Really Good Quotes

Archive for October, 2008

October 22, 2008

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

Really Good Quotes "A mind, once expanded by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Greetings, Quotaholics:

The election season is always full of surprises. I actually learned something new while perusing the site of a candidate for State Assembly in Wisconsin (remember, I’m in California so I couldn’t vote for him if I wanted to). The candidate, Larry Zamba, was talking on his issues page about something that I have never heard of before.

One of his concerns was legislating against hot fueling. What? What in the world is that?

I’m just going to copy and paste from his page.

“Gasoline and particularly ethanol volume expands as the temperature rises. Gas sold at the pump is metered under the fiction that it is coming out of the nozzle at 60ºF. However, fuel has been measured on warm Wisconsin days coming out of the pump at nearly 100ºF. The result is you are paying for fuel that you will never burn. It has been estimated that if you drive a mere 10,000 miles per year at $3.50 per gallon you could be paying as much as an extra $250 per year in fuel! However , in reality in the county most people drive 30,000 miles and gas is $3.85 as of mid-August. The losses approach nearly $800. Truckers suffers gigantic losses. This device would save consumers nationally an estimated at $2.5 billion per year.

“However, there are meters that will measure out the actual energy received versus volume. They are in widespread use in Canada. Our military also buys its fuel with these meters. The oil companies love the meters in Canada where it is much colder, but oppose the pumps in America, because the consumer will gain and they will lose income. Canada and Hawaii have used automatic temperature adjustment devices at retail fuel pumps for a number of years.”

He also provided a link to Turn Down Hot Fuel, in which a trucker’s organization was protesting against hot fuel. Their page provided the estimated cost to consumers nationwide at $2.5 billion yearly. Now that’s a whole lot of money in my mind.

I was frankly surprised to read about this issue, since I had never heard of it before. I’m curious. Were you guys aware that there was such a thing as hot fueling before this? And what’s your take on it? Would you support legislation requiring temperature compensating meters on gas pumps? Do you feel it’s worth bothering with?

Feeling Fuelish,

Isn’t it worth $1 a month to you to keep RGQ going? Please click the link and direct your contribution to reallygoodquotes@yahoo.com.

“Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to successfully complete the flight.” - Anonymous pilot

“A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a row is prevarication.” - Anonymous pilot

Average Woman
[Thanks to Bonnie in Lousiana]

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.

“When raising children, investigate all sudden noises and all prolonged silences.” - Joseph E. Shaffer

“Life is the sum of all your choices.” - Albert Camus

“The veneer of civilization is so thin that it often comes off with just a little alcohol.” - Anonymous

Wedding Announcement

E-Mail the Imp

Most guys will channel surf at a speed of 20 channels a minute to see if anything catches their eye or interest. I skim through websites in search of leads to articles. I’ve dozens of “Favorites” that give me leads to either science news or odd news. Usually it takes just a fraction of a second to detect a possible lead based on the titles on the page.

I just had to check out “Subtle Butt” in Ananova. It led me to a web site for Garment Guard products which is a fairly “blah” subject. The company’s flagship product is a garment patch that soaks up sweat to keep from staining your blouse or shirt, or leaving a wet patch that may embarrass you. Like I said; a blah subject and a fairly staid product. But scrolling down the page I got to their new product, “Subtle Butt”.

Subtle Butt is a thin pad that you stick to the inside of your skivvies (male or female), and it eliminates fart odors. It does nothing to control the sound of flatulence so emphasizing a story or joke with controlled sounds won’t be affected. (Bubba’s around the world applaud!) Only the gut wrenching, nose twisting odor is missing.

Just think, cafeterias and sandwich shops adjacent to high rise office buildings will be able to sell tons of egg salad sandwiches and chili dogs since there will be no offensive gas releases in elevators. Of course this will all but eliminate the fun of playing “Turtle” with the spouse if she sneaks them into your pajamas. Sleeping naked can ensure your fun continues but may lead to skid marks on the sheets.

Fortunately the Garment Guard Company has anticipated that problem and has a product to cover that eventuality. It’s advertised as a specially textured sponge to eliminate deodorant marks and tooth paste drips, as well as “other real-life bloopers”. But we know “Skid Out” is meant for skid marks or hash marks in your skivvies, or possibly on your sheets.

There are other body functions that can leave a stain on clothing or bedding that may be a target of Skid Out, but only Bill and Monica could tell you for sure, if they tried it. If not, I’m sure this perspicacious company will come out with a product to cover it.

What next? LeBra’s for cars to neutralize tobacco juice spit coming from the windows of redneck pick-up trucks?

The Bad Sied

Click here for guidelines on 15 Minutes submissions

Speak Up!
Speak right up!

On this day in history, October 22, 1844: Jesus Christ does not return to Earth. William Miller was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1782 and had little formal education although he was well-read. His family moved around New England and after marrying, Miller settled in Poultney, Vermont where he held a number of civil offices. He was raised as a Baptist but became a Deist as a young man. After serving in the War of 1812 and wrestling with the meaning of death, he returned to the Baptist church and became a Baptist preacher. He studied the Bible diligently for his own benefit and to gain ammunition for debate with his Deist friends. Miller became convinced the actual date of the Second Coming was to be found in Scripture.

Miller “did the math” and was certain he found the correct date in 1818. His first calculations brought Jesus to Earth in 1843, however he continued his private study. In September 1822 Miller went public with his revelations. In 1832 he sent 16 articles to the Vermont Telegraph, a Baptist paper, for print. By 1840 Miller’s following burst out of Vermont and he became a national figure. He was helped in this by publisher Joshua Vaughn Hines who spread his message via print. Miller did not give an exact date for Christ’s reappearance, stating it would happen between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. On March 22, 1844 the date was moved to April 18. In August, after much recalculation, the date October 22, 1844 was chosen.

Miller’s followers, called Millerites, were deeply saddened on October 23 and many abandoned their beliefs. Some of his followers continued to learn from him and eventually founded the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, based on many of his teachings. Not everyone was sanguine in regards to the failed prophecy. Millerites were taunted, subjected to ridicule and even physically assaulted. One church was burned and a mob armed with clubs and knives attacked a group of Millerites. Another group of believers was tarred and feathered.

“I was thus brought… to the solemn conclusion, that in about twenty-five years from that time 1818 all the affairs of our present state would be wound up.” – William Miller

“I waited all Tuesday [October 22] and dear Jesus did not come;– I waited all the forenoon of Wednesday, and was well in body as I ever was, but after 12 o’clock I began to feel faint, and before dark I needed someone to help me up to my chamber, as my natural strength was leaving me very fast, and I lay prostrate for 2 days without any pain– sick with disappointment.” – Henry Emmons

“Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before….We wept, and wept, till the day dawn.” – Hiram Edson

Email Kirsten

“Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope”
~ Unknown ~

Imagine being stranded on the South Pole in the middle of winter. Not a fun prospect. You’d never see the sun for the duration of the winter, and it would be colder than anything we could ever imagine. Presumably you wouldn’t be on the South Pole in the first place without a good reason. I mean, it’s not the sort of place you can just wander into accidentally. People who go there are either “adventure tourists”, or they are working in one of the research stations there. But even if you’re nice and cosy in your generator-powered research station, there’s very little chance of leaving during a severe winter. The permanent darkness and extreme cold make the continent completely inaccessible.

Now imagine that while you’re marooned on the South Pole in the middle of winter, you discover a lump on some part of your body that you fear might be cancerous. You don’t want to just leave it to grow unchecked, so you just have to hope that one of your fellow maroonees is a doctor. This happened to Jerri Nielsen, who was trapped in Antarctica in 1999 with a welder and a mechanic. She discovered a lump on her breast, and immediately went into high alert.

The good news is that there was in fact one doctor on the South Pole at the time. The bad news is that the doctor was none other than Jerri herself. With the help of the welder and the mechanic, she performed a biopsy on herself, and discovered that the lump was cancer. She had no option but to treat the illness herself, and within a few months, the cancer had spread to her armpits. The welder and the mechanic steadfastly stood by her as she fought for her life.

A few months later, rescuers mounted an extremely dangerous mission to lift Jerri (and presumably the welder and the mechanic) from the South Pole. She returned to her job in an emergency room, and wrote a book about her ordeal, which has since been turned into a movie. As of now, Jerri is not able to practice medicine, because the cancer has spread to her bones. She is undergoing harsh cancer treatment, and has lost all of her hair and much of her energy.

I cannot help feeling tremendous admiration for this remarkable, brave woman. Despite being so ill, she leads a full life. She provides support for other women with breast cancer and is continuing her newfound career as a writer. She has also gotten married, and has even ventured onto the South Pole again.

As we mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Jerri is a phenomenal role model for people at all stages of the breast cancer journey.

Kaleidoscopically yours,
Kirsten

I learned something new today. I like learning new things, that’s part of why I love my job. So what did I learn? I learned that Internet Explorer 6 has a bug. Now, I’m sure you all know that Internet Explorer has more than one bug. So what’s so different about this bug? Well, it prevents people from printing my web page. Realize that the first thing we tell faculty is to print out their list of advisees so they have the student ID number, which you need to do most of the things on my web page. Class rosters, student schedules, all sorts of things need to be printed. Firefox and Netscape print just fine, but IE6 either prints only part of the data or it gives up and closes. That is not a good thing, so I had to fix it pronto.

So I searched our vendor’s support site and they verified that this was a problem with IE6, however, there is a solution. My web page uses cascading style sheets, so I could just add a cascading style sheet to each and every process that my web page uses that might get printed. There about 150 for the faculty alone, so that wasn’t a pleasant option. So I continued searching by going to the vendor’s users group. There they had a thread concerning this problem with various possible solutions.

One option was to add some code to a style sheet, but someone else posted that that didn’t always work right. Another person offered his own code to add to that style sheet. Then someone corrected the first solution, adding a bit more code. Then someone else said there was a problem with the second solution, and another said in certain circumstances, the fixed first solution would fail as well. So I read each post carefully and pondered my choices. I could go through the hassle of implementing the vendor’s solution, or try to figure out which one of the user solutions would be easier to implement.

Then I read the last post. I could just enter the name of the style sheet into the “Global Style Sheet” field on the web page’s configuration form, regenerate the web page and load it on the web server. It took all of five minutes to accomplish this, and it worked like a charm.

But I’m still left with one question: Why the hell doesn’t our vendor know about this?

Tim a’Musing
Having a Ball with Yarns

Ultimate Disposable Pastry Bag: Take a heavy-duty zipper-seal plastic bag and snip off one corner, making a slightly curved cut. Using a standard two-piece plastic coupler (available wherever cake decorating supplies are sold), insert the larger piece into the hole. Choose a tip and secure it with the coupler’s ring. Fill the bag and zip the top closed. Decorate away, then remove the coupler/tip assembly and toss the bag. No messy cleanup!- Peggy in Tonawanda, New York

Woo hoo! New contributor! Welcome, Ben.

Next opening line…
Women just don’t want to know…

Hints: Here’s a great new rhyming/composition tool. http://www.writerhymes.com/
There’s also a great rhyming dictionary at http://www.rhymezone.com/
Limerick rules. http://freespace.virgin.net/merrick.sheldon/limerickrules.htm

Submit Opening Line
Submit Limerick

A cop pulled me over one night He asked me if I was alright I said “I don’t know” He said, “Will you blow?” “The machine!! Don’t get so uptight!” - Ben in Kirsten country	A cop pulled me over one night… He said I’d made an illegal right When he handed me a ticket I told him where to stick it Now 30 days in jail is my plight. - Rick in Roanoke
A cop pulled me over one night And much to my delight, He was handsome and tall And not mean at all. He just wanted to check my “tail” light! - Bonnie in Louisiana	A cop pulled me over one night Two fangs I did brandish to fright But in fancy dress So I must confess Admittedly, I was a sight. - Maria in Illinois
A cop pulled me over one night “Your speed gives other drivers fright. Drive just a tad faster It’ll be a disaster For you will take to spaceflight.” - Anne Onimous	A cop pulled me over one night A citation he was ready to write. I said, “This fact I’ll toss My daddy’s your boss.” Suddenly he acted very contrite. - Anne Onimous
A cop pulled me over one night In my face he shoved a flashlight. “Have you been drinking, sir? Your car’s not a racer. It’s a kid’s ride whose motion is slight.” - E. Cole Aye	A cop pulled me over one night What I said next was wrong in hindsight: “Want to know a secret? Your wife’s a harlot And she brings your boss great delight!” - E. Cole Aye
A cop pulled me over one night: “Your speeding has given me a fright The chase was not a blast. We both drove way too fast In fact, my knuckles are still while.” - E. Cole Aye	A cop pulled me over one night And said my driving wasn’t right And that I was weaving. I said, “I’m not drinking. I swerve because I’m high as a kite.” - E. Cole Aye
A cop pulled me over one night My speeding had only been slight. I called him, “Idiot!” He replied, “Hey, Maggot,” Then my Miranda Rights he did cite. - E. Cole Aye

Re: Suicide

Patty, Celine Kitty, the Rowdy Dog, and the Tazz (What a mouthful) apparently wrote collectively: If a person has the capability of coming up with such a strange and sick way of doing themselves in, what if they decide to try some kind of sick and strange way to do some one else in. Are there no warning signs?

A very good point and one that I tried to find some data on but couldn’t. I’m sure that with the right verbage one could Google an answer, but I really don’t know what questions to ask. It seems to me that there should, could, or would be a correlation between those who do themselves in and those who do others in. If we just consider the number of spree killers and mass muderers who kill themselves after their spree is over, there almost has to be a connection. Many of them suicide long before they’re cornered so escaping prosecution isn’t an apparent answer.

I hope that some of our tax dollars go to a grant or grants to study the subject which seems to me more important than funding research into the sex life of fruit flies. Since it seems that we have had more spree killers and mass murderers in the past few years; at the workplace, at schools, at shopping malls, and even on wild rides around the country (ala Andrew Cunanan in the Versace Killing Spree), we appear to have a mental health problem that needs to be identified for our safety. - sied

Re: Tech Support

From 10/10/08: Noella said: I’m surprised Tim hasn’t responded. Can he uninstall IE7 and go back to 6.

I’ve been busy!

Seriously, I’ve been so busy that I had to either give up reading RGQ for a while or give up writing for a while. I can always read it later, but I can’t write for it later, so I picked writing. I ignored a lot of the other e-zines I’m signed up for too. I didn’t know the August 28th (Issue #753) issue of HeroicStories printed my comment until last weekend. They signed me “Tim from New York”, when everyone knows I’m from Buffalo!

But I just paid less than $3.00/gallon for gas, and then I went to a store that had my brand of beer on sale for half price, so I’m over it.

And yes.

From 10/15/08: Patti’s rant said: I, too, am a Dear Webby reader. He is preternaturally hateful toward all things Microsoft.

You call? I won’t go into the trials and tribulations of restarting our WinDoze server this morning, I’ll just say I didn’t have that kind of problem with UNIX.

Patti continues: I find I have more issues when I have more than eight tabs open. But if I open a second session of the browser, the pages will load there. I have Firefox and Opera on this machine, and I still use IE7 because I have a Microsoft mouse with special extra buttons that I have become extremely fond of.

That’s because IE7 has a limit of a *seven* tabs (the original page isn’t counted, bloody zeros!). I hear they’re going to bump that up to *eight* tabs in IE8.

I could try to explain the difference between 8 bit and 16 bit and how all that works, but I have a hell of a lot of beer here. It’s about time I use it.

Tim from Buffalo

Disclaimer- All quotes printed in this publication are believed to be accurately attributed, but no guarantees are made that some incorrectly attributed, or even outright false quotes won’t get in here from time to time. I assure readers that I will do my best to weed out incorrect quotes, and will print a retraction as soon as I become aware of any errors.

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Tags: history, hot fueling, Internet Explorer 6 bug, Jerri Nielsen, limericks, Millerites, quotes, Skid Out, South Pole, Subtle Butt, William Miller
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October 22, 2008

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