Needing a hug in Merryland
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Posted:Mar 31, 2007 1:22 pm
Last Updated:Jun 6, 2007 7:24 pm 7331 Views
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Merryland is dreary today. Merry is tired of 2 weeks of cloudy, rainy weather (glad for the rain, but enough is enough--now I am ready for the sunshine!)
Merry is also tired of being in almost constant pain. I don't need advice, just hugs and prayer. I just can't put myself in debt for the rest of my life to have a kidney stone removed, unless it is an emergency. And there seems to be no low-cost alternative that I haven't already tried. I thank you so much, my brothers and sisters, for the prayers for my health. Please continue to pray in that direction for me. It seems that all I do anymore is come home from work and rest until it is time to go to work again.
I guess it is my turn to whine, Purdy...I am tired of the animal problems at my house. One of my dogs got off her chain and tore up the neighbor's shed (apparently trying to reach some animal holed up inside). My neighbor threatened me with having the removed if I don't keep her chained up, but I do my best. Occasionally, she wiggles out of her collar, or her chain comes unfastened. If nobody is home, she is off the chain for hours. I don't have money to buy a pen, but I did get her a halter today; maybe she will find it more difficult to wiggle out of that.
I am finally beginning to turn the corner on the cat problems. More litter boxes are helping; getting the female spayed is helping. Now I just need help getting the house cleaned up from the prior spraying. In my present state of pain, that is not something I can do. Maybe I can persuade my to help--that would be a miracle...
Sorry, I am just having a down day! I wish I could just have a hug party!
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Are you an April fool?
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Posted:Mar 31, 2007 11:13 am
Last Updated:Apr 2, 2007 7:21 pm 4791 Views
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I enjoyed reading about some of the best April fool's day hoaxes on the internet. I have copied some of them so you can laugh along with me.
I would enjoy hearing about any April Fools' Day hoaxes you have perpetrated.
April Fools Day Hoaxes
The Taco Liberty Bell
In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called up the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell is housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed that it was all a practical joke a few hours later. The best line inspired by the affair came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale, and he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold, though to a different corporation, and would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
The Left-Handed Whopper
In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."
Drunk Driving on the Internet
An article by John Dvorak in the April 1994 issue of PC Computing magazine described a bill going through Congress that would make it illegal to use the internet while drunk, or to discuss se-xual matters over a public network. The bill was supposedly numbered 040194 (i.e. 04/01/94), and the contact person was listed as Lirpa Sloof (April Fools backwards). The article said that the FBI was going to use the bill to tap the phone line of anyone who "uses or abuses alcohol" while accessing the internet. Passage of the bill was felt to be certain because "Who wants to come out and support drunkenness and computer se-x?" The article offered this explanation for the origin of the bill: "The moniker 'Information Highway' itself seems to be responsible for SB 040194... I know how silly this sounds, but Congress apparently thinks being drunk on a highway is bad no matter what kind of highway it is." The article generated so many outraged phone calls to Congress that Senator Edward Kennedy's office had to release an official denial of the rumor that he was a sponsor of the bill.
Dutch Elm Disease Infects Redheads
In 1973 BBC Radio broadcast an interview with an elderly academic, Dr. Clothier, who discoursed on the government's efforts to stop the spread of Dutch Elm Disease. Dr. Clothier described some startling discoveries that had been made about the tree disease. For instance, he referred to the research of Dr. Emily Lang of the London School of Pathological and Environmental Medicine. Dr. Lang had apparently found that exposure to Dutch Elm Disease immunized people to the common cold. Unfortunately, there was a side effect. Exposure to the disease also caused red hair to turn yellow and eventually fall out. This was attributed to a similarity between the blood count of redheads and the soil conditions in which affected trees grew. Therefore, redheads were advised to stay away from forests for the foreseeable future. Dr. Clothier was in reality the comedian Spike Milligan.
Internet Spring Cleaning
In 1997 an email message spread throughout the world announcing that the internet would be shut down for cleaning for twenty-four hours from March 31 until April 2. This cleaning was said to be necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam" that had accumulated in the network. Dead email and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites would be purged. The cleaning would be done by "five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba ML-2274) situated around the world." During this period, users were warned to disconnect all devices from the internet. The message supposedly originated from the "Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff, Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology." This joke was an updated version of an old joke that used to be told about the phone system. For many years, gullible phone customers had been warned that the phone systems would be cleaned on April Fool's Day. They were cautioned to place plastic bags over the ends of the phone to catch the dust that might be blown out of the phone lines during this period.
Tasmanian Mock Walrus
In 1984 the Orlando Sentinel featured a story about a creature known as the Tasmanian Mock Walrus (or TMW for short) that many people in Florida were adopting as a pet. The creature was only four inches long, resembled a walrus, purred like a cat, and had the temperament of a hamster. What made it such an ideal pet was that it never had to be bathed, it used a litter box, and it ate cockroaches. In fact, a single TMW could entirely rid a house of its cockroach problem. Reportedly, some TMWs had been smuggled in from Tasmania, and there were efforts being made to breed them, but the local pest-control industry was pressuring the government not to allow them into the country, fearing they would put cockroach exterminators out of business. Dozens of people called the paper trying to find out where they could obtain their own TMW. A picture of the Tasmanian Mock Walrus was included with the article, but what the picture actually showed was a real creature–the Na-ked Mole Rat. The Tasmanian Mock Walrus was entirely fictitious.
FatSox
In 2000 the British Daily Mail announced that Esporta Health Clubs had launched a new line of socks designed to help people lose weight. Dubbed "FatSox," these revolutionary socks could actually suck body fat out of sweating feet. The invention promised to "banish fat for ever." The socks employed a patented nylon polymer called FloraAstraTetrazine that had been "previously only applied in the nutrition industry." The American inventor of this polymer was Professor Frank Ellis Elgood. The socks supposedly worked in the following way: as a person's body heat rose and their blood vessels dilated, the socks drew "excess lipid from the body through the sweat." After having sweated out the fat, the wearer could then simply remove the socks and wash them, and the fat, away.
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The Joy of Simple Things
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Posted:Mar 30, 2007 8:21 pm
Last Updated:Mar 31, 2007 2:14 pm 5200 Views
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I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain clean room
A nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk,
A kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along a floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through a door.
I have found such joy
in things that fill my quiet days:
A curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose fresh cut and placed within a vase,
A table cleared,
A lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.
by Grace Noll Crowell
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Have you ever seen a...
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Posted:Mar 30, 2007 6:30 pm
Last Updated:Mar 31, 2007 8:31 am 5316 Views
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Lily-flowering tulip?
This is one I have in my yard. It was so beautiful today, I just had to share it!
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One of those days
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Posted:Mar 26, 2007 7:00 pm
Last Updated:Mar 30, 2007 6:26 pm 6077 Views
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That is not me in the picture, but it may as well be!
It seems like everything went wrong today--the washer flooded the back porch, my is having major problems in his school work, the paycheck won't stretch far enough, the boss and his wife were both upset, yada yada yada.
I guess the biggest thing is that one of my male cats has taken to spraying his lovely scent all over my house, and I am at a loss as to what to do about it. He is getting my clothes, the bedding, the couch...wowsers! If he hadn't been de-clawed, he would be an outdoor cat. As it is, I can't put him outside, and I don't know what else to do with him. Does anybody have any suggestions?
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Hidden smileys
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Posted:Mar 25, 2007 7:35 pm
Last Updated:Mar 31, 2007 7:39 pm 5096 Views
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Snorkel dude: Use a capital O with a close parenthesis 
using a dash or equal sign - , then a colon : , then a close parenthesis brings out this funny little guy
And then there is Dunky's asian with braces, made with a colon and the pound sign. 
What other hidden smilies have you found?
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If you ever travel through the panhandle of Texas...
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Posted:Mar 25, 2007 12:07 pm
Last Updated:Mar 28, 2007 3:34 pm 5145 Views
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You should visit the Palo Duro Canyon about 20 miles south of Amarillo. It is known as the Grand Canyon of Texas, and is a beautiful spot. From June through October, a drama production, called simply "Texas," is performed in a natural ampitheatre set against a cliff in the canyon. The play dramatizes the history of Texas, including the clashes between cattlemen and farmers. It is a wonderful production, well worth the time, effort and money to see.
Corrie's post about Route 66 is what prompted this post. Amarillo is on Route 66 through the panhandle of Texas, and the PaloDuro Canyon is close enough to be a great side trip.
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Traveling Route 66 through Kansas
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Posted:Mar 25, 2007 12:00 pm
Last Updated:Mar 26, 2007 4:37 am 4578 Views
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Route 66 only goes through 13 miles of Southeastern Kansas, but has some interesting spots on it. Corrie (overcaffeinated) mentioned that she would like to travel Route 66, and it jogged my memories.
The picture on this post is of the Eisler Bros. Old Riverton Store located on SE Highway 66 in Riverton, KS. Click on it for a larger image.
It started in 1925 as the Williams Store, named after the owners Leo and Lora Williams. It was a replacement for a building that got destroyed by a tornado. In the 1930s a sign "Y NOT EAT BAR-B-Q" was added.
The store was bought by the Eisler family in 1973. Today it operates as a neighborhood grocery store, a deli with sandwiches and a souvenir shop.
The property is on the National Register of Historic places. Check out the original tin roof while inside. Don’t forget to check out the outhouse in the back.
I think I'll go visit, because this is one place I haven't been. Come get YOUR kicks on Route 66!
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Vat ees eet vit de blogs?
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Posted:Mar 24, 2007 4:53 pm
Last Updated:Mar 25, 2007 6:37 pm 4795 Views
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What's going on with the posts today? They appear, they disappear, they come back in a different order. People comment; their comments appear and disappear like a mist. It takes hours for a post to show up, then it disappears again!
Somebody is BC land must be havin a bad day 
Anybody else experiencing these difficulties?
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A Spring Bouquet
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Posted:Mar 24, 2007 4:45 pm
Last Updated:Mar 25, 2007 11:42 am 4573 Views
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A few weeks ago, my sponsored a poetry contest for me on a poetry web site. She asked for poems about spring, and then let me judge the submissions. I would like to share with you the winning poem. The picture is one the poet used to accompany her poem.
A Spring Bouquet
By Emancipated Thoughts
A spring bouquet I give to you
To brighten up your day,
Many flowers are gathered here
To you, they’re on their way.
Sunshine yellow, of daffodils
Spread their golden glow,
Trumpets open to the sky
Put on a dazzling show.
Irises of the deepest blue
Thoughts of springtime skies,
Cotton clouds drift silently
A pleasure to the eyes.
Perfume of natures finest,
Carnations , deepest red,
Slender feathered fingers
Of ferns complete the spread.
Wrapped in tissue, palest green,
Tied with a shiny bow,
I hope you like my gift of spring,
A dainty cameo.
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