Departments: Cartoons The Casual Sportsman
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4/9/13 Name That Pet See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Familiar with that? Do schools use the old Dick and Jane readers any more? I don't know. Are dogs named Spot any more? How about Fido, Rex, Rover, Lady, Lassie, and King? Below are the top ten dog names according to Petfinder.com, left column, and Petvr.com, right column.  Seems the old popular dog names are not so popular nowadays. As you can see, Buddy makes the top spot on the left, but is only number six on the right. Bailey is number two on the left, but didn't make the right-hand top ten at all. And what's with the popularity of Bella? I don't get that. All the same, I don't imagine there's some official registry of all dogs and their names. Dogs don't get issued birth certificates generally speaking. If you try some other source you might get yet a different list. None of these top ten dog names make the top ten names for cats, except for one. The most popular name for both male cats and male dogs is Max. Well, depending on who you ask. 2/1/13 Here There Ain’t no Repetitious Redundancies Repeated Here Extra Additional Word Text 1. pooled together Numbers one through three are all kind-of the same and so could be pooled, merged, or grouped togeth... I won't say it. Necessary is absolute in and of itself. It's like being dead or alive. You can't be sort-of dead where absolutely dead is different than just plain dead. On the other hand there is the idiomatic expression of being half dead. But that's not absolutely necessarily to be taken literally. Any plan is for the future, you can't plan the past. And you can't plan the present because then it's not a plan it's what's happening. According to plan or not. Then again, if you plan to make plans maybe that would be future plans. 12/28/12 2012 Not Done A lot of folks this time of year come out with their top ten lists of people, places, things, and events of the year. I'd like to do the opposite. Not the bottom ten, but the top ten non-events. Or rather... Top Ten Things That Didn't Happen in 2012 10. Ice caps melt. Santa Claus gets bailed out. What's done is done. What's not done is not undone, but not done. And in other news... 11/29/12 Citchen Konfusion Quick, how many teaspoons in a tablespoon? What's the difference between baking powder and baking soda? Between an herb and a spice? Between broth and stock? Are you confused in the kitchen like me? I ask myself, just what exactly is the difference between (or among) the items below: a pinch and a dash When does pork become ham, veal become beef, lamb become mutton, goat become old goat, and horse become dog food? How thick must batter be to be dough? Why is an ounce both a volume and a weight? All I can say is, thank goodness for packaged foods. And butchers. I enjoy tasty meat, but I'd be too squeamish to slaughter animals myself. 7/18/12 A Half-a-smidgeon of Minutia Ten Small Measurements Employed by Art Directors pica As in, "Close it up a tad" or "Air it out a bit" or "Bump it up a skunch" or "Drop it down a skosh." Unlike points and picas, these other measurements are not exactly exact. To say the least. All the same, some folks take some of these into the realm of ultra-precise imprecise measurements. As in, "Move it up a half-a-smidgeon." As if one should know there are 3 half-a-smidgeons in a hair. Then again, some employ more than one kind of hair depending on color and bodily location. But that's just rude, so we'll leave it at that. 4/13/12 “I’m Gonna Eat Some Worms” Some things sound better left untranslated. That really goes for food. Italian pasta names in English cannelloni - little tubes Be honest. Do you really want to dig into a heaping plateful of hot strings and meatballs? Or chow down on a steaming serving of little tongues in Alfred's sauce? Marinara sauce is mariner's sauce in Italian. Other words for mariner are sailor and seaman. Anyone for some little worms in seaman sauce? Yummy. Yeah, some things are better left in Italian. 3/10/12 Welcome to The Club Ten Sure Signs You're Not in the 1% 1. You know the price of hamburger Speaking of butlers, sort-of, perhaps the most famous butler was P.G. Wodehouse's creation, Jeeves. Though Jeeves wasn't actually a butler, he was Bertie Wooster's gentleman's gentleman, valet in other words. Anyway, Jeeves was his last name. His first name was Reginald. Just a little trivia tacked on for no good reason other than it amuses me. 2/28/12 Betwixt and Between Eleven Pairs of Things There Must be a Difference Between Only I Don't Know What Exactly a bun and a roll And why is pork "the other white meat" except when it's ham when it's pink? While we're on the subject, I'd add boar to pig and hog which I don't know the difference between. Plus I can add slacks to pants and trousers which I don't know the difference between. Though with three items I must be confused among and not confused between. You can't be between three things, only two. Another thing I don't get, but in a different sort of way, how is it waistcoat is pronounced "wesket"? And why the reference to waist when being sleaveless is what defines it and not being waisted? That's it. I'm over and done. Though I don't know that there's any difference between over and done. Though perhaps I've overdone it. Sheesh. 1/24/12 Beyond ESP Top Ten Pretty Much Worthless Paranormal Powers: Rubberglubility: Ability to have insults bounce of you and stick to the insulter. Oblivoyance: Ability to have sounds go in one ear and out the other. Revoyance: Ability to bounce ideas off people. Televoyance: Ability to project your thoughts into inanimate objects. For thinking inside or outside the box. Unvoyance: Ability to know what people are not thinking. Nix-ray vision: Ability to see the invisible. When used clear things are opaque. Which, unfortunately, includes the air. Chronosis: Ability to speed or slow time and yourself at the same rate. Which makes no difference to anyone else, or yourself for that matter. Circularnation: Ability to die and come back as yourself and do it all over again exactly the same way, though you never realize it. Paralevitation: Ability to levitate in weightless environments. Gullibility: Ability to believe the unbelievable. And five sensory perceptions that aren't so worthless. Ability to smell a rat, taste success, feel good, hear opportunity knocking, and see the truth. 1/4/12 This is the Year That Will be Terry’s Ten Predictions for 2012: Lady Gaga will be exposed as not being an actual Lady, and not really gaga either. Maroon becomes the new black and polka-dots become the new stripes. It will be revealed Oliver Stone's movies were not made by him at all, but by the Freemasons. "Jeopardy!" will be exposed for giving contestants the answers before the questions. The Onion will be declared the new paper of record. The phrase "fifteen minutes of fame" will finally exhaust its fifteen minutes of fame. To stave off bankruptcy Greece will sue the London Olympics for using the name Olympics. The presidential election race begins in earnest on January 12th. We will be sick of it by February 12th. Prices of what you own will go down, prices for what you need will go up. This will be called dinflation. The European Union will be reorganized from its current form. The new entity will be called Eurination. 
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