Thanksgiving Lesson

I should probably save this site for "Black Friday" in a couple of days, but....well, I'm desperate for a quick and easy link to share and they just sent me an e-mail about this site.

Last October (2008, that is), I selected Woot.com as my "Web Site of the Week." Woot is a warehouse that offers fantastic deals on electronics and other odds and ends, but for one day only. I have purchased several items and can recommend them without reservation.

Well, they've just begun another sister site - Deals.Woot - and the difference here is basically two-fold: 1) less snarky prose, same great deals, and 2) it's more of a "community" of deals. By that, it means that you and I post the great deals we find. (Scroll down to find the deals most recently posted.)

And boy, are there some great deals. Go. Shop. Buy. Make someone happy. Help the economy.

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This past week in our children's Sunday School class, Miss Michelle decided to playfully correct a few wrong ideas about Thanksgiving.

"Now let me see," she began, "Thanksgiving. That's the day when we think about all the stuff we have?"

"Yes!" shouted the kids.

"And then we think about how we want more things than anyone else has and how we don't care about anyone except ourselves--"

"Noooooo!" the children screamed in unison.

Then one little boy piped up, "That's not Thanksgiving, Miss Michelle ... that's Christmas!"

[Rubel Shelly via Church Laughs Newsletter]

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WONDER for YOUR WEEK: So I'm wondering what you're thankful for this year? Tell me.

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Mark's Musings comes out of the Internet oven on an RSS Feed and also stuffs your Inbox via free subscription each weekday and you can get it by clicking here.

Healthcare Surprises

Well, my friends, as periodically seems to happen, several projects have ganged up on me and I covet the time I would normally spend finding something interesting for you.

So just the joke today. Probably tomorrow, too. Apologies to all.

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SURPRISES IN THE HEALTHCARE BILL

If your name is "Larry," your doctor's name must also be "Larry."

Each page coated with a thin film of Vicks Vaporub.

Puts a 10-minute time limit on any doctor keeping you waiting in your undies.

Requires every hospital to employ at least one doctor as "hunky" as the ones on TV.

Prohibits insurance companies from calling "More Cowbell Fever" a pre-existing condition.

Doctors will now be able to prescribe laughter as the best medicine.

Leeches are back!

Does not cover your favorite sports team choking at the last minute.

[David Letterman's Top Ten with several edits by Mark Raymond]

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WORDS for YOUR WEEK: "Too many people in this world spend so much time watching their health that they haven't the time to enjoy it." (Josh Billings)

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Lost Note

Thanksgiving Week. Is it just me, or has this year simply flown by?

Hey, I had one of those compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) burn out on me recently. I know there's a wee spot of mercury in them so you can't just toss 'em away or throw them in the regular recycle bin.

Which led me to this site.

By the way, Home Depot has the country's largest CFL recycling program.

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A policeman was patrolling the streets of Dublin late one night when he noticed a man down on his hands and knees by a lamp-post.

He strolled over, inquiring, "And what might you be doing?"

"Sure and I've dropped a ten-pound note, Constable," explained the man.

Upon hearing this, the police officer also drops to his hands and knees and begins searching. After a few minutes, he asks the man, "Are you sure you dropped it here?"

"I didn't drop it here," comes the reply. "I dropped it in the next street over."

"Are ye daft, man?" exclaims the policeman. "What the devil are you looking in this street for?"

"Because the light's better here."

[selected from lightbulbjokes.com]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: Did you every "mollycoddle" someone? Our old friend Latin gave us "calere" which meant "warm" and later used in "calidium" which was a warm drink Around 1300 in France and Western Europe that became "caudel" and about 300 years later it was known as "caudle," which was what they called a warm drink for invalids. The process of "coddling" is to gently warm a liquid - usually water - until it is almost, but not quite, boiling. You generally cook eggs at that temperature, so you get coddled eggs. In the mid-1700s someone added the "molly" to the front of the word. Molly was a nickname for Mary at the time. The word was originally used as an insult and a noun. To be a "mollycoddle" was to be an old, infirm woman. Now we generally use the term to mean we are treating someone gently, or gingerly. (Just as we would treat an old, infirm woman. Hmmm. The circle is complete.)

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Random Meditations and Musings

My wife works for our local newspaper, which has privileged me to meet an awful lot of creative people; writers mostly. Jim Smith is one of them. He used to cover the police beat and eventually became a columnist, as well. He retired two years ago and immediately began writing a blog.

It was there that I saw this material, which Jim has graciously allowed me to reprint. You may have seen some of these before, but I haven't -- and in the course of what I do I see almost everything -- so I'm hoping today's post is new to you, as well.

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MEDITATIONS AND MUSINGS

I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer's Internet browsing history if you die.

Nothing feels worse than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

There is great need for a sarcasm font.

Was learning cursive really necessary?

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

Bad decisions make good stories.

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know you just won't do anything productive for the rest of the day.

Can all we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blu-Ray? I don't want to have to re-start my collection ... again.

I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Microsoft's Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to the eight page paper I'm *sure* I didn't make any changes to.

"Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means this garment will never be cleaned.

I hate it when I just miss a call and immediately call back, but it rings six times and goes to voice mail. What did you do? Drop the phone and run away when I didn't answer?

I hate leaving my house looking good and feeling confident and then not see anyone important all day. It feels like a waste.

I keep some people's phone numbers in my cell just so I know not to answer when they call. You, too?

I think the freezer deserves a light, as well.

[with thanks to Jim Smith's blog]

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Let's see, Bonnie is still in Florida - flying back on Sunday - and my daughter and I have gotten along pretty darn well this week. Couple of public dinners this weekend, and then back to my getting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night life when I return to work on Monday.

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WEB SITE of the WEEK: Sheldon is a 10-year old boy genius who invented software that makes the Internet faster. Now he's a gazillionaire and lives with his grandfather and Arthur, the talking duck he created by downloading an encyclopedia and speech recognition software into its brain. Then there's Flaco, the gecko that lives with him but whom only Arthur can understand. I really relate to the grandfather character, we have the same body type. Find all this family-friendly webcomic goodness at http://www.sheldoncomics.com/. I thought for the next couple of weeks I'd share some of my favorite webcomic sites. Feel free to let me know what yours are. (Sidebar: I just checked out today's comic and you're likely not to get it, so do click through some of the archives to get a better feel for Dave Kellet's work. It's good stuff! To those who *want* to get it, Flaco can only say the word "Squee" and in today's issue, he's trying to teach that word to the bird, who's obviously not getting the pronunciation right.)

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Mark's Musings is sent each weekday, when I get around to it, using Ezine Director and I pay a little extra every day to make sure my posts are certified by Habeas to be a safe source of e-mail. Subscribe, view past issues in my Archives, and click through the pages over at my web site. To contact me and one day get a reply, click here. Still on vacation so I'm still not thinking up anything funny to go in this spot. Still no apologies. You can forward or reprint "Mark's Musings" freely but please keep the credits attached. The credits SO want to be kept attached. Original material and musings © 2009 by Mark Raymond. I update this blog with a copy of my post daily and occasionally with "bonus material" whenever the mood or muse strikes. Look for the label that says "bonus" and you can bring all that extra material up with one click. My personal mission statement remains John 3:30. Find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/baldmark/. Seen any good movies lately?

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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "Show us a man who never makes a mistake and we will show you a man who never makes anything." (H.L. Wayland)

Star Trek Quotes

I apologize for my nerdiness being in full bloom today.

When this arrived in my Inbox from the folks at How Stuff Works, I couldn't resist passing it on.

The best science fiction takes our current society and trends, then imagines what they will look like and do to us years and years and quite often, millennia, from now.

Star Trek was among the best Sci-Fi out there, apparently.

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QUOTES FROM STAR TREK EVERYONE CAN ENJOY

"In this galaxy there's a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets. And in the whole universe, three million million galaxies like ours. And in all that, and perhaps more ... only *one* of each of us." (Dr. McCoy)

"Do you want to tell me what's bothering you or would you like to break some more furniture?" (Deanna Troi)

"The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe." (Dr. McCoy)

"How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life." (James Kirk)

"I would be delighted to offer any advice I can on understanding women. When I have some, I'll let you know." (Jean Luc Picard)

"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not weakness. That is life." (Jean Luc Picard)

"Money is money, but women ... are better." (Nog, a Ferengi)

"Believing oneself to be perfect is often the sign of a delusional mind." (The Android Data)

"Curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want." (Spock)

"Act, and you shall have dinner; wait, and you shall be dinner." (A Klingon Proverb)

[with thanks to John Petrie at the University of Georgia]

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WISDOM for YOUR WEEK: "We live by faith, not by sight." (2 Corinthians 5:7)

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Mark's Musings goes to warp on an RSS Feed and is also available via e-mail each weekday. Energize your Inbox with a copy of my post by clicking here.

Dog Shoes

I don't usually click through any of the advertising banners posted on the websites I visit, but this morning I saw one that featured a rainbow-colored athletic shoe, and it caught my eye. That's just the kind of footwear I would choose for when my band plays somewhere.

What I found was that for $62 (plus shipping), you can customize your very own athletic shoe, right down to the color of the stitching and you can even have a "personal ID" monogrammed into it.

But then I wondered if this was made in the U.S.A., because most shoes aren't. And that led me to this site, which I thought you might find helpful as you go about your holiday shopping.

I ask a moment of indulgence from my international readers.

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My dog chewed up the tongue on one of my new, very expensive running shoes. I hoped to save my investment, so I took it to a shoe repair shop.

I dropped the shoe on the counter and told the man, "My dog got hold of this."

He picked the shoe up, looked it over carefully, nodded his head and murmured, "uh huh, uh huh," then put the shoe back down.

"Well, what do you recommend?" I asked.

He looked me levelly in the eye and replied, "Give your dog the other shoe."

[Pastor Tim's Illustrations]

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WONDER for YOUR WEEK: Why are there so many magazines about running? Doesn't it all come down to rapidly placing one foot in front of the other?

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Mark's Musings jogs into your Inbox every weekday and you can get it by clicking here. It's also available via RSS Feed. See the right column.

No Movies?

You may have heard or read that the DVD industry is often what keeps Hollywood afloat, and indeed, it is a rare movie these days that doesn't make a profit. If it tanks in the cinema, the DVD sales and rentals make up the difference.

According to National Public Radio, Hollywood is all about "windows." The theatrical release window, the DVD release window, the premium cable channel and Internet window ... during each of these windows, movie studios are raking in cash from us, the consumers, eager to see these flights of fancy and often, to see them again later. And each time we pay.

Now, however, with everything "streaming" through both your computer and your cable/satellite television links, the DVD is in danger of becoming obsolete. In fact, Hollywood is already anticipating this and has asked the FCC for permission to disable certain parts of your television when their movie is selected, so you can't dub illegal copies once they begin streaming original premiere content direct to the small screen. At least not easily.

So if you're planning on investing in a new DVD player this Christmas, maybe you'd better think twice.

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WHAT IF MOVIES HAD NEVER BEEN INVENTED?

Alfred Hitchcock would be a mystery novelist.

Blockbuster would be a demolition company.

Blu-Ray discs would show ultra-clear video of Richard Simmons' workouts.

Your blind date this weekend would be dinner and a barn-raising.

"And the Academy Award for best Flipbook goes to ... Flixar!"

Your waiter would be that nice, quiet, Spielberg boy.

Paparazzi would be hounding puppeteers.

"This Summer at the Globe Theatre ... Taming of the Shrew III: Revenge of the Shrew!"

Tom Cruise arrested for breaking into homes and jumping on sofas.

Russell Crowe's ego would only be five times normal size.

France would be forced to idolize Huey Lewis.

[Chris White's Top Five on Movies; a few edits and rewrites by Mark Raymond]

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WORDS for YOUR WEEK: "A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission, and the babysitter were worth it." (Alfred Hitchcock)

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Mark's Musings does its own stunts on an RSS Feed and is also served with popcorn via e-mail each weekday. Stream your own subscription straight to your Inbox with a click here.

Hospital Call

My friends, you are down to about five shopping weeks - around 38 days, depending on when you read this - before Christmas is once again upon us.

Here are nearly 500 toys and gadgets and gifts from Amazon to choose from while you still have time to allow for holiday shipping.

If someone would get me a Kindle, I'd appreciate it. Anyone? Anyone at all? Bueller?

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A friend of mine was in the hospital, about to give birth to her first child.

When I telephoned to see how she was doing and ask if the baby had arrived safely, the nurse said it had and my friend was doing fine.

"Did she have a boy or a girl?" I asked.

"I'm sorry," the nurse replied, "privacy laws will not allow us to give out that information."

"All right, I can understand that," I said. "Let me try this: Can you tell me what she *didn't* have?"

"It wasn't a boy," came the prompt reply.

[Top Greetings via Wit and Wisdom]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: The other day someone we knew used a form of the word "synergy" in a sentence. Something like, "Well, we were certainly being synergistic, if nothing else." Not being a word my wife hears often, she was curious about its meaning and origin. It's a compound Greek word, originally used as "synergein," and made up of syn, meaning "together" and ergon, meaning "work." (You see the root of the word "ergonomics" in it.) So, when something is "synergistic," it means that two - or more - things are working well together.

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Mark's Musings is available with an RSS Feed epidural or via e-mail each weekday. Give birth to your own subscription by clicking here. Won't take nine months, either.

Make My Day II

I thought I'd revisit the recent posts at "It Made My Day." Well, at least the family-friendly ones.

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IT MADE MY DAY, AGAIN

I recently wore my glasses to work for the first time. My co-workers were making lame jokes about how I looked like Clark Kent. A few minutes later I started laughing really hard when I remembered I had put on my Superman boxer shorts that morning. It made my day.

I work at a very large church and while doing a routine light bulb change in the auditorium, one of our piano players came in, turned on our enormous PA system, and began playing dramatic music while I changed small light bulbs. It made my day.

I raised my hand in Cryptography class and said I had a question. My professor asked me what it was. I replied, "an interrogative statement used to test knowledge and gather information, but that's not important right now." It made my day, and his.

The other day I told my boss that the reason he doesn't make any mistakes is because he never does any work. He agreed and laughed. It made my day.

I was sitting at the table with my one-year old sister when she picked up a crayon, licked it, and then threw it down. I picked it up and was amused to see that the color of the crayon was "bittersweet." It made my day.

I was walking my dog when a purse snatcher ran by and stole the poop bag I was carrying. It made my day.

This morning I was walking down a road in my neighborhood when I began hearing very loud, epic-sounding music coming from a nearby apartment. As I got closer, I realized the music was from the "Lord of the Rings" soundtrack. I yelled, "For Frodooooooo!" and someone in the apartment yelled back, "Elendiiiiiiiiiil!" It made my day.

The automatic doors at a store I was trying to enter got jammed and wouldn't open. A young guy walked past me, grabbed the doors, and yanked them open for me. He then turned back to me, smiled, and said, "You have to use the Force." It made my day.

I was sitting with my 12-year old cousin, and I was barefoot, though I did have on tan nylons. She must have gotten bored because she started picking at my feet. So I grabbed at the loose nylon near my ankle and pulled it out a bit, saying, "This darn skin is so stretchy since I lost that 300 pounds." She screamed "Ewwwww!" and ran off. It made my day.

[selected from itmademyday.com]

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Well, it's that time of year again. My wife makes her semi-annual pilgrimage to Florida for a week tomorrow, helping her mom transport her stroke-impaired step-dad to their winter home. Pray that they have a good trip and that the house is still in relatively the same shape as she left it by next Friday.

And with that, I'll see you on Monday.

Mark

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WEB SITE of the WEEK: Google Earth has teamed up with photo gallery site Flickr to create an "Earth Album" at http://www.earthalbum.com/. Click anywhere on the map and photos come up for that state or country. Since the photos are based on the top picks at Flickr, they change periodically, so you may want to bookmark the site and come back again and again for fresh pics. It's a great way to get a sneak peek at your next vacation destination.

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Mark's Musings is sent each weekday, when I get around to it, using Ezine Director and I pay a little extra every day to make sure my posts are certified by Habeas to be a safe source of e-mail. Subscribe, view past issues in my Archives, and click through the pages over at my web site. To contact me and one day get a reply, click here. I'm on vacation so I'm not thinking up anything funny to go in this spot. No apologies. You can forward or reprint "Mark's Musings" freely but please keep the credits attached. Keeping the credits on makes my day. Original material and musings © 2009 by Mark Raymond. I update this blog with a copy of my post daily and occasionally with "bonus material" whenever the mood or muse strikes. Look for the label that says "bonus" and you can bring all that extra material up with one click. My personal mission statement remains John 3:30. Find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/baldmark/. Found the checkbook! Yay!!

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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "No race can prosper until it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem." (Booker T. Washington)

Guy Movies

A little bit of this and that today, giving you enough links to make up for my dearth of them this week.

What with all the advances in combining live-action film with animation these days, it's hard to believe that the groundbreaking movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is 21 years old. The film, created by Robert Zemeckis, is finally getting a sequel.

And speaking of entertainment, Walt Disney plans on giving Mickey Mouse a makeover, complete with an aggressive personality, for a new video game next year. They are trying to be careful about it, however, since Mickey's image is responsible for a whopping $5 billion in merchandise sales every year.

Finally, with Christmas coming up in about six weeks, you might want to get the literature-loving woman in your life one of these clever little handbags, handmade by designer Olympia Le-Tan.

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MOVIES A MAN WANTS TO SEE

Rocket Launching Aliens and the Scantily-Clad Women Who Love Them

The Beer Hunter

Supermodels in Bikinis Racing Cars

The Neverending Bullets

Death to Jane Austen!

The Toilet Seat Stays Up

This Title Contains More Words Than All the Dialogue in the Movie

The Three Stooges Visit Victoria's Secret

[selected from Chris White's Top Five on the Movies; family-friendly edits by Mark Raymond]

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WISDOM for YOUR WEEK: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." (Proverbs 4:23)

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Mark's Musings casts an RSS Feed and is also available via e-mail each weekday. Subscribe by clicking here.