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June 25, 2012

Presidential Knee

I don't know why I did it, but I clicked on a link that announced Selena Gomez was debuting her own line of perfume. She's a pretty girl, but other than watching a few episodes of The Wizards of Waverly Place, I'm not a big fan.

Still, when I looked at her photo, something caught my eye.






























She has lovely, slender legs but her left knee looked a little strange. I took a screen shot of the photo, then cropped that part of it and blew it up.

























Is it just me, or does her knee bear a resemblance to JFK? Maybe it looks more like Herbert Hoover, but that knee sure looks familar.

Some Heavenly Odds


Frankly, I wish the odds were better, but I'll take 'em. I'm a little surprised that Lust and Wrath aren't in the mix.  The Sloth is probably a little under-represented, too.

Your Deadly Sins




Sloth: 60%

Envy: 20%

Gluttony: 20%

Greed: 0%

Lust: 0%

Pride: 0%

Wrath: 0%

Chance You'll Go to Hell: 14%

You will die while sleeping - and no one will notice.

To Die For


Have you ever heard someone say "That was to die for!"? I subscribe to a LOT of recipe sites and it's something I see far too often. Here's one that I saw just the other day that made me realize it's a phrase that's in vogue to say:












Here's another one I saw just this morning, a re-post of an older recipe:








What's up with people saying that? Good grief, there are many things one could say they're worth dying for: your family and/or friends, your country, your core beliefs, your religion, but dying for food?

Yes, I realize it's just a phrase and not meant to be literal, but it's a stupid one.  There are other silly statements, like saying "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." but statements like that are just an exaggeration.  I suppose "to die for" is also an exaggeration, but it's one I wish people would quit using.

Dying for a dessert? Sheesh, there are people actually dying because they don't get ANYTHING to eat.

It's not something that "infuriates" me, but I think it's just a silly way to say something is delicious.

Saying a recipe is "to die for" doesn't make me want to try it.  I'd rather eat just bread and water than die. (and a diet of only that would eventually kill you)  OTOH, when I've seen recipes that say "Better Than Sex" (whatever) it does tend to pique my interest.

Missed the Quiz!

Spent so much time yesterday catching up on my reader feeds and reading and replying to emails that I forgot to play in the quiz!  I created it just after I did this blog and other than missing a few days due to computer troubles, have only failed to play it a couple of times.

June 20, 2012

pensée

pensée \pahn-SEY\ , noun:
A reflection or thought.


One of the things I really loved about the Harry Potter series was the way J.K. Rowling cleverly turned a word or phrase, particularly about the spells ("Lumos" for light to come from a wand - "illuminate") and potions ("Veritaserum", a truth serum which is derived from Veritas, the Roman goddess of truth)  Then there were also main characters such as Professor Lupin, a werewolf (and lupine means wolf-like; the Latin term for wolf is "Canis lupus") or Harry's godfather Sirius Black (Sirius, the brightest star in the sky is also known as the dog star and Black could change into a dog). There are dozens more examples. (but you will have to read the books or see the movies if you haven't already)

This word was one I wasn't familiar with, but she used it for the Pensieve, the memory storage basin in Dumbledore's office and which featured prominently in several of the books, and particularly in the last part of the last book where Harry finds out the truth about Snape.

Yes, Rowling was very clever with these names and descriptions;  now she's rich!

June 19, 2012

Origami Shadow Art

Origami Shadow Art by Kumi Yamashita: In 2011, famed shadow artist Kumi Yamashita was commissioned by American Express to create a unique work of art for their Tribeca, New York office lobby.

She first invited all American Express employees to be a part of her installation by taking a photo of their profile. Since the size of the space only allowed for 22 pieces, Kumi then chose 22 employee faces. Then, right on site, she worked with shadows and light to create these origami style pieces that, when hit with just the perfect light source, reveal actual faces!








Via mymodernmet



June 18, 2012

Did You Know?

I certainly didn't, not until I read an article earlier this morning about where the stars of Animal House are these days. I never realized that the same actress  played Clorette DePasto, the wild daughter of the mayor in Animal House (on left on below graphic) as well as Maggie O'Hooligan in Caddyshack. (On the right)



Her name is Sarah Holcomb and according to some sources on the 'net, she's living a very private life in Connecticut.  She acted in four movies in a two-year span.  Both of these movies are among my favorites and I don't know why I never recognized her as being the same actress in the two roles.

Ride Sally Ride


On this date in 1983 Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.


June 15, 2012

When I Do It


It's not exactly "skinny" dipping.

You Are Skinny Dipping


You are a fairly conservative, down to earth person. You aren't known for making trouble.

That being said, you can be a little mischievous at times. You have a bit of a wild streak!

You have probably been accused of being a flirt or a tease - and you're guilty as charged.

You are naturally quite playful and coy. You're mostly sugar, but you're also a little spice.

Flip Flop on the Name

A couple of months ago I bought a pair of flip-flops and kept meaning to write a post about them.  Since today is National Flip-Flop Day, I decided I'd better go ahead and do it.

My sisters and I used to wear them all the time when we were on vacation at the lake.  Back then, though, we called them "thongs" which means something entirely different these days.  When did the name change occur?

I'd really rather write about the thongs of today more than the flip-flops of yesterday.  I've never worn the former, but I like looking at them...well, I like seeing women wear them. They sure look uncomfortable, though, but wearing flip-flops is also uncomfortable.

I recently bought a pair out at WalMart;  I'm constantly having to run out to my vehicle for something or taking food out to the stray cats and it's too much trouble to lace up my sneakers just to wear them for two minutes.  I've ruined several pairs of house shoes by stepping in puddles of water in the dark...or in little "surprises" left by the stray cats. Ahem.  I was looking for a new pair of house shoes when I saw the flip-flops on a nearby rack.  They were cheap, around three bucks, so I thought they might be something that I could quickly slip on and off and save my much more expensive house shoes.

Here's the kind I bought, a cool looking camo style:


















I brought them home, snipped the little plastic tie holding them together and slid my feet into them.  Ugh. I remembered why I didn't like them as a kid and the reasons hadn't changed. 

First of all, I hate something between my toes and that's the only thing that keeps the flip-flops on your feet. (I also hate anything between my "cheeks" so that's why I suspect I wouldn't like wearing a thong) I haven't worn them enough for it to happen yet, but with any sort of rough use, the rubber toe divider is notorious for popping out of the molded hole.  With some doing, you can pop it back into the hole, but once it happens, it will keep happening until the hole tears and then the footwear is useless.  I remember being on vacation and having that happen and taking a bit of twine and tying it around the part that sticks through the hole to keep it in place.  It really didn't work too well and then it was doubly uncomfortable, the chafing between the toes and a big knot of twine poking up from underneath.

Wearing them for any length of time takes some getting used to.  I remember getting blisters on my toes when wearing them on vacation;  that was painful enough, but get some sand in between your toes and into the blisters and it's agony.

You can't run in the darn things, either.  In fact, that's what usually made the toe piece pop out of the hole when I was a kid.  That probably won't be a problem with my new pair as I haven't run anywhere in years, not even when I'm wearing running shoes.

They're also deceptive in that you get the illusion you have protection for your feet, but it's as easy to stub your toe wearing flip-flops as it is going barefoot.  That's a little ironic - breaking your big toe from wearing flip-flops and then that being the only thing you can wear on your feet because you then can't wear regular shoes with a broken toe.

I doubt my flip-flops will get much use; oh, I'll slip them on when I think about it when I need to step outside for a minute, but just looking at them makes me shudder thinking about how uncomfortable they are.  I would never, EVER wear them in public as do some folks...my toes are just too ugly.  Flip-flops look cute on girls though. 

I think I'll go Google "girls wearing flip-flops and thongs".  That shouldn't be uncomfortable at all.

Costly Kids

Just read this article on Yahoo: Cost of kid-raising hits $234,900 in U.S

Wow.  That's a lot of money, but thinking of the yearly cost of food and clothes, plus college, it sounds about right.  Since that's an average, it makes me think of the privileged kids who are above the average and especially those children who get below the average cost spent on them, sometimes much less.  I know people who probably have spent close to that much on beer in the same amount of time.

Some of the comments on the Yahoo Facebook wall (where I saw the link to the article) were - as usual - getting heated. Some people were saying their children's love was worth much more than that while others said they were never going to have children. Of course - as usual- there were self-righteous types who were replying to the anti-having children posters telling them they shouldn't have children if they were going to have an attitude like that. Good grief, they just SAID they weren't having children; why rake them over the coals for not wanting children?  I have a sneaking suspicion that the critics would never admit they wish they hadn't had children and were jealous of those who weren't.  They're probably the ones who shouldn't have had children.

I had a friend who told his mother he wasn't having children. (and since he was gay, I figured it would've been a safe bet) She told him "But who will take care of you when you're old?"

"I dunno." he replied. "But I ain't havin' nobody stick ME in a nursing home."

Nothing wrong with not having children, but I personally think *some* people who have children shouldn't have them and/or they have too many. It's still a free country - for the time being - so pop those kids out like your womb was a Pez dispenser, I don't give a damn. Just keep them quiet in restaurants, that's all I ask. Oh yeah, and keep 'em off my lawn, too.

Reminds me of an old joke:

A traveling salesman was making calls in the back woods and stopped at a primitive cabin where at least a dozen kids were playing outside in the dirt.  He could tell the family was very poor and it wouldn't be any use in trying to sell them something, but he really needed to use the bathroom so he asked the harried looking woman if he could use their facilities.  Shifting a baby from one arm to the other, she pointed towards an outhouse in the back yard.

The salesman walked toward the privy and opened the door, but as he looked down into the hole, he could see a young child struggling in the muck, the head barely visible.  He ran back to the front, frantically screaming for someone to help the child.  The woman followed him to the outhouse, looked down in the hole at the child and to the salesman's horror, put a leg into the opening and with her foot pushed the child's head below the surface.

"My God!" exclaimed the salesman."Why did you do that?"

Without batting an eye, the woman replied "I reckon it'd be easier to make another one than it would be to clean that one up."

YOLO Redux

Holding People's Hand

Cute video, but I've watched it ten times and can't make out what the woman at just past 1:00 says to him. Someone please tell me. If you do, I'll hold your hand.

June 9, 2012

YOLO

YOLO= "You only live once." I saw this several years ago on a Facebook wall. The subject was the most daring things people had done and one guy said he and his girlfriend had climbed some mountain last summer and someone else said they thought that was crazy and the mountain climber replied "YOLO".

I wasn't familiar with that particular acronym, but it didn't take long to find out what it meant: You Only Live Once - Mainly used to defend doing something ranging from mild to extreme stupidity (That's from the website Urban Dictionary. I'm not linking to it because 90% of the definitions on the site contain some...or a lot...of profanity. I'm thinkin' it's more than fair that I cite the source even if I don't insert a hyperlink)

I don't think climbing a mountain is stupid;  I wouldn't do it, but I can think of a lot more stupid things there are to do.  The way YOLO is being used most of the time is stupid, though.

Since that time I've seen it hundreds of times on the 'net, on Twitter feeds and set as a Facebook status. It's becoming overused, much in the way Hotel California was played way too much on the radio. That song was great the first dozen times I heard it, but when it was played a dozen times a day....

It was like that with YOLO for a long while, then - thankfully - it fell into disuse. It wouldn't go away completely - there were the isolated incidents that would call attention to it again, such as when Zac Efron got a YOLO hand tattoo. It's making a comeback, though, and a search of the 'net will show that I'm not alone in thinking it's being used far too often and in the wrong context.

I was reminded of it again the other day when some doofus posted in a fan group something like "Me 'n a bud drank a fifth of vodka, polished off a case of malt liquor and smoked a whole oz. of some crazy kine. YOLO." Yeah, I thought. You only live once, but you'll also probably only live a short time.

I suppose you only live once, but I prefer to go by the haiku written by James Bond in Ian Fleming's novel You Only Live Twice:

You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face

I'm certainly not a spy nor a combat veteran, but I have looked death in the face, both literally and figuratively. That's for another blog post, though.

The following is from the 1967 James Bond thriller You Only Live Twice opening, sung by Nancy Sinatra. (The movie bears little resemblance to the novel, by-the-way) I love the opening bars of the tune.

June 6, 2012

Firefox 13.0

Firefox just released the newest version of their browser.  From Firefox 13 Tweaks Tabs, Home Pages, Speed and Security

Before the upgrade, when Firefox users clicked to open a new tab, they saw simply a blank page, unlike browsers such as Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer, which provide users with links to recently opened or favorite sites. Now, the Firefox homepage will feature icons that enable quick access to bookmarks, history, settings, add-ons and downloads. Additionally, when users click for a new tab, they'll see thumbnails to their most recently and frequently visited sites.

I really like the thumbnail part when opening up a new tab and it does seem a little faster.  Only one of my add-ons was not compatible, much fewer than with other releases. 

The funny thing about this is that I've almost always liked the upgrades Firefox has done.  I didn't like the last few MSN Group upgrades and don't like the new Facebook Timeline, so I take offense when people say I (or others) don't like change.  The changes Firefox has done are easier to get used to and are more useful than other "upgrades" I've gone through.  Even going from Windows98 to XP wasn't as bad as trying to get used to the new Timeline. (so that's why I installed some extensions for Firefox that hides it from me!)

I do wish my Windows Media Player on this Vista machine was more like the one I had with my XP computer.  It's definitely not an improvement, I don't care how much they try to convince me otherwise.

The very best upgrade I ever had was going from dial-up to DSL.  Who wouldn't want a hundred times more speed?  (I really need to upgrade to cable, though, but my speed is satisfactory for now)

It's Official

3% of people taking this recent quiz at StartSampling are...well, not sure just WHAT they are, but they're not normal.

Honestly, who doesn't like ice cream?  I guess there's the lactose intolerant, but....


June 4, 2012

Zombie Attack!

The latest viral video. The guy almost gets shot around the 2:00 mark, then near the end the tables get turned.

June 3, 2012

Icehoused

It's really hot here today; after a few days of near-rain and cooler temps, it's back to the standard Panhandle summer heat.

I sure wanted something cold to drink earlier; I had finished off the single Diet DP in the fridge and was thirsty for something else.  I looked in the fridge, but the jug of cold water just didn't appeal to me.  That's when I spied the six-pack of Icehouse beer I had bought a month or two ago.  "Probably ain't any good." I thought to myself as I grabbed a bottle and opened it up.  I sniffed of it - smelled OK, then took a small sip, ready to spit it out if it tasted "skunky".

Nope, tasted darned good!

I'm on my third one and am starting to slosh a little bit. ("slosh" means to feel it)  It's got 5.5% alcohol weight by volume, a little more than regular beers. (Bud has 5%) It's certainly enough for me to feel it, though.  I've always been a fairly cheap drunk.

I checked other beer's alcohol content and while doing so, found out that "Icehoused" is a new urban term.  The "G" rating of this blog prohibits me from defining it or linking to the sites, but trust me, it basically means "drunk".

Won't be long, maybe with one more beer, that I'll start getting hungry.  I've always been that way.  I'll certainly need to not drink so much that I can't operate a can opener.  Funny how a can of pork 'n beans tastes so good sometimes.  If I drink much more than I have already, I'll have trouble sleeping.

Yeah, better close this post out or I'll be guilty of "PWI" - posting while intoxicated.  The good thing about getting drunk is that I get so much more clever and witty and oh-so-much more handsome.



Upsate...er..Uplate...uh...Update: I'm just about to go get the sixth one. I put it in my freezer so it will be very cold. I've knocked off five soldiers already, fixin' to put the last one to rest. I'm gettin' a hankerin' for those pork 'n beans.


No beans yet, but I want to dedicate the following tune to all the other drunk sods.
Thank goodness I'm already home.

Only 20%?

You Are 20% Sociopath

You're empathetic, loyal, and introspective.

In other words, there's no way you're a sociopath... but you can spot one pretty easily!

Liking Your Own Facebook Posts

Liking your own Facebook posts is like giving yourself a high five in public.
 - Conan O'Brien

I saw this quote as the rebuttal to someone on a totally unrelated subject. Others chimed in , saying it was lame, stupid, etc.  I didn't see one reply in support.

It made me Google "liking your own Facebook posts" and there were millions of mentions about it (18.1 million), but this one stood out as one of the few in defense of the practice: Should you like your own Facebook posts?  As is almost always the case, some people had to chime in with their own and insulting opinions.

To be honest, it's not a big deal as far as I'm concerned but I do wonder why people do it.

The reason I bring this up is because I accidentally liked one of my own posts earlier and quickly unliked it before anyone could notice. Maybe it's a bigger deal to me than I'm admitting.  It just seems like it's....not sure of the word or phrase I want to use...maybe "self-promoting"?  I wouldn't dream of mentioning it on my own wall and especially not on someone else's wall who does it, though.

I've seen several of my Facebook friends like their own posts and it's always struck me as odd. One friend does it all the time, but she can't be bothered to like even one of my own posts. THAT does bother me. She's the one who sent the friendship request.  What's the use of having Facebook friends if you don't interact with them? Other friends like nearly every one of my posts and I appreciate it; at least it lets me know they've read them.  The same ones always like my replies to their posts and that lets me know they appreciate ME reading THEIR posts.  Seriously, it doesn't take much effort to click the "like" button.

I've been culling my Facebook friends list because if they don't care about my posts, then why should I care about theirs?  I'm not being dramatic here;  it's just that there are reasons I spend time online: one is to learn - the news, recipes, subjects that interest me, etc.  Another is to be entertained - the learning could be lumped in with that, because I enjoy finding out things I didn't know.  Last, but not least, I love the 'net because it allows me to keep up with friends and family members.  It's almost a Catch-22 thing with that, though.  If they don't care enough to keep up with me, why should I care about keeping up with them?

June 1, 2012

Lip-Dub Proposal


I've seen too many a lot of these lip dub vids, but this one is the best!