Random Stuff With No Real Topic

[ObsidianJade]

(laughs) I stocked up on whole-grain pasta, soup, fruit juice and frozen vegetables, plus Hot Pockets. (those are great in case of a power outage, because you can wrap them in foil and stick them in the woodstove or on top of a kerosene heater to cook) We already had milk.

[kygal]

Great idea with the Hot Pockets...I like them anyway. Must add to grocery list!

[ObsidianJade]

(laughs) A serious ice storm back in CT about ten years ago knocked out our power for over a week. (This was when we were still caring for 40 horses, mind you!) That was the time I worked out the trick to wrapping the Hot Pockets in foil and cooking them on top of a Kero-Sun.

My fave is the white chicken garlic alfredo ones. They come in the 12-pack now, !

[kygal]

Our city lost electric due to ice storms the last couple of years. People were out of electric for about a week. We never lost it...I felt a little quilty about that. As close as one street over was out. We do have a log burning fire place so I feel we could make do. I have an emergency box of essentials on hand. We humans, the dogs and cat would be fine...I would have to worry about our turtle if we lost heat. Keeping fingers crossed we dont get ice this year!

[ObsidianJade]

I can't type with my fingers crossed, so I have my toes crossed instead, .

And ice is... the worst. I would rather have any other precipitation than ice. Frankly, I'd almost rather it rained sardines.

(I probably shouldn't tempt fate. Evidently it rained frogs several times last June in the Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan, and worms in Louisiana back in July of '07.)

[Sternchan]

I’ve seen it in the news that you have a lot of snow. My mother is freaking out. She say’s that we’ll have the same weather here in about 2 weeks. But I hope she is wrong. We had snow until last week and it turned to ice after that. Running to catch the bus was almost perilous.


(Ishikawa? I was there in March 2005. I do not like the Japanese way of thinking, that Japan is a warm country. In March it’s bitterly cold and wet with a lot of snow and they do not have central heating in their houses)

[ObsidianJade]

There has been an... unusually large amount of snow, yes. (Like, six to ten times average for the season.... and we're getting more tomorrow. [goes into a half-hour rant on the unfairness of nasty weather]) Snow and ice.

Yeah, I would really prefer it to rain sardines.

Ooh, lucky! I've wanted to go to Japan for ages, the culture fascinates me! However, I wouldn't travel anywhere North of the Bahamas or so in March... but that's just me, personally, . I prefer warm weather.

[Sternchan]

It started snowing here this morning I wish it would stop.


Well I was in Japan for a language course and March was affordable. I’m not a winter person. I like the sun and warm weather much more. That’s why I’ll be again in Italy this summer.

[ObsidianJade]

How many languages do you speak?!

[Sternchan]

Um... 4:
German
English
Norwegian
Japanese

But Japanese only the basics (like, how to ask where the station is, and understand the answer. Or to order food. And of cause I know how to ask if they speak English Things like that.)
I learnd Latin in school but I forgot all of it.

[ObsidianJade]

[IN AWE]

...and some days I can barely manage to speak English. I took four years of Spanish in school and still can't string together a coherent sentence... and one semester of Latin didn't stick very well, either. And my Japanese is all of the otaku variety.

[Sternchan]

I think the most important language is English. I only know Norwegian because I was a exchange student there (that was the time I found out, that cold weather is nothing for me).
And well, I started to learn Japanese at the university (mostly because I liked Anime and Manga).
In school we have to lean English and have the chance to learn French, Latin, Spanish and at some schools Italian or Chinese.

[ObsidianJade]

English may be one of the most useful languages to learn, but I also have no doubt it is one of the most irritating to learn. Even now I'll occasionally trip over obscure grammar rules, and I pride myself on being a reasonably well-read and well-educated speaker and writer.

And as for my Japanese... the extent of my 'study' in that language is limited to watching episodes of Bleach with original audio and English subtitles. Although I can actually pick out a few words here and there, I could in no way manage to converse in Japanese.

...at least, not politely. I can swear in Japanese fairly fluently, though,

[Sternchan]

Japanese is hard to learn. They have three different kinds of being polite. Means: They use other words when they talk to different people. So, when I ask someone to explain the way to whatever, I also have to ask them not to be too polite. Because they talk to people from other countries like they would talk to their boss or even kings (very very polite).

[ObsidianJade]

That, I did know. I know there's also a difference in speech styles and the level of formality depending on what region someone's from (although that, again, I picked up from Bleach...), which, while similar to what one finds here in the States (a lot of older Southern women are prone to calling you 'Honey' or 'Sweetie' even if they've never met you before in their lives.... I've never figured that one out...), there seems to be a sharper divide in Japan. Or maybe I'm just getting the wrong impression because I tend to watch Gin's Arrancar Encyclopedia segments too often...

[ObsidianJade]

Cleaning out my old Saved Mail files. Expect a few more gems like this - talk about Random!


Subject: HOW WIDE APART ARE RAILROAD TRACKS?

Does the statement, "We've always done it like that" ring any bells?

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5
inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because
that's the way they built them in England , and English expatriates built the US
railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were
built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the
gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways
used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that
wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried
to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long
distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance
roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads have been used ever
since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which
everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the
chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel
spacing.
Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is
derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a Specification/ Procedure/ Process and wonder
"What horse's ass came up with this?" you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman
army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the the asses of two
war horses. Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big
booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid
rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by the Thiokol Corporation at their
factory at
Utah

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit
fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch
site.


The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the
mountains. And the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly
wider than the railroad
track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses'
asses.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most
advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the
width of a horse's ass.

And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses
controlled almost everything....and also currently, almost everything is
controlled by Horses Asses!!!

........and now that you have the rest of the story, aren't you smart!!!

[æthre]

The Romans are controlling us from the past!!

[ObsidianJade]

Not even the Romans. The Roman's HORSES are controlling us from the past, .


Next one:

It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

One human hair can support 3 kg (6 lb).

The average man's penis is three times the length of his thumb.

Human thighbones are stronger than concrete.

A woman's heart beats faster than a man's.

There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet. (Ew!)

Women blink twice as often as men.

The average person's skin weighs twice as much as the brain. (I know some people who would call that into question... their brains can't weigh that much....)

Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still.

If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.

Women reading this will be finished now.




Men who read this are still busy checking their thumbs.

[æthre]

Just think about all the bacteria in your STOMACH, Sarah!

[ObsidianJade]

Nikki, gods willing, I don't have to touch my stomach. Therefore, it does not bother me.

And in the event I *do* find myself able to touch my stomach, I think bacteria will be the least of my worries.

Next One:

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element, Governmentium (symbol=Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of
lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert.

However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2 to 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium (symbol=Ad), an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium, since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

[luvinx]

Love it!

[ObsidianJade]

Aa, my Grandma sends me the best forwards.

This one, however, is from a sister YuGiOh writer - curiously enough, named Nikki. I knew her before I knew my clone. (shrugs) Go figure.


Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologisms, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

The winners are:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one c oughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.

14.. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish isms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are this year's winners:

1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer=unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

2. Foreploy (v): Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

4. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

5. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

6. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

7. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.

8. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease.

9. Karmageddon (n): Its like when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

10 Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

11. Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

12. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

14. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

15. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

16. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an a******

[kygal]

lol...love it!

[xFrEAKk]

Oh my gawshness, Sarah, you do NOT know how much these have made my day. I'm home sick right now and laughing like a horse! (Or Horse's butt...)

Loved the Governmentium one soooooo much~!!

(LOL I know this is such a late reply)

[ObsidianJade]

No worries about it being late, just glad to see you're still alive!