It’s Friday! Time to check out some odd-ball news, quotes I like, a few strange facts and some things that might make you pause and go “hmmmmm.”

Strange News:

Owl leaves imprint on window in Kendal:

So, how about you? Have you left any good impressions lately? Well look at what I found, a near perfect imprint of an owl, found by Mrs. Arnold in her Cumbrian home. She said she could find no sign of the owl, so assumed it had flown off without serious injury. “Our first concern was for the welfare of what we suspected was an owl and we opened up the window to check if it was still around. Fortunately, there was no sign of the bird and we can only assume that it had flown away probably suffering from a headache.”

The bird’s imprint was from the powder down on the owl, a substance that protects the feathers as they are growing. An area expert stated: “This would have been very uncomfortable for the bird but thankfully it looks like it survived as Mr and Mrs Arnold couldn’t find it anywhere close by. Sadly, many birds aren’t so lucky.”

Threads to the Past: I love this story! In June of this year the Shanghai Sewing Machine Shop reopened. The shop is well known for the machines they used to sell, the Butterfly brand. Many in the area were reminded of their first machines, some of which were bought in this very shop. A few still own their Butterfly’s. There is an original 1920 Butterfly on display at the store.

The store is a general cloth and notions store as well. As in many places, the sewing art is being reborn in Shanghai, and even designers in the area are happy to have the goods in the reopened store available to them. Many women were strolling down memory lane the day the store reopened.

I love old sewing machines, I own a vintage Singer myself, so to me this was a very interesting and lovely story. My grandmother also owned a Singer much like mine and I use to sit and watch her put quilt tops together for hours. I hope the Shanghai Sewing Machine Shop has many years of success.

Quotables in the form of strange or funny ads:

Harrisburg postal employees gun club monthly practice meetings. Are they practicing going postal?

Georgia peaches California grown – 89 cents lb. Alrighty then…..

Nice parachute.  Never opened.  Used once – slightly stained. ‘Nough said.

Tired of working for only $9.75 per hour? We offer profit sharing and flexible hours. Starting pay: $7 – $9 per hour….. ?huh?

Exercise equipment: queen size mattress and box springs – $175 … No comment.

Our sofa seats the whole mob and it’s made of 100% Italian leather (er, should that be mafia instead of mob?)

Lawyer says client is not that guilty. (One of those: “I didn’t lie. I only told part of the truth…” situations?)

“Alzheimer’s center prepares for an affair to remember”…..then they probably all forgot to show up….

Ground Beast: 99 cents lb. and Fully cooked boneless smoked man -$2.09 lb…. Thinkin’ maybe the hubbie was in trouble and didn’t know it.

Open House.  Body Shapers Toning Salon – Free Coffee and Donuts (that way you’ll be sure to need the body shaping later)

Fact Finders:

Historical Fact: no one knows for sure how many people died during the sinking of the Titanic.

Animal Fact: Sheep can recognize other sheep from pictures.

Space Fact: Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

Health Fact: The average tastebud lives only 10 days before it dies and is replaced by a new one.

Business Fact: Nearly 22,000 checks will be deducted from the wrong account over the hour.

Think About It…

If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

If you eat lots of carrots, you’ll start to turn orange.

The military used toilet paper to camouflage their tanks in Saudi Arabia, during the Desert Storm War.

In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting ad space on his cows.

There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

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It’s Friday! Time to check out some odd-ball news, quotes I like, a few strange facts and some things that might make you pause and go “hmmmmm.”

Strange News:

Will Ford be able to plant a seed and grow a car one day? Well probably not, but…..What do mushrooms, dandelion root, wheat, soy and corn have in common? They may comprise key components of your car one day. At the Forward with Ford futuring and trends conference in Dearborn, Mich., sustainable materials guru Deborah Molesky explained to a group of bloggers, journalists and media personalities that the automaker’s goal is to not only manufacture, but grow, its parts in the U.S. Molesky joked that her group was “not very popular” when they started in 2000 – and oil prices were only $50-$60 per barrel. But the team kept working, and by 2008 when oil prices moved above $100 per barrel, their products like soy-based foam for seats were developed. “In a way, we were sort of neglected and left alone in the laboratory to develop this… Now, I’m proud to say that every vehicle built in North America has soy foam in the cushions and backs,” she said.

The opportunity to make a significant reduction in a car’s environmental footprint is significant. For example, Molesky’s group worked with wheat straw, a byprodcut of growing wheat, and added the material to plastics to reinforce them. The hybrid materials are part of the third row in the 2010 Ford Flex. Using the wheat straw reduces petroleum consumption by about 20,000 pounds and carbon dioxide by about 30,000 pounds per year. Among a number of materials, sugars made from corn, beet and cane are under consideration for biodegradable plastic parts, while engineers are also researching wood technology for interior trim. Wood has been used before in other vehicles, such as the Woodie, first seen in the ’30′s and 40′s.

Using these products is especially challenging, seeing they need to last 10 to 15 years in each car. Ford is currently using recycled materials in its cars, such as cotton from recycled jeans in the 2012 Focus as part of the carpet backing and sound absorption material.

Tats For Grades -For parents and teachers, it can be an uphill battle to get kids to do well in school. First it was cash for grades, now its … tats for grades? That’s what one San Francisco teacher promised his students if they improved their performance: a tattoo. Not for them, but for him. Stanley Richards, a science teacher at City Arts and Technology High School, vowed he would get a tattoo of their vice principal if students raised the school’s academic performance score by 50 points.

And not just any tattoo: Mr. Vice Principal would be portrayed as a sumo wrestler, holding a medallion of test scores and slaying a dragon. (Hope Mr. Richards has the number of a good tattoo-removal doctor.)

The students hit the books, and true to his word, Mr. R showed up on the last day of class with the vice principal’s mug on his calf.

Quotables:

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in 7 years. ~ Mark Twain

If the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body…then only left-handed people are in their right minds. ~ Anonymous

I can resist everything except temptation. ~ Oscar Wilde

Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia. ~ Charles Schultz

You must learn from the mistakes of others. you can’t possible live long enough to make them all yourself. ~ Sam Levenson

Fact Finders:

Blueberry juice boosts memory.

The world’s oldest known recipe is for beer.

The number one selling snack in the US is potato chips.

The United Kingdom eats more cans of baked beans than the rest of the world combined.

The average coach airline meal costs the airline $4.00. The average first class meal: $50.

Think About It…

Baskin Robbins once made ketchup ice cream.

If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.

Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone! Ouch!

A broken clock is always right twice a day.

99% of people cannot lick their elbow. . . .and there you go tryin’…..

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Angela W Fitch

It’s Friday! Girls just wanna have fun, so that is what I am sharing today, the FUN! The following post has become a weekly post of some odd-ball news, quotes I like, a few strange facts and some things that might make you pause and go “hmmmmm.”

Strange News:

CARMAGEDDON!  In what was touted as being a disaster for unsuspecting vacationers and locals alike, LA closed the excessively used HWY 405 for construction last weekend, July 16th and 17th. The 405 you say? Why yes, I answer. You know, the one that had the OJ car chase once upon a time? Yep, you got it. That is the 405. The infamous highway will be shut down for construction. Over 280, 000 cars A DAY travel this road. This is a major traffic artery in the LA road system. Did LA survive the shutdown? Will Carmageddon be worse than Godzilla defeating King Kong in Tokyo? Tune in next season as we again investigate Californians disastrous closings as construction will inevitably continue, cause when can the work crews ever get a job finished in 2 days? Truth be told they did finish ahead of time, and most everyone avoided the area until this past Monday. More construction is planned for October. Maybe Godzilla will show up then.

From the New York Times: Worker dead at desk for five days. Bosses of a publishing firm are trying to work out why no one noticed that one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for five days before anyone asked if he was feeling ok. George Turklebaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers, per a post mortem exam revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering the coronary. George was ironically proofreading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he died.

He quietly passed away on Monday, but nobody noticed until Saturday morning when an office cleaner asked why he was working on the weekend.

His boss, Elliot Wachiaski, said: “George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave at night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position all that time and didn’t say anthing. He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself.

You may want to give your co-workers a nudge occasionally. The moral of the story: Don’t work too hard. Nobody notices anyway.

Use Your Bikini to Charge Your IPod! A pretty crazy idea: Clothing (in this case, a bikini) that charges your gadgets. Would you don a wearable charger on the beach? Nope, those aren’t metallic sequins you’re looking at on this swimsuit. They’re thin-film photovoltaic panels, and they do more than just cover up your unmentionables. In my case it would take more than a bikini to cover my unmentionables.

Designed by Andrew Schneider, the Solar Bikini is made up of small photovoltaic film strips that produce a 5-volt charge into a USB connection. You can plug in your iPod (or iPhone for that matter) and get endless music playtime on a sunny day at the beach. The bikini is able to withstand water, so you can take a dip while wearing it. Yeah, well. Probably not. I don’t want to go for that new hair do like weird Al Yankovich. As Schneider sums it up, “You’ve got tunes, you’ve got beer, you’ve got sun, and you’ve got each other in swimwear. The rest is up to you.” The male version will also be available soon and will have a higher voltage output. Hmmmmm……

Quotables:

Success is easy, but so is neglect. Jim Rohn

Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?  ~Maurice Freehill

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.  ~Maori Proverb

Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light.  ~Norman B. Rice

Begin challenging your own assumptions.  Your assumptions are your windows on the world.  Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.  ~Alan Alda

Fact Finders:

Keys Can Be Recycled: We all have a drawer full of miscellaneous keys, but you don’t have to toss them in the trash. They’re made of valuable metal, after all. Keys For Kindness is a small, family-run program designed to raise money through metal key recycling for the Multiple Sclerosis society. The donor pays for shipping, but we’re sure karma points are said donor’s future.

Greenest city in the US? In a study of 27 major cities in the U.S. and Canada, San Francisco was named the greenest, ranking strongly in its performance and policies in energy, buildings, transportation, water, waste management and air quality.

Recycle Those Surfboards! ReSurf Recycling recycles all surfboards and surfboard manufacturing waste materials into numerous products including asphalt and concrete for paving city roads. Additionally, the company developed a method to produce 100 percent recycled yoga mats using neoprene scraps from wetsuit production.

Think About It…

The chances of you dying on the way to get your lottery tickets is greater than your chances of winning.

The can opener was invented 48 years after the can.

You are about 1 centimeter taller in the morning than in the evening.

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

Humor:

A 70 year old man asks his wife: “Do you feel sad when you see me running after young girls?” Wife replied: “No, not at all. Even dogs chase cars they can’t drive!”

If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?

What do you call a male ladybug?

Why doesn’t the glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

A Loan for Kermit

A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that her name is Patricia Whack. “Miss Whack, I’d like to get a $30,000 loan to take a holiday.” Patty looks at the frog in disbelief and asks his name. The frog says his name is Kermit Jagger, his dad is Mick Jagger, and that it’s okay, he knows the bank manager.

Patty explains that he will need to secure the loan with some collateral. The frog says, “Sure. I have this,” and produces a tiny porcelain elephant, about an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed. Very confused, Patty explains that she’ll have to consult with the bank manager and disappears into a back office.

She finds the manager and says, “There’s a frog called Kermit Jagger out  there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000, and he wants to use this as collateral.” She holds up the tiny pink elephant. “I mean, what in the world is this?”

(You’re going to love this)

(A masterpiece)

(Wait for it)

The bank manager looks back at her and says…”It’s a knickknack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone.”

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Angela W Fitch