Sloths are incredible creatures.  They are well-known for being very slow moving, and some might even consider them to be lazy.  Not me, though, I think they definitely have the right idea about life.  The actress Kristen Bell seems to agree with me, as she is quite the fan of these impressive mammals herself.

She even went on Ellen to talk about her amazing and somewhat bizarre sloth experience.  After that episode of Ellen aired, sloth love increased tremendously as you can see depicted in the expert and very accurate chart below.

If you are not familiar with a) Kristen Bell’s meltdown or b) the super awesomeness of sloths, then watch the video below!  You’re not only going to find a new found love for sloths, but you might giggle a little too.

And a little love from sloths to you…

Once upon a time in a pretty close by place there lived a little pickle and his little pickle family.  This little guy’s name was Herman Dill.  Herman Dill’s family consisted of his sister Baby Gherkin, Mama Kosher, Papa Spicy.  Herman Dill loved his pickle family very much and they all got along very well.  It was not until Herman Dill went off to middle school though when things started to change for him.

After his first day of school, Herman Dill came home like always and sat at the kitchen table.  Baby Gherkin was there in her high chair eating mashed carrots and Mama Kosher noticed that Herman Dill had tears in his tiny pickle eyes.

“Now Herman Dill, why you cryin’ boy?” Asked Mama Kosher.

Herman Dill looked up at her, the tears just pouring out now and answered, “Mama, I am a PICKLE!”

“‘Course you is a pickle baby.  What’d you think you was a regular ol’ cucumber or what?”

At that reply Herman Dill ran from the kitchen to his bedroom and just cried for hours until Papa Spicy came home.  Mama Kosher explained the situation to Papa Spicy who then went to talk to Herman Dill.

“Herman Dill, your mama told me what happened.  Do you want to talk about it?”  He asked of Herman Dill.

“Nope,” said Herman Dill.

His father then went on to tell a story about a little spicy pickle chip who also had a hard time realizing that he too was a pickle.  The spicy pickle chip was sad and depressed and he longed so much to find his place in the world when one day it all just clicked.  Suddenly the spicy pickle chip came to find that being different had it’s advantages.  Because of his spiciness, all the girls in school thought he was real hot stuff.  He became incredibly popular and got along with everyone.

After the story Papa Spicy asked, “Do you know you that little spicy pickle chip was Herman Dill?  It was me.”

From that moment on, Herman Dill embraced the fact that he was a pickle.  He and his pickle family lived happily ever after.

Watching TV for hours on end turns into a mindless activity for some people, causing them to watch channels or programs or Dish packages that have no real significance for them except that they run all day long.  Being engaged in such a mindless activity as watching television for an extended period of time can lead to more serious issues as well.  TV encourages physical passivity since the only reason a TV viewer needs to move is to get up to get food.  Sitting for such long periods causes viewers to lose track of time and eating schedules, leading to obesity and even more hours of television watching.  Even if you or the doctors don’t consider this an addiction, it is surely something to be aware of when you sit down to watch your favorite shows.  Plan out which shows you want to watch each week and then fill in the leftover time with other activities such as reading or getting coffee with friends instead of watching TV that you don’t even care about.

Here is an  infographic with some truly useful information about cyber crimes and how they are commonly carried out.  These kinds of crimes are growing at a rate faster than any other type, because so often they are easy to get away with undetected, or at least to continue without consequences for a long period of time before being caught.  These people are crafty criminals with some handy skills that make them even more troublesome than garden variety thieves who break into homes.  Keep an eye out for the following:

6 am — wake up, check alarm clock on cell phone.  Hit snooze.

6:10 am — wake back up before the alarm goes off again because of an overwhelming need to place an urgent call to tech support — somewhere.

6:15 am — take care of all kinds of business in the bathroom (toothbrush, latrine, shower, etc…)

6:25 am — dressed and now frantically searching your home for something that isn’t quite doing its job properly

7:30 am — breakfast

7:45 am — flip on the tv.  infomercials are still playing — but not your favorite one.  Looks like a job for direct tv customer service!

And it doesn’t stop there.  In fact, as the day wears on, it only gets worse and worse.  Before long, you have logged no fewer than 6 hours of talk time with various tech support or customer service personnel, and have resolved nothing.  But you don’t care, because that’s your silly addiction.  You live for the edginess of staying on hold because “your call is important to us.”  You live for that moment when the tech support person finally picks up the phone and greets you with a warm “Thank you for calling Apple, how may I assist you?”

Once that happens, you don’t mind that there is nothing really to report or even complain about.  After all, you just really wanted to talk.  Not to someone who knows you, or someone you really need anything from.  A silly addiction has to be silly to be worth anything, so the more pointless it is, the better off you feel.

A home alarm security system is nothing to laugh at, however, and is not a silly addiction at all but a genuine concern when you consider the crime statistics of late.  In the following infographic you will see a large array of crimes and the frequency with which they are committed.  (Better not show this to someone who has a silly addiction to making traps for imaginary burglars…)

Linda McKnight 43, was in the middle of a yoga class at the local gym when she felt a sharp, shooting pain that was bad enough to send her to the floor. It wasn’t a stretching injury, or anything, in fact, related to her muscles at all.   This pain had come from her teeth.  ”It came out of the blue,” said McKnight, a public relations officer for a small municipal government in Modesto. “Before I knew what was happening, I was doubled over holding my hand over my mouth, with an intense ‘ pass-out-on-the-floor’  kind of pain. People were rushing over to see if I was okay.”

A tray full of tooth bleach that she’d worn to bed the night before was the cause of this agony.  She had been using 10% carbamide peroxide gel in a fitted bleaching tray that had been prescribed by her dentist. Stronger whitening gels than this one are available, but this is the only at- home teeth whitening treatment deemed worthy of the American Dental Association’s seal of approval.  Still, McKnight’s “zingers” (the term used by dentists to describe these sharp pains in the teeth that can last for up to several minutes) kept on happening. After this experience, she has sworn off of bleaching, and instead opted for the more expensive veneers for her teeth.  ”I would never, ever bleach my teeth again,”  she said.

Teeth whitening is a very big business in America, where consumers spent nearly $2 billion on teeth whitening products in 2004.  Almost $280 million of that was spent on home whitening kits. Dentists surveyed have reported that whitening procedures were the most requested in office service by people from 40 to 60 years of age. (Time to order more hot sauce planet, haha!)

So, while tooth whitening may not be a terribly shocking addiction, it can indeed be a painful one.  You might notice that these people have unrealistically white teeth that look almost “painted.”  They hide their pain so as not to give away their compulsive behavior, and smile excessively.

” First of all, bears like honey,”  Jim Stanhope, a resident, said thoughtfully while gnawing on a piece of hay. “Anybody who’s read or even watched Winnie the Pooh knows that.”

So, uh, feed the bear honey, then?  Experts disagree with Mr. Stanhope.  It’s not that bears don’t like honey;  they certainly do.  But feeding it to them is unwise and can attract unwanted attention, provoke attacks, and result in personal injury.

“No,” Stanhope explained, “I’m not advocating feeding the bears honey.  What I meant was, maybe people around here have too much honey and it’s attracting bears.  Sort of like a bear attractant.”

That, experts suggest, makes more sense.  Any increase in available amounts of honey can cause certain bears to be drawn out of their safety zones in search of the sweet nectar they crave.  People are not the only creatures with powerful addictions on this earth, but bears  and other animals also have them.

So, if you can’t feed them honey, what can you do?

First of all, scare that bear with all you’ve got.  Don’t ever be quiet if a bear approaches you, or comes much closer to you than a fifty yard distance.   This is your only chance to restore that animal’s natural fear of man, so scream, make yourself look as intimidating as possible, narrow your eyes, show your teeth, and wave your arms.  Hopefully the bear will be afraid and will retreat.

Now, just seeing a bear somewhere reasonably far from you is not a reason to draw attention to yourself by being loud and scary.  If he’s in the distance and has seen you and does not come towards you, that bear is probably just going to go on deeper into the woods and farther away.  But if the bear is close, or if one suddenly surprises you that you did not see, make that noise as indicated above.