1) Snoopy has appeared as a giant balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade more times than any other character in history, a whopping 38 times. Bet you feel guilty about how often you walk your dog.
2) It's a bit nebulous why it became a tradition topardon a turkey.
3) Since 1934, the Detroit Lions have "played" a game every Thanksgiving.
4) What does your favorite Thanksgiving food say about you? 5) This is Ralph the Thanksgiving Turkey. He looks delicious.
I went to the emergency room this Saturday night. The doctor diagnosed me with the worst case of buzz kill he'd ever seen.
Exactly one and a half drinks into the night, and six weeks before the Paris Marathon three friends and I had been training for, I felt an overwhelming need to introduce my face to the floor of a local hookah establishment. It was a potential Code WGW (White Girl Wasted) and within minutes an ambulance arrived. Many of you have probably heard assorted tales of interactions between athletes and medical personnel. When I'd imaged these stories they were always lighthearted in nature....
EMT: "I can't get a pulse over here!" Patient: "Gotcha! I'm a distance runner, you see. My naturally low pulse rate is hilariously confusing." EMT: "You rascal!" Patient: "Now put that gurney away, drinks are on me!"
The reality of it wasn't nearly so charming. Turns out, unless you're about to step onto an Olympic podium, doctors are hesitant to believe that it's exercise and not, say, opium causing your reduced pulse rate. And oh by the way all their machines are pre-set to beep if it drops below 50 so don't expect to get any sleep during your seven-hour wait. So me and my little brother — who deserves a very special shout-out here, for not only soldiering through a seven-hour ER wait, and being the first to call 911 following my face plant in the bar, but for also finding a way to put the other patrons at ease as I was hoisted onto a gurney in the middle of their shrimp tempura roll by joking, "She always finds a way to get out of paying the tab, am I right folks? This guy knows." — passed the time by Googling the potential diseases I could be dying from. When I was finally discharged it was at 4:30am, against medical advice, and with the discovery of an inverted T-wave on my EKG. What actually happened is still kinda a question mark.
But don't feel too bad for me, it just meant that my trip to Paris included a lot more cheese and wine and a lot less running 26.2 miles, which is, apparently, how most normal people travel overseas. It was the most beautiful, humbling, amazing trip I've ever taken. It's how I'll always remember Paris, except for the parts when we had too much wine.
"This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." ~Peace Pilgrim
1) More than a third of Major League baseball pitchers are left-handers, about three times the average among the general population. 2) Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity. 3) The duck-billed platypus a semi aquatic egg-laying mammal indigenous to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. It is the only egg-laying mammal known to man and some of its more cuddly features include venous foot spurs and double cone eyes which it uses to see into your soul. But this terrifying creature can do more than simply be a crime against nature: "We have a case for you detective!"
Approximately 13% of the world's population are southpaws. We don't talk about in front of strangers but my own father leans to the left. We'll never know the true percent of lefties because many were forced to change handedness during childhood by teachers, parents, or the Aryan Society for Right Handed World Domination (you didn't hear it from me).
While historically, we enjoy shunning and/or ridiculing minorities, according to Chris McManus this tiny percentage has produced an above-average quota of high achievers.
Approximately 13% of the world's population are southpaws. We don't talk about in front of strangers but my own father leans to the left. We'll never know the true percent of lefties because many were forced to change handedness during childhood by teachers, parents, or the Aryan Society for Right Handed World Domination (you didn't hear it from me).
While historically, we enjoy shunning and/or ridiculing minorities, according to Chris McManus this tiny percentage has produced an above-average quota of high achievers.
Walt Disney is renowned for many things. His kingdom of animated wonders, a legacy of creative genius, the way he'd put on the Mickey Mouse suit and insist on being called “The Commodore”... But one thing he can never take credit for is a realistic representation of his Disney Princesses.
And despite recent efforts to portray more modern and diverse heroines, the Disney Princess line-up still largely resembles Thursday night at a Tallahassee strip club.
Criticism that Disney heroines represent an exaggerated and unrealistic physical standard of beauty is well deserved considering these films are designed for an audience of 5 to 10 year olds. Who exactly are the pouting lips, doe eyes, and heaving bosoms designed to appeal to?
I like to think I'll raise my children in the sort of open-minded, accepting household where we appreciated all bodies like pow, animated and otherwise. But it does it over simplify women's role in society and representation throughout history to believe that heavier, plainer Disney Princesses are some magic bullet that liberates us from years of patriarchal oppression?
It's a difficult issue to address when you're up against an intimidating group of Disney Princesses all in hot pursuit of their Happily Ever After (all all who strangely resemble the Mean Girls from my High School).
I'm genuinely glad to see Disney's outdated stereotypes modernized, but I'd hate to see one set of restrictive standards replaced by another. I don't think our ultimate end game is necessary some elaborately constructed Disney role model giving their stamp of approval on wearing glasses, liking books, or playing sports. Instead we should foster a society in which young women can be their own role models.
1) Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826. James Monroe also died on July 4, but in 1831. 2) Auto club AAA estimates that 41.9 million Americans will travel over the July 4th holiday, the most in eight years.
3) Calvin Coolidge was born onJuly 4, 1872. He also has the distinction of being the Nationals' latest Racing President.
14,000 — number of firework displays across the nation each year
150 million — number of hot dogs eaten by Americans
9 — number of times I will drunk-dial my ex before I black out
5) This amazing firework display is from the 2012 Let Freedom Sing Fireworks Show in Nashville, Tennessee. After the 2:05 mark, you'll feel like a five-year old again.
I got a palm reading the other day. I could say it was on a total whim, or that I don't really believe in that stuff, or that no baby I've never tried it before but with right guy I might be open to it, but that wouldn't be true. So this palm reading was not, in fact, my first foray into the occultic realm. Between palm readings, tarot cards, and aura cleanings I've spend a handful of dollars hoping for a glimpse into what my romantic future might hold. And while my little brother reminds me that this money could be better spent on pretty much anything besides crack, my most recent palm reader had an insight for me that I'd never heard before. She told me I've already met my soulmate.
There wasn't a need to flip through my mental Rolodex of exes, because everyone has "the one that got away." Not got away due to some kind of epic relationship fall out, or his arraignment hearing, or because he finally found the key to my sex dungeon, but got away because something, something small and nameless, in the relationship didn't quite work out.
Ladies and gentleman I'd like to present my potential lost soulmate:
Yeah, I know, you can't tell me anything I haven't already told myself each time I renew my Match subscription.
Okay Universe, I get it. He's very handsome. We were college sweethearts. He never hogged the covers and let me dance on his toes. He taught me how to how to change a timing belt and I encouraged him to run his first 5K. I made him laugh and he fielded my crazy like Joe DiMaggio. But it didn't work out. And looking back there wasn't anything we faced that was so insurmountable it couldn't have been overcome on our path to soulmatedom... Why do so many modern relationships end this way; with the parties citing vague and unsubstantial reasons like "things getting too serious", "timing", or "escaping from your sex dungeon"? So maybe he isn't my lost soulmate. Maybe you can't just lose a soulmate like a misplaced sweatshirt that turns up years later in a Goodwill Lost and Found. Maybe it's sharing our lives that's more important than our souls. After all, if Merriam-Webster doesn't recognize soulmates, I maintain there's no reason for the rest of us to. Except when dealing with angry ex-sex. Obviously.
1) This clip comes to you straight from my home town where minor league manager for the Asheville Tourist, Joe Mikulik otherwise known as "Who?", and "that assshole" loses his damn mind over a call and a game for no other reason than to show his butt and amuse you good folks. Enjoy:
2) Okay, so maybe I'm partial to my alma materbut after the below video the next person to destroy a basketball athletic program this badly was Jerry Sandusky.
3) Considered by most to be the greatest athlete of all time, his most famous commercial is titled "Failure."
4) The Play or The Play to Beat the Band, refers to a last-second kickoff return during a college football game between is recognized as one of the most memorable plays in college football history and among the most memorable in American sports.
Members of the Stanford Band had come onto the field midway through the return, believing that the game was over, which added to the ensuing confusion and folklore. Cal announcer Joe Starkey of KGO-AM 810 radio called the game. The following is a transcript of his famous call:
AND THE BEARS! THE BEARS HAVE WON! The Bears have won! Oh, my God! The most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heart-rending... exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football!
5) If you haven't heard of The Miracle on Ice than your heart is probably made of it. A group of rag tag American hockey players rallied to win Gold over the Russians, who play the villains in nine out of ten Olympic movies. Team USA's performance eked out a slim 4-3 lead which they clung to for the final 10 minutes. But it was Sportscaster Al Michaels, who was calling the game on ABC, who delivered his famous call:
"11 seconds, you've got 10 seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles?! YES!!!
1) A digital footprint is the data that is left behind by users on digital services. It's often referred to by my perverted neighbor as an "electronic snitch." 2) When people see something adorable, like a baby or a puppy, our typical response is to associate it as something edible (e.g. I want to munch those little feet right off). We relate cuteness to dopamine-inducing scent, reminding us of food. The overlapping senses unconsciously create the desire to put cute things in our mouths.
I could just eat them on toast
3) This video explains why Fight Club just might be the greatest movie ever. It also breaks the first two rules of Fight Club. 4) One of Google's 30 Most Epic Doodle's, is a tribute to Jackson Pollock's famous and unique style of drip painting. Or it's one of those three-D stereograms, but I've been staring at it for five hours now and so far nothing.
5) I'm not saying saying my Mother's Day Card is better than yours. I'm just repeating what she said in the shower this morning!
If you've ever read anything about business, studied for the GMAT, or drank myself into a blackout at my friend's grad school party last week, you might have heard a little something about two emerging but contrasting business ideologies: problem-focused and solution-focused. A stagnant economy, struggling enterprise, and diminishing middle-class give business theology about as much corporate credibility as pixie dust. And in all likelihood, 95% of board meeting run much like this:
T
"Solution-focused" ignores the cause, details, and nuances of your problem and concentrates your efforts soley on a remedy, resolution, and positive outcome. While "problem-focused" ignores potential solutions and concentrates your efforts on "Bats! Bats! Dear God how did all these bats get in here?!?!" Solution-Focused Therapy credits The Miracle Question. A basicthought experiment, its premise is simple: one night a miracle has occurred. All the problems in your world that would normally preoccupy your time and energy have magically been resolved. When you awaken the next morning, what's the very first thing, however tiny or insignificant, that you notice or experience which lets you know this miracle has occurred?
Anyone else's miracle involve Alec Baldwin giving this pep talk
as they get ready for work each morning?
The Miracle Question doesn't promise to make our decisions for us, but what it will do is take us to a solution that we already have. It rewires our thinking to ignore the flood of distractions that a hectic 1990s life holds. When left to their own devices, these thoughts can keep us trapped in a perpetual problem-focused cycle. Only then do we we find our solutions, our resolutions, the lights at the end of the bat filled tunnels.
1) After spending an amount of time researching Jack the Ripper, I will describe only as "too much," I've concluded his identity: Aaron Kosminski. You're welcome. Now, can someone give my therapist Dr. T. Bear a ring?
3) The three most common types of poker are stud, draw and community card. Texas hold 'em is the most popular of the community card versions, owing its popularity to the highly televised, internet sensation World Series of PokerLady Gaga. 4) I end each day with a gentle Guided Meditation by Lilen Eden to meet my Spirit Guides. They haven't offered much as far as guidance, and sure Greg still owes me $50 but the benefits of mediation has been shown to reduce stress, restore memory, and increase cognitive function. He had this bank thing happen, it was weird, but he gets paid next Friday and he'll get me then.
5) Swiss Guard,Italian Guardia Svizzera, corps of Swiss soldiers are responsible for the safety of the pope. Historically, new recruits had to have been unmarried Roman Catholic males with Swiss citizenship, between 19 and 30 years of age, at least 5 feet 8 inches and able to dress faaaabulous!!
Having a mental illness sucks. It sucks so badly, I'm literally forced to pay people [psychiatrist, therapist] to talk to me about it. Everyone else is four sentences away from realizing they have something less uncomfortable to do. As a society we've broken through many gender, racial and religious barriers, so why is it that when it comes to the the stigma of mental illness, we're still a slave to the rubber stamp and it's arbitrary "crazy" or "sane" label?
I've found that it isn't necessarily mental illness itself that is so wildly unlikable, it's the way mental illness makes other people feel. Mental illnesses are....strange and different. Tell me that you have cancer and I'll understand how to appropriately react. I know not to ask if you could beat your cancer if you would just try a little harder or secretly think you have cancer just for attention.
Imagine telling someone with cancer that "Hey guy, it could be so much worse, you could be bipolar or have schizophrenia. You could struggle with depression or experience persistent anxiety.". But tell someone you're bipolar, and you not only relinquish any sympathy and/or basic empathy you'd normally garner from having an illness, it also give strangers the green light to ask you weird questions: "So, do you have multiple personalities?"
"Aren't you like really good in bed?"
"Can you fly?"
No, yes, and sometimes.
Mental health issues still weirds people out, which frankly, pisses me off. Because thanks to the combined efforts of three different mood stabilizers, suddenly, I'm the sanest person I know. And when it comes to psychological wellness, I've discovered the average person wears a mental health mullet: normal in the front, fucking cuckoo bananas crazy lunatic in the back.
1) The final scene from The Pursuit of Happyness. I'm not crying, I'm just allergic to heart warming inspiration. 2) To "show your butt" is a Southern idiom meaning to figuratively show one's backside by acting rudely, crassly, or inappropriately. To do so literally, is still just called Title 25 § 11.408. 3) On April 18, 1924,Francis Leavy,a firefighter, was cleaning a window when he suddenly announced that he might die that day. Moments later the fire department responded to a raging fire that claimed the lives of nine fireman including Leavy. Soon after, a handprint appeared on the very window Leavy had been washing the day of his death. 4) Shave and a Haircut....
5) How many Freudian analysts does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change it, and the other to hold the penis. LADDER. I MEANT LADDER!! (I didn't mean ladder.)
I used to play online chess. Don't judge me. I got pretty good at it too. I said no judgement!! Really good actually. At least...according to my computer. The trick, was to master each game, step by step, move by move. But if there was any deviation in the sequence, I'd either lose or have to start the game again.
Looking back, I actually wasn't good—as defined by the USCF—at chess at all, I'd merely developed the appearance of aptitude through a combination of classical conditioning and memory. And compared to what other members of the animal kingdom have accomplished with similar memorization based skill-sets, my chess game has been found wanting.
But it made me think about the various skills we acquire and master throughout the years. Just how do we differentiate which skills we consider to be valid or successful from those that, like my chess ranking, are simply illusory?
You could point to commercial or financial achievement as indicators of success if history weren't full of artists and inventors whose astonishing talent went unappreciated in their time. Vincent van Gogh committed suicide a penniless hack at thirty-seven, while there have been four separate installments of the Sharknado franchise.
So in my search for the definition of success, I poured myself a glass of wine, downloaded the old chess program and committed to mastering the Sicilian Defense, a counter move that Chess GrandmasterJohn Nunn praises for "its combative nature; in many lines Black is playing not just for equality, but for the advantage...."
I learned a lot that night. Black begins every chess game at a disadvantage. They're perpetual underdogs that must play smarter, think more moves ahead, make fewer mistakes, all just to level the playing field. Also they can drink a full bottle of wine before I pass out and put lipstick on my queen. (But it doesn't help her game like it does for the rook.) And when every underdog finds the elusive measure of success, it's often miles away from where the search began. "Success isn't how far you got, but the distance you traveled from where you started." ~Steve Prefontaine
1) The Third Man factoror Third Man syndrome refers to reported situations where an unseen presence such as a "spirit" or guide provides comfort or support during traumatic experiences. Famous experiencesors include Charles Lindbergh. 2) A house of cards is a structure or argument built on a shaky foundation or one that will collapse if a necessary (but possibly overlooked or unappreciated) element is removed. 3) Forget the Hatfields and McCoys this is the greatest family feud of all time:
4) "You know what family means to me Lemon? Resentment. Guilt. Anger. Easter egg hunts that turn into knife fights." ~ Jack Donaghy, '30 Rock' 5) To be "crazy as a fox" is to behave in a foolish, frivolous, or uncomprehending manner as a ruse for concealing clever deeds or deeper intentions. But it turns out that fox I tired to adopt, actually just had rabies after all.
Hands down, the best pick up line I've ever received in DC. Not the typical reaction I receive when I mention I grew up on a goat farm in Western North Carolina that my parents still operate and make, among, other things, goat soap, but it's always refreshing to come across someone who appreciates natural products that are great for the skin.
2) Eugène-François Vidocq was a French criminalist known as "The Sherlock Holmes of Paris." The Vidocq Society is a members-only crime-solving club that meets on the third Thursday of every month in Philadelphia, PA. But I've said to much already... 3) Pablo Nerudawas the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet-diplomat and politician Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. In 1971 Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
4) The Guinness Family are mad as hatters. 5) There is no known explanation for why we laugh. At least that's what I say when people don't get my jokes.
My parents must have thought that with three grown children they'd surely would have at least one grandchild by now. Or so they tell us every family get together. But whether it's a sign of the changing times, or that gypsy my dad hit with his car, continuance of the family lineage has been in a holding pattern. But for once, my family finds itself on the normal side of a social trend. As the status quo shows, humankind is responsible for both a steadily climbing average age of marriage as well as sky-high national divorce rate. Considering there are at least eleven other species whomate for life, one can't help but wonder, if swansare able to establish and maintain lifelong committed relationships, what makes it so difficult for people to determine how to successfully pair off? According to its website, eHarmony founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren has the answer to this very question. He spent three years developing his hypothesis on the key concepts to a successful relationship. What is this groundbreaking theory? That, for relationship purposes, it's better to match up people who are more alike than it is to match up people who are less alike. Now personally, I'm inclined to believe a clinical psychologist could have put a quarter decade's worth of his time to better use. Has our ability to find and facilitate successful relationships deteriorated to the point that we need doctors, clinical studies, and website memberships to point us towards people who share our values and away from ones who don't?
And while my initial reaction is that it's likely Dr. Warren has contributed to long-term relationship success about as much as Dr. Pepper has contributed to long-term relationship success, I must admit that relationship dynamics are a complex tapestry and analysis of such is probably best left to the experts.
Buuuuut, for the sake of argument, I'll try my hand at resolving the below couple's quarrel to see if intuition, reason, and basic logic can reconcile a routine relationship issue:
"DEAR ABBY: My husband has ice water with every meal. During breakfast and dinner he loudly crunches all of the ice in his glass throughout the meal. I have asked him not to do it at the dinner table, but he thinks I'm being unreasonable. At breakfast, I usually eat in another room and wear noise reduction headphones. I'm deaf in one ear and have only about 60 percent hearing in the other. We have been married for more than 30 years and he claims he has "always" done it and it's part of his enjoying his meal. Am I selfish to ask that he not crunch while I'm sitting next to him? -- HATES THE CRUNCHING IN NEW MEXICO"
