I am Still 10 Years Behind. No. More Like 15
If you are a long time, or a short time reader of this blog, you know I can be pretty in step with what is on the forefront of fashion, but I am still a little slow. Maybe I shouldn’t say slow. It is just that I am sometimes reticent to change. Let me give you an example. To this very day, sometimes I have to catch myself as my brain still wants to look up something with AltaVista instead of Google! Even with search engines, I can be about ten years behind the times. Actually, I consider my tastes to err on the “classic” side, but nobody agrees and all of the old ones that didn’t work as efficiently have been bought out or have gone by the wayside.
FindHub.com leaves me equally as skeptical. In fact, the search is powered by Google. Why is this even its own search engine? Well, I suppose that the magic really happens when you use the left side bar. You can toggle between a regular internet search, music, and news searches. It switches to utlilizing Yahoo movies, Amazon search and Dictionary.com. In time, I will find this is something that saves me time. Of course, since we are talking about me, I will probably think of a convoluted way to do things, and then shuffle my feet back to using something more simple. A regular Rube Goldberg am I.
Be a Part-Part-Part-Time Detective
When I was a child, I sat with my dad watching the cases of Perry Mason unfold. Of course, Paul was also usually sneaking around in the bushes looking for a missing clue, and Della Street was taking notes when she would suddenly say, “Perry….” and then reveal her deduction of the facts. When my dad was the age I was, he in fact watched the very same show with HIS dad.
When I was a teen, I absorbed every Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple adventure practically by osmosis as well. As an adult, I have moved on to seeking the pulp detective story with the most rediculous titles.
You can imagine that when I discovered 5 Minute Mysteries, I was positive that it played directly to my demographic. How does it work? You read the mystery of the day, and then you select the clues and name your suspect. You are awarded points based on the difficulty of the case and your accuracy. You can join or create your own League of detectives as well, where you can check out how others are ranked.
One of the best things, as if it wasn’t truly awesome to begin with, is that charities and schools can partner with 5 Minute Mysteries for Fundraising Efforts. I think that it is one of the neatest fundraising ideas I have seen in awhile.
For those of you who like to “wait and see” how something is received before you dive in, I won’t go without mentioning 5 Minute Mysteries has already appeared on ABC news. In otherwords, there will be plenty of other people out there on the site to join up with, rather than hearing the sound of only your own echo in the library with Colonel Mustard.
History: Debated on The Internet
There is a short, to the point website that has been brought to my attention. Apparently, a group is wanting to get some information out about Golodomor (which means mass hunger in Russian, also referred to as Holodomor). This occured in 1932-1933. What had happened was not an environmental dustbowl. On the contrary, it involved the seizure of grain in a plan cooked up by Stalin. The grain was taken from the farms and the people to sell abroad, in order to fuel Russia’s industrialization. It is estimated that 6-8 million people perished as a direct result of hunger. Some sources report up to 10 million.
Those are the facts.
Now what the website is debating is the underlying motive. It has been believed by some that the motive of this was to act as a genocide against the Ukraine. The website is debating that it was not a deliberate genocide, that people died because of the faulty and ill executed policies of Stalin. The former was supported by Viktor Yuschenko and others. The latter is supported by the EU. When a resolution was made, I wasn’t too versed on all the details of it, but do know that it was hotly debated in the areas densely populated by former Russians within the United States. The United Nations resolved that Golodomor, also referred to as Holodomor, was a crime against humanity. It was more than coincidental that even though people in central Russia died, that the deaths were more concentrated in areas where nationalism was rising, such as the Ukraine.
It seems completely plausible that they died by byproduct, which further proves that communism and extreme socialism do NOT work. However, the trend of denying genocide is dangerous and irrefutable. Either way, I do believe whether the seizure of grains was a deliberate attack of certain groups of people, or whether that was just a byproduct, Stalin, with all the scientists around him, was not stupid, and he had to know that deaths would toll in the millions.
What do you think, dear readers? Will modern events be refuted and changed by who can make the most noise on the internet? And what do you think about the actual event? Click to read the website in question about Holodomor.
history | Comment (0)Just Say NO to Junk Mail
I am careful not to add my name to too many phoney drawings, where I have little chance of winning but a big chance of lots of junk mail. I don’t mind throwing my name in the hat and geting mail from a business I am interested in, but I don’t like my address sold. Recently, i did a little experiment. I signed up for a trial of a magazine and spelled my name slightly differently. Oh, it still legally is my name but I hardly sign up for everything just using my first and middle initial and then last name. Within a month or two, I got all sorts of things in the mail relating to rug steam cleaning to that version of my name.
Of course, the company I signed up with gets to send me stuff because I asked for it, but I am tired of my name being sold. Of course, they make things pretty tricky saying that you can check a box to let them know you want to receive mail from them and their subsidiaries, but not others. Their subsidiaries could populate the yellow pages for all i know.
Right now, the Privacy Council is giving out 500 free memberships to try their service to End Junk Mail. I am going to take the service for a test spin, and let you know next month if all of the dastardly “No Credit? No Problem!” postcards decide to find another mail slot to hide in.
Jenny’s Back and More Expensive Than Ever
This morning, I recalled the auction a few years back, where someone was auctioning off their phone number. The winning bidder would own the cell phone number and it would be ported over when they paid. Who would bid a bajillion dollars for a phone number. Well, since California 654 doesn’t mean anything anymore, of course it is 867-5309. If you have this number, than you probably have been pranked by people singing to you or finding out if “Jenny Jenny is there. Of course, this Jenny was wailed about by Tommy Tutone in some serious 80s perms.
Of course is Jenny Jenny, performed by Tommy Tutone in their 80s perms, ties, and t-shirts.
Ironically, there is yet another auction for the phone number. The one that I recall (which was for the 212 New York area code) was shut down because it was determined the number was actually owned by the phone company and could not legally be sold. However, this auctioner had that base covered by also including the DJ business that the number belongs to in the (201) area code. In fact, it just ended here at a price that is ludicrous for a phone number but may not be all that bad for a successful business, perhaps.
Don’t remember the song, well here are the lyrics and the song and if you are not carefully will be drilled into your head sometime today. Of course, this performance was a few years after “Jenny” took the world by storm, and the world moved on from matching shirts and socks to matching shirts and shoes. Oh yeah! Though if you were the white T-shirt type and followed this, everyone would point and say you were wearing “grandpa shoes,” as wearing sneakers was cheating. You would have to do loafers or wings.
Hey…
Jenny, Jenny who can I turn to
You give me something I can hold on to
I know you’ll think I’m like the others before
Who saw your name and number on the wall
Jenny I’ve got your number
I need to make you mine
Jenny don’t change your number
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)Jenny, Jenny you’re the girl for me
You don’t know me but you make me so happy
I tried to call you before
But I lost my nerve
I tried my imagination
But I was disturbedJenny I’ve got your number
I need to make you mine
Jenny don’t change your number
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)I got it (I got it), I got it
I got your number on the wall
I got it (I got it), I got it
For a good time callJenny don’t change your number
I need to make you mine
Jenny I’ve got your number
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)Hey…
Jenny don’t change your number
I need to make you mine
Jenny I call your number
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)Jenny, Jenny who can I turn to
For the price of a dime
I can always turn to you
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
As you see, not too much happens. But isn’t that the case of many 80s songs. One may argue that it is not true, that Duran Duran became somehow involved in the French Revolution except with more leather jackets per capita than what existed back then and that John Mellencamp toured the whole US of A, but that is false because it only appeared that way in the MUSIC VIDEO. If you actually sit and listen to the song with no images of the MTV videos in your head, you will agree with me. The counterrevoltionary situations only are merely are open for wide interpretation and the man formerly known as Cougar just said that America is “Something to See, Baby,” and should have been hired for a time share company that enticed people to sign up for a tour rather than actually saying that he danced across the country with his guitar.
1980s, entertainment, music | Comment (0)International IDS – Okay or Orwellian?
I don’t know if I am having a “Big Brother Moment” or if this is something that makes a lot of sense for International Security, but an ISIC is now available. What is it? It is an International Student ID Card. What I am not clear on is if it is for students who are in the United States from abroad and it is a way to keep tabs on them, or if it is meant for all students. The cards have actually been around since the mid 1960s, with a non profit organization having started in 1949, whose aim was “To help facilitate student mobility” in educational opportunities and exchanges. The ID card came out of that mission.
When you look up information, you are usually greeted by a host of discounts a card holder is entitled to, such as stores, airlines and more. Is this merely an enticement to get more students to get on the bandwagon that smells a bit Orwellian, or is this a legitimate need due to our every communicating world? Are students really impeded by having a regular passport instead? I am not sure. Since I have never known anyone with one of these ID’s, I cannot say for sure whether they have bridged a gap or not. Also, if you are a conspiracy theorist, does indoctrinating students make them just all the more likely to accept them as adults?
What are your thoughts on this? I would like to hear from students who are in the travelling mode, and the average Jack and Jane on the street, too.
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