Five Almost Famous Characters

Arthur Conan Doyle made notes that indicated he considered the name “Sherringford” for Detective Holmes.

Holmes’ assistant was originally going to be called “Ormond Sacker.” Arthur Conan Doyle decided the name was a bit too bizarre and changed it to John H. Watson.

Before “Nancy Drew” was decided upon, names kicked around included Stella Strong, Diana Drew, Diana Dare, Nan Nelson, Helen Hale, and Nan Drew.

Small Sam, Little Larry, and Puny Pete were all in the running before Charles Dickens settled on “Tiny Tim” for the sickly lad in A Christmas Carol.

Little Orphan Annie was Little Orphan Otto, until Harold Gray’s publisher at the newspaper syndicate suggested his character looked more female than male and told him to make it so.

Equiso

This is one of the newest devices for your TV and is awesome. Details can be found on kickstarter.

The Smart TV is an HDMI dongle (left bottom of pic) that plugs into your television and essentially turns it into an Android tablet. You have access to apps, the web, and any video content you can stream and store on the device. it lets you play free YouTube movies and any other movies from the web. You can check your email, including replying, etc.

It includes a portable keyboard and the remote shoots a beam that makes it act like you are scrolling with your fingers. It is coming out soon and the price is slated to be only $69. I love technology and this is soon to be in my living room.

Cheesburger in a Can

Swiss people have come up with the product of the year. It's an import that is giving restaurants a run for their money. They are actually made in Germany and available on eBay. 

The ad says Cheeseburger In A Can is a tasty treat when you are on the run. The can has an expiration date of one year. This does not beat the Japanese, who have come out with a powdered mini cheeseburger in a bag. Neither will be on my menu anytime soon.

Scratch Remedies

Most folks under 30 have never heard of using the relatively painless Mercurochrome in lieu of that nasty stinging Iodine. It stained your flesh pinkish-red. The FDA put limitations on the sale of Mercurochrome in 1998 and stated that it was no longer considered 'Generally Recognized As Safe' over-the-counter product. The main active ingredient in Mercurochrome is mercury.

Speaking of Iodine, it burned like fire when applied to an open wound, because it had an alcohol base. Many doctors today use a water-based iodine as an antiseptic, as it has one of the broadest germ-killing spectrums. This old school remedy is rarely found in home first aid kits anymore. Alas, change comes too late for some of us.

List of Lists

It is finally here, more information that you never knew or cared about. However, every now and then you need a list to prove a point. Here it is from Wikipedia LINK.

Or you can wait a few weeks and get more interesting information from my upcoming 49th book 'Amazing Facts and Bite Sized Brain Food'.

Happy Friday

An old saying is 'to forgive is to forget'.

You do not need forgiveness for never forgetting to have a Happy Friday!

Salt

Saltiness is one of the five primary basic tastes the human tongue can detect. Those five tastes being: salt, bitter, sweet, sour, and umami (it is from glutamic acid, which is found in many foods, particularly some meats, and is the basis of the flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate, also known as MSG).

Extra salt has other effects, beside simply making things more salty it helps certain molecules in foods more easily release into the air, thus helping the aroma of the food, which is important in perception of taste.

Adding a bit of salt will also decrease the bitter taste perception in food, which is why it is often sprinkled on grapefruit.

Salt does not suppress sweet or sour flavors as with bitter flavors, but balances out the taste by making the perceived flavor of sugary candies or lemons, less one dimensional.

Sticky Tip

Use nonstick cooking spray in votive candle holders and the remaining wax after burning will easily slip out.

Slut

This unpleasant term is used these days to refer to an immoral or sexually promiscuous woman, but the origin of the term had a more innocuous meaning. It actually meant a woman who did not keep her room tidy. Another early meaning was kitchen maid or drudge. Only later did it begin to mean immorality of a sexual type. In Thomas Hoccleve’s 1402 Letter to Cupid, “The foulest slutte of al a toune.”

In Victorian English, sluts wool referred to the little piles of dust that gather on the floor if it was not swept.

Joe Shlabotnik

Charlie Brown’s favorite baseball player is a guy whose career was anything but spectacular. After batting .004 in one season in the majors, Joe Shlabotnik was sent back down to the minor leagues, where his most notable highlight was throwing out a runner who fell down between first and second base.

When Shlabotnik became the manager for the Waffletown Syrups, Charlie Brown finally got to meet his hero. While in the stands, Charlie Brown snagged a foul ball, and he wanted Shlabotnik to sign it. Unfortunately, Shlabotnik had been fired in the middle of the game.

Like all adults, he is never actually seen in Peanuts.
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Hires Root Beer

Like several other soft drinks, Hires Root Beer (now owned by Dr Pepper Snapple) was developed by a pharmacist. According to one of the many stories behind the origin of America’s oldest root beer, Philadelphia’s Charles E. Hires discovered an herbal tea made of roots, berries, and herbs while on his honeymoon.

Hires introduced a root beer powder mix that consumers could use to make their own root beer at the 1876 U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where Alexander Graham Bell showcased his telephone. Charles developed a soda fountain syrup version of his root beer in 1884 and began bottling the drink in 1893. Only Detroit's Vernor's Ginger Ale is older, introduced in 1866 and is now also owned by Dr Pepper Snapple.

His decision to market the beverage as a beer rather than a tea, as he had originally considered doing, appealed to the Pennsylvania miners and added to Hires’ popularity during Prohibition. Incidentally, the R-J on the bottle stood for Root Juices.

Get Sick Saving the Planet

Plastic grocery bags may harm the planet. Paper grocery bags deplete the forests. Reusable grocery bags may contain lead and also cause illness from germs and cross contamination.

Los Angeles became the largest US city to ban the use of plastic grocery bags, along with four dozen other California municipalities. Every county in Hawaii also prohibits them. Austin goes them one better and passed one of the broadest bag laws in the nation, agreeing to ban disposable paper and plastic bags starting in March 2013 in favor of reusable bags.

Reusable grocery bags carry E. coli germs along with a variety of other bacteria and some bags contain seven times the lead limit of many states. According to one study,  Grocery shoppers must us their reusable bags 131 times to see the environmental benefits touted by global warming zealots. To be safe, reusable bags need to be washed and preferably bleached to prevent cross contamination, especially bags that transport meat, fish, fresh vegetables, or fruit.

Another source of potentially dangerous infectious comes from the checker scanning foods over the same surface of the scanner that everyone else's food passes over.

Many people reuse plastic bags for garbage, pet cleanup, transporting wet clothing, etc., so not using them causes these people to buy plastic garbage bags, which helps defeat the purpose of bag bans.

Lower priced reusable bags found in stores are either plastic themselves or made from 100% non-woven polypropylene. In 2010, a study found that over half are contaminated with bacteria, some even with E. coli, because 97 percent of shoppers say they never wash their totes.

Wash counters and cabinets where bags are stored and never let them rest on the floor, because they pick up germs from food packaging, shopping carts, car trunks, etc. Some suggest putting reusable bags in a microwave for a minute or two after each use to sanitize them.

An average family of four would need to keep at least a dozen or more bags for a normal shopping trip.