Good Eats...

...are just about all I can think about right now both because I am watching (yes as I type) Zimmern & Bourdain: New York, and because I started my daily intake with a bottle of Magnesium Citrate, followed tonight by a couple of liters of Movie-Prep (no that is not something you do before watching a movie, at least not if you want to watch it uninterrupted by your having to get up often). Off to the doc's tomorrow for some scoping from both ends - oh joy that it will be. Well yes, actually it will be a joy if they figure out what had been ailing me. It will also be a joy because I won't be drinking this ass blaster fuel anymore. Most of all though, it will be a joy because tomorrow, after the tests, I can eat again. I have not eaten since last night, and while I am not starving, watching this show has certainly fired up my appetite. I am going to buy myself one heck of a nice piece of meat tomorrow. Maybe it will be a Porterhouse Steak, maybe some ribs, maybe lamb chops, maybe roast duck - but for sure whatever it is - it will be a nice piece of cooked meat that I use to satisfy my appetite. There may be some side dishes like a salad, some clams on the half-shell, or even some octopus, along with a piece or two of good black bread, or Lithuanian Rye bread (not your packaged bread at all), or Corn Rye bread (and maybe a shot of Corn Whiskey) but the main dish, the really huge part of the meal, will be a good piece of roasted or broiled meat. A good ale to wash it all down will follow. If I get sick after that, so be it, but it will be worth it - I'd get sick just the same after anything else I would have eaten - so I may as well truly enjoy it to the max.

All the best,
Glenn B

Bizarre Foods...

...with Andrew Zimmer is fast becoming one of my favorite television shows. Not only that but it is kind of stirring up that long dormant but still smoldering desire within my soul to start cooking again. I used to love to cook and bake, but I never loved cleaning up the mess, and neither did my wife if only because I made such a mess! Nowadays I am better at cleaning up the mess after the wife cooks - well not all the time but I am definitely better at it. If I could only combine my delight at cooking, with my willingness to clean up the mess, it would definitely benefit my love to eat that which I cook.

Now I did start this off taking about Andrew Zinner and Bizarre Foods, so maybe I ought to give them some time here too. The show is on Monday nights at 9:00 PM eastern time in the USA. It centers around Andrew's love to eat almost anything, and his world travels to accomplish just that. He goes to some fairly far away places, and then takes delight in the local cusines. In tonight's show, he visited Peru where he ate everything from Lemon Ants, to Pirahna, to Coconut Grubs and finally roasted Guinea Pig. In another show he ate roasted bats, and in another a lamb's eye. Of course, he eats things not all that bizarre too, like suckling pig, broiled fish, and on and on. If you have not already noticed, he likes the meaty parts of the meals best, although he does eat a bit of everything. It is an amusing show to say the least, and one that whets the appetite for guys like me who love to travel and try some new foods while getting around.

Nice show, I highly recommend it. Now where is my cook book, I need to see if it has a recipe for calves' brains, or Pig's feet, then maybe a trip to the German butcher again this weekend, and who knows what might wind up on the table for Sunday dinner...

All the best,
Glenn B