Where does belly button lint come from?

 The Edge, August 13, 2005

< Only recently has the “fluffis outis,” or “lint gland,” as it’s more commonly known, been discovered—and by accident too (the surgeon had to go “back in” looking for his watch). Your lint gland sits just below the surface of your bellybutton, shaped a little like an apple core. div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Your lint gland works similarly to a fairy-floss machine, and can be heard at work if you place you ear on your stomach. The yearly production of lint ranges from as little as .074 grams and, in some rare instances, up to a whopping 2.8 tonnes of lint. It all depends on how charismatic a person’s gland is.
A lot of internal pressure is needed to create lint. If the pressure drops below an “acceptable” level for creating lint, your lint gland will initiate a convulsing sensation—what we call hiccups. This spasm helps maintain enough pressure to keep the lint creation process running smoothly. Holding your breath during a time such as this helps to stabilise the pressure, usually stopping the hiccuping process. (Note: people who hiccup for long periods, even after holding their breath, most likely have a pressure leak somewhere under their arms—usually caused by corrosive deodorant.)
So why do we have bellybutton lint? Well, it has numerous applications.
Evolutionists have always claimed, and still do, that the lint is all that now remains from our evolutionary time as a guinea pig. Some countries have known for centuries the high nutritional value of bellybutton lint. With its high concentrate of folate and chicken-like taste, they serve it as an exotic delicacy to those who can afford it (apparently it tastes great with soya sauce and honey). In some of the colder-climate countries, people make garments out of lint, which is proven to be up to 40 per cent warmer than sheep’s wool. Other civilisations have been known to use lint for housing, communication, recreation and transport.
So it seems that bellybutton lint really is nature’s own Swiss army knife.

Reader's Question: Why is the lint blue?

A. A healthy human produces a dark blue lint. The less healthy the lighter in colour it gets.
I believe the dark blue colour in the lint is from the gases that react in the “fluffis outis” gland . This is for the same reason the gasses in the air make the sky look blue also.

INTERESTING FACT: The fear of being consumed by bellybutton lint is called bellyfluffobia. These people are colloquially refered to as “navel gazers” and constantly stare at their bellybutton to make sure none develops. As they say, “A watched button never fluffs”.

The Big Brother Disgrace

"But . . . having all this knowledge, we still slip up in full view of our Judge." 

  RECORD, August 6, 2005

Why did God create mosquitoes?

• Scott's Silly Answers Column - The Edge magazine, Jun 18, 2005
• Video segment - Edge TV Ep3 - Environmental - Hope Channel

This question plagues many people. Apart from a “for the food chain” answer, there is something else we must remember. Originally mosquitoes would have grazed the green pastures of Eden, eating grass—just like the lion, pelican and naked hermit crabs (with no dead shells to live in they were naked, but felt no shame).
The original mosquitoes flew in flocks of four and were made with the intention of providing a soothing quartet of harmony to your ear as you walked through a garden or even for times when one wanted to fall asleep.

Now obviously, and sadly, with the departure from Eden, a sudden change in these once glorious garnishes of creation took place. All that remains now are rude, presumptuous soloists, which you can hear on many summer nights, whining out their monotonic “Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,” like a one-armed person playing a one-string violin.
Also on the topic, it is noted in Genesis that Noah spent quite some time in the ark before the door was opened and all the animals were released to begin their speed dating and multiplying all over the earth. The duration Noah spent in the ark after the rains stopped has traditionally been thought to have been due to the water taking a long time to receed. Not necessarily. I think it’s quite reasonable to assume Noah and Co were actually spending all that time hunting down the two mozzies on board. While lying in bed at night, locked up in the ark, Noah couldn’t just pull out the Mortein to spray a “pssssst” to send them to their spiralling death. We would have lost all manner of nice bugs (such as the lady bug, butterfly and . . . um . . . er . . . I’ll get back to you on any others)! If he could just squish the female, then he knew all of humanity would never again have to hide under a sheet, in the tropical humidity of one’s breath, on a summer night’s flyby.
As we all know, after some months, the search was called off (I hear the armadillos were cranky for running out of moisturiser) and the door was opened. And to this day we have Solo Mosquitoes.

Jonah's Prayer [script]

A skit showcasing Jonah's prayer in his time in the belly of the big fish

[Underwater, bubbly speaking - in the sea]
- Lord Save me! Help!
- I'm caught in sea weed, get me out, I’m finished.
- I’m sorry Lord!

[Cave echo ambience - in the mouth of the big fish]
- Cough, cough, cough!
- What’s happening? AAUUGGHH!

Lucky RECORD: Match ’n’ win!

Your Individual Special Selection Numbers to check:
0237, 2981, 4103, 5633, 8772

RECORD, April 23, 2005

Record RECORD Offering

I wrote most of this as a place holder for an appeal article for people to give generously to an offering to help fun the magazine, called RECORD. Most of it was left in! 

Next week is a RECORD Offering. No, we don’t mean record as in those black round things we heard some elderly lady talk about that played music. She said that they needed needles to play—sounds dangerous to us. No wonder they have been phased out. We don’t mean record as in “A record has been achieved—the biggest offering ever given.” But that would be impressive, especially if a record offering were received for RECORD. That would make it a record RECORD Offering. We’d have to publish a clever headline to record the record RECORD Offering in the RECORD. (Now we’re sounding like a broken record, broken record, broken record . . .)

RECORD News Articles

From 2005-2007 Scott Wegener contributed weekly to the Seventh-day Adventist church's South Pacific Division's weekly RECORD news magazine. Mainly working on the "Flashpoint" section, made up of snappy news stories a mere couple of paragraphs long, Scott collated and edited Christian related news stories that were usually either inspiring or through provoking (or perhaps downright ridiculous).
There's perhaps little point to republishing the hundreds of articles he completed again on site, but instead, here's perhaps his all time favorites he pieced together.

See how many puns and product references you can find in this fun article about Sanitarium that appeared in the February 12, 2005 issue of RECORD:

What do you get if you combine a dragon boat, water plus a team of Sanitarium workers? Weet-Bix Warriors, a team recipe so good it has now produced its third consecutive dragon-boat race win. Organised by the West Lake Macquarie Support Group, the fundraising event, on Lake Macquarie,  NSW, raised $A6000 to help keep the Westpac rescue helicopter up and going. Out of the spread of competitors the Wyee Rural Fire Service tried
to mar mighty Weet-Bix Warriors serial wins, but the Sanitarium team’s 20
paddlers, drummer and helmsman’s good start helped them claim a narrow victory.—

 

And another I oped a bit of fun into, June 11, 2005:

If all the Weet-Bix eaten in Australia during 2004 were laid end to end it would be a very expensive exercise and a logistical nightmare. However, if it were actually accomplished, it would stretch almost three times around the equator. Also, if a football field measuring 100 metres x 40 metres were covered with the Weet-Bix made last year from Sanitarium’s Cooranbong factory alone, it would be enough to cover the field to a depth of approximately 4.5 metres. Mix that with the almost 10 Olympic-size swimming pools of So Good produced each year and you’ve got a super serve of seriously soggy cereal!—Scott Wegener 

And here's one made up for April 1, 2006

A recent ministers meeting in Greater Sydney Conference discussed the growing trend of conducting Bible cyber-studies over the internet. While it was unanimously agreed that studying via the internet was both a time and fi nancially economical method of preparing a candidate for baptism, disagreement came over the act of baptism itself conducted via the internet. A subsequent vote came out in favour of cyper-baptisums being recognised as a valid practice of the conference on the condition that the right font was used.—Owen Lee/Joe King

 

Ok, one more from RECORD (Maybe I DID have more fun than I remember...): http://www.scottpublished.com/2005/03/record-record-offering.html