Gas Prices

When the price of crude oil goes up a dollar, the price we pay per gallon goes up about 2.5 cents a gallon. When you read about oil going up to a hundred dollars a barrel in the next few weeks, you can expect to pay about 25 cents more at the pump.

Fred Foy

Sorry to add this one, but Fred Foy, the announcer for the Lone Ranger and Green Hornet shows passed away December 22. He started doing those series on radio in Detroit, where they both originated. I grew up there and enjoyed both of them on radio and TV. Did you know the theme song was Rossini's 'William Tell Overture'.   LINK    Here is a guitar version LiNK   Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. . .

Dodge Royal Lancer

Dodge introduced a new $143 option package in 1955 to have the Custom Royal Lancer feminized, with rose paint, gold script, and a pink interior complete with rosebuds. “The first car ever exclusively designed for the woman motorist” came with a rain cape, rain hat, and matching umbrella, plus a pink purse with a compact, lipstick, comb, and cigarette lighter. The marketing brochure read, “By Special Appointment to Her Majesty … the American Woman.” Fewer than 1,500 La Femmes were sold, and the model disappeared in 1957.

Tiffany and Company

A well known name, especially this time of year. The jewelry and silverware store was originally a stationer called Tiffany, Young, and Ellis, when it started in 1837. In 1853 Tiffany switched its core business and began focusing on jewelry.

Christmas Tree Lights

Edward H. Johnson, who worked for Thomas Edison’s Illumination Company, used 80 small red, white, and blue electric bulbs, strung together along a single power cord, to light the Christmas tree in his New York home in 1882. Some sources credit Edison with being the first to use electric lights as Christmas decorations, when he strung them around his laboratory in 1880. It was three years after Edison had demonstrated that light bulbs were practical.

Ten Things Not to Get Her for Christmas

Electronics, any jewelry on sale, picture of yourself, cleaning stuff, kitchen stuff, lingerie, exercise equipment, beauty supplies, anything from Target, and last, a stripper pole.

Happy Friday

It occurred to me that today is the oldest I have ever been and the youngest that I will ever be.

I am young enough to enjoy, and old enough to appreciate a Happy Friday!

Four Christmas Song Authors

Interesting that four popular Christmas songs were actually written by Jewish authors. "White Christmas" was written by Irving Berlin in 1940. "Silver Bells" was written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans in 1951. "Let it Snow. Let it Snow. Let it Snow" was written by Jule Styne with lyrics by Sammy Cahn in 1945. "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was written by Johnny Marks in 1949.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

The most famous reindeer of them all. The song is one of the best selling of all time as sung by the singing cowboy, Gene Autry. It is also on albums by the Supremes and the Jackson 5.

Rudolph was created ten years before the song in 1939, by Johnny Marks' brother-in-law Robert L. May for Montgomery Ward. The store wanted something to bring in holiday shoppers and the story/poem was given out to children as an advertising gimmick.

Modern reaction to this song about a reindeer, written by a Jewish author - "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" caused a stir at a New Hanover County school at Christmas time in 2008.  A parent complained about the song's religious reference and got it pulled from her child's kindergarten Christmas show at Murrayville Elementary School. The song was pulled “because it had the word Christmas in it,” said Rick Holliday, assistant school superintendent. A Jewish mother, who didn't want her name published, objected to what she called "religious overtones" in the song. So the principal agreed to pull it from the program. Luckily the board and attorneys reviewed it and decided the song was not religious and had it reinstated into the kindergarten program.

New Traffic Light Idea

Here is an ingenious idea that I saw on the web. Traffic lights that work like hour glasses. Eliminates the guess work of wondering when the light is going to change.

Ranch Dressing

It really did get its name from a ranch. Steve and Gayle Henson opened a dude ranch in California in 1954, and they served a delicious dressing that Steve made up while the couple was living in Alaska.

They did a nice business at their Hidden Valley Ranch, but guests were always complimenting them for the tasty dressing. The Hensons started bottling the stuff, and the popularity grew so quickly that they had to hire a crew to help mix up each batch. Steve’s creative dressing turned out to be quite lucrative and in 1972 Clorox paid $8 million for the recipe.

McGill University Study

Results from Canadian McGill University study, found that images of meat actually calmed men down and made them less aggressive.

The actual result of less aggression might reflect a genetic disposition to feel comfort at the sight of meat, with it being associated with gatherings of family and friends, the study's authors said.

Speaking of how ancient ancestors might have adapted their responses to the sight of meat ready for consumption, Kachanoff said "It wouldn't be advantageous to be aggressive anymore because you would've already used your aggression to acquire the meat, and furthermore, you'd be surrounded by people who share . . . your DNA."

The research was conducted with 82 male subjects who were asked to inflict varying degrees of punishment on actors if they made errors while reading scripts. It was presented as a multi-tasking study to the subjects, who were sorting various pictures while the actors read.

The punishment was made by subjecting the script reader to various volumes of sound, with the highest levels believed by the subjects to be painful for the reader. The subjects were less likely to attempt to inflict pain on the reader if it was an image of meat they were looking at while the mistake was made.

Bruce Friedrich, vice-president of policy for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), called the study's results "interesting." "Clearly, eating meat does support horrible violence, but apparently somebody seeing meat that is not directly relatable to the animal does not cause people to become more aggressive," Friedrich said.

Kachanoff said his group had some vegetarians in the test group, and no major differences were found in their responses. Studies like this prove that academics will go to great lengths to get their school to ante up for a barbecue.

Global Health Video

This guy is fantastic. He has a unique way of showing data with living charts. Here he shows global health for the world during the past two hundred years. Four minutes of fascination. LINK

Call for Free

The free Vonage Mobile application for Facebook lets you call your Facebook friends anywhere in the world if they have the same app downloaded in their iPhone or Android.

It is available for Android phones in 48 countries and in 87 countries for iPhone or iPod Touch and is available from Vonage Facebook fan page. You can also invite your friends to download the mobile application.

After downloading this app, you enter your Facebook ID and password for the first time.
The software then automatically loads your Facebook contacts and separates them into two groups. One with friends who downloaded Vonage mobile app and you can call them for free. Other group shows Facebook friends who are available for instant messaging.
Just, touch the friend’s name from the Call Free list and your free call is connected.