Posts from — October 2001

Looking for Kevin's Letter to Santa? Click here

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1. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."

2. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt"

3. Almonds are members of the peach family.

4. The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.

5. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.

6. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.

7. The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

8. "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."

9. There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

10. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

11. The only other word with the same amount of letters is its plural: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosesl.

12. The longest place-name still in use is
Taumatawhakatangihangako-
auauotamateaturipukakapikimaungaho-
ronukupokaiwe-nuakit natahu,
a New Zealand hill.

13. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reinade los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size,L.A.

14. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

15. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

16. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.

17. Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.

18. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

19. The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.

21. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

23. There is a seven-letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the,there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

24. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

26. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

27. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

28. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

30. The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti

31. 'Stewardesses' is the longest English word that is typed with only the left hand.

33. The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways; the following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

34. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

35. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."

36. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian seal for that reason.

37. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.

38. The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead."

39. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

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Great news today for everyone in Fort Worth: Lockheed Martin has been selected as the contractor for the Joint Strike Fighter program. What does this mean? Well, in short, $200 billion dollars over 40 years to build thousands of fighter jets for the Air Force, Navy, Marines and British RAF. Lockheed will assemble the fighters in Fort Worth (home of the F-16 program). It is expected to add 3,500 jobs to the local economy. This is one of the biggest days in Fort Worth's long military history. Looks like the old "bomber plant" will be roaring for years to come.

For more info, click here for the news story and check out this picture:

More later!

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Remember the game Simon? Now you can play it online. It's a great timewaster!

The Hidden Game

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Somehow it doesn't sound right saying my wife is a webmistress, but I guess that's what she is. What am I talking about? Merrin has created her own web pages and loaded them to the site. She also updated her journal/weblog. Next thing you know, she'll be streaming live audio!

Check it out for yourself: Merrin's Journal, Merrin's Reading List, Merrin's Christmas List

Speaking of Christmas lists, mine is online too. It's not complete, but it's a start. (Click here)

That's all for now!

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BBC News | ENGLAND | Deaf centre's computers taken

Sorry, bad joke!

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Winnie the Pooh turns 75 this weekend! To celebrate, many people in England are expected to visit "Pooh Bridge".

Click here for more details: BBC News | Pooh celebrates 75th birthday

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Lots of storms last night. The weather started getting rough and our tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of our fearless crew…no, wait — that's Gilligan's Island. We had a lot of wind and lightning, but no damage. I think the extra rain did us well.

Golf was a little cool this morning. Seems like winter can be too far away. Played pretty well but ended up giving away some money to my half-wit brother-in-law. Sometimes I get a little frustrated with myself and before I know it, I've played 2 more holes without even knowing it. I've got to improve on my mental approach. (Boy, that could apply to a lot of things! HA!)

Merrin is doing well. She is getting her store ready for the holidays. I think they are expecting a mild holiday season, but everyone is hoping for a big Christmas. We still do not have our plans nailed down, but Florida stands to be a big player in "Christmas Vacation".

That's all I got for now. I'm goofing on the internet, so I might post more later!

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Want to get rid of the X-10 ads that pop up (or under) when using the internet. Well, the "good" folks at X-10 apparently hate the ad's as much as you do and have released a cookie that will stop the ads for 30 days at a time. To turn the ads off, >>>Click here

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I about fell on the floor when I read it, but there it is in black and white.

Star-Telegram | U.S. officials secretly met terror suspect

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Just finished watching President Bush's press conference and I feel the urge to comment on two things. About a twenty years ago, a president stood before the nation and classified an enemy as "evil". He was roundly critisized. The press said he was inciting the enemy and escalating the situation. That president's name is Ronald Reagan and the enemy was the "Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union. Reagan boldly defined the parameters of the Cold War in a way that no one before him had done. It was courageous and it helped to define him as a leader of strong convictions.

Since 9/11, President Bush has referred to Osama bin Laden, his operatives, and terrorism at large as "evil". He has defined this "enemy" and established a clear moral position on the battles to come. It has rallied the country. I don't think many people understand the political significance of using the word "evil" to represent an enemy. It's lost on them, mostly because they are moved emotionally by the choice of words. The get wrapped up in the emotion of it and miss the real savvy behind the speech prep. For a president that all you nay-sayers claimed was "not that smart", this is just another stroke of genius.

When you add that to the President's focus on rebuilding the economy and prosecuting the war, I have nothing but great things to say about GW.

And, not to be too wrapped up in the political minutia, but I am also noticing more and more smaller releases talking about Iraq. I can see some groundwork being laid that may start to show up on the radar of most Americans in the next three weeks. Just today there was a new release of info about "mastermind" Mohammad Atta meeting with Iraqi intellegence on two recent occassions. Previous reports have claimed just one recent meeting. There is also more emphasis being placed on the documented involvement of the Iraqi intelligence forces on the first WTC bombing. It is well documented that Clinton opted to focus on a loner terrorist, Ramsey Yousef, and a few thugs despite the evidence that Yousef trained, met, was informed by, and was supplied by the Iraqi government. This decision to prosecute Yousef and avoid pressing the Iraqi issue was done to deflect some of Clinton's early foreign affairs disasters. He got better in his later years, but this decision clearly echos in the WTC disaster of 9/11.

OK, I'm done ranting now. Just don't be too surprised by an Iraqi angle in the weeks to come. The evidence seems to be mounting. When added to the first WTC attack, I can't help but think an extended Iraqi campaign is not far behind. If Afgahnistan can be finalized by December, look for a US campaign against Iraq in January 2003.

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I wish I could say that I have a lot of fascinating news to report. I mean, I guess I could say that, but it's not true. Work is going well, so far. Things are great on the home front. Perhaps I live a charmed life and don't even realize it.

For all of you waiting for a Courtney & Brian's Wedding video, I have what we call "The Good News & The Bad News". The good news is that the video (or at least what I consider to be the video) is finished. It makes me laugh and it makes me cry. I'm completely satisfied with it. The bad news is that it's going to be easier to teach my Chloe to burp the alphabet than to get this thing working on VHS. I spent one whole afternoon trying, no luck. I spent another day trying, no luck. In total, I've spent a week trying to get a decent output to video. It's simply not happening. So, if you want to see it, I can only produce a cd for you to watch on your computer. Sorry.

Brian & Courtney–your's is on the way, if you don't have it already. The rest of ya will have to hold your horses until I get the OK from those kids and get some cd's burned.

Again, it's a slow week. To compensate for my lack of juicy life stories, here's a few cool sites to check out:

Pop Bubble Wrap Online
Online Photo Booth-no hardware required
Take an IQ Test

Take care. Drop me an email and let me hear from you.

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