Hmmmm ...

I thought it was a temporary problem a few months ago, but everytime I try to switch from "compose" to "edit html", everything shuts down and I get booted off the internet. Anybody else having this problem?

People are strange ...

A man was trying to pull out of a parking place but bashed the bumper of the parked car in front of him. Witnessed by a handful of pedestrians waiting for a bus, the driver got out, inspected the damage, and proceeded to write a note to leave on the windshield of the car he had hit.
The note read:
"Hello. I have just hit your car, and there are some people here watching me who think that I am writing this note to leave you my name, phone number, and driver's license number, but I am not."



A Pastor goes to the dentist for a set of false teeth. The first Sunday after he gets his teeth, he talks for only eight minutes. The second Sunday, he talks for only ten minutes. The following Sunday, he talks for 2 hours and 48 minutes. The congregation had to mob him to get him down from the pulpit and they asked him what happened.
The Pastor explains the first Sunday his gums hurt so bad he couldn't talk
for more than 8 minutes.

The second Sunday his gums hurt too much to talk for more than 10 minutes.

But, the third Sunday, by mistake he put his wife's teeth in and couldn't
shut up...

RIP Playlist

You may or may not have noticed that all my playlist posts are no longer functioning. In whateve wisdom that may have been contrived or manufactured by the almighty "POWERS-THAT-BE", the tracks on Playlist are no longer available in Canada, due to our stringent copyright act. Thanks a whole lot, CFC. Music nazis ...

Not sure how I will participate in Five on Friday, but I will figure it out.

Back ... sort of

Wow, remember that health issue that I mentioned a couple posts ago? That'd be about 2 months in the past now. Well, it became a bigger issue very suddenly. I was rushed to the hospital one night, had emergency surgery the very next morning and have been recuperating ever since. Officially, I've been off work for 7 weeks, and it's going to be a little while longer before I can return, due to stupid complications. Good news is, the initial health problem is now resolved. Yay!

Steve has proven his mettle during this crisis. He really stepped up, taking care of my babies during my hospital stay, and taking care of me, too. How can you not appreciate and love that in a man?

More great news: Steve has been offered a permanent full-time job with Industrial Rail - the job specs suit him to a tee. He'll be working with a team, refurbishing passenger rail cars to make them disability-friendly. Lots of reading blueprints and fabricating metal parts for my guy. He's so excited about this job. He even gets to teach - his job includes apprenticeship responsibilities.

Even more great news: the B-man has passed the final step prior to becoming a black belt in tae kwondo. Last Thursday, he tested for his brown belt and got it! The weekend before that, he participated in the Provincial Tae Kwondo Championship and received a bronze medal for 7-9 year olds in Poomsae (form). Not too bad for his first tournament. We're proud of him.

A friend of mine has just started a new blog. Please check her out ... I mean her blog ... ~Designs by Debbie~ at designsbydebbie-debbie.blogspot.com and no, I still don't know how to insert a link here. Sorry, but that's what ctrl-C is for, okay?

That's about it for now. I'll get back to this gradually, as I start to build my strength and stamina back. Oh, and I'm creating this on a friend's computer (mine is belly-up right now) so no piccies. Hope to remedy that in the near future. Hope everyone is doing super. Miss you all.

Five for Friday (times two!) ... Ear worms

The definition of an earworm comes from a translation of the German "ohrwurm", a portion of a song or other music that repeats compulsively within one's mind, put colloquially as "music being stuck in one's head."

It's such a fascinating phenomenon, authors have written about it for years. Take Arthur C. Clarke's 1956 short story "The Ultimate Melody" for example. In it, the protagonist, Gilbert Lister, develops a melody that intrigues the brain so completely that the listener becomes entranced by it. His theory is that a great melody impresses itself on the mind because it perfectly matches the brain's electrical impulses.

In 2007, marketing professor James J. Kellaris PhD, of the University of Cincinnati conducted a study about the top ten earworms. It boggles the mind how some people manage to justify their paycheque ... but the results are interesting:

1. Other. Everyone has his or her own worst earworm.
2. Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" jingle.
3. "Who Let the Dogs Out"
4. "We Will Rock You"
5. Kit-Kat candy-bar jingle ("Gimme a Break ...")
6. "Mission Impossible" theme
7. "YMCA"
8. "Whoomp, There It Is"
9. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
10. "It's a Small World After All"

I don't even KNOW some of those songs and NONE of my most persistent nuisance-tunes are on the list, so I guess I fit in with number one. The obsessive musical thoughts that frequently plague my mind are:

Fortunately for me, not all of them are "claw-your-eardrums" annoying. In fact, some of them can be quite pleasant accompaniment to my day. I know there are only supposed to be FIVE, but try telling my subconscious that and see where you get. I was lucky to pare it down to ten! So, since I didn't get here to post last Friday, I'm taking both week's five together.

So ... what is your most persistent "tune wedgy"?