Hey hey ... welcome back to another exciting week of commutes to work with you know who. We're going to get off to an amazing start, because ... well ... quite frankly ... I actually learned something today. This, as anyone who really knows me will tell you, is a momentous occasion, because I used to think I knew it all, but after today, that may actually be true now. What did I learn today? Well, I learned something about the zoo or, more specifically, that I'm more fascinating than the zoo. Does that make this about me then?
I want to give you some news about my largest organ. Now ladies, before you get all excited, it's not what you think (I'll write about that though soon, I promise). This is everybody's largest organ ... our skin. Most good zoos are likely to have somewhere between 100-200 different species on hand, but that's nothing compared to what humans have on hand, or ... um ... on arm anyway. Reuters reported today that, according to findings of a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (I wonder how many geeks it took to come up with that name), that there are an estimated 250 species of bacteria living in our skin (I bet you my business partner has at least 300 ... there's not enough anti-bacterial wash around for that fella). They can currently identify 182 of those. AND those were just from swabs from people's forearms. I wonder what they'd find if they swabbed our .... oh, nevermind.
God, I've never been so itchy in all my life ... I think I'm going to take a shower immediately after finishing this blog ... I knew I was making a mistake writing about this. However, microbiologist Dr. Martin Blaser of New York University School of Medicine, indicates that we should not wash as much as many people do, because many of the bacteria perform useful functions for our body and we are, in essence, washing away layers of our defense mechanism. Judging by the "scent" of some of the people I've met, there are some pretty healthy people out there.
In other zoo related news, if you can consider big, hairy, alien beasts as zoo material, there was a very heated episode Thursday on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ... Star Wars, perhaps (even I think that's a bad joke). It seems everybody's favorite Wookiee, Chewbacca, from Star Wars, has a temper to match his 6'5" stature. Since the series ended, Chewie hasn't been so great with his money, which has forced him (and several other movie pals, like Superman, Marilyn Munroe, etc) to hang out in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre hoping tourists would like their picture taken with them. Apparentlt Chewbacca's been getting a little hot under all that fur and has been harassing the tourists who don't decide to tip him for being so photogenic. By the way, I wonder what the scientists would find if they took a swab of Chewie's forearm (I bet he's got way more than 250 hiding out in that skin).
So why am I telling you this? Well, because a tour guide from the dark side became so tired of seeing Chewie harass the fine folks that he confronted him about it. Security guards came to capture the wookiee and escort him from the area, which kinda made Chewie a little mad. So mad, in fact, that Chewbacca grab the tour guide and head-butted him after exclaiming "Nobody tells this wookiee what to do;" thank goodness he didn't have his phaser with him.
Ok, that's all I have for you today; I'll pick you up again tomorrow. In the meantime, keep your eyes on the road ... no matter how itchy you get.
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