Assorted Facts

Guess how many prescription drugs have been recalled during the past 12 months. Go ahead, guess.

Eighty.

Does that sound like a high number? Then guess how many recalls there have been for everything the FDA regulates. Hint: it’s way more than 80.

In fact, 1349 items have been recalled or withdrawn from the market or have had safety alerts. A number that big makes me wonder how many things haven’t been recalled that should have been recalled. I know there is something out there that is biding its time, waiting for the opportunity to bite me on the ass. Take that, lowly human!

Do any Buffy fans read this blog? It has been 22 years since the show’s debut and 15 years since it ended, but who can forget Buffy-bot’s classic line, “That’ll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo!” I encountered that word again today, so I finally had to look it up. It’s a real thing. Who knew? And no, I’m not going to enlighten you.

But I will say this. The word appears only once in the entire 7 years (144 episodes) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That makes it a hapax legomenon, which is also a real thing. (I challenge my readers to say hapax legomenon aloud five times as fast as possible.) The plural of hapax legomenon is hapax legomena. There are also dis legomenon, tris legomenon, and tetrakis legomenon, but I think by now I’ve made my point. In my entire life I’ve never had to use the term hapax legomenon, and I’ve already used it (singular and plural forms) five times in this paragraph.

There is a rather extensive reddit thread about Buffy-bot’s marzipan line. In fact, the redditor makes the case that “the depth, power, and intricacy of the symbolism in this single line is almost unparalleled in the series.” If he is saying that Joss Whedon is a script genius, he’ll get no argument from me.

In other news, the US government is partially shut down, TSA agents are calling in sick so they can go to a job that provides them a paycheck, the Yellow Vests are burning down France, the DJIA closed up 747 points on Friday, which sounds great until you consider that it is still down about 3500 points from 3 months ago, and the president is threatening to pardon himself for crimes he says he didn’t commit.

There you have it: all the facts that are fit to blog about. Till next time, loyal readers.