Signs

How would you pronounce this street name?

Healthcare Headlines

Couldn’t resist these two headlines back-to-back in an email.

1. Despite economy, overall healthcare employment picture strong
2. WellPoint hit by 61 percent loss in Q4 2008, plans job cuts

Washing Instructions

Forgive me, but you have to admit this is funny.

Gibberish

I love this song. The words are total gibberish and made to sound like English.
Check out the YouTube.

Soupy Sales Dies

Soupy Sales, born Milton Supman was one of the wackiest characters on television, especially during the 50s and 60s. He had a number of shows on TV. He did eleven hours a week while in Detroit, with his sidekicks Black Fang and White Tooth. He had a morning show, a lunch show, and later he had a weekend evening show for adults that was hilarious. Of course, all of the shows were live.

The character seen here with Soupy is Pookie, the Lion.

One of his enduring bits was to hear a knock on the door, open it, and be hit in the face with a pie. Some accounts say he was hit by as many as twenty thousand pies during his TV career.

After Detroit, he went on to have shows in LA and New York, but many Detroiters still claim him as their own, even though he was born in North Carolina.

You can go here to see some of his hilarious comedy bits. No kidding Soupy, We'll miss ya.

I started a wikizine about Soupy Sales on Zimbio. You can check it out here.

Government Attic

Here is an interesting site. It is a compilation of documents that have been released under the 'Freedom of Information Act'. The home page says that it contains historical documents, reports on items in the news, oddities, fun stuff, and government bloopers. The site motto is Videre licet (to be able to see).

Glass of Bacon

Ummm! It is true that pork and bacon cannot cause swine flu.

Quotable

Consider this scary thought - The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

James Dyson

You probably all know about the Dyson vacuum cleaner, invented by the British inventor, James Dyson. He is at it again and has come up with a bladeless fan.

It pulls air into the machine's cylindrical base with an impeller that draws from jet-engine technology. The air rushes up into a hollow ring and is then forced out of a slit that is less than 1/16th of an inch. The slit runs all around the ring.

As the air exits through the slit, it flows over the inner edge of the ring, which was modeled after an airplane wing. As the air exits the loop, the lower pressure pulls air from behind along with it, and air around the front of the fan also gets pulled into the stream.

The fan runs with a small motor, and airflow can be fully regulated with a dimmer switch. A 10-inch fan costs $299. Cool technology,  kid safe, and would look great under my Christmas tree.

Hunting Wolf Picture of the Year

This picture has won the prestigious Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award. It was taken by Jose Luis Rodriguez and won out over 40,000 entries.

Horsing Around

We all know about Paul Revere's famous ride. Did you know his horse's name - Brown Betty. Now you do.

Did you know that the horse ridden by James Arness (Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke) was the same one ridden by Lorne Greene (Ben Cartwright on Bonanza)? Its name was Buck on both series, but its real name was Dunny Waggoner and Greene bought the horse after his series ended.

Ulysses S. Grant's horse was named Cincinnati, and Custer's horse was Vic, who died with his master at Little Big Horn.  OK, I am finished horsing around.

Comments Welcome

Sure could use some comments, so I know folks are reading this stuff. In the words of Maxine -

Get Your Swine Flu Shot

Or you could end up looking like this.

Pigs Using Mirrors

More pig news from another stupid study. A study of domesticated pigs has found that with some experimenting they can find food based on a reflection in a mirror.

In the study, four pairs of domesticated pigs were allowed to familiarize themselves with a mirror for five hours. The study was conducted at Cambridge University in the U.K. and found that, given a chance to familiarize themselves with a mirror, many pigs can find food based only on its reflection in the mirror. The findings will be published in the journal 'Animal Behaviour'.

After familiarization, each pig was placed in a pen with an angled mirror and a partition, behind which were treats such as apple slices or M&Ms. Seven of the eight pigs immediately looked behind the partition and found the food. A control group of pigs that had never seen a mirror before searched behind the mirror for the food.

A researcher said the study shows pigs have a high degree of assessment awareness, or the ability to use memories and observations to quickly learn to assess a situation and act on it. It is hoped the conditions in which pigs are raised, including overcrowding, which do not meet the needs of the animal, may be improved as a result of the study. Yeh, and maybe pig farmers will also be adding brushes and lipstick in the pig sties. Do you think this proves eating bacon makes you smart?

PS - Did you know the mirrors on motorcycles are called pig spotters?