Oldies But Goodies

Thoughts for 2010 Birds of a feather flock together . . .. .and then crap on your car. A penny saved is a government oversight. The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends. The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement . He who hesitates is probably right. Did you ever notice: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are XL.' If you think there is good in everybody, you haven't met everybody. If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame. The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble.. There's always a lot to be thankful for if you take time to look for it. For example I am sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt. Did you ever notice: When you put the 2 words 'The' and 'IRS' together it spells 'Theirs...' Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it. The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for. Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know 'why' I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved. When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to your youth, think of Algebra. You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks. One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young. Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable. Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today, it's called golf. Lord, Keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth . . . . AMEN!

Bud & Ginnie + Calvin & Hobbes +

Judy/kenju, Bud and Ginnie in Pinehurst on 1-15-09. Ginnie has pretty eyes, but she chose not to share them with you this time......LOL

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Click to embiggen!

This is an OLD cartoon, but it seems to explain a lot about our current situation, doesn't it?

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I JUST KNEW IT!! Go check it out!

Maxine and the Bailout

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Nothing truer than that!!

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Where's mine?

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I always run into this kind.

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I know what I'd prefer.....

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And how could it not be, after all the financial news this year?!

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In the "HOW COOL IS THAT?" department: I have befriended someone with my same name on Facebook. I know that there are other women out there with my name; one in Florida and one in Chicago, but this one actually answered my message. I suppose there is a big possibility that she is related to mr. kenju, because she comes from the same area of the country that he does. Wouldn't it be fun if we discover that they are related?!

Have you ever met or learned of anyone with your name (other than being a junior or II, I mean)?

The Economy Explained! (and a Rant)

What say you? I think it explains the whole government, too!

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We're still looking at a yellow/green screen and getting tired of that! I love both those colors, but not on my monitor, overlaying all the other colors. It's confooosin' me. Maybe I'll win the lottery and buy a new, huge, flat-screen. Wouldn't that be loverly? Of course, you have to play the lottery before you can win - at least that's what I heard.

Colors are not the only problem with my computer. Last Sunday I deleted the old virus software (the one that was driving me not so slowly crazy) and replaced it with something from PC T**ls and something else called Thr*atfire (I think). Everything worked well until this morning, when my Outlook Express decided it didn't want me to get any new email. When I hit send/receive, it would tell me I had 7 emails, and try to load them, but it timed out before anything ever got into the inbox. How frustrating! I tried web-mail, and that worked ok.

So tonight, I called my cable provider and asked for technical assistance. Of course, you know where she was, don't you? Somewhere in India or Asia (I really couldn't tell which from her accent). She said her name was Ann, but I wouldn't bet on that being the one on her birth certificate. Her conclusion, after putting me through hoops in "tools" and "settings", is that I need to de-install Outlook Express and then re-install it. And of course, I'll have to call Microsoft for the info on how to do that, as it isn't in her list of instructions. I simply could not bear the thought of staying on the phone for another hour (or more) to find out how to do all that. So I did a system restore, back to the day before I downloaded the new software. HOORAY! I got the email back - but now I am unprotected (virus-wise) and my computer needs protection, lest it get the viral equivalent of aids and Lord-know-what-all.


Several months ago, my daughter suggested I download the free version of AVG, and I tried. It told me I couldn't continue because I had something on my system called Ew*do, and since it is now a part of their virus software, I had to delete it before I could continue downloading theirs.

The bummer part of all that is there was no place on my computer that I could find where it said I could de-install that. I went to the control panel and opened "add or remove", but that program was not listed! I am just bummed out over all of this and since I can't really afford to pay anyone to look at it - I'm stymied! Seems I'm asking for a lot of help here lately. I hope someone knows what to do or try.

More T-Shirts.....and an Important Request

You know this person, don't you?

No comment......




(teehee)




Mr. kenju will LOVE this one.

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Please go here and read this letter from playwright Eve Ensler, about Sarah Palin. If you agree (and how can you not), please forward it or link to it on your blogs. All people need to read this.

No comment........I have to buy gas tomorrow and I am not looking forward to it, since it feels pretty much just like this. Oh, yes, it does.

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I'm all out of previously-prepared posts, so I guess that means I'm gonna hafta write sumpun. Imagine that! My new clothes washer will arrive tomorrow between the hours of 11:30 am and 1:30 pm, they say. I got a check for the last 2 weeks of work at the flower shop, and spent it all (and then some) at S*ars in about 5 minutes. I really wanted one of those top of the line front loaders, the ones that will save you $500 in operating costs, they say. But the budget only allowed for one to match the dryer we bought almost 2 years ago. I say 'match', but it's impossible to get one exactly like it after that length of time. It's close enough, I suppose. At least it's the same color (white). He coaxed me to take one that was a smoky blue color, but he didn't offer to drop the price enough to make it acceptable. I'd have taken hot orange if they dropped the price enough.......LOL.

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In our paper this week, there's an ad running for a company that buys stuff from people; chiefly gold and diamonds, but coins, watches, silver, purses, etc. too. I'd never been able to go when they were available before, but today (I'm feeling better, you see) I packed up a few old broken pieces of jewelry, ring mountings, a locket and a watch and took myself over to the H*liday I*n. I expected them to be in the ball room, and have tables for different stuff, but I was directed to the 3rd floor and another woman had silver and was sent to the 2nd. floor. It looked like they had rented 3-4-5 rooms on each floor and had offices set up for each one. It must be a lucrative business, because blocks of rooms in hotels aren't cheap - even for that hotel.

I was shown to a room with desks set up, and told to lay out my wares (uh-oh. Maybe I should say 'set out my jewelry') on the desk. A guy came in and started checking them out through a loupe and weighing them on an automatic scale. When he told me the amount he'd pay for all of it (2 pairs earrings, 1 ring mounting, and 2 other rings) I was somewhat insulted, but I held it in. I did say......."That's all?" in a voice I'm sure he had no difficulty in interpreting. I am almost ashamed to say that I did sell him a pair of old broken earrings, which I had already repaired once and it I knew it would cost me much more to repair them now. Better make a few bucks than to let them lay around my jewelry box any longer. Same with the ring mounting. It was old, Victorian style and really pretty, but the size gemstone it required was so large as to be cost prohibitive, so I sold it too. Whoopee! Now I can finance a pedicure at the salon tomorrow. Those visions I had about paying for my new washer with the proceeds of that sale sort of fell apart quickly.

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You know about my funny name list, right? I found several new ones lately, but I'm almost afraid to put them on the blog because the last time I did, one of those guys g*ogled himself and was brought directly to my blog......LOL He was a good sport about it, but I was sort of embarrassed. Oh, well, maybe this guy isn't computer-saavy: Pure Energy, I kid you not. That was his real name (mentioned in the newspaper). I wonder what his mom was thinking? The other new name was one I got from a newspaper obit: Ottawa O. Cool. Don'tcha wonder what the O. stands for?

Double Your Pleasure...Double Your Fun

Sandy tagged me with a meme because I said (in Rosemary's comments) that I was glad I hadn't been tagged! Should have kept my mouth shut, huh?


Here are the rules:
1. Write your own six-word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Okay, here goes:
1. Florally creative perfectionist sought Prince Charming.
2. I'm not tagging anyone, because nearly everyone I know has already been tagged!

#2#2#2#2#2#2#2

AND, here's another meme, that Nepharia tagged me for. I thought I might as well do two in one post.......LOL

List seven random things about yourself that people may not know.
Link the person who sent this to you, and leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours.
Post the rules on your blog.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, linking their blog.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
My seven random things (I hope I can remember some I haven't told before, but it's almost impossible (seeing as how I tell nearly everything!))

1. I AM a perfectionist about SOME things (and I won't tell you which ones....LOL)
2. I consider myself a very lucky person; not in winning things, but in having the family that I do and the opportunities I've had in life, especially those for travel.
3. I am very grateful that I was allowed/given the opportunity to go to college, and my mom insisted that I do it. She wanted me to have an education; one that she didn't take advantage of when she could have.
4. An animal lover from the get-go, I would nevertheless consider very carefully if one of mine needed very expensive surgery or palliative care.
5. My favorite book (and I cannot tell you why) is Anthony Adverse, by Hervey Allen. I read it while I was in high school and I have never forgotten that I loved it. I need to read it again so I'll know why.....LOL
6. I tend not to watch movies over and over. I see that question often in memes and at Michele's, but it is hard for me to answer. There are only a few I'd waste my time on again.
7. I don't like to be photographed, since I seldom care for the resulting picture.

No tags for this one either - for the same reason!

Recipe for a Good Life

(I got this one in an email. I wish I had written it!)

Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.

Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if you have to.

Buy a TIVO, tape your late night shows and get more sleep.

When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement:

'My purpose is to___________ today.'

Live with the 3 E's: Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.

Watch more movies, play more games and read more books than you did last year.

Make time for meditation and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.

Spend more time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.

Dream more while you are awake.

Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat fewer foods that are manufactured in plants.

Drink green tea and plenty of water and eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds and walnuts.

Try to make at least 3 people smile each day.

Clear your clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new and flowing energy into your life.

Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class, but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.

Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.

Smile and laugh more.

Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.

Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, and wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will this matter?'

Forgive everyone everything.

What other people think of you is none of your business.

Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. The best is yet to come.

No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up. (Unless you have the flu!)

Do the right thing.

Call your mother and father often.

Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements:

'I am thankful for ________.' 'Today I accomplished_________.'

Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed. Enjoy the ride.

Remember that this is not Disney World and you certainly don't want a fast pass.

Unanswered Questions

The baby has nothing to do with the post - I just like the photo!

Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onety-one?

If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea...does that mean that one out of five enjoys it?


Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?

If people from Poland are called Poles, then why aren't people from Holland called Holes?

If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a racecar is not called a racist?

If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, then doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?

If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP? ?


Do Lipton Tea employees take 'coffee breaks?'

What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?


I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks, so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use. Toothpicks?

Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?

Is it true that you never really learn to swear until you learn to drive?

If a cow laughed, would milk come out of her nose?

Whatever happened to Preparations A through G?


As income tax time approaches, did you ever notice: When you put the two words 'The' and 'IRS' together, it spells 'THEIRS'?

Predictions for the Year 2000

While attempting to read through the latest issue of Scientific American, I came across this article. A man named John Elfreth Watkins made predictions for the Year 2000, and it was published in the The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900, titled: “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”. I found it very interesting!

Mr. Watkins wrote: “These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible. Yet, they have come from the most learned and conservative minds in America. To the wisest and most careful men in our greatest institutions of science and learning I have gone, asking each in his turn to forecast for me what, in his opinion, will have been wrought in his own field of investigation before the dawn of 2001 - a century from now. These opinions I have carefully transcribed.”

Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”

Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches. His increase of stature will result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food and athletics. He will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present – for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.

Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.

Prediction #4: There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.

Prediction #5: Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour. To go from New York to San Francisco will take a day and a night by fast express. There will be cigar-shaped electric locomotives hauling long trains of cars. Cars will, like houses, be artificially cooled. Along the railroads there will be no smoke, no cinders, because coal will neither be carried nor burned. There will be no stops for water. Passengers will travel through hot or dusty country regions with windows down.

Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.

Prediction #7: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations. Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.

Prediction #8: Aerial War-Ships and Forts on Wheels. Giant guns will shoot twenty-five miles or more, and will hurl anywhere within such a radius shells exploding and destroying whole cities. Such guns will be armed by aid of compasses when used on land or sea, and telescopes when directed from great heights. Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves as they move, will float over cities, fortifications, camps or fleets. They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts. These aerial war-ships will necessitate bomb-proof forts, protected by great steel plates over their tops as well as at their sides. Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of to-day. They will make what are now known as cavalry charges. Great automobile plows will dig deep entrenchments as fast as soldiers can occupy them. Rifles will use silent cartridges. Submarine boats submerged for days will be capable of wiping a whole navy off the face of the deep. Balloons and flying machines will carry telescopes of one-hundred-mile vision with camera attachments, photographing an enemy within that radius. These photographs as distinct and large as if taken from across the street, will be lowered to the commanding officer in charge of troops below.

Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.

Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.

Prediction #11: No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.

Prediction #12: Peas as Large as Beets. Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day. Sugar cane will produce twice as much sugar as the sugar beet now does. Cane will once more be the chief source of our sugar supply. The milkweed will have been developed into a rubber plant. Cheap native rubber will be harvested by machinery all over this country. Plants will be made proof against disease microbes just as readily as man is to-day against smallpox. The soil will be kept enriched by plants which take their nutrition from the air and give fertility to the earth.

Prediction #13: Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.

Prediction #14: Black, Blue and Green Roses. Roses will be as large as cabbage heads. Violets will grow to the size of orchids. A pansy will be as large in diameter as a sunflower. A century ago the pansy measured but half an inch across its face. There will be black, blue and green roses. It will be possible to grow any flower in any color and to transfer the perfume of a scented flower to another which is odorless. Then may the pansy be given the perfume of the violet.

Prediction #15: No Foods will be Exposed. Storekeepers who expose food to air breathed out by patrons or to the atmosphere of the busy streets will be arrested with those who sell stale or adulterated produce. Liquid-air refrigerators will keep great quantities of food fresh for long intervals.

Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.

Prediction #17: How Children will be Taught. A university education will be free to every man and woman. Several great national universities will have been established. Children will study a simple English grammar adapted to simplified English, and not copied after the Latin. Time will be saved by grouping like studies. Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses. Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind. The very poor will, when necessary, get free rides to and from school and free lunches between sessions. In vacation time poor children will be taken on trips to various parts of the world. Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in the public schools.

Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.

Prediction #19: Grand Opera will be telephoned to private homes, and will sound as harmonious as though enjoyed from a theatre box. Automatic instruments reproducing original airs exactly will bring the best music to the families of the untalented. Great musicians gathered in one enclosure in New York will, by manipulating electric keys, produce at the same time music from instruments arranged in theatres or halls in San Francisco or New Orleans, for instance. Thus will great bands and orchestras give long-distance concerts. In great cities there will be public opera-houses whose singers and musicians are paid from funds endowed by philanthropists and by the government. The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devises will add to the emotional effect of music.

Prediction #20: Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth’s hard coal will last until the year 2050 or 2100; its soft-coal mines until 2200 or 2300. Meanwhile both kinds of coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper. Every river or creek with any suitable fall will be equipped with water-motors, turning dynamos, making electricity. Along the seacoast will be numerous reservoirs continually filled by waves and tides washing in. Out of these the water will be constantly falling over revolving wheels. All of our restless waters, fresh and salt, will thus be harnessed to do the work which Niagara is doing today: making electricity for heat, light and fuel.

Prediction #21: Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls.

Prediction #22: Store Purchases by Tube. Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and bundles. These tubes will collect, deliver and transport mail over certain distances, perhaps for hundreds of miles. They will at first connect with the private houses of the wealthy; then with all homes. Great business establishments will extend them to stations, similar to our branch post-offices of today, whence fast automobile vehicles will distribute purchases from house to house.

Prediction #23: Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today. They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking. Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile wagons. The meal being over, the dishes used will be packed and returned to the cooking establishments where they will be washed. Such wholesale cookery will be done in electric laboratories rather than in kitchens. These laboratories will be equipped with electric stoves, and all sorts of electric devices, such as coffee-grinders, egg-beaters, stirrers, shakers, parers, meat-choppers, meat-saws, potato-mashers, lemon-squeezers, dish-washers, dish-dryers and the like. All such utensils will be washed in chemicals fatal to disease microbes. Having one’s own cook and purchasing one’s own food will be an extravagance.

Prediction #24: Vegetables Grown by Electricity. Winter will be turned into summer and night into day by the farmer. In cold weather he will place heat-conducting electric wires under the soil of his garden and thus warm his growing plants. He will also grow large gardens under glass. At night his vegetables will be bathed in powerful electric light, serving, like sunlight, to hasten their growth. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants grow larger and faster, and will kill troublesome weeds. Rays of colored light will hasten the growth of many plants. Electricity applied to garden seeds will make them sprout and develop unusually early.

Prediction #25: Oranges will grow in Philadelphia. Fast-flying refrigerators on land and sea will bring delicious fruits from the tropics and southern temperate zone within a few days. The farmers of South America, South Africa, Australia and the South Sea Islands, whose seasons are directly opposite to ours, will thus supply us in winter with fresh summer foods, which cannot be grown here. Scientist will have discovered how to raise here many fruits now confined to much hotter or colder climates. Delicious oranges will be grown in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Cantaloupes and other summer fruits will be of such a hardy nature that they can be stored through the winter as potatoes are now.

Prediction #26: Strawberries as large as apples will be eaten by our great great grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.

Prediction #27: Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh. They will be carried with the electric current applied without pain to the outside skin of the body. Microscopes will lay bare the vital organs, through the living flesh, of men and animals. The living body will to all medical purposes be transparent. Not only will it be possible for a physician to actually see a living, throbbing heart inside the chest, but he will be able to magnify and photograph any part of it. This work will be done with rays of invisible light.

Prediction #28: There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse. Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.

Prediction #29: To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days. The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water’s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree. Propellers turned by electricity will screw themselves through both the water beneath and the air above. Ships with cabins artificially cooled will be entirely fireproof. In a storm they will dive below the water and there await fair weather.

NOTE: you can find this online here.
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Observations...

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.



Arguing with your Boss is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that while you are getting dirty, the pig is actually enjoying it.



Behind every successful man, is a surprised mother-in-law.



Whoever said money can't buy happiness, didn't know where to shop.



Alcohol doesn't solve any problems, but then again, neither does milk.



Most people are only alive because it is illegal to shoot them.



You're not a complete idiot, there're still some parts missing.



Forgive your enemies but remember their names.


(You know I didn't write these either, don't you? )

What Will They Think of Next?

Click to embiggen.

I guess we're not supposed to notice her feet. This could make a heck of a Halloween costume, no?

At Church on Sunday....

the youth minister gave the sermon, during which he read a letter that a high school senior wrote as part of his application to NYU. I wish I could quote the letter verbatim, but it was too long. The one part I do remember, which gave all of us quite a good laugh is:

" Years ago I discovered the meaning of life.........and forgot to write it down."

The funniest part to me was that the person who said this was only 18 at the time. Such is the problem with all sorts of ideas. We go about our daily activities; running errands, working, driving here and there....while all sorts of wonderful ideas (or weird ones, or fantasies) run through our minds, and we don't make a note of them. In some instances, I'm sure that's a very good thing! But remember, you might just be discovering the secret to life and don't realize it - so write down your ideas. At the very least, you'll have blog fodder. And who knows - maybe someday you'll solve all the world's problems.

I'm happy that I wrote down that quote!