don't always believe others

i don't get what hillary is trying to do with this longer hair style. it looks really bad on her. it makes her look tired, old, worn-down. her shorter style was much more energetic and complimentary. who is her hair dresser? honestly, some of the people who make fashion decisions must not care about the end result.

poor baby .... yeah right

the taliban people are tired and want the fighting to stop so they can rest. they have lost a lot of friends and commanders, and it bothers them.

but they have made it clear they just want a rest, not peace.

well, by all means -- let's give those poor people a well-needed rest so they can get restored and go back to massive killing and sadistic treatment of women.

or .... maybe we should hit 'em while they're down.

i just don't know what i'd do if it were my decision. 

tongues

just now, as i was thinking about lunch, i thought about 'sausage' then i thought about 'sorcerer' then i thought 'sorsage' -- try to say that fast, three times.

movers and shakers ....

my ex-boss is moving to florida. i guess it's been almost 2 years since she retired, and she and her husband decided since their family is all back over on the east coast that they should move back that direction. she's leaving a lovely house here on two lots overlooking the bay. nothing's moving up here, real estate-wise, so it could take forever for her house to sell, but i wish her lots of luck in that regard. and i hope she's happy in her new digs!!

oh, the weather outside was .....

i should have been taking pictures. thursday it snowed, probably between 2 and 4 inches, friday it rained, and today it's cloudy with absolutely no evidence of white stuff.

i had hoped we were going to have more of a winter than we did last year -- it mainly hovered around 57* all winter. so i guess you can say we did have more of a winter .... just not for very long.

amazing mishaps

did you see the item about the three youths (boys, aged 14 and 15) who drifted in a boat for 50 days across 800 miles? it's pretty amazing that they didn't suffer dramatic problems. they started out near the atafu atoll and ended up northeast of fiji. those islands aren't that big and that ocean is huge. i'm just in awe of the whole thing. in many ways they put kon-tiki to shame!

how has it come to this

i am mystified by the allure of sarah palin. yes, she's pretty, but so are a lot of people.

i believe if she were elected to the presidency that she would be so in-over-her-head and that nefarious personnel would 'come to her rescue'. i think those same nefarious personnel are leading the effort to get her elected, just so they can be in charge.

regardless there seem to be a lot of people who want to see her in office. WHAT are they thinking? she has incredibly little political experience, little world-wide experience, and not much class.

barbara bush doesn't have a lot of confidence in her either.

keeping up with the youngsters

if you want to read some funky, younger-person-frame-of-mind stuff, check out this guy. alt-text seems to have a good sense of humor, but i just really don't have time to check him out right now. i think it might be possible to get hooked on him, but i'm not really sure i'd understand everything he says.

ahhhh ..... old age. *sigh*

brush your hair

i came across this animated disney movie which just came out and it's 3-d, if you're into that -- it's called tangled and is a take on rapunzel. here are two sites you can go to and see what it's about. the first one gives you some background info on who the voices are, and the second one just gives you the preview.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40363738/ns/technology_and_science-science/

http://adisney.go.com/disneypictures/tangled/#/home/ 

it looks like fun! and has some sweet graphics (reminds me sometimes of pandora).

do this, or combine this and this, or ....

would you like to get 93 mpg? well, then, check this out! the Volt goes on sale next month.

don't jump! you'll be de-rezzed!

i just saw a curious you-tube video. it's called The Apple Tree - A Tribute to The Glitch Mob.

i don't know anything about 'the glitch mob' but i thought the video was interesting. it had some great graphics, and quick-clips from about 200 movies. the movies i recognized were matrix, avatar, tron 2, and then, i guess, about a zillion horror movies, one thing that must have been freddy kruger and another one that must have been medusa.

the guy has a good touch at putting things to gether, no doubt about that. and it's 15 minutes of stuff.

but the thing that really caught my eye was the Tron video -- Tron: Legacy - "Rerezzed", music by The Glitch Mob. and it caught the eye of the Tron producer, too. this clip is only just over 2 minutes and is very easy to watch.

if you're drawn to any of that stuff, check it out. both videos can be found here.

i remember back when Tron came out that i thought it was great!! and my kids liked it and i kept thinking it was great down through the years. most people i mentioned it to had never heard of it. i never read about it and never heard it mentioned and at one point i think jeff bridges almost didn't own up to having been in it. and now the second movie is getting good buzz. validation!

manna from heaven!

looking through one of my recent catalogs, i noticed cougar gold, a cheese made by washington state university. i love cheese and this stuff looks really excellent. (buy from wsu, not any catalog you get.)

another thing this catalog had was tur-duc-hen. i'm not sure i've ever heard of that, but it's boneless turkey breast stuffed with duck, chicken and port sausage stuffing. it's $60 but doesn't it sound good?!

another catalog had vermont maple syrup, vermont cheddar cheese (!), and vermont cider jelly. if i were going to buy some of those things, i would purchase from them -- they had a cute catalog.

there's another catalog that we're definitely going to order from in the next couple of weeks and they're from texas. midwesterners are our favorite people. this cheese and sausage item caught the husband's eye and the thing i'm wanting to get is this turkey/ham/beef trio.

yummy to all!!

peek-a-boo ...

i know i just posted about makeovers, but really, this site shows how much difference makeup can potentially make. they've got one gal on there twice with completely different looks (i didn't even realize it the first time through!) -- the biggest problem, though, is that SOMEtime the makeup has to come off. so i mainly think of it as deception. i mean, you can't hide forever ....

the bus is bigger than you are

what would you think if you saw this in front of you:

it's the back end, though ....

more bus pictures here if you're interested ......

oh look, it's ... oh look at ... oh look ....

i love creative ads -- i just discovered this site which has some ads that are pretty clever. but i really don't get the red bull one.

this one about all the apartment buildings, however, is just depressing!

my oldest younger brother steered me to these shopping bags -- i like the gun and the dumbell, he liked the goose.

i've got to spend some time on this site and see what else they have!

cat toys

there's a lot of crap on the internet and then there's funny stuff.  this little clip reminds me so much of the cat we used to have, DabTac, hiding and sticking his paw out and feeling around ....

look, there's another one ...

the husband sent me a video showing which countries were doing nuclear testing between 1945 and 1998. it's depicted on a world map and is interesting, although i'd have preferred they explain who's flags are whose. history and geography weren't my favorite subjects. anyhow, it looks like a swedish company put it together or at least helped, and without doing my own research i don't know if the video is accurate. still .... it's interesting. make sure your sound is on since it's more effective that way.

be careful of being helpful

i just had the worst dream. i was in a small strip mall area and had lunch at a small restaurant. the owners were busy and some of the tables needed to be wiped off, so i got a dish rag and wiped the empty tables before i left.


i went down the street to another restaurant, a small diner, that an asian couple owned. i really liked them and, of course, their food, and had told them i’d watch their place while they ran an errand. it was afternoon so they hadn’t expected many customers.

i went in and sat at one of the tables just enjoying the sunshine and the quiet. then i got up and went over to the sink, which was next to a small refrigerator and a george foreman grill. those items constituted their kitchen.

the husband came in and sat at one of the tables, just to enjoy the day. then three burly guys in suits came in and said they were going to wait for the owners. then a whole bunch of people came in and filled up the rest of the tables but from what i could hear they were there for a meeting, so i happily announced that if any of them decided they wanted something to eat, to just let me know.

one of the tables of eight said they wanted menus. i passed them out and went back to the kitchen area. i figured i should at least put water on every table even if they weren’t going to order, so i opened the overhead cabinet and found a number of small water pitchers filled with water and ice, so i took several of them and started distributing them. then i remembered i better put glasses all around, but everyone had already gotten their own.

i went back to get more pitchers, but couldn’t find anymore. and the natives were getting restless. i kept looking and found some vases, but no more pitchers. crap. and then one of the ladies took the bag of ice and started filling the glasses at her table until the bag was empty. i knew we didn’t have anymore ice. crap.

i figured i’d better go over and get the orders from the table of eight so i headed over there, realized i didn’t have anything to write on, went back and searched for paper, and went back to the table. the first person said she wanted something i’d never heard of, and she had to show me on the menu. the next person ordered a hamburger for him and his two grandaughters. i suggested since it would be bedtime soon that maybe they’d just want water rather than pop to drink. the mothers smiled at me. the next person ordered something i couldn’t even figure out what she was saying. i thought it was ‘beam’ or ‘dean’ but when she showed me on the menu it was ‘faur’ and i just thought WHAT am i doing here???!!!

so i went back over to the kitchen area and before i even thought about the fact there was no way i could fix food for ANYone, the owners came back. as i was telling them about everything, i woke up. thank god!

look ma, no hands ....

it's interesting the things people used to do and not think anything of it. i just watched this video of a woman replacing a tire on an airplane back in the 1920s, maybe, and she didn't have on a parachute. oh, i forgot to say the plane was IN THE AIR.

as i watched her my stomach heaved and my palms got sweaty and even though i knew how it would turn out, it was difficult to keep watching. i'm not good with heights and could never in a million years have done what she did. and i usually figure i can do about anything. but not this -- not way up there.

the ONLY thing which could have induced me to do something like that would have been if one of my kids had been in danger. that's a mom for you.

go a little ways then turn left at the tree and go awhile longer ....

how are your gps skills? we've never gotten around to getting one and now i may be glad. it seems that using a gps (using it a lot, i would guess) may turn your brain to mush.

three studies have been done which conclude that how we navigate around today may impact the way our brain functions as we age. the article talks about the spatial navigation strategy versus the stimulus-response strategy.

it also talks about grey matter and alzheimer's and the hippocampus, blah blah, but i found it interesting. it would be particularly telling if they did another study made up entirely of air traffic controllers. controllers use spatial reasoning a lot! and if that group had a smaller percentage of alzheimer's victims, you'd think the theory really had truth to it.

regardless, i enjoy using maps and envisioning routes, and finding my way around, and i don't care if i get lost. it's a quick way to learn about the vicinity. of course, the way that guys give directions and the way that gals give directions are completely different and worthy of a study by itself!

anyway, read the article -- it's food for thought.

your turn....

did you know that airports don't have to let tsa screen travelers? i was aghast when i read this -- i didn't realize there was another option, but there is -- airports can hire private screeners and a florida congressman is encouraging them to do just that.

i actually don't know what i think about private screeners doing that job. it's a thankless, complex, difficult job and there are idiots, arrogant jerks, and unpleasant people manning some of the positions. still -- they have the inside information about what the government is encountering and trying to deal with, and i'm not sure private companies would be given all the information which is surely available to the tsa managers.

no i don't like those new scanners, and the new pat-downs? oh good grief! but at the same time, what IS the answer??

dust to dust ....

something from MYS's most recent post sure caught my eye. i don't know who put it together so i'm not sure of the validity, but check this out:

better this way? or this way?

i see this web site every once-in-a-while which shows a hair and face makeover for women. sometimes they look better, but sometimes they just look different. and, honestly, sometimes they look worse. of the 48 pictures i looked at today, i decided there were only about 27 that i thought looked better.

and, really, can those women style their hair they way the professionals do? get it all poofy and laying just right? probably not, which means they are probably going to end up going back to their familiar style.

and the makeup -- yuck! always so much eye shadow and tons of foundation. just gross. and they usually leave off their glasses for the final picture ... what are they supposed to do then, stumble around? nope, the glasses will go back on.

it just feels icky to me, but then i don't like plastic surgery either. yes, you can make the most of what you've got, but sooner or later the makeup is going to come off. what then?

into the future! or somewhere ....

well, yes. i live and breathe sci-fi and fantasy. the husband and i love star wars, and i was delighted to see this little flying remote droid which a hacker put together.

and do your kids love star wars? how about this tauntaun sleeping bag?

then there's the new movie, cowboys and aliens, which is coming out next july. oh yes, i'll be in line.

maybe a previous life?

i love bagpipes. i'm not sure why, maybe it's because of that underlying drone which feels comforting. and scotland calls to me for some reason, again, not sure why, but this little bit shows how beautiful scotland is.

where did this come from?

dreams are so weird. the husband and i had been traveling around the world (which would in itself be weird) and i had noticed that no matter where we traveled, the trees were always different. they didn't look like the trees back home, yet they were still trees and some were really pretty.

when we got back home, we gave a lecture (i think it was on the lincoln campus) to 70 or 80 thousand people about the trees we had seen. i remember there were so many people that we decided to walk up and down the rows so people could hear us better and we ended up walking through a tiny bedroom with blue carpet and one window. we went to the window to finish up and i leaned out and asked if there were any questions. i could only see about 30 of the multitude, but one guy asked a question so i answered.

at some point, we left that building and were going over to the parking garage, probably to get our car although i don't know why since we had another lecture in a little bit. at any rate, the husband had to go back to the room to get something and i walked slowly through the garage. an officer stopped several people, including me, and finally let them go but said i had to go with him. we walked up to the next level, which was the top, and i said i needed to call my husband and let him know where i was. the officer said i couldn't do that. about that time the husband came walking down the sidewalk and i waved and said hi. he looked around for the stairs so he could come up and the officer got irritated. i told him i wanted to see his credentials and he refused. i asked where his name tag was and he got angry. i said i wasn't going anywhere with him since i thought he was an imposter and i turned around to head for the stairs. then i woke up.

i can either what or what??

airport security just gets tighter and tighter, but should it? it's a tough issue for everyone to deal with, and now some people are protesting the new scanning technology. i don't like the idea of that equipment either but what is the alternative? decent people have gone along with all kinds of inconvenience because of the terrorist threat, but maybe we should start looking outside the box for answers since the answers we've used so far aren't that great. on the other hand, how do you think terrorists would effect their drama if people quit flying? that can really dredge up some unpleasant thoughts.

uhhh, what?

and now a little something from our furry friends ...

dog.

cat.

horse.

parrot.

i want to say one word to you, just one word. are you listening? plastics.

jennifer grey is pretty, nose job or not. but there is absolutely no way nadya suleman looks ANYthing like angelina jolie!

some of these people make you cringe (jocelyn wildenstein), some of them make you go 'oh yuck' (donatella), some of them make you shake your head (david gest, for more reasons than his plastic), some of them make you laugh (danielle/melan), and some of them leave you jaw-droppingly astonished (amanda, where is your husband the joker?)!

curious? here you go .... but only if you're brave or love horror movies.

o beautiful for spacious skies ....

this country is so beautiful!! in case it's been awhile since you thought about our national parks or the various terrains here for us to enjoy, give yourself a treat and go here. then scroll down to the 23 pictures at the bottom and take a lovely little vacation!

sunshine

i kept meaning to post this all week. i don't spend a lot of time thinking about the sun and don't spend any time reading about it. i think it's scary and you aren't supposed to get close to it and you aren't supposed to look at it and, ooohh monsters.

that said, these images are so very intriguing. they make me want to stick my finger into the sun and swish it around to see what kind of patterns i can make. hunh ... yeah .....

upper crust

since i shop online for everything except groceries, i got a lot of catalogs from companies i've never heard of -- per list-selling and all that.

this one just had me totally shaking my head. i don't begin to have enough money to shop with them and besides .... why would i want to? they have one flower arrangement (moss, 2 roses, a twig, some leaves, couple of mushrooms) for $124. they have a small tray with 2 candles, some twigs, and a bole of cotton for $68. there are 3 votives and twenty 3 1/2" candles for $98.

but enough of the ordinary stuff. they also have 3 ceramic bowls for $98, a wooden bowl with 3 packages of soup mix and a small soup cookbook for $198, a tiny ceramic colander to rinse off your berries for $64, 4 caramel apples for $48, 12 oz of sesame seed brittle on a platter for $98, a pound of pistachios for $38, and a branding iron with your own logo at no given price although if your order totals more than $1,000 they'll waive the one-time set-up fee of $395.

maybe i'm not being fair, after all there are people out there who buy this stuff. but then again, i'm only expressing my own opinion so fairness doesn't enter into it. so -- icky, patooey, gaaack! i'm not spending my money there.

what does that mean?

need something to lighten your day? here are some signs from around the world.