This Week’s Thoughts

So I was surfing around – I can do that now!  And I found these articles on the best and worst cities for both men, and women.  I wondered what it would look like to match them up.  So the colored ones in the list are really the best and worst cities for couples.  I thought it was interesting that half of each “best” cities list wasn’t also good for the other gender.  Looks like Detroit, Philly, and St Louis are just all around bad for everyone, while Fargo, San Jose, and Plano are good for everyone. 

For Men	For Women
Top 10 Best Cities 1. Madison, WI 2. Fargo, ND 3. Plano, TX 4. Burlington, VT 5. San Jose, CA 6. Lincoln, NE 7. Austin, TX 8. Aurora, CO 9. Virginia Beach, VA 10. Seattle, WA	Top 10 Best Cities 1. Plano, TX 2. Fargo, ND 3. San Jose, CA 4. Raleigh, NC 5. Austin, TX 6. Minneapolis, MN 7. Boise, ID 8. Santa Ana, CA 9. Virginia Beach, VA 10. San Francisco, CA
The 10 Worst 91. Toledo, OH 92. New Orleans, LA 93. Charleston, WV 94. Baltimore, MD 95. St. Petersburg, FL 96. Memphis, TN 97. Detroit, MI 98. Birmingham, AL 99. Philadelphia, PA 100. St. Louis, MO	The 10 Worst 91. Tulsa, OK 92. Memphis, TN 93. St. Petersburg, FL 94. Charleston, WV 95. Birmingham, AL 96. Baltimore, MD 97. St. Louis, MO 98. Toledo, OH 99. Detroit, MI 100. Philadelphia, PA

I’m so bummed!  My highlighting didn’t show up in my post!  So I copied it as a graphic.

***

I guess I have food on my mind.  I found all these articles on food saved to share with you.

• 5 Things Not to Buy in a Supermarket
• Foods that Promote Happiness
• 7 Foods You Should Eat Every Day
• 150 Years of Dieting Fads and Still No Quick Fix
• 20 Secrets Your Waiter Won’t Tell You (Okay YellowCat, ‘fess up time!  ) 

I’m hungry now. 

***

*squee!!*  Guess what got here a day early on Wed?!  Guess!  WOOOO!  *doing the Snoopy happy dance!*  More about it on Friday.   

 

This Week’s Thoughts

I can’t even begin to tell you how nice it is to be able to watch some videos again.  Now, I can’t do the long ones, and I still have the hiccup and stalling issues – it often sounds like a bad connection on a cell phone.  But if I take it slow and watch a bit at a time and let it buffer all the way, sometimes I can get to see moving pictures.    This one made my week.  Oh who am I kidding, it made my year.    A special shout out to Mountain Republic and Carl D’Agostino for sharing this one. 

A most amazing and inspiring tour of our nation’s capital. 🙂

***

I love looking at pictures of earth from space.    The amazing photos of life on Earth taken from space by Nasa and European Space Agency satellites

***

I got brains on the brain, heh.    6 Things That Kill Your Memory but don’t despair, there are 5 Daily Brain Exercises to help you from losing your memory.

***

Snow.  How could I possibly not think about snow today?  We got close to 2’ dumped on us.  And the coolest thing happened.  We knew we had to go dig out the car.  We waited until the afternoon, hoping that the sidewalk guy would come and clear those, but he didn’t.  The snow was hip high to me when I walked outside.  We saw the lady parked next to us, the one with the drifts to her window, and she didn’t have a shovel either.  She’s an Asian lady and is shorter than I am, and skinny too.  The poor tiny little thing was out there trying to brace against wind that bent her to a 90° angle.  All she had was a little dustpan, and the handle broke off while she was trying to scoop her car out.  I saw the guy with the truck plow stop and hand her a snow shovel and then keep going.  I was coated up, waiting for Darc to join me, and we went out and did the shoveling for her and helped her get her car out. 

After she got going, the truck plow guy came ‘round again and we told him we had his shovel now – the community shovel, lol.  He saw that we had drifts about 4’ high behind our car.  He circled around and came back and plowed out our car.  I mean he got that plow within 4” of our bumper so all we had to shovel ourselves was just that small area.  Hallelujah!  It was like watching a plow artist at work, LOL, it was amazing. 

***

So what’s on your mind today?

©DarcsFalcon All rights reserved

This Week’s Thoughts

My thoughts are in Tucson this week.  So are my prayers. 

I despise Westboro Baptist Church.  As I said on my political blog, there is nothing Baptist nor Christian about them and they should be ashamed of themselves.  The same can be said for Markos Moulitsas.  There is no difference between him and Fred Phelps.  They are the same. 

I’m sick of the media spinning lies and opinions that have no basis in facts.

I’m worried about the homeless – it’s freaking cold here and about to get colder. 

I’m grateful we’ll finally be able to replace the bald tires on our car next week.

I’m wondering who’s going to win the Divisional Championships this weekend.  Naturally I’m rooting for the Patriots!  Also the Packers, Seahawks, and Ravens. 

I’m so thankful for my phone.  My husband picked the perfect one for me.  I love it love it love it.  🙂

I can’t believe the blankety-blank-blanks who run IL just voted in a 66% income tax hike on state taxes.

I’m so excited I was able to get Sarah Palin’s latest book from the library.

I found a site to list movies, like Shelfari is for books, Flixter is for films.  Now I can keep track of those I see so hopefully I won’t forget so much anymore! 

I had this weird dream that Darc and I built this huge house, and then had a party for the NFL.  And their wives and kids, all the executives and owners.  Good grief, there’s something like 1500 players alone!  How could I fit all those people in one house?  Dreams are fun.  🙂

Wednesday Whittles

I had an interesting dream where Brad Thor was hosting his own talk show.  Yes, that is sometimes the kind of thing I dream about.  :)  I thought it was kind of a cool idea, personally.  I mean think about it – political thriller author hosting talk shows.  It would probably generate a lot of passionate discourse.  Heh.  So I went to his website to see what he was up to – in real life not in the dream – and it turns out he’s got a new book out, and is planning on another one later this year and one next year.  And now I’m 14th in line to get the latest one at my library. 

*****

I felt kind of irritated with Giselle this week.  Yeah, that Giselle, Tom Brady’s wife.  Being a Patriots fan and trying to follow news of them when I can, sometimes she makes the cut too, for the simple fact of who married her.  She blew a great opportunity, I think, in what she could have accomplished.  She said that there ought to be a worldwide law forcing women to breastfeed for the first 6 months of their baby’s life.  Yep, a law that forces women to do something with their bodies that they may or may not want to do.  Worldwide, no less!

Later, after getting a lot of flack about that, she backtracked her comments and said she was just talking. 

What’s irritating is that she had such a great chance here and dropped the ball.  Honestly, I’m a huge supporter of breastfeeding, and I’ve spent a good portion of my life engaged in that activity, and I would (and do!) encourage any woman considering it to go for it.  It’s one of the best things you can do for your baby, and yourself.  But not every woman can, and not every woman wants to.  What Giselle could have done, and didn’t, was express her own positive feelings about it and encourage other women to consider it.  She could have talked about the health benefits to both baby and mother.  She could have talked about how it can bond a mother and child and strengthen their relationship.  Instead she made it sound like it’s something distasteful that needs to be forced on women.  Way to setback, Giselle!   🙄

*****

I learned a lesson this week – the little strainer, the one that’s like 2-cup size, does NOT help boost a wireless signal.  Repeat – the small strainer does NOT boost the signal!  Mayday!  Mayd– 

Back to the big strainer.

*****

My son thought that Christine was mislabeled when he saw the “horror” tag on the video case.  My son, the one who hates horror movies.  Now he searches for THEM! and Let the Right One In every week at the library. 

Honestly, Christine was better back in ‘83. 

And how has your August been so far?

©Darcsfalcon All rights reserved

[tweetmeme source=”DarcsFalcon” only_single=”false”]

The Internet Will

Most of the respondents also said the Internet would improve reading and writing by 2020

from – The Internet Will Make You Smarter

I saw the headline, and read the article, and really, I laughed out loud.  That’s sort of a big deal for me, because it’s kind of a running joke between my husband, my friend Sherri, and myself, that I rarely laugh out loud.  I’ll shake, silently.  I don’t like my laugh but there are moments when I just can’t hold it back and I bust out in guffaws.  So when I tell you I laughed out loud, that’s a big deal.  :)  And that article made me laugh.  Out loud.

I saw the “improve reading and writing” line and the thought that went through my head was this: “R U 4realz?”  I’ve seen what’s been happening to reading and writing since the Internet came around and it’s not improvement.  Both Darc and I have spent a lot of time bemoaning the state of language today, and as a writer, Darc laments the closings of bookstores as much as I as a reader do.  I’ve seen how the LOLcats are changing our language – not that I’m not guilty of contributing in my own way – and I’ve seen l33tspeak, and the myriad ways in which our reading, writing, and speaking, are being dumbed down by the Internet.  No one wants to take the time to write “too” anymore so they’ll just write “2”.  So many people don’t understand the differences between to, too, and two.  Or they’re, there, and their.  Or heck, even sometimes you, ewe, and U.  Do they know what the difference is between your and you’re?  If the Internet is supposed to make us smarter, how come we seem so much more stupid, as a whole, than before?  The things I learned about language I learned as a little kid, way back in the day before there were such things as home computers and common Internet.  Before the “Information Superhighway,”  which, IMO, (see what I mean?) has just as much disinformation as it does information.

So I categorically disagree.  The Internet will not make us smarter.  It’s school and a good education that makes us smarter.  Things like reading, writing, arithmetic and learning good critical thinking skills.  The Internet can facilitate those things, but usually doesn’t.  LOLcats, you know.  😉

Wednesday Whits

Know what I did?  I managed to get my weekends blogged up for like the next 8 months.  I went through my drafts folder on Live Writer and have been systematically clearing things out by getting them posted.  You have no idea how long it’s taken me to do that, but I got it done!  Woo!  The rest of the stuff in my drafts folder are ideas for posts mainly for my faith and political blogs and those will just have to wait until I get my thinking cap on. 

I found some fun stuff for you to check out.  I’ve been sitting on this first link for a couple of months now.  I love this picture.  I think this has to be one of the coolest sea creatures ever.  Isn’t it pretty?

(Comb Jelly, Mnemiopsis sp)

Here’s the link to a slide show with other cool sea stuff.  Odd Sea Life from British Antarctic Survey

~~~~~~~~~~

Then when I was trying to catch up on the news I came across this article about giant crystals.  I used to put little crystals in my windows because I love the rainbow-y effect when the sun hits them, but man these babies are ginormous!

Here’s the article with more pictures and a video: The Mega Crystals of Naica Mine

~~~~~~~~~~

Then I ran across this one about King Tut.  I’ve always kind of had a thing for ancient Egyptian stuff and let’s face it, Tut’s stuff rocks.  And there were so many mysteries about his life and death.  Well, I guess some of those mysteries are getting solved, because now it’s believed he died of malaria and a broken leg.  Man, sucked to be him, didn’t it?  Here’s a link to that article: A frail King Tut died from malaria, broken leg

~~~~~~~~~~

Other than that, we’re just trying to maintain the status quo here.  Praying, faithing, hoping, and all that.  :)  As with all things, this too shall pass and things have to bust loose soon, right?  I believe!

Monday Mayhem

Well, we sure had some excitement!  You’ll never guess … I did some checking and found out our kids can “graduate” to the next level of car seat – which for our boy means no car seat at all, and for our girl means a booster.  So we are officially done buying car seats for the rest of our lives.  I can’t begin to describe how that feels.  My kids were so disobedient to keep growing like that when I told them not to, I told them to stay little for just a while longer ….  And look what they did, they grew out of their car seats. 

~~~~~~~~~~

No excitement here.  I spent most of the weekend trying to cue up posts from my Live Writer drafts folder.  No easy feat when the ‘net connection we have has decided to play hide and seek for a good portion of the weekend.  I think of the 9 million LOLcats posts I have saved, I got about 7 of them pre-posted for upcoming Sundays.  8,999,993 to go.  :roll:  And right now it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to get a connection to get this posted.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hey, it’s President’s Day.  When I was a kid, there were 2 – Lincoln’s birthday and Washington’s birthday.  I don’t like the generic all purpose “president.”  Some of the presidents we’ve had have been kind of sucky.  They don’t ALL deserve their own day.  Let’s keep it for the special ones.  And did you know, in some, if not all states, President’s Day is optional for school districts. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Did you hear?  Even one of the scientists who’s been spouting global warming has now stated that there hasn’t been any warming since 1995.  If I could get online I’d get the linky for you.  I saw it on Moonbattery and Watt’s Up With That, and a few others.  But I can’t get to the direct posts.  I thought that was pretty significant.  The warming statement, not that I can’t get to it.  You’ve probably already read it anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’m feeling a tad disconnected – ba-dum-pum – no pun intended!  LOL  So I guess I’ll stop here, unless something earth shattering happens.  And then of course, you’ll hear all about it.  Smile!  February’s halfway done, that means it’s almost March, and March means Spring, and Spring means snow melt, JOY!