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November 30, 2012

Ghost Elevator

In Brazil.


biblioklept

biblioklept bib·li·o·klept [bib-lee-uh-klept] noun
a person who steals books.


We need to add that to the list of capital crimes, worthy of the death penalty, along with those who dog-ear pages.

November 28, 2012

Busy Busy Busy

This is what I get when clicking on the official Texas Lottery site:

No wonder, what with the Powerball frenzy that's gripped the nation over the last few days.  The jackpot was originally 450 million but at the time of the drawing had increased to 580 million and it was announced that outlets were selling 100,000 tickets a minute.

Still, the official Powerball website hasn't been overwhelmed.  I usually go to USA Mega when I want results; it seems to always be up and running when the others aren't just after the drawings of huge jackpots.  They also announce both the numbers and results much earlier than does any other lottery site I have bookmarked.

I'm a little sick;  I had purchased a couple of numbers w/ the Powerball/multiplier option, making my total investment in the half-billion+ dollar dream come to six bucks.  As I sat here earlier, I thought I might run down and get another ticket but decided against it.  I get quick picks these days when I play; I used to play a set of numbers but quit when my age became more than the largest possible number available to pick. -sigh- I thought I might play my old numbers and let the machine pick the Powerball.  As I checked my numbers earlier, I saw that four of my numbers would have been chosen for winnings of $200 and much more if I had happened to have chosen the multiplier. 

Oh well.  Shoulda, woulda, coulda, that's my motto.

UPDATE:

Certainly not official, but the webmaster at the USA Mega site says there are at least two winners in two different states. If that's true, then the predicted one billion dollar drawing that WOULD have been Saturday night won't happen. At the present time, the MegaMillions, the Powerball and the Texas Lottery are all "small" jackpots.

Mosquito Ringtones

From the site:

What is the Mosquito Ringtone?

The short version, A tone outside the audible range of hearing for most people over the age of 30. This means that you can get phone calls and receive text messages in class or school without teachers hearing it.

Mosquito Ringtones


Lots of other fun stuff on the site; mosquito games, printable mosquito coloring pages even some variants of the mosquito ringtones available for download.  One useful thing is the Hearing Test.

When I first came across this site, I thought "Oh, I bet my hearing is still pretty good...I certainly don't have "old" ears." I was wrong; I couldn't hear the upper ranges of the tones and after checking out the Hearing Test, I was dismayed to find that the only sounds I could clearly hear were the 10000 and 8000 Hertz Tones.

Dismayed, but not totally surprised. After the years of working on extremely loud drilling rigs, some hearing loss is to be expected. Up until a few years ago, I suffered from Tinnitus but that's gone away to where it's nearly unnoticeable. (I think getting control of my blood sugar has something to do with it, but I'm not sure.)There were times, however, during the dead of night it was maddening.

So, I guess I DO have "old ears".  I might not be able to hear like the young whippersnappers, but I bet most of them can't wiggle my ears like I can!


EDIT TO ADD: I had several tabs open and before closing the Hearing Test tab after posting, I tried a few more frequencies; I could barely hear some of the others, then thought to check my volume control.

Duh.  I had it turned down quite a bit while listening to online radio earlier. I could clearly hear the 14000 Hertz Tone. I can barely hear the next one, but not well enough to use it as a ring tone.  I don't need a ring tone anyway...don't have a cell phone, for one.  No one ever calls me, so I hardly need a land line except for my DSL. 

Anyway, good news and bad news:  the good news is my hearing isn't as bad as I thought it was.  The bad news?  Not checking my volume control means my mind is slipping.

svelte

From our Word of the Day module:

svelte [svelt, sfelt] adjective, svelt·er, svelt·est.
1. slender, especially gracefully slender in figure; lithe.
2. suave; blandly urbane.



Svelte is all right, but I'm more attracted to the zaftig type.

November 27, 2012

Rare Error

One of the very few errors I've had here on Blogger. I've had this blog for over five years and I haven't had more than five errors in all that time. Back in MSN Groups, I could get five errors in a day, even that many in an hour. Facebook is better, but they have more glitches than I think I want to tolerate.


Oddly enough, I got it the other day when posting this.