836 - Referral

Refer back to trivia night post 831. Then refer to the last paragraph.

"Like I said, I knew about 3 or 4 answers. And just in case you ever need to know, a golf cup is 4 1/2 inches wide. I missed it by 1/4 inch."

This bugged me a little. This is the type of trivia I usually know. What's the lowest prime number that's even - 2. What's the first 10 digits of pi - 3.141592653. You know, the important trival stuff. So I thought how could I check out the ..... HEY, the internet!!!!!

4 1/4

I WAS FREEKIN' RIGHT! GD CHEATERS!

.

835 - Quote

I couldn't remember if I heard this or I thought this up myself. I did an internet search and came up with nothing. I therefor take credit for a new quote. This quote says that nobody can know everything.

"A true expert knows they're not."
Mike - BVN

.

834 - Holy Cow!

This is a busy sunday.
IMPORTANT COUPON

833 - Number 4

What the hell is going on?! Billy Mays found dead at home.
MAYS

832 - Cry Uncle (Jay)

Cheap and easy way out today. I know if you visit all my linked sites as much as I visit all your linked sites you haven't been to Uncle Jay recently. He's got a new format on his home page which makes it a little easier to to pick one of his weekly videos. Click on it today and get last Monday's video. Do it tomorrow and get a brand NEW one! I don't know how I can stand all the excitement!

UNCLE JAY

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831 - Trivial

It's not a trivial thing that I'm no good at trivia nights. We just got back from one of the few that I attend through out the year. Out of a hundred questions I'm lucky if I know 3 or 4 answers. I'm better at looking up trivial things on the net rather than pulling them out of my head.

Our group did manage to not finish last but it was close. There were some groups that knew almost every answer, even in the two non question rounds.

Those two rounds were a little of a suprise but were interesting. In the first one (standard ten questions) they handed out a sheet of pictures of 10 buildings around the St. Louis area. You had to identify the building. In the second one they handed out 10 sandwich bags with some candy in each bag. You had to identify the name of the candy. And you got to eat the candy.

Like I said, I knew about 3 or 4 answers. And just in case you ever need to know, a golf cup is 4 1/2 inches wide. I missed it by 1/4 inch.

830 - Thunder and lightning

Very very frightning, Galileo........ Now that I've got that song stuck in your head I'll change the subject. Thunder and lightning. Who would figure that a weather site would lead you the Snopes site about an article on two of Santa's reindeer?

SNOPES - thunder and lightning (it's a Dutch/German thing)

829 - Touching (no not that way)

Here's another email story. It's touching. Well Joe was touched anyway.

*********************

In 1970, Joe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from college .

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Joe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee, inspected the elephants foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it as carefully and as gently as he could, Joe worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to Joe, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Joe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Joe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Thirty years later, Joe was walking through the zoo with his family. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Joe and his family were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Joe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1970, Joe could not help wondering if this was the same elephant. Joe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing, and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Joe's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

This is for everyone who sends those heart-warming bullshit stories.

***********************

Hey, it's not my story. Don't get mad at me!

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828 - Woman vs Man

A newscaster said tonight that 'you can't believe everything you get in an email'. Really? Is he kidding me? That's where I get all my factual information. Why, if it wasn't for emails I don't know how I would find out what's really going on. Here's an example of an email truth.

*************************

WOMAN

Between 18 and 22, a woman is like Africa ... half discovered, half wild,
fertile and naturally beautiful!

Between 23 and 30, a woman is like Europe ... well developed and ready for travel.

Between 31 and 35, a woman is like Spain … very hot, relaxed and convinced of her own beauty.

Between 36 and 40, a woman is like Greece … gently aging but still a warm and desirable place to visit.

Between 41 and 50, a woman is like Great Britain … with a glorious and
all-conquering past.

Between 51 and 60, a woman is like Israel … has been through war and
doesn't make the same mistakes twice, takes care of business.

Between 61 and 70, a woman is like Canada … self-preserving, but open to meeting new people.

After 70, she becomes Tibet … wildly beautiful, with a mysterious past and
the wisdom of the ages...only those with an adventurous spirit and a thirst
for spiritual knowledge visit there.


MAN

Between 18 and 100, a man is like Iran … ruled by nuts.

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827 - Videos galor

Ran across an article in Poular Science on more video sites that Youtube. Here's some more choices.

Hulu.com - Free TV shows
birdcinema.com - Bird watching
shredordie.com - extreme sports
mefeedia.com
truveo.com
boxee.tv
blinx.com

And then I found -
All

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826 - Toon Time

What will they think of next? How about a cord tied to your telephone and attached to the wall so you won't misplace it.


This message is from my son-in-laws parents to him and my daughter. I can wait.


I hope John's a better magician than this. But then guys only read the manual when there's a problem. After all, it's more fun to give it the ol' college try first.


I don't think any pet would EVER be this picky. EVER. People yes. Pets nEVER.



.

825 - Body parts

Here's a couple of links to exercise your eyes and your brain.

EYES (including floater reduction Andrea)

BRAIN

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824 - Men's Age

Saved by Bandit - He sent me some new material.

********************************

Men's Age as Determined by a Trip to Wal-Mart.

You are in the middle of some kind of project around the house mowing the lawn, putting a new fence in, painting the living room, or whatever. You are hot and sweaty, covered in dirt or paint. You have your old work clothes on. You know the outfit - shorts with the hole in crotch, old T-shirt with a stain from who knows what, and an old pair of tennis shoes.

Right in the middle of this great home improvement project you realize you need to run to Wal-Mart to get something to help complete the job.

Depending on your age you might do the following:

In your 20's:

Stop what you are doing. Shave, take a shower, blow dry your hair, brush your teeth, floss, and put on clean clothes. Check yourself in the mirror and flex. Add a dab of your favorite cologne because you never know, you just might meet some hot chick while standing in the checkout lane. And you went to school with the pretty girl running the register.


In your 30's:

Stop what you are doing, put on clean shorts and shirt. Change shoes. You married the hot chick so no need for much else. Wash your hands and comb your hair. Check yourself in the mirror. Still got it. Add a shot of your favorite cologne to cover the smell. The cute girl running the register is the kid sister to someone you went to school with.


In your 40's:

Stop what you are doing. Put a sweatshirt that is long enough to cover the hole in the crotch of your shorts. Put on different shoes and a hat. Wash your hands. Your bottle of Brute Cologne is almost empty so you don't want to waste any of it on a trip to Wal-Mart. Check yourself in the mirror and do more sucking in than flexing. The spicy young thing running the register is your daughter's age and you feel weird thinking she is spicy.


In your 50's:

Stop what you are doing. Put a hat on, wipe the dirt off your hands onto your shirt. Change shoes because you don't want to get dirt in your new sports car. Check yourself in the mirror and you swear not to wear that shirt anymore because it makes you look fat. The Cutie running the register smiles when she sees you coming and you think you still have it. Then you remember the hat you have on is from Buddy's Bait & Beer Bar and it says, 'I Got Worms ..'


In your 60's:

Stop what you are doing. No need for a hat anymore. Hose the dog shit off your shoes. The mirror was shattered when you were in your 50's. You hope you have underwear on so nothing hangs out the hole in your pants. The girl running the register may be cute, but you don't have your glasses on so you are not sure.


In your 70's:

Stop what you are doing. Wait to go to Wal-Mart until they have your prescriptions ready, too. Don't even notice the dog shit on your shoes. The young thing at the register smiles at you because you remind her of her grandfather.


In your 80's:

Stop what you are doing. Start again. Then stop again. Now you remember you needed to go to Wal-Mart. Go to Wal-Mart and wander around trying to think what it is you are looking for. Fart out loud and you think someone called out your name. You went to school with the old lady who greeted you at the front door.

.

823 - Nothing

I got nothing today. John's gone. Bilbo's leaving. Fiona's in hiding. The creative juices are dead. Although Amanda's making a good come back and Andrea is still plugging away. But nothing for me today. Brain dead city.

.

822 - UP

Email trivia - I'm glad I didn't have to look all this stuff UP.
*********************

Lovers of the English language might enjoy this. It is yet another example of why people learning English have trouble with the language. Learning the nuances of English makes it a difficult language. But then, that's probably true of many languages.

There is a two-letter word in English that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is 'UP'. It is listed in the dictionary as being used as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends and we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.

We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has a real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this up is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP alist of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP,you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on & on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP , so time to shut UP!

Oh, one more thing: What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night?

U
P

821 - Wet

If you are near a river here's a site for you. Especially with the wet year we've had so far. This is the National weather service site that you can get river stages from. The rivers around St. Louis are heading for flood stage again.



STAGES - click near where you live to get a more detailed map.

820 - AAADD

Email joke # -34.

**********************

KNOW THE SYMPTOMS......PLEASE READ!

Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder.
Somehow I feel better even though I have it!!

Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. -
Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway,
I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage,
I notice mail on the porch table that
I brought up from the mail box earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table,
put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table,
and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back
on the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think,
since I'm going to be near the mailbox
when I take out the garbage anyway,
I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table,
and see that there is only one check left.
My extra checks are in my desk in the study,
so I go inside the house to my desk where
I find the can of Pepsi I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks,
but first I need to push the Pepsi aside
so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The Pepsi is getting warm,
and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi,
a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye,
they need water.

I put the Pepsi on the counter and
discover my reading glasses that
I've been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk,
but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter,
fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote.
Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV,
I'll be looking for the remote,
but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table,
so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs,
but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers,
but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back on the table,
get some towels and wipe up the spill.
Then, I head down the hall trying to
remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:
the car isn't washed,
the bills aren't paid,
there is a warm can of Pepsi sitting on the counter,
the flowers don't have enough water,
there is still only 1 check in my check book,
I can't find the remote,
I can't find my glasses,
and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today,
I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all damn day,
and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem,
and I'll try to get some help for it,
but first I'll check my e-mail.....

819 - Inflammatory

This is supposedly making the rounds on the net right now but since nobody's posted it yet I will. Inflammatory what? Breast cancer. It's not like the other breast cancer as this video points out. I also have a link to Inflammatory Breast Cancer on the 'cancer.gov' website.



.

818 - Three Duplexes

No not houses. Cartoons. It's cartoon follow up day.


There are different ways to enjoy a good book.



Just like there are different ways to enjoy a good meal.



And then there's always this nasty surprise.


WAIT, there's another day to go yet before Monday. I forgot.

.

817 - Boobs

Several of my uuber conservative friends send me stuff like this.

**********************

Here is an unbelievable photo of a woman with the two biggest boobs I have ever seen.




**********************

I responded with, "this is Condi after a LARGE breast reduction operation."


Warning - today is Friday the 13th this month.
.

816 - Blogger warning

Here's a story about what can happen to high resolution pictures posted on the net. What's really weird is the Prague connection, where I just got back from. And the St. Louis connection, where the family is from.

STOLEN PICTURE

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815 - Lottery

You know when somebody wins the lottery for hundreds of millions dollars and it's an old couple that need the money like another hole in the head? Well here's the way it's supposed to work.



So then I thought, is there a link to the story? Well DUH.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/05/neal-wanless-sd-rancher-w_n_212081.html

You can cut and paste if you want but what you'll find out is that he took it in a lump sum. Not a good idea for a 23 year old.

.

814 - Summer camp

You wonder what John did at church camp? Me too. I think I got some video of him one night after a hard day of camping.



He may have been tasered but he didn't look to arrested.

.

813 - A test to take

I could use last weekends Parade magazine for posts all week. Here's a test to see how fast you are aging. I'm doing a little better than average but I could use some work. I did find out I have to move from St. Louis.

TEST

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812 - Sleep

Sleeeep. Do you get enough? Here's an article from Parade Magazine about how much you need. Bilbo probably read this already. Except for my addition.

********************************

Your mom was right: You need your sleep--maybe more than even she knew. She likely didn't know what the research now tells us--that lack of sleep has been linked to obesity, cancer, heart disease, and low immune response.

Caught a cold lately? Consider this: A recent study in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine showed that if you sleep less than seven hours a night, you have a three times higher risk of getting a cold than if you sleep more than eight hours. Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University asked 153 healthy adult men and women about their sleeping habits, then dosed them with nasal drops containing rhinovirus--one of the viruses responsible for the common cold. The virus took hold more readily among the less-rested. Lack of sleep, the researchers suggest, may have weakened their immune systems.

Other research has linked sleep to heart health. The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published a study showing that people in their 30s and 40s who get less sleep are more likely to develop plaque in the arteries of their hearts early in life.

The study followed 495 people aged 35 to 47 for five years. At the outset, CT scans showed that they were all healthy, with no evidence of heart disease. But five years later, follow-up scans revealed that more than one in 10 had developed calcifications in their arteries--a sign of early heart disease--and there was a clear link to their sleep habits.

Among those who got at least seven hours of sleep, only 6% had calcifications. The number rose to 11% in those who slept five to seven hours. And for those who got the least amount of sleep--fewer than five hours--it was 27%.

In fact, getting just one more hour of sleep, the study's authors say, "decreased the odds of calcifications by 33%." The additional hour, they noted, had benefits comparable to reducing systolic blood pressure (the higher number) by 16.5 points.

The researchers cannot explain exactly how lack of sleep contributes to calcium in the heart. They suggest that less sleep may be related to generalized inflammation and to having higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood.

In recent years, multiple studies have looked at the relationship between sleep and obesity. In one, researchers from the University of Warwick Medical School in Coventry, England, reviewed studies conducted worldwide that examined sleep duration and obesity in more than 600,000 adults and 30,000 children.

In an article published in Sleep, the team concluded that every lost hour of sleep is associated with a discrete increase in BMI (body mass index, the formula that calculates how overweight you are based on your weight and height).

Scientists still have not determined what lack of sleep has to do with putting on weight. Some cite inflammation reactions. The less you sleep, the stronger the trigger for inflammation. Others contend that those who sleep less have other unhealthy lifestyle habits, which may be partly responsible for their weight gain. Yet other experts focus on the activation of the hormones leptin and ghrelin in response to lack of sleep. These hormones can affect appetite and, as a result, increase the amount of food you consume.

How much sleep should you get? There is no magic number. Individual needs vary, and age also plays a role. Use the recommendations below as a guideline.

How many hours do you need?

Toddlers 12-14 hrs
Preschoolers 11-13 hrs
School-age children 10-11 hrs
Adolescents 9-10 hrs
Adults 7-9 hrs
Mike the retiree 12 hrs + naps


Here's a link to the article. The article has links to other sleep related articles.

PARADE ARTICLE

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811 - Well said

I'm glad other people out there think about this stuff and write their thoughts down. And if the editorial editor rewrote this one, good job.


























If you didn't see the Saturday bonus post, go back and look at it too.

810 - Saturday bonus

Here's an interesting article about a female sex therapist in ... Dubai. Yes Dubai. And yes she's had death threats.

ARTICLE

809 - Aux cartoon Saturday

Here's something for all the BS that went on this week. Whatever it was.

Click on the link, move the mouse to the side, wait for the picture to come up, mouse over the picture.

This butt's for you, world.

.

808 - The speech

Not a long post today (not). Here's Obama's speech in Egypt. It actually starts around the 11 minute mark on the video (move the slide bar up) and goes to just past the 1 hour and 5 minute mark. You don't have to watch (not much to see anyway). You can do like I did and do some surfing (or work if you still do that) while you listen.

SPEECH

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807 - Perspective

There's this perspective on life. (the retired guys)


And then there's this one. (the depends on where you're sitting)

806 - Reagan did it

I don't know how many people out there get Paul Krugman in their newspaper. But in yesterdays paper he had a very good column. Very good for the left side of center that is. Notice I didn't say left wing. This is not a 'left winger' article. It just points out some facts that the right wing would like to forget. (Like Reagan was a boob.)

******************************

“This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years. It provides a long-term solution for troubled thrift institutions. ... All in all, I think we hit the jackpot.” So declared Ronald Reagan in 1982, as he signed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act.

He was, as it happened, wrong about solving the problems of the thrifts. On the contrary, the bill turned the modest-sized troubles of savings-and-loan institutions into an utter catastrophe. But he was right about the legislation’s significance. And as for that jackpot — well, it finally came more than 25 years later, in the form of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

For the more one looks into the origins of the current disaster, the clearer it becomes that the key wrong turn — the turn that made crisis inevitable — took place in the early 1980s, during the Reagan years.

Attacks on Reaganomics usually focus on rising inequality and fiscal irresponsibility. Indeed, Reagan ushered in an era in which a small minority grew vastly rich, while working families saw only meager gains. He also broke with longstanding rules of fiscal prudence.

On the latter point: traditionally, the U.S. government ran significant budget deficits only in times of war or economic emergency. Federal debt as a percentage of G.D.P. fell steadily from the end of World War II until 1980. But indebtedness began rising under Reagan; it fell again in the Clinton years, but resumed its rise under the Bush administration, leaving us ill prepared for the emergency now upon us.

The increase in public debt was, however, dwarfed by the rise in private debt, made possible by financial deregulation. The change in America’s financial rules was Reagan’s biggest legacy. And it’s the gift that keeps on taking.

The immediate effect of Garn-St. Germain, as I said, was to turn the thrifts from a problem into a catastrophe. The S.& L. crisis has been written out of the Reagan hagiography, but the fact is that deregulation in effect gave the industry — whose deposits were federally insured — a license to gamble with taxpayers’ money, at best, or simply to loot it, at worst. By the time the government closed the books on the affair, taxpayers had lost $130 billion, back when that was a lot of money.

But there was also a longer-term effect. Reagan-era legislative changes essentially ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending — restrictions that, in particular, limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting a significant amount of money down.

These restrictions were put in place in the 1930s by political leaders who had just experienced a terrible financial crisis, and were trying to prevent another. But by 1980 the memory of the Depression had faded. Government, declared Reagan, is the problem, not the solution; the magic of the marketplace must be set free. And so the precautionary rules were scrapped.

Together with looser lending standards for other kinds of consumer credit, this led to a radical change in American behavior.

We weren’t always a nation of big debts and low savings: in the 1970s Americans saved almost 10 percent of their income, slightly more than in the 1960s. It was only after the Reagan deregulation that thrift gradually disappeared from the American way of life, culminating in the near-zero savings rate that prevailed on the eve of the great crisis. Household debt was only 60 percent of income when Reagan took office, about the same as it was during the Kennedy administration. By 2007 it was up to 119 percent.

All this, we were assured, was a good thing: sure, Americans were piling up debt, and they weren’t putting aside any of their income, but their finances looked fine once you took into account the rising values of their houses and their stock portfolios. Oops.

Now, the proximate causes of today’s economic crisis lie in events that took place long after Reagan left office — in the global savings glut created by surpluses in China and elsewhere, and in the giant housing bubble that savings glut helped inflate.

But it was the explosion of debt over the previous quarter-century that made the U.S. economy so vulnerable. Overstretched borrowers were bound to start defaulting in large numbers once the housing bubble burst and unemployment began to rise.

These defaults in turn wreaked havoc with a financial system that — also mainly thanks to Reagan-era deregulation — took on too much risk with too little capital.

There’s plenty of blame to go around these days. But the prime villains behind the mess we’re in were Reagan and his circle of advisers — men who forgot the lessons of America’s last great financial crisis, and condemned the rest of us to repeat it.

.

805 - Email prayer

Little girl, sometimes God doesn't answer all your prayers.



Dear God,

Please send clothes for all those poor ladies in Daddy's computer.

Amen.

.

804 - Really Monday

Since this is really Monday I thought I would help out the workers of world get motivated. Especially those in the USA because I feel better when there's money flowing into the Social Security system.



I didn't say I wanted you to actually work. You just need to be there so you'll get paid.