Never Forget

This Is Why I'm Broke

This Is Why I'm Broke has become one of my favorite sites I subscribe to in my reader and I look forward to seeing the (usually) several posts each day.  From the ridiculous to the sublime, from outrageously expensive to reasonably priced, the site links to both practical and hedonistic items for sale.

For example, you can buy a Curved 4K Ultra HD LED TV for $7,997.99 or a Heated Butter Knife for $19.99. If those don't interest you, then there's a Selfie Toaster ($75.00) which will burn any image you supply into your morning toast, eating your breakfast while listening to your Autonomous Mechanical Hootenanny machine. ("only" $54,000.00)

Check it out!

This Is Why I'm Broke

Pendulum Waves

From the description under the video: Fifteen uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and (seemingly) random motion.
 

Now watch it done with bowling balls!

Algiers - The Afghan Whigs

This song played over the ending scene of the latest Ray Donovan episode "Snowflake".

Memoirs of Madman Mike

You Are a Memoir

You're funny, but many people don't see your funny side. Your subtle dry humor leaves your close friends in stitches. You have your own quirky ideas about the world. You see so much light and promise. You have no patience for small talk or niceties. You want to have conversations of substance. You are an amazing storyteller. You always have a new story to relate, and your friends love to listen to you.

What Type of Book Are You?

Washed Up - Simon's Cat

troth

troth [trawth, trohth] noun

1. faithfulness, fidelity, or loyalty: by my troth.
2. truth or verity: in troth.
3. one's word or promise, especially in engaging oneself to marry.

---

Or it could be thumthing a horth drinkth out of.

Mantis Fly Swatter

Wired Up

I always heard coffee wires some people up, but I never thought that meant literally.

Mutant Giant Spider Dog

My Bucket List

You Should Write a Book

You may not feel like you could write a book, but you actually have a lot to say. Just let it flow! You already live in your own little world. You may as well introduce everyone else to it. It's likely that you feel like you have a lot of baggage you'd like to unload, and writing can be cathartic. By writing a book, you would feel a huge sense of accomplishment. And you'd have a legacy to leave behind.

What Should Be On Your Bucket List?

---

I used to have a lot of things on my bucket list (even before it was known as a "bucket list".) The funny thing is the closer I get to kicking the bucket, the smaller the list gets...even though I've yet to mark a single thing off it. IOW, I'm culling the unreasonably attained things off the list.

For example, I used to want to ride a bull.  I probably wouldn't have ridden it for eight seconds, but I used to think I'd want to at least try.  That's probably not...no, strike that...that's definitely not a good idea now at my age. 

Other things, such as skydiving, are still possible, but maybe not a good idea.  I still think I have the nerve, but not so sure my old bones could handle a hard landing.  I definitely wouldn't want to do it strapped to a certified skydiver, that always struck me as something less than actually skydiving.  No, it's solo or not at all. 

There are places I want to see before I die, such as the beaches on Normandy where the D-Day landings took place.   There are several countries I'd like to visit, but there are places I want to see here in the good ol' U.S. more than I would them.

I'd really would like to write a book, but the trouble with that is most of my ideas I have for writing a book came from books I have read.

I'd still like to seduce a nun, though.

Running Hamsters

On average, a hamster will run up to 3 miles each day.


Check it out:  the guy has the wheel hooked up to a tachometer.

Anthem - Kawehi

Mice Are Junk Food For Cats

A cat would have to eat 5 mice to gain the same nutritional value as a can of cat food.

Zoinks!

Click image for larger view

One of the better 404 pages I've seen, from imgur.  The animal's eyes follow the cursor. (As I've said before, I'm easily entertained)

To be honest, I took a wrong turn before that just by searching for those recently leaked nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence, although I did manage to find 'em.  "Zoinks!" wasn't the word I'd use to describe them, although the sexiest one - IMHO -  wasn't one of the nude photos, but a selfie she'd taken of her in a one-piece swimsuit.

She's not the prettiest woman in Hollywood, nor the most talented, but there's *something* about her that makes her very attractive to me.  I've seen her in interviews and it's obvious she hasn't let her fame go to her head.  She seems personable, sweet and also looks very wholesome and other than this leak of her private photos, has managed to escape scandals and controversy...at least, so far.

Even though my friend Barb is married, I'm almost sure she doesn't think much of Lawrence, being a huge Coldplay fan. (the reason)

(Just joshin' ya, Barb.  Love ya!)

Pleased to Meat You

You Are the Meat

You are down to earth and extremely well grounded in your life. You know what you like and what you don't like. You are a person of substance, and you don't necessarily change with the wind. You stick to what you know and what works. You are a solid person, and friends turn to you for unfiltered feedback. You know how to give constructive criticism. You never shy away from hard work, and you let your accomplishments speak for yourself. People naturally respect you.

What Part of a Burger Are You?

Juggle Fight

bletting

bletting [blet-ing] noun

1. the ripening of fruit, especially of fruit stored until the desired degree of softness is attained.

---

Banana bletting is bad, unless you're letting them get brown for banana bread.

(That was nearly an alliteration, huh?)

I never have any luck trying to get fruit to soften;  by the time something like an unripe peach gets soft enough to eat, it's grown gray fuzz.  

I always buy bananas as green as I can find because I dislike them soft and mushy and they're too sweet when they're ripe.  I was sorting through bananas a while back and an older woman was on the other side of the display, sorting through bananas too.  "Hard to find green ones." I said to her.

"I suppose so," she replied, "But at my age I don't buy them TOO green."

10 Common Myths about Fast Food

Starship Troopers Parody

Fake toy advert about one of my most eagerly anticipated and nearly most disappointing movies I've ever seen.  It was "good" but it could have been great.

She Should Be Glad

Elephants don't fly.

Eye vs Brain

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

And I often find that when going through the buffet line, my eyes are bigger than my stomach.

No Posts Today

Not that many people read this pathetic excuse for a blog, but I won't be posting anything today or maybe tomorrow, either.  I'm more than a little sad because the Beej is gone.  He'd been poorly for quite some time, but up until the last few weeks, he still had a good appetite and got around fairly well, considering he was 16+ yrs. old.  It was about a week or so ago he started going downhill really fast and was nothing but skin and bones.

I don't know where he is, but I haven't seen him for a few days and I am positive he crawled off somewhere and died. I feel really guilty that I didn't do more for him as he got old and ill.

Amazing Audio Illusion

From the "About" section under the video:

Just like there are optical illusions, there is also “audio illusion” or "acoustical illusion". This one is called Shepard tone. When a number of octave notes are played at the same time, the average human ear will simply hear the one note, closest to the last pitched sound it heard, as opposed to differentiating and splitting that sound into its singular octave parts. The volume of the higher pitched tone slightly decreases and the lower pitched one increases over the scale, which is what makes the effect seem so seamless.

Listen to this video until the end, and when it stops, play it again to hear the difference, tune continue to "creep - up"... It will blow your mind!

crinose

crinose \ KRAHY-nohs, KRIN-ohs \ adjective

1. hairy

---

I wasn't familiar with this word and don't think it will ever be in my vocabulary. If I didn't just simply say "hairy", I'd use hirsute.

I oughta start a website devoted to fat, hairy women and call it "Heavy Hirsute Honeys" - that way I could appeal to a specialized fetish.  Maybe I could expand it while narrowing the niche and add feet, pantyhose and dwarfs.

You Used To Be Cute

Check out the guy's notepad near the end of the clip. Good grief.

raze

raze\ reyz \ verb

1. to tear down; demolish; level to the ground: to raze a row of old buildings.
2. to shave or scrape off.

---

When "raze" means to tear down and "raise" means to move up, it's no wonder English is considered one of the hardest languages to speak.

The Big Gulp

I've already forgotten what I was looking for (I've slept since then), but one of the results was Yahoo Answers and I clicked on the link to see if it really did provide an answer. Whatever it was, one of the answers was so incredibly stupid I clicked on the profile to see other answers by the person and got this:

I know they were trying for cute by saying "** gulp" (although they should have written it as *gulp*) but it was a big-time FAIL.  Whatever else the person had posted must've been really bad because Yahoo normally doesn't delete stupid comments or else they'd lose half or more of them. 

Yahoo isn't the worst about people making stupid comments, though;  YouTube wins hands down, followed closely by Facebook and IMDb.

cherry-pick

cherry-pick \ CHER-ee-pik \ verb

1. Informal: to select with great care: You can cherry-pick your own stereo components.
2. Informal: (in retail use) to buy only the sale items and ignore the other merchandise.

---

I see people do this all the time with facts...and not just people, but websites, too.

For example, Yahoo had an article about President Obama's latest vacation and cherry-picked facts about the numbers of vacation days he had taken since being in office and comparing them to the total vacation days of other presidents. Even though the candidate Obama promised to devote every waking minute to the job, it's unrealistic to expect someone to never take a break, to not have any down time.

The way I feel about it, it's not the number of vacation days a president takes, but rather WHEN he takes them.  Making a short statement, then going on a golfing vacation after radical Islamists beheaded an American citizen and made threats towards the U.S. is not a good time to go on vacation, Mr. President. 

Midnight Snack Personality

Actually, here lately it's been a handful of cookies and a diet soda.

You Are Ice Cream

You are a comfort seeker and a comfort giver. You like to make sure everyone around you feels good, starting with yourself. You love to be pampered, and you don't turn down the opportunity to spoil yourself a little. You deserve it. You enjoy the good things in life, to the point of being a hedonist. You're the type to never refuse an extra scoop. You really savor more than most people. You enjoy every sound, smell, and taste just a little bit extra.

What's Your Midnight Snack Personality?

flibbertigibbet

flibbertigibbet \ FLIB-er-tee-jib-it \ noun

1. Archaic . a gossip.
2. a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

---

Believe it or not, this word sounded familar, then I remembered hearing it in one of the Harry Potter movies - or maybe I read it in one of the books - but I didn't remember in which book or movie or in what context. Thanks to the World Wide Interwebs, I was reminded it was used as a password to get into the Gryfindor dormitory. I also discovered it was used in the song "Maria" in the 1959 musical The Sound of Music as well as in the Tom Hanks movie Joe Versus the Volcano.

I'm betting that I'll never read the word ever again in my life and I'm absolutely certain I'll never use it in conversation, even though I know a few flibbertigibbets.

Release Me - Engelbert Humperdink

My mom used to love the Ray Price version, but this was a new upload by one of my YT subscriptions so I figured I'd post it.

Besides that, I'm pretty sure I haven't posted any other Engelbert Humperdink songs.

Where Dwell the Brave at Heart

You Belong in Gryffindor

You are brave and honorable. You are willing to take a risk if there is a bit of glory in it. You love a good adventure, and you are drawn to action. You get right in the mix, sometimes before thinking. You are a big believer in justice, and you are willing to fight for what's right. You stand up for what you believe in. You hate being bored, and you are always looking for a new challenge. You like to prove yourself to the world.

What Hogwarts House Do You Belong In?

---

I've taken other similar quizzes and I've always been placed in Gryffindor in those as well. That said, this quiz is pretty transparent and it's easy to manipulate the answers to get the results you want.

I honestly think that, if I was a young wizard in Great Britain, I would be placed in Gryffindor if for no other reason than the sorting hat would have no other options.  I'm not nearly brainy enough to be in Ravenclaw, not evil or conniving enough to be in Slytherin and I'm basically too damn lazy to be in Hufflepuff.

I'd love to read a book or books about an American school of wizardry - the Texas students would probably have their own Quidditch team.  Not that I've dwelt on it a lot, but I've wondered what position I'd play on the team - I'm too nearsighted to be a seeker and I don't think I'd like keeper - I'd probably be a beater or chaser.

And yes, i love the books and movies and just re-read the series, can't you tell?

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Actually, nothing.  It's the description at the top of the post that's oh-so-wrong.

This is the latest post on the Relish Magazine Facebook page.   I don't have the heart to tell them the vulgar definition of "corn hole". 

I guess they never watched Beavis and Butthead.

(Please note:  if that video doesn't explain the term to you, just do a Google search, but don't say you weren't warned!)

Ameslan

Ameslan \ AM-uh-slan, AM-slan \ noun

1. American Sign Language.

---

HANDSPEAK.COM says the word is an old one and obsolete since the 1960's. I've been around since before the 60's but wasn't familiar with it.

I've been acquainted with a lot of people who are hard of hearing and my own hearing isn't all that good, but my experiences with deaf folks are few.  I grew up with a nearly deaf girl whose mom was a teacher in elementary school and sometimes when Mary was acting up, her mother would scold her with sign language.   The thing I remember most about Mary was when her hearing aid would malfunction or the battery would be nearly drained, it made a horrible, high-pitched sound and I was always amazed that she couldn't hear it. 

My nieces learned a little bit to sign some Christmas carols for their church, but I don't know if they learned enough to communicate with deaf folks.  (I guess wishing them a Merry Christmas wouldn't really count as truly communicating)

I do have a dear online friend who is deaf but other than in chat rooms and email, I've never been around her.  She says she used to use ASL when she was younger, but doesn't know it now as she did then and generally just reads lips to understand what people are saying.  She watches a lot of TV and uses closed captioning - so do I, but it's not because I can't hear them, I simply can't understand what they're saying.  Just last night I was watching True Detective and went online to read a transcript of the show to find out what some bits of dialogue were.  

A long time ago, a friend and I were doing the "either/or" conversational game. (The choices offered are a dilemma, with neither option being desirable,  such as "Would you rather be executed by the electric chair or hanging?") The question was posed "Would you rather be blind or deaf?" I said deaf, because I think the world would be a hard place in which to exist if one couldn't see, but my friend said he'd rather be blind,  because he could learn to read Braille, but he didn't think he could live without music.  I still would choose deaf, but I still wouldn't argue with my friend's choice.

Let There Be Light

Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb*, was afraid of the dark.

*It should be noted that historians list 22 inventors before Edison, but his version of the incandescent light bulb is considered to be the true forerunner to today's bulb.

cacography

cacography\ kuh-KOG-ruh-fee \  noun

1. poor penmanship; bad handwriting.
2. incorrect spelling.

---

I don't recall writing a letter since I've owned a computer and since I've had a debit card, I don't think I've written more than a dozen checks.  Here lately, due to security concerns, I've been using credit cards instead of debit.  Depending upon the card, unless the amount is over a certain number, I don't even have to sign, but now and then I have to sign the touch pad machine and my signature is usually illegible. (but the machine takes it anyway)  I always imagine my sixth grade teacher- who tried his best to teach me penmanship -  as rolling over in his grave.

I seldom misspell words these days, either, thanks to spell check. 

In fact, it told me I needed to correct "misspell" and "illegible".

Like a Stolling Rone

Maybe it's just me, but this Rolling Stone 404 page message sure sounds strange.

Possible Purple Pride

You Are Bright Purple

Your brightness is sensitive and emotional. You feel very deeply, and you are connected to the world. You find perspective and wisdom in the world. You don't react quickly, and you absorb everything going on around you. You remain hopeful about all aspects of life. You are especially concerned with justice and quality of life for everyone. You are real with everyone you meet, and you allow yourself to be vulnerable. You would put yourself out there, flaws and all.

What Bright Color Are You?

---

Not so sure this really represents me;  I don't feel all that deeply and most of the time I feel disconnected to the world and seldom find perspective and wisdom in the world...at least on the 'net.

I'm also not that hopeful;  in fact, I'm fairly pessimistic about most everything except the Cowboy's chances of making the playoffs - and I'm sure I'll be disappointed once again, so maybe I'm not so optimistic after all. 

I like to think I'm "real with everyone I meet", but I really don't allow myself to be vulnerable.  I do "put myself out there, flaws and all" because I am what I am and if someone doesn't like me for who I am, well then...that's their problem as far as I'm concerned.

I do like purple though, the color of royalty and along with gold, my h.s. team colors.  Purple pride!

fink

fink \ fingk \

verb:

1. Slang . to inform to the police; squeal.
2. Slang . to act as a strikebreaker; scab.

noun:

1. Slang . a strikebreaker.
2. Slang . a labor spy.
3. Slang . an informer; stool pigeon.
4. Slang . a contemptible or thoroughly unattractive person.

---

While not a word I've seen or read lately, I certainly knew it...most likely from reading a bunch of Mickey Spillane books when I was a kid, where it was used as a noun and preceded by "rat", as in "Ya dirty rat fink!" BANG! (where the rat fink was promptly shot dead...with a "gat" or "rod" or "piece" or "heater".)

Every Alfred Hitchcock Cameo

A couple of years ago, I posted a video of some Hitchcock cameos, but it wasn't a complete list.  While I haven't cross-referenced and checked these, this is supposed to be all of them. 

Name Change

was once called

Friday On My Mind - The Easybeats

philology

philology \ fi-LOL-uh-jee \ noun

1. Obsolete  the love of learning and literature.
2. the study of literary texts and of written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning.
3. (especially in older use) linguistics, especially historical and comparative linguistics.

---

It might be an obsolete term, but I don't think a love of learning and literature will ever become obsolete and will disappear from my own life only after the day I die. The Internet is a weird thing, but it's also a wonderful tool for learning.

How The Sun Sees You

Interesting - and chilling - video about the importance of wearing sunscreen.

desiderium

desiderium noun, plural desideria [des-i-deer-ee-uh]

1. an ardent longing, as for something lost.

---

I often long for things I've lost - money I've blown, old friends who have moved away or died, the trust of people I care about, but the thing I miss the most is my youth.

Oh, not ALL of it, just the best parts, like playing ball and feeling full of energy and the thrill of being totally in love. I don't miss waking up and having a zit on the end of my nose or worrying about grades or if my girlfriend was starting to like someone better than she did me.

So...I miss the sports and enthusiasm but not the rest of the teen angst. I'm pretty sure that wasn't "love" I was feeling at the time, either, but simply a product of raging hormones.

Mine aren't raging these days, but they're still there.  I'm missing someone to prove it to, though.

Music Makes Me Young(er)

You are in Your Musical 50s

The music you love never goes out of style - it's classic. You tend to only listen to the very best. Your taste in music may be mainstream at this point in your life, but that's a good thing. You can make a playlist that everyone loves. You tend to stick with artists you know these days, but if you find a new artist that you do like, you know it right away. Your favorite music is creative, moody, and subtle. You don't need a song to overwhelm you in order to appreciate it.

How Old Is Your Taste in Music?

Pro But Not Con

You can't name a folder "con" in Microsoft Windows.