Forbes Haiku

I was looking for some financial-related information and saw a link to Forbes.com and thought I could probably trust the information I would find there since I've read a lot of other articles on the site and it's all been good advice.  They have a "splash page" before the link, the content of which I don't see because of my ad blocking add-on on my Firefox browser.  I have to wait on a countdown clock for a few seconds before I can proceed to the article, but it's no problem, much less annoying than an advertisement. 

Yesterday, though, I got this message on the splash page:

I'm fairly certain that doesn't fit the definition of a Haiku, but that's not my complaint; rather, it's trying to shame me in such a "cutesy" fashion.  Sorry Forbes, I hate to deprive you of ad revenue, but many sites go overboard with their adverts, slowing the page load times even with my fairly fast connection and often having multiple flash ads which sometimes hangs up my browser.  I also don't like places like Facebook following me all over the 'net...that's why I use an adblocker.

I wrote a reply, not in a Haiku, but a short verse.  I can't post it because I have a few words in it that rhyme with "Haiku".  It DOES have a little bit to do with "love", though.

Star-Studded Cast

I was searching for a place to catch up on past episodes of Mythbusters when I found a site that had this as the latest listing:

I'm gonna make sure I don't miss this show!  Although I never watched The X-Files, I'm a big fan of Gillian Anderson and several of the things she's done since that.  Johnny Depp?  Ehhh - I've liked a few of his movies,but he's not my favorite actor by any means.  He's probably more concerned about not going to jail in Australia than anything else right now.  I'm really anxious to see what part Paul Newman has to play in this reality program...seeing as how he died over six years ago.

Burrito Bummer

Odd 404 page on Nerdist, found after clicking a link on Wiki about X Company, a new series on CBC.

Now I want to run down to the nearest Allsups and get one of their burritos.  They're not bad...if you drench them in about a half dozen of the little hot sauce packets.  Like their corn dogs, I always ask when they were made (cooked) because if they're more than six/seven hours old, they turn to nasty mush inside.  I've brought corn dogs home that I could drive a nail with.

Trivia That Melts in Your Head

What does M&M stand for?  From Wiki:

Forrest Mars, Sr., son of the founder of the Mars Company Frank C. Mars, copied the idea for the candy in the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War when he saw soldiers eating chocolate pellets called Smarties, with a hard shell of tempered chocolate surrounding the inside, preventing the candies from melting. The two "Ms" represent the names of Forrest E. Mars Sr., the founder of Newark Company, and Bruce Murrie, son of Hershey Chocolate's president William F. R. Murrie, who had a 20 percent share in the product.

Hair Raising Trivia

In the 1700s, barbers not only gave haircuts and shaves, they also pulled teeth, performed minor surgery and did bloodletting.

From Wikipedia : The origin of the red and white barber pole (often red, white and blue in the U.S.) is associated with the service of bloodletting and was historically a representation of bloody bandages wrapped around a pole. The original pole had a brass wash basin at the top (representing the vessel in which leeches were kept) and bottom (representing the basin that received the blood). The pole itself represents the staff that the patient gripped during the procedure to encourage blood flow.

Deep Fact

The average depth of the ocean floor is 12,000 feet.

(according to my trivia calendar and Wiki, but NOAA says "about 14,000 ft.")

Oceanic divisions - Click image for larger view

The Eyeball Test

I made my daily visit to StartSampling, a site I've been a member of since before I owned a computer. (I joined using a library computer) I get points that can be redeemed for prizes; points for visiting each day and for the month, rating recipes, solving puzzles and trivia plus participating in the daily poll. Today's was about eye color; here are the results:

My eyes are brown (please, no jokes about why that is, I've heard them all) but it was the "Other" results that puzzled me.

It made me go do a little bit of reading about it and Wikipedia mentioned those colors, plus red, violet and amber.  I learn something new every day.  Usually.

The gray eye results reminded me of a woman I used to date; a pretty brunette with the most striking blue eyes.  It wasn't until the next morning after our first night together that I saw her putting in contacts - her eyes weren't blue, but a cold, steely gray.  Now, I've seen women with gray eyes before and didn't think much of it other than it being a little unusual, but I came to find out this woman's eyes matched her soul - cold, steely and gray.

I once met a woman (introduced by mutual friends) and after talking to her for a few minutes, she turned away and asked "What color are my eyes?"  I knew what she was doing, that was from some movie or maybe a woman's magazine that said that would be a test of how much the man was paying attention to her face and not the rest of her body.

"Uh....blue, kinda." I replied.  "Wrong!" she said, her face still averted.  "Well, sort of a bluish-green, maybe." I answered. I continued on what I knew was a trap question and a way-wrong answer. "Maybe some brown flecks?"   "Wrong again!" she declared.  "They're hazel!" and turned back to me, widening her eyes to show me the color. 

Sheesh, I'm a guy and I'm not really an expert on colors anyway.  They still looked bluish-green with brown flecks to me. Kinda, I dunno.

I didn't try to pursue a relationship with her because I hadn't passed "the eyeball test".  That was OK, because I didn't really like what I had seen, anyway, not to mention her offending the rest of my senses.

sinistral

sinistral \ SIN-uh-struhl \ , adjective

1. left-handed.
2. of, pertaining to, or on the left side; left (opposed to dextral).
3. (of certain gastropod shells) coiling counterclockwise, as seen from the apex.

Origin: Sinistral is related to the word sinister and meant "unlucky" when it entered English in the 1400s. It was extended to mean "on the left side" in the early 1800s.

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After Obama was first elected President in 2008, a slew of articles popped up on the 'net saying his being left-handed was more proof that he is the Antichrist.  Now, I don't care for his policies, but I'm fairly sure he's not the Antichrist, but who knows?   For that matter, Tim Tebow is also left-handed.

My childhood friend and classmate Janice is left-handed, but she couldn't be the Antichrist either, as she was and still is a devout Christian...although I always thought she was a little bit evil for not letting me copy off her during tests.  To be fair, it wasn't just that she wouldn't let me, but she sat to my right and her writing hand was curled around her test paper and blocking me from seeing her answers.

Wiki says 10% of people are left-handed and that they are generally more successful, talented and make more money than righties.   There have been many great left-handed athletes. (not that Tim Tebow can be included in that group)

So, being left-handed doesn't mean that President Obama is the Antichrist, just that he needs special clubs for all the golf he plays. 

You know, maybe God is left-handed, if only out of necessity.  After all, the Bible says that Jesus sits on His right hand.

.

Execution By Elephant

Execution by elephant was a common method of capital punishment in South and Southeast Asia, and particularly in India.

Man, that's heavy. - ahem -

That graphic, courtesy of Wiki (at the link above) is gruesome enough and might be stretching the limits of this, a G-rated blog.  Even though it's a drawing/painting, it's bad enough, but for some reason, this video on YouTube made me laugh a little bit.  

Somehow, an animated execution isn't all that gruesome. 

ACME Planimeter

ACME Planimeter has got to be one of the best online web tools I've ever used.  I love to look at real estate ads, then find them on Google Earth or Bing Maps, but the Google Earth measuring tool has limitations - at least in the free version I use - in that I can use it to outline the dimensions of the property, but then have to use my calculator or an online acreage calculator to figure out the total area.  That takes time and often isn't all that accurate, the cause of which is not completely my incompetence.

Well, I want to believe that, anyway.

Here's the outline of a property I'd love to own near Quitman, Texas. (home town of Sissy Spacek) The listing says it's 50 acres and using the ACME Planimeter gives the exact same figure.

It's really easy to use. From the website:

Drag the map with your mouse, or double-click to center.
Click on the map to place points.
The enclosed area is shown below.

The page remembers your most recent position/zoom/map-type for the next time you visit. If you haven't visited before, it tries to figure out your location based on your internet address. The area computation is done using spherical geometry, so it's correct for large regions.

ACME Planimeter

Hold the Line - Toto

35th Anniversary Tour - Live In Poland

#5 on the US Billboard Charts during the winter of 1978–79

Hold the Line on Wiki

twain

twain [tweyn] adjective, noun
two

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Being a Kipling fan, I was familiar with the word because of his poem The Ballad of East and West with the oft-quoted first line:

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

Other than that, I'm not sure it's a word used much these days, other than referring to "two" other Twains -  Mark and Shania.

Day After Day - Badfinger

From Wiki: The song was written and sung by Pete Ham and produced by George Harrison, who plays some of the slide guitar parts of the song along with Ham. The record also features Leon Russell on piano. As the song was unfinished at the time Harrison left the Badfinger album to produce the Concert for Bangladesh, the final mix was done by Todd Rundgren, who took over Straight Up after Harrison's departure.

Released as a single in the US in November 1971 (January 1972 elsewhere), it would become the group's highest charting single there, peaking at number 4 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. It also peaked at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart in January 1972. It remains the band's best-known song, most notably for the slide guitar solos. It went Gold in March 1972, becoming the band's first and only gold single. "Day After Day" reached number 10 on Billboard's Easy Listening survey. 

Because of all of the overdubs, Badfinger was hesitant to play this song live for years, since it was impossible for a four-piece group to reproduce the single production. However, the song was included in the setlist for Badfinger's 1974 tour.

phrenology

phrenology phre·nol·o·gy[fri-nol-uh-jee, fre-]

noun

A psychological theory or analytical method based on the belief that certain mental faculties and character traits are indicated by the configurations of the skull.

More about phrenology at Wikipedia.

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Phrenology has always interested me (not quite "fascinated"). Seeing the word as today's Word of the Day reminded me of a friend I once had back when MSN Groups were up-and-running. We shared political views, but couldn't have been more different in religion, she being a Wiccan. We were in a chat room once, just the two of us and were discussing our belief systems and I said I wouldn't belittle how she believed, but there were some tenets to paganism that I would never trust, especially in foretelling the future, things such as palm reading.

Well, that upset her and I had to suffer through indignantly told stories of how her grandmother had read palms and how the palms of people she knew had predicted their future - their love life and life span, etc.   I didn't say anything until she ran out of steam and then remarked that palm reading was to science as phrenology was to psychology.  She was "silent" for a while, nothing being typed and I knew she had opened up another window and was researching the term.  After a minute or so, she exited the chat room and that was the end of our cyber-friendship.

Oh well.  I was getting tired of all that "Blessed Be!" crap, anyway.

Drunk as Cooter Brown

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Cooter Brown, sometimes given as Cootie Brown, is a name used in metaphors and similes for drunkenness, mostly in the southern United States. Cooter Brown supposedly lived on the line which divided the North and South during the American Civil War, making him eligible for military draft by either side. He had family on both sides of the line, so he did not want to fight in the war. He decided to get drunk and stay drunk for the duration of the war so that he would be seen as useless for military purposes and would not be drafted. 

Ever since, colloquial and proverbial ratings of drunkenness have been benchmarked against the legendary drinker: "as drunk as Cooter Brown" or "drunker than Cooter Brown."



There are also other versions of the origin of the phrase.

Tale of the Tail

The Opossum is the only North American mammal with a prehensile tail.  It can use its hairless, foot-long tail to grasp objects and climb trees.

We know about 'possums, having had several close encounters.

Get Outta My Way - The Dirt Daubers

If the pretty, voluptuous middle dancer with multiple tattoos looks familiar, then you're probably a fan of American Pickers on History. Her name is Danielle Colby-Cushman and she "plays" the office manager on the show.

Baby Please Don't Go - Them

I was just listening to Powerage, an online radio station in Paris that plays nothing else but AC/DC and this song came on. I had forgotten AC/DC covered it, but I remembered other groups and musicians who had. (more information after the video)


From Wikipedia: "Baby, Please Don't Go" is a classic blues song which has been called "one of the most played, arranged, and rearranged pieces in blues history". It has become a blues and rock standard and has been recorded by a variety of artists.

After reading the Wiki article, I discovered that this version by Them was on the "B" side of a single they had released in 1964.  The "A" side tune?  Gloria, one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar. (thanks to the first garage band I was ever around) From the Wiki entry for the song: Humourist Dave Barry joked that "You can throw a guitar off a cliff, and as it bounces off rocks on the way down, it will, all by itself, play Gloria."

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.

Psychic NASCAR

The other day I saw a quote attributed to Edgar Cayce on our Quote of the Day module in the right-hand column and while the name rang a bell, I wasn't for sure just exactly who he was. After a quick bit of research, I was reminded he was famous for being a psychic. I then went to the source of the quote and saw this:

What I'd like to know is what does Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton have to do with Cayce? For that matter why is Ric Flair, a pro wrestler or Fred Rogers - Mr. Rogers - included in the list? Why are racing legends Dale Earnhardt and Mario Andretti on there, too? That's more of a mystery than Edgar Cayce's alleged psychic abilities.

I wanted to put a really clever headline on this post and I did some looking around the 'net for words that rhymed with "psychic" but there aren't that many. Too bad there wasn't a soccer player on the list or I could have used "Kick Psychic" or some variation. Oh well. I did find some pyschic jokes; here are a couple of the best ones.

Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died. -- Steven Wright

Two psychic healers meet in the street - "You're fine - how am I?"

Under the Google search for psychic jokes was this: 9 Psychic Jokes I'm Sick Of where a psychic explains why she doesn't find certain jokes about psychics funny at all. (Personally, I thought some of them hilarious) At first, my eyes were drawn to her phone rate for psychic reading - $4.99/minute -(which I found offensive) then I saw something she had written about herself that was much funnier than the jokes she found offensive.

Ever since I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, I haven't needed a crystal ball. I could see visions in a toothbrush!

Wow.  Schizophrenia + psychic ability + a toothbrush.  There's gotta be a joke there somewhere.  One will probably come to me later in a vision.