New Jen's Horde


Thursday, June 30, 2005

I'm afraid I would S-U-C-K at this!

 
The National Senior Spelling Bee

Well, I guess I do have 15 years to practice....


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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Does It Work?

 
Finally!

A news program in Texas has been running out and buying all of those products advertised "As Seen On TV" and trying them out! They've already rated a ton of them and show no signs of stopping.

They really loved the Space Bags, but the IGIA Pore Cleanser was a big flop. The Hairagami, which they tested first on a guy on the crew, did so-so.

I'm waiting for them to do the Betty Crocker Bake'n Fill. Not that *I'll* have any luck with it, I can barely get regular cakes to come out of the pan...and Lord help us all if I actually have to frost it or do anything fancy like that. But, it would be nice to know if normal people can get this gadget to work.


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Tuesday, June 28, 2005

BTK Pleads Guilty

 
Dennis Rader chose to plead guilty rather than go through a trial which he said would only end in his guilt. One wonders if he did this just to have the opportunity to regale an audience with his exploits, though, since he really seemed to enjoy himself, and even corrected the judge at times.

I think that the son of his last victim, Jeff Davis, described the performance best:

"It struck me as if he was giving us a lecture in serial murder 101, because he's not human and has no soul or conscience...He's up there kind of cavalierly describing how he had his 'hit kit' with him and how his 'projects' were proceeding."
Rader can not be sentenced to death, because Kansas did not reinstate the death penalty until 3 years after his last known murder. The District Attorney hopes he will receive a full life sentence for each case, served consecutively.

If the District Attorney gets her wish, Dennis Rader's sentence will be 175 years to life.


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What exactly IS a Hollaback Girl?

 
It's driving me B-A-N-A-N-A-S!


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If only!

 


What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com


I really wish I were this good. She is one of my heroes. I love how she was full on sold out for Jesus, and could honor and respect every human being she came into contact with, regardless of who they were or what they believed. I truly feel that's what Christ's love is supposed to look like, and I strive to be like her.


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Monday, June 27, 2005

Timelines are fascinating!

 
I find the idea compelling that a timeline can capture a period, almost like a snapshot, and allow you to turn it over and over and examine it. We can lose context so easily when we study history, and a timeline makes it easier to understand where each bit of information fits in. I think that's why they always draw me in, no matter what the subject.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's website includes an interactive Timeline of Art History. It's worth taking a look at, if you're at all interested in this sort of thing. You can search by artist, time period, art style, or area of the world.

I grabbed some pictures from the website to compare what people all over the world were doing right around when time cranked from B.C. to A.D. Check it out!

North America:
N. America Human Figure, 2nd century B.C.–1st century A.D.

Mexico:
Mexico Figure Vessel, 3rd–1st century B.C.

South America:
Peru Ornamental plume or pin, 2nd century B.C.–2nd century A.D.

Europe:
Balkan Peninsula Statue of Eros sleeping, 3rd–2nd century B.C.; Hellenistic

Egypt:
Egypt Head attributed to Arsinoe II, Ptolemaic Period, reign of Arsinoe II, ca. 278–270 B.C.

South Asia:
South Asia Plaque with the goddess Durga and attendants, Shunga period (ca. 2nd–1st century B.C.), 1st century B.C.

Japan:
Japan Storage jar, Yayoi period (ca. 4th century B.C.–3rd century A.D.)

There is a LOT more information there to look at, go see for yourself! There's even a whole section on Pablo Picasso!

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Look what I made

 
over at Mr. Picassohead:


Posted by Hello


Now you, too, can become a noteworthy cubist artist. Today, funky ladies, tomorrow Guernica!


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Sunday, June 26, 2005

My ears cleared for the first time

 
since my head got so clogged up from the mold, and I just have one thing to say:

MAN, kids are loud!

The bathroom's really going well, I'll post pictures later!


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Saturday, June 25, 2005

Wow! Just wow.

 
If you want to read a touching story, check out Nunc Dimittis over at Waiter Rant. I'll be thinking about this one for a loooooong time.


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The Alarm Clock of the Future

 
You know what I'm waiting for? While everyone's marketing alarm clocks with nicer functions, gentler waking cycles, or even ones that escape from you, there's still something lacking.

I'm waiting for the snooze cycle that ACTUALLY STOPS TIME. Think about it. The alarm clock goes off at 6:30 am and you're just not ready. Hit the snooze button and nine minutes later it buzzes, only it's still 6:30, because the clock actually stopped time for everyone but you! You're sleeping away while the world waits, and nothing changes until you stop the snooze cycle and get up. Do it again and again, and you get an extra two hours sleep, but get into the office right on time.

I don't even really want to wait until we can invent it, maybe some passing alien lifeform can just drop it off for us, that would be just fine with me.

Sure, it violates the Prime Directive and several laws of physics, but does that ever really bother you when you're trying to justify another push of the snooze button in the morning?


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Oh, man.

 
This is just so sad. I pray for these families.


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Friday, June 24, 2005

Bissell Steam Mop, Heck Yeah!

 
I don't know if you all have seen the Bissell Steam Mop Bare Floor Cleaner but it is really cool! Ok, technically it's hot, but you get my point.

You can watch a video at the website and see how it works. I'm not the world's best housekeeper, and since we've been doing the disaster cleanup in the bathroom things are even farther behind than normal. The steam mop just zipped across the kitchen floor like it WASN'T covered with 3 day old nacho cheese with bits of cereal and paper in it :-0

'Nuff said.


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Thursday, June 23, 2005

Edgar Ray Killen convicted and sentenced to 60 years

 
The killings he is convicted of were committed in 1964, Killen is 80 now. Gotta love the fact that there is no statute of limitations on murder! CNN has a good article including how the judge felt about taking Killen's age into consideration while deciding his sentence:

NPR has an interesting audio piece, covering reactions from the courthouse and the feelings of the people in a town notorious for these killings, especially since the 1988 film Mississippi Burning brought renewed interest to the case.

A couple of minutes into the interview, someone in the background had a phone ringing with MY EXACT RINGTONE. Make me crazy! Took me a minute to figure out it wasn't me. I guess it's better that the person let their phone go, that would have been even more annoying to hear him in the background saying, "Hey, honey! Yeah, he just got 60 years, and now I'm watching them interview some guy's brother or something... Oh uh huh? No, I left them on the dresser. No? Look on the bathroom counter. Oh good. I'll be home by 6, do you want me to pick up Taco Bell? Extra sour cream, got it. Love you too!"


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Migraine Bracelets

 
Through the migraine forum at about.com, I've been following the story of Janice, a migraineur whose suffering and ill-treatment by medical staff finally led her to commit suicide.

Now there's been a grassroots initiative to create bracelets to help raise both funds and awareness about migraine. If you'd like to see or order the FIGHTING MIGRAINE DISEASE bracelets, check here.

As a person who's suffered from migraines for years, I can understand a little of Janice's despair. I was never treated this rudely in any of my ER visits, though, that is just criminal. By the time you go to the ER with a migraine you are extremely vulnerable, scared, and in so much pain you're not sure which way is up. When trying to figure out the 1-10 pain scale on one such trip, I finally just said, "I'd rather be giving birth alone in a ditch than feel like this!"

Hopefully some good can come from Janice's tragic story.


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Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Giant Popsicle Melts, Floods New York Park

 
Anyone who's had toddlers could have told them that would happen. I hope they weren't wearing white...


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Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Bathrooms should not have carpet!

 
Or, Why I'm walking around looking like this:

Kleenex nose


Oh yeah, you know you want me.

The whole disturbing story started Sunday evening right before the fondue party. A piece of shelving collapsed in our bathroom and severed the water pipe between the toilet and the wall. I got it shut off within seconds, and other than greeting our party guests while draining water from the kitchen light fixtures below, all seemed well at the moment. We set up fans to dry the floor (remember, it was literally only seconds the water was running, it shouldn't take too long, right?)

By the next morning, it was obvious it wasn't going to dry without some more help. The carpet was still very wet. So, I started to pull it up to see if I could get the air under there to help it dry. That's when I saw the mold.

Bathroom-mold in corner


It's not really easy to see here, but it's a virtual rainbow of 3-D goodness. And those dark lines around the edges? They're the tackstrips for the carpet, they're supposed to be a light pine color. They were so moldy they were just flaking apart. Tasty. It became obvious that we had gone beyond just drying up the floor, and were well on our way to having a biohazard situation if I didn't act quickly.

I began ripping up the sopping wet carpet and padding, which, as you all know from reading earlier this week, I'd just gone over with a carpet cleaner. Man, it doesn't matter how much mud you suck out of your carpet, it's still nasty underneath. Oh, and apparently in my case, covered with sunflower seed hulls...

Bathroom-hulls under tackstrip 2


My girls are convinced that hamsters installed our bathroom carpet. I don't care who installed it, I think it was a stupid idea and the CDC agrees. Avoiding carpet in bathrooms is on their list of seven recommendations for keeping mold out of buildings. Take THAT, carpet!

Anyway, between the mold, the dust and whatever else was living in and under my bathroom carpet, my nose hasn't stopped running since yesterday, hence the lovely Kleenex plugs. We're getting the bathroom dried up and sanitized, and we're in the process of painting. After all that we'll put some new flooring down, NOT carpet. The shelving unit has been sent to the garage for punishment, and the toilet is having a time out in the tub.

toilet in tub


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Can't blog today, cleaning up mold

 
More later...


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Monday, June 20, 2005

Talk about adding insult to injury!

 
A Romanian monk has been indicted in the death of a nun in an exorcism gone bad. Not only did refuse to seek professional mental help for her saying, "you can't take the devil out of people with pills," he and four other nuns bound her to a cross, gagged her and gave her no food or water for three days, resulting in her death.

He then went on to ignore his suspension and perform her funeral mass.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what she would have wanted...


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Fondue or die!

 
It went well, but MAN that's a lot of chopping and a lot of clean up! I'm still doing dishes, 3 dishwasher loads later, with no end in sight...

The house did not burn down, and everyone has the same number of eyes they started with, so I consider the party a success!


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Sunday, June 19, 2005

Pray for us all!

 
We're having a fondue party, which means that for the majority of the evening the children will have access to pointy sticks and fire.

Also, we're apparently already committing a Fon-don't by serving two kinds of fondue at one meal. Whatever.


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Saturday, June 18, 2005

Why is carpet cleaning so satisfying?

 
Every time we do it, we gather 'round to watch the pouring of the mud from the "after" tank of the machine, and there's an air of celebration around the whole thing. I fully expect my children to remember these experiences with a fondness bordering the feeling they have for Christmas.

But, really, it should be a deeply horrifying and shameful experience. Judging by what we shampoo out of our carpets, we obviously let our children eat and frolic in filth on a daily basis. What's wrong with us?

Rather than giving up on carpets altogether and moving into a dirt-floored sod hut (which would probably have less dirt than our carpets do regularly), I did find some helpful information on proper vacuuming techniques. I had no idea that I should be passing the vacuum 5-7 times over heavily soiled areas of my carpet (ie ALL of it.) Apparently I suck at vacuuming, har!

Anyway, I have to get back to work. Sick as it is, it really is a pretty fun job...


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"Troops"

 
Someone's been watching waaaayyyyy too much COPS and Episode IV. You gotta love it when the stormtroopers have Minnesota accents, eh?


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Friday, June 17, 2005

I have been using hairspray for over 20 years now...

 
...and today I shot it right into my eyes. I never realized the time between adolescence and doddering old age was so short.

I hope they let me keep my driver's license, now that I'm 34 and blind...


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Why people should stop letting me take surveys

 
I take surveys whenever I can. I enjoy telling people what I think, I can't help it. When they add rewards like points or prizes into the mix, you'd have to hire security to keep me away.

Today I was asked to watch a commercial for a major toilet paper brand's new wet wipes. The commercial showed the toilet paper and the wipes, and then a bunch of cute couples. The big selling line was, "Some things just work better together."

Then they asked me this question: Other than to get you to buy or try the product, what was the one main point of the commercial?

I replied:
The main point of the commercial seems to be that X-brand toilet paper just isn't enough anymore...

I mean really, aren't you basically telling us that your toilet paper is going to leave us with unsightly hygienic nastiness? That's why we need another product to clean up AFTER the first product you're trying to sell us? Would you try to sell me a car with a scooter on the back for when the car just doesn't get the job done? This is a baaaaaad plan.
If you see this commercial, you'll know they didn't listen to me (they never do...)


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Thursday, June 16, 2005

I guess life really DOES imitate art!

 
The newest member of the royal family in Norway was named after Princess Leia.

Norwegian Princess Leah's name was inspired by a character in a "Star Wars" movie, the mother of the infant princess was quoted as saying on Thursday. "I must admit that I have always been a big 'Star Wars' fan, and Princess Leia has always been the most beautiful in the whole world," Princess Martha Louise said.


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Woman kept alive in hopes of saving baby

 
If this were to happen to me, I would want to be kept alive too if there was hope of getting the baby to a reasonable age of gestation.

Seriously, though, I guess that decision would be up to Davin, since he'd be the one dealing with four kids and preemie all alone...


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Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Because I am hard you will not like me!

 
As you may know from reading previously (R. Lee Ermey taught our homeschool yesterday) we LOVES us some Gunnery Sergeant Hartman around here!!!!

Imagine my joy to find, not just one but two Full Metal Jacket Sound Boards to play with! It's like Christmas came early to my ears! Now, I just have to play them really quietly, because most of this is stuff I just don't want to hear repeated, if you know what I mean...


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Childhood

 
Sheri tagged me with a meme about childhood. I'm supposed to name 5 things I miss.

But you know what? I don't miss anything.

Anything that was good about my childhood, I have kept. I loved shopping for school supplies, so we do that year round if we want to! We say, "I love you" a zillion times a day, and the house is full of easy laughter. In other words, I don't miss the good things, because I still have them, and the rest I wouldn't want back anyway.

I'm not going to tag anyone else, because I didn't really follow the rules on this one.


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Pac-Man is 25!

 
And all of a sudden I'm not feeling so young myself...


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Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Oh, MAN!

 
Check out Sheri's blog, this nearly made me pee! Hugs to you, Sheri, we've all had similar moments...


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Where can I get one of these?

 
I was just surfing the glorious 'net today to see if we're far enough into the future for someone to have developed a self-cleaning house and check it out!!! Weirdly enough, it's been around a while...

A press of a button sprays jets of soapy water over the entire room, another button sprays clean water to rinse out the soap, and a third starts a giant fan that thoroughly dries the area. The walls, ceilings and floors are all covered with a water-proof resin, as is the furniture. The floors are slanted to allow the water to run off into a complex drainage system; any water that doesn't drain off the floor is dried up by the fan.

Valuables and vulnerable items are kept under glass, and of course there are no dust-collecting carpets. The kitchen cabinets double as a dishwasher - you simply place the dishes in the cupboard, close the door, and hit a button. After washing the dishes a fan dries them, so when you need a clean plate you simply open the cupboard and get one. The clothes closet acts as a washing machine and drier - you simply hang them up and leave them alone.
It reminds me of that episode of Home Improvement where Tim turns the whole kitchen into a dishwasher...

Unfortunately, judging by this photo, someone needs to invent a self-manicuring lawn to go with it.


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Monday, June 13, 2005

Not Guilty, my butt!

 
And it's a BIG BIG BUTT, let me assure you...


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Feral Children

 
"Feral children" have grown up for some significant length of time either with animals, or with very limited or abnormal human contact. Even if they are placed in healthy family settings they often have difficuly with relationships and language skills. I remember studying the case of Genie in college psychology.

On November 4, 1970 a girl was discovered. She had been locked in a room alone for over ten years. She was tied to a potty chair and left to sit alone day after day. At night, she was tied into a sleeping bag which restrained her arms. She was put into an over-sized crib with a cover made of metal screening. Often she was forgotten. On those nights she slept tied to the potty chair.

At first, people could hardly believe that Genie was thirteen years old. While she seemed to understand a few words, the only words she could say were, "stopit" and "nomore." She had a strange bunny-like walk— she held her hands up in front of her like paws and moved in a halting way. She could not chew solid food and could hardly swallow. She spat constantly. She sniffed. She was not toilet-trained and could not focus her eyes beyond 12 feet. She weighed 59 pounds and was 54 inches tall.
I was extremely interested to find that someone had put together an entire site devoted to these children. Also, I was saddened to find that many recent cases exist, even into the new millennium.

If you have a few minutes, this is a worthy site to poke around for a while. There are some fascinating and truly tragic case histories here.


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Sunday, June 12, 2005

Happy Birthday, Davin!

 
He's the one on the upper right, over there------>


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After Life

 
If you're interested in old cemeteries, this is a worthy page to check out. The photographer went to the same cemetery in each season, over the course of two years, to capture a series of heart-wrenching images. Careful, some of them move!

Warning: Audio


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Saturday, June 11, 2005

I don't get this

 
There's a gang of underwear thieves out there. They don't steal underwear, that's just all they don to go robbing. According to this article, "They apparently wear only underwear in an attempt to make themselves harder to identify."

Maybe I'm stupid, but I think most people would be a lot easier to pick out in a lineup if they had 80% MORE of them showing. Unless, of course, we're talking about Michael Jackson, in which case the underwear would cover the "blemished" part that cost him $20 million...


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Friday, June 10, 2005

If there were an Oscar for "Best Fart Scene"

 
Robots would blow the competition out of the water (so to speak.)

OK, we may be the last people on Earth to see this movie, but with four kids we were saving our money for that other big movie. Sue me.


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Thursday, June 09, 2005

I could really use a workstation like this!

 
Dr. James Levine, an obesity researcher at the Mayo Clinic, has designed an office makeover that he believes should help keep people active and burning calories even during usually sedentary desk work and meetings.

Instead of being sedentary in front of their computers, they'd stand. But instead of standing still, they'd walk on a treadmill..."I hate going to the gym, which may be partly why I'm so interested in this," he said, keeping up a 1 mph pace on his treadmill while checking e-mail and fielding questions from a reporter. That speed is slow enough to avoid breaking a sweat but fast enough to burn an extra 100 calories per hour...
Since, as we all learned from Tiernan yesterday, "I have a butt," it might be good to get my butt moving while I'm checking email, blogging, and working on the kids' homeschooling.


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Wednesday, June 08, 2005

I guess I should be proud...

 
My three year old son is walking around the house conjugating verbs. Of course, he's doing it in the way my children always do things, so he just walked by chanting to himself:

I have a butt.
He has a butt.
She has a butt.
You have a butt....
This reminds me of how my older children first learned how to distinguish a noun from any other part of speech. As we all know, a noun is a "person, place or thing." The three of them (they were 6, 4, and 4 at the time and desperate to play Mad Libs) couldn't remember that, so they invented the definition, "A noun is anything you can poop on." And it works! You can poop on Grandma, you can poop on Saturn, and you can poop on the car, etc. etc. They've never had trouble with it since, although I suspect that they might have some trouble when they get to gerunds...but don't we all?


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Pulp Fiction in 30 Seconds.

 
re-enacted by bunnies! (Definitely not for kids. You can let them watch the bunny version of It's A Wonderful Life, though.)

I'm so excited! I've been waiting for this since I caught Jaws a while back on Dave Barry's Blog...


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Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Maybe he's a lumberjack?

 
But he's definitely not OK...

On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States.
There are so many things wrong with this story: For one, why flee to America? I'm not a professional international lawyer, but I'm pretty sure we have an extradition agreement with Canada. Two, why take the crime scene with you? Again, I'm not an expert, but I do watch enough Law & Order to realize that's a bad idea. And three, I thought it was supposed to be HARDER to get into America since 9-11. Shows what I know...


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God bless you please Mrs. Robinson

 
Anne Bancroft died yesterday, she was 73.


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horde-n. (hôrd): A large group or crowd; a swarm

 
Please note the name change :-)


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Monday, June 06, 2005

37 Candles?

 
Apparently Molly Ringwald is considering a sequel to Sixteen Candles.

Why? I mean, honestly 16 is a great birthday, 21 was pretty cool, but since then and ESPECIALLY since children, have you had a birthday worth making a movie about?

I can just picture the mile-a-minute action as the camera follows me, everything's the same as any other day, only today I'm trying to clean and cook for guests, too!

Really, I'd rather see a Breakfast Club sequel. It would be cool to see how the kids turned out. Did Claire squeeze out a few puppies and get fat? If so, who was it that slipped her the "hot beef injection?" These are the questions I want answered...


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Am I dying or is this my birthday?

 
The above quote is attributed to Lady Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, on her deathbed. Apparently she woke up surrounded by family, was momentarily confused, and then passed on.

Last Words has a great listing of such quotes, from both real people and fictional characters.

We'll never forget Charles Foster Kane's parting sentiment, "Rosebud." And I'm sure it won't take much work to guess which character said this, "Precious, precious, precious! My Precious! O my Precious!"

The site also includes epitaphs. I thought it was interesting that while some go on and on, Bela Lugosi's merely says "Beloved Father." So I thought I'd check it out. I popped over to his page at Find a Grave and, sure enough there it is. Simple and sweet.


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Sunday, June 05, 2005

How to do an autopsy

 
I found this online guide for doing an autopsy. It's written by a pathologist, and has cute little step-by-step diagrams showing 3 identical guys going through the steps as he explains them in the text. It's a little disturbing, because it makes you think that maybe they're triplets running some sort of human chop shop, but it gets the job done.

Also, he links you to his own calculator for determining time of death. That was kind of fun to play around with for a while.

Seriously, though, I had to wonder if people were surfing his site and trying to actually perform these procedures on their own at home? If you are, don't tell me, OK? If I have to testify, the less I know about it the better...


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Saturday, June 04, 2005

"Come See the Violence Inherent in the System!"

 
Take the quiz: "Which Holy Grail Character Are You?"

Dennis the Peasant
Oh, King, eh, very nice. And how d'you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers! By 'anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress with the...


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Julie's blog today reminded me...

 
Earlier this year, when we were explaining to the children how things they learned now would help them when they were adults, Maya (7) was feeling cantakerous. Everything we suggested she might want to do as an adult, and therefore study now, was not of any interest to her that day. Finally, she threw up her hands and said, "When we grow up, all we want to do is sit around all day and fart and watch Monk!"

That's it, Maya, aim high!


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Delivery

 
Check out this short film. There's no dialogue, but through music and animation it skillfully tells an eloquent and hopeful story.

Thanks to Miss Vagabond at Macca Funhouse.


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Friday, June 03, 2005

I Love Mission: Organization!

 
We recently started watching regular TV again, after about 2 years of not having it. So, I thought I'd check out the decorating shows to see if any of them inspired me to, I don't know, decorate?

I have a problem, though. I'm hopeless. I'd watch the shows and see what looked like a pretty nice room. Then someone would swoop in and make it horribly chichipoopoo, and I'd be wishing we could go back to the way it was before. No, I don't want a bedroom done in Jamaican colonial, next to a living room done in post-Andy Warhol pop, balanced out by my beautiful garage, which is completely made over in French provincial... None of this is speaking to me.

Then, while flipping, I found the perfect show for me! Mission: Organization! In case you haven't seen it, here's the break down. They go to someone's house and look at a room that's LIVED IN to the point where it's filled with crap. Then they bring in an "organization expert" to help the people go through their crap and find new ways to store the crap they're keeping. Nothing is really different, it's just cleaner and more spiffed up. This is GENIUS!!!!!

I don't know who these organizational experts are, but apparently they got extras of many genes I am lacking. If you show up unannounced at my house, almost any room will qualify as a "Before" for this show. :-o I don't need someone to tell me what drapes to buy to match my sofa, because they'll both end up covered with jelly and marker before long. And, given how many stacks you'd have to step over to get to the sofa, color is really the least of my problems right now.

I have my DVR tape all of the episodes, and now I'm just trying to decide where to start first. I can't really hire anyone, but I'm taking notes...


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Proof that I haven't grown all the way up yet...

 
This sort of thing really amuses me! Here's an actual article about it, if you're like me and want MORE!

Via Dave Barry.


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Thursday, June 02, 2005

School's Out Forever!

 
This year, our three year old son, Tiernan, attended preschool through the local school district because he had a demonstrated speech delay. His pediatrician was pretty sure it was because he'd had a nasty bout of recurring ear infections, but it may have also been caused by the surgery to correct his sagittal synostosis, so we didn't want to mess around.

Today was the last day of preschool, and we had a meeting with his teachers. They recommended another year of preschool because they believe he's still a smidge behind, but after many questions we were able to figure out they aren't worried that he has any sort of developmental delay. He's just not academically on their track for kindergarten. Woohoo! We're not really concerned if he's literally a few months behind today's super-stressed, early academics, cram-schoolers. He won't be going to their kindergarten anyway. From what we've read and learned with our older children, there's no need to rush. (BTW-Homeschoolers, is it possible Better Late than Early is back in print? I hope so!)

This year was a great experience for him, and it really did seem to kick-start his speech. I don't regret taking him at all, and he loved it! But, they want him back for three days a week next year, and that's just so much considering we can provide most of the same services at home. They may be able to offer one hour a week of just speech and articulation therapy, and we would consider that, but next year there's really no need for him to go away to school.

Woohoo! School's out forEVER!!!!!!


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Wednesday, June 01, 2005

If you're in a hurry,

 
you may want to look into the One Man Star Wars Trilogy! Charles Ross, a professional actor, has put together a 58 minute, one-man rendition of the entire first Star Wars trilogy. According to the website:

Ross plays all the characters, recreates the effects, sings the music, flies the ships, and fights both sides of the battles.
Can't beat that! You can read a review of the show here.

If Star Wars isn't your bag, he also does the One Man Lord of the Rings...


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I don't anticipate needing this again,

 
but I think this news is pretty neat!

I had amniocentesis done with both Anya's pregnancy and Maya and Sage's, but not until the end. We used it to determine why I was in preterm labor with Anya and to check lung maturity and see if I could give Maya and Sage the pitocin eviction notice at 38 weeks. So, this new test wouldn't have helped me, but whatever helps women avoid a six inch needle in the uterus is OK by me!


.*.*.

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