Elusive Golden Cat

Nope. Though I have been known to imitate my cats and I do have blonde hair, I'm not talking about me. And of late I know have been elusive on this blog. But all that is because of too much going on in my life. So since I don't know where to begin talking about this year as it winds down to another ending in a year of far-too-many-things-ending, I will just--for now--give you a glimpse of a different elusive golden cat and promise to write about my elusivity (is that a word?) later. Enjoy the kitteh-ness below for now.

Is Your Cat Plotting to Kill You?

They do often dig very deep in the litter box. Could there possibly be bodies buried in there? Check out the Warning Signs at How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you.

I Can Haz Dragon

So it’s 3-something in the morning and I can’t sleep and after wandering aimlessly around the internet my Google feed reader points me to SFFN and The Dragon Diaries: Part the Third. Now I am ROTFLMAO and know that, with visions of dragon happy-meals dancing through my head, I likely won’t sleep anymore tonight. (Have you ever tasted a mime? Not funny. Did you know that if you eat a unicorn you could get sparkly rainbow indigestion and glitter farts? How do you shuck a knight anyway?)

The Dragon Diaries is a whim of author Kelly McCullough who, in delightful twitter-sized tidbits gives us a peek into the mind of an adolescent dragon (a la cheezburger).

You will discover the life of a dragon is sometimes fun: Met a knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering. Ated him. Ated pretty lady he kept whining about too. Hard and cold on the outside, but soft and warm on the inside. Yummy! Thinking of lounging on my hoard today. Dragons are supposed to do that sometimes, aren’t they? And Nap + Sparklys = Win!

And sometimes difficult: Saw the pointy-face horse again today. Still looks delicious. Want! Maybe cat is wrong about obsession being unhealthy… Just realized that pointy-face horse is kind of Sparkly… Sparkly! Sparkly! Sparkly! Sadness. Sticking fake horn on normal horse doesn’t make it sparkly. Doesn’t improve flavor either. Ated horse anyway.

Then there is the ubiquitous dragon wisdom: Am entertaining job offer from Fafnir, Fafnir, Tiamat & Lung, dragons at law. They tell me it’s mostly just about ateding opposing counsel. Mmmm, lawyers.

And the ever so much more accurate cat wisdom: Cat talked me out of ateding polling station, says ateding should be reserved for actual polti… polict… polst… elected people.

I now have visions of the dragon being let lose in Washington, DC. I have a little list I want to share with the dragon. And I am reevaluating the advice my cats give me. Think I'll go find some sparklys for my pillow now and see if I sleep better, maybe dream of dragons. Thanks, Kelly.

Kelly sez: For an explanation of how this got started, the original Dragon Diaries SFN post is here. The second DD post is here. To find out where it goes, you can watch the experiment continue on twitterand facebook for however long it continues.

Fan Girl talks about Neil's reading in Cleveland

This is from the blog of my friend Meagan who like me is a rabid NG fan. She writes, she draws, she loves cats. Here is what she had to say about last Sunday:

On Sunday, Matt and I went to see Neil Gaiman reading at Cleveland Public Library. Amazingly, this event was free. I mean, I would have paid to see Neil read, but free is fantastic. Our libraries rock. read more...

Fan Girl Posted using ShareThis

On getting new windows

So this morning I wake up to a layer of ice on everything. And the window guys are due at 8 am. This would have have been way less of a problem back in November when windows should have happened. Still, new windows are going to be wonderful. Imagine...real windows you can see out of and that open AND close. Oh wait, you probably don't have to imagine... you probably have had functional windows for years. This house, however, was built in 1918. And up until, oh,1940 or '50 had perfectly good double-hung sash wood-framed windows that went up and down. No screens or storms, but energy was cheaper then and you just opened your windows in summer and closed them in winter. Somewhere along the way a previous owner caulked most of the window shut, probably due to heating costs going up. And somewhere along the way the ones that did open developed warpage and leaks. In one window in the den there is a gap I can put a pencil through. Now I am worrying; will they be able to put in windows in the freezing icy rain?

A little after 9 am, three guys show up in a pick-up truck with the five big picture windows. And right off there is a conflict. These are single hung windows, but the paperwork says they should be double hung. Check in with the boss and they find the order was changed because the windows (62" wide) were too big to be doubles and had to be special made singles. In fact we had had the order changed twice (hence the not getting them installed until now). And so the project begins.

First I have to round up 4 very pissed cats who had their lives rearranged last night when we moved all furniture away from the windows. After encarcerating the cats on the 3rd floor in the library--with food, water and a litter box--we make coffee and put out gingersnaps for the workmen. Steve is running around like a kid at Christmas, watchng and asking all kinds of questions.

About 2 hours later the 3 big downstairs windows are in and more guys have shown up with the rest of the windows--straight from the manufacturer. The other thing that showed up was a brown (pitbull mix) puppy who thought he lived here. Men are going in and out of the house with windows and stuff. The dog who is wet, shivering, and trailing a very chewed up leash wants to get in the house, too. What ensues is a Keystone cop routine with Steve chasing the dog up down frozen steps.

On the leash now, Steve takes the dog around the block looking for the owner--no luck. Dog gets ensconced in the garage with a bowl of water, some cat food (better than nothing) and a pile of old towels. Dog wants company and so sets up barking like crazy. I call animal control and arrange for a pick-up. They will be around sometime today. . . maybe.

Workmen have the four bedrooms' windows in and are off to a late lunch. Eighteen windows to do and they have done 10 in 4 hours. I'm impressed. Oh, there is still caulking and wrapping the frames outside to do, but not bad. We turned the furnace off at the beginning of the job and despite the 33 degree weather with icy freezing rain outside the house, the temp inside has not dropped below 60. They pull a window out and replace it so fast it's like opening and closing a door.

Meanwhile I have made more coffee, cleaned up my email--which involves lots of phone calling to deal with a last minute change in meeting scheduling that no one told me about until today. Fortunately I had five whole hours left to fix the snafu before the university shut down entirely for break. Lucky me.

Dog is still barking. But down the street comes a kid looking for his lost dog. We happily reunite kid and dog, and immediately call animal control to cancel the pickup. Promptly 20 minutes later the animal control guy turns up at the door to take the dog away. No dog? Do we have any other problems? Stray anything? Must have been a slow day at the shelter.

Back to window guys. It's 3 pm and the siders have shown up. They begin wrapping all the window casements. Steve has now made up his own version of the "12 days of Christmas" that sums up the day:

12 guests soon coming,
11 rooms to clean up,
10 windows finished,
9 pots of coffee,
8 windows to go yet,
7 email crises,
6 plates of cookies
5 picture windows!

4 cats in the attic,

3 guys installing

2 siders siding

and a dog barking in the garage!

More coffee, more cookies. I am on my sixth cuppa today. The window job was supposed to take 2 days, it may only take a day and a half the workmen tell us. There is dust everywhere--not from the installation, rather from behind all the furniture that was moved. Ah well, a bit of vacuuming and we will be back to normal--better than before. Even the curtains have gone through the washer and look great. So some furniture moving and we will be ready for company at Christmas!

Well, we'll be ready once we finish the basement shower repairs that is. Oh and I still need to put a coat of paint on the powder room off the kitchen. No sweat. Really. We have two whole days next week to do that stuff!

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

What Would Genghis Khan Do?

This is too funny. Now I want to make red and black beaded bracelets that say WWGKD for all my friends!

The New Motto: WWGKD?

by Jonathan Hall

I was driving on the freeway last Saturday night when I was abruptly cut off and nearly run off the road.

I began to think to myself, amid a variety of four letter words in my vocabulary, of a recourse in action. As I began to plot my revenge I realized something. People are heathens. Yes, we all claim to be innately good people, warmly supporting the constitution and care of others, but we all know that’s a lie. More importantly, how can I capitalize on this little known fact?

As the initials escaped my friend Judd’s mouth, I knew that this would in fact become the most successful product in history. WWGKD. As I returned to the scene in my head, picturing what I did do, and what I could have done, I began to smile. Not just a casual smile either, or one of those Cheshire cat grins. I’m talking about one of that Kool-Aid, you-know-what-eating grins. We all know what Jesus would do. Jesus would forgive him, bless him and let him go on his way. Jesus was a much bigger man than I am.

Since I am not fit to follow in his steps, I decided to follow the teachings of another great leader. And so I asked myself, what would Genghis Khan do? According to the historical readings I have so exhaustively researched, he would most likely follow him home screaming expletives in Mongolian, annihilate him and his entire family including the family pet, burn his crops, steal his livestock and set an example to the other drivers on the road. Then he would probably say something witty in Mongolian about the driver’s mother being overweight, frumpy and unappealing.

More importantly, I began thinking about how many people need a solid male figure in their lives. Who better than one of the most powerful and influential people in history. Who cares if he was a little bit over the top? It’s just details. But I digress.
I began to see how big of an impact WWGKD could be.

Just imagine all of the things that annoy important people like me. Jared from those Subway commercials. People who watch Fear Factor. Slow drivers in the fast lane. Slow walkers on the South Oval. Televangelists who make millions of dollars using the faces of Ethiopian children. People who shout out commands to the characters on the movie screen in the theater (“Say something!,” “Don't go in there!,” etc.). Anyone who likes William Shatner or Keanu Reaves. People who make quotation marks with their hands. Nosebreathers. Whoever decided Carrot Top was a good choice to put on their advertisements. People who dress in clothes rather inappropriate for their body type. People who ask stupid questions. Waking up with no pants on in the South Oval on a Tuesday afternoon wondering what happened the night before.

Maybe I’m sharing too much. Regardless, the list could go on and on, but I only get so much space. Most of these problems can be easily solved in the WWGKD process. I’m talking amazing results. Apparently there’s something refreshing and renewing about wielding a samurai sword and screaming angrily in Mongolian. I suggest you try it sometime.

If you can’t get Mongolian language lessons, then you’ll have to hold off until Friday, May 6. More to come on that in my next article. Stay tuned. You won’t want to miss this nationwide event.

—Jonathan Hall is a marketing junior. His column appears every other Friday. He can be reached at opinion@oudaily.com

Cool Blogs to Visit

My daughter's cats have taken over her blog! his-n-hers.blogspot.com

My English Comp. 2 students blogs are linked from here: engcomp2.blogspot.com

Some good politics here: blogsisters.blogspot.com