Food for Thought

Number One on  my mind:

To sit or not to sit?
So now scientists have determined - in loose way - that sitting more than 3 hours cuts one's life short by 2 years.
So what. We'll die, sooner or later, but die we must.
No really, do we care to live to be a 100 plus just because we do not sit for more than 3 hours a day?
Are we going back to the times, when clerks in offices worked standing up on a high desk (like a bar table?).
 I really do not recall reading of such, that these clerks lived that much longer than their nonstanding fellows, even though they stood up all 8 or more hours of their work days. Most people then lived to be to about 40 or 50. Methuselahs of 70, 80 or, yikes, ever 90 were the exception. Ah all's well when scientists agree to spend time and money on such projects to show us, mere peons, how to live our lives!


Number Two:
Other scientists spent much time and effort to show that a soprano lives 5 years longer, than her sisters in the mezzo and alto range. The scientists assumed that estrogen is the protector here. BUUUT, my dears, mezzos and altos and contraltos - do they not, too, have estrogen? A' course if they all had hysterectomies that THAT would be the difference! But what about orally taken estrogen? We'll just have to wait for the revelations on this by other scientists. no?? :-)

What about tenors, baritones and basses. Well may you ask. There are no differences in their life spans. At least in this study by those busy scientists. I guess testosterone protects all the guys.

Number Three:
What 's a Hiriko?  A Basque folding car      car.

But lest, you chers readers forget. Several small cars with huge mileage were around even in the fifties, they were just not quite as tiny nor electric.
Sample:
 the Peel's P50  , the smallest car on record. 
A small Studebaker 2-seater (1950's)  got 40 miles per gallons.
Later the Steyr-Puch 500, the Austins, the Mini Coopers, and most recently the Smart cars for 2.
But the small car that conquered the world is for ever and ever this:


Now to more recent news. Do you believe in evil?
If not, just think:  Cho,  Breivik, and now Holmes.
How else to explain their actions?
Sure there will be legions of psychiatrists, psychologist, apologists who will, no doubt, blame the parents, the environment, the .... you name it.
The blamers will come out of the woodwork, if blaming everyone and everything else, IS the real answer.

But EVIL?
What do you think. Does it really exists?

Lives lost

It is always a terrible feeling when we read about senseless killings.
By one or more persons.

Of course mass killings are nothing new historically as one can read here.

So it was with a heavy heart I read about the most recent in Aurora, Colorado. A town in which we spent a couple nights just recently, even if NOT at the cinema.
And to top of the sad news, a young Hockey loving journalist who was an almost victim at the Eaton, Toronto shooting recently and wrote about it, became a real victim in Aurora.

All this brings me to this:
ENJOY LIFE while you can.
Make time for friends and family, while you can.
Be happy with what you do have, while you can.

Medals...how many have you got?

 

With the hoopla about the Medalists at Olympic Games,
I went and counted mine.
No really.
They should hand out medals for those of us Seniors,
when living with aches is an achievement already!

When certain events keep me on the run to 2:30 AM,
slowing down by 3:00 AM,
 to crawl into goal (bed) finally by 3:30 AM.
Then waking up whimpering, or even howling, with cramps at 6:00 AM .
Then staying the course, persistence IS everything, chers, for another round. 
Achieving that ought to count for Gold medals.
Silver: all of the above, except the whimpering or howling.
Bronze: just getting out of bed (slowly of course- no more jump up and go) when every thing hurts.

So, lately (must be due to the thunderstorms cropping up daily) I surely have raked in a few Gold,
several Silver and, almost too many to count here, Bronze Ones.

On the other hand, having daily aches is rather like having company.
One is never alone.
Well, maybe, the company is not the most pleasant, but certainly quite nerve raking :-)!

And with that I leave you chers readers to enjoy another day with
thunderstorms over our, gasp, humid South EastTexas.

Whether in Weather or Politics... thunderstorms are very right now :-)!

What do we have to gripe about?

Regardless of the grammatically incorrect title ;-)
What, really, do we?

When it rains, we gripe about too much water.
But last year it did not rain enough, so we did not like that.
When it is hot, we gripe about that.
But when the winter's too mild, we don't like that either.

Take Facebook!
When we have too many friends (so-called) we gripe about not having enough time to 'dialogue' with them.
When they do not respond to our remarks, we gripe about them not caring enough to do so.

Let's face it  most of us will always find something to gripe about.
Nothing is perfect enough for us, seems so!

 **********************************************************************************
Have just finished reading a book about Russia before The Great War (for those not in the know...World War One) .
And what a shocker it is.

Serfdom, revolution, Marxism, Nihilism, Sexual freedom, Syphilis rampant, Rasputin, Unwashed peasants, Industrial sweatshops...
just a few of the subjects by the learned author who spent several years studying in Russia.
And shows his superb knowledge by dotting the pages with many Russian words.
Get ready for one  shock after another. Just keep reading about the conditions then current.

Upwardly mobile peasants turn plant owners and getting rich. On the backs of fellow, less lucky,  lowly peasants who were being taxed out of farms by the government (sounds rather modern, doesn't it?) Oligarchs already en vogue over 100 years ago!
Who'd a thunk that! :-)!
More about the newer kinds.

Slum landlords raking it in. Sleeping 30 to a room in shifts, women at nights, men during the days.

And free love all around among the intelligentsia, with preferably unwashed partners in grime!
Art and Music and Sex all practiced freely and unblemished. Except for the nasty little spirochaete.
But what else was there?

Tsar and Tsarina under the spell of Rasputin. Back to nature in extremis.

Bloody war in the far East helped along by the Transsiberian railway.
Built with the blood, sweat and deaths of many illiterate masses.

While the Haute Volee frolicked in Paris, the Lido and other much congenial places.

Well, anyway it IS worth reading - just to teach us not to despise what we do have now.
Refrigeration, The Web, electricity, CDs. DVDs, Cars, Digital cameras, Medical progress, Google, Facebook, instant gratification - at one removed (no need for mingling with the great unwashed).
The web is just soooooo sanitary.
No stink, no dirt, no hurt (at least not directly for the onlooker)
And so immediate.
Information - good or bad - going viral the moment it happens.

Now isn't that just dandy?

Where have all the blogs gone...???

Just lately I have been looking for several blogs that I enjoyed reading in the last year
and found.... nothing!

So, I guess, those were the fly-by-night blogs that crop up and vanish within a short time.
Not so much different from restaurants.
Just as soon as I find one that I like eating at, poof it's gone.
Perhaps, replaced by another or by a fast food one or just a "For rent" sign.
Of course I do not eat out on a daily basis, so maybe that one was around for a year or so, and then went up in smoke - not literally I hope.
Although that has happened occasionally.
Guess it's better to loose it to smoke than loose one's shirt operating one :-)!

So why do blogs come and go?
That IS a question I have asked myself. 
And the answers I came up with are (MAYBE):

too boring
too time consuming
one has writers block
one is too obsessed with other things

Or that readers no longer visit?
Or that comments become too personal. One does hate to be told truths, that may hurt.
Of course readers may misunderstand.
Especially in these times when - methinks - enjoying sarcasm, tongue-in-cheek, or punning have become lost in the web of immediate breaking news, true or hyped!

Ah well, one does one's best to amuse one's chers readers and yet.

So, I do thank all of you who make an effort to visit this blog ...

especially YOU who comment.
And have a Happy Day!

Musings on a Birthday

Yes, my friends, I still enjoy celebrating birthdays.

Because, I enjoy being alive and kicking, however feebly that may be some days.
Because I have a Better Half who is forgiving of my, at times, rather skurrilous doings and saying :-)!

Because I know many young and older talented people who keep me posted on their doings via facebook, email and phone calls.

Because I still have eyes to read with, ears to hear with.
Because my brain seems to function still (senior moments excepted of course).

Because life still has so much on offer.
Because I can still travel. See Opera and Hockey.

Because I have friends to share with.
Because and because and because.

Because I can blow out -zig candles on a yearly bigger and bigger cake
(has to be to hold them all) -

 and darn don't anyone dare to put just ONE on it - lol).

Because there is La Veuve

Prosit.

To Life.

Skaol.
Cheers.
A mon Sante :-)!