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I got the video of Jimi's performance of Purple Haze from Google Video.
Man....the late 60's and early 70's were a good time. At least I think they were, from what I remember - I was in a bit of a purple haze myself. Lot's of wild fun times. Wouldn't have traded them for anything, but it's nice to be all grown up too.
Surprise the love of your life with something literate, fun and cool from the New Yorker.
Visit The New Yorker store for Valentine's Day gifts.
The old saw, "those who can do, those who can't teach", may have some element of truth in certain circumstances but I've never liked it as a general saying. It seems sort of mean-spirited and not at all accurate in the case of good or great teachers who not only are really good at what they do but are willing to teach it to others.
I like this saying better,
"Those who can do. Those who believe others can also, teach."
from the book Captive Notions
This Cornerstone Magazine article with excepts from Henri Nouwen's book - "Out of Solitude", contains some excellent ideas on offering a compassionate presence to another who is grieving.
We've all been in situations where we wonder what we can possibly do for a person who has suffered a loss.
There may not be anything we can do, but the greatest gift we have to offer is sometimes to be our self. Not to do for, but to be with. Like many things in life sometimes 90 percent of the solution is just showing up.
To be our self. To offer a quiet, calm, listening, caring presence.
To offer our companionship, neither in front of nor behind, but beside - in step - in touch. A connection.
Not offering solutions or answers where none exist; but rather to be with another human being who is suffering.
Sharing the greatest gift we have for another - listening to them. Not pretend listening or partial listening while thinking of our response but rather seeing, feeling and hearing - with empathy and compassion - truly listening to them.
Helping them not by our answers, autobiographical responses, judging, sage advice or intelligence, but by allowing them a space to either articulate where they are or just to be silent and know a fellow human being is with them.
Putting aside our wants and fears, quieting our constant internal chatter for a moment allowing us to focus, look, see and listen
from our heart.
An excerpt from the article -
"Still, when we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares.
You might remember moments in which you were called to be with a friend who had lost a wife or husband, child or parent. What can you say, do, or propose at such a moment? There is a strong inclination to say: “Don’t cry; the one you loved is in the hands of God.” “Don’t be sad because there are so many good things left worth living for.” But are we ready to really experience our powerlessness in the face of death and say: “I do not understand. I do not know what to do but I am here with you.” Are we willing to not run away from the pain, to not get busy when there is nothing to do and instead stand rather in the face of death together with those who grieve? . . . "
According to this Ask Yahoo! response, 1 in 6 people in the world live in "extreme" poverty - defined as less than 1 U.S. dollar per day.
Half the world's population lives on less than 2 U.S. dollars per day.
That title sounds like the text in some spam message.
On my way to work this morning I saw a guy stopped at a red light in an old van.
He was playing a flute while waiting for the light to turn green.
It was a good way to start the day.
People are like birds - you see lots of brownish grey sparrows and every so often catch a glimpse of a brightly colored goldfinch.
Rainy, rainy, rainy - oh for some sun and sand.
Super Sand and Sea Sales on Vacations in Hawaii
Super Sand and Sea Sales on Vacations in Mexico
$175 Resort Credit at Beaches Resorts in the Caribbean
$175 Resort Credit at Sandals Resorts in the Caribbean
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cute gifts from fredflare
Lifehacker has a link to an interview on NPR's "All Thing Considered" with Lifehacker's associate editor Adam Pash, where he explains how to get around Sony BMG's copy-protection scheme that was placed on some 5 million music CD's. Sony has since halted the practice.
People who bought these CD's found they couldn't download the songs to their computers, MP3 player or iPod.
The hack sounds really simple - "each time you insert a CD hold down the shift key".
The Story of Gum from the NACGM (National Association of Chewing Gum Manufacurers) is fascinating ;-)
Well sort of.
I was wondering what chicle was and found that it's a form of latex that comes from the Sapodilla tree found in Mexico and Central America.
Gum chewing originated over 9000 years ago.
The worlds oldest gum, "was found near Ellos in western Sweden in 1993. The well-chewed, 9,000-year-old gob of honey-sweetened resin contained tooth marks that, amusingly, appeared to be those of a teenager".
The Greeks were chewing resin from the Mastic tree in 50 A.D.
In the 1800's gum was made from Spruce resin or paraffin wax, until the Sapodilla chicle began to be used in the 1860's. The discovery that chicle could be used for gum involved Santa Anna—the same Santa Anna who had besieged the Alamo in 1836.
Santa Anna was in his 70's living in Staten Island, New York, trying to figure out a way to make money and eventually regain power in Mexico. He sold a ton of chicle to Thomas Adams in hopes Adam's could use it to make an alternative rubber, which would in turn make Santa Anna rich. That didn't work out but Adam's did figure out chicle made a good base for gum and came up with - among other's Black Jack gum.
A Cleveland druggist name Edward Beeman, invented Beeman's gum with pepsin - claimed to aid digestion. His unfortunate choice of a pig for his gum wrapper logo hurt initial sales.
Nowadays most gum is made from synthetic rubber/latex since the Sapodilla tree couldn't keep up with demand, given it can only be tapped once every 7 or 8 years.
The U.S.A. leads the world in gum chewing with about 170 to 180 servings (whatever a serving might be...I assume a stick) per person per year.
Today, gum archeologists, some quite young, specialize in the recovery of the mysterious, sweet, minty, juicy-fruity, chewy, sticky, sometimes hard as a rock, magical substance. Working under table tops in restaurants, theatre seats, or other likely spots - all to further humankind's knowledge of the history, the story of what we have come to know simply as gum.
FavIcon from Pics -- how to create a favicon.ico for your website
You can make one of these or whatever favicon you would like to use for your website.
If you are still using I.E. as your browser there's an odd trick to get the unique icon associated with the URL to appear, if it's mysteriously disappeared -
Place your mouse pointer on the icon in the address bar and wiggle it around a little to move the icon. I.E. will redraw it to show the unique icon for that URL.
Wikipedia has an in depth article on favicons.
The Million Dollar Homepage, is a cool one-of-a-kind idea from a young man in the U.K.
He decided to sell advertising on his "million dollar home page" for 1 dollar per pixel.
It's fun to look at. Reminds me of a telephone pole with a bunch of stickers on it. Kind of pretty.
The last little white space (1000 pixels) near the middle of his page is going for 6 dollars a pixel on eBay last time I looked.
The space for sale is sort of hard to locate (sort of a "Where's Waldo" exercise) so I cut a piece out to show you -
I'm watching the Seahawks play Green Bay this afternoon and came across an interesting feature of Yahoo! search. If I query for "Seahawks Score" I get the game score delayed by about 30 seconds. Not bad.
If I Google for "Seahawks Score" I get a list of articles on previous games.
The [team] score is one of many features of Yahoo! Shortcuts.
