The world must be coming to an end. Featured yesterday on Martha Stewart Living: How to make duct tape wallets. I wonder if she’s going to offer kits for these?
Imagine gaining a pound an hour. That was the growth rate of the 1,385 pound monster pumpkin that won Oregon’s Canby Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off last week. Grown by Steve Daletas, the five foot, five inch pumpkin was also named the world’s largest. It netted Daletas a $4,770 cash prize. He was at it again this past weekend, winning $5,900 in Half Moon Bay, California with a 1,180 pound giant. Organizers of that competition added a “Most Beautiful Pumpkin” category this year. It was won by a lovely fruit weighing a mere 514 pounds.
350 cats and 25,000 people turned up this past weekend for the New York CATS! show which returned to Madison Square Garden after a three-year absence. A seven month old Ocicat named Wild Rain Distant Drum of Dot Dot Dot won Best in Show. Ocicats have a fur pattern similar to a wild cat, but they are actually the result of crossing the Siamese, Abyssinian and American Shorthair breeds.
Duraflame logs are made from the sawdust remains of pencil manufacturing and they now have competition on the firelog environmental front. Java Log has arrived. No, it’s not the by-product of late-night object oriented programming sessions. Java Log is a firelog composed out of used coffee grounds. The company claims they burn brighter than sawdust logs and produce less carbon monoxide. Invented in Canada, the Java Logs are now going on sale in the United States. Some people detect a slight coffee aroma while the logs burn. (source N.Y. Times Patents column)
The clouds have settled in with the forecast seeming to cycle between “partly cloudy” and “partly sunny.” What’s the difference? It’s all psychology — unless the sun has set. Meanwhile I am trying to make sense, if there is any, of the term “full spectrum lighting.” Turns out that’s mostly psychology too, at least according to Seattle’s Lighting Design Lab. Their consumer guidance states: “The phrase ‘full-spectrum lighting’ is not scientific terminology, it is primarily a marketing term. It can mean anything you want it to, and usually does.” Typically a full-spectrum light is designed to simulate daylight with a blue color, however this actually reduces the level of light produced. Research on seasonal affective disorder (SAD) shows that the key to effective treatment is morning exposure to high levels of light. 2500 lux (lumens per square meter: lighting terms) is the recommended minimum. Four flourescent light tubes, as are used in the light boxes sold for SAD therapy, will suffice.
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You scan them every day. They determine how you are going to spend your precious reading time. You groan over the bad ones which tend to involve alliteration and puns. You unsuccessfully try to avoid the ones at the supermarket checkout aisle. Misguided ones get read on late night TV. You could probably take a few minutes and define what you believe a good one is. But you might not have considered all the nuances of what it takes to write a good headline. Everyone agrees, it’s an art. Newsprint folks have to consider points and picas. Journalists can take special classes to brush up their skills. The worst abuse of headline writing rules are seen in the hints the “Internet Marketing” companies give to spammers. But remember, without content, there is no headline.
The new twenty dollar bill is out and the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing has a map to tally up sightings. I am interested to find out if my colorblind husband can distinguish the new peach tones from the green.
Sugar cane fiber, a by-product of sugar manufacturing, can be made into paper. Reprograf paper is comparable to office copier and laser printer paper made from trees. I assume it can also be thrown into the same recycling process, but perhaps it needs different treatment.
Not all California counties voted for the governor’s recall. San Francisco County led the “No” pack with a whopping 80.4% voting against the recall.
103.83 carats of internally flawless, color grade D diamond goes on the auction block at Sotheby’s in November. Only three other perfect diamonds over 100 carats have been sold at auction before. The last one, the 100.10 carat Star of the Season, was purchased by Sheikh Ahmed Fitaihi for $16,548,750 in 1995. He also owns the 100.36 carat Star of Happiness which he purchased and named for $11,882,333 in 1993. Will he get to name a new Star in November?