Head Melodies
I mentioned before that I always have melodies playing around my head, and unless I try, I don't notice it very often. For instance, for a couple of weeks, the music of the Phantom of the Opera was playing, and I couldn't shake it for anything else. However, lately by listening to classical music on my XM radio and also on WETA out of DC, my melody has changed to snippets of Beethoven. That's nice.
Of course, I still have Morse Code translating everything I hear.. but I have been able to keep that in the background. I ordered a couple of courses on The Brain from the Great Courses company. I'm anxious to see what they say about my strange brain connections.
Do You Use Dryer Sheets?
The Week magazine lists some special uses for Dryer Sheets. (I thought they were only to be used to throw into dryers to make clothes smell nice. Foolish me.)
o One can rub a sheet on the soles of your squeaky rubber shoes. The sound is supposed to go away magically.
o Tie a sheet on your belt or on the edge of your outdoor easy chair.. it's supposed to keep those pesky mosquitoes away.
o Rub a sheet on your cat during a thunder storm. This should prevent static.
o (I quote) " Put a sheet in a bowl of warm water and soak the (hair) brushes for a half hour, then pull out the hair with a cloth or another hairbrush."
Isn't it amazing what one can learn each day in this wonderful world!
Mel Brooks
AARP Magazine for September 2015 asked some questions of Mel Brooks, who was 89 years old at the time. There is a picture of him, and he looks a lot younger than his stated age.
Mel says he see Carl Reiner almost every day. He's 93, but sharp as a tack. Mel was born Melvin James Kamisky in Brooklyn in 1926. He married Anne Bancroft, and was an expert at telling jokes, was 1,000 years old, and really knew how to fart.
Hello Barbie
The Week reports that Mattel and ToyTalk have brought out a talking Barbie. Press her belt-buckle and she will hold a conversation with you. She has a bank of 8,000 prerecorded comments, so she probably will be able to communicate realistically. And, once the prerecorded stuff is found not to apply to a question, Barbie's innards will search the Web for an appropriate answer.
This concept, of course, is not new. I wrote a computer program back in the 1960's that allowed a computer to talk to you in a manner that sounded intelligent. Actually, what I did, was parrot back to the questioner versions of his queries, with a little "sauce" added in to make it sound real. Not bad for the time.
A Real Old Husband/Wife Joke
The Readers' Digest printed this old joke at the instigation of Oscar Nunez, who, I'm told, is a character on the TV show, The Office:
In heaven there were two huge signs. The first read, Men Who Did What Their Wives Told Them to Do. The line of men under this sign stretched as far as the eye could see.
The second sign stated, Men Who Did What They Wanted to Do. Only one man stood under that sign. Intrigued, Saint Peter said to the lone man, "No one has ever stood under this sign before. Tell me about yourself." The man shrugged and said, "Not much to say; my wife told me to stand here."
I See By the Pooper
Chuck Shepherd writes in the May 2016 Funny Times about the dictator Josef Stalin. He says that a former KGP spy said that Stalin asked Soviet engineers to obtain some of Mao Zedong's bowel movements, so that scientists could examine them chemically to get a psychological profile of the Chinese leader. The spy says that other world leaders may have also had their poop analyzed. Chemical analysis supposedly could determine if the pooper was subject to nervousness or insomnia. Apparently, this knowledge would allow Stalin to know how to wrangle concessions from visiting dignitaries.
By the Way, I've read where people in the Soviet Union try not to clog up their ancient sewer systems by not throwing toilet paper into their toilet bowls. Instead, they place it in the rest room's garbage container. One American lady wrote to one of the National magazines that she was happy to be entertaining a cross-cultural Russian student, but she was having a hard time getting him to throw his dirty toilet paper into the toilet. Now, do you think that Americans will ever embrace that way to be ecologically progressive? I doubt it.
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