of lemons and monkeys and a random Q.O.T.D.

when life gives you lemons...laugh your ass off at it.

Question Of The Day: wtf is pink lemonade, anyway?

according to carnival historian Joe Nickell, in his 2005 book Secrets of the Sideshows, a man named Pete Conklin who ran a circus lemonade and peanut concession actually was the one who invented the drink. One day in 1857, while Conklin was making regular lemonade, he ran out of water. In desperation, he used the pink water from a tub that one of the bareback riders had used to wash her red tights. Unfazed, Conklin added some lemon slices and sold the concoction as “strawberry lemonade,” promptly doubling his sales. And, as they say, when life gives you lemons …

isn't that fascinating?

although pink lemons do exist, today's pink lemonade isn't made from their juice. (hopefully, it's made of some artificial dye not derived from an athlete's tights. right?)

remind me to never drink pink lemonade again...

but trust me on this one... bicycle riding monkeys are REAL.

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2 things

when the kids were little we had this routine at supper time. each of us would tell a good thing and a bad thing that had happened that day. one evening, in her sweet, squeaky, little 4-year-old voice, josephine just said, "grammawgrampaw." the rest of us laughed and laughed. did she not understand the concept? or had nothing bad occurred? whatever the case, from then on our little ritual was no longer "good thing/bad thing," but simply, "2 things."

having read this blog post from josephine yesterday morning, let me just say, "josephinesean."

as a parent it is very gratifying to know they have such a close relationship. have each others back, so to speak. may you all be so lucky.  may you always be such good friends with your siblings...

ok. enough sap for today. check out this article about a recent breakthrough in alzheimer's research involving β-breakers. that's "beta-breakers" - not to be confused with the annual "bay-to-breakers" 12-k run in san francisco.

Few things to keep in mind when doing this historical and very San Francisco race:

-You can drink and party on the route during the race. Be prepared to see bars and kegs on wheels.
-There will be many runners and walkers in costumes. Elvis will be seen numerous times through out the day.
-Bring tortillas for the start of the race. You don’t want to be unprepared for the traditional “Tortilla Fight” starting line.
-This is the only day you can be nude in public and not get arrested...(nude costume)

you can read more about the silly race here.

(pictured above: vegan cornbread and avocado salsa.) Read more!

CAOTD

1st of all, lily , it's just funny because it's funny. (see comments for last post) 

Crazy Article Of The Day from the science world...

do i have to point out the humor in the use of "AI" for artificial insemination in that article? AI is more commonly used as an acronym for artificial INTELLIGENCE. now, am i just sick or is that ironic? (and funny, lily.)

and what about this: "Semen samples can be collected and preserved from both wild and captive (rhinoceros) populations..."

yikes! (((shudder))) that's not a job i would want.
and what would your title be? master rhinobator?

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what is wrong with this picture?

"The only countries that seem to have enough sperm are those that pay - like the U.S. and Spain - or the countries that retain anonymity..."



hahahahah. taken out of context that's downright hilarious. taken in context...it's still pretty damn funny if you ask me.


call me crass, but i think this is a Much bigger pollination problem.

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who you calling a pussy?

listen to me you #%&*#@* northerners, when it gets down to 50 degrees with 90% humidity and 15 mph winds, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon...i call that c-c-cccold. and it's supposed to get down to 40 tonight??!!

shit.

i think i'd better rearrange my room to accommodate a space heater. sheesh! my feet don't even work in this kind of weather. i've already got all 4 of my shirts on...and i'll bitch if i want to.

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uh oh. i feel a rebus coming on... 
(i still haven't figured out how to space the images the way i want. so, get over it.)

 ...

 

  


or no. wait a minute. maybe i just want to BE a kitty...

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2 poems for fall. by Josephine T. Bibby

well, that last post about josephine's amazing literary skills was fairly popular. but it seems to have failed to sufficiently embarrass the daughter. so let's see if i can rectify that after the jump.

(you uppity little so-and-so. don't you roll your eyes at ME, missy!)

(((muahahahaaaa...))) 

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as a 7 year old, she was unquestionably and undeniably the brutally, unbelievable, underage, *poet lariat* of velasco street. or at least of our household.

she was the master of rap before rap was popular. and she can still talk your ears to a painful pulp.

before mtv existed, MC J-O Co0L ruled the universe from her yellow writing pad. singlehandedly.  

oh? you think i'm exaggerating? hah! take what follows as irrefutable evidence. read it and weep, suckas...

two seasonal poems from the master: 

"FALL" and "HALLOWEEN"

move over lil' kim. MC J-O Co0L is darting.

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this was my very 1st computer. a KayPro. it was a hand-me-down. it was basically a word processor. plus, it could access the intornets. (what little there was in 1983.)

but...
it had PONG!

my new computer works great as a word processor. and it does allow me to access the meganets. (for 3-4 minutes a day.)

but...
it doesn't have PONG. :(

hahahahaha. i hope you remember pong. and i hope you enjoy the irony of this new version:



p.s.
lots of fun mom-news, but for now, i'm goin' with the gratuitous post with my 3 minutes.

p.p.s.
- did mccain totally trump obama's speech with his vp announcement today?
- will even hillary vote for her?
- sheesh.
- crap.

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random stuff. with lists! & a WOTD.

why are these my two favorite answers in today's syndicated nyt x-word puzzle?

17A - hero/giant created by rabelais = gargantua.
39A - menacing = sinister.

a. because they're lots cooler than synchronized swimming?
b. because i'm a total dork?
c. some other reasons i'll try to explain after the jump?
d. all of the above?


d., of course, is the correct answer. but you already knew that, didn't you?



ok, lets deal with *gargantua* 1st.

a. because it's so much fun to say. try it.
gar-GAN-tua. hahahahaha.

b. because this is a cool picture of him:


c. and because this is even awesomer. (yep, i read the whooole thing. i told you i was a dork...)


but why in the cornbread hell would i like *sinister* so much??

a. because i got it with just the n. (from the parmesaN crossing.)

b. just because.

c. and really because...(this is where i think it gets a little bit whacky)
the actual word of the day from wordsmith.org is *ambisinister.* coincidence? (duh. of course it is you gullible, ambisinister oafs.)


maybe that's too small to read, but here's the salient text:

ambisinister

MEANING:
adjective: Clumsy with both hands. (Literally, with two left hands.)

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin ambi- (both) + sinister (on the left side).

wha? "sinister" comes from "the left side" ????
oh those crazy latins...

all you left handed people out there oughta start aclamorin' asap. that sounds like prejudicism (sic) to me.

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bonus random stuff in case you can't read the screenshot above):

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

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hey. if you didn't learn anything new today, don't blame me.


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ding dong

for the first time in my adult life, 39 years, i have a doorbell.
it's no big deal really, just kinda weird.

but i guess any chance i ever had of winning a nobel prize is over. ((groan))

that reminds of a funny joke:

viagra?! why in the world would i need that stuff? it'd be like giving a homeless person a doorbell.
(well *i* think it's funny.) Read more!

damn weirdos...

this is a a screen shot of a hit on this blog.

with the olympics going on i thought it was interesting that it came from beijing so i clicked on the referring url. as you will see after the cut, maybe this particular visitor just can't get enough of those 13-14 year old gymnasts...

by the way, am i the only person in the world who hasn't seen any of the '08 olympics?

it's not any kinda premeditated protest. i just don't care. well, that and being a little disgusted with all the $$, politics and rah rah nationalism that seem to be the real point. when the track and field events start i'll probably tune in. cuz i loves me some track and field.




so this is what someone in beijing "googled" last night...



pretty funny that this cornyblog came up as the 3rd choice for having querried "girlhood sex pictures," huh?

the entry it referred the surfer to is a very tame story about my 85 year old mother. how disappointing!


most of the hits here come from googled images of belly dancers or recockulous tattoos or this one dumb picture i once posted of buffy the vampire slayer in a see-through blouse.

while those 3 posts reel in several dozen unsuspecting surfers a day, i occasionally get hits from really bizarre googled text. here's my favorite from switzerland. it's so weird i wrote it down:

"he's 76, she's only 19! and she really enjoyed it too...the old geezer still has it, i gotta say."

even more bizarre? i got that exact same referral 2 more times. wtf?



i kept a list of the funnier/nuttier ones, but that list seems to have disappeared. a few i remember or found scribbled on margins of notebooks follow:

"men living as women" gave someone the belly dancer post.
"plunger porn" was googled by several people worldwide. and that's just sick.
"porndog" seems to be a popular querry.
"cornbread the dude" cracked me up.
"porndog happy meal" has popped up more than once.
"sweet rooster helmet price $ site" (i think this one came from annie's blog?)
and the dumb, but innocuous, "flip my cornbread" came from TAMU.

TAMU is texas a&m university. for those of you not from here, most of your polish or hillbilly jokes work just as well in texas if you substitute "aggie."


bye bye for now and happy girlhood sex pictures to you all.
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so many questions, so little time

i just logged on to my yahoo email account for the first time in well over 6 months. i can't hardly believe how popular i am. there were something like 9069 unread messages. WOW!!


oh wait.

the only ones i cared to look at were the daily feeds i get there from my favorite comic strip, get fuzzy (see above); and AWAD, a favorite word-of-the-day feed. the other 99% of them were all spam.

neverrr miind...



speaking of unwanted spam, did you know that since 1937, when the processed "luncheon" meat was first introduced, over 6 billion tins of the mystery meat has been produced?

would somebody please tell me... who in god's name eats the stuff?

can there be any doubt why spam (the unsolicited email variety) is so named?

in texas, and likely in most places these days, the crummy food of choice at fairs is the ubiquitous cornydog. but in minnesota? yep. you guessed it...it's fried spam on a stick or something. jeeze.

do minnesotans have no shame?



so if austin texas is the music capital of the world (i said, IF), then is austin minnesota the potted mystery meat capital?

[annie, robyn...you know i'm just joshin' with you. right?]


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a couple of older pictures and 1 new one...

this one i just took. i hung one of the neck braces i wore for 4 months. i think it looks like a large-mouth bass trophy. ahahahahaha. i'll have to make a plaque for it.



(a couple of pics 2-4 months old after the jump...)

from sometime in april. that's brother luke, mom, son sean, and me in mom's apartment. haven't seen luke since, unfortunately. sean and i now have short hair. mom still wears the same outfit, her "uniform", every - single - day...and of course, the horse collar is history.

but it's still us. (click on the pic to see just how handsome we all are. hahahaha.)



this is from the father's day party at VT. this belly dancer wasn't nearly as hot as the one from a couple of years ago, but henry didn't seem to mind...i've written about henry before. he's incredibly feeble and slow normally, but turn on the music and...the man can flat out dance.

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the view from my window - I

from a kitchen window...


what is that?

but you'd better make 'em quickies. you've only got 2 blocks.

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silly diversions (from the people inside my computer)

for your viewing and listening pleasure. (thanks wendy.)




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Rebus Of The Day...












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i was tempted to use this picture instead of the last one. (wtf?)



would that have been unfair to anyone? well, anyone other than wendy. she'd probably know stuff like that.

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and this one i ganked from donald's crossword blog. (thanks, donald.)



as you can see, i'm easily amused. (smile)

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