Jan 17, 2014

Coffee Facts

A coffee bush does not produce usable fruit for five to six years, but then can produce for thirty to forty years after that. Coffee was eaten long before it became a liquid refreshment. African tribes would mix the coffee berries with fat and create energy balls that they would eat once or twice a day, when they needed a boost of energy. Green coffee beans were ground up and mixed with fat, then made into small balls, which were eaten by travelers on long journeys. It was the first plant to be cultivated around the world.
 
The fruit, or cherry, is a reddish two-seeded berry. The two seeds are what we call coffee beans, but are actually seeds. The cherries and leaves also contain caffeine. In some countries, the berries are fermented into wine, but mostly they are used for fertilizer or cattle feed.

Coffee was the very first food to be freeze dried in 1938. Nestle invented the freeze dried coffee. It was a milestone that was unprecedented and set a new standard for how food could be packaged and sold.

Coffee is so popular and in such high demand that it is actually the second most traded commodity on earth, only behind oil.

Mocha is a city in Yemen and the island of Java in Indonesia are two places, which types of coffee are named.

Wordology, Punt

A punt is the small indentation on the bottom of wine bottles designed to give the bottle extra strength. It is also known as a kick.

Nuff Said


Chocoholics Rejoice

Everyone knows the importance of eating vegetables and chocolate is a vegetable. Chocolate is made from cacao beans and sugar. Beans are vegetables. Sugar is derived from either sugar cane or sugar beets. Both are plants in the vegetable category.

Chocolate candy bars contain milk, which is dairy. Therefore, chocolate candy bars are a health food.

Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, and fruits are good for your health.

Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It will take the edge off your appetite, and you will eat less at meals.

Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger.

A box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Am just trying to help.

Decimate and Obliterate

The word “decimate” does not mean to destroy something completely and leaving nothing behind. It actually means to destroy a great or large amount, not the entire amount. Some people tend to use this word in absolute and complete terms, as if there is nothing that can be done, said, or seen after the decimation takes place.

Think of it this way: if a 10-story building gets decimated, then there should still be a story or two left after the decimation. If all ten stories get destroyed, then the building has not been decimated. It has been obliterated.

Drain Fix

Grab some baking soda and sprinkle it in and on the drain. If it just sits on top of the drain, that's okay.
2. Pour white vinegar down the drain. Add as much vinegar as you can without overflowing the clogged drain. You will immediately be able to see the baking soda and vinegar start to go to work. Together, they will form bubbling carbon dioxide, which will naturally clear away any build-up.
3. Plug the drain with a stopper.
4. Allow it to sit for 10 minutes.
5. Remove the plug and run very hot water through the cleared drain pipe.

Ten Unique Jobs

With so many people out of work, I thought it might be nice to help them expand their job search. Here are some jobs you might not thought of applying for.
Dog Food Taster
Odor Judge (for underarm odors)
Bull Semen Collector
Artificial Inseminator (animals)
Condom Tester
Coin Polisher
Dinosaur Duster
Mount Rushmore Crack Filler
Pollen Collector
Breath Odor Evaluator
Now get out there and expand your horizons.

Awesome Technology

From last week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) here is an awesome speaker. ClearView Audio CLIO is a clear acrylic speaker which pushes sound through the side of the device instead of the rear, like traditional cone speakers.

Edge Motion-driven speakers actuate a thin membrane along the side in a manner that creates an extremely efficient, piston-like motion in front. The resultant speaker system is thin and lightweight with the ability to produce a rich, full sound across the audio range.

Jan 10, 2014

Happy Friday

Life is like a warm bath, you need to get in to enjoy it.

I always fully immerse myself in the joy having a Happy Friday!

Coffee and Tea Dehydration Myth

Caffeinated drinks may send you to the loo quite often, but liquid in the coffee or tea still counts toward your hydration goal, because it is mostly water.

Caffeinated beverages do not dehydrate you when consumed in moderation of about five cups or less per day. In fact, any fluids you ingest will help keep your cells saturated, including coffee, juice, tea, or soda.

How Much Water

Speaking of hydration, North American companies use 1.39 liters of water to make one liter of bottled water. That is less than the global averages of a liter of soda, which requires 2.02 liters of water. A liter of beer needs 4 liters of water, wine needs 4.74 liters. Hard alcohol guzzles 34.55 liters of water for every liter.

Aerosmith Trivia

These rock legends have been entertaining folks for three decades, but the band’s biggest money maker is from the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith rhythm action game.

The royalties the band earns from the game dwarfs anything they ever earned from any of their other albums, concerts, or other merchandise. So, the band earned more money from people pretending to play their music than actually playing it themselves.

Insulting Names

Many common words we use to insult people did not begin with our current definition. Here are a few that have changed over the years.

Punk, worthless person - Punk has long been an insult in the English language. Shakespeare used it as an especially dirty word for prostitute in 1602. Eventually it came to mean young male prostitutes. This evolved by the 1920s to mean "young, inexperienced boy.” Inexperienced soon translated to good-for-nothing and criminal. During the 1970s, British men in spiky leathers and Mohawk hair styles were called punks.

Brat, - badly behaved child - The worst kind of children in the olden days were very poor. Brat as slang dates from the 1500s in England, and meant beggar’s child. Beggars often made sure their children were prominently displayed to garner more sympathy and money, which was annoying to passersby. Bratt is also an old English word meaning 'ragged garment' or 'cloak'. Brats often wore bratts, affirming that they were in fact, brats.

Jerk, obnoxious or dull person - Because older trains ran on steam, they often needed to be refilled with water. Water towers were built periodically along the train tracks and had hanging chains that the boiler man would “jerk” to start the water flowing. Towns sprang up around many of these water-stops and smaller ones were usually called jerk-water towns and their populations jerks.

Dunce, slow-witted or stupid person - John Duns Scotus was a brilliant 15th century philosopher. He pioneered the idea that we had the exact same kind of goodness inside us that God did, but a lot less. Unfortunately, his followers, known as the Dunses in the century succeeding his death, were reputed to be the most stubborn, closed-minded philosophizers around. Mr. Scotus’ name became attached more to his stubborn followers than to his own work.

Bum, one who performs a function poorly - We owe the legendary German work ethic for the introduction of the word bum to mean useless. It meant 'buttocks' since the 13th century (and is still used as such by many). The use of the word became popular during the Civil War, when German immigrants swelled the ranks of the Yankees. The German word bummler was easily shortened to apply to any soldier, because he was a loafer, sitting on his bum all day.

Barbarian, uncivilized or savage - “Bar-bar” was how ancient Greeks imitated the babbling stammer of any language that was not Greek. Thus barbarian came to mean the sort of lowbrow foreigners.

Cretin, stupid or insensitive person - Cretin is an insult that evolved from a real and dreadful medical condition. It comes from a word used in an 18th century Alpine dialect. The word was crestin, used to describe a dwarfed and deformed person. Cretinism was caused by lack of iodine resulting in congenital hypothyroidism.

Grand Predictions

This time of year many pundits are either rehashing the greatest, best, and worst of the past year or offering predictions for the near and distant future. Here are a few from the 1890s predicting life in the 1990s.
“Three hours will constitute a long day’s work by the end of the next century.”

“Longevity will be so improved that 150 years will be no unusual age to reach.”

“In the 1990s, the United States will be a government of perhaps 60 states, situated in both North and South America.”

“In 100 years Denver will be as big as New York and . . . if the republic remains politically compact and doesn’t fall apart at the Mississippi River, Canada will be either part of it or an independent sovereignty.”

“We shall not only restore the dress of our great-grandfathers before we stop, but run the costumes of Adam and Eve a pretty close shave.”

“The waist line will be just below the bosom.”

“Politically, there will be far less money expended in electing officials, I fancy. Many of our leading politicians, out of a job, will be living on the island.” [in jail].

“There will be no need of a standing army.”

“Law will be simplified and brought within the reach of the common people . . . The occupation of 2/3 of the lawyers will be destroyed.”

“Transcontinental mail will be forwarded by means of pneumatic tubes.”

“By the year 1993, the mechanical work of publishing newspapers may be done entirely by electricity.”

“Aluminum will be the shining symbol of that age. The houses and cities of men, built of aluminum, shall flash in the rising sun with surpassing brilliance.”

“Long before 1993, the journey from New York to San Francisco, and from New York to London, will be made between the sunrise and sunset of a summer day. The railway and the steamship will be as obsolete as the stagecoach.”

“Labor organizations will have disappeared, for there will be no longer a necessity for their existence.”