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Showing posts from December, 2006

Might come in handy

Teachers seem to find these useful. Some laser print on clear plastic for use in the lab, like when something floating on water needs to be measured. Printable rulers of various types. Well, it took me a few hours today, but I got about 25 of my Daddy's, some of Miller's books and a few of mine, listed as used books for sale on Amazon. As for college stuff, you can sell them for pretty much until the next edition comes out. Then it is not worth my time to list them. I can do another little gorilla marketing thing when I list books. When I see one that has no image and I am asked by Amazon if I want to upload one, soooo I scan the cover of the book and then put the URL of a site I am promoting across the front, embossed, so it is subtle, but readable. I upload that to the main Amazon page for the book. Warm , rainy day here. Got to get dressed. I am going to dinner and then to The Wharf for their festivities and music (The Tip Tops) at a street party and then to Lulu's to

Forget Albino Asparagus

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Bought these white asparagus at Bruno's. They are suppose to be some special, gourmet item. I steamed them perfectly. The result ? They have no taste other than a slight musty-cellar flavor. Well, I did detect a slight bitter taste. My opinion is that they are not nearly as good as regular green asparagus and I suspect that they have less nutritional value.

Wizard of OZ Lion Suit Auctioned

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Sold recently for $700,000 The costume is composed of real lion pelts, which have been sewn together to form the complete outfit. The costume is positioned in the memorable "Put em up, put em up" pose from the film. Read the history of the costume, being lost and found and re-sold a couple of times.

Toxoplasma gondii

A common parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Sydney University of Technology Australian researcher says. "Interestingly, the effect of infection is different between men and women," Dr Boulter writes in the latest issue of Australasian Science magazine. "Infected men have lower IQs, achieve a lower level of education and have shorter attention spans. They are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose, and are deemed less attractive to women. "On the other hand, infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with non-infected controls.

The physics behind this please ?

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Why is it important to run the knife up the seam ? Is it helpful to make one pull from top to bottom before the final pop-topping blast ? Does bottle color matter ? (Bottle tree thinking ) From WIRED w/ good videos: But perhaps you want to start 2007 feeling a little more jaunty than usual. Maybe you feel like living life on the edge -- the edge of a saber. If so, it might be time to try champagne sabering, the delicate art of decapitating bottles of champagne. Good article on the subject stating some specifics

Quote

Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd. - Edith Sitwell

Clever Clock

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From student designer Nanda at MIT Clocky. The alarm clock that makes you finally get out of bed to shut the noise off.

Oh me of little value

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Based on Business Opportunities Weblog's valuation tool , this blog is worth ZERO. Do you agree ? Knowing that my blog is worth exactly zero is certainly encouraging ;o)

Monster a Day before Your Very Eyes

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This is a great place. A growing collection of curious creatures and the stories behind them.

Horse Practicing Medicine

Man hit in the head by a horse has his sight restored after 62 yrs. Dr Douglas Lozzaro, the head of ophthalmology at Long Island College Hospital, said the blow could have knocked a dislocated lens into place. Mr Karkos said he was eager to show his gratitude to My Buddy Chimo. I'm on very good terms with that horse now

Books on Demand, from a Vending Machine

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The most inclusive reader's catalog in the world, at your fingertips. The machine can print, align, mill, glue and bind two books simultaneously in less than seven minutes, including full-color laminated covers. It prints in any language and will even accommodate right-to-left texts by putting the spine on the right. After several years in development, the Espresso - a $50,000 vending machine with a conceivably infinite library - is nearly consumer-ready and will debut in ten to 25 libraries and bookstores in 2007. Read article See Video Hey....Ideal for JAILS ! No razor blades or drugs slipped in from outside. Oh but wait, prisoners would have to be able to read....I guess they would prefer the money spent on high-def TV.

Boy oh Boy

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I am glad that my sites are squeeky clean ...looking at ConcreteCottage web stats just now and I saw that someone from Google, a real person, not a bot, spent almost 13 minutes on that site this afternoon. Either they are interested personally in DAC -ART construction..unlikely considering what I saw about the visit, or they were checking the site out....much more likely, as the viewing was done from work(Google) and they had javascript disabled. They actually do look at sites and give some of them yea-or-nay points. Hope I got a thumbs-up. I don't use javascript so no problem for me, but what if, like so many, I had used javascript navigation....they had javascript disabled in their browser. Funny thing is that since Google has captured almost all of the search traffic, my heart was racing when I saw that weblog entry. I first saw a visit from Mountain View, California and I figured it was a search indexing bot, but they do their thing in micro seconds and don't use a regu

Seen a Good Movie Lately ?

The South Korean government is handing out gifts for office workers who promise not to visit brothels this holiday season. "If you promise yourself to make it a healthy night out at the end of the year, and if you recommend this to others, we are giving lots of prizes," the Ministry of Gender Equality said in an Internet posting. The ministry is offering to pay companies whose employees pledge not to buy sex after what are typically alcohol-soaked, year-end parties. A ministry official told the Korea Times daily: "Korean corporate culture that includes heavy drinking is also what makes buying sex acceptable as a way for male-bonding, which is proving to be a hard-to-break ritual." The ministry is offering movie tickets based on the number of employees who pledge not to visit prostitutes as well as a cash prize of 1 million won ($1,077) for the company which enlists the most employees in the campaign. Many South Koreans were bewildered by the plan, saying it was a wa

Bottle Tree

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Stephen showed up in his pickup with a great Christmas present. He made me a bottle tree. I have always wanted one, and now, especially, since I have lost so many trees from the storms. He planted it and we went straight to Bruno's and bought all the wine in cool bottles that we found. Immediately we began to ready the bottles for display, but only made it thru 2 or 3 so far. Won't it look great with the sun shining thru the colorful bottles ????

Bye Bye Crown

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The Photos that s-t-r-i-p-p-e-d Ms. Nevada of her title! (Don't open at work)

Life 2.0 : User Created Content

Dove soap is offering women the chance to create their own 30-second spot promoting Dove's new body wash. The grand prize: The winning ad is set to air during the Academy Awards broadcast in February. The three finalists will also be flown to Los Angeles for a private Academy Awards viewing party. The deadline to enter is January 15. User created content. Big on the web, now TV. Might be the dawn of the new age of television. The restaurant chain Chipotle got together with YouTube to launch an ad contest, and awarded the winning video ad $5,000. Students who participated in the "30 Seconds of Flame" contest used word-of-mouth to push their ads by handing out fliers and sending out e-mail blasts to alumni groups to spread the word. The winning spot received 4.6 million views, while the second-place ad had 4 million. Hey, I've never eaven heard of this restaurant and they got my attention.

Tired After a Hard Night

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Goodbye to The Godfather of Soul

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Sad Christmas news. James Brown is dead at 73. The dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73. Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday. He was performing in Lucca (Italy (for the uninformed)) when Sara and I were there July '05 Pretty good for a guy in his 70's. In the 60's, I saw him at the MidSouth Coliseum (Memphis (for the uninformed))...he did 7 curtain calls and generally lost 7 pounds of sweat during a show......James Brown had over 119 singles make music charts,...he recorded over 50 albims, ....also known as Mr.Dynamite, performed his song, "Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud" at Nixon's 1969 inaugural to-do. Every record he made between 1960 and 1977 reached the top 100 chart........ whatta guy.

This is Cool, This is Fun

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Mouse games. Mostly visual, but have sound on for more fun. Watch out for the Trap....your back button is of no use. The creator's description: Uncontrollable Semantics While net-art becomes increasingly more complex, more database and programming centered, this project shoots for simplicity. Utilizing the basic mouse-follower, Uncontrollable Semantics pulls together over fifty dramatically different sound, image and interactive environments, all through the simple mouse follower. While a simple innovation, this technique allows the user/player/reader to create their own experience, to feel the work come from the screen. Each environment offers four directions to four terms, four semantics, four named creatures. Explore and play and confuse yourself.

Where do they go ?

Do most Americans really know what they're doing when they donate clothing to charities? For instance, do you think you are giving your beloved but worn jeans to someone with no money to buy their own? Perhaps some poor person in your hometown, or even far away in Africa? Wake up and smell the money. Your used clothes are usually sold, not given away. About 70 percent of your old donated clothes are being used as cloths to wipe oil off of engine parts and the remaining 20 to 25 percent of pants that left your closet with no value are ultimately sold in Africa, where American clothes are extremely popular. There are two ways to look at all this. One view is that it is wrong for entrepreneurs to profit from what you give away to charity, and that by dumping huge amounts of cheap U.S. clothing on the streets here, African textile industries are closing their factories and laying people off because they cannot make clothes as cheaply as those American items found in the bend over marke

Take Two, They're Small

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Big book listed on Amazon, $15,000 "According to Guinness World Records, at over five by seven feet (and 133 pounds), this staggeringly beautiful photographic book is the largest published book in the world--about one of the world's smallest countries. A limited edition of 500 copies will be produced. The "price" is a donation to Friendly Planet (a publicly supported charitable organization. Each copy is built expressly for the recipient, is numbered, and can include a personal dedication message. " All the 'reviews' except one make fun of this book. Example; you could possess what would possibly the greatest bug-squashing device known to mankind. One guy actually bought it and thinks we should too. If YOU buy one, please, please, please use my Amazon search box or link ....I'll get a small percentage (which in this case would be a big deal :o)

Zero Bids...but WHY ?

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Check this guy's ebay listing for a Sony Playstation3 Starting bid: US $650.00 You are bidding on a Playstation 3 60 GB system. It comes with Talladega Nights staring John C. Reily. It'll ship as soon as the auction ends and WILL be there in time for Christmas. For the parents who may be bidding on this system, you might be wondering why your child wants this so much. "Why spend so much? It's just a simple video game system, right?" Wrong. Here's just a few facts about the power of the Playstation 3: 1. Imagine gluing a Playstation 1 to a Playstation 2. Now double that amount of power. Now subtract the power of a Super Nintendo and you have a rough estimate of how powerful this thing is. 2. Playstation 3 is heavier than both an Xbox 360 and a Ninendo Wii. That is because it has more computer chips inside, which of course means it's more powerful. 3. Due do polymicroprocessors, Playstation 3 is the first system powerful enough to deliver 4-D graphics. 4

Monks Gone Wild

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Rival groups fight for control of Greek sanctuary THESSALONIKI, GREECE — Rival groups of monks wielding crowbars and sledgehammers clashed Wednesday over control of a 1,000-year-old monastery in a community regarded as the cradle of Orthodox Christianity, police said. Seven monks were injured and taken by boat to receive medical treatment. Esphigmenou monastery is the scene of a long-running dispute between Orthodox Church authorities and rebel monks who occupy the site. The rebel monks vehemently oppose efforts to improve relations between the Orthodox Church and the Vatican. Read article

Winter Solstice

Today is the shortest daylight of the year ....and down here it is a rainy day. I was in P'cola chatting w/ a friend, we looked outside at about 3 p.m. and it was looking dark ! The good thing about it....tomorrow starts in the other direction. But even tho it is the depressing dark days of winter, my lagoon fish don't seem to know it. Even this week, the fish were jumping. I love that. Mild winter, warm water, fish still jumping. They usually get totallyout of the jumping mood or go off someplace for happy hour and don't start jumping again till spring when the water warms up. Maybe they are a predictor of a mild winter all way round, lets hope so. If they missed the bus on getting out of town before it is really cold out there in the lagoon, they may be in for a rude awakening. It has remained in the 60's and 70's nights and days for a long time now, and I saw blooms on the rows of strawberry plants at the strawberry farm on Hwy 98 today. That was cheerful for s

Really Bad Album Covers

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And you can vote for your favorite worst one out of the scores of awful examples. Go here to vote.

I Got Milk

I have been buying this shelf-stable boxed milk that I love. I remember seeing this kind of milk in Canada about 30 yrs ago and asking why it was not for sale in the US. I was told that the American Dairy Assoc fought it tooth and nail. At W-M it is even a little hard to find the stuff, it is not w/ regular milk or even close , not w/ health food either. I think it is next to marshmallows or some odd stuff, sorta hidden away. W-M here carried the 2% and whole milk. Acc'd to the official website, it keeps 7 months unopened. But the reason I am mentioning it here is that even after it is opened, in the fridge, in my experience, it keeps damn near forever. I have never had it go bad in my fridge. Last week, I smelled some that i found over on Hardwood Dr. in the back of the fridge, about 2/3 of the box used up, and it smelled just fine. No telling how old that milk was. Parmalat Milk

Pensacola Children's Chorus

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I forgot to mention that last weekend Glenn took me to the annual Christmas performance of the Pensacola Children's Chorus . Not knowing what to expect, I was really surprised at the magnitude of this organization. Seems that the whole thing got started in '90 when The Pensacola Symphony Orchestra extended an invitation to school teacher Susan Pote to gather a group of children to sing with the Symphony at its annual holiday program. After the first performance with the Symphony in 1990, audience response was so positive that the Symphony board voted to organize the Pensacola Symphony Children's Chorus. Around '94 the Chorus separated from the Symphony, establishing the Pensacola Children's Chorus as a not-for-profit corporation. "Christmas on the Coast," the group's annual holiday production became a must-see local tradition down here. In 1997, in cooperation with First Presbyterian Church and community supporters, the Chorus moved

Alabama Motorsports Park

It is finally official, acc'd to the local newspaper. After much indecision about where it should be built, Mobile is going to be the home of the new Dale Earnhardt, Jr Speedway . It is suppose to go on 3,000 acres in the north-west part of Mobile called Pritchard . The area is basically a very low income, predominately black area, w/ lots of crime. I drive thru it every time I take Hwy 45 off I-65 and out towards Memphis. This huge $624 million thing is suppose to have a 75,000 seat racetrack, sprint track, road course, drageway, big RV park, 7,000 seat multi-use arena, 5 music halls, stocked lake, restaurants, shopping ctr, and maybe a water park. People down here, absolutely WORSHIP the late Dale Earnhardt...Number 3. There were a couple other locations, two in Baldwin County, considered,.... one very close to me and another near Summerdale, not far from me, but local citizens rallied against it and showed up in droves at city hall meetings to protest. These further south locati

To Get You in the Mood

Check it OUT !

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Went to look up a book on Amazon, and this item was slapped across the home page: MANGROOMER Do-It-Yourself Electric Back Hair Shaver 1. Look and Feel Clean and Manicured -- Eliminating unsightly back hair presents a more refined, clean image to others. 2. Confidence -- Increase your confidence knowing that you are "back hair free" and no one will be staring or snickering at you, or get turned off by unsightly back hair. 3. Romance -- Start up that spark in your relationship or marriage by surprising your partner with a smooth, sexy back. 4. Muscle Definition -- Shaving the hair off your back shows your muscle definition in much greater detail. You'll simply look in better shape after using the Mangroomer. 5. Sweat -- Keep your back shaved clean and help keep your back dry with less sweat and less chance for body odor. 6. First Impressions -- As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Don't let back hair ruin the image you are trying to pr

Big Birds and Small

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One of the good things this time of year is that the Blue Angels always do tons of practising between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I am told that they are training the new guys. It is amazing to me that the BA pilots only fly for one year. Only one guy has flown two years. They are zoooooooming up and down the beach and sometimes make turns right over my place. They do smoke trails, and other maneuvers. Usually two at a time is what I see. There is obviously some other kinds of training going on, higher up, since I have experienced several rounds of sonic booooooms. One recent one was the strongest ever. My ten foot glass doors popped and bowed like I have never seem. They even continued to rattle in aftershock for a mili-second or two. We have been having very mild, delightful weather. Some days are slightly overcast, or foggy, but if it is close to 70 degrees, that is still a great winter day. For a while we had 70 degree days and cold nights, but now it is basically the same temp da

Gibber Jabber

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Today I became the proud owner of my first ever sprinkler system. Rodney Sutton and crew finished up installation on a sprinkler system at the Hardwood Dr house. The way I have it figured, I should break even on this in about 2 years or if I sell, should be able to recapture the investment. One person said it was worth about 3X what it cost to install on resale value. I don't know, but a house with a sand & weed (read baredirt) yard would be hard to sell at all....and that is what I'd have if we had another summer of drought like last summer. And even better, I struck a deal w/ the Rainbird installation co. to do my Lagoon House after the addition is built in exchange for web exposure. The photo is of my new well pump. I'll get a little house built over it. My sweet neighbor from B'ham next door says he will build me one. Total investment so far: $3300 (1400 for well, 1900 for sprinkler system) but that is free well water, not city water, and the electricity to r

Guess He Stopped Eating in 2003

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What a great idea, you can donate to buy this guy's lunch and he photos every meal and posts it w/ comments to the blog...except he stopped in 2003. All the lunch donaters got a mention on the site. Looks like he started eating a little more healthy as time went on.

Report those Bad Drivers

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Go to PlateWire and post the driver's plate number and your observations. Click on the state of the tag you're gonna rant about. A recent entry (ck the spelling): Title: can not drive Plate: Alabama 1TR2135 Received: Friday, October 06, 2006 Vehicle: white Other big 18 wheeler Location: southside (Alabama) Incident: I WAS BEHIND THIS GUY FOR ABOUT 30 MILES HE WAS RUNNING OFF THE ROAD SO MANY TIMES I LOST COUNT,TAILGATEING JUST A PISE-POR DRIVER THAT DOES NOT NEED TO BE ON THE ROAD,WHEN A CAR WOULD TRY TO PASS HE WAS RUNNING THEM OFF THE ROAD HE HAD TO BE DRUNK?GET THIS WHEN HE GOT TO WHERE HE WAS GOING THE LIGHT TURNED RED HE WENT HALF WAY THOUGH IT SLAMED HIS BRAKES ON AND SLID THE REST OFF THE WAY THOUGH THE LIGHT. SOMEBODY SHOULD GET HIM OFF THE ROAD?

When doctors just can't put their finger on your ailment

Woo World Self Treater This online service has been created so you can avoid doctors and hospitals (who only treat the symptoms, not the illness, and will send you home to die when they can't sell you any more pills). Simply fill in the form below, concentrate your mind on the vibrational level of your illness, and press the button. Here is my personal diagnosis and recommended treatment Quantum-consciousness analysis of your auric field shows you are suffering the symptoms of curdled mammary glands, which is commonly seen among females born under the sign of Virgo. Angel Therapy has been shown to be effective* in relieving the symptoms of curdled mammary glands and allowing the body to heal itself. You can also boost your immune levels by remembering to be at one with the universe, and commence colonic irrigations to remove toxins. Since you are vaccinated you are also strongly urged to contact a naturopath or kinesiologist to test whether you have autism. I am sure they are right

Wow...Such Hostility !

Just had a wild phone call from a very irrate builder. He was demanding that I remove the video of the stacking of DAC-ART blocks at my friend's house from the ConcreteCottage.com website and YouTube or my friend could just find another builder tomorrow. He said he saw a bunch of OSHA violations and could sue me for being out there making the video. When he started talking on and on about lawyers and such, I just hung up on him. I told him that I certainly did not want to cause my friend, who's house it is, any trouble and that I'd remove the link and the video on YouTube. I also told him before I hung up, that I had never experienced such hostility before from anyone in Baldwin County. He said he made no apologies for his hostility. I asked him if he'd like to make the construction site OSHA compliant and then we'd re-do the video...he was like HELL NO. I told him that I knew it must be stressful trying to be a builder of a home here since he had moved to Seattle

DAC-ART Video

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Well it is a pretty weak attempt, but I'll get better. http://www.concretecottage.com/dac-art-video.htm Video of stacking DAC-ART blocks down at Mary & Jerry Nasello's house under construction.

Weather I Can Live With

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52 degres at 9 p.m. ! After 3 or 4 days of what I consider to be bitter cold, we have instantly started having proper winter weather. And notice, sunny skies too. When it was so very cold, my sinuses felt like they were going to crack open and bleed. I was miserable and had horrible pain. I got a good humidifier out of the garage and got it cranked up and also a huge pot of water simmering on the stove.... Big Help. I felt great the next day after a night of sleeping in the proper humidity. Now it is warm and humid again...hoo-ray.

Cool Histrorical Scientific Stuff for Sale

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"Reuters reports that some original Edison light bulbs and extremely important scientific documents will be auctioned off in the UK. The box of original light bulbs used in court by Edison to defend his patent rights will be up for auction in the United Kingdom. Other important historical items to be included in the auction are Albert Einstein's first scientific essay, a first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" and an alchemical manuscript by Isaac Newton." Christie's auctioneers said the bulbs disappeared after the tussle over U.S. patent number 223,898, but were discovered by chance in 2002 in the attic of a house in the United States in their original wooden case complete with the original key. According to Web sites devoted to the U.S. inventor and businessman, the 1890 case between Edison Electric Light Company and United States Electric Light Company was one of the world's most important technology infringement cases. Read M

Nigerian Email Scam Targeting U.S. Churches

I mean, really, how dumb do you have to be to fall for any of those something-for-nothing email scam letters ? According to TV and 20/20 some people are still believing this nonsense. The widely-reported case of Mary Winkler, the Tennessee woman accused of murdering her minister husband, also grew out of a Nigerian scam, according to prosecutors. Federal investigators say she had been cashing a series of counterfeit checks from Nigeria at a Tennessee bank. (She was arrested down here, in Orange Beach !) "They are going after small churches, claiming someone has left them a lot of money to improve their church or help others," U.S. postal inspector Steve Korinko told ABC News for an investigative report on the Nigerian scams to be aired Friday on 20/20 and World News with Charles Gibson. An offer of $41,000,000 to the Hickory Ridge Community Church in Sussex County, Del., allowed scammers to cheat a group of prominent Christians out of $350,000. Read the ABC Article

Top Searches of 2006

In Yahoo ! It is not the end of the year just yet, but they have posted the top search subjects so far... pretty boring stuff. No question, the internet is serving the function that TV once did, which served the function a campfire once did. They are not showing the navigational type searches, Hotmail is always in top ten. It would be a bit embarrassing for them to show Google in their top 10.

Clever Ads

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I love very clever ads. In Denver water usage is a problem evidently. These eye-catching publicly placed ads are certain to get the point across.

Zippy New Toilets

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From Satis in Japan

New Lettuce Turns Sour to Sweet

A chemical that makes sour, acidic food taste wonderfully sweet may soon be flowing from a genetically altered lettuce created by scientists in Japan. A team of researchers at the University of Tsukuba genetically engineered lettuce into a living factory capable of producing large quantities of miraculin, a protein that can fool taste buds into thinking acidic foods and liquids are actually sweet. Read the article

My Life

I have had really busy days lately. I know most of it is of my own doin', but somehow, I just seem to have been extra busy the last few weeks. If I just didn't get all these great ideas ! With my coffee, I worked on some new Christmas scrapbook artwork to be scanned for the scrapbook website and dealt with some overnight email. I spent an hour or so rounding up loose paperwork, looking for lost paperwork and putting it in the correct 3-ring binder to take to my new CPA 's office. I switched services last week and had to go pick everything up at the old one, try to add new stuf to the mass of papers and go meet w/ the folks at the new office and try to explain it all to them. I have to make a lawyer app't to get incorporation paperwork done. So today I dropped of all my notebooks where I try to keep stuff organized. I have something like 12 3-ring binders. They are all Pirates of the Caribbean notebooks that I got on clearance for something like 50 cents each. When I

Insane Intersections

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Have a look at these, and follow the arrows on the maps that show how to go about making a left on some of these highways. Funny. See 'em All

Maine Will Have None of This

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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- A beer distributor says Maine is being a Scrooge by barring it from selling a beer with a label depicting Santa Claus enjoying a pint of brew. In a complaint filed in federal court, Shelton Brothers accuses the Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement of censorship for denying applications for labels for Santa's Butt Winter Porter and two other beers it wants to sell in Maine. The dispute recalls a similar squabble last year when Connecticut told Shelton Brothers it had problems with its Seriously Bad Elf ale. The rest of the story