Joe Reads the News

There is no joy in Charm City!

2012-01-23T12:08:00.003-05:00

This is a sad day for those Baltimoreans who were expecting to make a long-overdue trip to the Super Bowl this year. The Ravens lost a tough one to the Patriots. I'm sure my Massachusetts relatives are dancing in the streets... while my Maryland relatives are crying in their beer. Such is life.. there's always next year, guys.

Meanwhile, life (and death) go on.

01. Football Father Figure Fades Away.

Joe Paterno died yesterday. On the same day that he died, one of the FM stations aired a mini-interview with him.. again about him and Sandusky. (Did you "out-of'-towners" know that one of Baltimore's TV sportscasters is named Jerry Sandusky.. and of course you can guess that his life has not been the same recently.)

02. Media Exposure?

A 47 year old Catholic Priest was recently arrested for sitting in a "shop movie theater" (whatever that is), naked from the waist down. His Bishop, in this instance, did the right thing and removed him from his post in a Baltimore County church.

... segue to nudist jokes:

a. At a nude wedding, the best man is not always the best man.

b. At a nude wedding, where does the best man hide the wedding ring?

(Sorry about that)

03. The Newt wins big in South Carolina.

Democrats are celebrating!

04. Romney goes on the attack!

"Mitt" is going after "Newt" at last. Democrats are worried.

05. Oprah is crowned Queen!

At a major book event in India, all eyes turned to Oprah Winfrey, our queen. Crowds cheered her and followed her around, completely ignoring a "real" queen who was also in attendance.   Maybe Oprah will run as Newt's running mate. However, based on some dumb things that Newt has said in the past, he probably thinks that billionaire Oprah is receiving food stamps.

06. Don't mess with Maryland women!

(Oprah worked for Channel 13 in Baltimore for several years.)

A lady in Chestertown, Maryland got mad because a male friend would not admit that he owed her ten dollars... so, she threw drain cleaner in his eyes and blinded him.

07. Priorities

I just read where the CEO's of our major religious organizations all have the following schedule of allegiance:

Christian First
American Second

I wonder if any of the upcoming debate questioners would ask a question about that.  How would the candidates answer? BTW our founding fathers were almost all Deists.

08. Jim Hightower sez:

I've written about gadfly Hightower before. He claims that "Dubya" (as he calls him), when asked what Americans should do at 911 time, said: "Go out and shop!"

Jim picks on lots of "airheads" regardless of Political Affiliation.

09. Immortality

As some people have noticed, first class postage became 45 cents a couple of days ago. Elaine asked me to get a lot of 44 cents "Forever" stamps before time ran out. Our Post Office only had commemorative stamps left.   But so what.. they work. From now on, all first class stamps will be "Forever".   Isn't that nice to know?   I remember when I could send a first class letter for (hold your breath) THREE CENTS! And, at the same time, we got 2 (count'em) TWO MAIL DELIVERIES EACH DAY! (Boy, am I old.)

10. Father, Are you a Chaplain in the Navy?

That's the question a lady posed to the Priest mentioned above.. when he said "No".. she said: "That's funny because I can see your navel."

(gasp!)

Jiri Hulcr, PhD, says that the human belly button is filled with lots and lots of strange bacteria. He is connected to the Belly Button Biodiversity Project.

http://www.wildlifeofyourbody.org/

11. They're still at it!

Those wacko religiosos from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, have announced plans to picket the funeral of Virginia Tech Police Officer Deriek Croused. College students have been advised not to talk to them or acknowledge their presence. The 40 members of that church are all related and must share similar idiocy genes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church

12. Co-bed education?

In the fall of 2012, Towson (Maryland) University will be establishing "gender-neutral" housing options open to students in two dormitories (Halls). Are frat houses and sorority houses now "gender-neutral", other than on weekends? My, how times have changed. In my day, we had to live in "gender-specialized" caves and write our homework in cuneiform characters on flat rocks.

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Enough!
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Religious Views

2012-01-07T14:00:00.001-05:00

I can't believe that it has been over a month since I updated this blog. I'll catch up by talking about Religion today. I feel qualified to talk about that subject because I have been involved with a number of religions over the years (like Newt Gingrich?.. no, not quite like him). I have been a Quaker, a Baptist, and an Atheist (among others). My late wife was a Catholic and my kids were brought up as such. My current partner is a Lutheran and I live in a community sponsored by that church. I suspect that I am still considered a minister in the Church of the Modern Apostles, and I consider myself to be kind of an agnostic Deist at the moment.. having been a computer programmer for many years, I seem to understand how a Demiurge might work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge

Some of the most hypocritical people I have ever met were ordained ministers and priests. Some of the least hypocritical people I have ever met were ordained ministers and priests. I respect the rabbis and imams that I have met. I do not like "yellow pages" that show only Christian businesses. I do not think it was proper for Lowes to discontinue advertising on a "Muslim-related" reality show. I know some wonderful people who do not conform to stereotypical male/female roles.

There you have it. I've bared a lot of my soul. As a member of the Toastmasters organization, you are taught to never use sex, politics or religion as a subject of a speech. Baloney! Those are the things that most people are interested in. So.. here it goes with religion, I'll get back to the other two subjects in another blog entry:

Always start with a joke:

My friend, Sid Simon sez: A little boy was looking through a family Bible and a leaf fell out that had been pressed. His mother asked: "What is that?" The boy replied: "I think it's Adam's underwear."

Roger Williams

I was surprised to read in the Smithsonian Magazine that "breakaway religion" guy and founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, in the last years of his life, worshipped at no church at all. He had fought all of his life to allow everyone to worship as they pleased, and concluded finally that God's will was better interpreted by individuals than by institutions. (Sounds like the theory of the Church of the Modern Apostles.)

Thomas Jefferson

President Jefferson and several of the other founding fathers were Deists and convinced that there was that Demiurge I mentioned above. Jefferson did feel that the teachings of Jesus were important and wrote The Jefferson Bible, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Beacon Press of Boston published a beautifully crafted copy of this work. I bought my copy in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania at a Civil War book store.

TWITTER?

I hear that even Ruppert Murdoch is now tweeting. Does Pope Benedict tweet? I had heard that the Vatican has a Facebook presence. I went to Facebook and found POPE2YOU, a very interesting site for all persons with a religious interest.

Ecumenical?

In July of 2007, the Pope declared that Roman Catholicism is the only "real" Christian religion. He said that Protestant churches "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense." Hmmm.

Liturgical update?

I recently attended a memorial mass for a friend and was surprised to read a document to be followed during the mass. It outlined changes approved this year by Catholic Bishops. For instance:

1: Old Text:
Priest: "The Lord be with you." People: "And also with you."

New Text:
Priest: "The Lord be with you." People: "And also with your spirit."

2: Old Text:
"Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth."

New Text:
"Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will."

(I like the old text better.. it had a definite pleasant flow and rhythm that the new text does not.)

3: Old Text: (Nicene Creed)
"We believe..."

New Text:
"I believe..."

It was tough for us non-Catholics to get used to the non-Latin mass. Now we'll have to get used to the new-English mass.

Converts?

I read where there are now 77 million members of the Anglican Church that was created by Henry VIII because of a snit with Rome over his desire to dump his wife and marry his mistress. I also read that there is a schism developing among Anglicans over the election of women and gay bishops.. and the condoning of same-sex unions.

To capitalize on this, the Vatican is making it easier for Anglicans to "come home" to the Catholic church. In fact, they will even be accepting married Anglican priests and seminarians. (I thought that this was the case already..?)

Related Catholic stories on my blog:

If you are so inclined, you could do a search of this blog for a few religion-related stories:

Priest's dog attacks Joe.. "You ain't Catholic, are you?"

Same attack dog and Priest elope with our baby-sitter.

Joe takes Catholic in-laws up ladder and into the Choir Loft.

Joe grabs wife and runs out of church at wedding.

Future father-in-law yells: "He's not Catholic!!"

A religious story in the news:

Two muslim teen-agers were recently arrested in the U.S. for painting burkas on the posters of women thought by them to be "immodest". They received probation and a fine.

The End of the World:

End of World: 1998: Henry Hall predicted that the world would end in 1998 because 666 + 666 + 666 "equals 1998, you computer dummies!"

End of World: 2008: The Lord's Witnesses also use convoluted numerology to predict the end on March 21, 2008.

End of World: 2011: Famous old Harold Camping predicted May 21, 2011. "The Bible guarantees it!"

If you are interested in more of these End of World predictions, visit: http://www.abhota.info/end5.htm

Always finish with a joke:

A submission by The Orange Peel Gazette, East Baltimore, Maryland:

The preacher was dissatisfied with how little his congregation put in the collection plates on Sundays, so he learned hypnosis. He began preaching his sermons in a monotone. He swung a watch slowly in front of the lectern, and at the end of the sermon he said, "Give!" and the collection plate was soon full of twenty-dollar bills.

This worked for weeks. The congregation sat mesmerized during the sermon, staring at the watch swinging, and when he said, "Give!" they gave everything they had. Then one Sunday, at the end of the sermon, the chain on the watch broke, and the preacher said, "Oh, crap!"

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Happy New Apocalyptical Year!
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Joe's Annual Christmas Gift Helper

2011-12-03T11:05:00.002-05:00

Well, it's Christmas time again, and we are once again tasked with finding gifts for our friends and neighbors who already have "everything." What a dilemma!

But.. yesterday, Elaine and I went on a search for those special gifts most people miss. Elaine's standards are a bit higher than mine. I look for good cheap items that are are also weird enough to be appreciated by cheap, weird people (not necessarily my friends and relatives.)

Here are some items, available at Big Lots Stores anywhere. I found them to be intriguing and I am seriously considering purchasing some of them.. meanwhile, I list them here for you to consider when you do your Christmas shopping this year.

01. For the serious drinker.

A clear glass bottle shaped like a chic high heel, filled with a pink fluid labeled "Non-Alcoholic Martini Mix." (I guess you can add the booze.) You can purchase this gem for only $5.

02. For the serious zaftig-girl watcher.

A "Wings" set, which includes a plate with the "Hooters" logo, a bottle of "the hottest" hot sauce, a basting brush, and tongs. Everything except chicken parts and a pot to cook it all in. What a bargain for just $12!

03. For the serious "retro" lover.

A lava lamp party kit for just $10. The box says: "Light up your party with LAVA barbecue!" To make that happen, the kit includes:

a "color-phasing" bottle opener
2 "color-phasing" shot glasses
4 "light-up" plastic ice cubes

Perhaps you could combine this with the "Wings" set and have a retro blast!

04. For the serious Elvis fan.

An authentic-looking street sign for "Elvis Presly Boulevard". For just $10, you can replace your existing street sign and drive your mail deliverer and neighbors crazy.

05. For the "child" in us all.

"Not just another flashlight. It stands. It crawls. It walks." Yes, it's the ROBOT Transforming Flashlight. When you don't need the bright beam to light your way to the LAVA wing party, you can twist it into all kinds of shapes. And I think I read where it is only $3. Now that is definitely a bargain. Even I would like to get one of those for Christmas.

06. For your favorite doggie.

Peanut-butter flavored cookies for your best friend. These "Dog Cookies" sell for only $3, and I'll bet they are delicious.

07. Also for your favorite doggie.

A nice bright red Santa Claus suit for your best friend to wear in our upcoming frigid Winter. A little pricey at $8, but well worth it. You know... you could combine this with some Rudolph antlers and have a very photogenic opportunity. Have Staples make your picture into Christmas cards and everyone will talk about you all year long.

08. For your tone-deaf friends.

Speaking of Rudolph, for $5 you can buy a fluffy Rudolph doll that sings that obnoxious song over and over again when you press his hoof.

09. For your friends who have an anger problem.

A "Jack in the Box" type Alvin. Alvin is one of the famous "Chipmonks". When he pops up, he starts to sing, along with his squeaky buddies. This is a great buy at $8. Give it to a person who has that anger management problem and they can relieve the pressure by throwing Alvin against the wall over and over.

10. For your scatalogically inclined friends.

Picture this. Santa Claus sitting on his recliner, with his cap off, smoking his pipe after his long Christmas Eve journey. Press Santa's mitten, and he says something to the effect: "I'm just sitting here resting, after shoveling reindeer poop all day." Just think of the humorous effect you have caused with your thoughtful $8 gift!

11. For your "fair weather" friends.

I've saved "the best" for last. This is a kneeling Santa Claus, holding high an unrolled "naughty" list. Santa is smiling broadly and when you press his knee, he gives out with repeated "Hee Hee's" while he shakes uncontrollably, and farts continually. His title is "Farting Santa" and he also costs $8.

So.. there it is .. my research is done for 2011. I hope it has helped you decide on a gift for someone who had been difficult to match with something appropriate.

Merry Christmas.. and remember that the best gift you can give someone is "yourself."

Christmas Planning Already!

2011-11-12T19:12:00.002-05:00

Last night, Elaine and I made our annual pilgrimage to Westminster, Maryland's Mistletoe Mart. The local Episcopal Church presents a very successful juried arts and crafts show each year. Let me tell you about some places we visited.

1. Summerhaze Pottery

Elaine has a collection of a special type of pottery created only by the Summerhaze shop, hidden in a remote area of Tidewater Virginia. James Stewart might have written a poem about their place:

Summerhaze Pottery is a beautiful place,
Surrounded by green trees and grass,
But getting to Summerhaze Pottery,
Is a terrible pain in the ass.

But worth it.. Elaine and I visited there a few years ago and were given a royal tour of their kiln area and workshops. I think I have written somewhere else in my blogs about their friendly dogs.

Summerhaze came up to the Mistletoe Mart just so Elaine could add another piece to her collection. Here is a picture of a piece she already had, so you can see why she likes it.

Summerhaze has many other kinds of pottery that you might like. Check them out at:

http://summerhazepottery.com/

2. Our Favorite Sculptor

John Sokolovich is a true artist who works in metal. He sculpts and welds all kinds of creations from scrap metal, old tools, license plates and any other metalic thing he can find. Elaine and I visited his enormous barn-studio in New Oxford, Pennsylvania, and were astounded and amazed at some of the beautiful items dreamed up by his ever-working brain.

At this show, he had one item that would have made a Baltimore Ravens fan drool. It was a Raven crafted out of a license plate, scissors, wire, bolts, and I don't know what else. The only problem, he had forgotten to paint it purple. Before we left the show, I noticed that a fan was buying the raven from him.. he will probably take it upon himself to paint it purple... or.. is the raven supposed to stay black?

We didn't buy anything from John this year, but take a look at what we bought a couple of years ago:

We bought a twin of this last year. Now we have one on each wall framing our deck door.

John doesn't have a website, but if you are interested in seeing some of his work, send him an email at

jjsoko@comcast.net

3. Smells good!

Another spot that we like at the Mistletoe Mart is where the folks from Willow Pond Farm are located. Willow Pond Farm itself is located in Fairfield, Pennsylvania, near Gettysburg. These folks specialize in herbs of all kinds and have on display samples of many dips made from their herbs and also homemade vinegars, jams and jellies, honey of all types, and homespun clothing. Of course, Elaine and I sample almost everything; Elaine doesn't do garlic.

Every year, we end up buying flavored honey and a catnip-filled cloth fish on a string. Usually, our cat (s) will tear those fish up in ten minutes flat; this year, SuZee sniffed it a few times and ignored it.. I wonder why.

Each year the Pennsylvania Lavender Festival is held for three days in June at Willow Pond Farm. There are workshops, lectures, and cut-your-own-lavender sessions.   The farm maintains three acres of lavendar plantings. The lavender smell helps Elaine to sleep.

Interested in Willow Pond Farm? http://www.willowpondherbs.com/

Interested in the Lavender Festival? http://www.palavenderfestival.com/

4. I dare you not to laugh!

Another favorite spot at the Mistletoe Mart is the area where Bruce Garrabrandt shows his remarkable artwork. Bruce does lots of things. He is a professional artist, writer, motivational speaker, and inn-keeper (with his wife). He resides at their Bed-and-Breakfast in Terre Hill, Pennsylvania, right in the middle of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. He creates FUNNY pictures!

I bought one of Bruce's books, The Power of Having Desire, (the Key Secret to Accomplishing Anything You Really Want.) (You might rightly ask: why does a guy at my age want with a motivational book? I dunno. Guess I'm still a little ambitious... and I want to get up the nerve to do some of the things I have always wanted to do before I shuffle off this ... well you know what I mean.)

In his book are words of praise by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Ben Carson MD, Tim Conway, and Bill Keane. I admire all of these persons for their "worldliness"... i.e., their mature outlook on the world, even when it is hidden inside professionalism, comedy, and/or cartoons. (For those of you who may not know, Bill Keane, the creator of The Family Circus, passed away yesterday. I think that his son, Jeff, will be carrying on the "family" tradition.)

If these folks like Bruce's work, I can't wait to read his book. In addition, I purchased a CD that he published called: Nature with a Twist (a Playful Look at Life, Art and Other Turmoil). The cover shows a rabbit atop Bruce's head, shown in a twisted frame with the title: Hare Transplant.

A couple of testimonials listed on the CD cover are worth pondering: "Dating Bruce was pivotal in my decision to become a nun." and "...and (he) once had his underwear sewn shut by an irate co-ed."   Get the picture? This guy is my kind of loony-toons genius. You gotta check his work out!

http://www.artbybruce.com/

5. Sweet stuff

A choclatier had a site where she was selling a box of 18 chocolates for $35. They can't be that good, can they? Instead, while poking around the cookie/candy table, I found a bag of 50 milk-chocolate Trick-or-Treat candies for $1., a much better buy, in my opinion. Of course, as a pre-diabetic person, I violated my chocolate probation and devoured a large amount of these delicious candies before we left the building.   Please don't tell on me.. it's bad enough that my A1C test will squeal on me in a couple of months.

Basta! Enough! In November 2012, barring disasters predicted by some kind of Aztec prophet, the Mistletoe Mart will be on again, and I invite you to come and visit with the nice folks I have mentioned.

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A Snowy October Day in 2011

2011-10-29T15:55:00.002-04:00

Surprise! For the fifth time in recorded Maryland history, we are experiencing snow on an October day. This, for us senior citizens, cancels three functions that we were planning to attend today. So, that means that I have time to update this blog for October 2011.

01. Good News for Inebriates Down Under!

On this morning's Wait, Wait, Dont Tell Me show, a news clip mentioned that rubber sidewalks are being installed somewhere in Australia. Those great Aussies love to slug down their giant Foster's Beers each night, and this will help them avoid hurting themselves as they careen down the street towards home.

Take a look at some of Foster's great commercials. Be forewarned..it may take a long time to load, and you may have to submit proof of your age! However, if you like beer, you will probably think that it is all worth it.

http://www.fostersbeer.com/

02. Royal Perqs

Also mentioned on the WWDTM show today was a section about nice things that you can have if you are members of the UK royalty, such as:

Help with Pressing Matters

For instance, the Prince of Wales has a servant who irons his shoelaces.

Help to eliminate Encrouchments

For instance, the Earl of Mountbatten has a servant who lubricates the Earl's tight pants so that he can slip into them easily.

What about the Duke of Windsor?

03. Seattle's Best

After I sent a nasty email to NETFLIX, they reactivated my ROKU and now, once again, I have access to both mailed-to-me movies and online NETFLIX selections. To celebrate, I pulled up and watched the first two episodes of the Frasier TV show. It started in 1993 and I loved to watch it then because it always made me laugh. It still does. (La Comedia e Stupenda!)

Two segments on these early shows knocked me out.

Lupe Velez

Roz told Frasier the story about the supposed suicide of Lupe Velez, the hot-blooded vixen of 1940's movies. When she was in her forties, she decided to commit suicide and stage it so she would always be remembered. She put on her finest clothes and had her beautiful bed draped with the finest coverings, and prepared by drinking some of the finest champagne and exquisite food. She planned to then take poison, drape herself over the bed provocatively, and await notoriety.   However, she must have eaten too much of that good food, got nauseous and was instead found drowned with her head in her toilet bowl.   She did achieve her notoriety alright, but perhaps not the way she would have wanted.

http://quiterevealing.com/personal/cafeq/fdtextlupe.htm

Punxsatawney Phil?

Frasier comes out of his bedroom in a disheveled manner, wearing a loose bathrobe. During an argument with Roz, his bathrobe opens by accident. Roz then delivers the line that I think is the funniest line I have ever heard on a TV sitcom: "Oh.. I see that we will be having six more weeks of Winter."

04. Gangsters!

The Brits are upset. English kids are betting money on the game of marbles! What next!

The Americans are upset. American kids are betting money in online poker! Moral depravity!

Members of the U.S. Congress are upset. People who play the slots are now being deceived into thinking they are on the verge of winning, because of interactive messages now appearing on the slot devices that say things like: "Wow!  You just missed winning $1,000 by 4 pulls.".. or words to that effect. A Congressional Hearing was held last Tuesday. I hope that I can pull up some of this session on CSPAN and learn what to avoid when I go to Nevada.

No.. I don't really gamble.. just like all senior citizens, when I go to a slot machine parlor, I take $20 and when I lose that, I quit. Besides, the slots are no longer fun.. they have taken away the buckets and the coins that would flow out of the machines when you won.. some have even taken away the metallic sounds. Damn spoilsports! I think I'll stick with the Maryland Lottery; at least, with them, I can play by mail and once in a while get a $2 winning check in the mail.

By the way, statistics show that the top three "sports" watched on TV are:

   1: NFL; 2: NASCAR; 3: POKER

05. Pass me the Bacon, please.

For many years, certain people have maintained that Shakespeare did not have the brains or education to write the plays that list him as the author. Since he was "just an actor", he did not have the "smarts" to write something like Hamlet or MacBeth.   The real author obviously must have been a nobleman who didn't want anybody to know he wrote them.

In fact, some critics have even gone so far as to ascribe the works to Sir Francis Bacon, (most notably, a lady named Elizabeth Wells Gallup) and state that words in some of the plays are cryptograms. Sir Francis had developed a "biliteral" alphabet that used multiple type fonts/faces for letters of the alphabet and she had determined, by using this code to lines in Shakespeare's folios, that messages appeared. For example purposes: By assigning coded letters to the type faces on one line of Hamlet, the decoded line might then read: I Bacon am the author of this play. And, yes, that was shown to work out in many cases.

However, a husband and wife team of cryptographic geniuses (William and Elizabeth Friedman) also showed that the following might also be read by using the same alphabetic scheme: I Mark Twain wrote this damn play.

Check out this background information for the Friedman's. I think that you will find it interesting. There are also whole books covering the Bacon Theory and how the Friedman's debunked it.

http://kakopa.com/geo/friedman.htm

Much other work over the years has been done to debunk the Bacon is Shakespeare theory. For one thing, existing writing by Bacon does not come anywhere near the classiness of Will's work.

Anyway... what I am trying to show is that the theory of another (nobler) author of Shakespeare's works was long ago debunked. So, why the sudden appearance of the movie Anonymous?

Roland Emmerich, the noted director of a lot of spectacular movies such as Godzilla, has a hit on his hand.. with remarkable photography and acting. But, one must ask why he has to rationalize this work by coming up with ten reasons to defame the bard? (Methinks thou may protest too much.)

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/anonymous/featurette-roland-emmerichs-10-reasons

I will order the movie from Netflix and probably will enjoy it.. however, I will still consider it a fictional story unless some other evidence comes up to convince me otherwise.

Goodby for now.
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Facts and Factoids for the Start of Fall 2011

2011-09-23T12:40:00.004-04:00

Today, I'm taking a break from my daily blog (http://joesquicknews.blogspot.com/) to bring vital information to the attention of those who have nothing better to do but read my blogs. Believe it or not, there are a few of you out there who read these blurbs and some actually feel the need to needle me about stuff I publish.. and I love you for it. And to those in China and Japan who send me comments.. thank you.. however, I am, as of yet, unable to read Chinese or Japanese, but I enjoy gazing at the written characters.

1. Burning Question

Elaine and I were in the Elkton, Maryland area the other day, and we remembered that a few years ago, lots of "Northerners" took trips to Elkton to get a "quickie marriage." The reason given was because Maryland did not require a blood test with a waiting period before getting a marriage license and Elkton was just over the Mason-Dixon line.. and a short hop for New Yorkers and other Yankees.

Question: Why did some States require the results of a recent blood test before granting a marriage license?

My reading of information found on the Internet tells me this:

Blood tests were instituted to ensure that the parties did not have syphllis. Only Mississippi and Montana still require blood tests.

In a Supreme Count case: Meister v. Moore (1877).. it was "ruled" (?) that it is illegal for any state to mandate any form of marriage license or ceremony, and (technically) all states must recognize "common law marriage."

Interesting.. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if I'm interpreting this information correctly or not.

2. It was a very good year..

Y'all know that I'm an old dude. I was born in 1934. Imagine that!

The famous movie star, Alan Ladd, graduated from Hollywood High School in 1934.

Mr. Ladd was 5'7" and when he played parts with tall leading ladies, he had to stand on an overturned box. He was also blond. I related to Alan because I was also 5'7" and blond. However, not being a movie star, I didn't have to stand on a box when kissing my tall girl friend.

One of my favorite Alan Ladd movies is: Shane! If you haven't seen it.. see it! It's great fun.

3. More on 1934..

In a Public Auction Notice from 2009.. as part of a list of household items being auctioned off:

"1934 bedroom suit with chair, stool, night stand and dresser used about 50 times"

I'll bet there is an interesting story there.

4. Don't forget hubby...

IKEA has announce a "Play Place for Men".. this is a location near the front of the store, where ladies can drop off their husbands or boyfriends, while they shop without distraction. The ladies are outfitted with a buzzer system, which will go off if they try to exit the store without their male companions.

5. The Great Satan!

Yesterday, Iran's (also short) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his expected United Nations rant against the United States and it's allies. Remember last year, he accused the U.S. of staging the 9/11 attacks to support Israel's survival in the Middle East.

I wonder if he mentioned Iran's latest wonderful accomplishment: the banning of squirt guns.

6. Dick Cheney's Book

I'm reading Dick Cheney's book In My Time. I'll be giving my opinions about the book in a future blog entry.. but for now, just let me cite a 1970's quote by California Congresman Don Edwards, as reported in The Nation magazine:

"Congress...must be vigilant to the perils of the subversive notion that any public official, the president or a policeman, possesses a kind of inherent power to set the Constitution aside whenever he thinks the public interest or "national security" warrants it. That notion is the essential postulate of tyranny."

7. Not Torture?

The Week magazine reported in 2008 that a Utah salesman sued his former employer for waterboarding him during a team-building exercise. The boss is alleged to have said to his salesmen: "You saw how hard C... fought for air. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales!"

8. No more fat mice...

Georgetown University researcher Zofia Zukowska reported back in 2007 that by injecting an NPY-blocking agent into the fat bellies of mice, the mice started to become skinny again... she said: "It just melts the fat!" Apparently the stuff called NPY* increases fat deposits.. so anything that blocks NPY would be a good thing.

I've tried to read some of the voluminous current Internet entries for Zofia, but I'm still not sure yet how far she has gone with her work on fat mice, and how it applies to humans. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just take our fat buns down to the Doctor's office, get our injections and not have to worry about diet anymore?

*(Internet sources say, kind of, that NPY or Neuropeptide Y, is a 36 amino acid peptide neurotransmitter found in the brain and the autonomic nervous system. It causes increased food intake and decreased physical activity, and it stores energy as fat.)

9. Factoid #1. Suicide

Over 300 people have jumped to death from the top of Notre Dame in Paris. I guess these would be very religious people, otherwise they would be jumping off of the much higher Eiffel Tower.

10. Factoid #2. Make nice nice

That marvelous radio show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me reports that sharks can be taught to cuddle!

11. Factoid #3. Baby Blues.

Blue Whale babies get a ton of very rich milk every day which helps them grow at a rate of 90 pounds a day. The 3 tons of krill that they eat each day also helps in that growth.

BTW: the tongue of a full-grown blue whale weighs the same as an African elephant!

12. GBS was right.

Just as speech purists deride the outrageous use of "like and "I mean" and "you know" .. another unwanted phrase has entered into everyday American English.

For years, when one said "Thank You!", the proper response was "You're Welcome!"

Now, you are just as likely to hear "No Problem!" What is this world coming to! Call the speech police! H.L. Mencken must be rolling over in his grave.

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September Madness

2011-09-14T16:00:00.000-04:00

Last week was very sad, as we relived the events of 9/11/2001. In spite of that horrible memory, life goes on. I wonder if the hi-jackers received their promised virgins.. if so, I hope that they experience continuous post-coital depression until the end of time.

What makes some "human beings" believe that good will come out of killing innocent persons? Could there actually be a Satan making them act that way? But everything I've ever read about Satan tells me that "Old Nick" is only concerned with amassing souls, not killing little babies. (Wait a minute! That's not a picture of Satan; it's a picture of a satyr! Do you remember that old magazine: the Satyr Dairy View?)

Of course, these hi-jackers were only amateurs when compared to famous mass-murderers like Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. Does Dante mention a spot in Hell for people like these?

Basta! Let's jump to other topics in the news.

01. The Bruins lose.

NPR reports that a bear broke into an automobile, somehow got it into reverse, and crashed into a tree. I'd like to read that insurance claim.

The Week reports that when a dog owner saw a bear trying to tear her dachshund into edible pieces, she got mad and punched the bear in the nose. The bear knew that he had met his match, dropped the dog, and ran for the hills.

02. Why is Fluffy crying?

You've heard of the Reader's Digest? Well, some cat food apparently contains something called ''Animal Digest". Years ago, that great magazine, Consumer Reports contacted a cat food company service rep who said that "Animal Digest" is just is a combination of treated pork and chicken livers in powdered form, regardless of what flavor the package wording might indicate. Check it out.. I'm going to start reading the ingredients listed on SuZee's food, because I want her to get all the fish and meat carnivores like her deserve.

I read somewhere that if your house cat was bigger than you are, she would sooner or later be hungry enough to eat you. Look at what happened in the Sigfried and Roy show.

Also, have you ever noticed little insect legs on your carpet in the morning? Apparently, cats like to eat crickets, but not their legs that have sharp barbs.

Speaking of crickets.. during the recent flooding rains, some crickets sneaked into our garage to avoid the water. For a few days, they kept up a symphony of sounds. I didn't bother them.. I couldn't find them anyway.. until the symphony stopped. Their bodies can be found now.. apparently, they died of starvation. Sad.

03. Lee sez:

"It never rains but what it stops."

04. Justice

A jailbird is suing the Guiness Book of Records for not listing him as the person who has initiated the most law suits. (over 4,000)

05. Ideas

I don't remember where I got these ideas from, but I think they are designed to make life easier for persons with disabilities.. or older folks.

a. Cut button holes in napkins. (a great idea for anybody who keeps losing their napkins)
b. Glue a knob onto a ruler (to make it easier to work with)
c. At a restaurant, ask the chef to cut up your food.
d. Put hooks on high cabinets.
e. Use bungee cords for belts.. or, cut down, for shoe laces.

06. Thought for the day

"Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness... and just be happy.

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

07. Ho Hum!

Why do we yawn? I had always heard of two theories:

a. We are simply tired and our bodies need more oxygen to be able to function. But why is it contagious?

b. It is a warning signal that some problem is near, and the warning must be passed on, which is why yawns are contagious.

Now there is a new theory that yawning keeps people alert by cooling their brains. In a test, people who held an ice pack to their foreheads when observing others yawn, did not get the urge to yawn.

Also, people who breathe exclusively through their nasal passages are supposedly immune to yawning contagion because blood vessels in the nasal cavity carry cooled blood to the brain.

08. Words to live by

I think I have mentioned that in my youth I attended Quaker meetings and Baptist services. In fact, at the age of 13, I was baptised at the First Baptist Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The Baptists were rather strict, as I have outlined earlier in one of my blogs. Someone once gave me what they called The Baptist Moral Code: "Don't drink, smoke, or chew; and don't go with girls who do."

I recall that as soon as the services were over at the First Baptist Church, the men could not get out of the building fast enough so they could light up their cigarettes. Go figure.

09. Politicians

Today, as I waited for my car to be serviced, I watched their big screen TV. They had it tuned to CNN and Governor Perry of Texas was giving a lively speech to the students at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Virginia. You remember the Governor.. he seems to me to be trying to be a carbon copy of George W. Bush. Sounds like him. Also, he says some things that are questionable, at least to me. For instance, he says that Social Security is just a big old Ponzi scheme.

You know.. I would be willing to bet that when the Gov turns 62, he will file for his Social Security benefits just like everyone else. And.. it will still be in existence.. and the big earners will still be getting a free ride on the taxes on most of their big salaries.

Do you really think that people believe what the current crop of politicians say? I believe it would be a sad commentary on the intelligence of our population, if that were true.

10. Caught

I don't know where I read it, but it was reported that 27 well-known unfaithful politicians since President Clinton have said: "I'm sorry!"

11. All the news...

I haven't heard about what happened to Maryland Senator Ben Cardin's newspaper revitalization legislation. This law would have given non-profit status to newspapers.. to save them financially. Newspapers are having trouble surviving, and this would supposedly help them. I must admit, I am having trouble understanding the rationale for this. Newspapers in France are subsidised by the Government, but I can't see that ever happening in the U.S.

12. Dick Cheney

I am reading In My Time by Dick Cheney. It's an easy read, and not too controversial just yet. I am at the part where he is telling how he gained more and more influence in the White House over the years. It seems to me.. and this is, of course, my opinion.. that he and his boss at one time, Don Rumsfeld, were "Loose Canons".. lots of power and not much concern with how it would affect John Doe.. I could be wrong. I like one part where a big shot (read the book and find out who) had an Air Force plane fly a long distance to deliver some magazines that he wanted to read. Mr. Cheney, to his credit, thought that this was a bit much.

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The crazy world continues to spin

2011-08-20T13:47:00.006-04:00

Here are a few of the things that take up a small number of the billions of neurons in my skinny brain:

01.   Wow! That's smart!

Scientific American magazine for July 2011 includes the following article, that I highly recommend:
"The Physics of Intelligence..Evolution has packed 100 billion neurons into our three-pound brain. CAN WE GET ANY SMARTER?"

The author, Douglas Fox doesn't think we can get too much smarter.. but perhaps technology and culture may someday enable us to form a collective human entity (like bees)  that would be smarter than the sum of its parts. Could this be where we are heading with Facebook and other social media? Wikipedia? Google?

What about other creatures? It was interesting to hear this week that an elephant has now figured out how to use a tool to gain access to food normally out of his reach. This puts Jumbo in the same brainpower category as dolphins, otters,  and chimpanzees.

And.. of course.. whales. Think about a humpback.. it works with its siblings to round up schools of herring, mackrel, and krill for supper.. all the while singing popular whale songs as it glides effortlessly through its environment.. enjoying all of the activity going on in its enormous brain.

02. Hay ride?

Well, the Iowa Straw Poll voting is over and results are in. It is interesting to me that each voter has to have a $30 ticket, that is probably handed to a supporter by one of their candidate's staff.. so, the candidate whose staff is not agressive enough to get many tickets.. logically gets less of the vote.. at least it seems that way to me. Check it all out on Wikipedia. An explanation of the vote and a tabulation of the results by year is shown. Very interesting.

03. Papa Smurf

Last Thursday, I picked up a book at the Westminster Senior Activity Center, called Winters' Tale. No, it wasn't written by Shakespeare. It was a book of short stories by Jonathan Winters.   I have liked Mr. Winters for many years and his brand of crazy humor, so I couldn't wait to sit down quietly and read his book. Unfortunately, even though he has been making people laugh for 60 years (He's almost 85 years old), this book was the most unfunny book I have ever read. I got almost all the way through before I threw the book in the recycling bin.

I see by his website ( http://www.jonathanwinters.com/ ) that some signed copies of that book are selling for hundreds of dollars. I wonder why.

However, don't let what I say influence you. If you like Mr. Winters' work, check out the book and form your own opinion. And, by all means, listen to the NPR interview of him on his website. Perhaps this will help you remember when Johnny Carson presented him with a stick and Jonathan did "stick schtick" with it for ten minutes. I certainly have enjoyed all of Mr. Winters' "schtick" for many years, and I wish him many more years of humorous activity.

04. Ow! That smarts!

It was mentioned today on NPR that Leon Trotsky was killed by someone thrusting an ice pick through his eye. Yuk! I know how that feels. Every few weeks I have to have eyeball injections for macular degeneration in my right eye. But it is doing me good. When I started, I saw a round black ball through that eye. Now, there is no black ball at all, but just a picture of reality that is kind of wavy. Someday, I may even be able to read with that eye again.  Using both eyes together, my vision is extremely good.

Last month, at the preliminary examination (before the shot), the examiner said: "Even though your right eye ain't too good, your left eye is smokin'!" Hey, man, that's good to hear.

05. Save on savon

It was also mentioned on NPR today that "air baths" are just as good as soaking in a soap filled tub.. probably better, because you don't get all that "unsightly soap film" all over your body. My cousin Charlie enlightened me a few years ago that perspiration per se does not smell. Tell that to the deodorant sellers.

06.   Dog-napping

I read where the thefts of dogs has increased in the past year. The most common theft occurs in home invasions.. burglaries.. besides the giant TV, the dog is snatched as well.

The second most common theft is from the car where the dog is sitting while the owner is in a store like WalMart. Having the window cracked is probably a help to the thief.

The next most common theft occurs when the owner ties the dog up outside while they shop inside.

In all of these instances.. why didn't the dogs bite or scare away the thief? Was the dog napping?

Just be aware that these thefts are taking place, and make sure you have a micro chip implanted in Fido.

07. Dog-pooping

The Week magazine mentions that a Taiwanese city has offered dog owners who clean up after their pets, a ticket to a lottery drawing for every bag of dog poop turned in. The prize can go as high as $2,100.

08. Anti-Social Media?

The Week magazine also mentions that a crime fugitive taunted police on his Facebook page. "Catch me if you can. I'm in Brooklyn." Apparently, he didn't do his privacy setting properly, so police shortly popped in on him at his apartment, where he was still interacting with Facebook.

09. Cell phones

I have mentioned this before. One of the most glamorous movie stars of all time was named Hedy Lamarr. However, most people do not know that she and a co-inventor developed "frequency hopping" which is now used in cell phone technology. Check out this website.. it even has a copy of the invention documents.

http://www.inventions.org/culture/female/lamarr.html

10. Pope Joan

A new religious book has been published by Random House: Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich.   I haven't read the book yet, but I am intrigued by a review in The Week magazine. May I quote: "Legend has it that there was even a female pontiff. Pope Joan, the story goes, briefly became the leader of the Catholic church during the ninth century by disguising herself. She was purportedly discovered when she gave birth while attempting to mount a horse."

11. Satan triumphs?

The West Memphis 3 were just released from prison. Prosecutors decided not to retry them for the 1993 slaying of three cub scouts. The slaying has been reported as part of a horrible Satanic ritual.
Many felt that they were wrongly convicted. They were allowed to plead "guilty" in exchange for release; thereby, saving the prosecutor from retrying the case and losing because of the lack of original evidence.   We will probably now be able to revisit the documentary about the case on TV.

12. Stinkbugs attack!

So far, we have lost our Zuchini and Squash plants to stinkbugs. Now they are eyeing up our tomato plants. Unfortuately, there is no way to get rid of them in a reliable way. We can't use insecticides. We are squirting them with soapy (savon) water. They don't like that, but just fly away in disgust. There are traps that use stinkbug sex hormone... but, as with Japanese Beetle lures, that is exactly what they do.. lure other stinkbugs to join them. At least we have lots of tomatoes this year and can share them, albeit reluctantly, with the bugs. I'm glad they don't like flowers.

The Craziness Continues

2011-08-06T12:11:00.002-04:00

Herman Melville said it:

"Heaven have mercy on us all -- Presbyterians and Pagans alike -- for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending."
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Well, the Congressional bodies have finally agreed (kind of) on a way out of the debt ceiling mess. My hat is off to the President for keeping an ace in his pocket.. the ability to discontinue the Bush-area tax breaks for the rich when it comes up for renewal. This should be a great bargaining chip when this madness begins again shortly.

S+P (you know, the rating agency that some feel contributed to the depression we have been experiencing) has downgraded the US' credit rating, in spite of the "agreement" that Congress hammered out. They want to stick to their decision, even though the Feds have pointed out a massive money error in the calculations used for that decision.

Anyway.. I hope that voters will look back on the madness that just went on in Congress.. and take that into consideration when they enter their polling booths next time. In my personal opinion, the current crop of "freshmen" should be dumped as well as a lot of "old-timers." This "my way or the highway" attitude is killing our Country.

Sorry to ramble on. Let me get to some other crazy stuff:

01. Pensions

I belong to the National Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE), an Organization of persons who have given years of their life in service to the United States of America and an easy target for cost-cutting politicians. One of the groups that have fought NARFE over the years because they felt that Government pensions, with cost-of-living adjustments was bankrupting the Country was called PEPS.   I can't find anything on the Internet about PEPS since 1996. It probably was subsumed into some other like-minded organization.

A co-founder of PEPS was Hastings Keith, a former Republican Congressman from Massachusetts, who said that he was concerned about the "overly generous" Federal pensions.   He certainly had a point when it came to his own pensions.. he received a pension for his service in Congress, a pension for his military service as a Colonel, regular Social Security benefits, as well as "Widower's" benefits. (If I recall correctly, to get "Widower's" benefits under Social Security, one would have to have been dependant on one's wife for several years).

Mr. Keith described himself as a "true double-dipper".. perhaps he was a quattro-dipper?

Even though I disagree with the concept of PEPS, I must confess that I liked Mr. Keith for many years and may even have voted for him when I lived in Massachusetts.

02. "You sexy thing!"

A Pennsylvania State University entomologist was exposed to disparlure, a gypsy moth sex pheromone in 1977. For many years later, he still attracted male gypsy moths when outdoors during gypsy moth mating season.

When I had a house with an acre of greenery, one year, I was bothered with Japanese beetles. I bought a trap that consisted of a container with some kind of beetle pheromone .. guaranteed to get those pesky beetles bottled up. That worked.. however, I should have realized that the pheromone would also call out to beetles in other people's yards. "Hey, sweetie.. come on over to the Vaughan's!" Yes, I was inundated with Japanese beetles.. the bottles would fill up several times a day and the smell remains in my nostrils even today. Let that be a lesson to you suburbanites.

03. Quote from a friend:

"When I was a child, my father would sometimes let me sit on his lap and let me drive. I enjoyed that. However, some of the people on the bus didn't like it."

04. Altruist of the Year Award

The Week magazine reports that a school janitor sold his car, dug into his savings and spent $6,000 on 20 high-grade helmets for the football team where he worked!

05. California Mistral?

A couple of years ago, while crowned Miss California USA, a young lady said that semi-nude pictures of her appearing on the Internet were obviously the result of "Photoshopping", while others were taken "on a windy day" that blew her top open without her knowledge.

06. A tip for you bookish types.

Yesterday, I spent a looong time in a "Dollar Store". Everything there was one dollar or less. (When you live on a fixed pension, you have to look for bargains these days.)   One section was devoted to "remainders".. books that have not sold in the regular book stores. (Stand by for Borders!)

Hidden in the pile of books was one I had been debating about buying through Amazon, but didn't want to pay what they were asking. Now I had it for the great price of $1! (This even beats Odd Lots books at $3 apiece.)

All in all, I bought ten $1 books. All of them on subjects that perhaps would not appeal to the average reader, but are extremely attractive to odd-balls like me.

Question: What happens if you drop your Kindle and break it? My printed book can be picked up and used right away.. or put on a shelf, visible, to remind me that it is available at any time.

07. Snore police!

The Week magazine reports that the Crowne Plaza Hotel chain has started testing "snore absorbtion rooms." The rooms have soundproof walls and the hotel will hire "snore patrols" to knock on the doors of those who are snoring thunderously. (Good idea to solve some of the jobs problem.)

08. Happy Birthday Police.

The Week magazine also reports that Warner Brothers still collects about $2 million a year from public performances of "Happy Birthday". They bought the rights to this song in 1988. Whenever it is sung, a royalty payment is supposed to go to WB. Are you guilty of violating these rights?

A few years ago, our local AARP Chapter got a letter from somewhere (probably WB) saying that because we were a non-profit group, we could get a cut rate on royalties whenever we sang the Birthday song at one of our meetings. We ignored the letter and are probably now considered "scoff-laws."

Have you ever wondered why the wait-staff at certain restaurants sing their own versions of birthday greetings at your table? The restaurant doesn't want to be turned in by the Happy Birthday police!

09. Saint Elmo?

I came upon this scrap of newsprint yesterday, but I can't find anything on the Internet to clarify it for me.

"This furry-red "Sesame Street" character (that giggles when you goose its tummy) was "instrumental" in securing the release of 225 hostages held in Peru."

I remember that the leftist group, MRTA, released 225 of 356 hostages held at a Japanese embassy as a "Christmas goodwill gesture." But what part did Elmo play?

(I did find an article from 1996, telling how a father drove an earth mover over an Elmo doll, as a cheering crowd watched. I imagine they were sick and tired of hearing that damn giggle.)

Have you heard about St. Elmo's fire? Check it out in Moby Dick (book and/or movie).

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/st-elmo-fire.htm

10. Library of Congress

Well, at least one part of Congress is functioning as it should. The great library in DC. At one time, the library could boast over 108 million items on 532 miles of bookshelves. 16 million books. 2 million recordings. 12 million photographs. 4 million maps. 46 million manuscripts.

About 460 languages plus Braille are represented in the collections.

Have some fun. Type your name into the search field of the library's online catalog:

http://catalog.loc.gov/

11. Paper recycling in Afghanistan?

I read where our forces are meeting with representatives of the Taliban. I wonder what would happen if the Taliban got another foothold in the governance of that country. Check out this Reuter's report from the 1990's:

Taliban leaders in Afghanistan have banned paper bags in their effort to impose pure Islamic law on the country. "We respect paper, whether it is written on or not," said the Taliban administration's information minister. "We have announced that people should not use paper for bags or put paper on the garbage heap." Shopkeepers in Kabul report that the decree has resulted in a run on toilet paper, as some Afghans are unsure how far the ban will be extended.

12. Fountain of Youth in Maryland

I live in a part of Maryland that is a very healthful area. In fact, check out this news blurb in a local paper: "A 25-year old girl was flown to the Shock Trauma Center Friday evening, following an accident."
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I should have paid that damn "Happy Birthday" royalty!

Yes, it's a wonderful world

2011-07-17T13:00:00.000-04:00

While lots of folks are dividing their time wondering whether Fox News will survive the Murdoch "scandal" and getting angry over the Casey Anthony jury verdict, amazing things are going on, some of which I want to mention here.

01. Dawn over Vesta.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has entered orbit around the massive asteroid Vesta! Think about that for a while.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14160135

02. A Light has gone out!

Our good friend, Jack Kolb passed away recently, and a memorial service was held for him at Carroll Lutheran Village in Westminster, Maryland. I was priviledged to say a few words and read a touching letter from one of his daughters.

Jack had many talents.. he got his pilot's license when he turned 16; he taught roller skating; he had a photographic business; he obtained two masters degrees; he served in the Department of Defence for many years, in liaison with the U.S. Army and NSA; he visited Greenland and the North Pole on twenty or so occasions; he was listed in several Who's Who's of noted Americans; he was an aide to Vice President Dan Quail; he was in contact with all of the American Nobel Laureates; he was a frequent contributor to Reader's Digest; he was a physics professor at American University; etc, etc.

Jack was also a sponsor of a young lady who wants to be a pediatric nurse, as Jack's late wife, Rita, was. Many of the great musicians and poets had "patrons" a few years ago. Jack enjoyed being such a patron and ensuring that a gifted person would be able to study without financial care.

Jack was in his eighties and I thought that he would be around for at least another fifteen years. I will miss his brilliant mind. I have been involved with Mensa and Intertel for over forty years, and have known some very smart folks.. however, none of them could match the breadth and depth of Jack's knowledge, in my opinion.

Rest In Peace, My Friend!

03. Ah Choo!

Somebody sent me some "facts" that are supposed to be true..

One was: when a person sneezes, their heart stops and brain functions cease.

If this is true.. there must be a lot of sneezing going on in Congress these days!

04. Innie? Outie?

Another "fact" was: Alfred Hitchcock did not have a belly button.

How could that be.. how did Lord Alfred get born.. I knew he was weird, but I didn't know it had something to do with parthenogenesis. Is he a reincarnation of Adam? (Wait a minute... Michaelangelo showed Adam with a belly button... huh?)

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_of_Adam

I was taught in Sunday School that if one looked at a group of naked women, you would be able to tell which one was Eve by noting that she would be the only one without a belly button. (I always wondered why anyone would be interested in belly buttons in the company of naked women.)

Hey, Brother Joe.. help me out on this.

05. Dear Anonymous:

This blog gets a lot of comments from someone named Anonymous.   Sometimes the comment is in Chinese or Japanese .. sometimes in Korean .. sometimes in French or German .. but most often in English. I have tried to translate the Asian comments, but the results were usually unintelligible.. reading as though they were like "Headlines" on the Jay Leno show. I can read the French, German and English ones, which are often advertisements, requests for help with computer issues, or requests for information on medical problems such as body odor, or similar.

However, sometimes the comments relate to the blog entry and are very interesting, and I do try to respond with a related comment. I would, however, ask that if you want an appropriate response, that you include your email address in your comment.

06. Important Health Fact from an Almanac:

With proper care, the human body will last a lifetime.

07. Now they tell me!

The Week magazine recently reported that a Purdue University study shows that artificial sweeteners could be making you fat.

The researchers found that "rats fed a steady diet of sugar substitutes were hungrier and gained more weight than rats that ate surgary food... It appears that artificial sweeteners confuse the body, which is programmed to associate swet tastes with calories consumed, and when we repeatedly eat something sweet that provides little or no calories, we break that connection, and our confused bodies keep seeking more food."

"... the rats that frequently ate sugar substitutes, also didn't have the metabolic increase that usually follows eating a meal, so they burned fewer calories..." according to researcher Susan Swithers.

08. Zukes

Our Earthbox gardens are overtaking our deck this Summer. So far, we have enjoyed several red tomatoes, a number of yellow squashes, some green beans, three cucumbers, and four giant zucchinis.
The other day, I found my Aunt Mary's Zucchini Bread recipe and I can't wait to make and taste some. However, before I can make it, I have to buy some things that we don't keep in our house:

sugar (see #07 above)
baking soda
baking powder

Whenever I would visit my Aunt Mary, she would always have zucchini bread for me to eat, Summer or Winter.. she started keeping some in her freezer, as soon as refridgerators began to have freezers connected to them.

09. The Iceman Cometh

What on earth did we do before we had freezers? I remember, as a kid, stealing ice shavings from the iceman as he went into houses to deliver giant blocks of ice for the icebox. I remember my grandmother paying the iceman 35 cents for enough ice to fill our icebox, a big wooden cabinet, whose top opened up to reveal a metal container for the ice.

Once, on a tour of Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, the tour guide showed us Mr. Jefferson's ice house.   In the Winter, his slaves would go out on the frozen ponds and cut out huge blocks of ice, which they would bring back to his estate and place in the ice house, which was dug out of the ground. Then, they would cover the ice with straw and hay and hope that this would keep the ice more or less frozen for a long time.. perhaps even until the Summer months.

The tour guide reminded us of what a great equalizer ice was. Everybody had ice.. the rich had it in the Summer, the poor had it in the Winter.

10. Christmas in July

In New Windsor, Maryland.. about 25 miles northwest of Baltimore, and next to our Carroll Lutheran Village home in Westminster, Maryland.. is an organization called SERRV. This organization acts as a middleman for native people around the world who want to sell items that they produce. The organization is church-affiliated and therefore is a non-profit organization.

SERRV will be having a Christmas in July sale until July 23, 2011. This year they will be featuring Christmas ornaments, tree skirts, nativity scenes, Divine dark chocolate, baskets, specialty coffee, and much more. All items are at 60% of their usual price.

If you are looking for something to do, and you want to see some interesting and different merchandise, drop by. And, if you purchase anything, you will be helping ordinary native craftsmen from around the world.

11. Baby, Baby!

The Week magazine reports that a lady in Texas (of course.. everything in Texas is gigantic).. gave birth to a 2 foot long, 16 pound baby! Ow! .. maybe not quite OW!.. because it was delivered by Caesarean Section.  ("Hey, doc, knock me out and wake me up when the hairdresser shows up.")

My late wife's French Canadian relatives talked about the 14 pound babies that were common back in Canada years ago.  Pregnant women were encouraged to eat 4 or more hefty meals each day during their nine months. Of course, many women died in childbirth back in those days. Pre-natal care? What was that?

12. Handwriting!?

Indiana third-graders may no longer be taught cursive, because it is thought that they would never use it.. being so computer literate and such.. with texting much more useful... Come on.. what kind of nonsense is this? Are we supposed to allow a generation of people to grow up not knowing how to read a letter written by their grandmother? (I would not be able to enjoy my Aunt Mary's zucchini recipe if I was not able to decipher her handwriting.)

When I was stationed in Germany, I taught myself basic German, including Gothic text and handwriting.. which at some point in time was not being taught to German school children. Thus, I ended up in the strange situation where I, as an American, could read letters written in the "old" handwriting, while some of my German-born and raised acquaintances could not.   Will that be the case for cursive in the US?

Should schools stop teaching math because we now rely mainly on calculators and computers?

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Life goes on.

2011-06-18T11:04:00.004-04:00

As I have mentioned already on Facebook, our good friend for many years, Jack Kolb, passed away this week. Even though we knew he had been ailing, this came as a great shock. We will be honoring him in several ways, in the near future.

Jack would have wanted us to continue with the things we normally do, so I'll do some blog entries once again. (Incidentally, I am beginning to get lots of comments from readers in the United States. I still continue to get comments from Asia on a regular basis.)

Welcome to the world, Luka Nebraska!

01. The Rapture.

We're still waiting.

02. Priorities.

Children selling lemonade near the current Golf Extravaganza were about to be fined for operating an unlicensed business. When someone pointed out that local homeowners in the same area were renting their driveways to contestants for up to $500, the "lemonade stand prosecutors" relented and let the children continue, but to save face, they insisted that the kids move their stand a bit farther from the action.   (The kids plan to donate their proceeds to charity.)

03. Church and State?

A lady arranged to conduct a class at a local senior center with the title: "The Study of Man." It was advertised, I'm told, to be a history class. It was actually a Bible study class and was shut down for a short time, because it was felt that a religious session was inappropriate at a Government-run facility. However, upon a closer reading of rules and regulations, it was deemed to be ok for the group to continue.   To my surprise, I have not seen any letters to the local newspaper about this issue.

04. Church and School?

A member of the North Carolina Church of Body Modification has won a legal battle to wear a nose stud to a local High School. The school folks decided to give in to the demands to avoid wasting money on a legal fight.

What is this desire to mutilate oneself? Members of my family also engage in this practise, and I really can't complain, because they are all nice persons. If they do this to make themselves look different, I would say that in so doing, they now look like lots and lots of other people.

I'm guilty as well, since I have a tatoo. But my excuse was that I was drunk when I had it put on.

I started shaving when I was eleven years old, and as a Freshman in High School, I grew sideburns. Very few other kids were able to grow them. A couple of years later, as the other kids began to shave, more and more sideburns showed up. So, I shaved mine off. You can see that I kept trying to be different.

Also, for a while, members of one of my gangs wore suit jackets on Sundays.. without any shirts underneath. Sometimes we would knot ties around our necks as well. Older folks would shake their heads and predict dire futures for us all.

05. Police are still combing the area...

A thief in Texas stole thousands of dollars worth of human hair from a wiggery.   He concentrated on Remy hair, which comes from the heads of Indian women. Other thieves, in Michigan and California, are also targeting hair salons and hair accessory stores..

http://www.inhairco.com/

06. Ya gotta eat your veggies, baby...

An article in the Social Security Alumni Association newsletter cites the need for fiber in the American diet. They mention a UCLA study that found that normal-weight people eat about 33% more diettary fiber and 43% more complex carbohydrates than overweight people. Americans need 25 to 30 grams of fiber per day to remain healthy. Keep count of your fiber intake for a couple of days and see if you are eating enough. Fiber is mainly found in vegetables, fruit, whole grains and nuts.

07. Church and Military?

During a recent trip to the Gettysburg battlefield, we were directed to a large statue of a female figure with a long noisemaking trumpet pointed from the Confederate lines toward the Union lines. The guide mentioned that this was supposed to represent Saint Barbara, who is the "saint of artillery"..   the statue was placed there by the State of Louisiana. My brother Joe probably knows about it, since he is a Civil War buff.

Check it out! Saint Barbara is blowing a vuvuzela at the Union troops!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40650647@N03/4669557091/

08. Happy Talk..

North Korea conducted a happiness study and concluded that North Korea was the second happiest country in the world. China was first. Cuba was third. The United States was dead last.

09. Happy Tom:

Bragging time. We have already eaten 4 red cherry tomatoes grown on our back deck, and we have twenty or so green ones about to turn red.   We get all-day sun on the deck and have lots of pots and four "earthboxes" set up. I'm more of a successful farmer here on a small deck than I was on my acre and a half "farmstead".   However, I am glad to see the results my daughter, Diane, is having on that piece of land. Her flowers, especially, are spectacular.   She posts pictures of her flowers on facebook. Now, I will try to post a picture of one of my tomatoes here.

"Rapture and Weiner and Such, Oh My!"

2011-06-10T11:50:00.002-04:00

Well, we are still here... or maybe this is the "END TIME"... just look at all the tornados and earthquakes and tsumanis and heat waves.. and Congressmen and Candidates making fools of themselves... but people in the public eye have always done stupid things.. by anybody's standards.

This morning, I woke up in a mild depression when I encountered the following things:

o All of our lights and fans were on for some mysterious reason.
o Our cat had thrown up in 7 places on our main rug and once on the kitchen floor.
o The radio reported that the stock market has continued it's downward trend and I'll probably be poor again soon, if not already.
o The US. credit rating is heading to "junk" and Congress is playing political games about it.

Besides that, I'm very worried about the health of two close relatives and a dear friend who is in the hospital.

However.. there are developments that are making me lose my depressive state:

o It's kind of interesting to follow Congressman Weiner and his strange adventures.
o Newt Gingrich's Presidential campaign staff has quit on him.
o Sarah Palin is learning facts about the early days of our Nation.

And.. Elaine and I are anxiously awaiting a new addition to her family.   That will be a joyous occasion.

Here are other items interesting me this morning:

01. Losing Weight

I have now lost 24 pounds since last December. My plan is to lose 1/2 pound each week and reach my target weight exactly one year from today (June 2012). Hey.. I took a long time to put it on; so, if I take a long time taking it off.. maybe I'll keep it off.

I believe that the only diet that works is to reduce calories and increase exercise. I was pointed to a marvelous free online program called http://www.loseit.com/   .. by signing up for that program, one sets a target weight goal, and the program calculates a daily caloric limit to try for. Each evening, one can enter all of the food that one has eaten during the day as well as any exercise taken. The program provides the calorie counts for foods eaten and exercise taken. At first, it may be amazing to see the amount of calories that one is unwittingly putting into one's body. For most people, facing up to calorie reality is a great motivating force.

The program allows for "friends" to swap motivational information. My son is now using the program, as well as a granddaughter and some acquaintances.   Try it.. you may be surprised at how well it works.

02. Green Thumb?

Last week I finally was able to fill my 4 Earthboxes with soil, dolomite, fertilizer, water and vegetable plants. I have planted squash, tomatoes, bush beans and cucumbers. The plants have doubled in size in one week. Hopefully, the stink bugs will not find their way to my deck.

I also planted specialty tomatoes given me by my daughter, Diane, a master gardener if there ever was one. Each of these is in a pot by itself and we already have picked 4 red cherry tomatoes to eat. Much more tasty than the cardboard Super Market ones. There are 5 large green ones ready to turn red in this hot weather.   I still have 4 hanging baskets of flowers to put up.

Last year, we grew some specialty lettuce and thought that they had died down with the frost. But this year it is back again and as fast as we pick it, more grows. I thought it was a cool weather plant.. but it seems to like the 100 degree days we are having.

03. Global warming?

It's not even Summer yet and the temperature has been hitting in the high 90's for quite a few days. Yesterday, it was 100 in some of the places that I visited. Thank goodness for air conditioning. We keep the house at 76 degrees and thereby are able to function almost normally.   I wonder if this weather is the cause of our cat's throwing up. Or maybe she is just bulemic and trying to keep her kittenish figure?

HOLD IT! FAMILY NEWS!

Elaine's daughter just gave birth to a baby boy. So, I have to sign off right now and switch to family activity.
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Eat, Drink and be Merry

2011-05-10T23:37:00.002-04:00

Now is the time to have some fun, because radio minister, Harold Camping, has announced that May 21, 2011 will definitely be the day of judgement and the Rapture! Having missed the date before, he is absolutely sure that he is right this time. It will be interesting to see if he is right.. and that billions of the world's population who have not accepted his version of belief will be assigned to the burning fires of hell.

I saw a television shot of a couple who have quit their jobs, taken their kids out of day care, and given away all of their belongings, to get ready for the Rapture. I'm told that there are thousands more just like them.

Meanwhile, life goes on.. however short it may be for us infidels.

01. Ecological Travel Discount

The Week magazine reports that a brothel in Germany is offering discounts to customers who arrive by bicycle. (Yes, I know.. that could be fodder for a lot of off-color jokes.)

02. Mispunctuation.

The entertaining and enlightening book Eats, Shoots and Leaves mentions a classic example of mispunctuation the comparison of two sentences:

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

A woman: without her, man is nothing.

Quite a difference, right?

03. Mispunctuation

Another example from Eats, Shoots and Leaves:

Leonora walked on her head, a little higher than usual.

Leonora walked on, her head a little higher than usual.

04. The Stock Market in Retrospect

From an article in 2007:

"The Dow is near 14,000 today, a fivefold increase from 20 years ago..(this) number seems high when you look backward. But we believe it's likely that number will seem quite low to investors in the future."

Well, today, four years later, after an almost unbelievable "hit" the Dow was "up" to 12,700. At least it is going back up again.

05. Fertile ancestors

From a New Yorker article: "In 1800, the firtility rate among American women was about seven, life expectancy was under forty, and the median age of the population was sixteen."

"Today (2011) the fertility rate is barely two, the average American can expect to live to nearly eighty, and the median age of the population is thirty-six and rising."

My Grandparents had 15 children; one of my great-grandfathers had eleven children; his father had eleven children; his brothers each had eleven or more children. Of course, they lived in the country and needed more farmhands.

06. Mayflower Sports

Plymouth Colony's William Brewster (one of my ancestors) named one of his sons Wrestling. I always wondered why. In the New Yorker article quoted above, it was mentioned that Wrestling Brewster's name was short for "wrestling with God." I guess I'll have to search the Bible for that reference.

http://www.unionchurch.com/archive/100399.html

07. Study Result.. 1

A Dutch study found that people with full bladders make better decisions. (Better than what?)

08. Study Result.. 2

An English study found that chimps laugh at things that are not funny. (Just like humans who watch sitcoms?)

09. Whew!

Teunis Tenbrook (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) was ejected from his college because he had stinky feet. He was a philosophy student and his fellow students and teachers said they could not concentrate on philosophical issues because of the stench. Teunis filed suit and a judge ruled that he could return to school and the professors and other students would just have to hold their noses and bear the smell.

10. Stick-em-up!

Arizona may have already have designated the Colt single-action Army revolver as the "State gun."
Utah may have already designated the Browning M1911, as it's "State gun."

Which State is about to name the "pop gun" as their "State gun?"

11. EMAIL Sickness

In The Week Contest for 3/18/11, Morton Ginsberg suggested a new malady:

CEFS (Compulsive E-MAIL Forwarding Syndrome)

"In which people feel compelled to forward notes, jokes, or articles of miniscule importance to everyone on their mailing list."

12. Nikita

Fifty years ago, Kruschev visited the United States and said: "We will bury you!" Well, you see what happened.

While here, Mr. Kruschev was most impressed with Railroad Station lockers.. saying there was no such thing in Russia.

Mr. Kruschev became very upset when he wasn't allowed to visit Disneyland. The Sun Paper in Baltimore had the headline: K BLOWS TOP!

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Rainy Season Thoughts

2011-04-23T12:33:00.001-04:00

Well, the wind stopped a bit.. but it still is sputtering rain. Our yellow flowers with pink insides are blooming in spite of the lousy weather. As is usual, regardless of the weather, I have a compulsion to share news, jokes and "Crankshaft" type observations with anyone nearby. So, if you have anything else to do with your time, avoid this blog entry. Remember.. you've been warned.

01. Car Talk

At the opening of today's Car Talk show, the Massachusetts guys posed some scientific type questions. I don't think they would mind if I mention them here. (By the way, if you have not listened to that NPR show, you are missing a great experience.)

Q. What do you call a really small bottle of mouthwash?
A. Microscope.

Q. What is the mathematical ratio used in constructing an igloo?
A. Eskimo pie.

Q. What is the shortest distance between 2 jokes.
A. A straight line.

Q. What is the term for the time between the stepping on a banana peel and falling on the ground?
A. A bananasecond.

02. More names.

Every so often, I mention people's names that I have collected over the years. I apologize to those who own these names, but I think they are humorous. If you know these people, please don't tell them, because I don't want to get a punch in the nose.

ALCOHOL:
Zula Z. Boozer
Martin I. Sober

FAMOUS NAMES:
Willie Huckleberry Finn
Mona Lisa Guess

FEATHERED FRIENDS:
Birdie Berryhill
Cola Chick
Russell Feathers
Canary Sires

FOOD:
Mr. Sizzleberger

JEWELS:
Opal Galightly
Fairest Ruby Klepfer

MEDICAL CONDITIONS:
Round Barnes
Bland Butts
Ether Boyant Horn
A. Reck
Rena Sweat
Sinus Wilzy

MEN AND WOMEN:
Mrs. Husband
William Sex Pattern

MISCELLANEOUS:
Other Bradshaw
Blueford Corsey
Mr. Richendollar

03. What happened?

Last December, police in Ransom, Illinois, (population: 409) were looking for a woman who walked away from an automobile crash that left her husband dead. The only clues were some footprints in the snow and a slipper. Dressed in a red party dress and one slipper, she should not have been that difficult to find. Perhaps her bright dress in the white snow caught the attention of the pilot of an alien craft and she has been abducted and held for ransom. I haven't seen any more news about this incident on the Internet. I hope she was found in time for Christmas.

04. What happened?

In August of 2009, it was reported that Michael Jackson's artificial nose had disappeared from his body in the morgue. I'm not sure if that report was true or not. Michael is supposed to have had a bottle full of fake noses. I read where his real nose had collapsed after excessive plastic surgeries. If someone had stolen the nose, it probably will show up years hence as a "holy relic."

05. Survival equipment.

Transportation officials in one of China's provinces have outfitted buses with large orange bricks attached with long strings. These are supposed to be used by passengers in emergency situations, so they can break a window and escape.

06. Negligence case.

A Chicago woman got drunk and fell through the window of a hair salon. She later sued the owner because he should have had safety glass installed.. lots of drunks apparently walk by his shop, and he should have been prepared for one of them to fall through.   I wonder if she won her suit.

07. No global warming?

The huge glacier on Mount Margherita in Uganda has cracked and is now blocking access by mountain climbers to the summit. The glacier has reportedly ruptured because of excessive melting. It is one of the very few places near the equator that has ice; the glacier has shrunk by 75% in the recent past and may completely disappear by 2030.

08. Call my brother: ISHMAEL. Call me: AHAB.*

Composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer have created the opera: Moby-Dick. It is a three hour creation that I am anxious to see and hear. There are lots of reviews out on the Internet.. I personally don't want to read any because I feel they might affect my own considerations when I finally see the opera.

*(If you are a member of the National Puzzlers League, you will recognise me and my brother by these noms.)

09. We know where you are!

For a long time, I have wondered why my DROID always knows exactly where I am. Now the word is out. I wonder if Bin Laden has an IPHONE or a DROID? I guess not.. so, let's send him one.

10. Baltimore event.

The Wait Wait Don't Tell Me show was taped and broadcast this week at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore's own John Waters, was the celebrity guest. (John's book: Role Models comes out this week in paperback.)

http://www.npr.org/programs/wait-wait-dont-tell-me/

11.  Shazam!

I just realized that there is a big problem now that phone booths have all but disappeared. Where will Clark Kent change into his Superman suit? Evildoers are rejoicing everywhere. (When I was a small kid and owned Superman comic book number one.. I actually wondered what would happen if Clark couldn't find a phone booth that was unoccupied.) I don't think that Captain Marvel needed a phone booth. Neither did the Green Hornet or Batman.

12. Are you handy?

A Neurologist from Newton, Massachusetts says that right-handed people are mostly boring and left-handed people are mostly interesting.  I'm ambidextrous.. what about me? (Don't answer that!)

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Post-April-Fool-Day

2011-04-03T10:12:00.006-04:00

I need to take a break from the frustrating fun of preparing my 2010 Income Tax returns. At the moment, I haven't decided whether I need to get a tax date extension or not. By doing it last year, I had to pay a penalty.. not much, but irritating. Why does the tax law have to be so complex? I don't expect the present crop of politicians to revise it this year.

01. Taxpayers?

Who are the U.S. taxpayers anyway? I just read a letter to the Carroll County Times by David Iacono from Westminster, Maryland, who says that the Bank of America made $4.4 billion without paying any tax. He also says that they received a $45 billion taxpayer-funded bailout in 2008.

He also says that GE made $14.2 billion last year without paying any taxes, and that two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no taxes from 1998 to 2005.

I don't know if this information is accurate or not, but I'll bet it is. I'm too lazy to check.

For some time now, I have thought that now that some billionaires are promising to donate some of their money to good causes.. why don't they give all but one billion to the U.S. Treasury and get us out of our deficit situation? Or at least, partially out.

02. Be Nice!

Someone just sent me a poem written by "Anonymous". The first part reads:

Share a smile or a friendly greeting

To a stranger on the street

It will bring a ray of sunshine

To some person you may meet.

This is a great suggestion and I would recommend it to everybody, except, perhaps, those who live in the dense center of some mega-city, like Boston or New York, where you probably will be slugged, sweared at, or arrested if you do so. But in smaller communities, it should work ok. I've been trying to practice this for many years.. and I've only been rewarded with an obscene gesture a few times.

03. Opera for the Masses

Harper's Magazine mentions that New York's City Opera grew out of President Roosevelt's WPA Music Project, during the Great Depression. The Music Project created orchestras to help unemployed musicians have a place to work. Resulting concerts cost 25 cents to attend.

New York's Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was motivated to create what was called the People's Opera at the time. Even though it must compete with the Met, it has maintained popularity.

Incidentally, according to the Harper's article, LaGuardia's father came from Italy as part of an opera troupe.

04. More phobia.

Camophobia - Fear of marriage.

Cymnophobia - Fear of being naked.

Hierophobia - Fear of religious objects.

Ergasiophobia - Fear of work.

Ereuthophobia - Fear of blushing.

..and the most fearsome of all...

Pogonophobia - Fear of beards.

05. Phrases?

The following "phrases" seem to be in wide usage, but they are ones that make members of the Toastmasters organization very angry when they are heard.

"I was like..."

"I heart..."

"You know..."

"You can't tell me nothing."

"Ah."

"Um."

Forty years ago, the phrase "I mean, you know..." was heard constantly for a couple of years. . Now it is gone. Let's hope that the phrase "I was like..." has a short life expectancy as well.

Some exclamatory phrases that have "bit the dust" (so to speak):

"Twenty-one skiddoo!"

"Oh, you kid!"

"Egad!."

"Great Godfrey Daniels!"

06. Solved!

Many have wondered why phychiatrists have their patients lie on couches. I recently read that one of Sigmund Freud's colleagues, Dr. Willi Hofer said that Freud would put patients on a couch because he was shy and didn't want to look at them.

07. Phantom vibration syndrome.

A new problem for people who use cell phones a lot. It feels like you have a call, even when you don't.. so you are constantly grabbing at your pants pockets.

08. Cow talk.

In France, cows say, "Moi!"

In Poland, cows say, "Oom!"

In USA, cows say, "Moo!"

09. Death sentence.

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: Sitting is very unhealthful and doctors suggest doing it as little as possible. It was suggested that a medication called Standagra be developed for the problem. (Just try not to stand for more than four hours at a time.)

10. Riddle:

My brother, Joe, probably gave me this one.

What is greater than God

It's more evil than the Devil,

The rich man doesn't have it

The poor man does,

If you eat it, you'll die.

11. A Motel from Hell.

A few years ago, my family spent a night at a Virginia motel, with the following results:

Bathroom fixtures were filthy.

Floor was dirty.

Bed sheets were dirty.

Faucet leaked heavily and steadily.

Toilet had to be flushed five times before it cleaned up and stopped coming close to overflowing.

Air conditioner was covered with dust, and only one knob worked, and not very well, so it was either very cold or very hot all night long. Window couldn't be opened.

The only trash can was full.

"No Pets," but our next door neighbor had a barking dog.

People outside of the window were talking to midnight.

People were playing some form of football outside of room from 3:30 AM to 5:00 AM.

Had to use a rolled up newspaper to kill 5 flies during the night and 2 in the morning.

I couldn't catch the fly on the mirror and the one on the ceiling.

When I opened the door in the morning, 50 more flies flew in.

Both the room clerk and the only maid were too busy to help us, and the next motel was too far away to reach the same day.

In addition, when I woke up in the morning, my right upper leg was a mass of ugly red bite marks.

I wonder if my kids remember that motel?

12. Speaking of Flies:

I read somewhere that Chinese officials once gave a mandate to the Chinese people to get rid of flies. Each city and county Communist cell was given a quota of flies to kill, and that was said to be quite successful. How could they have been successful at dump sites, the smell of which would tend to cause flies to spontaneously appear?

The Week magazine mentions that Beijing has installed 100 deodorant cannons at the city's massive Asuwei dumpsite. The cannons will periodically spray gallons of fragrance over the piles of stinky, putrifying, fly-loving garbage.

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Fifty Years Ago

2011-03-20T12:00:00.005-04:00

Let's get away from the hectic and crazy news of 2011 and see what it was like 50 years ago, in 1961.

01. Brother Sebastian.

Chon Day was a famous cartoonist who was active around the 1960's. The copy above is of one of his cartoons, which I labeled, The Skater Monk. Another cartoon that I liked from 1961 showed two monks in their order's wine cellar, using a candle to look at a massive wine barrel with a spigot. They are holding large mugs.. but are chagrined to see a sign posted over the barrel: "No Underground Testing." (Of course, during 1961, underground nuclear testing was a big issue.)

02. Booze:

Dr. Dean K. Brooks of Salem, Oregon said (1961) that drinking is not sinful and no Christian should look down on another for doing it. However, he also said that there are 5 good reasons for total abstinence:

1. To help others, lest they be harmed by our drinking.

2. To insure efficiency.

3. To forgo a luxury.

4. For health reasons.

5. To provide a devotional discipline.

Dr. Brooks, superintendent of the Oregon State Hospital at Salem was a member of the Episcopal Church Joint Commission on Society and Alcohol.

He was fighting an uphill battle for abstinence, because in 1961, people "went out drinking".. (watch the TV Mad Men series and see what it was like back then.. that show is very accurate, in my opinion).. I'm sure that in 2011, some people still "go out drinking", especially young people.

(Last night, Elaine and I were at a restaurant, and a young (25-ish) lady had a 22-ounce draft beer in front of her.. later she downed another one. I hope she wasn't driving.... but, listen to me being judgemental.)

Back in 1961, I got my first pay check from the Government and guess what the first thing I did with it was? Yes.. I bought a case of beer.. everything else had to wait. I can't remember now how long the beer lasted.. probably not long.

Now, under Doctors' orders, I have my two glasses of wine or beer each day, to keep me from having heart problems.. but, hey, I'm an old dude and need that help.

03. Sign of the Times?

The town planners of Bath, England, decided in 1961 to order a Baptist minister to take down the six-foot high sign on the roof of his church. The sign read: "Prepare To Meet Thy God." The Bath officials said that it was advertising.

04. Newspaper feature:

The newspaper of Sing Sing Penitentiary began to add a society column in 1961.

05. 1961 Headline:

"5.5 MILLION AUTO FADIOS PRODUCED"

I guess reception wasn't so good back then.

06. Music.

Tokyo garbage men began to broadcast the sound of bells playing "Rock-a-Bye Baby" as they moved down the street, picking up trash.

07. Classic book review.

Since a lot has been written about Catcher in the Rye recently, I thought you might like to read this book review from 1961, which was written by R. Barbour of Billerica, Mass., to Time magazine, I think.

" Yes indeed, let our children study the great American classic, The Catcher in the Rye and learn, before their formative days are done, that all is vomity, and that man's spirit floats no higher down the byways of life's sewers than the rest of the garbage he so brilliantly produces."

08. Falsies for Men?

The men's fashion magazine Tailor and Cutter suggested that men might want to consider the reinstitution of padding for men's legs that was popular in the 1700's. These "falsies" were strapped on skinny legs at the calf to make them look muscular.

09. Burglary Alibi.

An Ohio burglary suspect came up with the best alibi heard for a long time. He explained that at the time of the burglary, he was buried in a coffin for 2 1/2 days at an Indiana fairground as part of a stunt.

10. Nursery Rhyme.

The three little Pigg children went to court (near the market) in Oklahoma, Michigan, and had their names changed to Bond. The parent Piggs decided to keep their names.

11. Occupation Names.

Mrs. Ann H. Romanick, of Ellicott City, Maryland, found these names:

Father Wise .. a Jesuit professor.

Mrs. Jewell .. an officer of a jewelry association.

Mr. Goldseker .. a real estate dealer.

Dr. Glasser .. an optometrist.

Dr. Mules .. a veterinarian

Dr. Brain .. an educator.

Mr. Flowers .. a florist.

Miss Viol .. a music teacher.

12. Macho Man?

From a 1961 article in the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

No Frenchman should ever agree to:

Prepare breakfast.

Empty the kitchen garbage can.

Wear an apron.

Collect groceries on his way home.

Push a baby carriage.

Defrost the refrigerator.

Sew on buttons.

Answer the doorbell.

Clean the bath., or tick off the daily help. (whatever that means)

However, since this is the second half of the Twentieth Century, he may, without loss of dignity:

Clean his own shoes.

Carve the roast.

Cut the bread.

Open canned goods.

Uncork the wine.

Order the wine.

Wash his own socks.

Do the dishes.....perhaps now and again.. but only on Sundays, never, never weekdays.

(How about the American man in 1961? And how about now 50 years later? Think about how times have changed... at least for most of American men, I would hope.)

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Where Are They Now?

2011-03-07T12:33:00.004-05:00

I thought that I might try something different with my blog entry this time.

Almost 50 years ago, the first annual (and only) picture of the members of Niemand Associates was taken at Patapsco Park in suburban Baltimore, Maryland. All of the persons pictured were working at the Woodlawn Headquarters of the Social Security Administration (except for one very young person.) See how many of them you can identify... and where are they now?

March Meditations

2011-03-05T09:44:00.006-05:00

Apologia:

Some folks called "Anonymous" have asked if they could refer to this blog in their writings. Since they are "Anonymous", I can't contact them directly, so if they are reading this, I would say: "Be my guest." However, please be careful, because some of what I write comes from my own ideas which may not be the same as those of people in the mainstream of U.S. society. Also, some of what I write may be based on news items I have read about or heard about in "off-beat" sources. I attempt to mention my sources, when I can remember them.. just be careful because sometimes I write about things that happened some time ago.

While I am at it, I may as well also mention that most of the cartoons that accompany these blogs were drawn by me, and while some are original, most were probably copied many years ago from books, magazines and newspapers. Usually, I can't remember the source -- let's face it.. I'm an old dude. However, when I do remember the source cartoonists, I will mention them.

01. Common decency... and LOVE:

As I can see from lots and lots of Facebook entries, the Supreme Court decision in the Westboro Baptist Church case is extremely unpopular. On a recent CSPAN radio call-in show, almost all of the people who called in praised the decision because it reinforces our free-speech rights. However, almost all of those same people thought that the Westboro picketers had moved far beyond the limits of decency.

While I agree that we need to preserve our free-speech rights, I feel that we should have some established limits to "hate-speech", as they do in several European countries who went through the Hitler years and know how such speech can be used to inflame the masses.

I find it hard to understand the members of the Westboro Baptist Church.. I was a member of a Baptist Church for several years and I found the teachings of the church to be of a loving nature. In fact, when I was in my early teens and was getting into trouble, members of the Baptist Church helped me understand that what I was doing was hurting other people, especially people that I loved and who loved me.

Several years ago, I had the experience of attending a Baptist church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania a couple of times. After the services, the preacher would stand in the front of the church and offer hugs to anyone who wanted one. The line to get those loving hugs was very very long. I believe that everybody in the Congregation went up to get one. A few years later, I met the preacher in another setting and he immediately recognised me and gave me one of his famous hugs. This, of course, is what life is really all about... loving one another.. not hating one another.

The most famous people-lover/people-hugger of all time is of course, Leo Buscaglia (search my earlier blog entries if you don't know about Leo.)

02. Moebius Strip:

When I was a kid, my grandfather showed me the great attributes of the Moebius strip. This is, of course, the twisted figure that has no beginning and end, and which can be manipulated in miraculous ways. Cyril Kornbluth was intrigued by the Moebius strip and coined the following wonderful poem:

The Unfortunate Topologist

A burleycue dancer, a pip

Named Virginia, could peel in a zip;

But she read science fiction

And died of constriction

Attempting a Moebius strip.

http://mathssquad.questacon.edu.au/mobius_strip.html

03. Words to Live By

In 1983, I published the fourth Friday the 13th edition of Words To Live By.. being vital quotations collected over the years by some computer geeks that worked with me at the Social Security Administration. I came upon them again the other day and thought that some of the observations made then, are valid still today.

"On flextime, you're not late if you come in early." - Joe Johnson
"If you can't handle the job, get out of the fire." - Henry Drumheller
"Learn to be sincere, even if you have to fake it." - Bernie Rubin
"No program should ever Abend in production." - Morrison Clark
"If your computer run is going fine, you've obviously left out something important." - Lloyd Hess

Also contained in the document are some recipes, one of which was by Calvin W. Schwabe:

Grilled Rat, Bordeaux Style

Catch some alcoholic rats that inhabit wine cellars. Skin and eviscerate them, brush them with a thick sauce of olive oil and crushed shallots. Grill over a fire of broken wine barrels.

04. Frank W. Lewis

In my February 6, 2011 blog entry, I mentioned Frank W. Lewis, who created the cryptic puzzle for the NATION magazine for years. I mentioned a little of his accomplishments and why I admired him. What I didn't know at the time (and should have) was that he was a fellow member of the American Cryptogram Association (ACA). We have NOM's in this group (kind of like aliases).. mine is AHAB. Frank's was R. MASTERTON, an anagram of Montserrat, where he lived until the island's volcanic eruptions got the better of him.

HONEYBEE (another ACA member) says in The Cryptogram for March-April 2011: "...(he) would look at a Monome-Dinome ciphertext and see the 'ump-ti-ump-ti-ump-ti' that the dinomes make. Every time I solve a Monome-Dinome that memory still makes me smile."

A family member also mentions something that I did not know about Frank: "... his work in cracking the Japanese shipping code enabled the navy to pinpoint the exact location of any Maru sailing in the vastness of the Pacific, which contributed to the Allied victory and materially shortened the war..."

Vale, R. MASTERTON!

05. Kidspy

The Week magazine reports that school administrators in a Philadelphia suburb used webcams to spy on students at home. The webcams were on school-issued laptops. One of the students was shown a picture taken by one of the cameras that a school official says proved that he was taking drugs. The student says he was eating candy in his room. Was the use of these webcams a violation of the Fourth Amendment and privacy laws? A class action suit filed by angry parents may decide this.

06. Brain power?

Somebody named Reymann says that people should deviate from their normal routines from time to time, to challenge their brains. Two ways:

1. Brush your teeth with the opposite hand.
2. Get dressed in the morning with your eyes closed.

07. Mencken:

The German Society of Baltimore, Maryland can count Henry L. Mencken as their most famous member. (I am also a member, but not quite so famous...) I quote: "... Mencken is America's most quoted literary figure. Mark Twain comes in second... the Mencken Room at the Pratt Library (in Baltimore) accumulates 1,000 pages annually in the (Mencken) scrapbook...in his lifetime Mencken wrote 40 books, produced 15,000,000 words."

08. Stupid Criminal Award Winner:

From the Intertel newsletter: As a female shopper exited a convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the police car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied: "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

09. Langston Hughes

I mis-quoted a poem by Mr. Hughes in an earlier blog entry. I believe this is the correct version.

Impasse

I could tell you,
If I wanted to,
What makes me what I am.

But I don't really want to -
And you don't give a damn.

10. Study result:

A three year study at Oxford University discovered that ducks like water.

11. Longest word still?

In 1983, the longest word in the Oxford English dictionary was:

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION

Which means: The act of estimating something to be worthless.

(Check me out on that, Brother Joe)

12. The Stone Reader

I'm told a documentary with this title is now a cult favorite. It's about the search for the author of The Stones of Summer, a book published to great reviews in 1972, sold just a few copies, and then disappeared, along with the author, Dow Mossman. Mossman was found in Iowa.. an ex welder and unemployed newspaper bundler. Now Dow is back writing again and his book has supposedly been republished. I'll have to get a copy of the documentary from Netflix and try to track down the book... maybe.

http://www.lostbooksclub.org/sos_main.php

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Exciting Stuff

2011-02-28T22:25:00.008-05:00

Let me mention some really exciting stuff that has been going on.

01. Cell phones. A store in Mayaysia is selling paper copies of cell phones, so that the dead can make calls from Heaven to their loved ones without having to pay for an online connection. . I guess you just drop them into the coffins and then wait for a celestial connection to be made.

02. Cell phones. Toronto police respond to over 300 calls each day by people who accidently sit on their phones. These are called "Butt calls" and account for 10% of 911 calls.

03. Parents' dorms: Chinese universities are setting up separate dormitories for overprotective parents. As you know, China's one child policy means that the single child must be protected at all costs.

04. History: In my opinion, Texas textbooks do not necessarily follow the true story of History. As they stress America as a "Christian" land, ruled by "Christian" principles., they have dumped Deists like Thomas Jefferson and others from these books. However, one hopes that when students reach college level training, they can think and read for themselves and see if what they were taught was true.

05. Pancakes? The International House of Pancakes sued the International House of Prayer for the use of IHOP. It would not have been a problem, except that the prayer group started to serve food.

06. Sarah. Jim Stentzel of Key West, Florida, says that followers of Sarah Palin should be called "Palindromes". Draw your own conclusions about this.. especially considering that palindromes are the same backward from forward.

07. Birth questions continue: The Washington Spectator reports that Arizona Republican Senator Judy Burges filed a bill in an attempt to keep President Obama off the 2012 ballot. It would require an original long-form birth certificate that would include, the date and place of birth, the name of the hospital and the attending physician, and signatures of all of the witnesses in attendence. Unbelievably, forty legislators have signed on with the bill!

08. Gun control? Since 1968, over one million Americans have died of gunshots, in crimes, accidents and suicides.

09. Hubba! Hubba! A British survey indicates that American men remain attractive to women up to the age of 55. In the past, women no longer watched men when they reached the age of 45.

10. Donny: The Nation magazine printed the following poem by Calvin Trillin about Donald Rumsfeld's recent memoir:

The book is fat, the message slim:
Mistakes were made, but not by him.

(This has made me want to read it.)

11. La loi c'est la loi. As soon as the policeman could get into the hospital, he handed the mother of a 13-year-old girl a ticket for jaywalking. He couldn't give it to the girl herself, because she was in a coma after being hit by a car.

12. Snoring: Jenny Chapman, British subject, was found by a sleep clinic to be the loudest snorer on record... some of her snores reached to 111.6 decibels.. louder that the noise from a diesel truck. One commiserates with Mr. Chapman.

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The Big Wind (s)

2011-02-20T10:37:00.006-05:00

Last year this time, Maryland got over 40 inches of snow. We marked the drift height with magic marker on the door to our deck and its still there.. over 6 feet high. This year, we were blessed with near hurricane winds at the same time. Could it be Groundhog Revenge.. for being disturbed during hibernation?

Yesterday, I spent an hour on my stomach, during 60 MPH winds, trying with all kinds of tools to rescue our storm door from flying off into the ether. I'm glad that the temperature was above freezing. I spoke with Massachusetts relatives who were having the same blast of air, but with wind chills of way below zero.

I spoke with one of my aunts who was celebrating her 91st birthday. She has decided to start counting backwards each year. She is in great shape, so she should be around for a long time.. I hope so. I don't want to hear about any more of my relatives passing on. Since December 8th, I have lost four cousins.. and last week I lost my brother-in-law, Moe. Moe has been like a younger brother to me for over 50 years. During his life, Moe was a pilot, a fisherman, a bear hunter, the owner of an oil business, the owner of an oil-burner repair company, a chef, etc. Besides that, he looked like Sean Connery. He was definitely not your everyday commonplace person.

Once, I asked Moe how he hunted bear. He said that he built a "blind" in a tall pine tree in Maine. Then, he put bait around the bottom of the tree every so often, to get bears used to coming to the tree. Next, early on a cold Maine morning, he would climb up into the blind with his rifle and wait for a bear to come by looking for food. Moe then had one shot to kill the bear. If he missed, the bear would quickly climb up to the blind and have Moe for food.

Now for the news:

01. Iraq. According to the Scripps Howard News Service, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi gave "secret information" about Saddam Hussein's biological weapons to the West.. such information is supposed to have been considered in our decision to attack Iraq. Rafid's codename of "Curveball"
was appropriate because he now says that he lied. I wonder how his confession sounds to the survivors of 100,000 dead Iraqis? You just cannot trust anybody these days, can you.

02. Mute? I'm told that this is the fifth year in a row when Justice Clarence Thomas has not said even one word of interrogation during Supreme Court pleadings. One hopes that he will recuse himself from the upcoming Health Care deliberations because of what I have read about his wife's supposed connections with insurance interests.

03. Phobia. I just learned that the word anthophobia is defined as the fear of roses. So, for all guys who forgot to get flowers for Valentines Day, they can tell their girl friends that they just didn't want them to get scared.

04. Another phobia: I also learned that the word pogonophobia is defined as the fear of beards. So, this must have been why I refused to take the Santa Claus job this Winter. I did not want to scare little kids.

I must admit that I am afraid to shave off my beard because there may be lots of wrinkles under there. A lady told me the other day that I certainly did not have many wrinkles for a man of my age.. am I to assume that she has x-ray vision when it comes to beards? If she saw me in my bathing suit, she might change her mind.

05. Swimmers. Speaking of bathing suits.. I wonder if I can make a citizen's arrest of a couple of guys who show up to swim in a pool where we exercise each week. These two guys are in their 50's or 60's and have massive beer bellies that completely hide their "speedo's". A ghastly sight! At least, I wear boxer swim trunks pulled up high over my belly so I don't shock the sensibilities of my fellow swimmers. (There oughta be a law!)

06. Freebie: The following classified ad was published in the Carroll County (Maryland) Times some time ago: Free: "Rooster: 6 month old Bantam, black with beautiful coloring throughout. Must be for pet only. Great for a horse farm. His name is Chase, because that is what is does."

07. Absolution App: Great news. I've heard that there is an IPHONE app that can be used to store your sins until the end of the week, when they can be downloaded to a priest of your choice. This should be a great time-saver.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12391129

When I first began courting my late wife, we frequented a Polish Catholic church for mass. The mass at her French-Canadian neighborhood church sometimes lasted for two hours on a Sunday morning. However, the Polish church mass was on Saturday night and lasted for just a half hour. Another great time saver.. we thought. Her parents didn't seem to care for the idea, but except for the announcements being in Polish instead of French, the Latin was the same.

08. Pew. Speaking of church, over the years, we became rather remiss in church attendance, in fact, once we lived very close to a Catholic church, but had never been inside. However, upon the birth of our first daughter, my wife's parents took a trip to Maryland to see the baby. Since they would be in Maryland on Sunday, they wanted to go to mass.

Not wanting to tell them the secret of our non-attendance, I lied to them and said that we went to the nearby church for mass. Since my wife had to stay with the baby, I escorted her parents to the church, which was filled with people. I did not see any available pews to sit in. However, there was a flight of stairs off to the side, so I guided my in-laws up the steps. My father-in-law, said: "Are you sure we are supposed to go up here?" I suavely lied: "Of course, we sit up there every Sunday."

As we left the steps, a loud voiced robed man informed us that nobody except the choir was allowed to be in the "choir loft." I was CAUGHT! However, taking into consideration that I wasn't really a catholic, they forgave me, but I'm sure they felt that a hypocritical liar like me would never make it to that "paradise" called Heaven.

09. Paradise: And with apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, I herewith quote some lyrics by a musical group called Rush...

"To seek the sacred river Alph
To walk the caves of ice
To break my fast on honey dew
And drink the milk of Paradise."

10. Found: Another classified ad in the newspaper: "Found: Cat/Kitten, black female, medium hair, very friendly. Arrived at the landfill on the back of a trash truck."

11. Telly belly: I don't know if I read this or saw it on TV. Somebody has developed a mini speaker device that one can swallow and then play through the stomach.. at least for a little while. I wonder if the developer got the idea from the news item of a lady dropping her cell phone into the mouth of a crocodile?

12. Slightly naughty joke: A young couple made love in a cemetery, on a grave slab in the ground. The next day, the girl had a back ache and went to a doctor who examined her and asked: "How old are you?" The girl said: "Why do you ask?" The doctor replied: "Because on you butt it says: 'died in 1933'."

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February Musings

2011-02-06T20:27:00.003-05:00

Before I get into my usual trivial matters, I want to talk about a giant in the world of Puzzledom:

Frank W. Lewis ..puzzler, cryptographer, musician, historian, etc., "a true Renaissance man" as the Nation magazine says. Frank died November 18, 2010, at the age of 98.. after providing that magazine with his special puzzles for 62 years!

http://seclists.org/isn/2010/Dec/14

Almost every morning of my life since the 1970's when I found his puzzles in the Nation, I have spent at least some of my waking up time on one or another of his puzzles.

Frank discovered British cryptic crosswords in England during World War II, and began to construct his own version, mainly with American idioms and literary references enclosed in various puzzle wordplay, like the pun, the rebus, the anagram, charades, etc.

Crossword dictionaries do not help solve his puzzles.. one must rely on one's knowledge of culture, literature, grammar, and sometimes other languages, such as Latin, French and German. (However, an advanced college degree is not needed to do these puzzles. A knowledge of the types of wordplay does help.)

Once you get over the shock of encountering what look like the uncomprehensible melding of seemingly unrelated words, and relax, ... you find the puzzles fun and mind bending.

The Nation is conducting a search for a replacement for Frank. Meanwhile, they are republishing some of his puzzles from the 1970's.

Until a few years ago, I found British cryptic crossword puzzles unsolvable. That still remains so usually for those published by the Times of London. However, I am able to do the ones published by the Manchester Guardian. (I'm sure this is a reflection of the class distinction still in existance in the U.K. and tells you where I fit into this scheme.) Unbelievably to me, the New York Post carries the Times cryptic each issue. I personally find it strange that such a paper would have readers who would enjoy taxing their "minds" .. as I said, that is only my personal opinion.

Now.. to the mundane.

Lots of stuff going on in Egypt.. you can see it and read about it... Also.. the Super Bowl is on tonight.. and you can see it and read about it too.. so.. let me write about other stuff that you may or may not have seen or read about.

01. States' stuff

Maine accepted the Whoopie Pie as it's State dessert. There even is a song about Whoopie Pies.. but I will spare you that.

http://www.wickedwhoopies.com/

Wisconsin accepted the lactococcus lactis as the official State microbe. It's the only State to have one. (The bacterium is used in the making of cheddar and Monterrey Jack cheese.)

02. Pot throw:

Apparently, inventive Mexicans have begun to catapult bags of marijuana over the border and into the U.S. I'm surprised that nobody had thought of that before.

03. Euphemism:

Gina Bryant says that a famous story could be updated for the current epoch to:

Crime and Time Out.

04. Humor:

Dave Barry defines a sense of humor as "a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason."

I'm looking for persons to speak on humor at our next meeting of the Carroll County Chapter of the Maryland Senior Citizen Hall of Fame. One of the Hall of Fame functions is to get senior citizens to get more involved in humorous things. Studies have shown that seniors who laugh a lot, live longer.

05. The devil you say..

A not too reputable report says that a people in China are sprouting horns on their heads. One grandmother 101 years old, named Zhang Ruifang and a man named Huang Yuanfan, 84 years old.. each have 4 inch long horns. So perhaps everybody gets horns later in life, but do not know it because they die off before it occurs. (Hey, maybe that statue of Moses is right after all.)

06. February 1st:

Some of you have noted that my birthday is February 1st.. one day before Groundhog Day.. lots of famous people besides me were born on that day.. DeAnn Johnson (Computer Analyst: SSA), Dan Hinsche (Computer Programmer: SSA), Harry Ballantyne (Chief SSA Actuary), Dr. Shaw's nurse, Clark Gable and Langston Hughes.

Let's see if I can get Langston Hughes' marvelous poem right:

"I could tell you, if I wanted to,
What makes me like I am,
But I don't really want to,
And you don't give a damn!"

http://www.redhotjazz.com/hughes.html

07. Odorific:

Malawi has banned farting.

http://afrik-news.com/article18831.html

08. Search engines:

BING has been caught using GOOGLE.

09. New food guidelines:

"Don't eat so much!"

10. Bugs!

Bed bugs and stink bugs have made big inroads in Carroll County Maryland, according to the papers. It's the big news in our County. Stink bugs are resistant to poison sprays and are about to destroy all of our farmers' crops.

I have solutions: For stink bugs.. hire 10-year old boys to catch the bugs and pay them a penny a piece.. if the kids are any thing like my cohorts, they will get them all caught in no time flat.

I read that "officials" met in D.C. last week for the Second National Bed Bug Summit! One specialist at the local University of Maryland Extension service reported that he has had 8 calls about bed bugs in the last week, compared to his usual 2 per month in the past. Oh Oh! They have finally made their way to our County, bringing along their cousins, Stink Bugs.

Many years ago, I treated my family to a stay at a famous hotel/motel chain. It cost a bundle of money and yet I wrote down a dozen problems that we had.. one of which was, when I woke up in the morning, my legs were covered with bites and welts. Bed bugs? I didn't think about that possibility at the time.. I considered fleas instead. Anyway, I complained about that and the eleven other problems, but nobody seemed to care. That chain is still big today, especially in the Caribean.

11. Male and Female:

I read where a British security official had his wife placed on the "No Entry" list while she was in her Pakistan homeland.

12. More Winter?

I heard on NPR that on February 2nd, Punxatawny Phil saw his shadow and predicted more weeks of Wintery weather. How can that be? I read in a newspaper that Phil died last year and was being stuffed. Who can you believe?

http://sunniebunniezz.com/holiday/groundhogdaypunx.htm

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More on LOVE

2011-01-21T12:09:00.007-05:00

In my last blog entry, I mentioned that I had found a tape of some of Leo Buscaglia's lectures. (I had spelled his name wrong as Buscalia.. sorry) Since Leo was concerned so strongly with LOVE, I thought that I might write some more on the subject. Especially now, when all of the stores are beginning to display Valentine's Day gear.

Just as the word "HON" is now connected with the Hamden area of Baltimore, the word "LOVE!" has been long associated with Felice Leo Buscaglia.. in fact, when he wrote his book LOVE!, his publisher found that there was no other book before that time that had that title.

http://www.buscaglia.com/about.htm

Leo said that all people need three things:

Love

Attention

Respect

He asked: "Why is it so hard to say 'I love you?'"

During the time when Leo was giving his famous lectures, my family followed them and my wife and I taught our kids to say those words whenever they meant them. Luckily, they meant them a lot when we spoke to the members of our family.. "Te amo! a la familia!" as they said in the wonderful movie: Moonstruck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtvJexR4iVg

However, even though I thought I was half-Italian at the time, we said our love words in English. Today, I'm so happy to say, my kids still say: "I love you, Dad!" or "I love you, Pop!" to me when we talk... and my grandkids (and their friends and families) say: "I love you, Prepop!" to me whenever we communicate.

Leo also suggested doing these things each and every day:

1. Do or say something nice to someone else.

Small example: The other day I happened to be in a high-rise continuing care facility, where the people did not look as happy as I would have expected, living at friendly Carroll Lutheran Village as I do.

A very old looking man was hobbling down the hall on his cane, bent over, with his head down. I noticed that he had a T-shirt on with the words: "Are You My Type?" on the front. When he passed, I read the words on the back: "Become a Red Cross Blood Donor." This made me smile and I told the guy that I really liked his shirt. He immediately perked up and smiled too.

We talked a bit and little by little it seemed that he was getting taller and in better spirits. All this guy needed to feel better was a little attention and respect. I felt better too, talking to him.

If you think something is nice about a person.. say it to them! Make their day! And your's too!

2. Do something nice for yourself. (you deserve it!)

3. Do something you've been putting off.

4. Challenge your brain. (use it or lose it)

5. Before you go to sleep, think about something you are thankful for. (at least, you didn't find your name in the obituary columns today!)

Leo also said:

If you have a negative thought.. crush it!

If you have a positive thought.. express it!

If you want to read more about the subject of LOVE! check out Leo's books or a nice little book entitled A Thousand Paths to Love by David Baird; all very inexpensive on Amazon.

End of lecture, and thanks for listening. Just remember what Bette Midler once said:

"L'amour, l'amour.. really, that's all there is!"

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Words!

2011-01-17T21:39:00.004-05:00

This is the 40th anniversary of my membership in the National Puzzlers League and also in the American Cryptogram Association. Over these four decades, I have increased my knowledge of many types of puzzles and ciphers. However, I still am nowhere being the expert I expected to be when I joined these organizations in 1971. I still have a lot to learn.

Although I am still a word novice, let me discuss a few "word" subjects with you.

01. New Words: AARP has listed words that were new in 2010. Here are a few:

bargainous = costing less than expected

bromance = close platonic male friendship

lovacore = one who primarily eats locally grown food

matchy-matchy = excessively color coordinated

webisode = episode or short film made for viewing online

staycation = vacation spent at home

turducken = roast of a chicken inside a duck, inside a turkey

own = to utterly defeat or humiliate

cheeseball = lacking taste or style

chillax = to calm down and relax

02. Metaphors.. from Raymond Chandler, via Harpers.

As cute as a washtub.

As much sex appeal as a turtle.

As clean as an angel's neck.

A face like a collapsed lung.

A mouth like a wilted lettuce.

A nose like a straphanger's elbow.

03: Words in common:

See if you can figure out what these words (from Jack Kolb) have in common:

banana
dresser
grammar
potato
revive
uneven
assess

Give up? Check the answer at the end below.

04. Euphemisms.. from George Carlin.

toilet paper.. becomes bathroom tissue
loafers.. become slip-ons
toupees.. become hair appliances or hair replacement systems
false teeth.. become dental appliances
dashboards.. become instrument panels
dump.. becomes landfill
buckteeth.. becomes overbite
hair spray.. becomes holding mist
constipation.. becomes occasional irregularity
diarrhea.. becomes lower gastric distress

George Carlin showed us hundreds of euphemisms for everyday things.. he was a master with the English language.

05. Puzzledom: In the world of puzzles, I am called AHAB and my brother Joe is called ISHMAEL. (Check out Moby Dick by Herman Melville.) Ishmael is a much better puzzler than Ahab. I have puzzles from him that I haven't solved in over twenty years. I'm still trying.

06. Life lesson words: When my son, Chris, was young, I gave him a phrase to think about. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." I wanted him to realize that if he studied hard and /learned more than the "other guys" he would definitely succeed in life.

I was pleasantly surprized a year later when my son presented me with a desk plaque that read:
"Joe Vaughan, One-Eyed King" I cherished this plaque for many years at the Social Security Administration, and it was a constant source of discussion by visitors to my office.

George Carlin has a euphemism for this phrase also: "In the kingdom of the visually impaired, the partially-sighted person is fully empowered." Doesn't have the same zing, does it?

07. The Rev and his words: In my last blog, I mentioned that I would like to be able to see programs from the 1980's involving Reverend Ike... I said that I did not know how to find such shows. Well, I should have guessed, my brother, Joe told me how to get to see them. I can't wait.

08. LOVE words! I started to review a vhs tape from 1986 that had the title Buscalia on the label. It is a tape of Channel 67 (Maryland Public Television) showing Felice Leo Buscalia interacting with an audience of admirers at Towson State University (Maryland). Mr. Buscalia was the acknowledged expert on the subject of love.. he loved to be hugged and hugged anybody he could get his hands on.

He had lots of stories to illustrate LOVE. In one of them, he talked about an old philosopher he once met. He asked the philosopher about the difference between heaven and hell. The old man gave the following definitions:

In hell, there are beautiful tables filled with wonderful food and delicious desserts. But.. all of the people are starving to death. Why? Because they are required to use 4-foot long forks to eat with.. and the forks are too long to allow them to get food to their mouths.

But.. In heaven, there are also beautiful tables filled with wonderful food and delicious desserts. And.. all of the people are happy and healthy. Why? Because although they also are required to use 4-foot long forks to eat with... they know that they can eat very well by feeding each other. (A loving response.)

09. Huh? Harper's magazine makes this statement in its Findings listing: "Particle physicists were optimistic about the possiblity of creating something out of nothing, because nothing is actually something.""

10. Last Words: The Week Magazine reports that Ohio has imposed a time limit on the last words of condemned prisoners. This came about because one murderer apologized and recited the "Hail Mary" for 17 minutes before his execution.

11. Canadian Words: Canadians are squeemish about killing Canada geese because of their name. Most people think that the Canadian Goose (actually "cackling goose") is their national bird. Each of these birds deposits two pounds of poop per day. Think about that.

Hundreds of Canadian geese have taken up residence at the Social Security Administration in Woodlawn, Maryland and it is difficult to walk on the sidwalks without stepping in goose poop. Every day, water is sprayed on the sidewalks to clear them off; however, as far as I can see, it isn't that effective.

12. Words of Wisdom about Education: (as reported by Jon Winokur in Funny Times)

"If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they never would have found time to conquer the world." Heinrich Heine

"I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education." Wilson Mizner

"I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal eduction." Tallulah Bankhead

"It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know." Henry David Thoreau

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Answer to #03 above: For all of the words shown, take the first letter, put it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards. It will be the same word that you started with!
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It's cold and snowy outside!

2011-01-12T10:40:00.007-05:00

Hi.. meet SuZee, our Siamese cat. SuZee was found in a barn, the survivor of an attack by some kind of "varmint". She spent the weeks that she should have been with her mama, living with two dogs who let her have some food if there was any left in their bowls after they had theirs, and who apparently terrorized her. But, she was able to hold her own in some scuffles and even pushed one of the dogs out of his bed and slept there in relative safety.

We were given SuZee as a free gift and she has been a joy to us for almost two years. I especially like that she hasn't realized the range of noises that she could create. Now, she has only a small "meow" and a few other soft sounds. Elaine has tried to teach her the "AARP AARP" song that she used to sing with her former Siamese cat named BufFee. No success yet.. thank heavens!

SuZee does make a unique sound whenever she see a bird perched on the topmost part of the neighbors' roof. I wonder if this is an in-bred mannerism developed over the years in Siam when these cats were guardians of the temples. Yes.. she is warning us that something is desecrating the temple next door.

OK.. time for another dozen observations.

01. Graduation: My beautiful granddaughter, Bridget, graduated from Towson University last week. She is the first grandchild to get a Bachelor of Arts degree. I hope that her success will motivate my other grandchildren to continue their educations.

02. Red heads. Bridget has beautiful red hair. So does AnnE in the movie, Anne of Green Gables. Elaine and I watched this 3 1/4 hour flick last night. It was filmed in beautiful Prince Edward Isle, Canada, and is a monumental tear-jerker. (I defy you to watch it without blubbering!)

I visited PEI a number of years ago and feasted on some of the most delicious seafood I have ever had (outside of New Bedford, of course).. I understand a bridge has finally been built to get to the island. When I went, I spent five hours waiting my turn to get on the ferry. But PEI certainly was worth it, despite the fact that they monopolized on the fame of the book.

Folks.. forget about a European trip. Visit Canada. There is so much to see there.. and you can do it in your own automobile.

03. Where's the Rev? For some time now, I have been trying to find tapes of the shows of Reverend Ike, my favorite preacher. You remember his motto: "I've got what it takes, to take what you've got." One of the few preachers that I have met who were not hypocrites. If anybody knows how to find such tapes, please let me know. I gave away all my BetaMax tapes and I had some of his shows taped on them.. I wish I had kept them.

04. Deep thought: Stephen Hawking says that God did not create the universe. He says that the Big Bang was inevitable and didn't need any help.

05. Thieves in high places: In Greenbelt, Maryland, a Federal employee was found guilty of obtaining over $600,000 in erroneous disability benefits. Also in Maryland, an official at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau stole over a million dollars from court orders.

Now, if that is almost two million dollars being stolen just in a small area of Maryland, there probably are other thefts going on throughout the U.S. by people in positions of trust. (Of course, if there were no scumbags, thieves and scammers at work, who would be able to afford those multi-million dollar homes that are advertised? Oh, that's right, I forgot about the lawyers.)

06. Grades? Letter grades are now being given to automobiles, based on fuel economy and tailpipe emissions. .. I have been buying groceries and prescriptions at the Giant grocery store in Westminster, Maryland, for several years, and now they have a program where a percentage of money savings is given for Shell gasoline, based on the amount of money spent in that store. Recently, I have had 30 cents a gallon taken off one of my gas fill-ups and 40 cents a gallon taken off another one. I think its a good deal. I wonder why other stores are not copying the program?

Hey.. I remember when gasoline cost 16 cents a gallon. At that time, I had a 1935 Chevrolet with bald tires and broken wheel bearings. I could fill up for $2, whenever I could spare that much money, which wasn't too often. Luckily, I could coast downhill the mile from my house to the high school. (Coming home was the problem.)

Also, my future spouse lived three miles away and by a judicious usage of coasting and light gas usage, I could use very little gas to get to her house and back.

07. Calendars: Many people are are concerned that the world will end in 2012. They base this on some old predictions which failed to take into consideration calendar changes.

I read somewhere that there was a calendar change in the year 1750. The day after September 2nd became September 14th. Crowds of people rioted, demanding: "Give us back our 11 days!" I can't find a reference to this, but if you are interested in calendar changing, please check out:

http://www.suite101.com/content/the-calendar-change-of-1752-a141775

08. Prayer heals all? A French priest, mad because of the expulsion of gypsies, said: "I pray, I beg your pardon, that Mr. Sarkozy has a heart attack."

Another person who wasn't happy about the expulsion was EU Justice Commissioner Vivviane Reding who called it "a disgrace" as well as something she "thought that Europe would not have to witness again after the second World War."

09. Poor Ming: My Snapple diet drink bottle cap says: "The oldest living animal ever found was a 405 year old clam named 'Ming.'" After all those years, he was dug up, and died during the assessment of his age!

(Hey.. look it up in Wikipedia if you think I'm kidding you.)

10. Marriage of convenience? A marriage announcement in a June 2010 edition of the Carroll County Times reads: (married) Carroll County Department of Social Services and Michael E. Francis, of Hanover, Pa., June 15.)

11. Crooked banks? A recent Harper's Index says that the number of Wall Street banks so far which have been tried on criminal charges related to the financial crisis is 2. It also says that the number of banks which have been acquited is also 2.

12. Honoring our veterans? Harper's Index also says that an estimated 2,266 U.S. veterans under the age of 65 died in 2008 because they lacked health insurnace.

So that I won't leave you completely depressed.. let me tell you the words on a birthday card I received from my late friend, Bob Whisenand: "If you think I sent you this card just because it's your birthday... you're wrong! ... it's also out of respect for the elderly!"

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Happy New Year! 2011! Gasp!

2011-01-01T11:37:00.008-05:00

I'm quite pleased with myself. Elaine and I pigged out on pizza and shrimp while we watched the ball drop at Times Square. In spite of that, I only went 173 calories over my daily allotment.

I'm trying to lose 30 pounds and I am using an online program to monitor what I eat and how much exercise I use. So far, I have found it very easy to use and it has a lot of features that I like. If you are interested, take a look at:

http://www.loseit.com/

Based on my diet program, I will reach my goal on July 11, 2011. Hopefully, I am motivated enough to avoid my version of the famous Allen Curve, which I call the Alden Curve, named after a famous Pilgrim relative of mine.

(This Alden Curve works well to show how Gyms make their money ... because most people never follow through with their gym visits.. it also works especially well with diet plans. For instance, when you start, a daily motivation graph line leans upward from zero for about a month. At the end of the month, when it dawns on you that you don't want to diet quite as much, your daily motivation graph line starts to work its way back down to the zero point. When you finally quit your diet, a median line drawn across the graph creates an A. This is the Alden Curve.)

Now, to talk about other stuff.

01. Arachnid Statistic? Somebody has reported that 20% of people engaging in sexual activity, maintain an open contact with the Web at the same time. (How did they get that statistic?)

02. Car Talk: If you visit the Car Talk website, you can see all of the famous staff names that you have heard mentioned over the lifetime of the radio show. Here are a dozen of those names that I thought were interesting:

Ulanda U. Lucky - Air Traffic Controller

Turner Luce - Animal Control Officer

Dot Matrix - Director of Computer Services

Collette O'Day - Clock Watcher

Phyllis Steen - Art Critic

Dot Snice - Art Critic II

Hugh Jass - Clothing Designer

Ed Amame - Bean Counter

Bud Uronner - Appeals Specialist

Hugo First - Bunji Jumper Instructor

Orson Buggy - Assistant Transportation Coordinator

Eureka Garlic - Breathalyzer Administrator

See them all at http://www.cartalk.com/

03. Litigation. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me reports that the mayor of Batman, Turkey is suing the makers of the Batman movie because they have not paid royalties for using the town name.

04. Fishy: Connecticut now has a State fish: the shad. (I wonder what ever happened to an SSA worker named Fred Shad?) Is Massachusetts State fish the scrod? (Check out the words to that famous song: Crabs for Christmas.. my favorite song of the season.)

05. Pay Scale: I may have mentioned this before. Mayor Bloomberg of New York City gets a yearly salary of just $1. However, he only gets 93 cents because 7 cents gets deducted for Social Security.

06. Conspiracy Theory: Carroll County Times (Maryland) columnist Tom Zirpoli says that one of the candidates for Governor of Colorado wants to end the city-wide bicycle rental program in Denver because it is a first step in bringing the US under UN control.

07. Necessity: While the Carnival Cruise Line's Splendor was stranded off of Mexico. The U. S. Navy airlifted a supply of Spam so that the strandees could have some protein.

For those of you young folks who have only heard of one kind of spam, check out this site:

http://www.spam.com/

08. Ailurophiles vs. caninophiles: Fellow Mensan, Richard Lederer, writes:

"Cats are smarter than dogs. (This must be true. Tests conducted by the University of Michigan concluded that while a dog's memory lasts no more than five minutes, a cat's can last as long as sixteen hours, exceeding even that of monkeys and orangutans. And you never see eight cats pulling a sled.)"

"Dogs drool; cats rule."

"If you command your dog to 'Come here', he runs right over with a 'Yes, what can I do for you?' The cat's response is, 'Put it in writing, and I'll get back to you later.' This is why dogs have masters, and cats have staff."

09. True adventure: A new biography by Geoffrey Wolff called: The Hard Way Around outlines the life of Joshua Slocum. Joshua was a young ship's captain who had many adventures, such as violent storms and mutinies even before he left Fairhaven, Massachusetts in 1898, and sailed alone around the world for three years. (Fairhaven is across the Acushnet River from New Bedford (my hometown) and there is a little park with a monument to his voyage next to the river and right near a wonderful Bed and Breakfast, which commands a marvelous view of the New Bedford harbor right out of the bedroom windows.)

10. Reward for speeding: A Massachusetts woman was arrested for throwing a bag of dog poop at a speeding car. It went through his open window and hit him in the face. She has been charged with assault.

I may have mentioned this before, but when I was about ten years old, a nasty guy working at cleaning up a yard, flipped dog poop at me as I rode by on my bicycle. This gave him a marvelous laugh. (I wonder if he was still laughing as he surveyed the flat tires on his truck.)

11. Hard to believe, but true: Google has logged almost 1,000 miles on their self-driving Toyota Priuses in California. Robot cars don't drive drunk, distracted or sleepy. (What happens when a State Trooper tries to pull them over for an equipment violation?)

12. Religious knowledge: According to Tom Harbold in the Carroll County (Maryland) Times.. The Pew Forum on religion and public life conducted a quiz of 32 questions given to a random sampling of over 3,000 people. The persons getting the highest number of questions right were Atheists, Agnostics, Jews and Mormons.

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Have a great time in 2011!

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Merry Christmas 2010

2010-12-24T11:06:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas! I'm afraid of saying "Happy Holidays!" since I read some recent irate letters to the editor of the Carroll County (Maryland) Times and also some comments on Facebook. I thought that there were at least three holidays in December this year: Hanukah, Kwanza, and Christmas.... Perhaps one can avoid ill will with all believers and non-believers at this time of year by saying: "Happy New Year!"

01. Tantrum. Yesterday, Elaine and I spent 5 (!) hours shopping for Christmas gifts. At one store, a 4 year old girl was laying on the floor, kicking her feet while her mother tried, in a nice tone of voice, to get her to relinquish the expensive and breakable Christmas ornament that she was clutching with a "death grip."

Elaine, seeing that the mother did not know how to handle the situation, addressed the child and said that she should remember that Santa Claus is always watching and remembering bad behavior. This caused the child to at least stop screaming and look intently at Elaine.

Since I was pushing Elaine in her wheelchair and Elaine knew I was behind her, she thought that the child would see me as Santa and repent. However, Elaine forgot that during the afternoon, I had had my beard trimmed. I lost most of my fluffy white beard and no longer looked like that jolly old codger. So, after pausing to look our way, and not seeing Santa, the coast was clear for the child to continue to scream and carry on.

Over the years, I discovered that if you let a screaming child continue to act that way and you completely ignore them, suddenly they will look around, and finding no audience, stop their tantrum. Apparently, the exasperated mother did not want to do that and finally grabbed the ornament roughly out of the kid's grip, picked her up by the nape of her coat collar and hustled her out of the store, still kicking and screaming. (I will have to make sure I have a hunk of coal to leave in this kid's stocking on Christmas eve.)

02. Shoplifting? On the way out of our last store yesterday, Elaine noticed an elderly woman stuffing boxes of $10. "electronic coin counters" into a massive shopping bag. She wondered if the woman was shoplifting and should be reported. We discussed it a bit.

a. Did she look like a thief? (No, she looked like a kindly old lady.)
b. Was there anybody to tell? (Nobody in sight, it was close to 11pm and only one or two cashiers were working.)
c. Were there cameras recording floor activity? (Yes, all over the place. Recently, a TV show disclosed how viewers in hidden store offices watch all of the activity in the store and report suspicious activity to hired detectives. .. so, remember that when you scratch your butt and think nobody can see you.)

We decided not to get involved. What do you think we should have done?

03. Recession? Once again this year, we had to ride around and around to get a place to park. People were parked on grass, across the street, in the driveways, .. all over the place. And the stores were so crowded we had a hard time getting around. Also, we had to wait in line to get waited on. Kohl's Department Store even had numbers to give out ... like they have at deli counters in super markets.

04. Happy Valentine's Day! Now that most of the Christmas gifts have been bought and store shelves are fairly empty, the Valentine's Day stuff is making an appearance!

05. Decorations. Most of the houses where we live have lots of wreaths and lights as Christmas decorations. I try not to be ostentatious, so I decorate "lightly".. by that I mean that I usually put up one light, in the form of a Mennonite star. Since my old stars had gone nova, I bought a new one for this year. Have you ever tried to put one of those things together? It is a job.

I put most of it together and got very frustrated. Elaine felt sorry for me and finished the job. Yesterday I hung it outside with a long green (I couldn't get a white one) outdoor electrical cord. It is a bit bright. So bright that the three wise men would probably not have a very hard time following it.

That star, as well as three beat up old wreathes, a small Christmas flag, and a big shiny new wreath for the front door, are our Christmas decorations this year.

06. Uncalled for decorations. A certain Mr. Vogel of Towson, Maryland, woke up to find his formerly undecorated house, decorated with ornaments, animals, and lights.. all illuminated by long extension cords. Mr. Vogel called the police, who are investigating. Is this somebody's attempt at a 2010 version of A Christmas Carol?

07. Merry Christmas, Hon! I'll bet that the Cafe Hon in Hamden, Baltimore City, Maryland, is decorated with Christmas Flamingos. They will probably be the usual pink, but with green and red ornaments. Hamden goes in big for Christmas.

Unbelievably to me, some grinches are protesting the fact that Ms Whiting arranged to get a copyright on the term "HON". They have actually picketed her establishment. Get a life, guys!

08. Flash! I just heard that an anteater baby has been born at a local zoo. I don't know if this is the Baltimore Zoo or the DC National Zoo. But how are they going to get any ants for food at this cold time of year?

09. Statistics. As a computer programmer for the Social Security Administration, I supplied our research and statistics analysts with record selections and counts from every computer run. Most of this information was provided to a nice lady who wore famously outlandish hats. Her office was across the street from the main Social Security building and I always wondered what she did in her office that produced such marvelous statistics, used by all kinds of Government Agencies.

One day I got her permission to come and see how this statistical research was done. I expected to see a battery of giant computers whirring and spitting out beautifully typed reports based on the information provide by us to her. Instead, I found a pleasant little office with a gigantic round table in the middle, around which ten grandmotherly looking ladies were rapidly walking, chattering away amicably, as they extracted and inserted pages of printed material out of and into large stacks of other pages of printed material.

I asked her why she didn't automate this activity and she replied that this way there was no duplication of information and therefore no distorted statistics. O.K., I guess I kind of understood that... thirty years ago. But I'll bet this process is done differently today.

10. Special statistics. (As reported in This Week magazine.)

a. One blinks about 20,000 times each day.
b. The U.S. Government has 854,000 people with a Top Secret clearance.
c. 49% of U.S. voters think that President Obama doesn't deserve a second term.
d. 51% of U.S. voters think that President Obama does deserve a second term.

11. Haiku!

a. Crossword Haiku:

Bob Klahn wrote a clue for a recent crossword puzzle that I think is a classic:

"A poem like this, of 17 syllables, split 5-7-5."

b. T-Shirt Haiku:

"Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator."

c. Cat Haiku:

"You never feed me
Pershaps I'll sleep on your face
That will sure show you."

12. Sex.

Actually, I have nothing to say about sex right now. I just put the label in to try to lure more people to this blog.

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Merry Christmas to most and Happy Holidays to a few. And: Happy New Year to all!

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Christmas is a-comin..

2010-12-18T12:10:00.005-05:00

It's time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope that their wishes come true during the holiday season.

01. Santa Claus: As you can see by my picture, I have played "Santa" again this year. I had been offered a "Santa" job.. for actual pay.. but I decided not to do so.. my main reason was not wanting little kids to throw up on me. So, I just go "HO HO HO" for free, and for adults who have no desire to sit on my lap..

I'm hoping that this year will be the last one in which I actually look like a jolly, fat old Santa. I am taking Physical Therapy sessions to regain use of some of the flexibility and muscle tone I have lost since I quit lifting weights about ten years ago. One of my problems is what is called "tissue approximation." (This can be translated to "beer belly.") One of my goals this year is to lose 20 pounds around my middle.

02. Alzheimers: This Week magazine reports that some study results show that people with beer bellies actually have shrunken brains.. making them more susceptible to developing Alzheimers disease. That's another incentive for losing weight.

03. XMAS Toy: Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me mentioned that a popular toy this year is somehow related to "roadkill". I need to look that up in the XMAS toy catalogs. If you travel throughout Carroll County Maryland, you see lots and lots of roadkill.. so why pay for it when you can get it free.

Yesterday, while turning through a highway cloverleaf, I came upon 238 enormous turkey buzzards having lunch on roadkill. As I mentioned a couple of years ago, turkey buzzards completely devoured a large deer that had wandered into my backyard to die. In a very short time, only bones were left of the 500 pound creature, and so I didn't have to drag the dead body to wherever you drag dead deer that have died on your property.

04. Fashion? The New York Times suggests that men should start using purses that reflect their manhood. Not dainty pink things; but rather, bags made out of camouflage cloth, or ammunition cases, or ... out of whatever would indicate manhood. Sounds good to me.. for years I have carried a wallet in one back pocket, a comb, handkerchief, pen, paper sheet, business card case in another back pocket.. plus a bunch of keys and cell phone attached to my belt. I think it might be better to carry all such things in a carrying case, such as women have.

However, the fear of being considered a "sissy" by other men has kept most of us guys from carrying purse-like containers over our shoulders. But.. suppose I owned a "purse" that somehow reflected just the things I am interested in as a man.. like whales.. or crossword puzzles.. or politics.. maybe that would work. I'll have to look into this. Of course, this could be dangerous since most men are just interested in naked women.

I carry a delicate red basket to our local Bistro to get carry-out supper on most nights. This gets me lots of gentle ribbing.. but so what, it works.. I can carry lots of food without dropping it on the ground. Now.. if the basket had pink ribbons on it.. that would be a different story.

05. Don't ask...: Some people might equate what I implied about "sissy" as meaning "gay".. That is not the case. Many of the gay people that I know are not "sissies" in any sense of the word. The House has just acted to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Senate is considering the issue right now. I served with several gay persons when I was in the Air Force and there was never any problem in any way. And that was the situation when I worked in the physical fitness department of the New Bedford, Mass. YMCA. These folks were not "sissies".. or delicate, tiptoeing folks.

06. Manufacturing: I heard that the Gap stores are selling a carrying bag with the words: "Made in the USA" printed on it. Close inspection reveals that it really was made in China.. just like everything else in the USA.

Before WWII, when Japanese products flooded our markets, they renamed a city Usa, so that they could print "Made in USA" on goods shipped to America.

07. Pickup line: I think it might have been Wait Wait that reported on the best pickup line: "You have beautiful lips." But do you think that lips are the most attractive feature on women for men, or are men just lying again.

08. Eyebrows: It might have been Wait Wait again that mentioned that the current month should be known as DECEMBROW.. the month when women avoid plucking their eyebrows, so to achieve the UNIBROW look.

Lots of men I know have just one eyebrow...straight over both eyes. Most men don't pluck their eyebrows.. and some men are just naturally extra hairy, even on their forehead. And then there are hairy men who have "dingleberries".. but that is a subect for a future blog (and maybe #9 that follows.)

09. Word: Bill Bryson in Made in America records a Pennsylvania Dutch word: aarschgnoddle: which translates to "the globules of dung found in the vicinity of the anus"... Bill wonders why the Pennsylvania Dutch need such a word.. so do I.

10. More of the same: Bryson also says that the word POPPYCOCK comes from the Dutch word PAPPEKAK (soft dung).

How did I get into this topic anyway? What do you think of that, Prince Poppycock?

11. New SCAM: I received an email from "Robert S. Mueller III, Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover Building, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001, USA" saying "The Skye Bank Nigeria Plc informed us the FBI, that they are through with the first (1st) quarter transfer to beneficiaries, and .... (to) where your payment file belongs to now."

Mr Mueller advises me to get in touch with the Skye Bank Nigeria as soon as possible so I don't lose out on all the money ($2m) that I may be eligible for.. they give me an email address to contact.. IMMEDIATELY. They end it with "In God We Trust."

A clever twist on an old scam.

12. Risks: The Carroll Hospital Center (Maryland) sent me the following quote from Patrick Johnston. I like it.

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement.

To explore feelings is to risk exposing our true self.

To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair.

To try at all is to risk failure.

But risk we must, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The man, the woman, who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

.....
This reminds me of something a famous writer once said to would-be authors:

Don't sit down to write, until you have stood up to live.

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Happy Holidays?

2010-12-11T09:49:00.002-05:00

Holiday season 2010:

01. Baltimore's carol: I hope that you have heard "Crabs for Christmas". If you listen to WAMU (Washington, DC FM station) you know that the host of the "Old Time Radio" show was the first person to sing that great song. At the December meeting of the Carroll County AARP, the leader of the Senior Singers played the piano and sang a marvelous Baltimorese version of the words.. and he isn't even a native Marylander! Made me want to run right out and order me some nice spicy Balty More crabs.

02. HON trademark: I'm glad that Denise Whiting has now gotten "HON" trademarked. She was the originator of the HON madness that engulfs the Hamden area, as well as all of Baltimore. She doesn't want folks exploiting something that she thought up. However, she also doesn't want to exploit it herself. I've met Denise and she is a wonderful caring person.. a fine representative of what is good about Baltimore people.

03. Good lungs now: A Chicago songwriter has written a holiday song, some of the words of which are: "Santa doesn't smoke anymore." "He must have read the surgeon general's warning." "He took one last puff, and then said: I've had enough!"

I encourage you to find this song, as well as a copy of "Crabs for Christmas" and get into the spirit of the holidays.

04. Hanukah Rocks: We should all be ecomenical this year, so I encourage you to also get a copy of Walk on the Kosher Side, songs by rock band Gefilte Joe and the Fish.

05. How Bigotry celebrates the season: I understand that the scumbags from the Westboro Baptist Church will be picketing Elizabeth Edwards' funeral because they say she didn't ask God to cure her cancer.

06. Rudolph: I never could understand the worth of the message of this song. A group ostracises another creature for being different, and when the different being does something that the group approves of, that different being is now beloved by the group...? Shouldn't we be teaching our kids to love everyone, even the ones that are different, and not wait until they "earn" our love? I know, I know.. it's just a fun song for Christmas...

07. With charity to all? Thanks to Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and a couple of other guys who know how to make a buck, some billionaires are going to give money to charity while they are still alive. Kind of hard to be synical about that.

08. Wiki Leaks XMAS Cards? Some of my friends applaud the leaks. I don't. I was a cryptographer when I was in the Air Force, and I have some acquaintance with Top Secrets, and I believe that some degree of secrecy is necessary for a Nation to survive in these troubled times. Don't ask me to elaborate.. my lips are sealed.

09. Christmas in New York: NPR reports that one of the tunnels in and out of the city carries two versions of the same billboard picture. It is a manger scene... one billboard was paid for by the Catholic Church; one billboard was paid for by an Atheist group. Only the wording is different.

10. Cool heads: A man in Cumberland, Maryland, is charged with stealing over one thousand custom fitting hats. (Incidentally, his name is Wigger.) I like to think that he just wanted to give them to the poor and homeless as a gesture of friendship in the holiday spirit. (Elaine made me wear my Santa Claus hat all this week.)

11. Hot heads: Yesterday, crowds of protesters in London tried to paint Prince Charles' limousine for Christmas. Charles and Camilla showed typical British reserve by waving to the holiday host.

12. Winter Wonderland: Yesterday, a forecast of snow flurries came true.. about a quarter of an inch fell, at least in Carroll County, Maryland. It may sound strange to those who live in northern climes (like Massachusetts or Rhode Island).. but this minute amount of precip caused major havoc. One lady reported taking 3 hours to travel 6 miles on a major road. Schools closed early and businesses instituted a liberal leave policy.

Giant Grocery Store experienced a run on toilet paper, bread and milk, as folks stocked up for a long Winter's hibernation. Elaine and I slipped and slid to the Elk's Club for a luncheon. Safe at last, we sat and stuffed ourselves as we remembered those ancient days when we had to put chains on our tires in order to move in traffic.

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New Stuff and Old Stuff

2010-12-08T10:07:00.004-05:00

Now that I am an "old dude", I realize that "sometimes" I repeat myself (others might substitute the word "often" for "sometimes"). So, today, I found a copy of the famous and now defunct Weekly World News, and thought I might write some notes about this wonderful sheet.

However, just in time, I woke up and remembered that I had already done a blog entry about this very issue. But.. the date of the issue was September 18, 2006, and some things have changed since then. Let me tell you about some of them.

01. Magic! There is an article about what the paper calls "the world's worst magician". They claim that a guy named Victor Baum performed in the Boston area and people came to see him because he was so bad. Once, it took him 52 times before he got a "guess the playing card" trick right!

I hope you remember about the guy I have mentioned before who, in my opinion, is now "the world's best magician." Yes, I'm talking about "The Amazing Stanley". Check him out.. he is good!

www.justforyou.com/magic.htm

02. Power Names. The paper also suggested that you give your children names that could help form their character and drive them to high achievement. They suggested names such as Google, Maxima, Java, or Excel.

I just heard on the radio that a gentleman named Douglas Smith was allowed to change his name to Captain Awesome. Well, I hope it does it for him.

I may have mentioned this before, but when I worked at Social Security, I had the authorization to change names on our records, if requested. A member of a religious order which had a common hyphenated surname for its members asked to have his "like John Doe" name changed. Seeing no reason to deny him this request, I did so.

Suddenly, droves of fellow religious persons descended on Social Security, asking for the same favor now that there was a precedent.. at the same time, a rival religious order found out and had their members petition for changes to names with their own hyphenated designation.

Someone thought that I had established a bad precedent (and the ensuing chaos) and somehow had it rescinded.

BTW: some of you already know that I have had several "names" over the years. The ones I like best are: AHAB (my nom in puzzledom); H.R. Pooner (my long lost brother gave me that one because of my love for whales.. no.. I never wanted to harm them); and S.P. Kerr (a name used when I did Toastmaster activity)....

03. Predictions coming true? The paper also listed some predictions for the future. I'll mention two of them:

Waco, TX 2010: The F.B.I. discovers the cult moviie house and, after a standoff with the audience, fires the projectionist.

Washington, DC 2011: As the political right gains greater influence in the country, many colleges change their curriculum to offer conservative arts programs.

04. Trivia from 2006:

There are more than 1,750 "O's" in a 15 ounce can of SpaghettiOs. (Guess what.. the cans still hold 15 ounces in 2010!)

Ovaltine was called Ovomaltine.. but it was a Swiss product, and when it got registered in the U.S., a clerical error gave it its current name. (I'm sure you were astounded to read that.)

Flamingo tongues were a common delicacy at Roman feasts. (In these austere days, the only persons who continue to be able to eat flamingo tongues are those "fat-cats" who will benefit the most from the continuing "tax cuts for the rich and famous.")

In Australia, the most popular topping for pizza is eggs. In China, it is mussels. In the US, it is pepperoni. (What about anchovies, my favorite?)

An apple, an onion, and a potato all taste alike. (I've heard this before.. if you pinch your nose and take a blindfolded bite of each, you would not know which you are eating. I haven't tried this yet. Let me know if you have.)

..... Well, that's enough for now.. I have to get to my physical therapy session so I can be pushed, prodded, and punched in order to get my muscles working better. They have been withering a bit in the past few years.

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The Latest News on December 4th 2010

2010-12-04T13:10:00.007-05:00

..........01. Boring day! At last, scholars have determined that the most unevential day in recorded history was April 11, 1954! On that day, not one historical event took place.

I beg to differ! This was the date that I arrived by means of a back-breaking, death-defying ride up to the top of a mountain near the town of Pruem, Germany. (Americans must be careful how they pronounce the name of this town.) We were now in the Schnee Eiffel mountains. "Schnee" means "snow" and this is where I served as a "frozen airman" for 18 months. It was also the day when I bared my chest and donned my wartime gear to have my memorable "lean, mean, fighting machine" picture taken. (I had been a little fortified against the cold by some Bitburger Pils, a local beer that was quite a bit stronger than Budweiser and guaranteed to cause enormous amounts of pungent gas to be discharged.)

(Sorry that the picture is so small. My photo software refused to make it any bigger.)

..........02. New scam. A friend just received a fancy printed letter saying that he has won one quarter of a million dollars. All he has to do to receive the money is to send $20. to cover shipping costs and taxes. At the bottom is a form for checking how you are paying: Check ___ Cash ___ Money Order ___ The small amount of money required is a new twist to an old scam.

If you send cash or a money order, the scammer has at least gotten a little money from you. But, if you send a check, the scammer will use it to wipe out your bank account.

If you get a letter like this, report it to the Post Office or the local police station.. but, in no case, should you send any money.

..........03. Silvio.. shame on you. If the news reports are true, Italy's leader, Silvio Berlusconi has been active in other fun things beside "bunga bunga". It is reported that he recently spent lots of Government money to repair genitalia on an office statue. (Don't worry, if a Vatican envoy visits his office, I'm sure that a fig leaf will be in place in no time.)

..........04. Forbidden fruit. Somebody has figured out how to inject apples with botox so that they never turn brown. (My dentist now gives botox shots as a cosmetic aid! Why would anyone want to get stuck with the poison used to kill animals by Amazon natives?)

..........05. Got the time? The furniture company, BDDW has developed the Nixie desk clock. Each clock is made by hand, and the company makes two to three units at a time. These clocks cost from $2,500 to $12,400. The clock cases are guaranteed for 20,000 years, but the time is shown in little glass circles that require bulbs that only last 2 years.

..........06. Bieber fever? On a prominent wall in the home of an arrested notorious Brazilian drug dealer was found a giant poster of Justin Bieber.

..........07. What God has forgotten: Fast Company magazine reports that medical tourism is growing 35% each year.

Some of the locations and prices:

Lip Augmentation: China: $500.

Breast Augmentation: Costa Rica: $3,800.

Cheek Implant: Spain: $1,942.

Butt Lift: Brazil: $6,000.

..........08. Classy words. I just got through reading the book Reading the OED, One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea. For dictionary cookoos like me, the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) is the greatest dictionary every written. Its most intriguing feature is its quotations from famous people who have used or even created each word.

Ammon resolved to read all of the entries in this massive work, and he did. His book tells us about his effort and gives some examples of interesting words that he discovered among the pages.

Let me give you an example of some of the words he found in a little story:

A Trip on the Subway

In a matudinal state, I decided to ride to work on the subway. On the trip, a sansculottic, cimicine, xanthodontous grinagog sourged me and I became nauseant. However, I tried to remain in a state of nemesism like a true garbist.

Looking down, I gaumed a repertitious dollar. I retrieved it and made it a xenium for my subway neighbor. (This was a naturesse, if I do say so myself.)

Feeling good about the xenium, my subway neighbor made an act of redamancy by providing a miskissing.

Disgusted with this engouement and suddenly micturient, I departed the train at the next stop.

..........09. Palindromes. Famous Canadian puzzlers, Joaquin and Maura Kuhn published a puzzle book in 1980 with the title: Rats live on no evil stars. All of the puzzle words are palindromes.. which read the same frontwards as backward. You remember the old palindromes: Able was I ere I saw Elba. (related to Napoleon).. or A man, a plan, a canal, Panama (related to T.R.) ...

Some of their words:

Cain, a monomaniac

Drawn inward

Haiti, ah!

Mad Adam

Niagara, O roar again

Red robe border

Rise, Sir!

To do Godot

Wet stew

I'm a last salami

..........10. Punchlines. A German study of brain activity reports that brain disease of the right frontal lobe causes one to tell bad jokes. (So that's my reason.)

My greatest bomb as a standup comedian was when I decided to just tell the punchlines and not the jokes.

..........11. Satan is smiling?. The Catholic church has instituted exorcism training, to be given in Baltimore, Maryland. (Is the devil behind all of the senseless killings in the Baltimore area?

..........12. LOL! The Wakefield (Massachusetts) Track and Field team handed out shirts with the teams initials: WTF. They are contemplating a recall.

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Revised List for Santa

2010-11-26T13:21:00.005-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a list of fantastic things we might like Santa to bring. That post was not very creative, I'm sorry to say.. and a couple of people even said that it was uninspired.

I'll try to correct that a bit because a great yearly event has now occured, I have received my annual copy of Hammacher Schlemmer's famous catalog of "must have", "almost impossible to get" stuff. It comes to me under the "Joe M Vaughan" mailing list. For the few of you who follow these blog posts, you know that the M between my first and last name stands for MONEY, and the catalog sender probably thinks that I am rich, because I once subscribed to Forbes Magazines, using that name.

However, you don't have to be rich to buy many of the great things shown in this catalog. I highly recommend it to you, if you don't already get it. In our materialistic age, Christmas is the time to wish for stuff that we probably don't really need, but hope that someone will give us, and this catalog has lots of stuff to stimulate our hopefulness.

So, for now, I will make an upbeat list of Hammacher Schlemmer things I might like Santa to bring to this household, if he also has access to the catalog. (However, make no mistake, being naughty as usual, I don't think Santa would even consider climbing down our chimney, even if we had one.)

01. Barking Dog Deterrent. This Pablovian device emits sound that is irritable to dogs. One sets it to make the bad noise whenever Fido barks and disturbs your peace. (I wish they had this 20 years ago when the only way to get a dog to shut up at 3 am was to hit it with a big rock.)

02. Flying Car. This vehicle converts from a regular type automobile to a flyable aircraft. HS' price is $350,000, but is certainly well worth the price.

03. Gyroscopic Dumbbell. This is a tennis ball sized device that is used to almost effortlessly build up your wrist, biceps, triceps and deltoid muscles. (I wish I had also known about this 20 years ago, when I was spending hours lifting tons of weights, trying to look like Big Arnie Schwartzenegger.)

04. Finger Drum Mouspad. This device allows you to play all kinds of drum sounds by using your finger taps. For less than $40 you can be your own Gene Krupa.

05. A wall crawling arachnid. This is a remote controlled spider that can scurry up walls and across ceilings. (Wouldn't this be a great thing for High School boys with which to scare the girls!)

06. Aviator's hat. This is an exact replica of the ear-flap cap worn by my friend, Sid Simon, as he sat in his Flying Fortress and bombed the hell out of Aachen, Germany.

07. Marshmallow shooter. This is a pump action device that can shoot edible marshmallows up to 30 feet. You can also get a target to go with it that plays a sound whenever it is hit, even by those soft white things. (Parents should get this for their agressive children who are now engaged in hitting other kids with bruise-enducing rocks.)

08. Cell phone watchdog. A great idea. One puts the "watchdog" on your keychain and whenever the cell phone and you are more than 30 feet apart, it beeps. (Now, I have to dial a lost cell phone and hope that it is close enough for me to hear the ringtone.)

09. Turtle astronomer. This is a soft cuddly turtle that projects the image of 8 constellations upon the ceiling when you go to bed. The whole thing shuts off after 45 minutes so that you can fall asleep.

10. Bug vacuuming breakthrough. This is a light weight cordless vacuum tube that sucks up stinkbugs from almost 2 feet away and kills them humanely. Using this would probably be a lot easier than plugging in and lugging your 200 pound vacuum cleaner close to the bug and trying to get the little stinker sucked up before he scurries away.

11. Colorful snowman set. This is a set of paint that does not melt when it is squeezed onto Mr. Snowman. We should no longer need to find buttons for eyes, coal for teeth, or carrots for noses. They can now just be painted on. In fact, as a catalog picture of a painted snowman shows, one can paint the snowman's name right on the snow-white snow.

12. Yankee Stadium Seats. This is amazing and I can think of a guy who would pay a lot more than the asking price of $1,500 for these authentic Yankee Stadium seats. Two seats are attached and sold together.

Santa, if you can't bring us any of these items, we will understand. But would you please deliver Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs to each of the persons on our Christmas card list, so they can take a look at all the wonders contained within that good old American ingenuity has come up with for the 2010 Christmas season..

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Cycle of life.

2010-11-21T09:58:00.008-05:00

Today, I want to talk about the crazy news, but first I want to tell you about a great loss to the world of opera... the death of Joan Sutherland. Then, I want to tell you about Elaine's latest accomplishment. Then, the other stuff.

01 A Diva is gone. The cycle of life.

At the age of 83, and still a diva. Joan Sutherland passed away in October. "La Stupenda" was a wonderful "bel canto" singer. Two of her most famous roles were as Lucia and Norma. Dame Sutherland was a very tall (Julia Childs type) and dominated the stage with her presence at first and then when she began to sing.

02. The Miracle of Birth. (The cycle of life.) A few months ago, as I mentioned in a prior blog entry, Elaine was witness to the birth of three deer in our "backyard" here at Carroll Lutheran Village. She wrote about the experience for the "Creative Expressions" book, published annually by the Village. She has now been asked to read her story on a local radio station.

Elaine has a very well modulated speaking voice and has had some acting experience. She was an extra in the movie "Hannibal" and also in the Baltimore version of the Australian TV series, "Homicide, Life on the Street".

We think that only two of the deer survived, because every once in a while, we see two young deer jumping and running while their mama quietly observes. We have been told that a birth of three deer is an unusual occurence. Elaine noticed that the first two baby deer jumped right up and started moving about, but the third was kind of sluggish. Recently, we placed a salt block near where the deer congregate sometimes, hoping to get them into position so we can take a good photo of the family together.

03. Math. U.K. researchers have determined that giving a slight electrical shock over the right ear improves a person's math abilities for months. Some of my friends tell me that a good smack on a child's butt by a father improves scholastic ability as well.

04. Sarah. Golly! Gee whiz! Alaska is a dangerous but energizing place. How do you like her "reality show?"

05. Deficit cutting. Cut Social Security. - No way! Cut Medicare. - No way! Cut the Federal workforce. - Are you crazy? Cut earmarks. - Sure (but not really.. because how else can I produce for my constituents and get re-elected?) Raise gasoline tax. - Ouch!

The cure for it all.. 100% employment. (Or.. steal back the billions of dollars that the Iraqis and Afghanis have been stealing from us for years now.)

06. Jailhouse lawyer. A prisoner is suing the parents of a boy he killed while driving 80 miles an hour. He says that the parents not forcing the boy to wear a helmet has caused him great emotional pain and suffering. He has ten more years to endure this pain.. hopefully, he will be able to endure it for the full ten years and not be given an early release.

07. Hyper-texting. Hyper-texters send at least 120 text messages a day. Would somebody explain to me what these messages could possibly impart? I remember visiting a friend's home many years ago, before texting, but when online messaging was in its infancy. His son had an internet connection on his PC and was engaged in this kind of interplay of messages.

"Hi."
"Hi."
"Waddaya doin today?"
"Nothin. Waddaya doin today?"
"Nothin. Want to come over?"
"Nope.. We got company."
"Can I come over?"
"Yes."
"What can we do?"
"I dont know. What can we do?"

etc... more of the same.

At the time, everybody thought this was cute.. after all, the kids involved were 8 years old.

In the future, the world will be populated with people with giant thumbs and no speaking ability.

08. Hyper-networkers. These are people, not necessarily kids, who spend three or more hours on social network sites like Facebook. I wonder how much of this time is spent playing online games. Some people mix media.. for instance, some people seem to treat Facebook entries like Twitter entries. "I'm going to the grocery store now." "I''m back from the grocery store now."

Come on, give me a break! Luckily, one can block Facebook entries and not have to tell the blockee that they are blocked, so no feelings are hurt.

09. Come on, Dick! The Week magazine cites a tabloid entry that quotes Dick Van Dyke saying that once he fell asleep on his surfboard and when he woke up, porpoises pushed him all the way in to shore. Dick, did you bang your head when you tripped over the hassock?

10. By the beard of the prophet! Another qoted tabloid entry mentions that two guys confessed to forcing a man to eat his own beard.

I've decided not to be Santa Claus this year. I had a job offer back in Spring, and I said that I might try it. But now.. after reading some David Sidaris stories, I don't thing I want to have the experience of little kids climbing on my lap, pulling my beard, vomiting on my knees, .... you get the picture.

11. Carlin. Yesterday, I bought the book Last Words, a memoir by George Carlin, with an assist by Tony Hendra. In reading the introcuction by Tony, I realized that he was the guy who wrote about Father Joe, a great read.

I note that the seven words made famous by George Carlin are being used more and more often by people on Facebook. Even some of my grandchildren are using such words once in a while. I realize that these are only "words" and one should not get upset upon hearing them. However, the young person that uses these words should realize that some older people who might be helpful to them in the future may be placing them in a category of people that they do not care to help, based on their vocabulary.

I loved George Carlin, and I enjoyed his humor. I have reservations about so-called comedians who must rely on George's seven words to be funny. They have not understood George's genius as a humorist. To show that you can be funny even without using the seven words, visit my joke blog.

http://joevaughansjokes.blogspot.com/

12. Devastating insight. Those ubiquitous U.K. researchers have now discovered that some dogs are pessimistic. How on earth did they discover that. Cats? Maybe. But, surely not dogs.
I think their research is in error. All the dogs I know seem to be happy go lucky and glad to see you.

Blogs rhyme with dogs, and my theory is that blogs, like dogs, should all be optimistic.

And I'm glad that you took time out of your busy day to visit my blog.
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Random Ramblings as the Weather Cools

2010-11-12T21:43:00.009-05:00

I'm going to do a lot of jumping around today.

01. Chan. Do you remember the Charlie Chan movies? They were the "B" movies that were shown in double feature shows. I always liked the Charlie Chan movies more than the "A" movies.

Charlie always had a saying to educate his "Number 1 son", and us kids would walk around after the movie, saying those clever aphorisms that we had heard.. usually not understanding them..

A few of these aphorisms:

Politeness golden key that opens many doors.

Long road sometimes shortest way to end of journey.

Action speak louder than French.

Can cut off monkey's tail, but he is still monkey.

Confucius says: A wise man questions himself; a fool others.

Cornered rat usually full of fight.

If befriend donkey, expect to be kicked.

Advice after mistake is like medicine after dead man's funeral.

Confucius says: No man is poor who has worthy son. (Charlie's number one son was usually Key Luke, who sometimes almost solved crimes by himself.)

One that I liked (but I'm sure Charlie never said) was "Confucius says: 'Many man smoke, but Fu Man Chu!'"

Over the years, several actors have portrayed Charlie Chan:

1936 Warner Oland
1946 Sidney Toler
1948 Roland Winters
1957 J. Carol Naish
1971 Ross Martin

Check out this great Chan site:

http://charliechanfamily.tripod.com/

02. Chinese Fortune Cookies: Years ago, fortune cookies displayed Charlie Chan-like aphorisms. Now, they've been updated a bit. Here are the last three that I received when I broke open my cookies:

Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly.

A lifetime of happiness lies ahead of you.

Anyone can memorize things, but the important thing is to understand it.

You have an important secret.. guard it well.. for at least one month.

It's time you asked that special someone out on a date. (Sorry, I'm spoken for.)

I have personally examined every detail of this garment to make sure it meets our high quality standards. Inspector 41. (Wait a minute! How did this get into a fortune cookie?)

These "fortunes" also contain language lessons now. Examples:

Boss: Lao-ban
Friendly: you-hao
Summer Camp: xia-ling-lying
Medical doctor: Hai-zi

But wait... That's not all.. they also have lucky numbers! Play them and you are sure to win loads of money.

03. Lucky numbers. My grandfather loved to play the numbers. He always played 437 (boxed). He couldn't afford to play much money.. so he usually played ten cents a bet. But when he was "flush", he would play numbers recommended by an out-of-town newspaper.. The Afro American.. out of Baltimore, Maryland. (I'm sure he wasn't quite sure where Baltimore was at the time.) He always told me that those numbers were the best you could get.

He would get his Afros delivered weekly by an ancient African-American, who would walk two miles uphill to get to our house (probably his only customer in the West End of New Bedford, Massachusetts.) Rain or shine, he would struggle up the hill just to deliver the 5 cent newspaper to my Grandfather.. and, perhaps, take a small numbers bet from him.

My grandfather "hit" the numbers quite often. Usually for around $7.00. Not much, but enough to buy 140 five cent beers at the Buttonwood Cafe, where my Grandfather "held court." He was called "Senator Vaughan", and he looked the part.

03. Alphabet soup at Spring training? Some time ago, one of the famous Baltimore Orioles pitchers was stopped at an early morning traffic check in Florida, and was asked to recite the alphabet. He tried vainly to do so, and afterwards told the policeman: "But I'm from Alabama, and they have a different alphabet." He was then arrested and charged with driving under the influence.

04. RIP Jack. Today, as I was "getting organized", an obituary fell out of some papers.

Jack S. Futterman passed away on March 22, 2000. I attended his funeral.

Jack was the Social Security Administration (SSA) manager responsible for the establishment of the Social Security Alumni Association, the organization which I have been president of, off and on, for 15 years. Jack had the vision of retirees being utilized by SSA for special projects, and also meeting regularly in social settings.

The Alumni Association has always volunteered to do SSA's bidding. A few years ago, they did use some retirees to pass out brochures in a shopping mall, and that worked very well. We are still available, but SSA apparently has enough staff to do all of their work without calling upon us. However, individuals with specialized experience have been rehired temporarily to help SSA when conditions warranted it.

Thanks to Jack, the SS Alumni Association has been a viable organization now for over 30 years.

Jack was quite an artist in his spare time and when he passed away, his son donated several of his father's paintings to the organization. A couple of them are hanging in our office. One is a rendition of a local church; the other is a still life with various artifacts.

05. Useful tip. Use empty toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls to store appliance cords. It keeps them nice and neat and you can write on the outside what appliances they belong to.

06. Hairspray. (Not the Baltimore movie) During the 1960's one of SSA's famous computer room operators had a marvelous hairdo. Normally tall, with the addition of a foot of hair on top of her head, she was a spectacularly tall lady. Very impressive!

To keep her "do" looking good and appropriately erect, she used lots and lots of hairspray. She spent a great deal of time in the ladies' room spraying.. much to the chagrin of the other ladies, who sometimes came running out coughing and wiping their eyes.

Well.. here is another tip: If flies or bees are bothering you, spray them with hair spray and they will take a quick nosedive.

I'll bet that famous computer room operator never had problems with flies and bees.

07. Bulbs. Another tip. Have you ever had a burned out light bulb break off in your hands. Then you have to shut off the circuit breaker, get out the pliers and wrestle with getting the bottom of the bulb pulled out of the socket.

To avoid this problem: whenever you need to insert a new bulb, rub some vaseline on the threads. Later, when the bulb dies, you can easily remove it. Saves a lot of cussing.

Speaking of bulbs.. when we visited Thomas Edison's home in Florida, we were shown light bulbs that were glowing brightly. We were told that these bulbs had been turned on by Edison himself and were still alive after decades of use. The secret ingredient was not revealed to us, and I'm sure that if we knew it, we all would get those kinds of bulbs and put the bulb manufacturers out of business. (My sister-in-law Linda worked in a bulb manufacturing plant, I wonder if she knew about these bulbs.)

08. Tip for winos. I can't believe this one, and I quote: "Don't throw out all that leftover wine: Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces."

Does anyone have leftover wine? I'm a very cheap wino.. my doctor says that I should have two glasses of red wine each evening. I try to adhere to his prescription, but not with wine that costs a lot of money.

I have a hard time believing the prices that shops get for wine. Perhaps it was because I spent 4 years in Germany where a good bottle of Riesling cost 25 cents (yes, I know, it was a while ago). Even in Paris, I did not spend a lot for wine. Remember, European water was not usually nice enough to drink.. so people drank a lot of wine and beer. (Americans in Europe mainly drank coca cola at a Cafe Americain.)

My advice.. buy a box of good California wine for about $11 for 5 (count 'em) litres! In my opinion, that wine is just as tasty as any of these highly touted wines that cost over $30 a bottle. Try it, you'll like it.

09. Alka Seltzer. Some more tips that someone sent me via email:

Drop two Alka Seltzer tablets in your toilet. Wait 20 minutes. Brush and flush. Voila.. bright vitreous China toilet bowl!

Drop two Alka Seltzer tablets into a glass of water and immerse jewelry for two minutes. Should polish the jewelry.

Clear a sink drain by dropping three Alka Seltzer tablets down the drain followed by a cup of Heinz White Vinegar. Wait a few minutes, then run the hot water.. and presto! A clear drain.. or so they say.

10. Alka Seltzer. My addiction. I like Alka Seltzer and am probably not going to pour it down any old drain.. I'm going to drop one tablet into a glass of nice cool water, watch it fizz, and then drink it down in one gulp. I've been doing this for years... secretly... until, during a recent doctor's examination, I confessed. Amazingly, he thought it was a good idea.. this is a Cardiologist and he wants me to take an aspirin tablet every evening.. so, since aspirin is in Alka Seltzer, I can substitute.

I mentioned this to my General Practitioner, and he thought it was a good idea too. And I've been having a guilt feeling about this for years. Now I can relax.

One of my Elaines teased me about Alka Seltzer and told everyone that my kids used to stand close to me in the evenings to hear the fizz in my stomach.

My mother-in-law decided she wanted to try Alka Seltzer and asked me what to do. I told her to open the bottle, take out a tablet and drop it in water, wait for the fizz and drink it right down. Later that night, she poured a glass of water, opened the bottle, took out the top item and placed it in the water. After a long period of non-fizz, she tried to help it along by breaking it up with a spoon. Still no fizz. She called me up. I told her that she had taken the foam topping out of the bottle instead of a tablet. After she got over her embarassment, she was successful and became an Alka Seltzer junkie like me.

11. Venezuelan Cleanliness. Harper's Magazine's Index mentions that Hugo Chavez called upon Venezuelans to limit their morning showers to 3 minutes. (Assumes that everyone in Venezuela takes a shower?)

12. U.S. Obesity Problem. Harper's Index mentions that 40% of all food in the U.S. supply chain is wasted. (Waisted?)

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Our Christmas Wish List

2010-11-03T15:05:00.004-04:00

Dear Santa, here is our wish list for Christmas 2010.

To make it easy for you, we have picked items from some of the voluminous catalogs we are receiving every day during this holiday season. If you want, we will leave a pile of these catalogs under our dryer vent (we don't have a chimney) so you can take them with you when you leave . They are a lot of fun to read, and we recommend them to everyone, including the Mrs and your busy elves.

Joe wants: A false hair "transplant" hat/visor. These come mostly in spiked hairdos and weird colors. He would rather have one with black/grey hair, so he can look a little younger, but not so young that he looks like a teen-ager.

The other day, at an AARP Diversity Workshop, many of the attendees said the most noticable thing about themselve was their "grey hair." Grey, hell! At our age, the hair is WHITE!

(Except for Elaine. Her hair will never get grey or white. OK?!)

Elaine wants: A sweatshirt that displays: "I don't do mornings!"

Joe wants: A pair of kilts. When we were in Scotland, Joe asked our kilted guide what is worn under kilts. He replied, "Nothing.. everything is in working order."

Elaine wants: A sweat-shirt with the letters NCIS. She likes this because it reminds her of the TV show. Neither Elaine nor Joe know what the letters mean.

Joe wants: A Therapeutic Dog Bed: Although the 42 x 52 inch bed is made of foam and is designed to be used by a dog, it looks so comfortable that Joe could use it when Elaine snores. (She says she doesn't snore. But she does, and she also talks Chinese in her sleep.)

Elaine wants: A Therapeutic Dog Bed: Although the 42 x 52 inch bed is made of foam and is designed to be used by a dog, it looks so comfortable that Elaine could use it when Joe snores. (He says "Nay, Nay!" ... but he lies a lot.)

Confusius says: "The one who snores always falls asleep first."

Elaine wants: A sign that says: "I'm so busy, I don't know if I found a rope or lost my horse."

Joe wants: A red and green sweat shirt that is imprinted with the words: "O Come Let Us Adore Me." That would be appropriate for the Joe Vaughan Fan Club.

Elaine wants: A pair of bright pink "Cuddl Duds" to keep her toasty warm during the La Nina Winter.

Joe wants: A toilet seat that looks just like a manhole cover.

It would remind him of when he was a kid and the street baseball would roll down the "sand catcher" and into the sewer. One of the kids would hang upside down close to the sewer water, held on the legs by another kid, and retrieve the (kind of smelly) ball, ... plus other floating balls as a bonus.

Elaine wants: Elvis Presley sneakers. They include Elvis' name spelled out in false jewels.

Joe wants: The Christmas classic Leg Lamp! You've all seen the TV story. What a wonderful holiday decoration that will make!

Elaine wants: A 3-piece synthetic Ghillie Suit, perfect for concealment while hunting. Elaine doesn't hunt, but likes the way the material drapes. It kind of looks like hanging moss or khudzu, and the color seems to go with most of the Alfred Dunner blouse designs she likes.

Santa, we think that this is enough. We don't want to appear greedy. Thanks in advance for the neat gifts. And don't believe what you read in the police log. We were not naughty. It was a "trumped-up charge."

Merry Christmas!
................................................................................................................................

Can you believe it?

2010-10-24T11:14:00.005-04:00

Auntie Mame said (paraphrasing): "Life is a banquet, and yet some poor chumps are starving to death!"

This seems especially true to me when I observe the election activity this year. Negativity seems to be a new way of life, and I don't like it at all. We have always had some negative ads, but this is ridiculous. Elaine and I took advantage of early voting and have done our duty, but we still have two weeks to be subjected to mail, telephone, email and tv messages telling us how bad each of the opposite candidates is. (I know that no amount of bad-mouthing will influence my vote and I hope it doesn't influence yours.) So, I would say to these negative people: "Relax! Begin to enjoy this wonderful banquet of a life. Look around you at all the beauty. It's there. When all you do and say is negative, you miss out on so much."

01. Cold feet? The Greenland marathon was run yesterday and won by a lady from Stockholm. I believe the temperature was a balmy 19 degrees, I could be wrong. I heard that one year the race was run in minus ten degree weather. The runners have to be very careful to avoid hidden cracks and crevices and some wear spiked running shoes so they don't slip on the ice.

02. Country Living. We live in a rural county in Maryland where there are many old churches that provide Saturday food fests. For instance, a couple of weeks ago we got carry-out crab cakes from one church. I'm not an expert on crab cakes, but Elaine said they were some of the best she had ever had.

Yesterday, we got carry-out fried oysters from another old country church. They were wonderful.

Soon, bazaar season will be upon us and we will be able to do the rounds of the churches and sample all the goodies here is the "land of pleasant living."

As a person involved with several senior citizen organizations, I get to attend lots of funerals. I make it a point to eulogize many of these persons if I feel that they are not being served well in that regard by clergy or relatives. After these services, there usually is a luncheon put on by the "church ladies". The food is always yummy, and helps to keep sweet memories of the deceased stay with us.

03. Commandments. Recently, I finished listening to a book on tape that I highly recommend. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. AJ is an editor at Esquire magazine and is the author of several books, including The Know-It-All, where he recounts his "humble quest to become the smartest person in the world" by reading the Encyclopedia Britanica from A to Z.

I will not try to give a review of AJ's book on tape. My son, Chris, is an author and does much better than I could ever do at book reviews. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed the book on tape so much that I ordered a print copy of the book from Amazon so that I could get the full effect of AJ's scholarship.

Just imagine, finding all of the commandments and suggestions in both the new and old testaments of the Bible and trying to observe them for a whole year. Try the read.. you'll like it.

04. Goats? A book that I recently read was The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson and a helper that doesn't get mentioned in the copy of the book that I have. After some delay, the movie based on the book has finally been released. (Did it first have to get US Government approval?)

Since I was in a small way connected with Air Force people who acted similarly to those (real persons) mentioned in the book, I got completely absorbed in the book. Once again, I will not try to give a review of the book. I will tell you that I was able to use one of the techniques mentioned in the book to save my life when surrounded by drunken Army tank drivers in Nuremberg, Germany fifty years ago. Read my book about that one.

05. Happy seniors. Speaking of banquets.. last week, it was my privilege to help set up the induction ceremony for the 2010 members of the Maryland Senior Citizens Hall of Fame. Fifty seniors were honored for doing years of volunteer service to their communities. These inductees had been involved in all kinds of activity that helped their fellow citizens of all ages. It was indeed a happy occasion. No negativity there.

I want to mention one of the inductees and I don't think he would mind. His last name is Vaughn (without the "a"). He brought a group of cheering supporters with him.. 6 tables of them.. 59 ladies! Since we have (almost) the same last name, I asked him to take some of whatever he has that makes him so attractive to women and bottle it for me. (Only kidding, Elaine...)

06. Amazing. Simon Cowell's "Got Talent" franchise now broadcasts in over 30 countries, including China. In Shanghai, the winner was a 23 year old man who plays the piano with his toes! Liiu Wei lives in Beijing and lost his legs at age 10. Parents.. tell this to your reluctant piano playing kids.

07. Parlez-vous? The Associated Press reports that a woman in England speaks English with a French accent even though she has never been in France or studied French. She has a condition known as Foreign Accent Syndrome. There are only a few cases of this around the world. Supposedly, the syndrome appeared suddenly after she had a severe migraine attack.

08. Old friends. Recently, coming back from three weeks at the ocean, I tried to catch up on three weeks of newspapers... including some online from my Massachusetts hometown. Of course, the first thing I checked was the obituaries.

Baltimore Sun: I saw a memorial to the lady who was my secretary for several years at the Social Security Administration in Woodlawn, Maryland.

Letha Alston: a marvelous secretary and good friend who made a big impact on my life. She passed at the age of 66 in 2006..

Letha once gave me a birthday card that said: "You remind me of Chinese Food: Egg Foo Old!"

Letha also was a great supplier of jokes for my stand-up comedy routines: the one I remember best has the punchline: "that's nacho cheese!"

I miss Letha.

New Bedford Standard Times:

David Burr, who died on his 78th birthday.. September 30th, 2010. Dave was a friend at Rodman School in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was a comedian type kid who always had a joke or a funny tale to tell. He was another influence on my life. RIP

09. Resurrection? Last week in Baltimore, an 89 year old lady was found on the floor of her bathroom. The policemen assumed that she was dead and contacted her son, who made arrangements to donate her body to science.

When the college worker came to get the body, he noticed that the body's arm moved. He checked her pulse, and sure-enough, she was alive.

Baltimore police will get a refresher course in what to check for when an apparently dead body is found. (read Edgar Allen Poe)

10. Another resurrection? A Michigan dog was "put down" by its owner because of a painful spinal condition. The owner put the corpse in the garage to be buried later. The next morning, he found the dog standing up and giving him a dirty look.

11. Stink bugs. Well, the invasion has finally come to Maryland. We have always had some stink bugs, but this is ridiculous. Open the door, they fly in. Squash them, they give off a pungent odor. Some people like the odor. Most don't. SuZee won't eat them. Elaine wants them thrown down the toilet. I usually just pick them up on a paper and throw them out.

The local orchard folks are very upset. These bugs destroy the looks of apples and nobody will buy them, including canners. Farmers can't use the chemicals that could kill them because of environmental hazards. Some want to import Japanese stink-bug predators, but that may become a problem ecologically also. Its a problem that needs to be addressed before next year's crop season.

12. Humor. Those who have XM radio have a great resource for humor. There is a "clean joke" channel. As I've mentioned before.. a true humorist does not have to resort to dirty jokes or cuss words to get a laugh. I am developing a blog for clean jokes that I have accumulated for almost fifty years... visit: http://joevaughansjokes.blogspot.com/

((I apologize, George Carlin!))

Enjoy the banquet!

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The Mad 1960's

2010-10-14T21:37:00.006-04:00

With all the excitement about the series MAD MEN and the 1960's decade, I have decided to record some of the items in a scrapbook I created in May 1963. Perhaps it might give you even more insight into that wonderful time to be alive, a half-century ago!

http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/about/

01. Murphy's Laws. Although probably listed first in the Scientific American magazine for 4/56, they were talked about extensively in the 1960's..

I. If something can go wrong, it will.
II. When left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse.
III. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

02. Figures: An "electronic computer" was used in Atlanta to come up with the following statistic: The average female figure measures 35-25-35. However, ladies on the West Coast are a wee bit larger.

03. Chewing Gum: An historian found out that chewing gum was being used by the Aztecs when the Spanish landed in the Yucatan. However, it didn't catch on with European types until 350 years later. General Santa Anna of Mexico was a fan and tried to get an example of it taken seriously by the Americans while he was exiled in Staten Island. Discouraged, he left the material when he returned to Mexico. But an enterprizing American named Thomas Adams used it to found a U. S. chewing gum industry.. his product: Adams Chiclets. Shortly thereafter, a guy named William Wrigley, Jr. gave the big push to make chewing gum an important American pastime.

The Germans call chewing gum Kaugummi. I suspect that is because people who chew gum kind of look like cows chewing their cud. Recently, in Ocean City, we were served by a medical doctor at an emergency center who was chewing gum. Somehow, this did not seem professional to me.

04. IBM. The computer giant was really "big" in the early '60's. Times were good for them, especially with Government contracts. Jobs were rather prevalent, in fact, around 1963, headhunters offered me three jobs with IBM. One of which was at their Poughkeepsie "Think Tank" where the employees (gasp!) were allowed to dress for work without a black suit or tie!

In my scrapbook, I have a cartoon by a cartoonist named Richard Taylor who had a distinctive manner of drawing which I tried to copy for years. The cartoon showed an older manager introducing a new employee to the existing black-suited staff of five men. The new recruit looks and is dressed exactly like the current staff. (This is a direct reference to IBM's cookie-cutter created staff.)

http://www.pbase.com/csw62/r_taylor

05. Ben sez: Quote from Ben Franklin: "Keep thy eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut aft erwards."

06. Flower Mart: The Flower Mart in Mount Vernon Square, Baltimore, Maryland, was big in 1963. That is the first year that I attended. It took place in a circle around Baltimore's Washington Monument, and consisted of craft vendors, food vendors, flower vendors and generally crazy people. Crab cakes were a big hit and were a lot cheaper than they are today. But, the biggest hit of the Mart was the famous "peppermint sticks".. everybody bought them. These are candy peppermint sticks, stuck into lemons.. they are surprizingly refreshing.

http://www.baltimore-maryland.org/flower-mart-photos.html

One thing I noticed about the Flower Mart was that there were very few black people in attendance. Since half of the population of Baltimore at the time was of African-American descent, this seemed strange to me. Apparently there was some racial problem because a few years later, black protests shut the mart down for a few years. I haven't been down to check it out these days, but I haven't heard of any problems with it lately, so I guess everything worked out o.k.

07. Names: Those of you who have read Mencken's American Language, know a bit about American last names. If you haven't read it, you really should; it is a classic.

While I worked at the Social Security Administration, I kept a file of strange names (at least to me). I guess, since I have been retired for a while, it would be o.k. for me to list some of these names that intrigued me while I worked there. I hope noone takes offense.

Rose Pyles
Lucy Kluck
Fanny Paper
Park Bench
Work Bench
Only Teasdale
Ozelia Fontenont
Bunnie Blue
Wrestling Keith
Bonita Purkypile
Dink Pike
Joe Ooom
Parafine Puff
Feather Schwartz
Bren Gunn and Tommy Gunn (father was Pop Gunn)
Freeman A. Mason

When Elaine worked at SSA, she found the name: Pink Valentine.

08. More Ben sez: "A single man resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors."

09. City life: A 1963 study found that 400 snakes of three species were found living in peaceful anonymity on three acres within Chicago's city limits.

10. Car terms: A weekly magazine in 1963 listed some once common automobile terms that were no longer recognized:

SPRAG: A pointed iron rod beneath a car. It's pointed end could be released to dig into the road to prevent cars with poor brakes from rolling backwards down a hill.

TREMBLER: A buzzer-like device attached to the dashboard, which made the ignition sparks.

PILOT: A little gasoline-fed flame which ignited the fire under the boiler of a Stanley Steamer.

http://www.stanleymotorcarriage.com

BANDAGE: Something that you buckled over a punctured tire to allow you to continue.

TILLER: What some people called the wagon-related steering device on early autos...which was thankfully replaced by the steering wheel.

11. Pre-Mensa Poetry:

Pyschologist, with Freudian craft,
Divide the dullards from the daft,
Say who's rigid, who's resilient,
Who's safe and who risks being brilliant.

The thing to be is well-adjusted
(Your reflex actions must be trusted)
That way you'll never be suspected
Of thinking something unexpected.

By Leonard Sharpe

(I'm not sure of the poet's name. Perhaps my brother Joe, who has a gift for solving mysteries, can find out who the poet is.)

12. Final Ben sez:

"There's a time to wink as well as to see."

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Geezers at the Beach

2010-10-07T09:36:00.003-04:00

I thought that I might talk a bit about a recent trip that we took, because it might give you some insights about vacation matters. I'll just ramble on and cover topics as I think of them.

Who? Elaine and I.

What? Spent 3 weeks in an ocean-front condo on the beach.

Where? Ocean City, Maryland.

When? Just after Labor Day.

Preparation: As you probably know already, women pack differently than men. Elaine filled 19 containers of various sizes. I filled 3. I do have to admit that Elaine's fills were mainly things that were needed for the condo: such as sheets, pillow cases, and non-perishable food. And she did also pack necessary clothes items.

My stuff (that I didn't forget) consisted of a few shirts, socks, and underwear, as well as my laptop, books, magazines and binoculars for watching the gulls.... girls?

Over the years, I have developed a check-list for myself, to make sure that I don't forget anything. (Elaine doesn't use one and thinks that my list is "just something a man would do.")

Unfortunately, the only thing about a checklist is that you must remember to find it and use it. (Remember the key point of every memory course... whatever you are looking for, is under something.. so pick it up!) I'll bet that my checklist is right underneath my missing hearing aid.

Moving in: The condo is on the third floor and can be reached by a little elevator. To get our 22 containers into the elevator, I had to make 14 trips, pushing a wheeled holder up a long ramp to get to the elevator. This was done at 11 pm in gale winds. Once in, after a lot of heavy breathing and gasping.. a warm beer helped calm me down a bit.

Since Elaine is in a wheelchair right now, beds and furniture had to be moved to accomodate and in so doing, a heavy picture popped off the wall right over my bed. It's a good thing that it happened then, because if I had had a nightmare and bumped the wall, that damned picture could have injured me. How would I have explained that to the doctor: "A picture flew off the wall and landed on my head." It was a picture of the Titanic..

Provender: Of course, what we brought with us in the way of food was minimal. We would buy the bulk of our food at the local supermarkets where prices are a bit higher than at home; for instance, on the main drag, a dozen medium eggs cost $2.59! Later, I found eggs at $1.59 a dozen at a supermarket on a road going out of town.

Happy Hair: Elaine discovered a store she was not familiar with: HarrisTeeter. They had a clearance table that had Elaine's favorite shampoo at $.99 a bottle. That was a fraction of its price in Baltimore. Elaine bought up all they had.

Broooom!! Our arrival was during "Bike Week" when 100,000 Harley Davidson riders descend upon Ocean City. This made driving our mini SUV a challenge and sleeping kind of trying.

Most of the bikers have been coming to OC for years and a lot of them look like me: chubby, bearded and old. While they cavorted with their fellow bikesters, their wives and girlfriends made the Beach Scene and helped give OC a new name: Cellulite City.

Buzzzzzzz! Since it wasn't safe to be on the road with the bikers, we did not go out to eat this week. Instead, we cooked a lot of good food right in the condo. However, since I do the cooking, smoke detectors feel that they have to harrass me. Just as it was in our Weller Way home, the detector is right near the stove, it has a tendency to go off to let me know that our food is ready.

Yummy stuff: When we did get to go out to restaurants, we went to some favorites:

Outback: Coconut shrimp!
Panda Buffet: Raw oysters and crab legs!
Crackerbarrel: Down home food!
Red Lobster: Unending shrimp!

We brought in a lot of food too:

Waterman's: A couple of dozen crabs!
Market: Big bag of steamed blue crab claws!
Greek Colonels: Creamed chipped beef!

FunFest: One week was FunFest Week in OC. This is when they put up monstrous tents containing lots and lots of crafty stuff for Elaine to buy. She bought some gifts, including some nice things for SuZee, our cat. She also bought a fancy (eternally sharp) knife for a bunch of money. Since I bad-mouthed the deal, she probably won't let me use it. The knife has a 50 year warranty.. neither she nor I will live that long. When I mentioned that to the 20 year old sales lady, she said that we could just pass it on to our heirs.

The only bad thing about FunFest, in my opinion, is that because noone can smoke in any of the tents, they congregate at the entrances... hundreds of them.. and blow smoke.

Entertainment?: Next to these tents are amusement areas. A ferris wheel, shooting galleries, Dodg-em Cars, Merry Go Rounds, and a weird and very scary piece of equipment that shoots people in little gondolas way up in the sky as though they are being shot by a massive rubber band.

The Hubcaps: Our favorite group, Carroll County's own Hubcaps was there inside the big tent one night. Tickets were $5 and $10. (Blood, Sweat and Tears was in the big tent another night, but they charged $20 and $49.) Elaine didn't want to get a ticket; instead, she sat near the back entrance and could see and hear them very well. She said that they did not do their usual schtick. That is probably because they would have to pay royalties.. and maybe they can get away with not paying them in Carroll County.

Delish: The food tent held many delicacies. One night, Elaine had a crab fluff and I had little fries and fish. Another night, we both had crab soup in bread bowls. Yingling beer was $3 for 10 ounces; light beer was $3 for 16 ounces. (At one time, Yingling was garbage beer and unsellable outside of Pottsville, PA.. now they advertise Nationwide and charge a lot more for a six-pack.) I think that IPA (India Pale Ale) is far and away the best beer made today. Much better than the versions made by the Brits years ago.

WalMart? What's a trip to OC without a visit to their WalMart store? This year, instead of counting the number of people with massive tatoos, I decided to count only those who did not have them. I only counted 5.. but they probably had theirs covered by their shirts.

What other WalMart can you go to where everybody is yelling at the top of their lungs? Strange people down there.

Home away from Home: We rent the condo from a good friend of ours, and we have to care for it as though it were our own home. So, when I fell asleep at the table, tipped it over and saw the glass of tomato juice sail through the air and onto the carpet, I became a little excited. Immediate action allowed us to get the spill completely cleaned up and undetectable.

Pills: As an old dude, I take a lot of medication. One of my pills is minute. A little yellow pill that blends in perfectly with the weaves of the carpet. (Yes, I spilled my pills.) I never did find 3 of them and hope that the vacuum cleaner got them before our host steps on the little squishy things.

Anger: Early one Sunday morning, we heard a knock on our door. It was a maintenance man who said that the guy in the condo under us was getting water into his bathroom. The maintenance man found that the spigot and faucets in the bathtub were loose, perhaps allowing some water to get in and spread down to his appartment. He said that he would caulk the area.

Meanwhile, a man with a very angry red face barged in and started yelling about his ceiling and put his face right up against mine. The last time an angry face got that close to me, it became dented in a few places and it almost happened again this time. However, I restrained myself. After caulking, the guy was getting more water, so it probably wasn't from this apartment at all.

Anyway, after this, I was hoping that we wouldn't have any other problems that would upset this guy.. guess what.. on the last day, while we were packing to leave, the toilet overflowed. Elaine and I spent a long time with a lot of towels getting the water off the floor.. and then we spent hours trying to unclog the drain. I didn't see the guy's red face again so I guess he stayed dry.

Oil Spill? When I went down to the beach to get some shells for Elaine, as I do each year, there were none. Where were the shells? The sand was flecked with black, just as I remember from when I was a kid during WWII. Tankers were sunk in the Atlantic by German submarines and spilled oil created tar in action with the sand.. and it spread out lightly over all after a while. This was like that.. and where were the shells? What is going on?

When we first got to OC, the surf was monstrous. Could it have squashed the shells?

Weather: Later, while remnants of hurricanes were storming up the Atlantic in the form of torrential rains, the weather channel kept showing Doppler Radar pictures of all this wetness coming up the coast. At one time, we had a Flash Flood Alert, a Heavy Rain Alert, a Tornado Watch and something else I can't remember. Over and over we were alerted about and shown pictures of the 12 inches of rain that we definitely would get. It never showed up. Not a drop until the last day that we were in OC.

The Last Day: As we battled with a rogue toilet, torrential rains buffeted OC. I made the 16 trips (remember, we made purchases) down the elevator and out into the storm and into the car. Everything got soaked, especially me. (I'm paying for it now with a very painful back and wheezing lungs.)

But, all in all, as usual, we had a great time. We were especially glad that my beautiful granddaughter, Bridget, was able to look after our cat, SuZee for the time that we were gone. SuZee told us that Bridget treated her very well.

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Bieber Fever, etc.

2010-09-06T15:20:00.009-04:00

01. Bieber Fever: Mr. Bieber came to the Maryland State Fair yesterday and you would have though they were giving out free fifty dollar bills. This 16 year old guy has all the eleven year old girls yelling and screaming like the Bobby Soxers did for Frank Sinatra in the 1940's (yes, I was alive then!)

One interviewer asked a Bieber fan how she liked his singing. She said: "He's cute!"

Frank Sinatra's voice lasted almost to the day he died at age around 80, I think. Let's see what Bieber's voice does in the next few years. He seems like a nice clean-cut kid, and his popularity will probably just grow..

I hope everyone also gets a chance to listen to the 10 year old female finalist on America's Got Talent. This is a kid with a Diva's voice range. She should be a spectacular super star someday.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38667257

02. Car stuff: I'm typing some of this while waiting for Toyota mechanics to do the 10,000 mile maintenance on my Rav4. I love that car. I bought the 100 year maintenance offering, so I should not get charged anything for my 5,000 visits until the year 2109.... at least that what the fine print on my contract says.. maybe.. I guess I need to buy a magnifying glass to make sure.

03. Tolerance: In my last blog entry, I wrote about a Florida pastor scheduling a Koran burning session. I just read in Time magazine that this will take place on 9/11. The pastor argues that Jesus would burn the Koran because "it's not holy." Now, everybody in Afghanistan is cursing the US and Obama.. why do they think that our President is condoning the burning?

04. Jokes: As some of you know, I started a new blog that will contain jokes and puns and humorous items that I have been collecting for many many years. I've already had some comments on my first issuance. "Cheesy.", "Fun to read.", "Childish", "Funny." ,"Go for it."

So, I guess I will continue it. If interested and a glutton for punishment, visit

http://joevaughansjokes.blogspot.com/

05. Species: Today, my SNAPPLE diet tea cap had the following message:

"Manhattan Island was once home to as many different species as Yellowstone National Park."

I showed the message to Elaine, and she had the very same response as I had, namely:

"It still is."

06. New Jersey Perps: Did I mention the one-legged thief who broke into a New Jersey shoe store and left some boxes on the floor with just right shoes? He was easy to catch.

Or the bicycle-riding crook who wore a Nixon mask? Another easy catch for Trenton cops.

07. Birther: By now, you must have heard of that "bright light" Army Officer who refused deployment to Afghanistan because he said that President Obama is not legally his Commanding Officer, because he wasn't born in the United States. He says he wants to see the "real" birth certificate. (A judge threw out his defence as idiotic.) I wonder how he got to be an officer?

08. Ugh! Disgusting sign seen in a men's rest room:

"Please do not drop paper towels in the urinals. They turn yellow when we dry them out, and some people do not like to use them."

09. Savage breast? An English headmaster punishes his students in detention by forcing them to listen to classical music!

Today, a radio announcer mentioned that there are people who die every day who have never heard the beautiful music of Beethoven. Or Mozart!!!!! I wonder if they teach classical music in school these days. My 7th grade teacher taught us how to read music and how to enjoy classical music. My mother had already instilled in me a love for the light classics, but listening to the masterworks opened my mind to a wonderful new world. So, I learned to like Bach and Beethoven. And then, later in life.. Mozart and Mahler!

10. Toot! We missed it! July was National Baked Beans Month.

11. SuZee TV: Did I mention that our cat watches TV with us. The other night, we watched two Netflix movies and she didn't move from her perch on a table between us and the TV. She watches TV very intently. She likes a lot of action and conversation. The news bores her and she doesn't like some of the cop shows that Elaine likes (even though they have lots of action).

12. Spice: Some of my Toastmasters friends sent me lists of things to do to make life more interesting. I thought that you might like to learn some of them.

Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "IN".

Everytime anybody asks you do do something, ask if they want fries with that.

In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."

Instead of walking, skip.

Married men, everytime you see a broom, yell: "Honey, your mother is here."

..............................................................................................................................

10.

Some new stuff.. at least to me.

2010-08-29T12:08:00.025-04:00

I learned a lot of fantastic information this week. Some of which I will outline here.

01. What's in a name? I apologize to this beautiful person for picking on her name, but somehow it makes me giggle, I don't know why, but I believe that there once was a stripper on the Baltimore infamous "Block" with the same name.

The AARP Sex and Relationship Expert is named Pepper Schwartz.

http://uwnews.org/uweek/article.aspx?id=52956

02. It had to happen: A heavy-set woman was charged extra in one of those fingernail salons for being too fat and endangering their chairs that are tested for only 200 pounds.

Many years ago, fellow Mensan, Marvin Grosswirth established an organization called Fat Pride. based on a book he wrote with the same name. Other such organizations were established over the years, but I think his was the first. Marvin wrote lots of interesting books and unfortunately, died of cancer at the age of 53. A man of great intellect, as well as great girth... which rhymes with his last name.. which means a "great innkeeper".. at least in the German dialect I know.

Anyway, Marvin felt that one should not be ashamed of being overeweight. Why on earth would one want to be a skinny-bones? (However, personally, I would like to be a little bit thinner.)

(Marvin also was in favor of beards.. at least on men. He felt that if one wore a beard, one should wear a real man's beard, not one of those "sissy beards" worn by some rock stars.)

http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL1346088A/Marvin_Grosswirth

03. Caution! Kevin Dayhoff, former mayor of Westminster, Maryland, in one of his interesting newspaper articles, mentions that in the 1960's, some traffic lights did not flash yellow, only red and green. I was around then, but I don't remember such lights in the places I lived. This probably confused children who thought that the traffic lights were Christmas decorations.

Among lots of other things, Kevin Dayhoff writes a journal called the New Bedford Herald. (It's not about New Bedford, Massachusetts, where I was born and brought up.)

http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/

04. Deep fat! Vendors at the upcoming Maryland State Fair will be selling lots of deep fat fried items, including Oreo cookies, Snicker Bars, Twinkies, Buckeyes (peanut butter and chocolate mixed), and even ice cream bars... but they will have to go a lot further in their plans to clog up Marylanders' arteries to top the Canadians. At an exhibition in Toronto, vendors are selling deep fat fried butter!

http://www.deepfatfryerspro.com/

05. It's a digital world all right. A street musician now has a card reader by his side. If you like his guitar music, you can give him a tip (donation) by swiping your credit card and keying in the amount you want to give him. (I wonder if he takes American Express.)

06. Mis-attribution. One of the few poems I ever learned was the one about a pelican:

A curious bird is the pelican,

His beak holds more than his belly can.

He can store in his beak,

Enough food for a week,

And I don't know how the devil he does it.

I have always attributed it to Ogden Nash.. it's the kind of stuff he wrote.

Well, I learned this week that I was wrong. The poem was written by newspaper humorist, Dixon Lanier Merritt, and goes like this:

A wonderful bird is the pelican,

His bill can hold more than his bellican.

He can hold in his beak,

Food enough for a week,

But I'm damned if I see how the hellican.

(Which one do you like?)

http://search.intelius.com/dixon-lanier-merritt

07. Ugh! A nutritionist who was interviewed on NPR said that shrimp imported from Thailand is "grown in dirty ponds." Think about that the next time you order scampi at your favorite restaurant.

08. Banana Bread: I love to bake banana bread! Sometimes I make it plain.. just bananas.. sometimes I add blueberries; sometimes I add walnuts; sometimes I add chocolate chips; sometimes I add butterscotch chips; sometimes I mix them all together.

A well-known local Carroll County humorist, with another interesting name, Cathy Drinkwater Better, writes a funny column in the Carroll Eagle. This week, she mentioned what goes on in her house when her husband finds real old bananas in the fridge. Of course, as anyone knows, you have to have real old bananas to make good banana bread. I'm probably one of the few men in the world who knows that the secret to delicious banana bread is old, black, mushy, gnat-infested bananas.

Elaine and I always laugh long and hard when we read her Sunday articles. She is a gifted story teller, and as I also learned this week, a well-known author, with a lot of books to her credit.

http://www.cathydrinkwaterbetter.com/

09. New word. The big-name dictionaries are adding a new word in their latest editions: bromance .. friendship between two men. I have a brother Joe, that I sometimes call BRO and a friend from early childhood named Bob, and we both often refer to each other as BRO. But of course, there is no "romance" there. There are lots of BRO- words, such as bromide, brocade, Bromo Seltzer, .... Broken = what Barbie's brother now calls Ken.. NBC's Tom Brokaw... etc etc

10. A Dog's Best Friend: I've mentioned this before, but some one of you may still never have heard of this great invention. It was dreamed up by the brother of Tony Shalhoub (you know... Mr. Monk!)

Yes, I'm talking a bout the Shapoopy.. better than a pooper-scooper.. it catches your dog's poop before it even hits the ground! Wow!

http://theshapoopie.com/

Have you heard the jingle?

www.televisiontunes.com/Family_Guy_-_Shapoopy.html

11. What would Johnie Cash do? I learned today that those automatic faucets that are now ubiquitous, will not work if you are wearing black. Imagine that.

12. An amazing author! Over the years, Tom Robbins has written a lot of thoughtful (weird) books. His latest is a children's book called B is for Beer.

Tom says that he ate so much mayonaise as a kid that his parents threatened to send him to the Mayo Clinic. ! He is the inventor of the Gin-Greasy.. which is a combination of gin and mayonaise. I don't think I'm going to try it.

Quote from Tom: "I believe in nothing, everything is sacred. I believe in everything, nothing is sacred." Whatever that means... I think I will put it into my email messages.

http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=25708

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2010-08-22T12:01:00.005-04:00

I went to my doctor last Thursday, and he said that I looked so good that I probably would live to be 70. I told him: "I'm already there." He replied: "See, I told you so."

Sorry, I made that up, but this was my skin doctor and he told me I didn't need to come back to see him for a whole year. Good news.

I had asked him about the white things growing on my arms and hands. They look like barnacles. (Remember the old song: "I'm Barnacle Bill, the sailor"?) He assured me that I was not turning into a humpback whale. He said that eventually everybody gets them, usually around the age of 60. See what you have to look forward to.

Enough about me, let's go on to more interesting things, I hope.

01. Mr. Mind? SHAZAM!: This week, Elaine and I came face to face with the dreaded tomato horn-worm. (Actually five of them.) These are large green caterpillars with thin white stripes and horns. They are very hard to see because they are the same color as the foliage they love to eat. They are voracious eaters. You can tell where they are by looking for devastated areas on your plants. If you don't get rid of them, they will completely devour your tomato plants.

We couldn't figure out how these worms could get to our plants, which are 15 feet off the ground on our deck. We later learned that they are propagated by a generous moth that lands on your plants and lays eggs which later turn into the worms.

The worms grow big and strong very quickly and sometimes get to be 6 inches long and very plump. At some point, they feel that their tummies are full enough for them to quit being a worm and weave themselves into cocoons and go to sleep until they wake as giant colorful moths, some as big as humming birds. Then the cycle continues.

To break the cycle, you must rid yourself of these worms when you find them. I threw some down a toilet and it got clogged up, so I don't recommend that. I put some through the disposal. That worked ok, but I then felt like a murderer. Finally, I followed some advice and cut them in half with a knife... yes, I didn't like doing it, but what was the alternative?

There is one humane way to handle them. A certain type of wasp climbs on the backs of these worms and deposits hundreds of eggs which become larvae that feeds on the worm. After a short time, these parasites kill the worm. So, if your tomato horm worm shows white things on its back, it will be going to worm heaven shortly and you can leave it alone.

http://organicgardensite.com/bugs-harmful/tomato-horn-worms/

02. The ultimate solution? I heard on the radio yesterday that a Southern Christian church is scheduling a "Koran Burning Day." Will they soon be recommending the rounding up of all Moslems for concentration camps?

03. Carat juice: Years ago, aristocrats liked to drink liquid gold; they thought that it was helpful. It probably killed them. Recently, gold residue has been found in dug-up ancient remains. You rich folks, don't try it.

Recently, one of my organizations that publishes a book with a gold-lettered title on the cover, received a bill for hundreds of dollars, just for the gold-lettering. When we opted for a silver-lettered title, the price went down considerably.

04. HUH? The Baltimore Sun reports that 15% of teens are going deaf because of the music coming through their ear buds. Music? I'm sorry, but the sounds that appeal to some of our teen-agers would make my poor old ears cry "Uncle!" But then, I am an old dude who would rather listen to Mozart... once in a while I like to hear works by Gustav Mahler which could be considered by some classical musical buffs to be a little loud at times. (By the way, give yourself a treat, teen-agers, plug into Mahler's Lied von der Erde.. both the music and the lyrics/poems.. I think you would like it.)

http://www.mahlerarchives.net/DLvDE/DLvDE.htm

05. Writer's idea: Walk through a cemetery and find an interesting tombstone. Do some research on that person.. who they were.. who their ancestors were. Then, armed with those facts, build a story around them, perhaps change their names and write the story for publication.

I have always wanted to do this. In Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, near my family's gravesites, there are tombstones for the Snow family. The family intrigues me. There is a Captain Snow, with a carving of his ship on the stone. There are lots of other Snow's nearby, including one person named Ivory Snow. These were all people who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries and probably many of them were whalers out of New Bedford. I'll bet there are interesting stories there ...and I would like to get them down on paper someday when I have time. (Space here for an emoticon representing someone laughing their head off.)

I wonder if Captain Snow is the same guy whose house is now an inn on Cape Cod?

http://www.stonelioncapecod.com/inn.html

06. Even the rich have to: I just learned that Hetty Green, New Bedford born richest woman in the world at one time, was not quite the mean person she was made out to be. I'll talk more about her and a biography of her life in a later blog entry. For now, I want to mention something I think I heard on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me: her son, called Colonel Green, owned a diamond-encrusted chamber pot. Speaking of things scatalogic, his mother had an automobile that contained a working toilet. The car is now on display at an automobile museum in Princeton, Massachusetts.

07. Up, Up and Away: The Baltimore Sun mentions a theater in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, that shows old ugly movies. The audience is encouraged to boo, hiss and heckle. Sounds like a lot of fun. One of the old movies being shown is Gamera.. about a kind of ugly monster that flies through the air by farting fire.

http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/Gamera

08. Another writer's idea: Take a deceased person and develop a facebook style story with them and others of the same time frame. In other words, for instance, set up Thomas Jefferson on a dummy Facebook, with "friends" like John Adams, George Washington, etc. Plug in entries.. about events in their lives.. with pictures of oil paintings as "photo" spots.. but not like Twitter entries, although that might be worked out.

09. Girls night out: I read somewhere that people in Bogota, Colombia observed a "night without men".. and reported that crime for that night was down by 25%.

10. Exciting stuff: Folks can now canoe or kayak over the 18 foot high Ohiopyle Falls on Pennsylvania's Youghiogheny River. When I worked at the Social Security Administration in Baltimore, trips down the Youghiogheny River were fairly common. However, I can't imagine how any of these folks, in their reportedly drunken condition, could have made it over a waterfall without leaving this world.

http://www.fay-west.com/ohiopyle/

11. Fish in disguise? Inside my facial cheeks, I have what seem to be vestigial gills. Nobody else I know has them. They never have helped me get oxygen through my cheeks and "what can be the use of them is more than I can see".. they do get kind of chewed up sometimes... haven't you ever bit the inside of your cheek? Can anybody out there.. and believe it or not, there are a few people out there .. help me in this regard? But please don't get me embroiled in the anti-evolution argument.

12. A Teenage Hero: In item 07 above, I mention that there is a theater where lousy movies are shown. One of those mentioned is Hercules, starring Steve Reeves. The movie came out in 1958, just after Steve had achieved a body-building status unmatched until "Big Arnie" appeared on the scene.

I was heavy into weight-lifting and body-building in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's, and Steve was one of my "heroes". This was a guy that I could never look like.. he was about 7 feet tall, with massive, but well-formed muscles from his little toe to the top of his hairdo. He was "a man's man" who did not use steroids and liked women... who went crazy over him.

Unfortunately, he was not a very good actor. I believe he did a lot of Italian movies where his voice was dubbed in a perfect Roman accent.

At one time, I had a 5 minute movie of Steve flexing his muscles. I had that movie mixed in with other 8 mm movie film of family events. One of my co-workers combined all of these films into a long reel.. however, Steve's movie didn't get edited out.. so, as you looked at the family at Christmas in 1966, this was immediately followed by Steve flexing, followed immediately by the family in Easter 1967. Interesting.

http://www.stevereeves.com/

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Another Hot Week

2010-08-14T12:10:00.006-04:00

Even though this was another hot and muggy week, with violent thunder storms, it was a "cool" week for the Social Security Alumni Association in Maryland.

A nice group met at Bullock's Rt 32 for the Carroll County Social Security Alumni Chapter on Monday.

A larger than usual group met at the Windsor Inn for the Baltimore Chapter on Tuesday.

On Thursday, I represented the Social Security Alumni Association as its President for the opening of the Social Security Museum and the festivities for the 75th Anniversary of the Social Security Act. I'll be writing about this in my SSAA Blog.

Meanwhile, let me mention a few "interesting" things that I heard or read about recently.

01. By the book: Efficient New York City traffic workers would not allow a King Tut's tomb artifact, namely, an ancient vehicle, to enter the city.. because.. it did not have a "vehicle identification number."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyid=128973450

02. A lot to learn: Researchers say that we have 250,000 known species and another 1,000,000 unknown species in the world's oceans. (Not counting the one billion unknown bacteria species.) The richest areas to look for these unknown non-bacteria species are thought to be around Australia and Japan, and many species probably live in mud or on reefs.

A recently found "unknown" is called a "Dragon Fish" which has teeth on it's tongue.

03. That little squirt! A 28 year old Maryland resident has finally been caught after squirting sperm on several persons in Gaithersburg grocery stores and malls. Maybe he thinks he's an unknown species of fish.

04. Methuselah? A global warming expert stated this week: "...a rate of (animal) extinction that we haven't seen for millions and millions of years." Does he have a Hubble-type telescope with very close resolution?

05. Another opportunity for short people. The French Gendarmerie (police) have started to hire people under 5'3". Was this a change because they wanted to hire more females.. although in the US, females seem to be usually taller than that these days. Or, maybe it is another boon to short people that has been pushed by Sarkozy?

I've mentioned before.. researchers have determined that Napoleon might have been 5'6"... the same height of Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini.

By the way, new documents have been found in Scotland that indicate in 1919 a Scotsman saved a young Hitler from being stomped to death by a mob. !

06. Sarah quote: I hadn't heard about this one until I read it this week. "When are they going to ramp up drilling?" Did she really say that? Was it before the BP spill?

07. Mad man? The advertising guy who gave us "Don't squeeze the Charmin" is now pushing for "Meatless Mondays". He feels that it will be a healthful move for our obese society. I believe he has already gotten Johns Hopkins University interested in the concept, and some Baltimore schools are removing meat from their menus for Mondays.

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/

08. Brains. Someone showed me an article from 2008 that mentioned that two pygmy sperm whales got caught up in a low water pool in New Zealand and couldn't figure out how to get out of it... before they could become beached, a local bottlenose dolphin, named Moko, found a deep water part of the pool and guided the whales through it and out into deep water.

09. Scandinavian criminals? JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association has an article about common sense sunbathing that tries to show that blonds and people from northern countries with minimal sun may develop criminal tendencies when they move to high sun areas. Since I am not an MD, I may have misread the article.

10. Self-mutilation: Some of you may have seen a picture of Elaine Davidson who is reputed to be "the most pierced woman in Scotland"... and from the looks of it, probably the world. Check it out.

http://www.elainedavidson.co.uk/

11. Seinfeld? A piece of the Peterman Glacier broke off this week. It is four times the size of Manhattan. Doesn't that add any credence to the Global Warming theory? How many ice cubes would that make? Perhaps one of the Arab leaders could get it towed to their land.. wasn't that done once before? Or did I read that in a story by Mark Twain?

http://open.salon.com/blog/rick_spilman/2010/08/07/huge_ice_island_calves_from_greenlands_peterman_glacier

12. Not Here! The Museum of Tolerance has stated that they do not want the Ground Zero mosque to be built.

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From billionaires to shopping bags.

2010-08-07T20:33:00.010-04:00

Here are some more things that you may or may not be thinking about.

01. Brain alarms: Many years ago, I realized that I could set my own brain alarm clock. If I told myself at bed time that I needed to get up at 6 am, I woke up at 6 am. If I told myself that I needed to get up at 8:55 am, that was when I would wake up. I did not need an alarm clock. I still can do that even at this advanced age; however, I don't trust myself like I did, and I do use an alarm clock.

Thinking about that, long ago I decided to find out if I could set a mental alarm for the future, not just for the next morning. So, as an experiment, on vacations, as I drove, I would set my mental alarm for 5, 10, 20, or more years in the future.. at which time I wanted me to see what I was seeing through the car window at the time I was setting my alarm. I did that a lot, and lived to regret it.

For years, as I was engaged in some activity, I would suddenly get a flash picture in my brain of a place we were driving through.. years ago. At first, I didn't realize what was happening.. when I did.. it amazed me, and I've always wondered if other people had the same experience. So far, nobody has owned up to it and I guess I am the only weird person around.

02. Watch out, bag people! Now we learn that reusable shopping bags may have bad bacteria. It makes sense, but who would have thought it? I have a wonderful bag that I bought in South Carolina. It is excellently made to handle the heaviest load that I can handle, reinforced in a southern textile mill with strong threads. It probably will never wear out. However, now I have to think about all the things that I have carried in it over the years... milk jugs, vegetables, meat, sloppy soup, fruit, candy, etc. The bacteria must have been there through many generations. I really hate to wash it out and weaken it, but I guess I will have to.

03. Is this real? Another Chinese man has gone into a Kindergarten class and slashed the children. This is the 7th time this has happened since last March. What is going on in that country?I thought that we had the monopoly on nut cases, apparently not.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7925666/three-children-killed-in-attack-on-chinese-kindergarten.html

04. Fight fire with fire? In Holland, alcoholics are being treated with beer. A half litre every little while keeps the patients happy with a slight buzz so that they can get the attention that they need.. instead of being bombed out of their minds all the time and therefore, basket cases. Damn clever, these Dutch.

http://hello.news352.lu/edito-59772-dutch-clinic-cures-alcoholics-with-beer.html

05. Mine's bigger than yours! France's Nicolas Sarkozy is getting a new plane. And.. it has a wingspan 2 feet longer than Air Force One! (Air-Sarko-One) Yah yah yah yah yah yah!

http://luxist.com/2010/08/01/nicolas-sarkozys-new-presidential-plane-gets-a-test-flight

06. What a nerve! A Florida burgler who had broken into a van, was caught and sat on by the owner and two friends while they waited for the police. Now, that burgler is suing the owner of the van for damages, because he sustained a permanent disability when those guys sat on him.

07. The U.S. crack case. A New York judge dismissed a case against a young guy for wearing his baggy pants low enough to show his underwear. ( I had mixed this case up with one in the U.K.) All Americans have the right to dress the way they want to dress.. right?

08. Watchit! If you get an email saying that you are suffering under a virus and need to purchase special anti-virus protection, be careful. That message may be "scareware"... and if you buy some phony anti-virus software, you may be getting "scamware." (Once, there was only "hardware" and "software."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10466253-238.html

09. Respect. At an Allentown, PA church carnival, a target on one of the games was what appeared to be a figure of President Obama. Although the owner said: "It wasn't meant to be him".. the figure wore a belt buckle with the Presidential seal and held a scroll labeled "Health Bill." How long will this country allow people to be disrespectable to the President of the United States? Regardless of how you feel about what he is doing in office, he is the President of the United States. Why would anyone want him to fail at what he is doing? And why should he be the object of ridicule by sub-cretans?

http://wvgazette.com/rssfeeds//201008040699

10. Freedom of Speech? Somewhat similar to #09 above, the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration offices have been visited by persons who block the entrances and display tables with pictures of the President shown as Hitler. (!) always wonder why people like this waste their time and bother honest people in a cause that can never be fulfilled. At the Westminster MVA, the demonstrators took time to call people "Jerks".. surely that should have gotten them evicted.

If I had the time, and the inclination, I would have taken pictures of these guys at the Westminster MVA and had the pictures blown up to place on a table across from them. I would have had dunce caps shown on their heads. Would I have been able to do that?

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/traffic/2009/08/obama_as_hitler_at_mva_its_leg.html

11. Money. A lot of billionaires have pledged to give away half of their wealth to charity. They have been encouraged in this respect by fellow billionaires, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. Great idea!
(Tevya asked God to make him a rich man.. what do most people think is "rich"? Being worth a million dollars? .. I am rich.. but not necessarily with money.. but with the love of family and friends. Although, like Tevya, would it hurt if I had a little bit of money?)

http://www.thegivingpledge.org/

12. The other "bread". Good news. Whole grain bread is selling better than plain white refined bread. In the past twenty years or so, it has amazed me to see people buy tasteless white bread, when they could have nice healthful tasty whole wheat or whole grain bread at close to the same price. I'm glad that the message about healthful bread is finally getting through to folks.

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Amazing Dozen

2010-07-31T14:23:00.011-04:00

Since I won't be attending Chelsea Clinton's wedding, I should have time to write my weekly blog entry. I was disappointed that President Obama was not invited, so I decided not to go, even though I had looked forward to seeing those $15,000 Port-A-Potties.

http://refinery29.com/chelsea-clinton-wedding-budget.php

01. Who are you looking at! I went on a tour of NASA's Goddard Space Center with my Men's Club on Friday. Amazing place. I was mainly interested in the Hubble space telescope and it's remarkable pictures which were posted over all the walls.

I probably should have known this, but I didn't. The Hubble will be replaced around 2014 by the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope).

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/about.html

Hubble takes picture of the universe as it was over 13 billion years ago and is an orbit 350 miles above the earth. JWST will be in orbit one million miles above the earth (4 times as far as the moon) and will take pictures older than Hubble's, if that's possible. . Some of the comments of my fellow men's club members:

"Will they be looking over the edge of the universe.. like Columbus?"

"Suppose they take a picture of a big eye?"

"This whole thing doesn't make sense. Don't they read the Bible?"

I just hope that I can make it to 2014.. for the launch, and then through however long it takes to transmit pictures back to earth from a million miles up.

My great grandson, Cameron, should see a lot of interesting space pictures during his lifetime, if crazy people don't blow us up soon and make us just another burned out rock on the screen of some alien's space telescope.

02. This cracks me up. A Court ruling says that a man lowering his pants and showing underwear is protected by the first amendment and can't be prohibited .. huh? This comes under "freedom of speech?"

(It may be that I have mixed this up with an English ruling a few months ago. I thought it was an American case. Instead of "first amendment".. such a prohibition would instead violate "young {British} men's human rights.")

03. Gives new meaning to "giving one the finger." The petrified middle finger of Galileo is on display in Florence, near the Uffizi Gallery, at the Museo Galileo: Instituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza.

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/finger.html

04. No money-pit? The Carroll County Times (Maryland) reports that Baltimore has recommended no-cost spaying and neutering programs for "Pit Bills".

(Reminds me of President Harding. Some have said that the President rented a row-house in DC, where a deep pit was built so that people wanting favors from his Administration could toss their contributions without fear of disclosure.)

http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/warrenharding.html

05. Round-up? Some 99 cents stores in the U.S. have changed their prices to $ 0.9999 cents, which I'm told causes the register to record it as $1.00. This, of course, allows them to make one penny on each sale.. and this equates to lots of profit on millions of sales.

(At one point, the Government decided to "round down" the amounts in Social Security checks.. imagine how much money that has made for the Government. I hope it went into the Social Security Trust Fund......)

06. The Great Bell, California uprising of 2010. As I reported in my last entry, city officials in Bell, California were making astronomical wages. Well, as soon as the people in that city learned about these wages (no, not from my blog), they erupted in anger and the officials involved have had to resign. The question is: how did it get to this point? Doesn't the city have open meetings where things like officials' salaries are discussed? Guess not.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100723/ap_on_re_us/us_bell_salaries

07. Birth control? Scientists have discovered that there is a gene found in all creatures in the line from fish to man that controls the generation of sperm. This is called the Boule Gene. Would controling that gene be an acceptable method of birth control? Probably not.

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/3356

08. Hot lawyers? Once, when Abraham Lincoln was staying at a tavern on a very cold night, he noticed that there were a lot of other attorneys hugging the pot-bellied stove. As Lincoln neared the fire, the host addressed him: "Pretty cold tonight."

Lincoln replied: "Colder than hell."

One of the lawyers turned to Abe and said: "You've been there too, have you, Mr. Lincoln?"

Lincoln replied: "Yes, and the funny thing is that it's much like it is here.. all lawyers are nearest the fire."

http://www.rickwalton.com/lincoln/linc001.htm

009. Star track? I read where Bill Shatner is about to debut an interview show.. where he will interview "notorious personages".. Will our Captain Kirk make this into a "slightly naughty" show like Boston Legal? The first interviewee is slated to be the "Subway Vigilante." Should be interesting.

http://movieactors.com/actors/williamshatner.htm

010. Prison for dummies. An Argentine prison was low on money, so they posted a dummy in a guard tower. Some prisoners were not the dummies that the warden thought they were and escaped.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10706626

011. Here's your sign. The inhabitants of Shitterton, England, not wanting to change their town's name and tired of constantly replacing their town sign.. chipped in to buy a boulder with the name carved into it. "Let's see those 'low-lifes' steal this one!" (I'm sure that people smart enough to fool the public about crop-circles for years, will have no problem in removing this big stone, at night, by the light of a full moon.)

012. Use your napkin and sit up straight, Fido! Hammacher Schlemmer is selling a "Pet High Chair".. which they say "promotes more refined behavior." (As reported by Consumers Reports.)

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Conversation

2010-07-25T11:21:00.007-04:00

One of my favorite movies: The Wrong Box has an elderly character who likes to share facts with anyone who is nearby. At one point in the movie, he gets a chance to ride on a horse-drawn wagon for an hour, seated next to the driver.

As they enter the town, he breaks off his monologue and tells the driver that he would now be able to disembark. The driver, clearly battered and worn from his rider's incessant chatter, says: "Oh, would you?" (with an implied PLEASE!)

So it is with blogs. The good thing though, is that one can avoid visiting the site or one can block the writer's entries, at least on Facebook.

With that bit of off-hand advice, I will continue with my blog entry.

01. Death of another Icon: Dan Shorr passed away at 93 on Friday. I didn't always agree with his actions, but usually I agreed with his commentary. Besides, anyone on Nixon's Enemies List has to be someone I admire.

02. Hate Groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says that they are now tracking 23 organized extremist groups in Maryland. They also state that there are 1,753 active extremist groups in the U.S. Anti-immigrant groups have grown astronomically recently.

Let me ask one question related to immigration: If suddenly all illegal aliens were kicked out, who would pick our fruit and vegetables, clean the toilets in our fast food joints, or watch the children of our elected officials?

03. Gun control: Comic, Chris Rock says he has the solution to the "bearing arms" issue. "Bullets should cost $3,000 each." That way, only serious hunters would have them..and children and crooks might be deterred. What do you think?

04. Bliss. Jeremy Quinn, Mensan, says: "The beautiful thing about marriage is that you can wear your old, discolored shirt in front of her when it would embarass you no end should anyone else witness it."

05. Harvard grads? Massachusetts put out a list of the top 1,000 State tourist attractions.. but the list only showed 996 places, and some of them don't exist. (I'll have to look for New Bedford entries. A few years ago, I compiled my own list of about 100 places to go and things to do in the geater NB area. I would be glad to share it.)

06. Nature's Bounty. Last year, we discovered the Earthbox and grew lots of vegetables on our back deck. This year, we bought three more and are enjoying lots of delicious home-grown veggies, such as giant zuchini, giant cucumbers, tomatoes of all kinds, patti-pan squash, .. and even corn!
(Google Earthbox)

07. Toastmasters take note: Shakespeare wrote 31,959 speeches! (Could Bacon have done that?)

08. Mushrooms: The Crystal Falls, Michigan Humungus Fungus Fest will be held in August. I believe that they make a 10' x 10' mushroom pizza. (Is it true that there is a mushroom growing on 37 acres underground..that is 1,500 years old?)
http://www.humungusfungusfest.com/

09. Sarah sez: New word.. refudiate. Is this related to Elmer Fudd's dislike of Bugs?

10. The Bard: Sarah said that Shakespeare made up new words all the time..when he wasn't writing thousands of speeches. Mensa has a Special Interest Group (SIG) for Shakespeare lovers.. it's called Bardolatry and can be found on Facebook.

11. Jobs: Maybe we should move to Bell, California. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me reports that the Bell City Manager is paid $787,000 and it's Police Chief is paid $457,000. I wonder what the salaries are for L.A., which probably has a rather larger population?

12. Burning Question: Is this the year twenty ten, two thousand ten, or two thousand and ten? (Answer, from Mensan Richard Lederer.. "twenty ten ... saves five letters, one syllable, and one word." I know, you are wondering why us guys with genius IQ's are spending time on this subject. I wonder too.)

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More Foolishness

2010-07-18T14:00:00.007-04:00

01. Insight: I know that some people do read blogs like mine.. especially in Japan where some entries are used to facilitate English lessons, or at least that is what I have been told through some emails I have received and from the large number of Japanese comments posted to one of my blogs.This reminds me of a "life lesson" from when I was in the eighth grade:

I had been working hard to build my muscles through weight lifting for a couple of years, but I had overheard some girls saying that guys with large muscles looked ugly. That bothered me for some time, until I visited one of my friends' girl friend's home.. on her bedroom wall, she had posted large pictures of weightlifters and bodybuilders flexing their massive muscles. She and her two girlfriends were "oohing" and "aahing" over the pictures. That is when I gained my insight:

As the song goes: "Some girls don't like boys like me...... ahhh! but some girls do!"

02. Bad taste: Doctors have reported that Pine Nut Syndrome is with us again. This occurs to certain people who eat too many pine nuts. Somehow, their tastebuds are screwed up and they have a tinny taste in their mouths for up to six months. I love to eat pine nuts but have not yet experienced bad taste.. at least not in my mouth.

03. Immigration: Harpers reports that almost 400,000 immigrants have been deported from the US during President Obama's first year in office. (Did you read that, Lou Dobbs?)

04. Super tool: I received an ad for a "pocket saw" that supposedly can cut through any substance known to man. It folds up like a jack knife and can be put into one's pocket, and apparently remain undetected until needed for tasks like decapitation.

05. Itching to know? I read about a site where you can find out about possible infestation in your New York City hotel. http://www.bedbugregistry.com/

06. Cut it out, Imam! In a move that will cause the hairs to rise on the back of your neck, Iran has banned the Mullet haircut. At last Iran has done something I can agree with. http://hubpages.com/hub/Mullet-Haircuts

07. Finally! British researchers have determined that the chicken came before the egg, based on scientific examination of egg shell material! (Now, where the devil did the chicken come from?)

08. Funny phrase: Yesterday I heard a lady tell her friend: "Where have you been? I haven't seen you in a month of Sundays." (Does anyone know where that phrase comes from? I'll bet my brother Joe does.)

09. Wino test: NPR reports that Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is testing a wine buying set up for supermarkets. One accesses a video hookup in a kiosk and a person remotely checks the personal information that you supply (name and date of birth at least) and then, if you are who you say you are, and over 21, you are asked to breathe into a tube and undergo a check to make sure you are not already drunk. Once you pass all these tests, you can open the door and extract wine that is priced from $6 to $22. (Apparently, they are selling 80 bottles a day through the kiosk.)

Just think of the possibilities for the police from this set up. But probably not for homeland security folks, because terrorists may not drink alcohol.

10. Cat burgler. A family has reported that their cat has come home with stolen underwear every night for a while. So far, the feline felon has copped 79 pair of undies.

11. Watchit! Along that line.. I received an ad for "grab and go" underwear. I would be afraid to wear such things. (I guess maybe the above mentioned cat got her thievery idea from this ad.)

12. Button up! Another British study has determined that people with high belly buttons are better at sports because they have a higher center of gravity. (I wonder whose bellies they examined. Did they check out belly-dancers? Pot bellies? Innies or outies? Beer bellies? Pregnant bellies?)