Skating Nurse

Nurses are pretty much unsung heroes everyday,but this one went above and beyond the call of her nursing duties. The 42 year old was outside a Fred Meyer store in Spokane,WA when a man ran out of the store carrying a purse,she immediately smelled a rat and went after him which entailed dodging four lanes of traffic on a busy freeway,but what the thief didn't know was this nurse had an alter ego,Ida B. ChoAzz, a member of the Spokannibals Roller Derby team. He was no match for her speed and ability to dodge through the traffic and she quickly caught up to him saying,"I can outrun you,give it up." The thief realized the truth of her statement and tossed the purse and kept running. She returned the purse to the elderly owner and the thief was arrested within 24 hours. Don't you love a happy ending?

How Sweet It Is

Many people today give credit to the wrong person/people when they hear the phrase "how sweet it is". Just for the record it became a well known phrase when first uttered by Jackie Gleason on his variety show, which first ran in 1954. Of course that doesn't have anything to do with the actual subject today.

I was wondering why cake became the dessert most associated with birthdays,and though I didn't find a clear answer to that question I did find out about cake. For the most part Germany gets credit for the birthday cake tradition which started in the Middle Ages. Cakes in that time were more like bread than cake and they didn't much resemble today's cakes until the 17th century but weren't affordable,except by the wealthy until the 18th century. There is some argument over who first used candles on birthday cakes, some insist it was Ancient Greeks who placed candles on cakes for the goddess Artemis to  represent the glow of the moon while others credit the Germans with the tradition. I still want to know why cake??? Why not pie? or cookies?

Causes? or Cures?

Today's post is neither funny nor informative. It seems as though I may be on the brink of news saturation again. Every few years I get so fed up with the inconsistencies in the news that I quit watching for a year or sometimes more. The thing that set me off this time is the bacon/processed meats cause cancer,it isn't exactly that I have any argument with that information it is the fact that less than two years ago the big push was bacon was good for you! It just goes round and round until a person wants to scream. I remember in 1959 there was the cranberry crisis,right around Thanksgiving they decided that cranberries caused cancer due to the chemicals that had been sprayed on the berries. Of course there is always the faction who preach eat veggies and fish...I love my veggies but let's get real unless you are fortunate enough to grow your own veggies it is pretty much a crap shoot on how good they are going to be for you,and fish? it is hardly as healthy as a person wants to believe with widespread water pollution how can a person expect fish to be a good choice? A friend of mine was an avid sportsman didn't drink or smoke and almost 100% of his diet consisted of fish he had caught and deer and elk,he died of cancer. Last week there was a small blurb about a cancer cure being found,then nothing more,my guess is big pharma shut that story down before too many people heard it so they could continue to profit from the suffering of the masses. OK,off the soap box!

Note the Teflon pan...also associated with cancer.

Down and Dirty

I've known a few people throughout the years who didn't believe in bathing and showers and for the most part you could tell, as without some method of keeping clean a person's sweat ferments and causes odor. Enter Mother Dirt a new bacteria spray,no I didn't mean anti-bacterial. One of the founders of the company is a chemical engineer and MIT grad who hasn't showered in the 12 years he has been using the spray. He believes in restoring the bacterial balance that has been stripped away by excessive cleaning. The spray contains ammonia oxidizing bacteria which converts sweat into good bacteria with anti-inflammatory properties. The company also offers cleanser and shampoo that clean your skin without  killing the bacteria. The products are not cheap,the spray sells for $49 for 3.4 fluid ounces,the shampoo and cleanser $15 for the same amount. I'm all for friendly bacteria but I'm not quite ready to jump on this particular  band wagon just yet.

Instructions on the Heel

I don't know why it is that I have been finding weird sports in the last few weeks,I swear I'm not doing much different from my regular things,oh well,it's kind of fun to hear about what other people do for entertainment. This sport even has its own international rules,which can be seen at the International Boot-Throwers Association (IBTA) site,I won't go into the rules here as they are extensive.  Boot throwing started as a professional sport in Finland in 1975,it became an international competition in 1992. The current world record holders are both from Finland,the men's record is 68.3 meters,the women's record is 49.35 meters. This sport is one of several unorthodox sports that have originated in Finland,that makes them either really creative or really bored!

Smile Without a Face

Before I get to the meat of the subject today I need to give you the backstory. A friend of mine had her teeth pulled many years ago by someone with enough knowledge to get the job done and make her dentures,I have no idea what his credentials were or even if he had any. With that said it follows that they fit poorly so she quit wearing the bottoms and is now to the point where she only slides the uppers in when she is face to face with someone,which brings me to the part where because of these things she frequently looses her teeth. Once they were missing for several weeks,when she found them they were under her futon and smiling out at her as she put it,I said," like the Cheshire Cat" and she agreed. Now for the rest of the story...I woke up in the middle of the night certain that was how Lewis Carroll got the idea for the Cheshire Cat,unfortunately I haven't found anything indicating that he either had false teeth or often lost them. Just another brain storm that didn't pan out, back to the drawing board!

The Ball Drop

No,not the New Year's Eve ball. I read about aerial golf that was supposedly  played in the 1920s by dropping golf balls from a plane to the players below,maybe it was a one time thing and was never tried again due to injuries? I did find other odd golf ball stories. Helicopter golf for charity...they sell golf balls with numbers on them then drop them from a helicopter,the first two to go into the cup win a few grand.  The other story was a woman in England who had her house regularly pelted with plastic golf balls by seagulls. Experts figured the gulls thought the balls were mussels and were trying to break them open to get to the meat,if that theory was correct why use one house and why keep at it if it wasn't getting the desired result? Are gulls really that slow mentally...maybe.

Green Head

Worried about all the noxious fumes you are breathing in on a daily basis? Then the Greenhouse Helmet is the answer to your prayers! The dome fully encloses your head to keep out of the unwanted toxins invading the air,and it provides you with fresh oxygen given off by plants mounted within the dome to recycle the carbon dioxide you give off into fresh breathable air. This would be the perfect item for the rabid non-smokers or the intensely allergic folks,with Christmas just around the corner you'd best place your order soon! Yes,there really is a patent for the Greenhouse Helmet for those of you who thought I might be joking.

This isn't an actual picture of the helmet,but it was so ridiculous I had to post it!

The Object of the Game

This "sport" may have started in the 1960s but some claim it dates back to 400 years ago,it is called Dwile Flonking. The play consists of two groups and a dull witted person known as a jobanowl for a referee. A sugar beet is tossed to see which team flonks first. The non-flonking team holds hands and dances in a circle. A member of the opposing team stands in the middle of the circle holding a driveller (a pole 2-3 feet long) with a beer soaked dwile (rag) on the end. The flonker turns in a counter-clockwise direction and flonks his dwile at the circle of dancers. If the dwile misses completely it is called a swadger and the flonker must drink a pint of ale before the dwile passes through the hands of the dancers.  The team with the most points wins after deducting one point for every player still sober. Oh,and in case you missed it the object is the hit someone with the beer soaked dwile!

Check It Out!

When a person thinks of libraries the first thing that comes to mind is books,DVDs are probably second but what else could a person expect to borrow from  a library? I was surprised to find out the answer to that question though I imagine it depends on the area you live in and how your local library is funded. Some of the items not usually associated with library lending include: snowshoes, American Girl Dolls,musical instruments, tools,cake pans,pedometers,fishing poles,seeds and at our local library they offer a device to check your kilowatt hours. Considering that is the only unusual item at the local library it makes me wonder if the local power company is known for false readings?

It All Started As a Joke

Today we are going to explore the origin of the expression OK. OK is an English expression but it is also used in dozens of other languages and is used as various parts of speech. So how did this versatile word come to life? In 1839 the editor of a Boston paper published a humorous article coining the word OK,to mean all correct,abbreviations were popular at the time much like nowadays and all the computer acronyms (lol,brb, and all the rest). The popularity of OK increased the next year when it merged with presidential candidate  Martin van Buren's nickname Old Kinderhook (he was from Old Kinderhook,NY).  OK,now you know how a joke can take on a life of its own!

Not Really Hacks

The more life hacks I read the more I find simple things being made harder,in fact I have decided that the people making them up are doing it for laughs. For instance: cutting off the end of a banana and peeling it from that end because it is supposed to leave less strands,nope doesn't work and you've just dirtied a knife instead of using the opener nature intended you to use. In a fix for kindling to start a fire? use Doritos...if you have no kindling you might want to hold onto the Doritos because chances are you have nothing to eat either. Of course if you have no way to start the fire you can always break out a 9 v battery and rub it with steel wool,two more things that are found in every household everyday or you happen to take along in case you are stranded in the forest. Oh well,if nothing else these hacks are good for laughs.

Horsin' Around

Horseradish is one of those love it or hate it condiments. I enjoy it even when I get a bit more than I intended  and experience that bomb going off inside my head,which in turn clears out the sinus cavity. What I have often wondered about is how it came to be called horseradish,I know it is made from the root of the plant which explains the radish part (radix is Latin for root) but what about the horse part? It was called meerrettich in German (meaning sea root) and it is believed that it was mispronounced into English as mareradish which eventually became horseradish. Horseradish has been around over 3,000 years and has been used as a back rub,aphrodisiac,cough syrup and countless other applications,so love it or hate it you may as well get used to it,it seems to be here to stay.

Gone Green

It's that time of year again when the holidays are upon us,every year something different is brought to my attention that I didn't seem to notice in previous years. With Halloween nearly here I have been wondering why witches are often depicted with green skin,are they supposed to be in a state of decay? That seems more likely for an undead creature,yet they are mainly shown as pale,bloodless beings. There are a few explanations for the green witch skin,one is related to copper arsenate,a bright green dye that is also poisonous,making the green witch  poisonous. I don't really understand the one about plants being the breath of life so the witches skin was made green to remind us of that fact? I must be missing something on that one. The one I find most likely is when the "Wizard of Oz" was released in Technicolor in 1939 they wanted to show off what they could do with color and made the witch green as she wasn't a particular color in the book.

Brain Test

There is never a lack of online tests to determine pretty much anything a person could imagine. I rarely bother taking any of them as I find them neither fun nor informative and usually get irritated by the second or third question. The questions are as broad as they are vague,I assume to cover as many bases as possible and that is where I have trouble,the choices for answering the questions are never close to how I would respond. Okay,enough carping about the tests. I broke down and took one from Mental Floss magazine called Brain Child. It was meant to tell you which two famous people's brains were most like yours. I got Darwin/Wilde. Couldn't I at least have had a male and female?  Does that mean my final words will be "either the wallpaper goes or I do"?

Little Beggars

In the late 1800s through the mid 1900s kids and adults alike would dress up for Thanksgiving and go house to house asking "Anything for Thanksgiving?" Sounds a lot like what is now done for Halloween but some of these beggars were serious and some did it for sport. It was also known as "Ragamuffin Day" because the majority of the beggars dressed accordingly. In an attempt to organize the children a Ragamuffin Parade was held in New York City in 1940 which  was eventually replaced with today's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Remember the Dress?

Earlier this year the internet was obsessed with what color people saw when they looked at a picture of a dress,that in turn sparked online tests for a condition known as tetrachromacy which is quite rare (.25% of the population) showing that a large number of people had the ability to see extra colors. It was all pretty much a hoax,but I digress (imagine that!). What I have been checking into this time is synesthesia a condition where people's senses combine in a way that allows them to see numbers and letters as colors or sometimes they are associated with smells or textures. The colors are specific to one person senses,say person a. sees a 4 as red,but person b. sees 4 as blue. These reactions are not thought about they just happen automatically,it is hard to imagine and harder to explain! I will leave you with that much info and give you room to do some more research if are so inclined.

The Moon & Stars

After yesterday's post I started wondering about the Procter & Gamble logo and how the rumor of the company being satanists came about. It isn't clear how the rumor first started but the logo in question featured a moon and thirteen stars (for the original 13 colonies) and had been in use since the 1800s. In the 1980s the rumor started that the "man in the moon" represented a horned devil with the number 666 hidden within. The rumors also insisted that the companies CEO had appeared on various talk shows saying he was associated with and donated money to the Church of Satan,which was not true,think about it...how interesting would any CEO  on a talk show be? Okay there may be a few exceptions but the key word is few. In 1991 they gave the moon a haircut and eventually dropped all the artwork for the letters P&G and won a $19.25 million lawsuit in 1995 against former competitor Amway for reinvigorating the satanist rumor.

Breasts?

Yes today's post does have a remote connection to breasts but the real reason for using breasts for the title was a little experiment to see if it made a difference in readers,you know me and my experiments! The early McDonald's logo featured a plump character named Speedee (no relation to the Alka-Seltzer guy,at least I don't think so!),in 1960 the Golden Arches were introduced at the new symbol. Around 1968 the arches were slowly replaced with various renditions of the letter M with and without the word McDonald's. The company had really wanted to go with a different design but their design consultant informed them that customers unknowingly associate the logo with a pair of nourishing breasts. Kind of gives a new meaning to the "I'm Lovin' It" portion of the ads!
 

Fluff Piece

It may seem like I am on the warpath with scientific studies after yesterday's post and further disgruntlement today but it is more of a matter of thinking that their knowledge could be put to better use. To support that thought I offer a 3 year study conducted by an Austrian scientist who studied 503 pieces of belly button lint (aka belly button fluff) and found (drum roll please) that it collected in the belly button from the clothing you wore,and (get this!) the hairier your stomach is the greater the accumulation would be! Didn't we already know that? Did it need studying? The only knowledge I gleaned from their hard won research was when I accidentally found out that pocket lint has an actual name...gnurr,not that it really needed a name but at least I can offer you something new to learn for the day!