School Report

Here in the States it's Memorial Day, 2008.

Hey, that's a staged patriotic photo that you may never have seen before.

What is unique about this photo is that it is made up entirely of people. Soldiers from Camp Dodge, in Iowa, during the summer of 1918.

Photographers Arthur Mole and John Thomas actually created many photos of this nature, all with only people forming the shapes, from 1915 to 1920. You can find a much larger gallery here.

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Our 13-year old daughter, Melanie, had to write a report for school about World War II, specifically about D-Day and the invasion of Normandy.

Not thrilled at the prospect of reading a lot of material, she moaned, "Isn't there a movie about this?"

I told her there were probably several, but I couldn't think of any of their names.

Then her face brightened and she exclaimed, "Oh! I remember one of them! Wasn't it called 'Finding Private Nemo'?"

[Top Greetings via Wit and Wisdom, with edits by Mark Raymond]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: So my wife wanted to know where the phrase, "let's blow this popsicle stand" originated. Let's start with that word, "popsicle." The sweet, icy treat was invented in San Francisco in 1924 and the word is believed to be a combination of lollipop and icicle. The word "blow" in the sense of "to leave an undesirable location" is much more vague and hard to pinpoint, with some references dating back to sailor's use of language in the late 1500s. There is some evidence to the phrase being used by teenagers at soda shops (they were heard to exclaim, "let's blow this pop stand") and the phrase may have been adopted after the soda shops began selling popsicles. But, in the end, I'm sorry, honey, I'm not exactly sure.

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Bad Prom Date

If only your daughter was this thrifty, eh?

Vanessa Randall, who lives in Wayne, Maine (and hey, that's just fun to say), started to make her prom dress three years ago. But not from duct tape, as so many others have done, oh, no, that's passé. Vanessa used gum wrappers. Seriously.

Okay, okay, the wrappers were sewn onto a layer of duct tape, so once again that ubiquitous material surfaces, but it was still a pretty nifty idea. There's a picture of Vanessa just to the right, there. I wonder if she needed deodorant? Wouldn't she already smell all minty fresh and wintergreeny?

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TOP TEN SIGNS YOU PICKED THE WRONG DATE FOR PROM

10. You have to leave early because his Dad needs the ice cream truck back.

9. She stuffed Kleenex^® into her bra but didn't take them out of the box first.

8. Tinting the windows of the family station wagon does *not* make it a limo.

7. Her dress was strapless. She wore the corsage, anyway. Pinned to her skin.

6. You hear him boast, "My grandfather was buried in this tux."

5. Your Mom says you look like a fairy tale couple. Your friends say it's "Beauty and the Beast."

4. His boutonnière is a sprig of parsley from the baked potato he had at the restaurant.

3. When the chaperones aren't looking, he spikes the punch ... with more punch.

2. You hear the principal ask your date, "Mary, didn't you graduate more than thirty years ago?"

AND THE NUMBER ONE SIGN YOU PICKED THE WRONG DATE FOR PROM?

1. Three words: Darth Maul makeup.

[with thanks to David Letterman's staff and their Top Ten List; family-friendly edits and additional material by Mark Raymond]

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For most of us in the States, this is a three-day weekend and the unofficial start of summer. Gosh, it's been so cool and cloudy this May, that'll be a relief! Hey, I'll see you on Monday.

Mark

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WEB SITE of the WEEK: According to the folks at Creative Commons, What's Next and Future Shock, we are in the midst of a century of incredibly rapid cultural and technological change where much of what we know will be extinct and out-of-use by 2050. Check out the timeline at http://pradt.net/imgs/book/grand/extinctiontimeline.jpg. There's a disclaimer that says "not to be taken too seriously" but it's still fun to look at some of the items. My own prediction is that watches and televisions will be the next pieces of tech to go belly up or morph into something else.

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Mark's Musings is a Habeas-certified spam free mailer. Subscribe, view past issues in the Archives, or help defray publishing costs at my web site. To contact Mark, click here. To ascertain whether or not you should pass the vehicle in front of you, first ask yourself, "Do I really need to?". You can forward or reprint "Mark's Musings" freely but please keep the credits attached. The credits sometimes sleep in, but don't penalize them for that by leaving without them. Original material and commentary © 2008 by Mark Raymond. Even this silly paragraph. I update this blog with a copy of this post daily, and extra thoughts, videos, and the occasional other bit of stuff and nonsense on the weekends. My personal mission statement is John 3:30. Insert non-sequitir here.

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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "Never judge a book by its movie." (J.W. Eagan)

Window Promise

Say what?

A simple accounting change in the way state and federal governments have to report debt have now pegged the United States deficit at somewhere in the vicinity of $62 TRILLION. The culprit, we are told, is the "mushrooming cost of Medicare and Social Security benefits as more baby boomers reach retirement."

That means each and every American homeowner is on the hook for $531,472 as our share of that national debt. Wow. Better think about refinancing. Again.

But there is good news. Economist Dean Baker says in that same article that all we have to do is fix healthcare and depend on our kids to generate more wealth than ever before, and all will be fine.

Ulp. I think my retirement date just wiggled another few years farther away....

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Ten months ago a homeowner replaced all the windows in the family home with the very expensive double-insulated energy-efficient easy- cleaning vinyl windows sold through a telemarketer.

Last week the homeowner received a call from the local company that had installed them, explaining that the work had been done nearly a year ago, and they still had not been paid.

"You need to wait a couple more months," the homeowner explained.

"Why?" asked the caller. "What will be different in two months?"

"Now, don't think I don't remember what you told me when I bought them," said the homeowner. "Your salesman clearly said these windows would pay for themselves in a year!"

[originally seen in Net 153s Smile A Day]

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WISDOM for YOUR WEEK: "I will listen to what God the Lord will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints -- but let them not return to folly." (Psalm 85:8)

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Coffee Addiction

Ah, the blessed bean.

Calling it a "safe drug," researchers at the University of North Dakota have recently concluded that coffee is an effective inhibitor of your brain's absorption of cholesterol (and other harmful things in your blood), and plays an important part in reducing your risk of dementia.

Just one more reason to smile as you sip.

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AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE

You may be too addicted to coffee if...

...you grind the beans yourself. With your mouth.

...you can sleep with your eyes open.

...you can take a picture of yourself from ten feet away without using the timer.

...you've worn out your third pair of tennis shoes. This week.

...when the cafeteria blender broke, the kitchen ladies withheld coffee from you for an hour, and then used your fingers to make the smoothies.

...you do ten miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged in.

...you have a picture of your coffee mug. On your coffee mug.

...you short out motion detectors.

...your nervous twitch registers on the Richter Scale.

...you can ski uphill.

[seen all over; too many sources to attempt to give credit, but I did do some editing and add some original material]

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WONDER for YOUR WEEK: If your coffee cup had something else in it, could you still call it a coffee cup?

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Mark's Musings is also sent each weekday via email. Brew up your own subscription for free by clicking here.

Imported Cookies

When it comes to cookies, my favorite are the chocolate chip ones my wife bakes, with her special "secret ingredient" that keeps them soft and chewy well beyond the norm. Next up would be the "no bakes" my friend Larry makes and sells at his deli. But ranking a very close third would be the "Double-Stuf" Oreo^® cookie, made by Nabisco. (Which, for you trivia people, stands for National Biscuit Company.)

Well, if only I had been on Interstate 80 in the wee hours of Monday morning ... I could have eaten those delicious cookies to my heart's content. A truck carrying 14 tons - 14 tons! - slipped into the median when the driver fell asleep, overturning, and spilled them across both sections of the highway. That's about 28,000 pounds of cookie goodness. No injuries were mentioned in the news account, so we'll assume the driver is okay. If only a milk truck had been nearby....

Ah well, that's the way the cookies crumbles, I guess. (Weak ending, I know. Tell me what *you* would have said....)

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Since I'm stationed at a base in Korea, my family must stay in the States, but they continually send "care" packages through the mail. On each package they have to apply a customs form listing the contents inside and their value.

On one such box from home, the words "homemade chocolate chip cookies" were listed. Next to those words, in the value column, my wife had written, "Priceless."

[America in Uniform, thanks to Ed Peacher's Raucous Laughter]

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WORDS for YOUR WEEK: "There is no love sincerer than the love of food." (George Bernard Shaw)

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Mark's Musings is also sent via email each weekday. Dunk this post in milk and then chew your own subscription by clicking here.

Monday Groaners

Long, busy weekend that plumb tuckered me out, folks.

So that means just a few groaners to get me through Monday and I'll be back with your regularly scheduled tidbits and musings the rest of the week. I promise.

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MORE MONDAY GROANERS

Lots of cheese I did melt, I'm ruing it.
I was told I should start in to chewing it.
Though I made quite a mess,
I'll gladly confess,
I really did have fonduing it.

I heard a story about a dog who ran two miles just to pick up a stick, but I didn't believe it. It was too far-fetched.

If a poet edits his own work, is he reversing himself?

The people who ran the Roman Coliseum just couldn't make any money. The lions kept eating all the prophets.

What we really need in this country is a political party for janitors so we can have some sweeping reforms.

If Shakespeare had written the "Hokey Pokey":
O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinsistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,
Mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wild release from Heaven's yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the Poke -- banish now thy doubt.
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.

[JokeMaster with edits and additional material by Mark Raymond]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: Where did we get the word "boondocks"? From the Philippine people near the end of World War II. American soldiers returning from the war brought the word back with them. In the Philippines, "bundok" means "mountain" in the sense of something wild and untamed. We adopted it to mean any remote place far from civilization.

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Mark's Musings is also sent via email each weekday. Get your own subscription for free without having to even leave your chair by simply clicking here.

Mark's Mail

Sometimes I receive emails from list members and friends that I'm just not sure what to do with, so I'm going to start periodically using them here in the blog on the weekends. As always, feel free to leave a comment and start a discussion thread about any of this stuff.

SPACE SLIDESHOW
List member Dianne F., who apparently runs her own little list of material, sent me a link to a space slideshow with some pretty nice orchestrated music to go with it. You can find it at: http://www.greatdanepro.com/somewhere%20in%20time/index.htm.

SPACE PEN AND MORE
List member Lloyd D. reminds us that the first moon landing used a telemetry computer that had less than half the computing power of the PC you're using to read this blog. The problem was that it just wasn't fast enough to handle the actual landing and the lunar module pilots had to handle the moon landing manually. If they had made any calculation mistakes, he says, we'd be talking about the MEN in the moon.

The Fisher Space Pen I posted about (see previous blog entries) is also a favorite of those in the frozen food industry, says Lloyd, for it's ability to write on any type of surface. And, he asks, did you know that Bic^® pens are now made in France?

ON GETTING OLDER
List member Carmencita A. from the Philippines read both posts on "You Know You're Getting Older When..." and finally wrote to me:

Sir Mark, as God's children we have the privilege of living beyond Time into Eternity, the kingdom life being far more wonderful beyond description. Hence, for the children of God in Jesus Christ, there is no such thing as becoming older, because - having received the Son - we are no longer living in Time but in Eternity.

Amen, Carmencita!

BIRTHDAY HAT
For my birthday, I treated myself to a new Palm Treo "Smartphone," so I wouldn't have to carry both a cell phone and a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). The two are combined into one in that unit, and it's pretty cool. That evening, we went to Mongolian BBQ for dinner and the waitstaff made me a special hat for my birthday. I emailed myself the picture so it still counts as "Mark's Mail." Anyway, here's the pic from my new phone:




That's it for today ... keep those cards and letters coming, folks!

Post #200: Random Thoughts II

RANDOM ACTS of THINKING
Part the Second

My lawyer told me that "ethics is just another name for nothing left to bill."

The beautiful thing about the two-party system is that it keeps 50% of the politicians out of office.

I need something to relieve stress. I asked my doctor to prescribe money.

My boss is able to see both sides of an issue. His side and the side that doesn't have a prayer.

If life is a game, just once I'd like to make the playoffs.

My wife is really into this "going green" stuff. She's started recycling arguments from earlier in our marriage.

I had a physical by one of those online doctors. He told me to turn my head and click.

It costs a lot to run a country. And it wouldn't really cost any less if we just let it walk.

I don't think my cell phone company is taking me seriously. The last time I called the voice menu said "this call may be recorded so we can play it back at company parties and have a really good laugh."

The other day my wife said she thought wrinkles add character to a person. Then she said she was going to live by this belief and stop ironing.

You know that weight I lost last summer? I think it picked up my trail, tracked me down, and ambushed me sometime this winter.

Calling a person the "runner-up" is just a polite way of saying you're the first loser.

The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way you should place your bets.

I diet religiously. I eat what I want and pray I don't gain weight.

You've watched "Star Wars" too many times if, while trying to capture that elusive last Cheerio in the bowl of milk, you hear yourself mumble, "the Force is strong with this one..."

[hijacked, handled, hauled, hooked, humbled, and hog-tied from Chris White's Top Five, Better Half, Randy Glasbergen, Hallmark's Maxine, Bob Thave, Menards, Nest Heads, Real Life Adventures, Mikey's Funnies, Colorado Comments, and the head of Mark Raymond]

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Running a "mailbag" kind of post in my blog tomorrow, if anybody wants to stop by. If not, I'll see you on Monday.

Mark

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WEB SITES of the WEEK: Microsoft's new "Worldwide Telescope" software at http://worldwidetelescope.org/ has been getting a lot of press lately. It's a free program you download that stitches together imagery from the Hubble Telescope as well as several earth-bound observatories to take you on a voyage through our solar system and beyond. It will only work with Windows XP and Vista, however, and it will take awhile to download if you use dialup. Another option would be to use Google's "Google Sky" platform at http://google.com/sky/. All you need for that is your web browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple's Safari, for example). Both programs will give you absolutely stunning views of God's handiwork in outer space.

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Mark's Musings is also sent via email each weekday and is a Habeas-certified spam free mailer. Subscribe, view past issues in the Archives, or help defray publishing costs at my web site. To contact Mark, click here. To make a joyful noise, always sing as if you were in the shower. You can forward or reprint "Mark's Musings" freely but please keep the credits attached. The credits are never void and never prohibited. Original material and commentary © 2008 by Mark Raymond. Even this silly paragraph. My personal mission statement is John 3:30. Further up and further in!

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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now." (African Proverb)

Childish Defects

You've probably heard about this by now, and you may have even seen them on the Discovery Channel.

Michelle Duggar is pregnant. This is not news. It is her 18th child. That IS news.

No, that is not a typo. The Duggars will soon have eighteen (18) children. And every child's name begins with the letter "J." I know not why.

Here's a page of "fun facts" about this family. The one that blows me away is that they are debt-free.

I can't make this stuff up, folks.

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IF CHILDREN COULD BE RECALLED, LIKE CARS...

"Unit experiences very unsafe wobbling when placed in upright position."

"Regardless of the time set, baby keeps going off at two o'clock in the morning!"

"Instead of cooling off, engine tends to overheat near bedtime."

"Mute button missing."

"Leaky O-Ring in rear exhaust port."

"Verbal commands seem to go in one aural input and out the other with no internal processing apparent."

"Controller for chores constantly overridden by video game controller."

"Unit has no common sense, which was clearly one of the original features requested!"

[Chris White's Top Five on Parenting w/edits and additional material by Mark Raymond]

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WISDOM for YOUR WEEK: "Honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." (Exodus 20:12)

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Mark's Musings is also sent via email each weekday. Kids, get your very own subscription for free here!

Space Pen

Now here's something I didn't know ... the Space Shuttle is rigged to be detonated by NASA within two minutes of lift-off if things start to go badly.

Seriously, explosives are attached to the two solid rocket boosters and if they should misfire and it appears that the shuttle will crash onto a populated area, an Air Force officer throws a couple of switches and, blammo, the whole thing goes up in smoke and hydrazine before it can cause a *really* major issue.

Now, if the shuttle goes off course AFTER the first two minutes but before it clears Earth's atmosphere, the crew gets a parachute and some rafts and, well, lots of prayer.

The shuttle Discovery is scheduled to go up tomorrow as I write this, but some online news sources are reporting there is at least a 50% change the launch will be delayed.

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A POPULAR STORY...

When NASA first started sending astronauts into space, they quickly discovered that existing ball point pens would not work in zero gravity conditions.

To combat this problem, the agency spent years and over a million dollars developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside-down, on almost any surface - including glass - and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 degrees Celsius.

The Russians used a pencil.

THE REALITY...

NASA originally used pencils in space, just as Soviet cosmonauts did. The problem, however, was that occasionally the lead would break and the bits of graphite would become hazards in the zero gravity environment. In July of 1965, Paul C. Fisher developed the first "pressurized pen" - completely on his own, NASA had never asked for his help or input - and in December of 1967, after two years of rigorous testing, he sold 400 pens to the Space Administration for $2.95 each. The "Fisher Space Pen" has been used by both Russia and the USA for manned space flights since then.

[first bit from urban legend; second bit from Snopes]

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WONDER for YOUR WEEK: Could an astronaut be the luckiest person on Earth?

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Mark's Musings is also sent via email each weekday. Your own subscription is available for free by clicking here.