The Gourde

Did you know that the official currency of Haiti is known as gourde, named after the gourd? (botanically classified as a fruit) In the early 1800's the ruler of northern Haiti declared all gourds to be state property and had them rounded up and brought to the state treasury where they were then reissued as currency. Eventually banknotes and coins replaced the gourds, but gourde has remained the name of Haiti's official currency.

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I first discovered this fact when I read The Black Sun as a young man. My folks were big fans of the Mandingo series of books, as well as others written by Kyle Onstott and his partners. The books were really too adult for my age but I guess my parents thought it better for me to find out about sex that way instead of them having to uncomfortably explain it to me.

There were gourds growing in the pastures surrounding the house where I grew up; not sure what specific type of gourd they were, but they usually didn't grow much larger than a baseball and, in fact, throwing them was the most fun I had with them.  The vines and fruit smelled to high heaven when crushed, with an odor like day-old B.O.  After working hard all day during a hot summer, I often heard my dad say "I smell just like an ol' gourd vine." 

A Head's Up

Thought I'd better let everyone know a week in advance:

I won't be posting on this blog on Feb. 29th or the 30th.

It's a religious holiday for me.

Not Exactly a Comedy

But I'm watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets .... for probably the twentieth time. Not really "watching" it because I'm sitting at the computer but it's on behind me.

You Should Watch a Comedy

You are a fun loving person who is able to laugh at all aspects of life. Some may think you're light-hearted, but you're also able to be amusingly dark. You can see both the best and worst in people. More importantly, you understand how absurd life can be. You find a well written comedy to be intelligent and even insightful. Anyone can make a good movie, but only a genius can make a hilarious movie.

What Kind of Movie Should You Watch Tonight?

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I'd agree with the results. I DO understand how absurd life can be. Well, I understand how absurd MY life is.

I haven't watched a good movie in quite some time.  Oh, I've watched movies, but none of them have been too good.

Yeah, should watch a comedy.   The only comedy that's coming on is Beetlejuice and I watched it (again) not too terribly long ago and that will do me for that particular movie for about five more years.  It wasn't all that great the FIRST time I saw it.

Too bad I can't sit back and watch my love life.  It's laughably non-existent. -sigh-

Carpet Sprouts

Note:  Originally published on November 11, 2008. I noticed a hit on an old post from that month and got to looking though some of them. (checking to see if the videos still worked, etc.) I just bumped it up because I thought it funny and have been slacking off on posting here lately. Hey, if no one has seen it, it's new to them, right?

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The young couple had just started to move in a few houses down from me. I went down, introduced myself and offered to help them move in. They were grateful, but declined and told me before they moved their furniture in, they were going to shampoo the carpets. I agreed that that was a good idea as the last tenants had been less than tidy people.

I noticed them down there until later that night, then the next day the guy knocked on my door. He asked me to come down to see something strange at his new digs, so I followed him into the house.

The house was almost unbearably hot and humid, not something I wanted to experience on a normal hot and humid Texas afternoon. The wet heat hit me as soon as I walked through the door. He told me they had shampooed the carpet the night before, then turned on the heater to help it dry.

Until the day I die, I will probably never see another sight as I did that day. There, poking up out of the shag carpet, were thousands and thousands of little white sprouts, tiny things with little green leaves coming out of the tops and I recognized them immediately: they were freshly sprouted....

....pot plants.

I had seen this phenomenon before, albeit on a much smaller scale, a long time ago when my wife and I moved into some less-than-clean quarters.

The moral to the story is: Vacumn before you shampoo the carpet. If you smoke pot, flush the seeds.

Stresstest

60 Years of CBS Actresses

Hat tip to TYWKIWDBI

Too bad CBS has morphed from a once credible and respected news organization into the mouthpiece for the progressive wing of the Democratic party.

Happy Valentine's Day!

To all my faithful readers and random visitors alike.

It's a little too late for me, though.



Roses are #ff0000, violets are #0000ff, all my base are belong to you.

Happy ♥ Day!

Your Song - Elton John

Happy Valentines Day to all!

My Beer Personality

I was a little surprised at these results. I'm not a Heineken drinker and in fact, always thought that brand tasted a little "skunky". To be fair, I might never have had good, fresh examples of it.  Another similar test said I was Budweiser, which has always been one of my least-favorite beers.

In all honesty, I'm not much of a drinker, beer or otherwise. When I DO drink, it's not for the taste.

You Are Heineken

You appreciate a good beer, but you're not a snob about it. You like your beer mild and easy to drink, so you can concentrate on being drunk. Overall, you're a friendly drunk who's likely to buy a whole round for your friends... many times. Sometimes you can be a bit boring when you drink. You may be prone to go on about topics no one cares about.

What's Your Beer Personality?

Besides getting the beer wrong, the other results might very well be true, esp. about blathering on when I'm drunk. I sometimes turn into Cliff Clavin when I drink.



No, not much of a beer drinker, but I do like this song!

I Like Beer - Tom T Hall

Today's Spam

It would be my luck to meet a FreeCamsToday girl that had PMS.

My momma once told me that PMS stood for "Putting up with Men's Sh*t".

Amazing Trivial Coincidence

Note: links go to YouTube videos of the songs. Four embedded videos in one post is a bit too much.

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Did you know "I Think We’re Alone Now", a #1 hit in the U.S. for Tiffany in 1987, was written by Ritchie Cordell and first released by Tommy James & The Shondells in 1967? You did?

Well, I bet you didn't know that the #2 hit on the U.S. charts that year was Billy Idol's "Mony Mony"...which was also written by Ritchie Cordell and first recorded by Tommy James & The Shondells.

Scare Tactics

I've seen some strange spam, most of it sexual in nature, but this one is just about the strangest I've ever seen. It came from "Expess Pharmacy" and in the subject line was this:

I don't know what could cause that (outside of getting on the bad side of Lorena Bobbitt), but I sure don't want it happening to me. I don't use mine for much, but I'm still fond of it.   I'm attached to it and I want it to remain attached to me.

Egypt Blocks YouTube

I normally don't delve into serious news or into religious issues, but when I read this earlier: Egypt court orders YouTube blocked for a month I had to see what all the fuss was about.  It seems the Egyptians are all butt-hurt over a movie, Innocence of Muslims.  I won't embed it, but here's the trailer (with a disclaimer by YouTube).

The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as being potentially offensive or inappropriate. Viewer discretion is advised.

The full-length movie has also been uploaded, so if you want to see it before it's taken down, you'd best hurry.

Those Muslims...they're always getting their panties in wad over something trivial in the grand scheme of things.   I see Christianity mocked all the time, from frequent segments on Family Guy and American Dad! to "artists" calling a crucifix in urine "art".  You didn't see ME rioting in the streets and you never will.  I doubt I'll ever even dash off an an angry email to the network.  I'm damn sure not blowing myself up and/or killing someone over it.

Oh well, what can you expect from a bunch of savages? I've done a lot of reading on Islam, but everything I really ever needed to know I learned on 9/11.

Someone better not tell them about THESE two videos;  they'd really get all bent out of shape.

King Tut - Steve Martin


Little Egypt - Elvis Presley

Igor Presnyakov

One of my newest subscribed-to channels on YouTube and rapidly becoming one of my favorites. Igor Presnyakov covers all sorts of tunes, from Metallica to Adele, from AC/DC to The Beatles in an inimitable fashion. If you like songs played with a finger-style guitar, then be sure to give Igor's channel a try!

From his official website: 

Born in Moscow, Russia, Igor Presnyakov studied classical music at a nearby academy and would eventually graduate as both a guitarist and a conductor for ensembles. He relocated to the Netherlands to further his career, which has now spanned over 35 years. His unique acoustic guitar-style is influenced by various musical genres from Reggae, Rock and Roll, R&B, Country-western, Jazz and Heavy Metal. His most noticeable attribute, is his creative style of “beating” the percussion of the song, onto the body of his acoustic guitar while playing. This replicates the sound of multiple musicians, while only Igor is playing. While he sometimes sings on many of his original and cover-songs, Igor is more famous for mimicking the vocal parts of a song, into guitar-solos, while often adding a softer, jazzier sound.

Igor’s popularity has risen since he first debuted on YouTube in 2007. He currently has over 132 million total upload views, in addition to over 256,000 subscribers.

I could have embedded any one of his 244 videos (at the time of this writing) but this is one of his latest and most beautiful.

Here Comes the Sun

For The Record, I'm a Guy

Not so sure about the rest of it, but....

You Are a Girl or Guy Next Door

You are as all American as apple pie, and you're so normal that you belong in a TV sitcom. And really, that's a pretty great thing. You're a solid person, and you pride yourself on being quite down to earth. You value your friends and family, and you don't need much in life to be content. You feel grateful for what you have. You are honest and you have a great work ethic. You believe in giving back as much as you can.

What's Your Stereotype?

Here's my favorite stereotype:

wiseGEEK Widgets

From wiseGeek, a couple of great widgets for your blog or website.

Did You Know?

This Day in History

I follow the site on Facebook as well as subscribe to it in my reader. They have all sorts of categories with some fascinating facts (and to be honest, some NOT so fascinating) For example, from today's posts, this question is posed:

Why Does It Hurt to Pull Off an Adhesive Bandage? They give you the explanation and also ask if you knew this fact: Did you know about 1.5 million injuries a year are caused by removing adhesive bandages? It's not just trivia; in this case, they explain the most pain-free way of removing a bandage.

Great site, great widgets!

Amazon Cloud

I got this email from Amazon the other day:

You may have noticed that songs from 11 CDs you have purchased from Amazon were added to your Cloud Player library. This means that high-quality MP3 versions of these songs are available for you to play or download from Cloud Player for FREE. You can find your songs in the "Purchased" playlist.

In addition, we're excited to announce AutoRip. Now when you buy any CD with the logo, the MP3 version of that album will instantly be delivered to your Amazon Cloud Player library for FREE.

I've been aware of the Cloud Player, but since I don't have a device (other than this computer) to play my songs on, I didn't use it.  I download free music from Amazon all the time and have purchased quite a few mp3 albums as well as a dozen or so CDs.  I can't remember when they started the Cloud feature, but I reached the limit quite some time back and deleted a lot of the songs that were in my Cloud as so to make room for new ones.  I already had them on my computer and couldn't see the need for my Cloud except as backup. 

It's nice that my purchased CD tunes are now in my Cloud. That will save me from having to rip the music to add to my mp3 jukebox.

On my Cloud page it says I have room for 250 more songs.  I could get more space if I bought it, but...The best thing about it is that it's much easier to download the songs now.  The settings were confusing and seemed to change on their own and when I got new songs, they sometimes didn't download to my computer but were instead put into my Cloud  Here's what's in my Cloud right now.

There are some duplicates in my mp3 jukebox, but I've been working to get rid of them. Some are dupes that happen to be on two albums by a particular artist or band and some are freebies I got from Amazon that happened to be in different collections. At last count, I had over 21,000 songs. Before updates to Windows Media Player, it tallied up the total size and time of all the mp3 files and I had enough to listen to music non-stop for a couple of weeks.

Scroll Clock

Another cool clock - Scroll Clock

(graphic below is a screen capture of the actual clock)



Scroll Clock

Hank Skinner Interview

The latest Skinner interview, in two parts

Goin' For The Win

You Are a Two Point Conversion

You are an adept risk taker. You love to go for the glory. You do what others are scared to do, and it pays off! You have no fear, and because of this, you're able to look at the odds rationally. You've taken enough small risks to get ahead in life, even if every risk hasn't panned out.

What Football Scoring Method Are You?

Wild Thing - The Troggs

R.I.P. Reg Presley

testmy.net

Take a "truly accurate speed test" at testmy.net.

From the site: TestMy.net is the first and only fully HTML5 & PHP driven speed test online. Unlike other connection speed tests that require third party applications like Flash or Java, TMN uses only your web browser. This makes TestMy's speed test more sensitive to browser misconfiguration and is an excellent way to highlight performance differences between browsers. Users of TMN can see all browsers are not created equally.

Why Should I Test My Speed?

Simple, to make sure you're getting what you pay for. This speed test is useful if you feel a connection slow down or want to see how your Internet is performing. This isn't like any other broadband speed test. TestMy's proprietary method is proven to help identify issues other speed tests fail to detect. The TMN Speed Test shows your true speed.

testmy.net

Good Sports

Did you know there have been three sports movies to win Best Picture Oscars?

They are: Rocky (1976), Chariots of Fire (1981) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).

Let's hope the people associated with the movies that lost were good sports about it.

Alone - Heart

Live & accoustic

Paperman

Countdown to the Super Bowl

I Should And I Will

You Should Watch a Comedy

You are a fun loving person who is able to laugh at all aspects of life. Some may think you're light-hearted, but you're also able to be amusingly dark. You can see both the best and worst in people. More importantly, you understand how absurd life can be. You find a well written comedy to be intelligent and even insightful. Anyone can make a good movie, but only a genius can make a hilarious movie.

What Kind of Movie Should You Watch Tonight?

I know the perfect one, too.

Been There, Done That

Read the paperback, got the soundtrack.

Feb. Trivia Tournament Begins!

Try your luck in the ToTG Trivia Tournament. Easy to do; register and play! The questions, however, aren't quite as easy. Each day there's a different category and they're the hardest the site has to offer.  Hurry when answering because time is a factor in your score.

ToTG Trivia Tournament

Boom!

This wasn't a good idea, for several reasons.

The People Vs. Winter

I'll admit to have been a drama queen about certain things before. With that disclaimer out of the way, I'll also confess that I have raked people over the coals for saying they loved winter and the snow. I usually just tell them it's a sure bet they never have had to work out in it or had to drive miles and miles in it. Sure, snow is "pretty", if you can sit by the roaring fireplace looking out at the winter wonderland with a glass of brandy in one hand. It's also a certainty that people who say that never fretted about their heating bill or had their pipes freeze. Go ahead and love winter if you want, it's a free country, but as for me, I'm always looking forward to spring.

This video serves as a reminder why I don't like winter.

Data Usage

A few months ago, I received a warning that I had gone over the 150GB limit AT&T had imposed upon people using their Internet service. I was warned that they would give me three warnings and after the third one I would be charged an extra $10 for each 10GB over the limit. The very next month I got another warning, saying I was within 65% of the limit. The email gave a link to a page where I could view my data usage, but it didn't work.

They did give examples of what that amount of data could be:

(click for larger view)

 

I saw what they were trying to infer, that no "normal" person - the average Internet user - would use such huge amounts of bandwidth.  There was also this explanation:

AT&T has experienced a dramatic increase in the amount of data that is sent and received over its wireline broadband networks. This dramatic increase is driven primarily by a small fraction of our customers. In fact, the top 2% of customers use about 20% of the total capacity on our network. A single high-traffic user can utilize the same amount of data capacity as 19 typical households. Lopsided usage patterns can cause congestion at certain points in the network, which can slow Internet speeds and interfere with other customers' access to and use of the network.

150 GB is far more data than most customers ever use in a month. Our average AT&T High Speed Internet customer uses only about 21 GB per month.

What they were not-so-subtly saying was that slobs like me were responsible for the restriction, not only for myself but for others.  Nice try, but no cigar.  I understand that the company can change their policies - I don't agree with it, but I understand how these large corporations operate.  I didn't agree to it when I signed up for it, but I'm sure there was some wording in the "contract" I "agreed to" by using their service that the agreement can be changed at any time without notice to me.  I resent that, but I also resent being made out to be the bad guy.

After having connection problems for nearly a year and not being able to get satisfaction from AT&T, I finally took matters into my own hands.  Without going into details (because I'm sure I broke several company rules) I finally managed to get my problems sorted out.  After getting my promised speed back, I made up for lost time, downloading all sorts of videos, movies and music.  (acquired legally)  I could finally view the videos and listen to podcasts from the Dallas Cowboy website, catch up on YouTube videos I had bookmarked and watch all sorts of programming such as movies on Hulu, program episodes I had missed on Discovery and The History Channel and other network websites.

(in case you're thinking that my usage STILL seems excessive, just let me add that just an audio only mp3 podcast from the Cowboys site can be 40-50mb with the videos being in the 2GB range.  During the season, the site would have two radio shows and sometimes 6 or more videos posted each and every day, plus interviews and highlights after games.  I also bought quite a few mp3 albums from Amazon, d/l a few movies I had been wanting to see from the same site.  A fairly low-resolution movie on Hulu can be 4-500MB.  As you could tell from the graphic posted above, 25HD movies can account for a significant part of the entire total.  That can add up, maybe not in a hurry, but over the course of 30 days it can be a significant amount.  I would also make the mistake of leaving my Internet radio on even when I lay down to sleep)


I've not received another warning and since I've signed up for U-Verse, the cap has been raised to 250GB. I also found out the bandwidth meter is working for me now.  Here's a screen shot of my data usage history over the last few months: (I've snipped out my phone number)

Anyone else notice the similarity between the graph and a certain obscene gesture? It's pretty much my sentiments towards AT&T.