Forever A Fangirl

Maple Lake, Ontario

Wish it was summer and I were there right now.

Word: Pasquinade

Just as an aside, before subscribing to word of the day, I anticipated that the words offered up would include a good number that I knew already. Not so. So far, there's been a word previously foreign to me every day. I feel so...uninformed.

I'm not sure how often one would have an opportunity to use pasquinade as it's first defined; the second might more likely be used (though I can't recall ever encountering it).

The Word of the Day for Jan 31 is:

pasquinade \pass-kwuh-NAYD\ noun

1 : a lampoon posted in a public place
2 : satirical writing : satire

Did you know?
In 1501, a marble statue from ancient times was unearthed in Rome and erected near that city's Piazza Navona. The statue depicted a male torso and was christened "Pasquino" by the Romans, perhaps after a local tailor. In those days, the citizens of Rome could not speak out against their political and religious leaders without fear of punishment, so criticism was expressed anonymously, often by means of publicly posted lampoons. The Pasquino statue became a prime location for posting such lampoons. These postings, which still appear to this day, became known in English as "pasquinades" (from the Italian "pasquinata"). The term has since expanded in usage to refer to any kind of satirical writing (such as in a magazine).

My example:
In the blogging world, Jack was known for frequently employing pasquinade in his journal.

Storm Unearths Prehistoric Whale Fossil

The embedded ribs of an 8 million year-old Baline Whale fossil at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Md. Thursday, Jan. 29, 2004. The bones were discovered in September after Hurricane Isabel eroded the coastline along the St. Mary's River in St.Mary's County, Md. (AP Photo/ Matt Houston)

Fri Jan 30,11:03 AM ET
By STEPHEN MANNING, Associated Press Writer

SOLOMONS, Md. - Heavy erosion by Hurricane Isabel pounding on the cliffs that line St. Mary's River uncovered the fossilized skull of what paleontologists say was a whale that swam in the area eight million years ago.

The discovery of the complete skull could help scientists fill a gap in their knowledge of the evolution of Atlantic Ocean whales during the warm Miocene epoch millions of years ago.
"It (the whale) occurs in a 3 million year block of time where we know very little about the whales that were here," said Stephen Godfrey, curator of paleontology for the Calvert Marine Museum.

The remains were displayed on Thursday at the museum where scientists are carefully chipping away the sediment around the five-and-a-half foot skull with hopes of one day putting it on display.

The cliffs of Southern Maryland offer a rich source of marine fossils, including thousands of prehistoric shark teeth and whale bones that are uncovered by erosion.

Jeff DiMeglio and his girlfriend were out scouring for shark teeth six days after Isabel swept through the area, when they came across what DiMeglio, an experienced fossil hunter, recognized as the rib of a whale. He covered the fossil and contacted the museum.

Godfrey believes the 18-foot whale lived at a time when warm temperatures spread across the Atlantic Ocean, inland across the East Coast covering the Chesapeake Bay and parts of the Washington region.
It was found in an area where the water would have been shallow, different from the deep water sediments where most whale fossils are found in the area.
Godfrey thinks it was a baleen whale, meaning it would gulp water and then force it out across hairy plates in its mouth, trapping food. He's unsure if it was an ancestor of modern baleen whales, like the humpback or part of an extinct line of whales.
Scientists were unable to locate the spine of the whale but did recover some vertebrae, a neck bone, a fin and a shoulder blade along with the skull.
There are a few clues to how it may have died. Teethmarks score part of the bone and the fossilized teeth of giant mako and cow sharks were found among the bones. The sharks could have killed the whale or fed on its remains.
To free the fossil from the shoreline, scientists swathed it in burlap and plaster-of-paris, creating a hard cast.

Word: Woolgathering

This one is just too good to pass up. I'm going to use it at the very next opportunity I have.

The Word of the Day for January 30 is:

woolgathering • \WOOL-gath-uh-ring ("th" as in "the")\ • noun
: indulgence in idle daydreaming

Did you know?
"Woolgathering" once literally referred to the act of gathering loose tufts of wool that had gotten caught on bushes and fences as sheep passed by. As you might imagine, woolgathering was an unprofitable enterprise; its practitioners must have seemed to wander aimlessly, gaining little for their efforts. In the mid-16th century, "woolgathering" began to appear in figurative phrases such as "my wits (or my mind) went a-woolgathering"—in other words, "my mind went wandering aimlessly." From there, it wasn't long before the word "woolgathering" came to suggest foolish or purposeless mind-wandering.

My sentence:

Dammit Vanessa, will you stop your woolgathering and finish those reports!

(Disclaimer: Any similarity to real persons is strictly a co-incidence.)

BITTER COLD AND WIND CAN FREEZE EXPOSED FLESH IN A MATTER OF MINUTES

Winter Weather Outlook for Friday- (01/29/2004 11:56 AM) Schaumburg, IL * -7...7 F
*indicates severe weather alert
Watches and Warnings Schaumburg Forecast -----------------------------------------
...A WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST FRIDAY

PARTLY CLOUDY SKIES ARE EXPECTED TO BECOME MAINLY CLEAR OVERNIGHT.
THIS WILL ALLOW TEMPERATURES OVER THE SNOW COVER TO DROP AS LOW AS 10
BELOW ZERO. THIS IN COMBINATION WITH WIND SPEEDS OF 10 TO 15 MPH WILL
PRODUCE WIND CHILL READINGS LATE TONIGHT AND EARLY FRIDAY IN THE 20
TO 30 BELOW ZERO RANGE.
THE BITTER COLD AND WIND CAN FREEZE EXPOSED FLESH IN A MATTER
OF MINUTES...SO DRESS WARMLY. LAYERS OF PROTECTIVE CLOTHING ARE MORE
EFFECTIVE THAN A SINGLE LAYER OF THICK CLOTHING.

......................................................................................................................

We're doing a pretty good job of getting the "record cold" people quite excited.

It's really terribly awful when one ventures outdoors right now.

The worst moments for me are during the long trek across the college campus after lap swimming.
After going straight from the shower to minus 10 degree weather, my nose and eyes run and the brittle cold feels as if it could snap me in two.

Complain as I do, I have the resources to keep me and my loved ones warm.
Right now there are hundreds if not thousands of people living within a 30 minute drive of here that have no heat in their homes. They fell behind in their electric or gas bill payments and snap, off went the juice. These people from the very young to the very old, may be inside their homes but they are dressed for the outdoors. The ones fortunate enough to have electricity will keep their ovens on, doors open and plug in their little death-trap space heaters.

The others will sit in the cold and dark. Some of them will freeze to death.

Tomorrow I will pick up the Tribune, turn to the Metro section and see the stories of people frozen to death in their homes. Because they couldn't pay a bill. Because the federal government continues to fob increasing responsibility for it's citizens on individual states, though from coast to coast, states show great variance in their ability to provide for the poor and the weak.

Living in the land of the free means many things. One is that you are free to suffer in your frigid home and sometimes freeze to death.

God Bless America and especially George Bush, for all that he does and will do "for" the poor.

The Blorgy-meister speaks

...and he wants to hear from you!

Calculate What Day of the Week You Were Born On

Shamelessly (cuz I know no other way) "borrowed' from a one of the better writers in the blogosphere (and that's a high compliment), Anne.

What day are you?

It's the happy kind of gay and besides if I were gay, I'd be proud of it, (though things might be a tad complicated with the spouse and all).

Living In An Insulated World

This is more than a "pet peeve," it is a major (blog-related) annoyance. I just went to read a post that was rated highly on a post-rating site.

I clicked over to the post and I cannot make out any of the frelling, tiny type.
Is this because the person who wrote it is fortunate enough to be typing on a big-ass screen with big-ass settings?!
If so, bully for him/her, but unless you take us "unfortunates" into consideration, we won't--can't-- read your posts.

And pul-eeze, I know I can change my settings, but why would I when 95% of the pages read just fine?
Elitists. Phooey!

The Word of the Day: Immure

The Word of the Day for Jan 28 is: immure \ih-MYOOR\ verb

1 a : to enclose within or as if within walls *b : imprison
2 : to build into a wall; especially : to entomb in a wall

Example sentence:
The prince in the fairy tale visits Rapunzel, who is immured in a tower with no doors or stairs, by climbing up her long braids of hair.

Did you know?
Like "mural," "immure" comes from "murus," a Latin noun that means "wall." "Immurare," a Medieval Latin verb, was formed from "murus" and the prefix "im-" (meaning "in" or "within"). "Immure," which first appeared in English in the late 16th century, literally means "to wall in" or "to enclose with a wall," but it has extended meanings as well. In addition to senses meaning "imprison" and "entomb," the word sometimes has broader applications, essentially meaning "to shut in" or "to confine." One might remark, for example, that a very studious acquaintance spends most of her time "immured in the library" or that a withdrawn teenager "immures himself in his bedroom every night."

My sentence: Sometimes Nora felt as if she were immured in the old folks home.

Questions to Ponder (Goofy Stuff)

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"

Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken there... I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes outta it's ass."

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the car pool lane?

If the professor on Gilligan'sIsland can make a radio out of coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their ass when they ask where the bathroom is?

Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours?
They're both dogs!

If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Is Disney World the only people trap operated by a mouse?

Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

Stop singing and read on . . . . . .. .. .

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

---------------------------------
(email from spouse)
He's not all that selective about what he forwards.

What The Hell Happened To Dennis Miller?

What The Hell Happened To Dennis Miller?
By Mark Morford - morningfix@sfgate.com

Dennis Miller has usually been happy to spray his acerbic wit across the political spectrum, but things will be different on his new CNBC talk show. BushCo is in a mock-free zone. "I like him," Miller explained. "I'm going to give him a pass. I take care of my friends." Miller is a familiar figure from his years on "Saturday Night Live," HBO and "Monday Night Football," but he will be in a different role on his daily show -- that of a total suckwad right-wing prickmonkey who's just a sad and miserable and crusty shade of his former self. This is the Miller who has appeared at fund-raisers for Bush, ridden with the president on Air Force One, sat in the gallery at last week's State of the Union speech and was even talked about as a Republican senatorial candidate in California. This is the Miller everyone used to think of as cool and articulate and hilariously hyperintelligent and able to dissect relatively complicated issues with deliriously inspiring rants that were able to sub-reference Nietzsche and Bela Lugosi and chaos theory usually all in one sentence. What a pathetic and moribund loss. What a sad blow to articulate thinking. What bilious and dank forces of right-wing fearmongering and neurosis and tax-break bullshit must've attached themselves like rabid leeches to Miller's seething soul to suck him so far over to the Dark Side. Dennis Miller, the new RushHannityStern of the Right. How sad. As if you needed another reason to ignore CNBC.

When I first read of Miller's seeming "defection" to the Dark Side, I was really puzzled, too. Then I read his explanation which is essentially that he's politically conservative and socially liberal and I (kind of) understood.

Miller is unique--a very bright and sometimes hugely witty man. It would be shame to "lose" him as a commentator/comedian ('cause let's face it, Republicans are not funny, they are scary) but I don't think this is the case.

Miller is quite happy to put it in perspective:

"I don't have credibility, I'm a comedian," he said. "I'm not Ed Murrow up on the roof in a London fog reporting on the blitz."

As a viewer, Miller believes one of the titans of objective network news -- ABC anchorman Peter Jennings -- couldn't appear more liberal.

"At least I come out upfront and tell people about my politics," Miller said. "He sits there and displays it through subtle poker (expressions) all year long -- the raised eyebrows, the arch tone of the voice. We get it that he's liberal. We get it that he doesn't like Bush. Just come out and say it!"

Dennis Miller, AP interview

Word of The Day: Oftentimes

word@m-w.com
The Word of the Day for Jan 27 is:

oftentimes \AW-fun-tymez\ adverb

: often, repeatedly

Example sentence:
"Oftentimes the villagers must travel great distances on muleback in order to work their fields . . . each family isolated from the rest during the hours of labor." (John Crow, Spain: The Root And The Flower)
Did you know?
Despite its archaic, literary ring, "oftentimes" is quite alive today. In fact, it seems to be more popular even now than it was thirty years or so ago. Nor is "oftentimes" confined to writing — it appears frequently in quoted speech. "Oftentimes" was first used in the 14th century (the same century that gave us "often"), and its meaning hasn't changed — as meanings oftentimes will — in all that time. It was formed as an extension of its older synonym "ofttimes." Today "ofttimes" is less common, but "oft" (which comes from Old English and also means "often" or "frequently") is popular in combination with past participles, as in "oft-praised."
------------------------------------
There's something about oftentimes that just sounds wrong.
I really like the sound of ofttimes so much more.

My sentence: Though Sarah's intentions were to never be tardy, oftentimes she was late for work.

Return of The King: Steward of Gondor/ A Solo?

Warning: Lame post ahead.

I had a sick child at home today and
I've been busy.

Tonight was my first attempt at a segue from doing lap swimming at the college to going straight to choir practice by 8:30 p.m.
Everything worked out okay but it would have been smoother if 1) the group of school-age kids cleared out of the pool by 7 p.m., when community swim officially begins and 2) if I wasn't driving from lap swimming to chorus in the Mustang (its first winter and mine driving it) in rainy snow (not quite freezing rain).

New experience for me: when the automatic traction kicks in, it feels as if the car is being jerked back for a moment. Cool, huh?

Except for maybe two sopranos , we suck as a chorus. But we have lots of fun.
The music instructor is encouraging any singer to pick a song that matches the theme of the show and prepare a solo for the spring show in May.

I really like a song done by Billy Boyd, "The Steward of Gondor" in the Return of The King. It's sung a cappella and sounds sort of like a lament. It definitely has an Irish feel to it. And it's only 90 seconds in length. Great pick for first solo!

If we can't get the music to it though, I may be doomed, even though there's almost no instrumentation (and what there is, is of a orchestral variety), so I would think if I'm accompanied at all, it'd be by a flute and even then, really just the end bit of music tacked on after the singing is done.

I erm, acquired a copy of the song today and I'm going to practice it to see I if can pull it off without really sounding awful. This song is a lament about longing to go home but with many bridges to cross, so to speak (sounds like a description of a Bob Marley tune), before it's possible to do so. (The character in the movie, Pippin, has to literally fight and win many battles in a war to help save Middle Earth before he can go back to his home in the Shire.)

A constraint about what song one can choose is that the song must belong to the categories of "love" and/or "longing."
I'm hoping that the category of "longing" is as broad as it sounds as we are already doing enough show tunes.
Not that there's anything wrong with show tunes.
They are very ...peppy!

Word of the Day: Galumph

Word of the Day:

galumph \guh-LUMF\ verb (A Lewis Carroll word--neat
: to move with a clumsy heavy tread

Example sentence:
"Julia was just then galumphing down the stairs with her overstuffed suitcase." (Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn)

Did you know?
Bump, thump, thud. There's no doubt about it, when someone or something galumphs onto the scene, ears take notice. "Galumph" first lumbered onto the English scene in 1872 when Lewis Carroll used the word to describe the actions of the vanquisher of the Jabberwock in Through the Looking Glass: "He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back." Etymologists suspect Carroll created "galumph" by altering the word "gallop," perhaps throwing in a pinch of "triumphant" for good measure (in its earliest uses, "galumph" did convey a sense of exultant bounding). Other 19th-century writers must have liked the sound of "galumph," because they began plying it in their own prose and it has been clumping around our language ever since.
---------------------------------------------------
My sentence:

After sitting in the movie theatre glued to my chair for three hours, I felt as if I gallumphed whilst first making my way out.

LoTR: Return of the King (again)

Any excuse will do for another pic of Karl Urban (Eomer from Lord of the Rings).

We just watched a mini-marathon of Two Towers and Return of the King, watching "Towers" on cable yesterday and going to the movies to see "King" today.

Chris (my youngest) is reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time though he's seen all the films. I thought it would be fun to kind of stitch everything together. And it was. On this second viewing I realized how I liked much of the soundtrack, so I think I'll look to get ahold of a copy.

Anyway, the consensus among the three of us is the Lords of the Rings films are the best ever made of their genre. I said it before, I'd watch 'em just for the NZ scenery, but there's quite lot more to like (see above). :D

What mythical beast are you?

You're a gryphon. You're very powerful without
needing to brag about it. Creativity is one of
your strong suits. Your outward personality may
change drastically according to your mood,
which is not always a good thing. You're a
loyal guardian when you choose to be and you're
aligned towards *good*.


What mythical beast are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Kerfuffle

I really like how kerfuffle sounds like a nonsense word, but isn't.

The Word of the Day for January 23 is:

kerfuffle • \ker-FUH-ful\ • noun
chiefly British : disturbance, fuss

Example sentence:
The school board's proposal to drop Shakespeare from the curriculum caused such a kerfuffle that the plan was soon scrapped.

Did you know?
"Fuffle" was first used in Scottish English, as early as the 16th century, as a verb meaning "to dishevel." The addition of the prefix "car-" (possibly derived from a Scottish Gaelic word meaning "wrong" or "awkward") didn't change the meaning of the word considerably. In the 19th century "carfuffle," with its variant "curfuffle," became a noun, and in the mid-20th century it was embraced by a broader population of English speakers and standardized to "kerfuffle." There is some dispute among language historians over how the altered spelling came to be favored. One theory holds that it might have been influenced by imitative words like "kerplunk" and "kerplop," where the syllable "ker-" is simply added for emphasis.

From A Mustang GT

Cary, Illinois 01.21.04

The ad CBS will not air

Subject: The ad CBS will not air

During this year's Super Bowl, you'll see ads sponsored by beer companies, tobacco companies, and the Bush White House. But you won't see the winning ad in MoveOn.org Voter Fund's Bush in 30 Seconds ad contest. CBS refuses to air it.

Meanwhile, the White House and Congressional Republicans are on the verge of signing into law a deal which Senator John McCain (R-AZ) says is custom-tailored for CBS and Fox, allowing the two networks to grow much bigger. CBS lobbied hard for this rule change; MoveOn.org members across the country lobbied against it; and now the MoveOn.org ad has been rejected while the White House ad will be played. It looks an awful lot like CBS is playing politics with the right to free speech.

Of course, this is bigger than just the MoveOn.org Voter Fund. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) submitted an ad that was also rejected. We need to let CBS know that this practice of arbitrarily turning down ads that may be "controversial" – especially if they're controversial simply because they take on the President – just isn't right.

To watch the ad that CBS won't air and sign the petition to CBS to run these ads, go to:
http://www.moveon.org/cbs/ad/
MoveOn.org will deliver the petition by email directly to CBS headquarters.

This campaign is based solely on word of mouth. It is CRUCIAL that you tell others. We've attached below a brief letter you can send to your email circle. Just copy and paste the text into your own email, then personalize the message. Your own words are always best.

Thanks.

I'm Gobsmacked

Smash Smash Rage Rage Bleed Bleed Big Screen TV

By Mark Morford - morningfix@sfgate.com

To the dismay of aging punk fans most of whom are apparently sad married balding accountants with only their deep love of setting cats on fire to remind them of happier, more anarchic times, a British TV company announced that former Sex Pistols singer and angry punk icon Johnny Rotten -- now known by his real name, John Lydon -- has agreed to appear in the reality show "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!" "I'm gobsmacked," said Tony Wilson, a British journalist, thus baffling and sort of annoying much of the English-speaking world by employing one of those cute little Brit terms that means nothing but sound like some sick kinky thing you do to sheep with a large zucchini. "I'm shocked, but I have faith ... I'm sure he's doing it for the right reasons." Other punk fans were appalled, because oh yeah right punk is like this big deep sacred thing and not a cute commercial sellout and as if the Pistols weren't discovered and packaged and marketed and hyped to death by a savvy entrepreneur. "The announcement made me feel instantly old. ... If it has come to this for the prince of punk, then mediocrity really does get us all in the end," wrote Lee Randall in The Scotsman newspaper, apparently not realizing he was stating something rather, you know, intellectually mediocre. In The Guardian, rock critic Charles Shaar Murray said "minds boggled" when rumors of Lydon's participation surfaced. "Whatever happened to punk rock, maaaaan?" Meanwhile, the line between true authentic raw art and commercial commodity would like it to be known that it never actually existed. Thank you.

How Dishwashers Really Work/Stray Bar

AndrewBlog: Making a Good Blog for Dummies

AndrewBlog: Making a Good Blog for Dummies

Stumbled across this blog entry in the early morning hours while I was consuming info about the Bloggie nominees. This one is nominated for Best Weblog Entry About A Weblog...or something.
It's good--would've loved to have had it as a guideline 4 months ago when I started blogging, but it's got relevant info for any on-line writer.

Bloggies/Belle De Jour

I stayed up 'till 3 a.m. this morning perusing almost all the nominees for the Bloggies.
I regret the loss of sleep but not the info. I gathered whilst doing so.

If nothing else, the Bloggies awards have served to bring attention to some blogs/journals/websites that one might not come across otherwise. Mea culpa on my premature assessment of their worth.

I was familiar with perhaps a half dozen of the Bloggies nominees. Recently however, I went through the blogs/journal/websites list and removed the ones that though possessing some merit, were not compelling enough for me to wedge into my reading/responding schedule.
After spending several hours perusing the Bloggies website, I'll again be redoing my reading list, though adding to it this time.

*Belle De Jour,* the recent winner of best blog "overall" in the UK, was one of those culled. In reading the Bloggies nominee list, I see that her journal is again in the running for the "best of."

Belle de Jour. "De Jour" means "of the day," no? Therefore her journal means "popular girl of the day?"
Apt title.

A few weeks ago, after reading of her UK win, I decided to check her out. I read some of her past posts as well as keeping up with the current ones for a week or so.

She's nothing special. Oh okay, she's a prostitute who writes about engaging in the life of a prostitute and she can string a sentence together (which puts her in the upper 20% of journals in the blogosphere).
But is her blog "the best" in the UK?
Erm, no.
Emphatically no.

Belle sells her body and writes about it.
It's porn.
What's the big deal? There's porn everywhere on the Internet.

I think the big deal is that the majority of Internet users are men and men have elevated Belle, a journal that at best is "good," to exalted status, because they get off on it.

In my heart of hearts, I don't think most women want to read about the techniques of fisting, that Belle is quite happy to offer. My reaction to the word, never mind contemplating the act, is slight nausea and recollections of what a child's head moving through the same space feels like.

I'm not a prude when it comes to porn. At one time I was a member of a forum with a large porn base because I was curious about the "Titty Board." And porn has an allure to it, most definitely. I was drawn to the porn pages for about 2 months but predictably, the novelty wore off after seeing the same themes repeated again and again--and done none-too-creatively, I might add. I lost interest.

Belle De Jour is a porn writer who just happens to live a pornographic life. She is much like a blogosphere version of a reality show. She is a flavour of the moment, not "32 flavours and then some."

She too, will either grow weary of it, or all but her hard-core (no pun intended) fans will.

Until then, all of you that would rather spend time reading about "fisting" than anything Sarsaparilla Vanessa writes, more power to 'ya. When you get bored with Belle though, consider reading some real writing.

Office Joke

Too pooped to blog. Here's a joke from the (spouse's) office

Did You Know...
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced
enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

(Hardly seems worth it.)

If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is
produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.

(Now that's more like it!)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to
squirt blood 30 feet.

(O.M.G.!)

A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
(In my next life, I want to be a pig.)

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to
death. (Creepy.)
(I'm still not over the pig.)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
(Do not try this at home. Maybe at work.)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its
body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!")

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the
length of a football field.
(30 minutes... lucky pig. Can you imagine??)

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)

Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Something I always wanted to know.)

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(Hmmmmmm........)

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed
people.
(If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
(OK, so that would be a good thing....................)

A cat's urine glows under a black light.
(I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
(I know some people like that.)

Starfish have no brains.
(I know some people like that too.)

Polar bears are left-handed.
(If they switch, they'll live a lot longer.)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
(What about that pig??)

Hold The Buns, Please

Slab Of Ground Intestines And A Nice Side Of Iceberg

By Mark Morford - morningfix@sfgate.com

Burger King is joining the quite awfully stupid low-carb fad/parade/body-torture craze by offering bunless Whopper hamburgers and, soon, salads featuring steak, chicken and shrimp. The bunless sandwiches will come in plastic salad bowls, with knife and fork. Dieters also will be able to order Whopper meals that substitute salads for French fries and bottled water for soft drinks, which basically means you go in and order a heavily processed grease-thick burger patty made of the toxic meat of about 100 different feces-heavy chemically doused hormone-injected pre-radiated brutally slaughtered cows and get it served to you in a plastic tub, and you get a bottle of water, in plastic, and maybe a hunk of iceberg lettuce, and you call yourself a smart dieter even though you buy your food from one of the top purveyors of toxins and edible poison on the planet and your body is screaming out for balanced whole nutrients and maybe some freakin' exercise and please please please don't just eat a hunk of fast-food meat and a bottle of refiltered tap water and somehow think you are treating your body with anything resembling respect and love. Sure Atkins makes you lose weight. So does eating only Starbursts and cheese puffs for a month. I mean, come on.

Ok, now I know I'm PMS-ing. Just how much more are humans going to devolve? We're not a whole lot brighter than those poor bovines we consume. F**k.

Ambien/The Ring/About Schmidt

I'm finally completely off the Ambien (sleeping pill that I'd been taking for four years). I've been amazed at how little sleep I've been getting by on, especially in light of the heart thing. But I seem to have turned a corner.

The past two nights have been relatively normal. I get sleepy around 1 a.m. and am able to sleep pretty well overall. While taking the Ambien, I was unable to become tired until about 4 or 5 a.m. This seriously screwed with my schedule as the rest of my little world (family) has sleep at night/up during the day schedules.

I'm still really exhausted, though. While I was cutting back on the Ambien over the past 10 days, I only got maybe 2-3 hours of sleep each night--then if lucky caught a short nap in the early evening. I never knew I could crave sleep so much, nor what a precious commodity it is (or more likely, knew but forgot).

Watched the "The Ring" for the first time last night. Gotta say, it wasn't at all scary (and I consider myself pretty wimpy about such things). No, I take that back. Earlier, I had watched "Joan of Arcadia" (one of two network shows that I can't miss) and the same cute little actress from that show died horribly in beginning of "The Ring." From reading the review I knew it was coming, so the first fifteen minutes of the movie was mildly disturbing.

This was the first Naomi Watts movie I've seen as well, though I've read lots of hype about her being a) Nicole Kidman's best friend since they were young and b) one of the "it girls" of the moment. Not to be snarky, but she left me cold. I wasn't at all impressed with anything she did, nor how she looked. Perhaps I'm missing something, but big white capped teeth and oodles of blonde hair have never been a big draw for me. And Nicole can act rings around her.

Tonight, spouse and I watched "About Schmidt"--supposedly Jack Nicholson's best acting role of his career. He was quite good, in a nuanced performance that I enjoyed. My husband on the other hand, didn't "get" it at all.
I'll admit being curious about the infamous hot tub scene as well. I'd heard allusions to it whenever the film was mentioned. Well it was nothing. It was a very brief side and slightly back shot of a nude Kathy Bates as she climbed, much to his chagrin, into a hot tub with Jack. No big deal. Good film though.

Shut Up And Drink Your Damn Corn Syrup

Now Shut Up And Go Drink Your Goddamn Corn Syrup
By Mark Morford - morningfix@sfgate.com

Some schools are finally making moves to get soft drinks out of schools -- but often the replacement drinks they choose are just as bad or worse, because in a economy-gutted BushCo-ravaged world, they are nothing if not sad whores for corporate cash. Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics called on its members to push schools to remove soft drinks from school vending machines as a big step toward improving childhood nutrition and curbing the obesity epidemic. Fearful of losing millions in annual revenue from vending contracts with noxious soft-drink companies, schools are replacing soda with sports drinks and flavored beverages made by the same companies that may sound healthier, but often have at least as much sugar and calories as Coke and Pepsi, and in this way schools can pretend they give a crap about student health and pretend like they're responding to parent outcries and feign ignorance about corn syrup toxicity as they meanwhile pack their vending machines with grape Snapple. "Please ignore this item and move along nothing to see here no really," said one school official, all vitality completely drained from his soul from trying in vain to keep his school afloat in a world of budget cuts and screeching parents.

Put Out

Recently, I've come across a small handful of bloggers cataloging their scars, both within and without, in extraordinary detail.
It has reminded me of a simple exercise that I was asked to engage in as a post-graduate student of clinical counseling.

One way to ascertain a client's world view (or the color of the lenses through which she sees the world), is to ask her (or him) to recall some events that stand out clearly in her mind, that had happened to her before the age of six, as well as the emotions attached to them. It is most helpful if the client can recall at least five or six separate events.

The first event that I can recall took place during the summer I was four years old, as my mother and I were traveling in our red Austin Mini from our home in a Toronto suburb, to the family cottage in the Haliburton Highlands -- a trek of about 140 miles. At some point in our journey, my mother became so annoyed with my incessant chatting that she stopped the car and put me out at the side of the road-- a remote two-lane highway edged with thick, forested hills with huge walls of granite in the places where the highway had been carved out of the countryside.

I remember being very cross with her, and I also quite clearly recall hoping for a policeman to come along, as I would flag him down and boy, would she be in big trouble.

In fact, I don't recall any cars driving by in the 20 minute period that I first stood then sat alone on a boulder, about 20 feet back from the side of the highway. When my mother returned she got the quiet she wished for, as I seethed silently for the remainder of our journey on the hilly, twisty highway leading to the cottage.

An interesting point where her and my recollections diverge, is that I recall the period that she was "missing" as being about 2 hours. She says it was twenty minutes. I guess we'll never know, but I do think it's plausible that upon backtracking, she drove by me by a number of times not seeing me because I was mostly hidden by the groundcover. I may have wanted it that way to spite her.

Though the time frame may be in dispute, I recall the rest of this incident with crystal clarity from the time she put me out of the car, until we reached the cottage ("safety," in my mind). My most potent emotions were feeling rejected and feeling angry. My mother literally tossed me away and as the minutes went by, I felt quite sure she would never return.
So what piece of my world view did I begin to acquire all those years ago?

Fear of rejection and fear of anger and avoidance of both, whenever possible.

This is just one incident, hardly enough to explain who I am or how I arrived at this point, but in continuing the exercise, other facets of ones personality can become quite clear. This little exercise is not meant to sum up ones life story. It is simply one of many useful tools to better understand oneself.

Edit: There seems to be a sturm un drang vibe to this post. Actually, another possible outcome of this experience was my steeliness or mettle. I may appear a softie at times, but when the chips are down, I've got a lot of strength in reserve. I think I'll blog about another childhood memory that is more positive, to give this a bit of balance.

What Classic Movie Are You?

What Classic Movie Are You?

I erm, borrowed this from Anne.

Born to be wiiiiiiild...

Internet "Geek" Image Shattered By New Study

Internet "Geek" Image Shattered By New Study

By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - The typical Internet user -- far from being a geek -- shuns television and actively socializes with friends, a study on surfing habits said Wednesday.

The findings of the first World Internet Project report present an image of the average Netizen that contrasts with the stereotype of the loner "geek" who spends hours of his free time on the Internet and rarely engages with the real world.

Instead, the typical Internet user is an avid reader of books and spends more time engaged in social activities than the non-user, it says. And, television viewing is down among some Internet users by as much as five hours per week compared with Net abstainers, the study added.

"Use of the Internet is reducing television viewing around the world while having little impact on positive aspects of social life," said Jeffrey Cole, director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy, the California university that organized the project.

"Most Internet users generally trust the information they find online," he told Reuters via e-mail.

The findings are derived from surveys of Internet and non-Internet users in 14 countries: the United States, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Macao, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China and Chile.

Well then, we've got them fooled haven't we?

Stained Glass

Even though I'm moving away from "hiding behind" photoshop in my "regular" photography, I still like to monkey with the photos! I love stained glass, and I think this pic has a stained glass quality.
Most of these photos are shown in their original incarnations in the Winter Scenes album.

My Singing Sucks

I joined the community choir last night.

I did it because at my son's Christmas show the choral director implored parents to join, as this is a fledgling group. Plus, I've wanted to perform all my life but haven't had the nerve to do it. In the past couple of years, I've been in an "if not now, then when?" frame of mind, and this falls into that category.

I enjoyed performing in school (even got solos :) but haven't done anything like this since. I quickly realized that letting 25 years go by between performances is going to make this quite a challenge.
I used to be able to sight-read music. I say "used to" 'cause at this point, I can't with any degree of skill.
The choir instructor says I'll learn.

We ran through a bunch of show tunes--Blue Skies, What a Wonderful World, Somewhere Out There, and several others. We quite literally sped through them. Each time we finished, the instructor would exclaim "Very good!" Pause. "For the first time." Some of us suck so badly, it's really quite laughable (I of course, am in this group) and others have a slew of experience and ended up here for various reasons, mostly because there aren't many community choirs in the area--so in other words, by default.

Anyway, I knew quite a few of the tunes, but not these particular arrangements. As the woman next to me said, we know them the way we've sung along to them when we heard them before, not as they are to be performed here. So the process really is unlearn, then relearn.

I think the worst part though, besides not feeling at all competent, was a very loud soprano singer. As I was struggling along, gamely trying to manage my alto parts, her voice overpowered everyones and I found myself wandering into soprano territory, which is a very unfortunate place for my voice to go.

On the bright side, we are going to start doing "sectionals" next week. Each week one group of us will go to practice early to work on our parts only, and it's my lucky break that altos start first.
Wish me luck. Please.

Comfort Kills Resolve

I am not a writer.
I admire many writers though, bloggers included. I fervently wish that I had their talent to turn a phrase just so, to give it an almost lyrical quality.

But no. I can write competently, but not lyrically.
Because it is very late and I'm very tired and I'm currently going through withdrawal from fours years on the sleeping pill Ambien, I'm taking the cheap way out and posting a column from a woman whose writing resonates with me.
I think so little of the Chicago Tribune, that if it weren't for Mary Schmich's columns, I'd cancel my subscription. And I know she's on-line, but lacking a laptop, I cannot bring her column to a cozy spot and savor her words.

So much has been written about the new year--as it is every new year. To my mind, most of it is trite and repetitive. This column is the only New Year's essay that has struck a chord with me.
Because one must register before reading it on the Tribune website, I'm reprinting it in it's entirety.

Everything must go, and this time it's not a sale

Published January 11, 2004 by Mary Schmich

January is the perfect moment to declare a time-sensitive retention policy on everything in your life.

Whatever you're ineffectively holding on to, declare that by a certain date, it will be dealt with or gone:

Phone calls you haven't returned. Bottles of scented lotion you've been given but never touched. Saved subscription cards for award-winning magazines you wouldn't read even if they were strewn across your kitchen table. Books you've owned forever and never cracked open. Clothes you never wear. Newspapers you set aside for the lazy day that never comes. Grudges. Anxieties. Relationships that are going nowhere.

Name your time: 14 days, 30 days, 60. Whatever your retention policy, make the time shorter than seems comfortable. Comfort kills resolve. And when the deadline comes, be as brutal as a mortgage lender.

The value of specific, short-term retention policies--as motivators and guilt exemptions, in matters material and otherwise--hit me recently when my employer began to bombard everyone on our e-mail system with warnings of our coming e-mail apocalypse.

The "e-mail retention policy will go into effect January 15th 2004," the messages intone in type so big you could hear it howl even without that fat red exclamation mark.

"At this time all messages 90 days or older will be automatically purged from your Inbox, Sent Items, and Deleted Items folder."

My first panicked thought, gazing at 400 or so e-mails in the inbox, was "Stop, thief!" Since then, I've spent some time answering e-mails with send dates redolent of distant seasons--golden October, sunny July, frosty May.

And as I whittle away, shaving a sliver of guilt off my heavy heart with each tardy reply, I look forward to Jan. 15. Not because I'll be done. I won't be. But on that day, unless I make special save folders, the matter will be plucked from my typing fingers. And when the items that make me feel guilty disappear, so will a big chunk of the guilt, freeing me to move unencumbered into the future.

Don't get me wrong. I read all my e-mail, appreciate and enjoy all of it except what's gratuitously abusive and reply to loads of it with something that approximates promptness. There are simply too many loads for my mental machine to completely process. So, despite my best intentions and though I try to respond to everything that truly requires an answer, not everything gets answered. What's more, e-mail is like everything else--the longer it goes undone, the harder it is to do.

My colleague Eric Zorn wrote recently of his new year's intention to stop stacking (books, bills, letters, etc.), stacks being one way we humans camouflage our procrastination as organization. But stacks aren't the only clutter that bogs us down. They're just a particularly visible obstacle. E-mail, for example, appears to take up no space--until you account for the vast fields it occupies out in your crowded psychic territory where so many other obligations also cry for attention.

Often, the only way to get organized is to get rid of. That's hard for us humans. We're hoarders. Our stuff is our safety. The physical stuff, the mental stuff, whatever's familiar and distracting, whatever fills the space in the room or in the mind--we imagine that stuff is necessary. But whenever you do get rid of stuff, you typically forget you ever had it, whether it's old tea bags or old worries. Most stuff is less necessary than it seems.

A few days ago, in response to an e-mail she'd sent a mere two months ago, I replied to a reader, Gretchen Lippitt. She promptly wrote back, "I seem to remember you wrote a column called, `My deadline is my muse' a while back. Appears to still be in force."

What I really said back then was, "Panic is my muse" and "Deadlines crowd out doubt." But, yes, the same principle applies. If you think you have forever, you take forever.

We're living in an age of false urgency, phony obligation and unmanageable expectation. The only way to survive is to do what's necessary, reasonable and honorable and forget the rest.

Do it or let it go. In (your number here) days.

Don't Forget Your Long Underwear

Took a long, blustery walk today with my son and our dog.
I figure if one has to live where the weather is brutal, one may as well get some pics of the pretty scenery.
New photos added

Welcome to America. Please give us the finger. Smile for the camera. Now get the hell out

Scenes From A Sad Airport

By Mark Morford

Look at those eyes. Perturbed and bemused and just a little furious.

Look at those eyes as the baffled woman from east Texas stares down at the table as the security agent rifles through her luggage and pulls out the contents for all to see. And out pops the skimpy thong ...

Note how our airports have become these comical circus sideshows, invasive and racist and draconian and pornographic all in the name of, what was it again? Protection? For our own good? Is that it? (snip)

Do you hear that? That screaming? Of course you do. Just another outraged mother of three, her appalled shouts echoing all the way to the food court as LAX security gropes the living hell out of her stunned 2-year-old daughter after the tot's teddy bear appeared to have some odd-looking wiring in its cute fuzzy little arms.

And the mother up and slaps the scowling groping security agent and alarms are sounded and guns are drawn and children are screaming and Spongebob backpacks tumble to the ground and spill their bright happy contents all over the stained tiles in terrible slow motion, like a bad Tarantino outtake.

And thus were lines held up and 16 flights from Dulles and O'Hare and JFK delayed for nine hours, causing a domino-effect 27-hour backup systemwide and thusly pumping yet another enormous and savage dose of frustrated rage and angst and sighing ennui into another artery of the cultural bloodstream.

Look. Look there. See the hobbled, 86-year-old man forced to put down his cane and remove his threadbare belt to pass through the metal detector. Terrorists are everywhere! Bush said so! We can't be too sure! Do you have metal pins in your hip, sir? Can you please remove them or something?

Let us watch in humiliated shame as he struggles to keep his pants from falling down as it looks, to all appearances, like he's being led though a scanner to some horrific prison cell where he will be fed old oatmeal and dangerous drugs in harsh fluorescent concrete rooms, when all he's trying to do is fly to Poughkeepsie for his granddaughter's third wedding.

Because God knows you just can't tell who might be a terrorist these days. (snip)

Let us now welcome the overwhelmed visitor from China, or Latvia, or Johannesburg, or Brazil, or India, or (heaven forefend) Turkey. It's OK, come on out of that plane. Ignore the stun guns and the growling dogs. America loves you.

Let us now note how our fair visitor walks into the American security miasma... as all visitors from all "suspicious" countries have their photos taken and their fingers imprinted and their self-respect jolted and their identities filed for 20 years by the FBI, just in case.

Welcome to America, foreign traveler. Please hold still and place your finger here and smile for the camera and enjoy your first taste of our trademark, wickedly ironic and hypocritical joke about America being the land of the free. (snip)

Repeat after us: Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to have their spirits snapped like chicken bones and be made to feel as if they are all, by default, criminals and thieves and Bush's "gol-dang guilty durty heathen furriners." Thank you. Please proceed like mad cow-infested cattle to the next airport screening agent. (snip)

Look closer. Look domestic. See how so many Americans standing in all the various airport lines for 2.7 hours seem to just sigh and suck it up. (snip)

All in the name of inducing a bogus feeling of protection and safety and never you mind America's hilarious gaping arcade of exploitable opportunities for terrorism, from our huge wide-open shipping ports to the intricately distributed unprotected food supply to our antiquated water systems to a thousand other ridiculously obvious apertures.

And never mind that even tiny raging splinter-cell terrorists aren't so stupid as to try the same vile hijack stunt twice. And never you mind that none of this would've stopped any of the 9/11 thugs. But oh yes, let's fingerprint old ladies from Latvia. That oughta do it.

Wait, you're from Andorra? Wonderful! You're perfectly OK and we need no fingerprints. Come on in. Ditto Australia. And Austria. And Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Portugal and Singapore.

Hey, you couldn't possibly hate America enough to wish us harm. Could you? Besides, we stop only swarthy Third World types and guys with scary-looking beards and unpronounceable names that sound like rare kidney diseases. (snip)

Welcome to the all-American fear of the Other, coupled with a sad acceptance that this is the way it is and the way it will be for years and years to come. Please remove your shoes. And your belt. And your watch. And your self-respect. Bush forever. More war in '04. Enjoy your flight.

My Life (And Welcome To It ;)

Apologies, this is going jump back and forth. (Note to Josh: Sorry, I cribbed a lot of this from an email I just wrote you--I'm a very slow typist--I would have been here all night!) The choir starts next week. It appears I don't have to try out--it's kind of a training situation, but there is a stage performance in May! OMG, I get nervous just writing that. Well, they say it's good to take on things that challenge and maybe even scare you a bit--so this will be my "thing." On the topic of choir though--I'm very excited for my youngest son, Christopher. He's eleven now, and has been with the Children's Chorus for 3 years. He just tried out for the senior chorus--the one that tours--and he made it! I'm so happy for him (and proud, of course). Part of the coolness of this is next summer (July '05) his group is going to Hawaii for 9 days for the Pacific Rim Children's Choral Festival! I know I sound like stage mother , but when I was younger, my fantasy was to go to Hawaii and now we are going! Either I'll chaperon or tag along--it doesn't matter, but on our down time we can sight-see, and when he's in workshops and stuff, my husband and I can do the honeymoon-ish things we never did (as we haven't gotten around to a honeymoon). I know this is a ways away but fundraising has already begun. I'm going to do all I can.  I really enjoyed helping with his Christmas show, ushering and being a kid catcher backstage, but I'm not so sure about aggressive shilling. But we gotta defray those costs somehow! I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but my parents never got involved, nor encouraged me to be involved in any extracurriculars. I think I'm kinda reliving that--but I don't see anything wrong with it. I've never pushed Chris to participate in anything. He's a natural joiner--he likes the sociability factor--so it's all good. Let's see, other news that I haven't blogged about... I'm volunteering at a charity store that benefits  developmentally disabled folks. Because I was there often anyway, due to my little Internet book business, they asked if I wanted to help out with the book section--so now I'm in the warehouse(!) a few hours a week digging through bushels of books. I  sort, organize, and shelve, and clue them in if a book should be priced a bit higher than the normal price. Upside besides helping, is that I get first crack at any "finds."  So it's win-win. Saw the doc today and I'm supposed to stop taking the sleeping pills and increase an anti-anxiety med. that 's been working really well for me. We'll see how that goes. The side effects from four or five types of heart meds amplify my anxiety/depression, which I had nicely under control for a decade prior to the heart thing. The college has reopened, so this is week one back at my workouts-- lap swimming. I upped the yoga a bit over the holidays, did some walking--so I'm not in severe agony. (Like most people, I gained some weight over the holidays, but I refuse to stress about it, eating normally and working out will take care of it). As of today, Jim (my eldest son) went back to the charity store to work and they were thrilled that he did. He has had his driver's license suspended, so he must have a workplace situated on the bus line, or within biking/walking distance, and the store is about 4 miles away. It's a very cold bike ride in this weather. If it gets really horrible, I'll probably give him a lift to the bus stop, but otherwise he needs to feel the consequences, unfortunately. I am glad he's working there as they want him to move up quickly to asst. manager, because they are opening another store soon and staff-wise, they are spread thin. The job comes with some college tuition reimbursement and good health insurance too, so my vote is for him to stay put for a while. Fingers crossed. My husband is working a lot. Things with us are okay. It's been up and down, but never serious, i.e. the family has never been in danger of breaking up. I respect that he works hard to take care of us. My energies are where they should be taking care of my health, so I can take care of my family on the home front, (and pursuing some interests like photography and the blog). That's about all I'm up for, without taxing myself. No way could I work more than 10-15 hours a week without giving up something that is keeping me on an even keel. I'd love to see him cut back on work hours, but at this point, he can't. He was on several medications for his mood issues and has now gone off them, wishing instead to see a counselor. I know a good one, a former colleague, and he's going to start up with her. I'd just love to see him be happy. Guess I could say the same for my older son. :) The youngest is a naturally happy guy, thank goodness.

Seeing Red

"Why the sky was red in Edvard Munch's The Scream"

For those who have ever wondered why the sky was a lurid red in "The Scream," Edvard Munch's painting, astronomers have the answer. They blame it on a volcanic eruption in Krakatoa, Indonesia. An analysis has pinpointed the location in Norway where Munch was walking when he saw the blood-red sky shown in the 1893 painting. REUTERS/Handout

I know that this painting has been reproduced to death. I don't care. I've always liked it & always will. I would think that everyone who's ever had a moment like the fellow in the painting can appreciate it on some level, though some of us have had extended moments and truly "get" it.

Coffee: It Picks You Up & Calms You Down

Coffee Lowers Diabetes Risk, U.S. Study Shows


Elixer of life?

Tue January 6, 2004 02:16 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who gulp several cups of coffee a day can greatly lower their risk of developing diabetes later in life, even if they are overweight, according to a U.S. study published on Tuesday.
The study of 125,000 people suggests that caffeinated coffee -- not caffeine-free -- may affect the body's metabolism in positive ways, the researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health said.

Men who drank more than six cups of full-caffeine coffee a day cut their risk of diabetes by more than half over 12 to 18 years, the study found. Women who drank that much coffee reduced their risk by 30 percent.

(snip)

The researchers, led by Dr. Eduardo Salazar-Martinez, Dr. JoAnn Manson and others at Harvard and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said caffeine is known to affect how the body handles sugar.

Caffeine also raises metabolism, they said, and may affect other aspects of metabolism such as fat oxidation and mobilization of glycogen in muscle.
"Coffee contains many other ingredients that may contribute to the inverse association," they wrote in their report.

"For example, coffee contains a substantial amount of potassium; niacin; magnesium; and antioxidant substances, such as tocopherols and phenol chlorogenic acid," they added.

I had no idea that coffee had these qualities. Antioxidants? In coffee?!

"These constituents may have beneficial effects on the development of diabetes through synergistic or independent actions on glucose metabolism and insulin resistance."

The results validate a recent Dutch study that also showed coffee-drinkers lowered their risk of diabetes.

So two studies are saying that coffee is good for you--this one is longitudinal (it was over a period of years), with a good-sized group. Okay, that's really good, right? But I thought since it speeds up your heart rate, it's bad for you.
I hate trying to figure out what I am supposed to ingest!

I suppose that there will be a spate of advertising now, touting it's benefits.

They can't beat the one by Ann Wilson of the 70's group, Heart. (Other celebs did it, but I think she was best.) Her line in a commercial for coffee was, "Coffee: it picks you up, and calms you down." And in an odd way, it's true.

Sweet Baby Timberland*

Some popular designer names for children taken from the Social Security Administration's database of baby names in the year 2000:

Girls
Lexus: 353 (Japanese luxury car)
Armani: 298 (Italian fashion house)
Chanel: 269 (French fashion house)
Infiniti: 25 (Japanese luxury car)
Loreal: 21 (French cosmetics company)

Loreal?! If you're gonna name your kid after make-up, how 'bout something a little more pricey, like MAC? or Esteè? What's with this over-the-counter crap?

Boys
Armani: 273 (Italian fashion house)
Cartier: 22 (French jeweler)
Dior: 7 (French fashion house)
Timberland: 6 (American boot and apparel company)
Guinness: 5 (Irish beer)

OK, the Guinness I get, but Timberland? Dior? These kids are going to hate their parents for this someday.

*blog entry title cribbed from Mark Morford

Clarity

This very personal and I don't expect it to mean much to anyone. :) I found out today that a forum I was kicked off of several months ago, has lost a number of beloved moderators in one fell swoop. It's due to the vise-like grip of the 21-y.o. owner. I've blogged about him before so I won't waste time on it now. Some of it is here, Day One: Blogger, bottom of page. I went back to the forum today to check on the journals of my former fellow journal-ists to learn of their reactions. There was a variety, from shock, anger, and surprise, to denial. I guess it's the denial that's got me shaking my head. Just close your eyes really tightly and pretend it didn't happen, is a running theme in a number of journals. I feel sadness for those that can't leave because they are emotionally dependent on the place. They don't realize that they can strike out on their own, spread their wings and fly higher than they ever could when they were beholden to the owner. I wouldn't have known any of this if I weren't kicked off and panicked at the thought of not being able to journal anymore. I could've started a handwritten, private journal, yeah. But it wouldn't last. It never has. And the oh-so-essential component of other people is here. And this space of mine (okay, I rent it from TypePad--but they are benevolent owners; they do not tell me what I can and cannot say or do), this space means so much more than what I had at the forum. This is mine. It's says Cyn all over it, and I like it that way. As much as it hurt to be thrown away like yesterday's garbage, I'm glad it happened. Hindsight. Always so clear. Now if I could just move that clarity back in time a bit, into the present moment.

Chasing Sheep

My sleep patterns are completely farked up. They've been that way--to a degree--ever since I gave birth the second time. Mothers of young children only fall into semi-sleep anyway. It's a necessity, as sleeping like a baby is a misnomer--babies are very restless sleepers, waking frequently. To subtract more sleep, I breast fed on demand (for way too long--but we won't go there) and therefore was at the ready so to speak, all the time.

So to now.
Ever since my heart went flooey 5.5 years ago, I've been forced to take a substantial quantity of life-extending medication. Much of this medication has diuretic qualities. I have to take my last dose of the day--at night--just before bed. I can't do that dry pill swallow thing--I require at least a half glass of water. So I always get up at night to pee. When this crazy carnival ride (heart failure due to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy) began, I got up a minimum of 6 times per night. I couldn't function during the day. I was struggling with the illness and exhaustion. Finally, I complained about it to a physician and he hooked me up with Ambien (prescription sleeping med). I'm still taking it. Every night. One is supposed to take it for a maximum of a couple of weeks. I really don't know what to do--maybe try going off the medication? The Ambien was working for about 6 hours a night--sort of. But I keep vampire-like hours.
And for last few weeks, I've averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night. The Ambien seems to be diminishing in its effectiveness.

If I had my druthers, I'd prefer not to be on any medication of any kind. Failing that, I'd like to at least get off this stuff. I really, really, really want and need to sleep. I want to know what it's like to feel rested and clear-headed and energetic, instead of dragging myself through each day.

I see the pill-pusher this Thursday--I think I shall inform him of my predicament.

First Snow of the Season

It's been snowing here since early this morning. Couldn't pass up the chance to utlilize my new surroundings, so I braved the storm and walked around the neighborhood a bit. There was no sun to set, but we lose the light around 4:45, and I didn't go out until about 4:30. There is a nice twilight effect to a number of the shots in the new album, most of which I left unphotoshopped.

(The Many Ways That) You Are A Slave

The article below is long and depressing and I wouldn't have made the effort to have read it, if it weren't posted at the site of a person who cares tremendously for this country and fears greatly for it's future. She is a true patriot to speak out, as we know that those of us that exercise this most basic American freedom, are often dismissed as un-American or worse. I don't know when exactly, it became un-American to care enough to speak up about what's wrong with the government of this country. Surely the risk of being perceived that way has increased since September 11, 2001, and even more so since our invasion of Iraq. The earliest I remember the the "un-American" label being bandied about with frequency, was as a child during the Nixon era. President Richard M. Nixon hid behind the cloak of patriotism for some time, and it wasn't until the "traitor" John Dean stepped forward to tell the truth, that the American people could no longer ignore the overwhelming evidence that the President of our country and his highest advisors were corrupt to the core.

People like the author of this article are daring to speak up. They do so at risk of ridicule or worse. I believe there will come a time when the tide will turn and the majority of Americans who sit passively and watch the parade of corruption pass by, will stand up and speak out. I'm still idealistic enough to believe that the truth will win out--eventually. I offer you this article in that spirit.

2004 - Year of the Slave
by Michael Rivero

You are a slave.
I know that’s not what you want to hear as you hoist your New Year’s champagne, but it is the unpleasant truth that we all face going into 2004.

Movies and public school like to portray slaves as bound by chains and beaten with whips, creating a polarized image of slavery that can be pointed to with the comment, “You are not like that, therefore you are not a slave.” But history shows that slaves have been treated in all manner of ways, some more cruel than others, yet even with the most kind treatment, a slave remains a slave.

Setting aside the stereotyped image of a slave as a bleeding chain-bound wretch, slaves throughout history are often hard to recognize. In some cases, such as the Medieval Serfs, they were held slaves to the rulers by religious belief, and did not see themselves as slaves even though they were treated as such. The favored slaves of Asian potentates wore jewels to make a movie star gasp, yet were still slaves for all their finery and comfort.

So, what is a slave? How do we define a slave? What test do we use to tell if someone is a slave. What makes them different from free people?

Free people can say “no”. Free people can refuse demands for their money, time, and children. Slaves cannot. There is no freedom without the freedom to say “no”. If someone demands that you do something and you can say “no” and refuse to do it, then you are a free human being. If you can be forced to do something or surrender something that you do not wish to, then you are a slave. No other test need be applied.

When you are forced to surrender half your life’s work to the government in ever-increasing taxes, then you are a slave. Throughout history, slaves were expected to perform the work needed for their own upkeep, then perform additional work for the rulers. For Roman slaves, the ratio of work-for-self versus work-for-rulers was about 50-50. The same ratio applied to Medieval Serfs, and even to the slaves of the American south. And, when you add up all the overt taxes, covert fees, tariffs, excises, plus the increased price you pay for products to pay the taxes of the companies that make those products, you will find that Americans are at that same “half-for-self” versus “half-for-rulers” ratio! Can you say “no” to the confiscation of half of your life? Can you even get the masters to maybe reduce the burden by a significant amount? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

The masters have decided they want wars on anyone living over oil. The idea is that it is better for American corporations to steal the oil they need than to pay for it. Millions of Americans (and millions more around the globe) did not want the war, but the masters started them anyway, by lying to the people. Could you refuse the war? Can you refuse being lied to? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

The rulers want your children for their future wars. Legislation for a draft is already in Congress. Can you refuse the confiscation of your children? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

The government has been caught lying over and over again to the people, from who really did 9-11, to the legality of the tax system, to Cheney’s Energy Task Force papers, to Saddam’s WMDs. Americans are the most lied-to people on Earth. Can you refuse to be lied to? Can you punish the liars? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

Vote fraud is rampant in the nation, and the mandated imposition of audit-less electronic voting systems means that elections will be decided (as Stalin admitted) not by those who vote but by those who count the vote. Can you refuse a dishonest voting process? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

Just because you cannot see the slave-chains doesn’t mean they are not there. Chains made of steel are obvious, but chains made of beliefs are not always recognized for what they are. Hitler enslaved the German people to war with a belief that Poland was about to invade. LBJ enslaved the American people to war with the belief that Vietnam had attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. Poland wasn’t invading. There were no torpedoes in the Gulf of Tonkin, but the slaves, held by invisible chains of beliefs, went to war. Millions died.

In 2003, however, the chains started to become visible. The Constitutional right to freedom of expression was confined to “free-speech” zones. A slave may have an opinion, so long as it is not expressed where it might upset the other slaves. The Constitutional right to an armed populace, the means by which the men who set up a nation of free citizens hoped to keep them free, is under constant attack from those who fear a nation of free citizens, and who will not sleep soundly until we are a nation entirely of slaves. Armed citizens can, after all, say “no” and make it stick. That was why there was a Second Amendment, to allow the people to say “no” to those who would return them to the slavery they had so recently escaped from. Other Constitutional rights and protections have been set aside. The government can now search through your private records without cause and without warrant, even break into your home and not have to tell you. Simply by declaring a citizen an enemy combatant, the government can now lock up US citizens without a charge and without a lawyer. You can be prevented from traveling simply for having the wrong name. If you purchase too much gold or take home too much cash, or hoard food, the government will take notice. Having a Farmer's Almanac is grounds for suspicion. Talking about the Constitution is now deemed grounds to suspect a terrorist link. Torture is now espoused as “necessary” to “deal with the crisis”. Were you able to refuse those changes to the Constitution? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

The government (at all levels) has borrowed trillions of dollars and stuck your kids with the payments. Children not even born will be paying off the bills. To declare the lives of children not yet born, let alone old enough to vote, indentured to the state is slavery most obvious and odious. Can you refuse responsibility for payments on debts the government incurred without your permission? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

The government has borrowed so much money that it has long ago run out of gold to pledge as collateral on the debts. Starting in Nixon’s administration, natural resources were used as collateral for the mounting debts. Borrow more money, promise a chunk of public lands as collateral. These land pledges were concealed behind “Environmentalism” to disguise the real purpose. Numerous names such as “Wilderness Reserve”, “Wetland”, “Heritage River”, and so forth were used to conceal the true scale of the confiscations. But the end result was the same. Huge tracts of public land containing natural resources were walled away from the public that owned them, mortgaged to the holders of the US Government debt. We are well on our way from being citizens, to being mere tenants. Were you able to refuse having your public lands placed at risk by the US Government to cover loans you never authorized the government to make? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

Trust funds under government control are being looted, from the Social Security trust fund to Native American trust accounts to Federal Retirement Funds. Congress pays lip service to the looting of Social Security, but considers only more taxes to cover the looted shortfall. Meanwhile, court cases over other looted trust accounts drag on without resolution. Are you able to refuse corrupt and dishonest government? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

You are a slave because the ruling class can do what they want, take what they want, and you cannot refuse. You may have freedom to decide what TV channel to watch tonight, or just which style car you will drive to your work in, but little power over the rest of your life. Even that home you have worked to pay for over the last decade can be taken from you at a moment’s notice via “eminent domain”. Can you refuse? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.

In October 2001 I wrote that more damage would be done to our nation by those claiming to save us from the terrorists than by any actual terrorist act. Even as Bush claimed that the terrorists hated the US because of our freedoms, he took what few remaining freedoms we had away until we are more watched, more spied on, more limited, more silenced, more taxed, and more enslaved that at any other time in our nation’s history. Not only are we slaves, we are at last starting to see that we have been slaves all along. We did not have rights, because a right cannot be taken away. What we had were indulgences, granted by the masters to the slaves, to be removed when the masters grow fearful of the slaves’ resentment and anger.

I know this is a very depressing article to read on the New Year, but I have watched through 2003 as people I care about lost their homes and businesses, as the labors of a lifetime evaporated in stock market manipulations by corporate crooks. These Americans who had worked hard to achieve the American dream lost it all through no fault of their own. Our schools are broke, hospitals under-staffed, the roads and bridges and rails of the nation are crumbling while billions of dollars are given away to foreign nations, favored cronies, and the ravenous war machine. The priorities of the government that feeds on taxes seems focused everywhere but on those who pay those taxes. And we can’t seem to refuse that either.

I think the state of the nation can be summed up by a simple contrast. Tommy Chong is in jail for selling a pipe, while Ken Lay walks around a free man with the billions he stole from his employees and investors. Any way you slice it, that’s a pretty screwed up situation.

I promised a reader that I would make some predictions for 2004 in this article. I wish I hadn’t because I am hoping I am wrong on most of them.

1. There will be another fake terror attack. The Neocon war agenda cannot move forward without it. Those who hoped Iraq would be the end of the wars are in for a rude shock. The hawks want the entire planet, either directly ruled by the US, or ruled by obedient puppet regimes. Another “attack” is needed.

2. The US will eventually lose their war of conquest of the world. The US does not have enough troops to garrison the planet, and as Hitler learned much too late, merely having superior weapons isn’t going to win a war when you’ve pissed off absolutely everyone else in the world. On a more practical level, sooner or later the US will wind up at war with someone who really DOES have nuclear weapons of mass destruction. That this is the government plan is witnessed by the numerous underground facilities which have been built or upgraded in recent years. You paid for them, but you won’t be allowed in them. Such an attack on the US is small price to pay for those who promote these wars, not for America, but for another nation standing by while its victims are tricked into fighting each other.

3. Minus a war, the US Government will eventually collapse as did the Soviet Union, dragged down by debt and corruption. As the final collapse looms closer, look for the looting of the nation to become even bolder than it is now. The last official act of any government is to loot the nation.

4. I am opposed to violence. I wish it could be avoided but I do believe that this nation is headed towards a collision between the rulers and the ruled. The government fears this as well or we wouldn’t see so much bullet-proof Lexan between us and our “public servants”. I think that the reason we have not seen it yet is that Americans have been conditioned to expect a hero or savior to come and make things right. We know things have gone wrong, but we are waiting for someone else to fix it, Superman, the cavalry riding to the rescue, Spartacus, the Messiah, Batman, What Really Happened, etc. This belief that one should wait quietly for a hero is part of the slavery mechanism, to keep you in your place, rendering unto Caesar, breeding more slaves, waiting for salvation that never comes. However, as history has shown, even the patience of an entire people can run out, and I predict that when the final upheaval comes, it will arrive as suddenly as that which occurred in Romania. In November 1989, Romania seemed stable under the rule of Nicholai Ceausescu. One month later, a sporting event erupted into a spontaneous political protest and on December 25th, Nicholai Ceausescu was tried and sentenced to death. Ceausescu proved that tyrants should not confuse silence with consent. The Romanian people finally realized that nobody was coming to save them, and they had the courage to save themselves. The collapse of the USSR was equally rapid and almost as unexpected. So shall it be in the US.

Like I said above, I hope I am wrong in my forecasts. However it is clear that the US Government is under the control of individuals intent on personal enrichment, or loyalty to a foreign nation above our own, and seeing no reason at all not to continue on their present course. Confrontation seems inevitable.

The founding fathers set up a nation in which government was by the consent of the people. We The People agreed to certain obligations, and the government we allowed to care for our national sovereignty agreed to abide by certain limits set forth in the Constitution. The present government has broken the agreement, discarding the Constitutional limits on their power and authority while at the same time piling more and more obligations onto the people. Were you able to refuse them? No? This more than any of the other reasons is why you have ceased to be a free human being, and are now a slave.

You are a slave. When you live under a government that takes your wealth and your children and lies to you to keep you docile and scares you to keep you obedient, how can it be otherwise?

You are a slave. You can stay that way, or not. It’s that simple. Nobody is coming to save you. There are no heroes, no cavalry riding to the rescue. Whether you and your children will live as slaves or as free human beings is entirely up to you.