Preauricular Sinus

I have a Preauricular sinus and never knew it. These are common congenital malformations first described by Heusinger in 1864. Both sexes can have one. In females, it is commonly found outside the right ear.

Theories of origin of preauricular sinus (also known as a congenital auricular fistula) includes: defective or incomplete fusion of the beginnings of the external ears at the embryonic stage. Just one third of folks even know they have one.

The sinus may be bilateral (both ears) in 25-50% of cases, and bilateral sinuses are more likely to be hereditary. In unilateral cases, the left side is more commonly affected. They are usually benign and do not change through life.
On Facebook, people with a preauricular sinus believe they are special. Neil Shubin, an evolutionary biologist, has a highly speculative theory that the holes could be an "evolutionary remnant of fish gills."


In Taiwan, the incidence of preauricular sinuses is estimated to be 1.6-2.5%; in Scotland, 0.06%; and in Hungary, 0.47%. In some parts of Asia and Africa, the incidence is estimated to be 4-10%. Just 0.1 percent of the population have it in the US, and 0.9 percent in the UK. Bottom line, I always knew I was special, now I can prove it. Ha

Idle Thought

Politicians have the unique ability to believe they are the one in seven billion people, rather than just one of seven billion people.

Happy Friday

Happy roads are created by happy feet.

Wake up and be happy, especially on a Happy Friday!

Wordology, Old Chestnut

An 'old chestnut' is another way of saying a joke is old or stale. The origin appears to be eating roasted chestnuts at the fireside while listening to old stories.

The Broken Sword, was a melodrama by William Dimond (1816) in which one of the characters, Captain Xavier, is forever telling the same jokes, over and over, with slight variations. As he repeats a certain joke involving a cork tree, he is corrected. The man says, "A chestnut. I have heard you tell the joke twenty-seven times, and I am sure it was a chestnut."

Clear Cookies, Cache

Hey, it is a new year, why not get a head start on some Spring cleaning. Does your web surfing seem to slow down? Are the pages loading a bit slower lately? Maybe it is time to clear the clutter. Every so often we need to remove the crap that browsers and web sites deposit onto our computers. There are programs, like 'CCleaner' to do this for your entire computer, but below is an easy and quick way to clean up just your browser.

Cookies and cache are supposed to help make web surfing and streaming experience better, but as they accumulate, they also bog things down. A quick way to freshen up your browser is by clearing the browsing data, such as cookies, cache, history, etc. If you save passwords, be careful to uncheck that box, or you will be doing a bunch of typing as you get back into those sites.

Here is how to clean up:
    Launch your Web browser (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Internet Explorer, etc),
    Press Ctrl+Shift+Delete at the same time,
    Select the items you would like to clear, at least cache and cookies,
    Select the Delete or Clear button, depending on your browser type,
    Close and re-start your browser and try streaming again.

Things should be much quicker for a while.

What's in a Name, Pineapple

Pine cones used to be called pineapples and pineapples got the name because they resembled pine cones.
Originally, the word pineapple in English was first recorded in 1398, when it was used to describe the reproductive organs of conifer trees (now called pine cones).


When European explorers discovered the tropical fruit in the Americas, they called them pineapples, because they resembled pine cones (with the original name). Most European countries eventually adapted, and still use the name ananas, which came from the Tupi word nanas (also meaning pineapple).

Incidentally, The pineapple “fruit” is not really a fruit, but is a mass of individual berries fused to the central stalk. This is why the “fruit” has leaves on top. They are actually the continued growth of the stalk beyond where the berries are attached. Pineapples are not grown from seed.

Utility Blades

Many of us have those little utility knives with multiple snap off blade pieces, so we can break them when the blade gets dull. The problem is trying to snap a bit of blade with pliers, tapping with a hammer, using a rag or other protective material.

If you look close, a good number of those products have a removable tip at the other end that is to be used to snap off the blade. Pop off the tip, insert the blade into it and snap. Wow, easy.

Spacebar Scrollbar

You know you can scroll down a web page by holding down the spacebar. By holding the shift key and pressing the spacebar you can scroll back up.

Smile, this is the beginning of a great new year

NCIS Fact

NCIS during 2016 had about 18 minutes of ads for every 1 hour episode. During 2003 NCIS had about 16 minutes of ads per episode.

Those extra few minutes over a 23-episode season add up to an additional 46 minutes of ads. If you watched a typical 23-episode season of NCIS today you would watch about 414 minutes worth of ads or almost 7 hours.

Happy Friday

A smile awhile is always in style.

I always while away my days with smiles, especially on a Happy Friday!

Happy Bacon Day

Bacon Day is celebrated annually on December 30th.

Bacon is a very popular food and you can find many items also flavored or scented with bacon including popcorn, soap, candles, air fresheners, and more. Do not fill up too much on Christmas. You need to save room for Bacon Day. It is the second day of the year we celebrate bacon and its wonderfulness.

Leap Second

Twenty-six times since 1972, the world's timekeepers have added a leap second to the clock to make up for time lost to Earth's slowing rotation. The adjustment is necessary because Earth's rotation is not regular. It sometimes speeds up, sometimes slows down, but is gradually slowing overall.


It will happen again tomorrow. That's right, we get one more second of 2016 added to our lives. The final minute of 2016 will have 61 seconds. After all of the political nonsense during these past twelve months, it is almost like adding insult to injury to have a leap day and a leap second in the same year. Oh well, savor the extra second of life. We can never get too many of them.

Saudi Calendar Change

As we look forward to a new year, thought I would pass along some calendar info. Saudi Arabia adopted the lunar Islamic calendar when it was founded in 1932. In October 2016, that all changed. Saudi Arabia moved from the lunar based Hijri calendar, which starts with the emigration of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, and adopted the standard Gregorian calendar as a leap into modernity and as a basis for paying civil servants.

Government employees complained they would have to work an extra 11 days each year, because the Islamic lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the 365-day solar year.

There are other calendars still in use around the world.  It is 1395 in Iran, 2628 in Kurdistan, and 5776 in Israel’s Knesset, 2559 in Thailand, and year 28 (of the Heisei era) in Japan.