Digital Grammar

I just read a great article about the use of digital penmanship. If you have a few minutes, take the time to read it.

If you have a few more minutes, this video was linked at the bottom of the article, but it's pretty cute on it's own.

This Is An Interesting Idea

Guns and Diamonds. What could be better?

What A Baby

US Airways passengers get $5,000 each; is it enough?

$5000 isn't enough? You land safely in a river, instead of crashing into a horrible death on solid ground, you get a bloody nose and a few bruises, and $5000 and a refunded ticket aren't enough?

Wow. Honestly, with this being an obvious accident, I think the airline is being exceedingly generous. They don't "owe" those passengers anything. There's always an inherent risk when you are on a plane, and instead of being thankful that he survived with pretty minor injuries, this guy is whining about how he's not getting more.

Global Warming At It's Best

The city of Rice Lake is asking everyone in town to continuously run a steady stream of water from at least one faucet until further notice.

Rice Lake Utilities manager Scott Reimer says the city is trying to avoid the costly damage of frozen pipes.

Reimer says wasting millions of gallons of water is something no one wants to do. But, Reimer says it's the lesser of two evils.

Source

I Love The Elderly

Especially when they're spunky like this.

101-Year-Old Woman Explains Secrets To Long Life

Cake Wrecks

Ah, what to say about Cake Wrecks. As funny as Lolcats, but tastier.

Home Schooler's Fed Up Wish List

This is quite entertaining, if you have a few minutes, please watch. It's a nice look into the lives of home schoolers and the asinine comments people make when they find out what you're doing.

I Did Not Know This, And I Wish I Still Didn't

However, it is a tad interesting. And good old Wiki never fails to inform.

Ceramic figurines called 'caganers' of US President-elect Barack Obama are seen at the Santa Llucia Fair, on December 2, in Barcelona. Statuettes of well-known people defecating are a strong Christmas tradition in Catalonia, dating back to the 18th century.

(AFP/File/Lluis Gene)

Hat tip: Boots & Sabers

Looking At What I Read....

I thought it would be fun to look at all the sites that I tend to frequent, and check out their reading levels. Now, I really don't know how accurate this test is, and I can't seem to find any extra information on the way this one looks at the reading level. But, it's fun, and right now I'm feeling smart.

Real Effect High School
Real Debate Wisconsin High School
Fuzz Martin Junior High School
Boots and Sabers High School
The World According To Nick Junior High School
Silent E Speaks Junior High School
Rocks In My Dryer Elementary School
Orthogonal Thought High School
Cooking For Engineers Genius (Sometimes shows up as College Post Grad)
Papa Z's Views and Comments Junior High School
Rachel Lucas Elementary School
Vox Day High School

Now, some of these I'm not terribly surprised about, there's nothing massively outstanding about most of them, at least in the realm of higher thinking. A few that I am surprised about, Vox for one, seems to have an extremely intelligent group of followers, and I like his writing style. Rachel Lucas I also expected to be a little higher, what with her chemistry and all. Cooking For Engineers, now that one really threw me. I am on that site all the time, and while I understand a lot about cooking, I never felt that there was anything too far above my level of expertise in that area. I thought it was all pretty simple. Makes me wonder about what I read now.....

Wow, I Didn't Realize....

Movie Reviews

I really have to wonder how this thing works. What does it check to determine the readability? It's neat though. I didn't expect to get such a high readability level.

Especially after seeing Elliot's post over at From Where I Sit. Check him out. He's got some good stuff over there. At least, he does when I remember to check :)


After a bit of snooping, I decided to enter a few other blogs I do frequent, just to see what they were. I was expecting most of them to be doing better than I was, especially Fred. But, apparently not. That's just a little weird....

Whatever Happened To Sending Your Kids Outside?

A "new study" suggests that kids and adults need much more Vitamin D, and have doubled the "suggested requirements" for the vitamin. It can be found in milk and some fish, among other things. While it's briefly mentioned in the article that the best source is sunlight unhampered by sunscreen, it's practically tossed out as dangerous because of the risks of sun exposure. I'm sorry, but people have gotten along just fine going into the sun here and there, without serious detriment. Most of the people who have issues are the ones that stay in the sun to get a tan, or are working outside constantly. When you're exposed to it for very long periods of time as with anything else, you're likely to have issues. But sending your kids outside for 15 minutes here and there on days where it's not 98 degrees outside, generally isn't going to be a major issue. This isn't rocket science. Get outside a little bit here and there. It's not going to kill you!

Fun Little Quiz

http://thepeoplescube.com/QuoteQuiz/index.php

H/T Silent E

Tiny Cars

Just under 10 minutes long, but worth watching at least most of it.

glumbert - Tiny Car Review

H/T Real Debate

Caption This

So What Does This Mean For Me??

Such an interesting article. I'm not sure whether to laugh, cry, or be depressed.

Depression More Common With Baby Boys
Post-Partum Depression More Common After Boys Born

A new study says giving birth to a boy is more likely to lower a woman's quality of life and raises her risk of post-partum depression.

A team from Univesite Nancy 2 in France found one-third of women had PPD four to eight weeks after giving birth. Three-quarters of those with depression had given birth to a boy.

Even those who were not clinically depressed felt that their quality of life had fallen more if they had a boy, lead author Professor Claude Tychey said. Lower quality-of-life scores were seen in 70 percent of the women with new sons.
sponsor

"We also discovered that being a first-time mother had no effect on quality of life scores. Women had the same general scores regardless of whether the recent birth was their first or second baby," Tychey said.

"Previous studies have shown that women who live in cultures where greater value is placed on sons are more likely to suffer from (depression) if they give birth to a girl. However, we believe that this study -- carried out in a French community where women didn't face cultural pressures over the sex of their baby -- is the first to show that women who give birth to boys are more likely to suffer from severe (depression) and reduced quality of life," he said.

Caption This

Taking a little bit from Fred, I thought this would be a fun little thing to do. A little Caption This every so often, just to spice things up a bit. So for our very first Caption This:




Picture courtesy Stuff On My Cat.

It's Like The Potter Puppets On Crack!

Dumb Criminals

Gotta love 'em. They just make for great stories.

Man Accused Of Stealing From 2-Year-Old's Piggy Bank

My favorite line from the story,

"He needs to stop bleeding at crime scenes if he thinks he's going to get away with it," Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco said.

Lake Superior State University 2007 List of Banished Words

A fun little list of overused words.

***This year, in a gesture of humanitarian relief, the committee restores "truthiness," banned on last year's list, to formal use. This comes after comedians and late-night hosts were thrown under the bus and rendered speechless by a nationwide professional writers' strike. The silence is deafening.***

PERFECT STORM – "Overused by the pundits on evening TV shows to mean just about any coincidence." – Lynn Allen, Warren, Michigan.

"I read that 'Ontario is a perfect storm,' in reference to a report on pollution levels in the Great Lakes. Ontario is the name of one of the lakes and a Canadian province. This guy would have me believe it's a hurricane. It's time for 'perfect storm' to get rained out." – Bob Smith, DeWitt, Michigan.

"Hands off book titles as cheap descriptors!" – David Hollis, Hamilton, New York.

WEBINAR – A seminar on the web about any number of topics.
"Ouch! It hurts my brain. It should be crushed immediately before it spreads." – Carol, Lams, Michigan.

"Yet another non-word trying to worm its way into the English language due to the Internet. It belongs in the same school of non-thought that brought us e-anything and i-anything." – Scott Lassiter, Houston, Texas.

WATERBOARDING – "Let's banish 'waterboarding' to the beach, where it belongs with boogie boards and surfboards." – Patrick K. Egan, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

ORGANIC – Overused and misused to describe not only food, but computer products or human behavior, and often used when describing something as "natural," says Crystal Giordano of Brooklyn, New York. Another advertising gimmick to make things sound better than they really are, according to Rick DeVan of Willoughby, Ohio, who said he has heard claims such as "My business is organic," and computers having "organic software."

"Things have gone too far when they begin marketing T-shirts as organic." – Michelle Fitzpatrick, St. Petersburg, Florida.

"'Organic' is used to describe everything, from shampoo to meat. Banishment! Improperly used!" – Susan Clark, Bristol, Maine.

"The possibility of a food item being inorganic, i.e., not being composed of carbon atoms, is nil." – John Gomila, New Orleans, Louisiana.

"You see the word 'organic' written on everything from cereal to dog food." – Michael, Sacramento, California.

"I'm tired of health food stores selling products that they say are organic. All the food we eat is organic!" – Chad Jacobson, Park Falls, Wisconsin.

WORDSMITH/WORDSMITHING – "I've never read anything created by a wordsmith - or via wordsmithing - that was pleasant to read." – Emily Kissane, St. Paul, Minnesota.

AUTHOR/AUTHORED – "In one of former TV commentator Edwin Newman's books, he wonders if it would be correct to say that someone 'paintered' a picture?" – Dorothy Betzweiser, Cincinnati, Ohio.

POST 9/11 – "'Our post-9/11 world,' is used now, and probably used more, than AD, BC, or Y2K, time references. You'd think the United States didn't have jet fighters, nuclear bombs, and secret agents, let alone electricity, 'pre-9/11.'" – Chazz Miner, Midland, Michigan.

SURGE – "'Surge' has become a reference to a military build-up. Give me the old days, when it referenced storms and electrical power." – Michael F. Raczko, Swanton, Ohio.

"Do I even have to say it? I can't be the first one to nominate it…put me in line. From Iraq to Wall Street to the weather forecast – 'surge' really ought to recede." – Mike Lara, Colorado.

"This word came out in the context of increasing the number of troops in Iraq. Can be used to explain the expansion of many things (I have a surge in my waist) and it's use will grow out of control…The new Chevy Surge, just experience the roominess!" – Eric McMillan, Mentor, Ohio.

GIVE BACK – "This oleaginous phrase is an emergency submission to the 2008 list. The notion has arisen that as one's life progresses, one accumulates a sort of deficit balance with society which must be neutralized by charitable works or financial outlays. Are one's daily transactions throughout life a form of theft?" – Richard Ong, Carthage, Missouri.

"Various media have been featuring a large number of people who 'just want to give back.' Give back to whom? For what?" – Curtis Cooper, Hazel Park, Michigan.

'BLANK' is the new 'BLANK' or 'X' is the new 'Y' – In spite of statements to the contrary, 'Cold is (NOT) the new hot,' nor is '70 the new 50.' The idea behind such comparisons was originally good, but we've all watched them spiral out of reasonable uses into ludicrous ones and it's now time to banish them from use. Or, to phrase it another way, 'Originally clever advertising is now the new absurdity!'" – Lawrence Mickel, Coventry, Connecticut.

"Believed to have come into use in the 1960s, but it is getting tired. The comparisons have become absurd." – Geoff Steinhart, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

"'Orange is the new black.' '50 is the new 30.' 'Chocolate is the new sex.' 'Sex is the new chocolate.' 'Fallacy is the new truth.' – Patrick Dillon, East Lansing, Michigan.

BLACK FRIDAY – "The day after Thanksgiving that retailers use to keep themselves out of the 'red' for the year. (And then followed by "Cyber-Monday.") This is counter to the start of the Great Depression's use of the term 'Black Tuesday,' which signaled the crash of the stock market that sent the economy into a tailspin. – Carl Marschner, Melvindale, Michigan.

BACK IN THE DAY – "Back in the day, we used 'back-in-the-day' to mean something really historical. Now you hear ridiculous statements such as 'Back in the day, people used Blackberries without Blue Tooth.'" – Liz Jameson, Tallahassee, Florida.

"This one might've already made the list back in the day, which was a Wednesday, I think." – Tim Bradley, Los Angeles, California.

RANDOM – Popular with teenagers in many places.
"Over-used and usually out of context, i.e. 'You are so random!' Really? Random is supposed to mean 'by chance.' So what I said was by chance, and not by choice?" – Gabriel Brandel, Farmington Hills, Michigan.

"Outrageous mis- and overuse, mostly by teenagers, i.e. 'This random guy, singing this random song…It was so random.' Grrrrr." – Leigh, Duncan, Galway, Ireland.

"Overuse on a massive scale by my fellow youth. Every event, activity and person can be 'sooo random' as of late. Banish it before I go vigilante." – Ben Martin, Adelaide, South Australia.

"How can a person be random?" – Emma Halpin, Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom.

SWEET – "Too many sweets will make you sick. It became popular with the advent of the television show 'South Park' and by rights should have died of natural causes, but the term continues to cling to life. It is annoying when young children use it and have no idea why, but it really sounds stupid coming from the mouths of adults. Please kill this particular use of an otherwise fine word." – Wayne Braver, Manistique, Michigan

"Youth lingo overuse, similar to 'awesome.' I became sick of this one immediately." – Gordon Johnson, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

DECIMATE – Word-watchers have been calling for the annihilation of this one for several years.

"Used today in reference to widespread destruction or devastation. If you will not banish this word, I ask that its use be 'decimated' (reduced by one-tenth)." – Allan Dregseth, Fargo, North Dakota.

"I nominate 'decimate' as it applies to Man's and Nature's destructive fury and the outcome of sporting contests. Decimate simply means a 10% reduction – no more, no less. It may have derived notoriety because the ancient Romans used decimation as a technique for prisoner of war population reduction or an incentive for under-performing battle units. A group of 10 would be assembled and lots drawn. The nine losers would win and the winner would die at the hands of the losers – a variation on the instant lottery game. Perhaps 'creamed' or 'emulsified' should be substituted. – Mark Dobias, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

"The word is so overused and misused, people use it when they should be saying 'annihilate.' It's so bad that now there are two definitions, the real one and the one that has taken over like a weed. – Dane, Flowery Branch, Georgia.

"'Decimate' has been turned upside down. It means 'to destroy one tenth,' but people are using it to mean 'to destroy nine tenths.' – David Welch, Venice, Florida.

EMOTIONAL – "Reporters, short on vocabulary, often describe a scene as 'emotional.' Well sure, but which emotion? For a radio reporter to gravely announce, 'There was an emotional send off to Joe Blow' tells me nothing, other than the reporter perceived that the participants acted in an emotional way. For instance: I had an emotional day today. I started out feeling tired and a bit grumpy until I had my coffee. I was distraught over a cat killing a bird on the other side of the street. I was bemused by my reaction to the way nature works. I was intrigued this evening to add a word or two to your suggestions. I was happy to see the words that others had posted. Gosh, this has been an emotional day for me." – Brendan Kennedy, Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada.

POP – "On every single one of the 45,000 decorating shows on cable TV (of which I watch many) there is at LEAST one obligatory use of a phrase such as ... 'the addition of the red really makes it POP.' You know when it's coming ... you mouth it along with the decorator. There must be some other way of describing the addition of an interesting detail." – Barbara, Arlington, Texas.

IT IS WHAT IT IS – "This pointless phrase, uttered initially by athletes on the losing side of a contest, is making its way into general use. It accomplishes the dual feat of adding nothing to the conversation while also being phonetically and thematically redundant." – Jeffrey Skrenes, St. Paul, Minnesota.

"It means absolutely nothing and is mostly a cop out or a way to avoid answering a question in a way that might require genuine thought or insight. Listen to an interview with some coach or athlete in big-time sports and you'll inevitably hear it." – Doug Compo, Brimley, Michigan.

"It seems to be everywhere and pervade every section of any newspaper I read. It reminds me of 'Who is John Galt?' from 'Atlas Shrugged.' It implies an acceptance of the status quo regardless of the circumstances. But it is what it is." – Erik Pauna, Mondovi, Wisconsin.

"Only Yogi Berra should be allowed to utter such a circumlocution." – Jerry Holloway, Belcamp, Maryland.

"This is migrating from primetime 'reality television' and embedding itself into otherwise articulate persons' vocabularies. Of course it is what it is...Otherwise, it wouldn't be what it would have been!" – Steve Olsen, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.

UNDER THE BUS – "For overuse. I frequently hear this in the cliché-filled sports world, where it's used to describe misplaced blame – i.e. 'After Sunday's loss, the fans threw T.O. under the bus." – Mark R. Hinkston, Racine, Wisconsin.

"Please, just 'blame' them." – Mike Lekan, Kettering, Ohio.

"Just wondering when someone saying something negative became the same as a mob hit. Since every sportscaster in the US uses it, is a call for the media to start issuing a thesaurus to everyone in front of a camera." – Mark Bockhaus, Appleton, Wisconsin.

Potter Puppets

This is just cute :)