Piano Stairs

Here is a novel way to get people to take the stairs, replace them with piano keys. Looks like great fun.  LINK

Human Egg

Here is a picture of a human egg and of sperm trying to invade it. This is an actual photograph of the sperm trying to neutralize the outer yellow protective layer so they can get in. Amazing picture.

Speaking of Cells

Robert Hooke (1635 - 1702) was an English physicist. He was the first to coin the word “cell” to describe the basic unit of life (he thought that plant cells, when magnified through a microscope, looked like “cellula,” the living quarters of monks).

Instant Rice

Also known as minute rice, is rice that has been precooked and dehydrated so that it cooks rapidly. Regular rice requires approximately 20 minutes to cook while instant rice usually needs between five and 10 minutes, or 90 seconds in a microwave. Because it has already been cooked, all that is necessary to prepare instant rice is to re-hydrate it with hot water.

Instant rice is made by using several methods. The most common is similar to home cooking. Rice is blanched in hot water, steamed, and rinsed. It is then placed in large ovens for dehydration until the moisture content reaches approximately twelve percent or less. The basic principle involves increasing moisture of the milled white rice by using steam or water to form cracks or holes in the kernels.

The fast cooking properties happen at recooking. Water quickly penetrates into the cracked grain.

Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies

The nation's largest cereal maker, is being called to task by critics who object to the swine flu-conscious claim now bannered in bold lettering on the front of Cocoa Krispies cereal boxes: "Now helps support your child's IMMUNITY."  What a load of rice that is, unless it means the chocolate covering, which is good to cure most everything.

Dagwood and Bacon

A friend of mine, John Chapman sent me this from Monday's paper. Seems even Dagwood likes bacon. Of course the clock is not as sophisticated as the one I mentioned last year that actually cooks a slice of bacon, so you wake up to the wonderful aroma.

PS - Chapman is the author of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Hell." Hilarious book available on Amazon.

Limerick

There was a Young Person of Bantry,
Who frequently slept in the pantry;
When disturbed by the mice,
She appeased them with rice
That judicious Young Person of Bantry.

Health Insurance Myths

On the Fortune 500 list of top industries, health insurance companies ranked 35th in profitability in 2008; their overall profit margin was 2.2 percent. They lagged far behind such industries as pharmaceuticals,  profit margin 19.3 percent, railroads (12.6 percent), and mining (11.5 percent). Among health insurers, the best performer last year was HealthSpring, which showed a profit of 5.4 percent. “That’s a less profitable margin,’’ AP noted, “than was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach, and Molson and Coors beers.’’

For the most recent quarter of 2009, health-insurance plans earned profits of only 3.3 percent, ranking them 86th on the expanded Yahoo! Finance list of US industries. Makers of software applications, by contrast, are pulling in profits of nearly 22 percent.

Bread Shoes

True - Not to be outdone by the above. Here are a pair of bread shoes. They can be made to size and can be shipped to the US at a cost of 17 Euros. Looks like they are soft. No, not going to waste your time with this link either.

Target

Check out Target's Black Friday sales for $3 toasters, coffee pots, crock pots, and sandwich makers. Digital picture frames for $29. HDTV LCD 1080p 40 inch $449.  Wow, it is really pushing for traffic this year.

Picnic Truck

Who couldn't use one of these for the ultimate tailgater. It has a BBQ grill, a beer tap, an ice box, a 42″ HDTV and a kick butt sound system.  Toyota is at it again.

Fun With Words

Here is a fun sight for those who like anagrams, crossword puzzles, or just word games. Type in a word and you get a definition, words found within the word, anagrams, words beginning and ending with the word, words beginning with the same letters, etc. Handy reference site to put in your bookmarks.

Here is another site, Ninja - a dictionary for your iphone.

Bus Stop

Here is a unique bus stop. It is in England. Seems the woman did not like the looks of the stop in front of her house, so she decorated it herself.

Quotable

Men do not make beds when they get up for the same reason they do not tie their shoes when they take them off, to make it is easy to get back into.