Sunday, July 26, 2015

Aunt and Uncle Day JULY 26, 2015

DIANE'S CORNER ... Celebrate Aunt and Uncle Day

Aunt and Uncle Day is, as the name suggests, a day to celebrate a special set of relatives – your Aunts and Uncles.
The amount of aunts and uncles you have will vary from family to family. However, they often play a crucial role throughout your life; taking you to fun places, babysitting you when your parents are out, buying you birthday and Christmas presents and giving you important advice and support when you need it most. After all, there are some things we just don’t feel comfortable talking to our parents about.


Word of the Day

footpad 


Definition:(noun) A thief who preys on pedestrians.
Synonyms:padder
Usage:The footpad was known to local police, as he had a habit of preying on tourists in the center of town.

History

Wagner's Parsifal Premieres in the Bayreuth Festival Theatre (1882)


Loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival—the medieval epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail—Parsifal is a three-act opera by German composer Richard Wagner. The opera was first conceived in 1857 but not completed until 25 years later. It premiered in 1882 at the second Bayreuth Festival, where it was performed exclusively until 1903.

George Bernard Shaw (1856)


Shaw was an Irish playwright and critic who revolutionized the Victorian stage, authoring more than 60 plays, including Man and Superman and Pygmalion, his comedic masterpiece. Nearly all of his works mix a vein of comedy with stern social commentary—on subjects including education, marriage, religion, government, and class privilege. Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.

World Champion Bathtub Race


In 1967, the British Columbian city of Nanaimo decided to mark its centennial anniversary with a race in its Nanaimo Harbor. Thus was born the International World Championship Bathtub Race, the main event of the four-day Nanaimo Marine Festival. The 36-mile race features homemade entries that have the shape and design of a tub and run on a boat motor that does not exceed eight horsepower. Other festival events include a Sail Past on Wheels Fun Parade, a "Kiddies Karnival," and a fireworks show.

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1775 - A postal system was established by the 2nd Continental Congress of the United States. The first Postmaster General was Benjamin Franklin

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1882 -  Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal, loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's epic poem Parzival about Arthurian knight Percival and his quest for the Holy Grail, officially premiered at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Bavaria (present-day Germany).

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1908 - U.S. Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte issued an order that created an investigative agency that was a forerunner of the FBI.

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1968John Lennon and Paul McCartney completed the song "Hey Jude." 

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1984Prince's movie "Purple Rain" premiered in Hollywood, CA

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1990 -  U.S. President George H. W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits, under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability.

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1999 - 1,500 pieces of Marilyn Monroe's personal items went on display at Christie's in New York, NY. The items went on sale later in 1999.

72 Today


mjn

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is 72 years old today.

TV of the Future

hevtv




DAILY SQU-EEZ




If You Were Born Today, July 26

You have a lot of interest in, and insight into, people and relationship dynamics. You seem to be at your best in one-on-one situations and could be successful in counseling or psychology fields. You love company, and for some of you, this can lead to rushing into partnerships. You tend to choose a youthful and playful partner, sometimes attracting immature people into your experience. You are very practical and quietly ambitious. Security is extremely important to you, and you may be fearful or resistant to big changes. You are very good at debate and more often than not win arguments! Others are drawn to you as a natural leader. Famous people born today: George Bernard Shaw, Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley, Stanley Kubrick, Jason Robards, Mick Jagger, Kevin Spacey, Sandra Bullock, Kate Beckinsale.


Picture of the day
George Catlin
George Catlin (1796–1872) was an American painter, author and traveler who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Catlin was fascinated with Native American culture from a young age. He began depicting them in art in the 1820s, and between 1830 and 1836 he visited almost fifty Plains Indians tribes in the American west. From his experiences, he produced a collection of over five hundred paintings which he exhibited on tour. These works are now housed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Picture of folk dancers at the Senor de Choquekillca festival in Peru

Audience Unmasked

Photograph by Austin Beahm, National Geographic 
Austin Beahm, a Latin American geography lecturer, uses photography to connect students to the beauty of the region he loves. Here, young folk dancers are juxtaposed with older onlookers at the four-day Señor de Choquekillca festival in the Andean town of Ollantaytambo, Peru. “While they are separated by two generations or even more, they still share the cohesive bond of tradition so common to villages in the Andes,” Beahm writes.




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RECIPE




CROCKPOT RECIPE
stephanie o'dea

CrockPot Gyro Recipe

A hundred million years ago, my very first job was working at the Zoo, in the education department. I loved that job---I loved the people, the work, the animals, speaking to the public, and the food. I really loved the food. I think I spent pretty much every dollar I made going to the different hole-in-the-wall restaurants ordering food I had never before heard of that were within walking distance. Directly across the street was a Gyro stand. A bunch of us would run across the street and order gyros (in our uniforms; boy I hope we washed our hands first) and stand in an insane line to order and then eat our gyros while we walked back to work.

The Ingredients.

For the gyro meat:

--1/2 pound ground lamb
--1/2 pound ground turkey
--2 t oregano
--1 t paprika

--1/2 chopped onion
--3 cloves minced garlic
--juice from 1 lemon

For the Tzatziki sauce (optional, but not really):

--1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
--1 cup plain non fat yogurt
--1 T olive oil
--3 cloves minced garlic
--2 T chopped fresh mint
--juice from 1 lemon

Extra stuff (optional):

--pita bread (but we used corn tortillas)
--lettuce
--tomatoes
--feta cheese
--olives

The Directions.

Don't freak out about the number of ingredients. This comes together very quickly. I promise. Chop up the onion, and 3 cloves of garlic, and put them in the bottom of your crockpot. In a small mixing bowl, combine the two kinds of ground meat with the paprika and oregano. If your spices don't have a fresh smell anymore, or if you think they may have been purchased in the 90s, consider buying fresh bottles for this dish.

Make a little meatloaf with your hands. Put the meatloaf log on top of the chopped onion and garlic in your crockpot. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the top of the meat.

Cover and cook on LOW for 3-4 hours, or on HIGH for about 2. 

I, um, forgot to plug in the crockpot until 2pm yesterday and cooked this on high for exactly 2 hours.

It worked!

While you are waiting for the meat to cook, make up a batch of the yummy Tzatziki sauce and put it in the fridge.

You will know when the meat is done, because it will not be raw when you cut into it. This is all so very technical, you know.

Carefully! remove the meat from the crockpot and slice it thinly on a cutting board.

Serve it with pitas (or corn or brown rice tortillas) with the Tzatziki sauce and whatever desired fixings you have chosen.

The Verdict.

I loved making these! I hadn't used garlic and onion just as a flavor infuser before, and was really excited to learn a new trick. This is not greasy, and the flavor was good. It was not the same as how I remember the gyros from across the street at the Zoo, but close enough that I would definitely make them again. I remember a lot more grease, and a lot more salt. and since I'm not sixteen anymore, I'm no longer interested in that, anyhow.




PUZZLE






CHILDREN'S CORNER .. .coloring











CRAFTS
What you need: Paper of two different colors, scissors, glue
Step 1: Start by cutting a large circular shape out of paper. Gift it some wavy edges so it looks like a flower.
Step 2: Continue doing this, making each successive circle a little smaller than the last and using two different colors of paper.
Step 3 & 4: Using just a dab of glue in the center, start gluing the layers, largest to smallest. Continue until you’ve worked your smallest circle.
Step 5: Start cutting lines in towards the middle, leaving the center intact. I cut in a total of 8 lines.
Step 6: Start pulling, crinkling and bending the layers to give some depth and structure. Continue doing this until you achieve the desired effect.
Voila! A pretty easy way to liven up a gift for a loved one.




QUOTE
Don't believe in miracles - depend on them. - Laurence J. Peter







Rare Vietnamese Chicken Breed Has the Weirdest Legs You’ve Ever Seen

By Sumitra You might find its freakishly butch legs rather repulsive, but believe it or not, the Dong Tao chicken is incredibly popular in Vietnam. Once reserved for royalty and ritual offerings, the rare breed is now prized by chicken breeders and its meat is served in exclusive restaurants that cater to the wealthy.
An adult Dong Tao chicken can grow up to weigh three to six kilograms, with legs as thick as a human’s wrist. The hens are generally white, while the cocks have colorful feathers. Dong Tao meat is considered far more delicious than regular chickens, explaining its high demand and incredibly steep price tag.

Dong-Tao-chicken




"Good Morning" in Norwegian (Norway) [in spoken language] - Godmorn




CLEVER
reuse-broken-junk-old-things-30





EYE OPENER
thanks, patty

Perfectly Timed Photos That Make Dogs Look Like Giants

the dodo
Sometimes, all it takes for a little dog's size to match his big personality is a change of perspective.

Giant village pug.

Enormous cliffside dog.

Mammoth fence dog.

Big baby-sniffing dog.

Oversized snow patrol puppy.

Facebook/Vail

Huge human-walking dog.

Gigantic trail dog.

Monster dog-eating dog.

Hefty couch dog.

Towering snow-plowed street dog.

Horse-sized hero dog.

Skeptical dino-dog.

Humongous and attentive dog.

Gargantuan sunset dog.

Flickr/Michael Palmer

Colossal house-climbing dog.





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