Lucky People

Or maybe "Fortunate People Whose Parents Weren't Married"

She-Smell

Women have a better sense of smell than men.

Delete the Tweet

I have a Twitter account - the second one I've had.  I rarely tweeted and seldom signed in on the first one and it's about the same for the present one.  The one I have now has a fake name, just in case I want to fire back at someone who tweets something offensive. 

It's been a couple of years (so the exact details are a little hazy) but I followed a re-tweet by someone I was following and the woman - some minor celeb. who happened to be black - had posted a lot of (other) nasty racist comments, but the one that bothered me was her saying "White women prefer black men!"  I usually just ignore things like that, but couldn't help myself and replied "That might be true, but if it is, it might also mean black men prefer white women."  I got a BUNCH of replies to that, so many that I just canceled the account.  Many were death threats or at the least, promising violence.  Since I had used my "real name", I thought it for the best, even though I doubted anyone would actually follow through on them.  If someone showed up at my door, angry over something I had posted on Twitter, then they might have had a rude awakening...or a quick death.

Anyway...I was reading a sports article the other day and a link was left to a specific tweet, but it had been deleted by the time I clicked on it.  Here's the Twitter 404 message:

Georgy Girl - The Seekers

The Purple Test

You Are a Rebel

You've never been one to be part of a crowd. In fact, you avoid most crowds out of principle. You value your uniqueness, and you're proud of it. You enjoy standing out, even if you don't overtly draw attention to yourself. You have never been one to copy others. Your inspiration comes from within, and you are very creative. If anything, you can get a bit annoyed if people copy you too much. You may even change course in order to preserve your individuality.

The Purple Test

Have You Ever Seen The Rain - CCR

plash

plash [plash] noun

1. a gentle splash.
2. a pool or puddle. verb (used with object),
3. to splash gently. verb (used without object)

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Never heard nor seen this word before. So, taking off the first letter of a word makes it "gentle"?

If that's the case, I guess silently breaking wind would be "art", huh?

Who is Gregory?

Like most everyone else who has a Gmail account, I get a lot of spam; thankfully, most of it is sent straight to the spam folder. Because every now and then a legitimate email or newsletter gets sent there, I go through it once/day and mark them as "safe" so they'll be routed to the inbox in the future. I don't understand why I get so much spam addressed to "Gregory", though.

I did a quick search and found that many people get spam not addressed to them, but I didn't find anyone else who gets "Gregory spam", though. I get something at least once a day addressed to Gregory and there were four emails today. Strange.

смущающий

404 page from a site I subscribe to in my reader, English Russia.  I generally enjoy the site, a glimpse into many facets of Russia, not only in present time, but also with old photos of the country (or rather, the Soviet Union) during WWII and after.

I did learn my lesson after once commenting on an article;  I had used my Gmail address and within a few hours there were several attempts to hack into it.  They didn't have any success, so I'm grateful my account wasn't invaded like the Russkies did the Crimea.  (The site's owner is overtly supportive of the takeover.)

смущающий - embarrassing in Russian

Ear Hear Here

Your sense of hearing is at its best at 10 years old.

Happy Waffle Day!

You Are Innovative

You find entirely new ways of doing things. You are progressive and original. You are knowledgeable and well-read. If no one can teach you, you'll teach yourself. Nothing escapes notice your notice. You are highly observant and attentive. You are wise and thoughtful. You are very philosophical about life.

The Waffle Test

---

Coincidentally enough, I "waffled" on choosing the waffle pics. I finally settled on this one, even though I've never had waffles with chocolate sauce and fruit, which sounds/looks delicious.  I'm not sure the results really fit me, but I'd like to think so. (except I'm definitely not "progressive", at least in the political sense)

I haven't had waffles in years and years;  I guess the last time was at an IHOP and it was a mistake on my order but the place was so busy I didn't have the heart or inclination to send them back for the pancakes I had originally ordered.  They were pretty good, so much better than the frozen type we used to sometimes have when I was a kid.  I don't know what it was about those things, but they usually had a cold or frozen spot left in them and if you toasted them longer, they'd come out nearly black, inedible and tough.

As my friends and loyal readers of this blog know, I subscribe to a bunch of recipe sites in my reader.  Every now and then a recipe for chicken and waffles pops up and while that isn't something that's on the menu in this part of the country, I think it would be good.  Then again, I'm a person who likes to dip  french fries into my chocolate shake, so....

Today is Waffle Day, btw, although there's a little bit of controversy about just what day it really is.

Germs: Kitchen vs Bathroom

In most homes, the toilet contains fewer germs than the kitchen.

I'd hate to wager on either one in MY home; it's a tossup.

Honest Slogans

I don't remember when I first discovered Honest Slogans and started subscribing to it in my reader, but I always look forward to the posts. This has been one of my favorites, a more recent one:

They've all been funny, but this one really made me laugh:

 
There are just too many to post all my favorites, but thank goodness there's an archive.

Many thanks to the webmaster Clif Dickens;  we had an email exchange after I had asked permission to link to his site and to use a few of his creations; I told him his Axe parody hit close to home, that I used it but wasn't particularly proud of the fact.  He admitted that he also used the product.  I'm so glad, I didn't want to throw away my last purchase of it.  People might not like my scent, but they darn sure wouldn't like the scent that it's sprayed on to cover up.

Honest Slogans

Hava Nagila Texas Style

My last post (just under this one) made me want to listen to the song and I found this version.

Mazel tov!

How well do you know your Yiddish?

Guess my reading Chaim Potok, being able to sing along with Hava Nagila and watching Seinfeld finally paid off.

Here's a personal anecdote; I was in FFA back in h.s. and raised a few show pigs.  I made the sale with my pig my first year and sold it for a good price.  The man who bought it had a metal supply company and did a lot of business with the company my pop worked for and dad also bought a lot of metal from him for his projects he was constantly working on.  The man's name?  Arthur "Artie" Aftergut, a nice Jewish man.  I always thought that funny, even though he didn't buy the hog to eat but for a business deduction.  Still....

Empty Plate

404 page I got after clicking on a link for Sriracha marinade on Bon Appétit.

Click graphic for larger view.

Gimme All Your Lovin' - ZZ Top

The Spring Test

You Are Solitary

You are big on solitude, reflection, and quiet. You love the calmest moments of spring - when the world is still waking up. You enjoy having time to yourself to take everything in. You function better if you can process on your own schedule. You notice every detail of life and can spend a lot of time thinking about one or two tiny little things. You are good at coping with the busyness and chaos of life if you have enough down time. You find your inner peace and comfort.

The Spring Test

Spring Has Sprung!

It's the first day of Spring, or Spring equinox.

Be sure and check out the cute Google Doodle today.

Did You Ever Notice?

Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.

Outfoxed With Link

Saw an article linked to on Bing to the Fox News website, read it, then saw another article I wanted to read but got a 404 page.

Click graphic for larger view

"You may be interested in the content below."

Uh, I "may be", but I clicked on the link to an article that definitely DID interest me...and it wasn't there.  Get your act together, Fox News.

On the other hand, if it had been on the MSNBC or CNN websites, the article would have been there, but I'd have had to tilt my head to the left to read it and crossed my eyes to filter out the political bias.  I'd say the same thing is sometimes true - in reverse-  of Fox News too, but they're the only ones accused of being biased. Gimme a break.

venerable

venerable ven·er·a·ble [ven-er-uh-buhl] adjective

1. commanding respect because of great age or impressive dignity; worthy of veneration or reverence, as because of high office or noble character: a venerable member of Congress.

2. a title for someone proclaimed by the Roman Catholic Church to have attained the first degree of sanctity or of an Anglican archdeacon.

3. (of places, buildings, etc.) hallowed by religious, historic, or other lofty associations: the venerable halls of the abbey.

4. impressive or interesting because of age, antique appearance, etc.: a venerable oak tree.

5. extremely old or obsolete; ancient: a venerable automobile.

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"a venerable member of Congress"??? That, folks, is the very definition of an oxymoron.

Frogs Don't Drink

They absorb water through their skin.

I Should Be a Fat Irishman

You Should Eat Irish Food

You are a seeker and sharer of comfort. You want everyone to feel content and happy, including yourself. You tend to be both a mediator and peacemaker. You don't anyone to feel excluded or alienated. You are social, but only when it comes to the people you've grown close to. You like to surround yourself with the people you love. A great day doesn't have to be special for you. Doing ordinary things is very affirming.

How Should You Celebrate St. Patrick's Day?

Eire

Eire Eir·e [air-uh, ahy-ruh, air-ee, ahy-ree] noun

1. the Irish name of Ireland.
2. a former name (1937–49) of the Republic of Ireland.

---

Appropriate for today, huh?

Only Time - Enya

A 'bump" for Saint Patrick's Day; I started to post some other Irish-associated video, such as Riverdance or the Irish Rovers, but I love Enya's music and why waste a perfectly good - even if old - post. Yet again, I had to change the embed code that I had changed 5/8/12...hope this one stays up for a while.

---

Original post: May 14,2008. Saw that the video had been removed, so I found another. One of my favorite songs, one of the loveliest.

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I'm Still Hanging in There

Hello, all sports fans and athletic supporters! (and the last is the "proper" term for jock straps, just in case you didn't know)

These are the worst sort of 404 pages; I got a new post in my reader from a Dallas Cowboys fan blog Blogging the Boys, but when I went to the site to read the rest of it and any comments that had been left, it wasn't there and had been deleted shortly after it had been posted.

This happen more frequently on a few of my recipe sites; I don't know what happens, but I suspect the author re-reads their piece and sees mistakes or decides there are too many/not enough photos or something else they didn't like. Sometimes they're re-posted, sometimes not. I don't know why this article was deleted; from what I read, it was good writing and made a lot of sense...unusual for most Cowboys fans and/or writers.

Live Wire - AC/DC

Live in Paris 1979

Can't Find the Real Thing

404 page from Coca-Cola.com

Cat Age Calculator

How old is your cat in human years ?

To find out enter your cat's age by clicking the cat years and cat months options and your cats age in human years will be automatically calculated.



A little bump from 4/28/09. The Beej is 77 now and really starting to show it.

Everywhere - Fleetwood Mac

Worm Facts

Earthworms usually have five hearts, but some species can have up to nine. It's called a heart for simplicity, although it is actually an aortic arch. In between each arch is a gland that helps the worm digest calcium, which it gets from eating a lot of dirt.

More earthworm facts: There can more than one million earthworms in just one acre of land. Earthworms contain both female organs, as well as male organs, making them hermaphrodites. The largest earthworm ever recorded was found in South Africa; from its nose to its tail it measured 22 feet long.

(source: Earthworm Facts)

World Sunlight Map

Cool page that shows what parts of the world are in sunlight or darkness.

World Sunlight Map

Videos For Your Cat

From the YouTube channel Videosforyourcat.

There are several other videos, but most involve either birds or fish; there IS one with crickets, but those scare my cat.

Even though they're "videos for your cat", I liked them too.

claptrap

claptrap clap·trap [klap-trap] noun

1. pretentious but insincere or empty language: His speeches seem erudite but analysis reveals them to be mere claptrap.

2. any artifice or expedient for winning applause or impressing the public.

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For a visual definition, watch C-Span. 30 seconds oughta do the trick.

Extreme Contrasts

It caught my eye, an article on the Inquisiter website about Jessica Duggar, one of the children on the reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting.

Here's a little bit from the article: The four eldest girls of the Duggar clan, Jana, 24, Jill, 22, Jessa, 21, and Jinger, 20, say that “it’s easy to put yourself into physical and moral danger and give into those emotions or sensual thoughts that promise pleasant, but only temporary, fulfillment.”

I should admit that I don't watch the show very often. Unlike many other people, however, I don't hate the Duggars because of their religion or the size of their family. I HAVE seen a few episodes, though and am glad I wasn't raised that way or in such a large family. A little more religion certainly wouldn't have hurt me while I was growing up, but our small house was crowded enough with just the five of us.

One of the last episodes I watched was about Josh, the oldest son, and his marriage to a lovely and sweet young woman, Anna. I was a little surprised when I learned that they hadn't kissed before the wedding, but I believe it was on the same show where I was taken aback at Jim Bob, the patriarch of the family, talking about how his wife Michelle HAD kissed someone before she had married him, not disguising his bitterness while talking to the camera. (I find THAT to be more than a little weird, but...it's not MY wife, after all.  Finding a woman as chaste as he wanted - other than the Duggar girls - is very rare these days.  I think I'd be happy just to find out my new bride hadn't spent a year hooking on the Las Vegas strip)

I had to laugh when the cameras followed the new couple on their honeymoon; I forget exactly where they went, but they took a trip to some sort of marine park and were going to spend their wedding night camping out under a clear arch under a huge tank full of fish. They stayed there for a while, then decided it wasn't very comfortable and went back to their hotel room.

I was wondering why the hell they were spending their first night of marriage sleeping on the floor looking at fish...and I think they got to wondering the same thing after a while.  I don't think it would've been nearly as interesting as getting to know each other...in the Biblical sense. Ahem. I'm sure neither of them knew what they were doing later that night, but I bet they had fun figuring it out.

I read the rest of the article, then a slide-out ad appeared at the bottom - talk about a contrast! (I bookmarked it to read later for some pointers, even though I doubt it'd work on the Duggar girls)

Then this was on a panel of links at the very bottom of the page:

Even MORE contrast...and I'd much rather read about the Duggars than Tongue-Girl.

It Feels Good to Wash Your Face

)

Resurrecting Old Wounds

The 404 post (just below this one) I made was about trying to watch the premiere episode of Resurrection. From Wiki:

The series follows the residents of Arcadia, Missouri, whose lives are upended when their loved ones return from the dead, unaged since their deaths. Among the returned is Jacob Langston, an eight-year-old boy who drowned 32 years earlier. Having somehow been found alive in China, he is brought back to America by an immigration agent. His surprise return inspires the local sheriff, whose wife presumably drowned trying to rescue Jacob, to learn more about this mystery.

The premise sounded interesting and I thought it might be something that, if done well, would be worth putting the show on my fairly small list of TV shows to watch.  As I said in the 404 post, I was having problems finding it;  it's an ABC show and hadn't yet been posted on the network's website  (as of last night, but it's there now) but I did manage to find it on Hulu and will watch it later.

My "problems" finding the show isn't the reason for this post, however;  I was scrolling through my Facebook pages feed earlier today and one of them had a post about the show. (I'd link to it, but it must have been taken down because I cannot find it now) The post about the show just mentioned it and asked if anyone had seen it, but it unleashed a firestorm of comments.  Some were saying they were tired of supernatural shows about witches/demons/vampires, etc., the ubiquitous objections on religious grounds, but quite a few comments were about the insensitivity of the network for airing such a show because of people who had lost children.

(Personally, I'm offended by TV news with the slant given to it by the talking heads reading it, people who may have graduated college but are really just educated idiots blinded by ideology. That's why I don't watch TV news and don't see any reason to bitch about it on message boards or on Facebook)

God bless those who have lost a child;  my own mother always said she couldn't imagine it and one of her biggest fears was outliving one of her children.  I understand how someone could be saddened by such a show, but OTOH, I don't see why someone would subject themselves to such added misery by watching it.  It's hard for me to accurately express how I feel about this without coming across as an insensitive bastard, but I don't understand how ranting about it on Facebook is going to do any good for anyone. I'd think doing that would do nothing but to bring on more grief.

Anyway, here's the trailer in case you're interested. (and don't want to watch the entire episode at the links I posted above)  Watch it, and let me know what you think, if you think it's too insensitive of the network to air such a show.

NOT Good to See You Again

I was trying to watch an episode of a show I had missed on TV the other night, so I went to a site that has them and got this: