Bee Gees

The Gibb brothers were born on the Isle of Mann (by Ireland and Scotland) and moved to Australia in 1958, when Barry was 12. They were introduced to radio DJ Bill Gates by racetrack promoter Bill Goode, who saw them perform at Brisbane's Speedway Circuit. Gates renamed them the "Bee Gees" in 1959, after his and Goode's initials, so the name is not a reference to 'Brothers Gibb', despite popular belief. Andy was born in Manchester, England, shortly before the family moved. Their sister, Lesley appeared with them for a short period in the 60s.

Speaking of Music

If you want to listen to the Bee Gees, or other music in the background while checking email, check out grooveshark. You can search for music by type, artist, or let it pick for you with an online radio, based on the genre you choose. You can choose a bunch of songs and have them play in order, or have them loop back to the first and start over. Simple to use and I ain't jive talkin'.

Bacon Toothpicks

These should come in handy for the parties. Stretch that bacon flavor all day.

Mmmm!

WWF

No, this has nothing to do with Wrestling. It is a new document type from Apple that is identical to PDF documents, except you cannot print them. Sounds like the greenies have captured Steve Jobs. It may be an interesting idea to save paper, but I guess they forgot that it is just as easy to do a print of the screen. I know that is impractical for long documents, but come on - you can look, but you can't print. Reminds me of the old days when printers were only in the monster computer room and not on every desk.

Shopping by Phone

Best Buy now targets personalized advertisements to shoppers when a program detects that they are in other stores, such as Wal-Mart.

If shoppers use TheFind's free app to compare prices on TVs at Wal-Mart, for example, the phone gets data from recent searches and shows them ads of similar electronics for sale at Best Buy. The items may not be identical or cheaper, but Best Buy gets in the competition. Best Buy, famous for their restocking fees and high pressure 'extended warranties',  recently settled a lawsuit from the Connecticut attorney general alleging that it showed web prices on in-store kiosks that were higher than customers saw on their home computers. It also recently dumped its restocking fees for many items.

The offers are only sent to customers who opt to allow the program to use their phone's global positioning system to track their location.

The ads are similar to the special offers based on what we are searching for while on home computers. There are many apps to help compare prices, including one from Amazon. Obviously, apps that use your location against you are never a good idea, and maybe Best Buy isn't.

Yield

The sign on the highway that tells you to yield to oncoming traffic is not as old as you might think. Oklahoma police officer Clinton Riggs came up with the “yield” sign in 1950, which spread from its birthplace in Tulsa to all corners of the US.

He spent more than a decade experimenting with the sign, according to the Tulsa Police Department’s history book. His goal was a sign that would not only control traffic at an intersection but would also attach liability in a collision if one driver failed to yield.

Do It Yourself tech Support

Here is a site that is good for this year and next year. It provides quick, less than a minute, videos for how to perform various functions on your computer. Worth a look for the less-than-computer experts. LINK

Happy Friday

He who loses money loses much.
He who loses a friend loses much more.
He who loses faith loses all.

I have a dollar, and a friend, and faith that this will be a Happy Friday!

The Santas are Coming

Christmas Carols

"Carol" is a derivative of the French word caroller, the interpretation of which means dancing around in a circle. Carol and carols, eventually came to mean not only to dance, but included music and lyrics - hence Christmas Caroling.

Christmas carols are based on Christian lyrics and relate mostly to the Nativity. Christmas carols were introduced in to church services by St Francis of Assisi in the 12th century.

The joyous themes for many traditional Christmas carols were banned in England by the staunch Protestant Oliver Cromwell and many of the very old Christmas carols and songs were subsequently lost for all time. They were only fully popularized again during the Victorian era when they again expressed joyful and merry themes in their carol lyrics as opposed to the normal somber, Christian lyrics found in hymns. As religious observances in the United States and England were closely linked, the popularity of Christmas carols grew in both countries during the 19th century. Many Christmas songs are relatively recent, and bear no relation to Christmas carols, such as the famous 'Grandma got run over by a reindeer'.

This Week in 1864

After his Civil War march across Georgia, Union General William T. Sherman sent U.S. President Abraham Lincoln this message: "I beg to present you as a Christmas present the city of Savannah."

Shirley Temple Quote

“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.”

WTF

The CIA task force assessing damage from leaked U.S. diplomatic documents named the 'WikiLeaks Task Force', has the same abbreviation as a popular online saying, WTF. How appropriate.

Health Savings Account

If you have one, you might want to stock up before the end of the year. New regulations kick in that restrict purchases using flexible spending, health savings, and health reimbursement accounts. The law takes effect January 1 and will require a prescription for many common drugs normally bought over-the-counter (if you want to use tax-exempt money), but not for insulin, medical devices, diabetes testing kits and some other non medication items, such as eyeglasses. Another 'benefit' of the new health care law.