Sayings From the Bible

"By the skin of my teeth"
This is one of the many proverbs that owe their origin to the colorful language of the Book of Job. The tormented hero Job is complaining about his woes. He has become, he says, so emaciated that “my bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” The proverbial meaning is that he has missed death by a tiny margin—as narrow as the (non-existent) skin on a person’s teeth. Biblical scholars have argued endlessly about what the phrase originally signified. Some argue for a more literal interpretation: that Satan kept Job’s mouth—the skin of his gums, jaws, and lips—healthy in order to encourage him to blaspheme against God.

"A drop in the bucket"
Stuck between the mighty pharaohs on one side, and a succession of great Mesopotamian empires on the other, Israel was always destined to be a small fish in a big and dangerous pond. By the middle of the sixth century BC, the Jewish kingdoms had been conquered repeatedly, and a decent chunk of the population was living in painful exile in Babylon. Amid all this geopolitical gloom, the Book of Isaiah had some words of comfort. Compared to God, says the prophet, “the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.”

Happy Friday

Happiness is the greatest gift which life can grant us.

I like to hand out gifts, especially on a Happy Friday!

National Doughnut Day

National Doughnut Day is celebrated each year on the first Friday in June. Doughnut lovers all rise to celebrate a wonderful circle of sweet, doughy goodness that has a day set aside holey in its honor.
Smoky Bones features a 3/8th-inch thick slice of Applewood smoked bacon, hand-carved and then candied in brown sugar and black pepper. The chunk of meat is then roasted until crispy and shaped into a traditional doughnut ring. The sugary, peppery and crispy slice is then dipped in the restaurant’s “signature vanilla cake batter and cooked until perfectly golden brown.” On top of that goes a second glaze of confectioner’s sugar and maple sugar. It is then topped with even more smoked bacon pieces. Smoky Bones is a nationwide BBQ restaurant.


Incidentally, donut is the spelling from Dunkin Donuts.

Online Tips

Here are a few interesting sites to help you use up some of the Covid extra stay-in-place time.

Is it down for you or the entire world?
The video conferencing service Zoom recently experienced audio and video issues that left many virtual Sunday church goers without weekly service. While confused users flooded social media to try to fix their computers, phones, or tablets, they could have used this site. There was nothing they could do.
Zoom was experiencing a service outage. If a site you use is experiencing issues, Downdetector will display a live outage map, information on where the outage occurred, the time it happened, and the most reported problems. 
Tap or click here for this smart trick to use when a site or service is down.
See life in numbers
You can use this site when it is someone’s birthday to give the celebrator some fun facts about his or her life so far. Try it for yourself. At Life Stats, enter your date of birth and you instantly see the number of times your heart has beaten, how many days you have spent asleep, what a dollar was worth when you were born, and more facts including life expectancy statistics.
Tap or click here to get your life stats.
Try a custom ambient sound maker
We all have preferences when it comes to sound. Would you rather get something done in a bustling coffee shop or a silent room? Do you prefer gentle white noise or complete quiet when sleeping?
A Soft Murmur is beautiful, useful and endlessly customizable. Here’s how it works. Visit the site and choose your background noise of choice from basics like rain, thunder, waves and wind to crickets, birds, fire and coffee shop chatter. Set the level for each sound to create your perfect mix. Maybe it's a coffee shop and rain or waves, wind and birds for a more calming effect.
Tap or click here to create your perfect background noise.
Cook based on your fridge and pantry
Right now, most of us are stocking up on groceries to avoid going back to the store every few days. This makes it difficult to whip up fun new recipes.
If you are stuck in a rut, try MyFridgeFood. Check off the items in your fridge and pantry, and find recipes based on what you have on-hand.

Tap or click here to get delicious recipes using what you have at home.

What's in a Name, Herostratus

Herostratus burned down the Temple of Artemis. He did it for the sole purpose of becoming famous. His acts prompted the creation of a damnatio memoriae law forbidding anyone to mention his name, whether orally or in writing. The law was ultimately ineffective, as evidenced by mentions of his existence in modern works and parlance. Thus, Herostratus has become a metonym for someone who commits a criminal act in order to become famous.

Clock Time

This will take you back to school days when teachers needed to interpret everything for our curious minds. “AM” stands for “ante meridiem” meaning “before noon” or “before midday.”

PM stands for “post meridiem,” meaning “after noon” or “after midday,” and  applies to the times from noon onward.

Interesting Date Facts

Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth were born in the same year, 1926. Anne Frank and Martin Luther King junior were born in the same year (1929). Swiss women got the right to vote the same year the US drove a buggy on the moon (1971). Harvard University did not offer calculus classes for the first few years after the school was established, because calculus had not been invented yet. Charlie Chaplin died in 1977, the same year Apple was incorporated.

Origin of Sayings

The walls have ears - Origin: The face Louvre Palace in France was believed to have a network of listening tubes so that it would be possible to hear everything that was said in different rooms. People say that this is how the Queen Catherine de’Medici discovered political secrets and plots.

Blood is thicker than water - Meaning: Family relationships and loyalties are the strongest and most important ones. Origin: Even though many might think this saying means that we should put family ahead of friends, it actually meant the complete opposite. The full phrase actually was “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” and it referred to warriors who shared the blood they shed in battles together. These ‘blood brothers’ were said to have stronger bonds than biological brothers.

One for the road - Meaning: A final drink before leaving a place. Origin: During the middle ages, the condemned ones were taken through what today is known as Oxford Street to their execution. During this final trip, the cart would stop and they would be allowed to have one final drink before their death.
Butter someone up - Meaning: Flatter or otherwise ingratiate oneself with someone. Origin: The people ancient India used to throw balls of clarified butter at the statues of gods in order to seek a favor.

Beat about the bush - Meaning: Discuss a matter without coming to the point. Origin: Beating about the bush is actually an action performed while hunting, driving birds and other animals out into the open. After this was done others would than catch the animals.

Top Three Countries Internet Users

These have the most internet users in the world.
China 854,000,000
India  560,000,000
USA 313,323,000

Deep, Dark, and Surface Web

Surface Web: This is the web that you and most people are already familiar with. Major websites like Google, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook. Sites on the surface web are “indexed,” which means they can be easily located via search engines. Activity on the surface web can also be easily tracked by advertisers.

Dark Web: The “private internet” includes encrypted websites that are hidden from search engines and other indexing services. While not everything on the Dark Web is, strictly speaking, illegal, this is the place to go if you run shady operations like data laundering and cybercrime. Accessing the Dark Web requires special encryption software like Tor Browser.

Deep Web: The term deep web is often used interchangeably with Dark Web, but the definitions are different. The deep web simply includes all online data that is not registered with search engines. This includes back-end data for most of the world’s biggest websites and platforms, as well as encrypted information stored on private networks and cloud servers.

Happy Friday

"An unshared happiness is not happiness." ~Boris Pasternak

I always share my happiness, especially on a Happy Friday!

Obscura Day, May 30

Here is a set of ten places to visit to indulge your Obscura fantasy.

Around the World in 7 Futuristic Farms

13 Places to Indulge Your Inner Horse Lover

The Definitive Guide to the World’s Hidden Blunders

A Collection of 13 Eclectic Collections

30 Places to Go Deep in the Art of Texas

8 Bars and Beverages That Outlasted the 18th Amendment

10 Big Things in America’s Smallest State

15 Wonderfully Repurposed Places

10 Bathrooms You Should Pee in Before You Die

11 Themed Eateries to Indulge Your Secret Obsessions

Wordology, Recto and Verso

The term “recto” refers to an artwork public-facing front. “Verso” refers to the back of an artwork, which is normally hidden.

National Burger Day

Also Hamburger Day. No matter how you say it, yesterday, May 28 was the day to be eating out and enjoying some great burgers. This day is always toward the end of National Hamburger month.
There are 1259 people listed in whitepages.com with the last name 'Hamburger' and 17,617 people with the last name 'Burger'.
Referring to ground beef as 'hamburger' dates to the invention of the mechanical meat grinder during the 1860s.

'Filet de boeuf a la Hambourgeoise,' was sold in Boston in 1874.
Hamburgers and Cheeseburgers comprise 71% of the beef servings in commercial restaurants. Burgers account for 40% of all sandwiches sold.

The Hamburger hall of fame is located in Seymour, Wisconsin.