Reusable Paper?

How often have you found yourself wanting to reuse a piece of paper?  Have you ever gone to the extreme of erasing something entirely from the sheet so that the paper could be re-purposed?  Did you know that there is a word for this?  Apparently in the Seventeenth Century (when this particular word originated) this practice was commonplace.   I’ve heard of painters re-purposing their canvases (and painting over existing images), and it makes perfect sense that that the same could be done with a parchment or manuscript, especially if there were a limited supply.   I remember doing this very thing during my childhood.  However, while I was able to erase the words, the impressions in the paper were still there and somewhat discernible.  Even today, in the computer age, you can erase a file, but is it really gone (completely)?  Is there a digital fingerprint left behind somewhere?   An intricate palimpsest of characters hidden on your computer awaiting discovery?  Hmm, something to ponder while I continue to build my vocabulary.

palimpsest

\PAL-imp-sest\, noun;

a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text.

PBR Soup!

No, the PBR does NOT stand for Pabst Blue Ribbon!  Instead, try potato, bacon, and ranch (dressing)!  I found this recipe, began salivating, and changed my dinner plans immediately!  After a quick stop at the grocery store on my way home from work, I was enjoying this delicious, hearty soup an hour later!  Yum!

Potato, Bacon, and Ranch Soup

Ingredients
6 slices of bacon (I doubled this)
1 onion, diced
1 stalk of celery, diced
1 carton (32-ounce) chicken broth
10 potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1 package (1-ounce) ranch dressing mix
2 cups half-and-half cream
1 cup sour cream
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup chopped green onion

Directions
1. Place the bacon in a large Dutch oven and cook over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until evenly browned, about 10 minutes. Drain the bacon slices on a paper towel-lined plate. Crumble and reserve for the topping.

2. Cook and stir the onions and celery in the bacon drippings until tender, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add the chicken broth and potatoes and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the potatoes are fork-tender. Remove from the heat and mash about 1/3 of the potatoes.

3. In a large bowl, combine the flour and dry ranch mix. Whisk in the half-and-half and sour cream, beating well to combine thoroughly. Slowly whisk the sour cream mixture into the soup. Gently heat the soup over medium heat to warm, do not boil. Season the soup with salt and pepper. To serve top each bowl with a sprinkle of bacon crumbles (only a sprinkle? Be generous.), Cheddar cheese, and green onion.

Dee-licious!

An Eighth Wonder-ful Wednesday!

Now that all of the newly voted/latest natural wonders of the world have been highlighted, it is time to go back through the other twenty-one nominations to see which ones did not make the cut.  These are not necessarily in any particular order, but they were all obviously in the running for the final list before falling short.  It just further exemplifies the many beautiful and exciting places to visit on this wonder-full planet of ours.  Next up on the list, a place that I’ve actually visited: the Milford Sound (New Zealand).  The Sound is a fjord in the southwest of New Zealand’s South Island which runs 15 kilometres inland from the Tasman Sea and is surrounded by sheer rock faces that rise 3,900 feet or more on either side.  In addition to being New Zealand’s top tourist destination, it was also voted a top travel destination by TripAdvisor in their 2008 Travelers’ Choice Destination Awards.  It truly is a spectacular destination.

Another Rhapsody!

Yet another very entertaining version of the Queen classic . . . this time by Boca.   Enjoy!

College Hoops Hysteria!

Well, it was another wild week of college basketball.  Topping the list of notable games was the loss of two previously undefeated teams: Syracuse (#1) falling to Notre Dame (unranked) and  Baylor (#4) falling twice — to the Kansas Jayhawks (#7) AND to the Missouri Tigers (#5).  S0, the number of undefeated teams is now down to one: Murray State (#10) from the Ohio Valley.  Michigan State lost a heart-breaker (by one point) to Michigan (@ Ann Arbor) but recovered nicely to handle Purdue easily at home on Saturday.  Following the consecutive road losses, Michigan State is no longer the sole leader of the Big Ten — there is once again a log jam at the top (five teams were tied at the top at the start of the day on Saturday; by the end of the weekend, only three teams have a share of the lead).  Hang on, there are still plenty of games left in the Big Ten and anything can happen.  Next up for the Spartans: the unranked Minnesota Golden Gophers (@ East Lansing), on Wednesday.  Go Green!

Upsets for the week included:
Syracuse (#1) losing to unranked Notre Dame.
Baylor (#3) losing to Kansas (#7) and then losing to Missouri (#5).
Duke (#4) losing to unranked Florida State.
Michigan State (#9) losing to Michigan (#19).
Connecticut (#11) losing to unranked Cincinnati and losing to unranked Tennessee.
Indiana (#13) losing to unranked Nebraska.
Mississippi State (#15) losing to unranked Ole Miss.
Virginia (#17) losing to unranked Virginia Tech.
Michigan (#19) losing to unranked Arkansas.
Louisville (#21) losing to Marquette (#22).
Illinois (#25) losing to unranked Penn State and losing to unranked Wisconsin.

Ranked teams losing to teams with a higher ranking included:
There were not any this week.

And, the close calls (winning by two scores or less) included:
Kentucky (#2) defeating unranked Alabama by only six points.
Kansas (#7) defeating unranked Texas by only three points.
Murray State (#10) defeating unranked Morehead State by only six points.
Georgetown (#12) defeating unranked Rutgers by only two points.
Mississippi State (#15) defeating unranked Vanderbilt by only one point in overtime.
San Diego State (#16) defeating unranked New Mexico by only five points.
Creighton (#18) defeating unranked Missouri State by only one point.

Password Security!

Are you ever concerned that your assorted passwords are secure enough?  Here is a wonderful infographic that will help you create really strong and secure passwords.  (Courtesy of Killer Infographics.)  If you are interested in reading more about these various tips, check out this page.

Demotivated and Loving It!

As I prepare to head in to work this morning I realized that it had been about a month since I posted a demotivator.   And, since it is Saturday, I’d like to dedicate this one to everyone who is fortunate enough to work on the weekend.  On the despair.com website, they have a graphic that explains “Demotivation: the Futile Cycle.”  I”m not sure if there is a starting point on this circle or not, but I’m going to start with the “New motivational stimulation,” which produces “Irrational enthusiasm,” which necessitates the “Inevitable confrontation with reality,” which produces “Rational disillusionment,” which in turn necessitates a “New motivational stimulation,” etc., etc.  Quite the vicious cycle!  Happy Saturday!

“Motivational products don’t work. But our Demotivators® products don’t work even better.”  (Courtesy of www.despair.com.)

The Joy of a Well-Developed Vocabulary!

Happy Friday one and all!  Did you know that the average English speaker possesses a vocabulary of anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 words?  The truly literate adults among us may even approach the 60,000 word mark.  But this is still just a fraction of the total number of words available for our use.

Here’s a wonderful paragraph (from Richard Lederer’s introduction to The Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate by Eugene Ehrlich) that exemplifies the advantage (?) of having (and using) a superior vocabulary . . . ’tis simply priceless.

“One of the happiest features of possessing a capacious vocabulary is the opportunity to insult your enemies with impunity.  While the maddening crowd gets mad with exhausted epithets such as ‘You rotten pig’ and ‘You dirty  bum,’ you can acerbate, deprecate, derogate, and excoriate your nemesis with a battalion of laser-precise pejoratives.  You can brand him or her a grandiloquent popinjay, venal pettifogger, nefarious miscreant, flagitious recidivist, sententious blatherskite, mawkish ditherer, arrant peculator, irascible misanthrope, hubristic narcissist, feckless sycophant, vituperative virago, vapid yahoo, eructative panjandrum, saturnine misanthrope, antediluvian troglodyte, maudlin poetaster, splenetic termagant, pernicious quidnunc, rancorous anchorite, perfidious mountebank, or irascible curmudgeon.”

Did you know or recognize any of these words?  Congratulations!  You are well on your way to a more well-developed vocabulary.  If not, then there’s no time like the present to begin!

Sources: www.oxforddictionaries.com and The Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate by Eugene Ehrlich (with an introduction by Richard Lederer).

Wait . . . Think . . . Speak!

In my frenetic life, I don’t always take the time to stop and think before saying something (hard to believe, I know).  Most of the time, this isn’t a big deal, but every now and then a situation occurs where it really would have been better to pause a moment to reflect or ponder on whether or not to speak at all prior to blurting out a spontaneous response.  My parents  continuously attempted to reinforce this notion every chance they had using a variety of phrases and adages.  The fact that I was able to remember all of these is evidence that I was at least paying attention and listening.

• Silence is golden.
• Children should be seen and not heard.
• Thou shall not bear false witness.
• Think before you speak.
• Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
• If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
• Speak no evil (along with “hear no evil” and “see no evil”).
• What kills the skunk is the publicity he gives himself.

Here’s a quotation I found this week that speaks to this point quite nicely.

“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”  — Benjamin Franklin

Wonder-ful Wednesday, Number Seven!

Happy Wednesday!  Here is the final new natural wonder (as voted by the World).  These seven were narrowed down from the original list of twenty-eight (the remaining 21 contenders will be highlighted on future Wednesdays).  Today’s wonder: the Table Mountain near Cape Town, South Africa.  So named because if its wonderfully flat top, this mountain is a little over 3,500 feet high and spans a distance of two miles from side to side.  The summit is accessible via a cable car (or you can hike to the top if you are a bit more adventurous); the views from the top are reported quite spectacular. Did you know that this landmark was featured on the Cape Town flag?

Here’s a panoramic view of Cape Town from the top of the mountain (click on the picture for a bit of a better view).  Wow!