I'm A Flake

Since oatmeal wasn't a choice.

You Are Easygoing

You live a life of contentment, relaxation, and smiles. You refuse to let the world get you down. You have as many worries and problems as most people, but no one could ever tell. You don't get buried in negativity. In general, you are sweet and optimistic. You expect the best out of life, and you are easily pleased. The smallest things can light up your day. It doesn't take much to make you happy, and you love surprises. You are youthful because you have held on to your innocence. You refuse to let yourself get cynical. When life hands you lemons, you don't just make lemonade. You open up a lemonade stand.

The Cereal Test

Right-Winger

I am NOW since my divorce.

droll

droll [drohl] adjective, droll·er, droll·est, noun, verb,

adjective

1. amusing in an odd way; whimsically humorous; waggish.

noun

2. a droll person; jester; wag.

verb

(used without object)

3. Archaic. to jest; joke.

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I've been told my humor is droll. I've been accused of purposely trying to rile people up on message boards. I'm not afraid to take a chance. It's a fact that I'm getting on up there in years, so...

I'm an old, bold, droll troll.

love is patient

love is patient

From the website:

The collage process used in this process is based on Voronoi algorithm, which creates polygons from a list of points on the plane. Each polygon is defined by the set of points that are closer to a point on the list.

Each photograph is associated to a dot. The more the dot is isolated from the others, the more its polygon (the mask) becomes larger, revealing more of the photograph.

The autonomous movement of the dots is defined by a constant speed and an iterative random variation on the direction.

love is patient

Lipstick on Your Collar - Connie Francis

And, in related news: Some Lipsticks Contain Toxic Metals

Sunny Me

The results might have been different had I taken this quiz on a 100 degree day, but since it's cold, damp and miserable outside....

Never really thought of myself as having a sunny disposition.

Your Weather Personality is Sunny

You're the type of person who really appreciates perfect weather - not too chilly, not too warm, and of course the sun is shining. You love to be outdoors. You find nature soothing and inspiring ... especially if you're out there getting your heart rate up. Nothing motivates you more than a sunny day. Even when you're feeling down, waking up to rays of sunshine makes you feel like anything is possible. On the other hand, a bit of gray and clouds can make you down in the dumps. You're always more sluggish when the sun is hiding. You like to be outdoors, and you try not to let inclement weather stop you. That being said, you do prefer to be comfortable. Whenever you find yourself in a sunny climate, you try to be outside as much as possible. You love dining al fresco and outdoor malls.

What's Your Weather Personality?

saccharine

saccharine sac·cha·rine[sak-er-in, -uh-reen, -uh-rahyn] adjective

1. of the nature of or resembling that of sugar: a powdery substance with a saccharine taste.
2. containing or yielding sugar.
3. very sweet to the taste; sugary: a saccharine dessert.
4. cloyingly agreeable or ingratiating: a saccharine personality.
5. exaggeratedly sweet or sentimental: a saccharine smile; a saccharine song of undying love.

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"Revenge is sweet, saccharine sweet." That's stuck in my head ever since I read it in one of my sister's Trixie Belden books when I was a kid. 

Sukiyaki - Kyu Sakamoto

Originally titled "Ue O Mui Te Aruko" (I'll Look Up While Walking)


From Wiki:

Released by Capitol Records in the US as Sukiyaki (Capitol 4945), it topped the Billboard pop charts in the United States for three weeks in 1963 -- to date the first and only song sung entirely in Japanese to do so.

The lyrics were written by Rokusuke Ei and the melody was composed by Hachidai Nakamura. The lyrics tell the tragic story of a man who looks up while he is walking so that his tears won't fall. The verses of the song describe him doing this through each season of the year.

On August 12, 1985, Kyu Sakamoto died in the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123. Before the doomed aircraft hit the ground, he managed to write a farewell note to his wife, Yukiko Kashiwagi.

hellion

hellion hel·lion [hel-yuhn] noun Informal

a disorderly, troublesome, rowdy, or mischievous person.

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I'm fixin' to be a hellion if AT&T doesn't do something about this stinking modem and their DNS issues.

Let Me Google That For You

From the site:

For all those people who find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than Google it for themselves.

Ever get annoyed by someone asking a question and you KNOW they are smart enough to do a search for it on their own?  You know they're only doing it to:  a. make you waste your time, b. pick apart the information at the link or c. impeach the source.

Instead, make THEM do the work and have a laugh at them at the same time.  Make THEM waste their time and then you can pick apart the information or impeach the source...or better yet, ignore them after leaving the link.

Just input the search terms, then you'll be given a link to leave for the troll (or lazy butt) so he/she can do their own research.

(one of the best replies I ever saw on a msg. board was someone asking where another poster got their information.  "Look it up yourself." he said. "I'm not your link whore.")

Try it out!

© LMGTFY (let me google that for you)

Dazzling Adorable Doofus

Your Dazzle Makes You Adorable

The face you present to the world is charming and alluring. You are simply a fun person to be around. Whenever you can, you're ready to lighten the mood with a joke or an anecdote. You're a natural storyteller. On the inside, you feel less dazzling and more ordinary. You can't see how attractive you are to the outside world. You are a very genuine person, and you can't even imagine trying to charm others. You just do it naturally. Your friends love your dazzle because... well, who doesn't love dazzle? You're just one of those charismatic types everyone loves. The true secret is that you make others feel like they're the center of your attention. You know how to make everyone feel good.

What Makes You Adorable?

Clumsy Clouseau of Collectors

Did you know the day before he was to sell the Picasso painting Le Rêve (The Dream) for $139 million, Las Vegas casino magnate Steve Wynn accidentally poked a hole in it with his elbow?




Wynn refers to himself now as the "Clouseau of Collectors", a reference to the clumsy detective in the The Pink Panther movies.

gopher

gopher go·pher \GOH-fer\ , verb:

1. Mining. a. to mine unsystematically.
b. to enlarge a hole, as in loose soil, with successively larger blasts.

noun:

1. any of several ground squirrels of the genus Citellus, of the prairie regions of North America.
2. pocket gopher.
3. gopher tortoise.
4. gopher snake.
5. (initial capital letter) a native or inhabitant of Minnesota (used as a nickname).
6. (initial capital letter) Computers.
a. a protocol for a menu-based system of accessing documents on the Internet.
b. any program that implements this protocol

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When I hear or see the word "gopher", I think of two movies. The first is Urban Cowboy where Bud - played by John Travolta - gets a job at the refinery and the man who hires him says he'll be a gopher and sarcastically asks him if he knows what a gopher is. Travolta says he figures it's someone who goes for things, then tries to make a joke about him being a small furry animal. The man is not amused and tells Travolta that around there, they were about the same.

That's a funny scene in that movie, but it's not nearly as funny as this one from Caddyshack.

Don't Click!

Visit dontclickit to free yourself from clicking.


Of course, you'll have to click the link to get there.

Visit this site, the Institute for Interactive Research, to get a glimpse of what the internet might be in the future.

Google Loves Me

URL Change

A few hours ago I purchased the domain "topoftexasgazette.com". Blogger will redirect to it, but if you want, you can change your bookmarks to the dot com URL.  I'm not for sure if the few reader feeds this blog has will change.

I'm going ahead with the Blogger platform because it's user-friendly (read: simple for a doofus like me) and I didn't want to pay for hosting.  I might change that in the future, but will stick with Blogger for the time being.

Some other things have changed;  the Feedjit feed quit working, even though I changed the URL after I signed into my Feedjit account.  I put in a new module, but for some reason the colors and width of the module didn't come out the way I wanted, so I will "work" on that sometime soon.  It's an interesting feature, but not necessary.

Also, the ToTG Trivia scoreboard module quit working, but it wasn't working earlier before the URL change.  I will also see if I can fix that, but if not, I will just create a link in the right-hand nav-bar for those who like to play the quiz that way.  Until then, the URL is ToTG Trivia Tournament

Other than that, I don't see many other changes.  I'm thinking of using AdSense, but OTOH, I doubt I'd see much money from it, seeing as how there's only a few dozen unique hits each day and probably isn't worth the hassle.  We'll see...I might try it for a while.  The domain cost only ten bucks, so it's not as though I have anything other than time tied up in this site. 

I've read articles about making money with a blog, but I also have read that people who make a profit off their blogs are few and far between.  I follow some food blogs/sites in my reader and one woman said she had just started turning a profit after 6+ years of blogging.  She hinted at the time she had spent and I did some quick calculations and figured she was making about a dollar an hour.  My time isn't worth much, but it's worth more than that. (one of the reasons I follow her blog in my reader instead of bookmarking it and visiting it daily is because of the multiple and obtrusive ads she has on her pages.)

The URL is longer than I wanted, but someone already had purchased "totg.com".  It's not being used, but is for sale for $8875.

Yeah, sure.  I'll get that out of my piggy bank.

Number 4 Me

Your Expression Number is 4

Practical and down to earth - everything in your life is organized. You are a great writer and teacher. You never forget a detail. Very patient, you have the ability to cultivate talents in difficult fields. You also tend to have an artistic side. You'd make a great architect or classical musician. You face your responsibilities with a positive attitude - and you always get things done. You are serious, sincere, honest, and faithful. Sometimes your strong sense of responsibility leads to frustration. You also tend to develop strong likes and dislikes, which border on dogmatism. At your worst, you can be a dominant disciplinarian.

What's Your Expression Number?

Blogthings: 100's of Fun, Free Quizzes and 3 Stupid Ones

Mammal Munches Much in Milliseconds

Did you know the Star-nosed mole is the fastest eating mammal? According to Nature Journal, the animal can identify and eat a piece of prey in 120 milliseconds.

That's almost as fast as one of my sisters used to eat.

Looks a bit like her, too.

Just a Quick Note

To say if I don't post for a while, it's because the power keeps going out.  I've also had problems w/ my internet connection.  I'm just waiting to see if it sorts itself out because I've done everything here on my end that I can.  I've run a troubleshooting tool, changed settings (and changed them back), rebooted the modem and done the ubiquitous "clear cache and cookies".  I KNOW it's not on my end, but AT&T refuses to admit that there's something wrong on THEIR end.  No, they'd rather go through the sham of sending someone out and then charging me for a visit.

Oddly enough, the connection plays up at nearly the same times every day...that's why I don't think it's anything to do with my wiring.  Sick of it, wish I had never "upgraded" my connection because the old DSL, while slower, was much, much, much, much more reliable. 

/rant off (but to be continued)

Hung Up On Spam

I had high hopes that this wasn't spam, then realized it had to be someone who didn't know me...at least not in "that way".

It's a Long Way to the Top - AC/DC

(If You Wanna Rock and Roll)

Originally posted on 6/28/08. I was looking to see what a recent visitor had come in to see and noticed the video had been taken down by YouTube. Was easy enough to find another one; would be a shame to not have this video in my blog!

(had to replace the last video again - hope this one stays up a while)

The Eyeballing Game

From the website:

The best way to figure out how the game works is to simply play it.

The game works by showing you a series of geometries that need to be adjusted a little bit to make them right. A square highlights the point that needs to be moved or adjusted. Use the mouse to drag the blue square or arrowhead where you feel it is 'right'. Once you let go of the mouse, the computer evaluates your move, so don't let up on the mouse button until you are sure. The 'correct' geometry is also shown in green, so you can see where you went wrong.

You will be presented with each challenge three times. The table to the right shows how you did on each challenge each time.

Here are my scores:



The odd thing was I got worse in several categories as I played the game.



The Eyeballing Game

$5 Worth of Food

How much food can you buy for $5 around the world? (Personally, I've never considered beer to be a food, but *some* do, I suppose.)

Interesting look at the different food prices.  I was surprised at the cheaper ground beef price in the U.K.

Walk Away Renee - Left Banke

Not great quality, but a lovely song nevertheless.

A Sweet Quiz

You Are Sweet Because You're Brilliant

You have your own thing going on, and you love it. You enjoy the path not taken. You are a natural strategist. You always like to formulate a plan of attack. You are brainy and you love difficult intellectual challenges. You don't shy away from difficulty. You are original and independent. You're making your own trends and carving your own path.

The Sugar Rush Test

Stamp Out Fakes!

Did you know the Statue of Liberty depicted on the "forever" stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 2010 wasn't the real statue, but the replica outside the New York, New York Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada?

The one on the left is the one on the stamp, the face of the replica in Vegas; the one on the right is the face on the real statue.

They Love Me, They Love Me Not

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.
- Ronald Reagan

(image courtesy of The Caricature Zone)

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Sorry, RR. That's impossible.

To be fair, I bet he said this before internet forums and msg. boards were even dreamed of.

Flying Through Batman Cave

Wingsuit / BASE-jump athlete Alexander Polli does the never before done—a tactical flight through a narrow cave on a rugged mountainside. The flight starts with a jump from a hovering helicopter, Alexander reaches speeds of 250 km/h (155 mph) while following a precise trajectory leading to the cave opening, he then fully commits and flies directly through the narrow opening of the "Batman Cave!"

Shot in full HD, this extraordinary flight exceeds the level of commitment most fliers would ever consider—there can be no attempting, the only option is success! The narrow cave, no wider than Alexander is tall, is located in Roca Foradada Mountains in Montserrat, Spain—a location that has inspired this professional Italian Norwegian athlete's flying dream his whole life. Alexander hopes his success will inspire others not only to 'climb over their mountains,' but to also fly right through them!

Time Travel - THE BUSEY ZONE

A few weeks ago, one of my cousins posted a quote from Gary Busey on her Facebook wall.  I forget what the quote was, but it was one of those bits of wit from Busey that would make someone think he's a deep thinking philosopher.

Now, I like Busey...at least, I've liked his acting.  I can't say that I know the man other than his appearances on Celebrity Apprentice or Celebrity Rehab or the interviews with him.  He did a lot of drugs earlier in his life and had a horrible motorcycle injury that resulted in him nearly losing his life and in which he sustained some severe brain trauma.  I don't want to diss the man, but I will admit I think he's a strange duck. 

I noticed he had a YouTube channel and I subscribed to it.  I haven't watched all of his posted videos, but I've watched a few and started a few more but didn't manage to finish them.  Most of them are along this vein.