Practice makes perfect!

1740s lingo for “the more you bang, the better you get”. Ol' Ben was hip – he had an illegitimate son and married his wife, Deborah Read, when she was a young 15.

The groups' inclusion of “disco” here may be related to their birthdays – all around the time when disco exploded, late 70s and early 80s. Also worth noting is that just two months earlier, Daft Punk released RAM, which had a techno-dance feel to it, featuring singles like the wildly popular “Get Lucky” and “Lose Yourself to Dance”.

More recently, “can and will” is often employed. This new preference is most likely an attempt to convey the gravity of being arrested to the person in question. The recitation of the warning must be “meaningful” (that is, serious) and suspect’s must convincingly relay the fact that they understand their rights to the officer.

No, not the cartoon girl from the Parisian boarding school… or the cookie

The name “Madeleine” is related etymologically to Magdalene, which means magnificent, though curiously the latter is a diminutive meaning little girl

These lines, echoed electronically by Brian (and more prominently in the song’s intro) are perhaps related to the fact that In a World Like This is the band’s first release since 2009.

The band has a different dynamic now, and marriage and parenting have given the album as a whole a more personal, less commercialized pop vibe. BSB’s heyday was the late 90s when they released 4 albums in so many years, but the members' mean age is now 37.4 years, with two members over 40.

This essay, also titled “To the Royal Academy of Farting,” was written around 1781 to critique the growing pretentiousness of the Royal Academy of Brussels (and the scientific community as a whole). In it, he suggests that these natural philosophers, full of hot air, ought to try to make humanity’s passed gas smell less offensive.

Why does Ron pay for these things? In order to more rigorously adhere to the SNAP challenge that he has presented. If he hadn’t paid for the small snacks, he would be eating them without contributing to the atmosphere of “hunger” he is trying to create for himself.

But are these fair prices? Yes – but his handful of peanuts was probably a bit generous.

Hank & Doug Meijer both run the Meijer chain of super-grocery/department stores. With about 200 stores in the northern Midwest, centered in Michigan, Meijer was founded by Hank & Doug’s Dutch immigrant grandfather during the Great Depression.