OK, I Won't

I've been getting some strange emails in my spam folder here lately, but this one is one of the strangest:

Of course, I know it's some type of scam, but most of that type have some type of link in the body of the mailing.  A quick search showed a few other people had got this exact same one and other similar ones but they were like me, wondering what the purpose is of them.

The only thing I can think of is someone being freaked out and replying back to the mail and therefore verifying that theirs is a working email address, but checking the reply to addresses shows these:

sports@omgmaxi.net,
ezines@arcamax.com,
info@aweber.com,
reliablesources@turner.com,
ebay@ebay.co.uk,
security@nexusfox.com

Now, I don't care enough about it to check to see if those domains are all legit or not, but I sure ain't gonna send an email out to any of 'em.  

That doesn't look like a legitimate email address, but as I always do, I will post it so the email address harvester bots can pick on it as well as the others I post.  Spam the spammers! 
 
oman@dvitlms.icmwquvcob.fr

What's amusing is how the sender obfuscated the "F***k You...!!" but didn't do the others. (I cut out most of the other words)

Stop sending you my photos?  OK, I won't.  I don't even send them to people I KNOW, much less to a total stranger.  Besides, I don't know too many women named Jessica, but the ones I DO know would be the ones sending ME photos

Partly Cloudy

I was trying to find an article on 22 Words, but got this instead:

These types of 404 pages annoy me even more than the broken link.  I wanted to read what I was linked to (from the 22 Words Facebook page) and instead of telling me to join with you (the "Let's find something!") in looking for another article, how about fixing your damn link to begin with?

Don't Get Yourself in a Pickle!

A "bump" from Nov. '08.  No one commented, so perhaps no one or not many saw it. Unlike many of my stories, this is a true one.

Besides, I needed a post for today and just couldn't get enthused enough to work one up.

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“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
- Will Rogers

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It was a Senior Work Day, and we boys were working on a Saturday, making some money for our class trip after graduation. We castrated pigs that morning, then after lunch we were instructed to move some irrigation pipe. Someone noticed an electric fence on a nearby pasture and the question was raised:

"Say, you ever pee on an electric fence?" Out of the six of us, four admitted they had and another boy and I were the only ones to admit to have not having had the experience.

"Do it!" the four urged me and the other guy. I shook my head, having been around electric fences before and not liking how the shock went through me where I had made contact with the fence after not seeing it and then accidentally walking into it. The shock was bad enough on my thighs, the thought of having "it" shocked wasn't appealing to me, not at all.

The taunts went on, but I didn't care because those words didn't hurt nearly as much as electricity. Maybe I was the only one who had been awake in eighth grade science when we learned about electricity and in particular how salt water can be a circuit and conduct current. For one experiment, we used a pickle to complete a circuit; it glowed inside and crackled like an old pool hall beer sign.



Nope, no need for me to electrify MY little dill.

The other guy was challenged by the sneers from the rest and with a show of bravado, marched over to the fence, unzipped and after a few moments of potty blush, began to urinate on the charged wire.

While others claimed to have seen a spark, I must have been in the wrong position, but I did see the guy's knees buckle, then straighten up to launch him into the air and land backwards into a muddy ditch.

It took him a while to recover, then he became angry at our laughter and turned his rage upon me.

"Your turn!" he commanded.

With tears in my eyes from laughing so hard, I declined again. "MY momma didn't raise no fool." I told him, which made him even angrier.

"You're the only one who hasn't done it!" he said. "We'll make you!" he went on, looking around at the other boys for allies.

One by one, the others shook their heads, saying they really HADN'T ever peed on a fence, just wanted to see if someone would do it.

This set the guy off and in a profanity-laden tirade, accused them of being liars.

"Better that than a dumbass." was the reply.

Ventriloquist Trivia

The words "Hong Kong" can be spoken without moving your lips!

Cleverbot

Cleverbot - Chat with a bot about anything and everything - AI learns from people, in context, and imitates.

From Wiki: Cleverbot is a web application that uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to have conversations with humans. It was created by the British AI scientist Rollo Carpenter, who also created Jabberwacky, a similar web application. It is unique in the sense that it learns from humans, remembering words within its AI. In its first decade Cleverbot held several thousand conversations with Carpenter and his associates. Since launching on the web in 1997, the number of conversations held has exceeded 150 million.

 Cleverbot

Quiz For People Who Know Everything

From the archives:

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(1) There's one "sport" in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends. What is it?

(2) What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

(3) Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

(4) Name the only sport in which the ball is always in possession of the team on defense, and the offensive team can score without touching the ball?

(5) What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

(6) In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

(7) Only three words in standard English begin with the letters "dw." They are all common. Name two of them.

(8) There are fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name half of them?

(9) Where are the lakes that are referred to in the "Los Angeles Lakers?"

(10) There are seven ways a baseball player can legally reach first base without getting a hit. Taking a base on balls-a walk-is one way. Name the other six.

(11) It's the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh. What is it?

(12) Name six or more things that you can wear on your feet that begin with the letter "S."

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Answers in comment section

What Is My Movie?

Whatismymovie.com

From the site:

Describe a movie

Use your own words, or search with titles, actors, directors, genres etc. We find movies for you to watch.

Search tips

Describe any aspect of the movie content you are looking for, and we will find the best movies for you.
Search for example:
find all Harry Potter movies
find me James Bond movies with Sean Connery
show me parody films scifi movie about space battles and laser guns
eastwood protecting the president
romantic scifi movie comedy in hawaii
ridley scott columbus expedition

OR
Search by typing exact movie quotes using quotations marks:
"may the force be with you"

Best way to find actors is to use full name with quotation marks.

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I stumbled across this site while trying to think of the movie The Genius Club (which I had reviewed a few yrs. back, but since I couldn't remember the title, couldn't find it using the Blogger search feature). I plugged in "Geniuses hostages printer ink" and the name popped up right away!

Brobdingnagian

Brobdingnagian \brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn\ , adjective;
1. Of extraordinary size; gigantic; enormous.

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This is one of those fifty-cent words used when a simpler word would suffice.

"Everything's Brobdingnagian in Texas." just doesn't have the right ring to it, y'know?

The Average Would Be Lower

But I bring the mean weight up:



Texas Is Not Obese!! Go Ahead, Eat That Cheese Enchilada!!

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I usually am not thrifty with my posts; after all, I don't pay for the electrons or the server space, but this one should include the word of the day:

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gormandize\GAWR-muhn-dahyz \ , verb;

1. To eat greedily or ravenously.

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That's one of those words we fat people like to use to describe our otherwise piggish eating habits.

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I "bumped" up this post because I'm now wondering if since legalizing pot, Colorado still has a low rate of obesity. Y'know, munchies and all that....

Long Time

Wow, just noticed how long it had been since my last post.  In my defense, I was offline for the better part of the last five days because my modem was fried by a nearby lightning strike.   I was relieved it was just the modem and not my computer and especially since my 'puter and several peripherals are on the same circuit.

Wussy AT&T modem, anyway.

Anyway...it's not as though I really do much with this pathetic excuse for a blog nor that I have loads of visitors to keep entertained.  It's always only been a "hobby", something to do to amuse myself.  It's really just an ersatz means of being creative, typing out some stupid words or embedding a video and pressing "Send" and having it post and then looking at it and saying to myself "Wow, I created something."

I'm sure it's something a trained ape could do.

I don't get all that many unique visitors and the last time I checked, this blog was ranked something like 12,456,738th in the world, so....

All that said, if anyone has been disappointed by my lack of posts, I promise I'll try to do better.  For those of you who have been disappointed by a lack of any creative content....well, keep checking in because I might accidentally post something worth reading.

Not that I ever have, but there's always hope, huh?

Ancient Words For These Times

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly.

But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

 For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

 He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

 ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
Roman Statesman, philosopher and orator (42 B.C)

spoonerism

spoonerism \SPOO-nuh-riz-uhm\, noun:
The transposition of usually initial sounds in a pair of words.

Some examples: (from the website)

We all know what it is to have a half-warmed fish ["half-formed wish"] inside us.

A well-boiled icicle ["well-oiled bicycle"].

It is kisstomary to cuss ["customary to kiss"] the bride.

Is the bean dizzy ["dean busy"]?

When the boys come back from France, we'll have the hags flung out ["flags hung out"]!

Let me sew you to your sheet ["show you to your seat"].

Spoonerism comes from the name of the Rev. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), a kindly but nervous Anglican clergyman and educationalist. All the above examples were committed by (or attributed to) him.

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Off the top of my head, I can think of only one spoonerism (it might not qualify, but it's still funny); my childhood buddy Joe Bill used to say -usually to a girl- in a low voice:

"Tickle your ass with a feather?"

And when the person did a double-take and said "Excuse me?", Jody would say

"Particularly nasty weather!"

Spoonerisms remind me of Cockney Rhyming Slang.

More spoonerisms

Hamlet vs PayPal

PayPal's Terms and Conditions (including their privacy policy, acceptable use policy, eBay shipping services policy and billing agreement terms) has a longer word count at 36,275 than does Shakespeare's Hamlet, which has 31,950 words in total.

Not-So-Famous Last Words

Your Last Words Would Be Philosophical

"What we know is not much. What we don't know is enormous."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

I think this one is probably pretty correct, although mine would probably be more along the lines of:

"Did you know Ben Franklin's last words were 'A dying man can do nothing easy.' ?"

The Results Show

These quizzes are stupid.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convincing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Words Per Minute

The average person can read 200-350 words per minute.  The rate is slightly higher on paper vs. screen.  Speed readers clock in at 1500+ words per minute.

Check your reading speed via the link on this earlier post.

 

ultracrepidarian

ultracrepidarian [uhl-truh-krep-i-dair-ee-uh n]

adjective
1. noting or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside the area of his or her expertise

noun
2. an ultracrepidarian person.

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I saw this word in my reader feed earlier and thought it might be a good one to add to my vocabulary and especially to use in online arguments. What I really like about these esoteric words is that it shuts the other person up until they can go find out what it means.

Not but a few minutes after I read it, I went to a lottery forum I participate in and caught up on a thread I had been following about the recent Tennessee Powerball winners who gave a press conference even before they claimed their share of the jackpot. The arguments were getting heated when one guy said no one had the right to criticize them since he was sure no one giving their opinions had ever won. That led to a spate of replies with one person saying "one doesn't have to be a doctor to know they have a belly ache."

Thinking about the lottery reminded me I needed to go get a ticket for tonight's Texas Lotto.  I stopped at the dollar store on the way home and started to go down an aisle but two older men were talking and blocking my way.  I turned around and went down the next aisle and while looking for what I wanted to buy, heard one complaining he hadn't been sleeping well and the other said "The sandman hasn't been visiting you, huh?" and at that exact point the store radio speaker just above their heads started with the distinctive opening guitar rift of "Enter Sandman" by Metallica!

I love these coincidences that seem to happen to me a lot;  I'll be listening to online radio and reading something in another tab and the radio hosts will say a word I'm reading at the same time or reference a news story I'm scanning.  Freaky!  ("coincidence" is even a post label in this blog)

And speaking of freaky:  after those earlier two coincidences, I got on Facebook to see what's been happening since I last visited and noticed a FB friend had posted a video of the Top Ten Eagles songs.  #1 was "Hotel California" and I had to make a comment about it being one of the most overplayed songs ever...and after I hit "Enter" on the post, another friend's post showed up right below that one - check it out:

(click image for larger view)

Dickens' Pet Raven

Charles Dickens had a talking pet raven named Grip and Dickens was devastated when the bird died from eating a paint chip.  According to Dickens, the bird's last words were "Halloa, old girl!"

Dickens had his adored pet stuffed and it now resides in the Rare Books Dept. of the Free Library of Philadelphia,

Hello, Goodbye

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hello is an alteration of hallo, hollo, which came from Old High German "halâ, holâ, emphatic imperative of halôn, holôn to fetch, used especially in hailing a ferryman." It also connects the development of hello to the influence of an earlier form, holla, whose origin is in the French holà (roughly, 'whoa there!', from French là 'there'). As in addition to hello, halloo, hallo, hollo, hullo and (rarely) hillo also exist as variants or related words, the word can be spelt using any of all five vowels

"Goodbye" came from the Middle English "godbwdye", which is short for "God be with ye."

Hello, Goodbye - The Beatles

Alliterative Insulter

I've noticed quite a few hits from a Google search for "alliterative insults", leading folks to this post made over a year ago. Looking at the search results led me to this site:

Alliterative Insulter

Every (sic) wanted to throw out an insult, but just didn't have the right words at the right time. Well, here we have insults for all occasions and all alliterative with the name of your choice. Just fill in the name of the person to be insulted and hit the "insult" button:

I decided to input my own name to see what it would come up with:

Mike, thou art a mindless, meandering mumbler!

Wow, the truth really DOES hurt.