The Pig Got Up And Slowly Walked Away

Here's Rudy Vallee:

"You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away:



Lyrics (alternatives here):

PIG GOT UP AND SLOWLY WALKED AWAY

(Music: F W Bowers / Lyrics: Benjamin Hapgood Burt)

Frank Crumit - 1934
Johnny Bond - 1966
Jim Croce - 1975

Also recorded by: Sam Hinton; Rudy Vallee;
Harry Belafonte; Clinton Ford; Acker Bilk.

One evening in October
When I was about one-third sober
And was taking home a load with manly pride
My poor feet began to stutter
So I lay down in the gutter
And a pig came up and lay down by my side

Then we sang "It's All Fair Weather"
And "Good Fellows Get Together"
Till a lady passing by was heard to say
She says, "You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away

Yes, the pig got up and slowly walked away
Slowly walked away, slowly walked away
Yes, the pig got up and he turned and winked at me
As he slowly walked away

I also well remember
One evening in November
When I was creeping home at break of day
For in my exhilaration
I engaged in conversation
With a cab-horse, right on the corner of Broadway

I was filled up to the eyeballs
With a flock of gin and highballs
So I whispered to the cab-horse old and grey
I says, "It's these all-night homeward marches
That gave us both our fallen arches."
And the old horse laughed and slowly walked away

Yes, the old horse laughed and slowly walked away
Slowly walked away, he slowly walked away
And the old horse laughed and he turned and winked at me
As he slowly walked away
As he slowly walked away

Log cabin time lapse: A Canadian man builds a shelter from scratch

Extreme DIY from Shawn James - lots more at his website.

"All summer, I cut the notches in the logs as I built the cabin up, offsite. Once I was finished notching the logs with a log scribe, saw, axe, adze and wood carving gouge, I loaded up the entire cabin of logs and moved them to my land near Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada.

Once on site, I spent a month reassembling the cabin on a foundation of sand and gravel. Once the log walls were up, I again used hand tools to shape every log, board and timber to erect the gable ends, the wood roof, the porch, the outhouse and a seemingly endless number of woodworking projects.

For the roof, I used an ancient primitive technology to waterproof and preserve the wood – shou sugi ban, a fire hardening wood preservation technique unique to Japan and other areas in northern climates."

How to fall from a building into a dumpster

A Biologist's Mother's Day Song: Slightly more than half of everything I am is thanks to you

Happy Mother's Day!

Full lyrics (and guitar chords, for those of you so inclined) are below, but here are a couple of highlights: 

Just like two strands of DNA are spirally entwined
Your nature and your nurture are inspiringly combined
Scientists remind me and I find that it is true
Slightly more than half of everything I am is thanks to you

I got nutrients and transcription factors
and nearly everything that matters
plus my prenatal environment (transplacental inheritance)
mRNA, mitochondria,
That back in the day once belonged to ya...

Lyrics:

To make one me you just add
Half of mom and half of dad
That is what I once believed
But I know now that I was wrong

I got so much more from you mom
Than just half a set of genes

I got nutrients and transcription factors
and nearly everything that matters

plus my prenatal environment (transplacental inheritance)
mRNA, mitochondria,
That back in the day once belonged to ya (theyre cytoplasmic)
and I just want to thank for supplying them

Just like two strands of DNA are spirally entwined
Your nature and your nurture are inspiringly combined
Scientists remind me and I find that it is true
Slightly more than half of everything I am is thanks to you

Mitochondria power my cells
and they have DNA as well
Transcription factors modulate transcription
And since theyre in the cytoplasm
The eggs the only one that has em
and sperm I guess they dont have much ambition

My sex determination gene means that Im a guy
From you I got my X chromosome, from Dad I got my Y
X has over a thousand genes, Y has less than 92
Thats why more than half of everything I am is thanks to you

I roomed in your womb for nine whole months and never paid the rent
Your glucocorticoids shaped my hypothalmic development
I took in your blood and sucked it dry of every nutrient (its gross but true)
Sometimes I wonder where the time went (where did it go)
Sometimes I wonder where it went

I know Ill never understand all you have done for me (I'm not that smart)
But since you paid for college I'll get my B. S. degree (bachelor of science)
And I have learned its not BS but absolutely true
Slightly more than half of everything I am is thanks to you.

"It's not an even 50/50 split you get a disproportionate share of your DNA coming from your mom. Really important." - Robert Sapolsky

CHORDS
Verse: D A G G
Chorus: A bm G D x2 / G A D-A-bm / G A G D
Bridge: G A D G x2 / G A D-A-bm / G G A A -- rock on!

Friday links

V.E. Day: 75 years ago, on May 8, 1945, World War II ended in Europe.

Nature’s best toilet paper substitutes.

James Barrie was born on May 9, 1860 - here's the Dark Side of Peter Pan.

Sword-Wielding Scientists Show How Ancient Fighting Techniques Spread Across Bronze Age Europe.

Roundup of Mother's Day links.

Quarantine in the 19th Century: Some Vignettes.

The 1918 Parade That Spread Death in Philadelphia - in six weeks, 12,000 were dead of influenza.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include tax day quotes, cartoons, and history and links, stopping the spread of disease during and after the American Revolution, the lost state of Franklin, the anniversary of Lincoln's assassination, and the history of pizza.