I'm Back!

Actually I got back in yesterday but was way too busy,then too tired to even think straight,but things should be fairly normal for awhile now. Today's post is about towns with funny names as I read about France having a club for their towns with funny names and thought that was a neat idea. I am also going to feature a few of the odd Oregon town names.

translation: Fraudulent Post Office

this one sounds like the French word baise which means f#*k.

this one means "naked body" and tourist often strip to have their pictures taken in front of it.

Now for some Oregon ones starting with one near where I grew up.


Drain,Oregon

Remote,Oregon

and let's wrap things up with Powder,Oregon 

Your Own Devices

I will be leaving you to fend for yourselves for a few days until my carpet is ripped out and the floor underneath sanded and sealed. I'll be staying in a place with no internet access so I won't be able to supply you with a daily distraction. I thought a few funny quotes might be just the thing to wrap up the week with so without further ado...
"The lion shall lie down with the calf,but the calf won't get much sleep." Woody Allen
"My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger." Billy Connolly
"It's really hard to maintain a one-on- one relationship if the other person is not going to allow me to be with other people." Axl Rose
I've saved my favorite for last.
When Mick Jagger insisted that his wrinkles were actually laugh lines,jazz singer George Melly replied,"Surely nothing could be that funny."

Won By a Nose

Do you have a big nose? If your nose measures at least 60 mm (about 2.3 inches) long or 40 mm (about 1 1/2 inches) wide you are eligible to join The Big Nose Club. The club was started in 1961 in Langenbruck,Germany by a group of hops growers and the town minister making fun of each others noses at the local pub. The group has grown from 40 members to 330 registered members. The Big Nose World Championship takes place every five years and uses a modern nose gauge to measure the noses. The contestants are allowed to frown or make faces to enhance the size but no illegal substances are permitted. If you are interested in competing the current female champion's nose is over 4 inches while her male counterpart's nose measured nearly 5 inches.

Fast Food First

Just when it seems like fast food has nothing new to offer along comes an Australian man with the Hamdog. His invention is a hamburger cut in half with a hotdog laid down the middle, the trimmings include: lettuce,tomato,cheese,pickles,mustard,ketchup and mayonnaise presented on a specially made bun. The buns are still a bit of a problem as they have to be hand made but they are working on a way to automate the process. They are selling for $8 at sporting events and fairs and if they continue to do well he plans on selling franchise opportunities. The man took his invention on Australian Shark Tank and was rejected and told he would never get a patent. He got a patent and is doing well with other investors proving that Shark Tank isn't the end all of business ideas.

Gold Digger

This Canadian Mint employee was literally a gold digger,though he wasn't excavating the gold from the earth. The 35 year old man smuggled 18 gold pucks weighing around 1/2 pound each in his rectum to bypass security. He then sold them to Ottawa Gold Buyers for a total of $6,800 each between November 2014 to March  2015 for a grand total of $179,015. He was caught when the bank he was depositing the checks in grew suspicious leading to the discovery of 4 gold pucks in his safety deposit box. It's crimes like these that really make a person wonder why a thief can't seem to resist the siren call of stealing when he was working a good paying job with benefits and a high rating of job satisfaction. Oh well,I guess he will have the rest of his life to figure out the answer to that question.
 

Fall Tools?

Fall can be a beautiful time of year with the abundance of colors from the changing leaves but for some folks it means work. People have decided that they know better than nature and those pesky leaves will not be left to mulch,they will be blown or raked or mowed into submission,then in most cases end up in the garbage,sometimes they are burned only rarely are they allowed to decompose and nourish the earth. Okay,end of the ecology /gardening rant,what I started out intending to write about was the invention (and patent) of  leaf gathering trousers. Not only do they sound funny the diagram looks funny as well,but you have to hand it to the person since they wanted to make a better way to gather leaves without the help of a mechanical device. It wasn't mentioned in the patent information what was going to be done with the leaves once they were gathered so it pretty much leaves my whole problem with leaves sitting at square one.

Button Up

When I was a child I remember the first time someone pointed out that men's and women's shirts buttoned on opposite sides,I wanted to know why and was told at the time it was so you could tell if it was a male or female shirt. Long story short I never did get an answer though I recently came across a few logical guesses. The first conjecture was that since women held their infants mainly on their left it made it easier to unbutton to nurse. Secondly when women still rode side saddle it was also to the left so the buttons lessened the amount of cold air. The third and final guess only applied to those who had servants to help them dress,the buttons would be easier for the help to work with,and the men in those times apparently dressed themselves.

Instant Karma

This burglar, with low intentions, broke into a YMCA in California by dropping down the ventilation system via the ceiling. Even though it is nothing more than a rhetorical question,what kind of person would break into and steal from a charitable organization?  But wait! This time justice was served even though he wasn't caught at the scene. Apparently not wanting to be detected he didn't use any lights which served him right because what he took to be a cash register was only a toy,a toy filled with play money which he made off with! Of course I'm sure some kids were disappointed by the theft but at least he didn't make a big haul.
On a totally unrelated subject I got a good laugh earlier when I read the reason why people watch shopping channels...drum roll...There are no commercials!!

The Royal Throne

Just in case anyone out there has using an 18 karat toilet on their bucket list your fondest wishes can now come true! The Guggenheim Museum in New York City opened one for public use on the 16th (Friday). The golden throne is a fully functional sculpture called "America" sculpted by Italian Maurizio Cattelan. The museum pointed out the intimate and participatory nature of the exhibit, a chance to interact with a work of art. The piece was installed by a regular plumber rather than the artist. I can't help but think what the lines must be like,a person certainly wouldn't want to get in line if they needed to relieve themselves immediately and I wonder how long it will be before someone has to do something to deface the work.

Knit Wits

I happened upon some knitting trivia that I found interesting and since so many people knit I thought others might find interesting as well. Knitting hasn't been around nearly as long as weaving and it is hard to establish when it started as the natural fibers used deteriorated over time, but it is thought to have begun around 1000 A.D. in Northern Africa. Knitting was a male only occupation to begin with. Wool is also fairly recent to knitting,cotton and silk were used initially. Knitting burns 55 calories per hour. For those of you who find it relaxing to knit and watch TV maybe it is time for you to try knitting while on stilts like the Landes swamp shepherds of France so they could knit while watching over their flocks,or perhaps you could run a marathon and knit like world record holder David Babcock who finished the Kansas City Marathon in 5 hours 48 minutes and 27 seconds while knitting a scarf 12 feet and 1 3/4 inches long!

Friday Fare

I came across some entertaining idioms from countries other than the US that I thought might be enjoyable on a Friday. If you are from one of the countries I mention and I don't have the saying quite right please let me know!
I will start with my favorite: You're pedaling in sauerkraut,meaning you lost your train of thought. (French)
The next one up is from Australia: Flat out like a lizard drinking,meaning you're really busy (because lizards drink water really fast).
Norway is next up with:A raisin in the sausage,meaning something good getting even better.
I'll wrap up today where I started with France: She has long teeth,meaning she is ambitious. Apparently it started out meaning hungry and later became hungry for success.

Poddy / Bobby

When I was a kid we had dairy cattle so part of the chores for us kids was feeding the calves from a bucket with a nipple containing a milk mix so their mothers could be milked and the milk in turn sold. Sounds kind of cruel now that I think about it,but it was a business and that is what had to be done but once again I digress! I don't remember having a special name for these bottle fed calves but have come to discover that they are often called poddy calves or bobby calves. With that part said a calf was reported to the police in New Zealand to be wandering the streets. They picked up the calf in the back of the squad car and took it to the station but once they got there they realized they had nothing to feed it other than skim milk which it refused, so the calf had to spend the night hungry in a cell until the next morning when it was delivered to animal control for re-homing. I have no idea what happens to local calves if their owners can't be located as our local animal shelter only has facilities for cats and dogs.

Unusual Art

Many mothers from my age saved their children's hair from the first haircut and also their baby teeth but moms today have started a new trend that seems a bit odd to me for a couple of reasons. They are saving their babies umbilical cords and making them into art by spelling out "love" or making a heart sign and who knows what else? First off that seems a little on the creepy side to me but maybe I'm just being old fashioned? but the second reason is if they want to save the cord that connected them to their offspring in the womb why not let it be preserved and kept in a way that could benefit the child in the future if needed to grow stem cells? I know there is still controversy about the whole stem cell thing but on the off chance that it could be used to save a life instead of made into questionable "art" I would think the mothers would opt for a possible cure rather than a future eyesore or in some cases a decomposing cord kept in a brine solution.

Hamburglar / Fry Thief

I rarely go to McDonald's but I have noticed that the Hamburlar and even Ronald McDonald himself seem to be MIA,I have no idea when they went missing. I made a brief attempt at finding out what happened to them but didn't get too far,but I digress once again. What is actually on my mind today is a woman in Maryland who was arrested for stealing 3 french fries from a police officer's plate. The whole affair took place at the Italian Pizza Kitchen (who would order fries at a pizza joint in the first place??) allegedly the woman tried to engage the officer in conversation and while she was doing so snagged a fry...then another. The officer warned her not to do it again or he would arrest her for 2nd degree theft,the woman responded with "Well then you might as well take me to jail"and grabbed the final fry. The officer did arrest her and listed the offense on the police report as stolen items "French Fried Potatoes" quantity 3. Seems a bit harsh for 3 fries,they must have been REALLY good fries.

Walking the Dog

Today's post was a surprise to me as it took place in the capital of an Eastern China province and for some reason I didn't think things like this happened in China because of strict laws,show me to think! A woman dressed in a blue dress and high heels was walking her male companion on a dog leash through rush hour traffic. The sight caused considerable attention as onlookers snapped pictures and otherwise gawked at the scene. Eventually the police arrived and told the odd couple to quit doing whatever it was they were doing but didn't arrest them or state what grounds their order to cease their activities was founded on. Goes to show strangeness is a worldwide phenomena.

Scabs

I really tried to talk myself out of doing a post on 9/11 because I figured a lot of people would misconstrue what I have to say and chalk me up as unpatriotic,uncaring and not to mention un-American,but as usual I didn't let that stop me from saying my piece. Of course 9/11 was a major catastrophe as were other events in history but isn't fixating on it causing hate instead of healing? Every year it seems like picking the scab off a wound to make sure it never heals. Maybe instead of "We will never forget" a more apt phrase would be another day that will live in infamy,after all the chance of forgetting 9/11 are fairly slim in this lifetime.