Pennsic Living

Someone I love said to me that his camping days are over, implying that this is roughing it. Pennsic is a different animal. This isn't ordinary camping. I have a yurt with oriental rugs and a queen sized bed piled with furs and pillows. Enough candles to light Versailles. A kitchen set-up as good as home.

In fact, the best thing about Pennsic is that I get to cook. I actually have time to cook. Last night's dinner was grilled teriyaki marinated pork loin, garlic butter rice, tossed salad with fresh tomatoes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing.

Breakfast today was chocolate filled croissants, fresh strawberries, and Gevalia Stockholm Roast coffee. This is decadent-living-style camping.

Tonight, steaks on the campfire, fingerling potatoes with fresh rosemary, corn on the cob, baby watermelon for dessert.

And then there is the food court here. You can get anything from Middle Eastern delicacies to ice cream, from Medieval stews in bread bowls to killer burgers. Yesterday I found one of the beverage places can do iced mocha smoothies.

Oh, you could live on hotdogs and Gatorade if you wanted to, but what fun is that compared to Cornish game hens stuffed with pears and raisins, wrapped in bacon and tin foil and baked slowly over a campfire the served with a nice Chablis?

Newest Grandchild: K. Oskar Russ-Johanson

Karl Oskar Felix

We’re calling him ‘Oskar’…

Born: 3/2/2011 @ 09:45

Weight: 9 lbs. 2 oz. // 4148 grams

Length: 21 inches // 53 centimeters

Oskar likes thumb-sucking and seems very able to find that thumb all on his own. 

Blue eyes, just like Mama, and Daddy and Big sister Eme.

Big sister Emelie adores little brother Oskar. 

See more pictures on Daddy's blog at: http://www.eajohansson.net/et-cetera/kalle/

Talking to Australia

This morning I was on Skype with my daughter in Perth. 9 am my time is 8 pm hers. So she was playing with Juliette, my new granddaughter, just before bedtime. The baby was rolling about on the bed and squealing, while gramma and mom had serious girl talk about nappies (diapers), playing in the spa (hot tub), and what baby did all arvo.

While online I used Jing to do some screen capture photos and to video my baby girl's baby girl at play.

This is the thing I love about the brave new world we live in: I am in touch with everyone all the time! My daughter in OH posts her daughter's adventures on her blog. My daughter in DC texts me and chats with me regularly in gtalk. With Skype I get to webcam with my son, grandson and granddaughter in AZ as well as my daughter and her family in Australia. We all make phone calls, of course, but now I can see them all as well as hear my children's voices. And then there is the blogging and facebooking and tweeting we do back and forth, updating each other on a daily (sometimes hourly!) basis.

Just 20 years ago my parents had to wait until a holiday to see their grandchildren, my children, because we lived several states apart. Going overseas meant being out of touch until you got home because phone calls were too expensive except in emergency. Even long distance calling was kept to a minimum because of phone bills and rates. The internet has changed the nature of communication and that is a marvelous thing. Why just this morning I got friended in Facebook by my cousin in TX with whom I only recently reconnected.

Today, thanks to the technology of Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Skype, and the many Google marvels like gtalk, gtalk video, and wave. I can be in touch with multiple friends and colleagues. My tweets spill into my gtalk and FB statuses. My blog posts show up on my FB wall. There are people who say we share to much information. Me, I like the idea of a transparent society. I love this techno-geek shit!

Exceptional Cuteness

Over at Stinky Angels, Jae posted this picture of Eme at Auntie Maria's wedding. Yes. Just too damn cute for words, isn't she? And despite having to wear a fancy gown she was a well-behaved flower girl. (She was also kinda tickled about the sparkly shoes!)

Welcome to the world, Juliette!

Juliette Evans, born July 26th, 2009.

Love me because of who I am not in spite of who I am

Shakespeare said:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds. . . .

Which is exactly the subject of this blog post from Stinky Angels. Well said, Jae and Bill!

Because of.... Sunday, April 12, 2009 [from Stinky Angels]

For anyone who is counting, today is Andreas' and my 6 year wedding anniversary. That makes it the 12 year anniversary of our first date. (Yes, we did that on purpose. Too cutesy?)

Back at the very beginning I created a phrase that described how I wanted to love and be loved, and Andreas and I have subscribed to this philosophy ever since. I said that I wanted someone who would love me "because of, not in spite of" the way that I am, and I'd do the same in return.

If I were to love everything about him except the one or two things, then I'd constantly be trying to "fix" him. If he were to love me "even though" I am one way or another, then he'd wonder when I was going to change. Instead, we try to accept each other exactly as we are, and love all of those things that are the hardest to love.

Andreas has loved me because of my big heart, my love of animals, my joy of life, but also because of my (occasional) sharp-tongued jabs at his expense, and the way I smell (stinky) after two days of not showering because being a mommy sometimes means I forget to be a (clean) wife.

In return, I have loved him for the way he sees humor in everything, his ability to keep me calm and sane, and the way he can make friends with anyone, but also the (sometimes maddening) way that he volunteers out his time to anyone who needs help even if I need him at home, and how he (usually, but not always, correctly) thinks he knows the best way to accomplish any task.
Now we have Eme (whose 14 month "birthday" was yesterday) in our lives. There are days (though they are very few) when we might wish that she would be different than the way she is (please, please, PLEASE sleep through the night). But we love her. Just as she is.

We love Emelie because...

she is very good at making us laugh.
she is amazingly smart.
she almost never lets us take naps.
she learns new things every day.
she gets excited by anything that moves by itself (trucks, cats, leaves, whatever).
she says "mama" and "dada" and means us.
she loves us.
she sometimes stinks.
she knows how to spit her food out (see Cuffs and Peaches).
she enjoys singing and dancing.
she enjoys spinning around in circles until she falls down.
she enjoys doing very unladylike things even when we're in public (see The F Bomb).
she's usually sweet and gentle.
she's sometimes not sweet and gentle.
she's awesome.

For all of these reasons and more, we love our beautiful, stinky angel.
Posted by Jae at 12:21 PM

The Ghosts of Familial Past

A dear friend is heading to his hometown this weekend to face his relatives at a funeral. Knowing what he will be facing in the jungle of his birth family, has made me think about my own birth family today. It's funny how family can have so much power over us, even once we are grown and need them so little. How the ties that bind us are forged in sorrow and guilt more often than in love or joy.

I don't know all the particulars of your birth family or its attendant crazies, but I know how bizarre mine is. I have one randomly employed redneck brother and his twin sister, a multiple times divorcee who lives to shop at Saks; one libertarian entrepreneur brother and his twin sister, a graphic artist with a conservative corporate-type husband; then there's my father who is a bigoted homophobic hard-line Republican, but who now incapacitated and fairly senile; and let's not forget my manically depressed drama-queen mother who thinks she is Peter Pan and doesn't want to grow up. Anyone who met all of us separately would conclude that we could not possibly be related. In fact, I'm still wondering how I got here. How did this family spawn me: a "rabid feminist liberal hippie bitch"? (That is just one of my dad's nicer descriptions for me . . . no kidding.)

When I was growing up my mother kept telling me how lucky we were, what a great family this was, and how happy we were. I think she was really doing all she could to convince herself. The wierd thing is I believed it as a kid. But then as kids we live in fantasy land, we make our own realities. And since most my childhood was spent with my nose in a book (any book, all the books I could find) I was happy. Fairytales were my favorites. You know those stories where the royal coach shows up to take the cinderella-child away, because she's really the princess? I was certain through most of my childhood that any day now the royal messenger would knock on the front door and take me home to the castle where I really belonged. I was sure these weren't my real parents, I was taken away from some castle in rural Ruritania and abandoned by the evil vizier or abducted and carried off by gypsies. My real family would find me, I was sure of it.

Funny thing is I don't think my parents were particularly abusive or anything to us kids. Oh, my dad had a belt we all feared and my mom wielded a mean hairbrush, so discipline in my family was corporal. But on the other hand I don't remember bruises, and to be honest most kids in my generation expected to be "spanked"--it was the traditional child-rearing tool. What I did hate was the fighting between my mom and dad. We kids were pretty certain that sooner or later one of them would do major damage to the other. Though that never happened, my parents, now well into their eighties still regularly threaten to kill each other. It may be only some warped kind of dramatic affection, but it scared the hell out of us kids.

Dad was an amorphous figure who was most always "on the road." When he was home, he was generally asleep in an easy chair front of some ball game on the TV, usually with beer in hand, and god forbid anyone changed the channel. The man could be snoring like a buzz saw, but would wake at any sound of channel clicking to smack the one responsible and insist he had been watching that show (even with his eyes closed). Mom, a medical secretary, worked very full days, leaving before we went to school and, though she returned home before us, was generally asleep on the couch when we came in and would stay there drifting in and out of sleep until we woke her for dinner. Odd, but most of my memories of my childhood involve one or both of my parents being asleep a lot. Granted they worked hard, or at least they regularly told me that they did. In fact a good chunk of my childhood was spent feeling guilty (having been told repeatedly) about how hard my parents had to work to feed and clothe the five of us and that no amount of chore doing could ever make up for what they had to spend on me.

Bedtime for us kids was always 8 pm, even in the summer, even when the sun was still out. For me that was no hardship, I read books. My youngest siblings would come crawl in bed with me and I'd read to them, or if the parents insisted on lights out I'd make up stories for them--usually with them in the starring roles. We spent a lot of time in make-believe as kids. Sometimes though, the noises from downstairs woke us all out of both sleep and our make-believe worlds.

Sometimes I still have nightmares about all the knock-down, drag-out, plate-throwing, screaming matches my parents had whenever my dad was actually home. When the noise started, we kids would creep down to sit on the stair landing just out of sight and listen to the fight and the name calling. As if by being there, witnesses, we could mitigate the violence. I learned to cuss early on from the things my parents said to each other. For me it was like watching a train wreck--you couldn't stand to look and you couldn't stand to look away. For each of my siblings it was different, I think. I clearly remember holding my youngest sister, on my lap while she cried--always softly so they wouldn't hear us--and telling her that it would be okay, that mom and dad were just playing. As the baby she was the sensitive one, and I always thought of her as mine to protect. She took it hardest when they fought. She always felt every pain anyone else felt. She was only 3 or 4 (that would make me 8 or 9) when we moved to the south side of town, where I remember the fighting really beginning. Or maybe I was just old enough notice by then. Dad was home more in those years, traveling a more local route rather than being out of town so much. The others had their own ways of dealing. One brother was the family clown, always redirecting anger with slapstick humor. My middle brother retreated and denied, middle sister pouted and demanded attention. I just lived in a fog built of books and stories.

As families go mine is by no means the worst. Emotional chaos yes, but there are lots of kids who are physically and sexually abused by their families. Yesterday in the news there was a story about a local woman who, having been abused by the father of her children, drowned her 2 daughters and sent a letter to their father that said the girls were at peace and couldn't be hurt anymore. By a standard like that my childhood was a walk in a park.

The funny thing about families is that no matter how wierd, no matter how dysfunctional, no matter what emotional or physical pain we endure--most of us survive. Sometimes we survive to become the people we are, even the decent parents that we are, despite our childhoods. Every parent sets an example for their child, even if it is a negative one. So now, as I think about the grandchild I have and the one soon to be born, I can't help but think that the really neat people my grown children have become and the really cool parents they are and will be, is in part due to me, and in part due to my dad. A dad with whom I have a strange love/hate relationship, but from whom I think I learned some valuable lessons. . . primarily on how not to treat your kids. In the fire the steel is tempered.

Stupid non-facts on the Internet

A friend sent me this well-meaning email about some "fun facts." Since I could see a few that were patently false I thought I'd Google someof them. When I did I found that there were hundreds of blogs out there simply repeating the same "facts," but no one who questioned any of them. I then did som REAL research (like, oh, going to an expert on the topic or going to the original source). So here are things you really SHOULD know about that “THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW” email circulating on the internet:

1. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.
True: “Normal paper--including notebook paper, newspaper, construction paper-- is all made out of cellulose, which comes from trees. The trees are chemically broken down into their individual wood fibers, and the cellulose fibers are chosen and formed into very thin sheets to create paper. Paper money, on the other hand, is made from paper made of rags. Cotton or linen fabric is beaten to create cotton or linen fibers. You have probably heard of "rag paper" or "fine linen writing paper." This is where it comes from. It turns out that rag fibers bond together much more firmly than fibers in regular paper. Rag fibers are basically unaffected by water, whereas cellulose fibers absorb water and come apart when they get wet. So paper money comes through the washer just fine, while cellulose paper comes unglued.” From “How Stuff Works” http://science.howstuffworks.com/question108.htm

2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
False: It was written on parchment. See: http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/treasure/declaration_facts.html

3. The dot over the letter i is called a "tittle".
True: From the Oxford English Dictionary: “The dot over the letter i; a punctuation mark; a diacritic point over a letter; any one of the Hebrew and Arabic vowel-points and accents; also, a pip on dice.”

4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
Unknown: I can’t find a valid reference for this (anyone want to try the experiment?). I did, however, find one credible-sounding explanation on a personal website: “This is because the carbonation in the drink gets pockets of air stuck in the wrinkles of the raisin, which is light enough to be raised by this air. When it reaches the surface of the champagne, the bubbles pop, and the raisin sinks back to the bottom, starting the cycle over.” From: http://www.angelfire.com/ca6/uselessfacts/science/003.html

5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.
False: http://www.soapcentral.com/amc/news/991224-luccidiller.php

6. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
Unknown: But unlikely. It is possible, but according to one Business Week Daily article McDonald’s won’t give out profit breakdown stuff like that. I went through McDonald’s 2004 corporate financial statement http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/invest/pub/2004_Financial_Report.html and could not find such info. If anyone wants to delve further into McDonald’s profits and does find the answer let me know. And here’s an interesting business article that says Happy Meals are not doing McD’s any good: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewfeature&id=690.

7. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
Unknown: And unlikely. Most large manuscripts come to the publisher with hundreds of typos in the. Copyeditors are paid to find them. Then Proofreaders are paid to find the ones the copy editors missed. By the time the book goes to print there are probably few if any errors. There are quibbles about stylistic differences (colour or color? theater or theatre?). Sometimes there is an argument to accept a newer slang spelling in a dictionary as common usage as well as the traditional spelling (thru for through, nite for night). It could be that. In the end does it matter? Some reader will point out an error to a publisher (mostly because it gives them a kick to do so) and in the next edition it will be fixed. If this even happened in 1996 it has little relevance to Webster’s as produced today.

8. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.
False: First of all Albino humans generally have blue eyes (albino mice have red eyes). And C. L. Grigg, the founder of 7up, was not an albino. The red dot appears on the label in the 1970s, the original label (the product was invented in 1929) was entirely red. See: http://www.snopes.com/business/names/7up.asp

9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.
False: First of all this is an impossible statement. Which hospitals? Which country? Twelve daily of all babies born in the US or in the world? Do the parents know they have the wrong children? If they don’t, and thus don’t report it, then who gathered the data to make this statement—and how?

In point of fact normal hospital procedure is to put a hospital bracelet with the mother’s name on it on a baby’s wrist in the delivery room (it happened that way with all 4 of my kids). Those bracelets don’t come off until baby goes home. You’d have to have a very illiterate group of parents and hospital employees to make this kind of error.

10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
True: But hardly news, no one ever made a secret of it. Lots of people in showbiz are related to other people in showbiz.

11. Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.

True: The theobromine in chocolate can be dangerous to both dogs and cats. See: http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/cocoa.htm

12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
False: First of all “exploding sharks”? Come on, people, use some common sense! Orcas do hunt prey of all sizes but they hunt and kill in packs (much like wolves), harrying their prey until it tires and then biting it. See: http://www.cetacea.org/faqs.htm.

13. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
True & False. Only a few lipsticks contain fish scales. The ones that have “pearlesence” (as in "pearl essence"). See: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000331.html.

14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
False: Being Finnish, I have to take exception to this. As a matter of fact, DD is the most popular of all Disney characters. Every Christmas day all the Scandinavian TV channels play Disney cartoons from 3-6pm for the children to sit and watch while moms fix Christmas dinners. There is a real story behind this myth--as a budget cut Helsinki stopped buying DD comics for the kids at the youth centers. See: http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/finland.htm. American papers speculated that Donald and Daisy living together without being married had offended the Finns. The irony of that is that in Scandinavian countries most people live together for 2-3 years before getting married to be sure the relationship will work out.

15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
False: I can’t find any reference to this as a medicine, although the idea of a 19th century traveling snake-oil salesman putting ketchup in his product is not unlikely. However had any buyer known of it they would also not been fooled b the claim of medicinal qualities as it was well-known as a condiment by the 1800s. It was a sauce often imported from China and Southeast Asia.

The Oxford English Dictionary notes the earliest reference to it in the 1700s, when housewives are encouraged to add it to their stock of condiments. From the OED: “A sauce made from the juice of mushrooms, walnuts, tomatoes, etc., and used as a condiment with meat, fish, or the like. Often with qualification, as mushroom ketchup, etc. [References:] 1711 LOCKYER Acc. Trade India 128 Soy comes in Tubbs from Jappan, and the best Ketchup from Tonquin; yet good of both sorts are made and sold very cheap in China. 1748 MRS. HARRISON House-kpr.'s Pocket-bk. i. (ed. 4) 2, I therefore advise you to lay in a Store of Spices,..neither ought you to be without..Kitchup, or Mushroom Juice. 1817 BYRON Beppo viii, Buy in gross..Ketchup, Soy, Chili~vinegar, and Harvey. 1840 DICKENS Barn. Rudge (1849) 91/1 Some lamb chops (breaded, with plenty of ketchup). 1874 COOKE Fungi 89 One important use to which several..fungi can be applied, is the manufacture of ketchup.”

16. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.
True: See: http://www.mediumbold.com/04_thinking/type/letterform/case.html.

17. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time
False: Da Vinci was ambidextrous. However, we have no evidence that he did left- and right-handed things simultaneously. This is an ongoing assumption that may have been a misinterpretation of the fact that he wrote with his left hand but wrote backwards so that his writing could only be read by holding it up to a mirror. See his bio at: http://www.mos.org/leonardo/bio.html.

18. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War! II were made of wood.
False: But close! “In support of the war effort, the Academy handed out plaster Oscar statuettes during WWII. After the war, winners exchanged the plaster awards for golden statuettes.” From: http://www.oscar.com/legacy/faq/02.html#Q9

19. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
True: According to one LV traveler, “There's a reason why casinos don't have clocks or windows and naturally they wanna keep you there long, make you forgetting the time, the longer you are there, the more you might lose.” From http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/North_America/United_States_of_America/Nevada/Las_Vegas-836630/Warnings_or_Dangers-Las_Vegas-Casinos_Gambling-BR-1.html

20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!
False: Wendy is a diminutive for Gwendolyn, Gwennyth, and several other early Welsh name variants. What is interesting is that the author of Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, had a god-daughter named Wendy. See: http://www.wendy.com/wendyweb/history.html.

21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!
False: Though, it depends on what you mean by rhyme. Something like orange is harder to rhyme. End rhyme (the most common rhyme form) takes the last syllable of a word (in orange the would be the “ge” sound) and finds words with similar sounding endings. Orange, thus, rhymes with challenge and lozenge. Try it yourself for these words: http://www.rhymer.com/ .

22. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.
False & False: Scissors were in common use by Leonardo’s time. “Scissors were invented thousands of years ago (roughly 1500 B.C.) in ancient Egypt. Early scissors have been found in ancient Egyptian ruins. These early scissors were made from one piece of metal (unlike modern scissors, which are made from two cross-blades which pivot around a fulcrum). Modern cross-bladed scissors were invented in ancient Rome (roughly A.D. 100). Early scissors were used by clothes makers and barbers. Scissors were not in common use until much later, in the 1500's (in Europe).” From: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/indexs.shtml.

As for the Mona Lisa, Da Vinci began it in 1503 and finished it in 1506. See: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vinci/joconde/

23. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
Unknown: But unlikely. I couldn’t track this one down yet. But the idea hardly seems logical since the position of the stinger would make this action if not impossible at least anatomically difficult. I sent an email to a scorpion expert at the University of Kentucky asking for more info and he said:

This is an old urban myth, kind of like the thing with the stripes on a wooly worm, but I don't know if anyone has scientifically proven or disproven it one way or the other. This would be a good science project for someone out west!
Sincerely,
B. Newton
University of Kentucky Entomology

24. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
True: This tidbit is a really good example of why not to trust the internet. The first reference I saw when looking this up confused Halloween with Friday the 13th--and mentioned a hockey goalie mask. Not having any experience with either film myself, I didn't know the difference until a friend pointed it out. (Thanks, Gunther!) I did see the film trailer which showed the clown mask, so originally said this was a "false" fact and referred to the clown and goalie masks. (Should have followed my own rules--internet research rule #1: always go to the original source!) If you go to the films' website at: http://www.halloweenmovies.com/site/lobby.html it says:

• "The idea was to make him almost humorless, faceless - this sort of pale visage that could resemble a human or not," said Hill. "First came a clown mask, which we all thought was eerie and scary," Wallace told Fangoria. "A clown mask really shakes you up a bit, so we knew we were on solid footing." Then came the Kirk mask. Wallace visited Burt Wheeler's Magic Shop on Hollywood Boulevard. He bought a Captain Kirk mask for $1.98, "widened the eye holes and spray-painted the flesh a bluish white. In the script it said Michael Myers' mask had 'the pale features of a human face' and it truly was spooky looking. It didn't look anything like William Shatner after Tommy got through with it."

Mea culpa!

25. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
True: Do the math. But on an interesting facts scale I gotta say this is pretty useless.

26. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can’t sink in quicksand.
True: The less weight you present to the surface of the quicksand the slower the sinking process. Laying flat you present fewer pounds per square inch. The irony is that most quicksand is only a few feet deep. Standing you are simply stuck till you dig yourself out with your hands. See: http://science.howstuffworks.com/quicksand.htm for an ineresting video on how to escape quicksand

27. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
False: While it was legal to “chastise” a wife in England, there has never been such a stick size law. See: http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/essays/ruleofthumb.html

28. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
False: Motorola’s goal has always been to promote communications technology, by beginning with car radios, although they did produce a home tabletop phonograph: “Motorola’s role as pioneer, innovator and visionary in mobile communications is well-known. Originally founded as the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in 1928, Motorola has come a long way since introducing its first product, the battery eliminator.” As for the name, “Galvin Manufacturing Corporation founder Paul V. Galvin created the brand name "Motorola" for the company's new car radio, linking "motor" (motorcar, motion) with the suffix "ola" (sound)” in 1930. See: http://www.motorola.com/content/0,,115-110,00.html.

29. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!
True & False: Yes on celery: http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/celery.asp; no on the apples. Though both are far better for you that that Happy Meal above. . . .

30. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
False: It has nothing to do with gum. It is that some people find that if they breathe through their mouths rather than their noses they avoid the problem of the enzyme that causes tearing getting near the sinuses. http://www.ehow.com/tips_13796.html. Me, I close my mouth when chewing anything—wouldn’t work for me or anyone else with manners!

31. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
True: “The laws of kashrut do not apply only to actual foods, but to anything that can be ingested. For this reason, Israeli postal stamps use a glue that is certified kosher. (Glue comes from collagen, which is found in the connective tissues of animals - see gelatin for more on that topic).” From: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Kosher

32. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
False: Not even on the list of most frequently checked out! A list-serve for librarians lists the following as the most often stolen:

• “The Anarchist's Cookbook and The Joy of Sex (and The Joy of Gay Sex)”
• “anything on Witchcraft/occult (fiction AND nonfiction), Rap and Heavy metal CDs, car/truck repair manuals, GED/ASVAB/post office/police officer(!) study guides”
• “GED exam books (ARCO, Barron's)”--“anything by or about Jim Morrison. Books about palmistry and the occult . . . Mutual Fund Forecaster and the Wall Street Journal . . . homework support books”
• “rap music and anything by Led Zeppelin”
• some of the above “and self-defense books”

From various emails online at: http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/1996-May/subject.html#73831

33. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it
False: They even eat beans while in space. See: http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/kidspace/q&a/living_food.asp

You tell 'em Heather

from Salon.com http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/review/2005/07/04/i_like/

I Like to Watch!

Sing happy birthday to a nation of nasty despots, swarthy heroes and cringing, ineffectual oddballs, from Tommy Hilfiger to Bobby Brown!

By Heather Havrilesky

July 4, 2005 | I believe I can fry!

So many years ago, this great nation of ours was born! It took a lot of blood, sweat and Big Gulps, but those courageous patriots (who were actually traitors to their own homeland, but no matter) fought for what they believed in. And what did they believe in? Freedom! Freedom from op-pres-sion. The freedom to march across tangled forests filled with dirty savages and proclaim, "All these miles of tangled forest are mine! Mine, all mine, baby!"

Imagine the freedom those courageous patriots (who were traitors back home and religious extremists to boot, but no matter) must have felt, as they chopped through those virgin forests, clearing room for their humble log cabins, the first baby steps down the path to a glimmering world of asphalt and strip malls and McMansions! Imagine the freedom those fine men must've felt as they passed out chicken-pox-infected blankies at the local powwow! How proud they must've been, returning home to their chattel and their children and their womenfolk, how proudly they must've spoken of purposely infecting the savage populace with infectious diseases! "And them that's left, we'll drive 'em West! West to the dusty Badlands where corn don't grow near as well, 'cause that's how we roll, yo!"

Today, as you gaze out at that vast and beautiful swath of Outbacks and Targets and Applebee's and Home Depots and Linens 'n' Things that butts up against the back wall of your property, as you peek through the vertical blinds and out the sliding glass doors at the blinking lights of Wal-Mart and Pier I Imports, as you sink your toes into the buttery wall-to-wall carpeting of your glorious one-bedroom condo, remember those extreme religious fanatics and their humble quest to conquer and destroy and strong-arm their way to freedom. And remember, freedom is still on the march! We've still got conquering and destroying and strong-arming to do, if we're going to bring nacho platters and Megaritas and rug and room deodorizers to those quizzical foreign peoples!

Then as now, if there are kneecaps to kick in and heads to blow off and national landmarks to destroy, that's what we'll do to make sure that there's a basket of barbecue chicken wings in every pot, and no man, woman or child grows up without fried food in his belly and piles of worthless shit packed into the closets and shelves and utility rooms of his domicile! God bless this great land of ours! Happy birthday, America, and amen!

If I ever become an Evil Overlord

The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became an Evil Overlord

1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.

2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.

3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.

4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.

7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."

8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.

9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.

10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.

11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.

12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied
into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.

14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.

15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.

16. I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."

17. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.

18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.

19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.

20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman ootsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.

22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.

23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.

24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)

25. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.

26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.

27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.

28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.

29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.

30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.

31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.

32. I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.

33. I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.

34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.

36. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.

37. If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant.

38. If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.

39. If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.

40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.

41. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.

42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.

43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.

44. I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.

45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.

46. If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.

47. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.

48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.

49. If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a ant-Ad in the local paper.

50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.

51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.

52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.

53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.

54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.

55. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.

56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.

57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner's manual.

58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.

59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.

60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.

61. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.

62. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.

63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.

64. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.

65. If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.

66. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.

67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.

68. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again.

69. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.

70. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.

71. If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.

72. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.

73. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my
advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.

74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.

75. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.

76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the
middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)

77. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutentant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.

78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."

79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.

80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.

81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.

82. I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.

83. If I'm eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.

84. I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.

85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."

86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.

87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.

88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.

89. After I capture the hero's superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.

90. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.

91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.

92. If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)

93. If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.

94. When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.

95. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.

96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.

97. My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unravelled.

98. If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others' lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.

99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.

100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.

This Evil Overlord List is Copyright 1996-1997 by Peter Anspach. If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way, and (2) this copyright notice is attached.