Old and new stuff.
01. 2010: I-PHONE Love: A study has found that many people are addicted to their I-PHONES. In fact, they found that many people even sleep with them under their pillows. (Well, you don't want to miss an important call.)
02. 1950: Cremation: A man in Wellington, New Zealand, specified in his will that his body be cremated and the ashes put to work in an hour glass. (Good idea.. he will be serving a purpose even though he is not breathing anymore.)
03. 2010: 3-D: A newspaper in Belgium has put out a newspaper edition in 3D. They even supply the glasses. (The news just jumps out at you.)
04. 1950: Gun Control: Police in Chicago melt down the weapons seized from gangsters and makes them into medals to give to brave crime-fighters. (It's probably more lucrative these days to sell them back to the crooks or export them to formerly peaceful countries.)
05. 2010: Netflix spin-off? A new company has been formed to mail fresh underwear to guys each month. (Do you have to send them back after you have used them for one week? In the 1950's, guys did not wear underwear.)
06. 1950: Teeth: I've seen George Washington's wooden (ivory actually) teeth and a guy in 1950 made a set of false teeth for himself out of pieces of scrap aluminum. (During the 1950's I worked for a time in an aluminum chair factory.. I wasn't very good at the job and lots of my chairs got dumped into a molten aluminum bath to be reformed. Perhaps they could have used my rejects to make sturdy false teeth.)
07. 2010: Drunks Crossing: In some part or Rumania, signs have been put up to warn drivers about drunks who may be staggering across the street. (Deer Crossing signs in the US show a leaping buck.. what is the symbol for the Rumanian drunk?)
08: 1950: Divorce: A man in Milwaukee who lost his wife in a divorce suit, asked the judge to at least award the family dog to him. (Sounds reasonable to me. After all, "a man's best friend is his dog.. but a 5 cent cigar is a smoke.." or something like that.. probably some wisdom from H.L. Mencken that I can't figure out.)
Incidentally, a chiropractor met with our NARFE group yesterday. I mentioned H.L. Mencken's 1927 article in the Baltimore Sun about chiropractic. It didn't seem to bother him at all.. he did say that if you look up "curmudgeon" in the dictionary, you will see a picture of Mencken.
09: 2010: Diet: The French have developed the "air diet".. yes, it's like "air guitar" etc.. Like Marcel Marceau, you pretend you are eating. You make the motions with the empty glasses and plates but no food enters your gullet. This is guaranteed to help you lose weight.
A diet poem I like is:
My soul is dark with stormy riot,
Directly traceable to diet.
Dieting is not easy and no fun. Here are some tips that I have found helpful:
a. Count every calorie that you consume.
b. Put exercise time on your schedule every day.
c. Drink green tea or water before meals.
d. Chew every bite 20 times (or more).
Personally, I don't always observe these tips.. although every calorie I have had since New Year's Day has been recorded. Have I lost weight? I won't know until I go for my next check-up in April.
10. 1950: RIP?: A man in Petersburg, Virginia purchased 2,180 tombstones discarded from a cemetery and built a house with them. (Question: Why were they discarded? Is that the fate of all tombstones? At the Cushing Cemetery in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, there are headstones and footstones going back to 1810, if not earlier. One would expect these tombstones to be cared for until the sun burns the earth all up, or until cloning gets so good that we will all be recreated, and people live forever so that such stones are no longer of any use.)
11. 2010: Belly dancers: A group of 11 belly dancing teachers and students will be performing for the local AARP Chapter next month. They call themselves Anerneic Magic. I am unable to find the word in any of my dictionaries. (Kind of similar:
aneroid: containing no liquid (maybe they don't drink before performing)
anerly: merely .. Scotch dialect.
an: no with ern/erne: sea eagle (crossword puzzle word) .. (Maybe "no sea eagles" ? After all, these are belly dancers, not birds)
I am alerting the emergency people to stand by for a 911 call if the dancers turn up the heat too much for us old timey dudes. I'll let you know what happened, if I survive. You may know the story of my belly dancer who caused the Social Security Administration to outlaw such folks from entering the premises.. I don't think that will happen at the Elks Lodge in Westminster.
12. 2010: Funny phrases: Elaine mentioned a phrase yesterday in connection with a guy who tried to kill his wife with a hammer. She said: "His ass is grass." and was surprised to learn that I had never heard the phrase before.
Recently, she was amused when I refered to someone I liked as "a hot ticket."
I was surprised to find the phrase "moseying around" in a book about the Civil War.
In my library, I have a book that gives the derivation and usage of slang phrases.. I should try to find it and educate myself.. there are probably lots of swear words that I could be using, but don't know about yet. And you probably know that I have a book with French swear words and I have been trying to use those instead of the common ones in United States usage that bore me... I was, however, surprised to learn that my beautiful daughter in law already knew some of those French swear words. Tsk Tsk!
My late wife was French Canadian and her family spoke lots of French... however, when they swore, it was American words that they used.
I am going to say something that you probably will not believe.. my late wife of 43 years and I never swore in front of our kids.. and only swore on rare ocassions in each other's presence.. like when hitting a thumb with a hammer.. or when dropping something gooey all over the mail.. but you know that it is the S word that is commonly used on that occasion.
Basta! (no that is not a swear word.. it just means that that is enough of this nonsense!)
Showing posts with label cursing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cursing. Show all posts
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Friday, March 05, 2010
Weekly Dozen @ March 5, 2010
Some of these items come from me, some from newspapers, and some from The Week magazine, a wonderful sheet that hits all sides of a story.
01. Famous Book Sale. The well-known Smith College in Massachusetts has an active alumni group in Maryland. They put on an annual book sale that is a book-lover's dream. I first discovered the sale while I was waiting for my first daughter to be born at a Baltimore hospital. (I won't tell you how many years ago that was because maybe my daughter doesn't want you to know how old she is.)
Over the years, I purchased thousands of books for my collection, mainly at their sales. (They sell gently-used books on any and all subjects.) When we made plans to move to our current location, I realized that I could not take all of these books with me, so I boxed them up, knowing that I could always donate them to the current year's sale. However, when the time came, I was told that they already had so many books to sell, they had no place to put my 118 boxes of books. (I have already written how I finally got rid of the books, so, if you want to know, call me up or search my blogs for Salvation Army.)
Anyway, this year's sale is the 52nd annual sale. It will take place on April 9-11 at the exhibition hall of the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium, MD. Apparently that is the only site big enough to hold all of the books. I guarantee that if you go, you will get hooked, and start to amass your own gigantic library of great books. (... at cheap prices)
02. Intelligent Billing: Elaine got a bill today from a well-known company. It was a bill for $0.00 ! A nasty note was attached, saying, in effect, "If we do not receive your payment by March 31st, you will be required to pay a $0.00 late fee!"
03. Tricky Timing: The usually completely accurate magazine I mentioned above, gave the following information: "2010 is the year of Mark Twain, ... it marks the 100th anniversary of the American author's birth, and the 125th of the publication of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn..." He sure was a darn good writer to get stuff published even before he was born.
03 1/2. Telephone Help Desk: At today's AARP meeting, I was able to give my stand-up routine about a telephone call I made a while ago.
I called the 800 # for a well-known Internet provider. I had a problem and was not able to access the web. The call went something like this:
"Allo, wat is your name?"
"Joseph Vaughan"
"Allo, Yosef, wat is your broblem?"
"I cannot access the Internet."
"Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I do not understand gable."
"May I speak to your supervisor?"
"May I help you?"
"Yes, I cannot access the internet."
"Wat is your name, sir?"
"Joseph Vaughan."
"OK, Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I don't know wat is gable."
"It's an electric line running into my house, like a telephone line."
"OK, Yosef, I will look that up. Where do you live?"
"I live in the U.S. In Maryland."
"I don't know wat is merrylend."
"Maryland is a State in the U.S."
"I'm sorry, Yosef, but I ave no record of merrylend."
"Do you have Massachusetts?"
"Yes, I see that, but no merrylend."
"Oh.. to hell with it! Goodbye!"
After explaining my frustrating experience to a County administrator, I was given a local number for the company involved. I called the number and a guy said: "Hey, how ya doin? What can I do for you?"
I told him my problem, he went away for one minute, came back and said, "is it ok now?" I checked, and it was. Total time for call and fix.. about two minutes.
04. Traffic cameras: We've talked before about speed cameras and red-light cameras.. now we have "rolling right turn" cameras. In Los Angeles, there now is a fine of over $400 for doing a rolling right turn. This must be a real money-maker, because it's hard for me to believe that the word has gotten out that you must make a full stop before making a right turn on a red light.
05. Air Traffic Controllers: They are getting younger and younger. Check out the youngster who gave instructions to several planes recently at the JFK Airport.(I know that President Reagan fired a lot of controllers years ago, but I didn't know that the Government had dropped the age requirement so they could hire more of them.)
06. Oink:Oink - This is the tenth anniversary of the successful cloning of a pig. (Name of Deli?)
07. IQ: An Israeli study has found that the lower a person's IQ is, the more likely that person is a heavy smoker. (Us former-smoker now-smart guys knew that already.)
08. Brushes: A lady named Dawn Stephens has invented an all-in-one toilet-bowl-cleaning brush. (My grandfather, Arthur Stephens Vaughan, in 1900, invented the all-in-one shoe brush, consisting of a "polish dauber" on the end of a handled "polishing brush.") If I could figure out how to put pictures on this blog, I would show what his prototype looks like today. I have it on display in my den.
09. Cursing: Nepal has an annual "cursing festival". One of the curses I like best is: "May your buffaloes all die of diarrhea!"
10. Fusion? Bloom Energy says they have developed a fuel cell that can generate energy without going through the process of combustion. More power to them!
11. Crabby? Marylanders love their crabs, but sometimes they get careless about getting them. Recently, Maryland environmental police found and pulled up over 1,500 abandoned or lost crab pots from inlets to the Chesapeake Bay. These pots endanger fish and crabs. I wonder what they did with any crabs (or their skeletons) found in these pots.
12. Exercise? I read that there is an aerobic exercise called "spinning"... please don't tell me what that is, I want to conjure up an image of this exercise... in my mind's eye.. just as I did years ago listening to the radio and visualizing the scene being described. Visualization is a great exercise for the brain.
... enough!
01. Famous Book Sale. The well-known Smith College in Massachusetts has an active alumni group in Maryland. They put on an annual book sale that is a book-lover's dream. I first discovered the sale while I was waiting for my first daughter to be born at a Baltimore hospital. (I won't tell you how many years ago that was because maybe my daughter doesn't want you to know how old she is.)
Over the years, I purchased thousands of books for my collection, mainly at their sales. (They sell gently-used books on any and all subjects.) When we made plans to move to our current location, I realized that I could not take all of these books with me, so I boxed them up, knowing that I could always donate them to the current year's sale. However, when the time came, I was told that they already had so many books to sell, they had no place to put my 118 boxes of books. (I have already written how I finally got rid of the books, so, if you want to know, call me up or search my blogs for Salvation Army.)
Anyway, this year's sale is the 52nd annual sale. It will take place on April 9-11 at the exhibition hall of the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium, MD. Apparently that is the only site big enough to hold all of the books. I guarantee that if you go, you will get hooked, and start to amass your own gigantic library of great books. (... at cheap prices)
02. Intelligent Billing: Elaine got a bill today from a well-known company. It was a bill for $0.00 ! A nasty note was attached, saying, in effect, "If we do not receive your payment by March 31st, you will be required to pay a $0.00 late fee!"
03. Tricky Timing: The usually completely accurate magazine I mentioned above, gave the following information: "2010 is the year of Mark Twain, ... it marks the 100th anniversary of the American author's birth, and the 125th of the publication of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn..." He sure was a darn good writer to get stuff published even before he was born.
03 1/2. Telephone Help Desk: At today's AARP meeting, I was able to give my stand-up routine about a telephone call I made a while ago.
I called the 800 # for a well-known Internet provider. I had a problem and was not able to access the web. The call went something like this:
"Allo, wat is your name?"
"Joseph Vaughan"
"Allo, Yosef, wat is your broblem?"
"I cannot access the Internet."
"Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I do not understand gable."
"May I speak to your supervisor?"
"May I help you?"
"Yes, I cannot access the internet."
"Wat is your name, sir?"
"Joseph Vaughan."
"OK, Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I don't know wat is gable."
"It's an electric line running into my house, like a telephone line."
"OK, Yosef, I will look that up. Where do you live?"
"I live in the U.S. In Maryland."
"I don't know wat is merrylend."
"Maryland is a State in the U.S."
"I'm sorry, Yosef, but I ave no record of merrylend."
"Do you have Massachusetts?"
"Yes, I see that, but no merrylend."
"Oh.. to hell with it! Goodbye!"
After explaining my frustrating experience to a County administrator, I was given a local number for the company involved. I called the number and a guy said: "Hey, how ya doin? What can I do for you?"
I told him my problem, he went away for one minute, came back and said, "is it ok now?" I checked, and it was. Total time for call and fix.. about two minutes.
04. Traffic cameras: We've talked before about speed cameras and red-light cameras.. now we have "rolling right turn" cameras. In Los Angeles, there now is a fine of over $400 for doing a rolling right turn. This must be a real money-maker, because it's hard for me to believe that the word has gotten out that you must make a full stop before making a right turn on a red light.
05. Air Traffic Controllers: They are getting younger and younger. Check out the youngster who gave instructions to several planes recently at the JFK Airport.(I know that President Reagan fired a lot of controllers years ago, but I didn't know that the Government had dropped the age requirement so they could hire more of them.)
06. Oink:Oink - This is the tenth anniversary of the successful cloning of a pig. (Name of Deli?)
07. IQ: An Israeli study has found that the lower a person's IQ is, the more likely that person is a heavy smoker. (Us former-smoker now-smart guys knew that already.)
08. Brushes: A lady named Dawn Stephens has invented an all-in-one toilet-bowl-cleaning brush. (My grandfather, Arthur Stephens Vaughan, in 1900, invented the all-in-one shoe brush, consisting of a "polish dauber" on the end of a handled "polishing brush.") If I could figure out how to put pictures on this blog, I would show what his prototype looks like today. I have it on display in my den.
09. Cursing: Nepal has an annual "cursing festival". One of the curses I like best is: "May your buffaloes all die of diarrhea!"
10. Fusion? Bloom Energy says they have developed a fuel cell that can generate energy without going through the process of combustion. More power to them!
11. Crabby? Marylanders love their crabs, but sometimes they get careless about getting them. Recently, Maryland environmental police found and pulled up over 1,500 abandoned or lost crab pots from inlets to the Chesapeake Bay. These pots endanger fish and crabs. I wonder what they did with any crabs (or their skeletons) found in these pots.
12. Exercise? I read that there is an aerobic exercise called "spinning"... please don't tell me what that is, I want to conjure up an image of this exercise... in my mind's eye.. just as I did years ago listening to the radio and visualizing the scene being described. Visualization is a great exercise for the brain.
... enough!
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