Pie Are Round??

For years I've heard the argument about PiR², no, pie are round. What does this pie pan say about the subject??

I bought this pie pan several years ago at a St. Vinnies thrift store for two-bits. At that price I couldn't resist. It also makes it easy to cut the pie, just go straight across from corner to corner.

Ready To Go It Alone??

When he was teabagging, Gov. Perry was talking about Texas seceding from the union. Now two weeks later he is wanting the Federal Government to come riding to the rescue when there are a handful of cases of swine flu.

From the San Marcos Daily Record.
Published: April 25, 2009 01:58 pm
Perry takes precautionary measures to address swine flu
Austin — Gov. Rick Perry today in a precautionary measure requested the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide 37,430 courses of antiviral medications from the Strategic National Stockpile to Texas to prevent the spread of swine flu. Currently, three cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Texas.
“As a precautionary measure, I have requested that medication be on hand in Texas to help curb the spread of swine flu by helping those with both confirmed and suspected cases of this swine flu virus, as well as healthcare providers who may have come in contact with these patients,” said Gov. Rick Perry. “We will continue to work with our local, state and federal health officials to ensure public safety is protected.”

From the same paper dateline Apr. 15, 2009.
During his speech to hundreds in a U.S. flag-waving crowd, there were several shouts of "Secede!"
Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union. However, Perry said he sees no reason why Texas should make such a move.
"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

Independent my Ass!! Perry and his cronies still haven't got rid of the milk tooth for sucking on the government tit!! What a bunch of fucking hypocrites!!

S.O.

For almost as long as we have been together The Old Lady has called me The S.O. Some people automatically add a "B" to that. I wonder if this is what she has been talking about??
H/T to Yellowdog Granny for the pic.

I have always liked otters as they are so playful.

Tattoo

Funny how while cruising the intratubes something will jump in front of you and you say, "I gotta post this". This is in a column called "Drunk of the Week" in the online version of the Seattle paper called The Stranger.

A couple of the comments.
"This person has desecrated their butt!
Posted by Heather on April 22, 2009 at 12:26 PM

I think that is the point Heather. Thanks Kelly, much better than that taco bar bullshit.
Posted by me on April 22, 2009 at 12:52 PM"

Is It A Blue Moon??

Today they had turnovers at the carniceria across the street.
Compare this to the one at the bottom of the page, the post I did a couple of days ago.

Life UP On The Tundra

The beginning of the week they got two feet of snow, by the end of the week temps will be pushing into the sixties possibly seventies depending on which forecast you go by. The following is datelined Apr. 22, 2009 in The Daily Mining Gazette.

BARAGA - The fire danger posted outside the Michigan Department of Natural Resources' Baraga Operations Service Center read very high last week, but thanks to the snow, it now reads low.
"There is no danger now," said Dan Laux, fire supervisor for the Baraga management unit. "Once it dries off and warms up again, we'll probably be back into somewhat of a fire season, but a lot of it will depend on this added moisture. I'm sure it will help things green up quicker when it gets warmer."
Prior to the snowfall that dumped as much as 24 inches in the region, the fire season in the Upper Peninsula was under way, Laux said.

Funny how a couple of feet of snow will lower the fire danger!!

Today 54/ 47°F Partly Cloudy / Wind
Friday 59/ 37°FSct T-Storms
Saturday 37/ 33°FRain / Snow
Sunday 39/ 34°FRain / Snow Showers
Monday 41/ 34°FAM Clouds / PM Sun

A local TV station was predicting temps could be in the 70's Friday and Saturday with lower temps near the lakes.

AM Radio

Back in the day we only had AM radio and it seemed like you could get a lot of stations during the day and at night you had trouble tuning in just one station as there were stations coming in from one end of the dial to the other. Back then I could get a lot of local stations (by local I mean those within a hundred mile radius or maybe a little farther), most of which were daylight stations. They would sign on around 6am and sign off around sundown. Now whenever I try using an AM radio, there is very little that comes in. I don't know if they have powered down the AM stations or what, but at the Ranch UP on the tundra I'm lucky if I can get one or two stations on the AM band. I have an old truck ('73 Dodge) with an AM radio (and only AM) and sometimes all I get on it is static.

When I was in High School I would listen to the radio at night because we only had one channel on the TV, sometimes the radio was more entertaining. I was UP near the shores of the big Gitchee Gummee, but at times I would tune in stations from as far away as New Orleans. Also the station in Nashville that broadcast the 'Grand Ole Opry' on Saturday nite. The station I listened to most at night (after the sun went down) was WLS from Chicago. Weeknights there was a DJ named Dick Biondi who played the popular music of the day. He is back in Chicago, now at WLS-FM and still playing the same songs. He did a song called "On top of a Pizza" sung to the tune of "On top of Old Smokie". Once early in the morning (as the sun was coming up) I managed to tune in WLS while I was on Cape Cod and was amazed it came in on my car radio.

Found the quote below on a site called eHow. It was a post about how to strenghten AM reception.
"Tips & Warnings
AM reception is usually better at night because AM radio signals bounce off the ionosphere."

Nowadays AM radio is almost all talk and I remember when the transition started. On one of the local stations there was a DJ who liked to hear himself talk more than he liked spinning records. That started the end of AM radio for me.

I thought I was really high-tech when I bought an 8-track player with a FM tuner built in. You plugged the antenna cable into the back of the player and ran another cable from it to the in-dash radio. Now I'm up to a built-in AM-FM Cassette player in my vehicle and I hardly ever put it on the AM band as there isn't anything there of interest to me. At times I have found "Classic Country" (the only kind I'll listen to as modern country sounds like a bunch of whiners, usually whining about God) on the AM side, but not lately.

Sauna Twin

The interesting thing about this video is that even tho it is in Spanish, they pronounce 'sauna' correctly not like most English speakers.

I have a coffee cup that used to have the correct and not so correct way to say sauna, but the dishwasher wiped out the printing on the cup and now it is plain white.

Jack Daniels

Here's a song for MRMacrum.

Yooper Bar

Thought I'd make a few people home-sick. Did you know there is a Facebook page for fans of Yooper Bars??

They Call This A Turnover??

We all know the saying, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result". Well, here is exhibit "A".

The Old Lady likes turnovers and other forms of bakery and this weekend she bought a package of small turnovers at Kroger. Now turnovers are supposed to be light and airy and flaky (the crust part, not the filling) and these are anything but. These are kinda sodden and leathery. You need good teeth to bite off a chunk and I'm due to get mine redone.

The carniceria across the street makes decent turnovers, the only problem is they only make them once in a blue moon, if that. The Star Trek tribute below is not a turnover. It has a crust that is more bread-like than a pastry crust. But at least I don't have to gnaw my way thru it to bite off a piece.

One of the things we miss living here is good baked goods among many other things.

You Know Who You Are

TeaBagger

I think the cartoon sums it up pretty well!!

Work History

This kinda sums up my life. I was looking for a Frank & Ernest cartoon that I had taped to my toolbox for years and it might still be on it. It was a similar drawing with him saying, "What do I call the gaps in my work history? Quality Time!" I wasn't able to find it, maybe because it was from 25 years ago!!

Wingnuts

For some reason this cartoon reminded me of the goings on yesterday with the teabaggers. Saw a comment of Gin and Tacos that summed up the activities in a way that struck me as right on!! One of the commenters said it was a RenFaire of Stupid!!

One Of My Coffee Cups

When I first spotted this coffee cup in the store, I grabbed it and said to myself, "This cup is mine." I bought in the early 90's when I was working on Cape Cod. I got a chuckle when after ringing up the cup the cashier wrote down "1 bat shit cup" on a pad of paper.

I bought it at a shop at Mashpee Commons. When I googled Mashpee Commons, one of the hits said "Mashpee Commons, located north of Cape Cod" Now if it was located north of Cape Cod it would be in Cape Cod Bay!! And I didn't even get my feet wet when I was there. Aren't the 'Intratubes' fun??

Our New Stair-Master

The other month we bought a weather radio as it was getting close to the time of year when things like tornadoes and thunderstorms are likely to occur. Friday evening we had some nasty weather in this part of Crackerland. Because the radio is set to pick up warnings for the entire area, it was going off every few minutes. We live in a townhouse and the radio is upstairs in the bedroom. When there is a weather alert it makes a warning tone and then the weather alert (watches, warnings, etc... the only thing we didn't have was a Winter Weather Advisory) and radio continues broadcasting until you hit the snooze button to turn it off. Well, even tho we took turns turning off the radio after each alert, we made many, many trips up the stairs as we were trying to watch TV in the living room. That is why I am calling it the Stair-Master.

If ever there was a device screaming out for a remote, this is it!!

Another reason to avoid High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Recently I saw on another blog something about mercury in high-fructose corn syrup. Now today I found a link to this article on Crooks And Liars. I have been trying to avoid HFCS since I learned that the body can't process HFCS and it winds up as fat in the body. It is damn near impossible to be HFCS free. It is in so many different products these days, that you either have to go organic or buy stuff from other countries like Mexico (Coca-Cola) or India (pickles).

"MONDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.
HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.
"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies, said in a prepared statement."

A thought occurred to me when I started this post, is there a link between mercury in HFCS and autism?? There are some who blame mercury in vaccines for autism, although that has been disproven because for one thing, Europe didn't have mercury in vaccines and has had a similar rise in rates of autism. If there is a link between mercury and autism, could it be the HFCS in our food that caused it??

"However, the IATP told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that four plants in Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio and West Virginia still use "mercury-cell" technology that can lead to contamination.

IATP's Ben Lilliston also told HealthDay that the Environmental Health findings were based on information gathered by the FDA in 2005.

And the group's own study, while not peer-reviewed, was based on products "bought off the shelf in the autumn of 2008," Lilliston added.

The use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda in the production of HFCS is common. The contamination occurs when mercury cells are used to produce caustic soda.

"The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury. The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist. Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients," Wallinga said in his prepared statement."

I would say the bad news is that the food companies don't care about anything other than a quick profit. That was made abundantly clear by Peanut Corporation of America shipping contaminated peanut product even after they found salmonella in it.

Addendum: the other day while shopping, I noticed a good sign. Cruising up and down the aisles in a Publix grocery store, I noticed a new label on Log Cabin pancake syrup. In big letters across the top of the label it said, "No High Fructose Corn Syrup". April 15, '09

Quizz From Mental Floss

Saw this quiz yesterday and thought it might be fun. When I took the quiz, I got 7 out of 10 right. I have seen all of the incarnations of Star Trek, but am not a Trekkie. There are some strange names here whether they are Star Trek characters or some herbal concoction that is supposed to help give you a woodie.

What's Wrong With This Picture??

There's a guy at Possum Lodge that probably would not see anything wrong.

I picked this up last month when I was in Tejas. We have a couple of other bags from Publix and The Old Lady likes to take them in when we shop at Kroger. Now we have one to use when we shop at Publix.

Ultimate Sex Toy

On April 1, Adam & Eve unveiled The Ultimate Sex Toy. It has six different functions including a cigarette dispenser. Click on the "Sign up now to join the Sex Toy Revolution". I tried to copy the picture, but wasn't able, so you will just have to follow the link.

How Not To Take Out A Tree

The Video won't play anymore. Somebody or other has removed it.

Not sure where this happened, but it is a good example of how not to do something. At the end he kinda overloaded the little pickup!!

Naked Pole Vaulter

"A pole vaulting champion got down to his bare essentials in France.
That's right, Romain Mesnil, a silver medalist at the 2007 World Championships, streaks through Paris with nothing but his....Pole high in the air."

Kinda like the Naked cars in NASCAR.

Sorry about the commercial, I can't figure out how to remove it.