Have done a little truth stalking today on two subjects:
- What does it mean to have to piss like a Russian racehorse?
- And what are some experimental numbers on mpg vs. vehicle speed?
I has having chai tea with a friend this morning, and she bought me a grande. I knew it'd be way too much tea, but figured it couldn't hurt. We talked for an hour or so then I rode my bike home. Would've stopped in the bathroom but it was occupied. Eyeballs were floating upon arrival home. I thought to myself -- I have to piss like a Russian racehorse! But what does that even mean!? I found an interesting tidbit:
Apparently (and I don't have any solid info on this but it makes a good story and might be true [doubtful .. see comments below .. but maybe Russians were especially agressive in their methods somehow?]), in Russian horse racing, they used to tie off the (male) horses' penises. This way, they had to pee really bad once they started racing. Not very nice, and surprising to me that it was even effective. But that's where the saying comes from! You can go farther and say "like a Russian racehorse in winter." I guess in cold winter air, mammals generally offload water to contract blood vessels and avoid heat loss.
Now on to mpg. Found an interesting website. They show what one my dad told me long ago, that slower is better for mpg. For a typical car, it is empirically found that you get better gas mileage at 35 mph or even slower. See this chart from the website. I only looked briefly into this and this website isn't the word of god but it seems pretty good...
Stay tuned for more truthiness next time.
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8 comments:
Lol... good to know the story behind the Russian racehorse saying! Actually.. I've heard just racehorse before, not sure I've heard Russian. So mean! Reminds me of how they cinch down bulls' balls to get them to buck at the rodeo. Us humans are bastards. Interesting too about mpg.
What a terrible thing to do to those poor horses!
Guess we'll all be traveling slower than 35mpg soon (walking, jogging or biking...), the way things in this country are going lately.
cold weather would be expected to cause surface vasoconstriction, thus increasing intravascular volume which should lead to higher blood pressure
then barrorecepters cause kidney water loss to return volume to normal
i always notice a diuresis when i get cold
steve
Actually....
The saying is "I have to pee like a rushin' racehorse"
Racehorses are given diuretics a couple of hours prior to a race (to minimize body weight). If you have ever seen them let fly after the diuretics kick in, you would clearly understand the phrase.
A rushin' river comes to mind.
(P.S. Go ahead and try putting a rope around a racehorses penis... The last thing he is going to do is race.)
As a young man I frequently added my own bits to common sayings. Sometime in the early 90s I began saying "...piss like a Russian racehorse." Instead of just 'race horse'. Am I the originator of this phrase? I used the phrase often and my friends and teammates have spread over the earth since those days And the internet puts complete strangers only a few degrees/steps away from any other given stranger in the connected world. Its entirely possible someone else randomly began saying this without hearing it from the chain I began, but you have to wonder. Today, 24OCT2009, is the very first time I've EVER heard anyone use this phrase other than myself and it immediately caught my attention, but I didn't ask the individual anything. The person using the phrase met me for the first time today. I came home and googled: "piss like a russian race horse" and this was the first hit. I stopped using the phrase a long time ago thinking I sounded like nerd. What does Russia have to do with race horses so specifically that the phrase would be modified that way? Nothing. It was just random semantics of a teenager fifteen some odd years ago. I suppose that is the best evidence that the phrase is original because it doesn't make any sense.
Genial dispatch and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you seeking your information.
Yep, it's an old Russian trick, and it's all about blockin' that urine flow to make the horse uncomfortable and edgy for the race. Watch a toddler doin the pee-pee dance and then runnin off to the potty. ... then consider the brute force of that animal with all that negative energy and motivation. ...and when it's all over and the string is cut, well ... the river flows. Hence ... "...like a Russian racehorse".
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