Random fact about Britain’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, he was born in New York City. When David Letterman had a show on CBS, he was a guest when he was London’s mayor and for some reason, I remembered that obscure fact.
Speaking of the British, I highly support this cause – Wetherspoons has become the first large business to stop using receipts after customers complained of mess and the waste of paper. Customers can still request them but will not be given them as a matter of course.
I’m not a fan of small talk, you know, conversation filler such as the weather. Lately, I’ve been asked if we went anywhere for vacation or have any vacation plans. We don’t, and I feel awkward answering the question, like I’m being judged for not taking my kids anywhere for the summer.
A brief history of human filth – How did people through history keep clean? How did they deal with dirt, sweat and other bodily odours, and did they take baths?
Since the great plagues and the closing of public bathhouses, western Europeans believed that bathing was positively bad for you. Skin protected the body from putrefaction and disease. Toxins left the body as perspiration, menstrual blood, urine and faeces.
Reading Lessons – You never stop learning how to read — probably because you also never stop forgetting how to read.
I really connected with this portion of the text:
For years, I have found it difficult to get into a novel. Entering a new imaginative world feels like too much effort, so when I read for pleasure, I choose nonfiction. As a teenager I encountered the old stereotype that made-up stories are for the young and frivolous (and often female), while nonfiction is for the old and serious (and probably male). Now that I pay taxes and pluck out my grey hairs, I am convinced that fiction is the more demanding genre. Poetry, the great romance of my pubescent years, feels even more distant, requiring focus and receptivity I can rarely muster. Sometimes I wonder if the young read novels and poems because they are the only ones who can.
Here’s one more Nixon and Disneyland connection. When Nixon was vice-president, his brother owned a series of restaurants named “Nixon’s” (Source1, Source2). One location was on the corner of Harbor Blvd. and Katella Ave in Anneham, immediately next to Disneyland. And just because I’m fascinated with Howard Hughes I’ll add this, he once loaned Nixon’s brother, Donald, $205,000 in 1956 to save the failing restaurants. I read his main competitor was Bob’s Big Boy. According to my research, only one Bob’s Big Boy still exists. But I may be confusing it for Big Boy. I think there may have even been a Kip’s Big Boy for a while. The only one I can recall ever seeing was on Camp Bowie Blvd in Fort Worth, across from King’s Liquor, where we stopped to buy Dad’s and Grandma’s Seagram’s 7. We lived in Palo Pinto, a dry county.
Marines aboard the USS Boxer used a new system called a MRZR LMADIS — a Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System. The system is comprised of two vehicles — one a “command node,” and the other a “sensor node.” The vehicles are outfitted with radar sensors, cameras, and radio frequency detectors and jammers. Once the crew is able to detect a threat, they use the jammer to disrupt the signals from the drone.
I’m a fan of all three of these women and all their characters, so these gave me a great laugh when I ran across them on the Dallas subreddit. They are all great in their own way and all are nailed one form or another. I don’t remember the Kristen Wiig Denton role.
I notice odd little stuff. We ate at McDonald’s recently and noticed the plastic drink lid has changed, and I’m pretty certain this is the first lid change in decades. A little research led me to LidWorks, the company which manufactures their lids. Browsing their website was more interesting than I would have thought, as they make different lids for paper and foam cups, hot and cold drinks, reclosable drink lids, domed lids (think ICEEs and Slupries), branded lids, and detail the concept to market process. Apparently, the new trend in the plastic lid business is strawless lid solutions, Starbucks appears to be the trendsetter. All of this info is probably making me sound like Jay Pritchett rambling about closets.
Yesterday’s Jeopardy ended in a tie. I’ve only seen a tie one other time. In case you are wondering, if there is a tie after Final Jeopardy, Trebek will inform the contestants the subject of the next “answer” and the first one with the correct response wins. This tie was well set up. The champion had exactly twice as much money as one of the contestants. The champion answered Final Jeopardy incorrectly but wagered zero dollars. And as you probably guessed, the other contestant wagered everything and doubled his amount to tie the champion with his correct response.
