Liloia.com

On again off again

According to a recent study...Study: No Link Between Mobile Phones, Tumors.

So for this week, cell phones don't cause cancer. Perhaps next week they will again. This stuff cracks me up. I am scouring the web to find it, but there was a research team that ran some numbers to show how ridiculous these kinds of studies are. I can't find any right now, but here is one that touches on it.

NCPA

Post a link to one if you know what I am talking about.

Ankle Adornment

Last night I was working at the bookstore, and a young man came in to look at some sci-fi books near my register. At first glance as he walked by, it looked like the cuff on one of his pant legs was turned inside out. I considered letting him know, so that he could fix it and be spared looking disheveled.

Then I took a second glance.

On his left ankle was what looked like a Velcro wristband wallet, like the lame wallets that were popular in the 80's. There was only one exception, it blinked.

I realized that this young man was wearing what The National Commission Against Drunk Driving calls an EMD or Electronic Monitoring Device. I thought to myself, you hear about these things all the time, but when was the last time you saw someone wearing one? I had never seen one before, and it was kind of interesting.

Here is another link about electronic monitoring devices.

Hurley Stemple

I let Trevor order a Shirley Temple at the restaurant for his birthday. He'd never had one before and kept forgetting what it was called. Finally, it was his turn to order. "Can I have a Hurley Stemple, please?"

2002 Kia Spectra

This is our new car.

I'm sorry, maybe you didn't hear me completely; this is OUR NEW CAR.

No kidding. No joke. Our old mommymobile minivan was starting to separate from its wheels by way of the struts, it was leaking oil, the gas tank door wouldn't close, it shook when you stopped, it shook when you started, the radiator leaked antifreeze, the brakes were worn, the cloth ceiling was falling down, the left front tire had a slow leak, it had a huge gouge from where it was hit by a tractor trailer last year, the cassette player had to be cajoled into giving back your tapes, the gear shift was off by one letter, the brake pedal fell off, the back tailgate door had to be held open with a stick, and the whole darn thing smelled like patchouli from when Bryan spilled a bottle of it in there years ago.

So instead of spending over a thousand dollars on repairs to a car that's worth $175.00 according to the Kelly Blue Book, we bought a new car instead. Now it just needs a name.

Ancient Duty, Ancient Pay Scale

This guy was more than a little impudent, but I understand what he's getting at. If chosen, you are essentially forced to serve on a jury for the pittance of $40 a day plus mileage. For a consultant who may possibly be billing clients an hourly rate, this represents an immense loss of income for each day he serves.

Now billing the court may not have resulted in anything other than a stern note from the judge, but the point was made. If serving on a jury is a citizen's duty, could we at least make it more economically feasible for our citizens to do so? Our system of trial by jury is descended from thirteenth century custom; unfortunately, the pay is still on the thirteenth century scale.

FFL

I just joined a Fantasy Football League this weekend. Being a non-sports fan, I was concerned that I would make horrible picks during our draft on Saturday. I am relatively pleased with the picks I got. Let me know what you think!

The films of Jane Austen

Fascinatingly, Jane Austen lived 200 years before film was a widespread medium. Yet not only does she have a filmography listing on the Internet Movie Database, the movies themselves are actually very entertaining.

I've seen Sense and Sensibility in the past with the dashing Alan Rickman and ever-adorable Kate Winslet. And this past week I had a chance to see Emma and Mansfield Park - both tumultuous stories featuring that signature Austen happy ending which always includes a wedding.

My theory on film adaptations of Austen novels is since we know what will happen - our protagonist will eventually be happily married to the 'right' man - we're there to enjoy the journey. The scenery, costumes and other visuals, while not necessarily sumptuous, do need to be recreated with exacting care and exhaustive detail. Because the story is made up of tense little claustropobic moments between characters, I have to get the sense that it takes place within a larger world to keep from feeling trapped while watching the film.

This is primarily a problem I've noticed while watching television adaptations of Austen's novels. On a smaller budget, the panoramas are not as expansive and much of the interaction takes place in dark, creaky rooms. Ballrooms become shadowy affairs in cramped rooms and costumes are stiff and awkward. The journey to the predictable 'perfect match' is not nearly as much fun to watch.

Mansfield Park (1999)
Emma (1996)
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Persuasion (1995/I)
Pride and Prejudice (1940)

Living Behind Bars

In a surprising turn of events, one of my many areas of expertise has been called upon to write an article for Living Behind Bars titled "Shankmaking 101: Crafting the perfect weapon for each occasion". Bet you didn't know there is an etiquette to shanking. Well there is.

And excerpt from the article I'm working on:
"You can certainly shank someone with any old sharpened object, but you can imagine the gossip that will circulate through the recreation area if you use a white shank after Labor Day. After all, you are not a prisoner without taste.

The first consideration in creating the right shank for the job is material. If you're planning a cafeteria stabbing, a sharpened plastic utensil is obviously the most appropriate. Likewise, a toothbrush handle, honed to a fine point, is perfect for those balmy shower shankings."

Later O&A.

WNEW fired Opie & Anthony because of Sex for Sam 3. I can't say that I'm surprised. Encouraging couples to copulate in public places for cash is not something I would condone if you want to keep your broadcasting license. Some other station will pick them up quickly - they were the #1 rated show in their time slot.

If you want some firsthand information, this is a link to the actual audio broadcast (including the arrest) which led to the firing (listener discretion advised):
http://www.dregs.net/ona/clips/wma02.asx
http://www.dregs.net/ona/clips/wma03.asx
http://www.dregs.net/ona/clips/wma04.asx

Sunburns are a Felony

A woman in Ohio was arrested and charged with felony child endangerment when her three children were sunburned at a county fair. She faces 15 years in jail.

As a mom who rarely has sunscreen with me, I'm very concerned about the implications of a charge like this. Was it perhaps cloudy when she left the house? Maybe since she was pushing the carriage - hence behind them - she didn't notice they were getting burned. Maybe she noticed, but there was no sunscreen at the fair. Yes, that's poor parenting, but is it really a felony?

It says the kids were treated with cold compresses - does that really warrant a hospital visit? It just seems like a huge overreaction to a case of poor judgement. Slap some Noxema on the kids, tell the mom to be more careful next time and spend some quality time looking for the mom at the fair who's smacking her kid around.

Cloned Animals

Right now CNN.com is running a poll asking people whether or not they would eat meat from a cloned animal. Currently the results are 30% Yes, and over 45% No. I am confused by this. The meat of the animal is the same, regardless of the fact that the animal is cloned. They aren't proposing genetically altered animals (which people are usually averse to), but animals that are exactly the same as the original animal.

Perhaps most people don't realize that many plant materials such as some species of grapes, oranges, apples, watermelon, and many others cannot be bred via normal fertilization. By default, the only way to generate these delicious items is to clone the parent plant material.

Almost every single fruit that claims to be "seedless" is created by breeding two plants that result in a seedless variety and then cloning the plant each season to produe that same high quality. They certainly cannot collect the seeds from these plants, since they have few if any that are viable. Even if they could, due to genetic variation, these seeds would almost never produce the same plant.

Corn is one of the greatest offenders of this issue. Have you ever passed by a corn field and seen diamond shaped signs along side of the rows? Often, this is a marker put out by the farmer advertising the cloned or genetically altered corn seed/plants that they are using. Has this slowed our consumption of corn products?

Taking this information and moving to animals, what is the difference between cloned plant flesh and cloned animal flesh? I am not arguing whether people should eat meat or not. I would in many ways agree that we should skip eating animals, but I like a burger just like the next Joe. But if you are a meat eater, what difference is there for you with cloned meat?

If there is a certain type of meat that you enjoy but is expensive due to low availability, cloned animals can increase the available product while driving down the cost of the exact same meat. Cloned animals don't suffer from the difficulty of breeding for farmers, leaving a difficult part of the process to the test tube, allowing them to spend more time on other tasks.

Thoughts?

Fun Facts

I know that this adds nothing to the universe, but I still like these kinds of things. Fun.

• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
• A snail can sleep for three years.
• Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
• Butterflies taste with their feet.
• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.
• February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
• If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
• In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
• Leonard DiVinci invented the scissors.
• No word in the English language rhymes with month.
• Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
• Shakespeare invented the word 'assassination' and 'bump'.
• Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand, lollipop with your right.
• The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
• The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
• The words 'racecar' and 'kayak' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
• TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
• Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
• If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at a red light.
• In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch face is 10:10.
• The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
• Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself.
• There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewable vitamins.
• There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: abstemious and facetious.
• There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: indivisibility.
• The Bible does not say there were three wise men; it only says there were three gifts.
• Did you know that crocodiles never outgrow the pool in which they live? That means that if you put a baby croc in an aquarium, it would be little for the rest of its life.
• A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; a group of geese in the air is a skein
• A jiffy is an actual unit of time for 1/1000 of a second.
• Pinocchio is Italian for pine eye.
• The sentence 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog uses every letter of the alphabet.'
• The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
• Barbie's full name is Barbara Milicent Roberts.
• It's impossible to lick your elbow.
• On average, a human being will have sex more than 3,000 times and spend two weeks kissing in their lifetime.
• More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
• Rats and horses can't vomit.
• 'The sixth sick sheiks sixth sheeps sick' is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language...try it!
• Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
• In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
• The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
• Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
• A duck's quack doesn't echo anywhere, and no one knows why.
• 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks.
• In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders. (Yuck)
• Most lipstick contains fish scales.
• Cat's urine glows under a black light.
• Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.

Stupid People

This was too funny to pass up. Deirdre sent this to me today. If she had a website, I would plug it here, but I can tell you that she is an delightful woman from Cork, Ireland who says all-oooh-mini-um, instead of aluminum.

Stupid People
By Andy Rooney

"Stupid people should have to wear signs that just say, "I'm Stupid". That way you wouldn't rely on them, would you? You wouldn't ask them anything. It would be like, "Excuse me...oops...never mind, didn't see your sign."

It's like before my wife and I moved. Our house was full of boxes and there was a U-Haul truck in our driveway. My neighbor comes over and says, "Hey, you moving?" "Nope. We just pack our stuff up once or twice a week to see how any boxes it takes. Here's your sign."

A couple of months ago I went fishing with a buddy of mine, we pulled his boat into the dock, I lifted up this big ol'stringer of bass and this idiot on the dock goes, "Hey, y'all catch all them fish?" "Nope. Talked 'em into giving up. Here's your sign."

I was watching one of those animal shows on the Discovery Channel. There was a guy inventing a shark bite suit. And there's only one way to test it. "Alright, Jimmy, you got that shark suit on, it looks good... They want you to jump into this pool of sharks, and you tell us if it hurts when they bite you." "Well, all right, but hold my sign. I don't wanna lose it."

Last time I had a flat tire, I pulled my truck into one of those side-of-the-road gas stations. The attendant walks out, looks at my truck, looks at me, and I SWEAR he said, "Tire go flat?" I couldn't resist. I said, "Nope. I was driving around and those other three just swelled right up on me. Here's your sign."

We were trying to sell our car about a year ago. A guy came over to the house and drove the car around for about 45 minutes. We get back to the house, he gets out of the car, reaches down and grabs the exhaust pipe, then says, "Darn that's hot!" See, if he'd been wearing his sign, I could have stopped him.

I learned to drive an 18-wheeler in my days of adventure. Wouldn't you know, I misjudged the height of a bridge. The truck got stuck and I couldn't get it out, no matter how I tried. I radioed in for help and eventually a local cop shows up to take the report. He went through his basic questioning ...okay...no problem. I thought for sure he was clear of needing a sign...until he asked, "So, is your truck stuck?" I couldn't help myself! I looked at him, looked back at the rig and then back to him and said, "No, I'm delivering a bridge...here's your sign."

I stayed late at work one night and a co-worker looked at me and said, "Are you still here?" I replied, "No. I left about 10 minutes ago. Here's your sign."

The next time someone says something stupid, ask them where their sign is.

Dinosaur School

Over the last few weeks, Tara has been planning and setting up after school activities for Trevor that goes along with the curriculum they are covering at school. This week is dinosaur week. So far, Tara and Trevor have:

• Made dinosaur skeleton pictures with macaroni
  
• Rented "Land Before Time VII"
  
• Picked up some dinosaur books at the library
  
• Extracted a dinosaur toy from an "iceberg" (a frozen bowl in our freezer)
  
• And tonight we all made "dinosaur nests with Chow Mein noodles and butterscotch chips. They were awesome.
  

Tomorrow they have plans to use rawhide dog bones and conduct a fake "fossil dig" in the garden with shovels. They intend to grid off the area too. They are so cool.

Castle in the Clouds

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to New Hampshire to the Castle in the Clouds. We promised to post pictures from the trip, here they are.

This is a view of the back of the house.

The man who built this house had over 1,000 masons hand cut each stone for this house. They said that each worker could only cut and place three stones a day because they were all custom fit.

This is just a different view of the back of the house. The stonework was truly impressive.

The home looked out over the lake region near Lake Winnepesaukee. It was a perfect day for the trip and we had an awesome time.

About Us

We finally got our act together and added an About Us page. Let us know what you think.

We also added a php script that automates out taglines at the top of the page. We will be coming out with a new pages so that you can view all of our old taglines sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL

Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL

If only I had purchased this book two months ago, I would have saved myself some headaches. The PHP/MySQL combination is both powerful and popular for creating dynamic, data-driven sites. But not many resources explain this combination so thoroughly. I have plenty of PHP books that touch on databases briefly and other resources that concentrate on MySQL, but don't delve into PHP. But this book fills the need of developers for a thorough and clear guide to using the PHP and MySQL combination.

I have primarily been using the book as a reference guide - browsing entries of interest via the index; however, someone needing an introduction to PHP/MySQL applications would be well served by starting at the beginning and reading straight through the book.

As I would expect from any competent development guide, example code and screenshots are sprinkled liberally throughout the chapters. Accompanying explanations are succinct and written to be understandable to novices and experts alike. This is a good book to pick up the moment you decide your site needs to be powered by PHP and MySQL. It will be useful from the moment you create a table to the day your first customer uses your homemade shopping cart application successfully.

[And thanks to Ellen for the recommendation!]

Dancin' Spidey

No matter how many times I see this, it doesn't get any less funny.

Stamped Hands

In a former life, looking down at the back of my hand and seeing a stamp usually meant that I had spent the previous evening (and morning) at a bar, hanging with friends, and listening to some great (or not) music.

Not Anymore.

Today Trevor and I had a "Boy's Day Out", and left Tara at home. She had some work to do, and appreciated the time to herself. We took the MBTA Commter Rail into Boston and visited one of our favorite places, The Childrens Museum. Fully stamped, we ran towards the four floors of excitement that awaited us. It was nice to see Trevor growing up, and seeing his interests and skills changing.

For the first time, he experimented with the climbing walls and fully embraced the multi-level climbing tubes which he had previously been terrified to approach. He did get a little skittish a few times when he lost sight of me for longer than he liked, but that was quickly corrected as soon as he saw other kids playing.

As his Dad is, Trevor is a very social person. He couldn't avoid chatting with other kids in the museum, inviting them to join him, building little teams that followed him through the tubes. Many of the kids were older than he was, yet still followed his lead and joined in on the games.

One of the kids that Trevor was playing with, asked Trevor to help him find his brother. The kid told us that his brother was 5 and had light up shoes just like him. Scanning the entire area, I tried to help the two boys, and came up empty. After a while, I found Trevor with the boy and asked if they found him yet. Trevor looked at me confused, and said "This is his brother, the other boy is there." He then pointed next to him where an identical boy stood. Weird.

Domain Name Disputes

A few days ago, I posted a link to a site about websites that have ridiculous policies about linking to them. After rooting around on his main site a bit, I found out something else that this guy David Sork does. He apparently is an attorney and serves on a panel for domain name dispute proceedings arising under the ICANN and other dispute policies. He posts them to his site with the full details of the dispute, complaints and end result. The one I found that was pretty funny, was a complaint by 1-800-mattres with a company that had registered the domain name matress.com claiming that they were stealing market share from them due to their customers spelling the word mattress wrong. They also claimed that they should have rights to domains that have any iteration of the word "mattress" spelled wrong, right or otherwise. They lost the case.

Enjoy this link. He has all of them posted.

Grr

Ugh, today is just one of those days that I am in a very aggressive and hostile mood. In the first hour of the day I had conversations/emails with numerous people who are stumbling through life eating lead paint chips instead of potato chips. I would really like to have an entire day or be someplace where I can talk to intelligent, challenging people all day long, or even more than once or twice a day.

There are some days that being in Customer Service is great, because I love to assist people. Then there are others when I realize why the United States is no longer considered the world power it once was.

Don't Link To Us

In my effort to continue to be hostile and annoyed with dumb people today, I have found this site which brings to light an annoying practice by websites asking people NOT to link to them. Funny stuff.

Don't Link to Us!

UFO's or IFO's?

This article from Space.com details some information that may possibly explain more than 20% of the alleged UFO sightings that have taken place since the early 1980's.

Investigation Casts Light on the Mysterious Flying Black Triangle

Do you remember when the US government revealed the existance of the SR-71 Blackbird, or the newer F117A Nighthawk? These experimental stealth planes were previously kept from the public. It is not that far of a stretch to consider that there are numerous aircraft in use by the US military that we are not aware of. Really cool article.

Jesus Eats

I saw an attempt at a funny, righteous bumper sticker today. It was a Jesus fish chomping down on a Darwin fish.

So what are we saying here... Jesus eats those who disagree with him? Jesus destroys the misguided? Or does he perhaps invite them back into his proverbial flock with open arms?

I guess you can't put that on a bumper sticker since fish don't have arms.

Giuseppe's

This weekend we made our first trip up to New Hampshire since we moved to MA. Although we only went for a few hours on Saturday, it was a great day trip and I think we will be heading up there again soon. We visited three places, The Castle in the Clouds (pictures to follow), Keepsake Quilters (I assume that Tara may talk about that one) and Giuseppe's Show Time Pizzeria & Ristorante.

As I started to write this out I gave a detailed description of our experience there, and then thought better of it. I would prefer to summarize our experience eating there below:

Food: *****
Atmosphere: ****
Service: *
Entertainment: **

The entertainment was a piano player working the keys on a large white piano. He was actually a pretty good musician, that is until he started singing Elton John songs, badly. There was a reason that he was working in a pizzeria instead of Carnegie Hall.

Summary:
Food - Good
Service - Horrible
Music - LAME!

Restaurant, continued

I don't think the piano player was all that bad. At least he wasn't bad enough that his Elton John interfered with my meal. But I do agree that the service could have been a lot better. The waiter was pleasant and the food came decently fast, but it was impossible to get his attention to make a request between 'check-ins'.

And what was the deal with the hostess? She seated us and said, "Now if anyone asks, tell them you reserved this table, because you're not supposed to have it, but I think I can squeeze you in before the reservation people get here."

As a customer, I shouldn't have to worry about things like that. Either you have a seat or you don't. I sat there half the meal worrying that someone was going to burst in and accuse me of stealing their table. The other half I was rushing to get out before the rightful table owners arrived. And to be honest, I'm surprised this place had reservations at all. Did someone call and say, "I absolutely must have the table with the checkered oilcloth covering that's under the dusty fake plant and near the faded poster of a guitar from the 1980's."

Plus, the waitstaff seemed to be in a perpetual state of panic. There were many empty tables, and no wait for seating, but they all looked harried and flustered. So much sighing and running is not good for the digestion.

Ugly people wanted

ABC is creating a new reality show with the euphamistic title, "Ultimate Makeover". What it should really be called is, "Put your life in our limited liability hands".

It seems harmless enough on the surface; a few lucky ugly people are going to be made beautiful at the hands of experts. But if you read the contract fully, you should "understand that the Program involves the ultimate makeover of the participant which may include, without limitation, cosmetic surgery on the participant." Without limitation?

I would be very wary of going under the knife of a network-chosen surgeon. I would also be concerned that the health of the participant would come second to instant results. Why exercise for ten months when you can suck that fat off in an hour? You can be gorgeous by the commercial break. If you're that desperate to be perfect, fill out the application and let ABC have a crack at you.

I wouldn't be surprised if you came out of surgery only to find a circle and the letters ABC tattoed on your forehead.

Mystery Fruit Stealer

I went food shopping last Saturday night and watched a man stealthily eat fruit from the produce displays. I had a choice to make; tell someone or keep it to myself. I like telling on people. It gives me satisfaction to tie up a loose end, do the right thing and make the world a better place. I get the same feeling when I put oil in my car or clean the communal kitchen at work.

I decided I would feel lame telling the produce manager, "Hey, stop that man from eating apricots!" But I was curious. What were his motives? What was his story?

As I selected mushrooms and lettuce, he carefully prodded peaches and nectarines. Something about his demeanor suggested he'd done this before. Some self-assured manner of choosing his treat said, "The produce aisle is my personal salad bar." A small part of me envied his lack of concern over fruit larceny. I can't bring myself to pop a grape in my mouth as I shop, yet this man can palm a nectarine and nonchalantly wipe the juice from his chin. I'm not comfortable shucking corn into the garbage can that the store provides and he's practically having a clam bake in the seafood aisle. Stop and Shop isn't all you can eat, buddy!

Anyway, clothing is a good barometer of situation. But this rasberry robber had me stymied. He had on beat up old loafers, faded and baggy drawstring pants and a spotless golf shirt. The look was either 'recently homeless man' or 'apathetic CEO on vacation'. Who are you Mystery Fruit Stealer!?

The riddle came to a disappointing conclusion (as they often do) when a woman walked by with her cart and screeched at him, "What are you doing? Don't eat that!" She sighed and walked away with him trailing behind her, shoulders slumped, guiltily holding a sticky, half-eaten fruit. He was just a guy and the most interesting thing he'd done all week was steal an apricot from Stop and Shop. Poor guy.