jenk: Faye (working)
Are you ready to be strong? )
jenk: Faye (Default)
According to today's crossword in the P-I, it's are you ready to be strong? ).

crossword

Sep. 22nd, 2006 12:29 pm
jenk: Faye (Kim)
anele: archaic anoint; administer extreme unction to; often in a religious ceremony of blessing.

The Gaspe penisula is in Quebec.

Aedes is cousin to the culex when it's not a temple. Which of these meanings is used in Aedes De Venustas is left as an exercise to the reader ;)
jenk: Faye (Tea)
A review of the movie Wordplay mentions the Election Day 1996 puzzle that
featured as clue 39-Across "Lead story in tomorrow's newspaper." Creator Jeremiah Farrell had constructed the puzzle so that either "BOB DOLE ELECTED" or "CLINTON ELECTED" would fit. This meant crafting clues that could have two correct answers; i.e. 39-Down, "Black Halloween animal," could be either "BAT" or "CAT."
More info is here - and yes, it's cool :) Meanwhile in the WSJ,
Low-hanging baggy pants have been a fashion statement for young men for more than a decade, inspired by the advent of beltless prison jeans, says Andy Gilchrist, a California fashion consultant who has written a book on men's clothes. Over time, the tough-guy image associated with oversized trousers helped make the look standard for hip-hop performers, alternative music bands, skateboarders and snowboarders as it migrated from mostly black city streets to affluent white suburbs.

Just about every other week, Jim Matheny, a 41-year-old police lieutenant in Stamford, Conn., says he gets into foot chases with youths. He says it's getting easier to capture them because they can't run fast or far in those loose jeans.

"When I catch them, I tell them they'd do much better if they had pants that fit," says Lt. Matheny, who says he has had to help hold up the pants of his suspects while patting them down to search for drugs or weapons. "It's like: 'Hey dude, buy a belt and save yourself some trouble.' "
The story cites 5 specific incidents of baggy pants causing problems, including one man who caught his pants on a fence he was trying to climb. "He was found dangling upside down, his pants at his ankles and tangled in the fence." And from today's Crickler (24 handicap):
McDonald's and China Petroleum and Chemical, or Sinopec, announced an alliance to build drive-through McDonald's at service stations throughout China.
So, which is tastier: 7-11 burgers or McD's?
jenk: Faye (Default)
"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
I ran across this while looking up titles for a crossword. It's very true. I would say it's even truer for testers because we are paid and encouraged to focus on what *doesn't* work.

Also: "All roles are dangerous. The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is."
jenk: Faye (read)
I thought this one would appeal to some of you... ;)
sciential
adj 1: relating to or producing knowledge or science
*2: having efficient knowledge : capable

*On the value of having a library at hand, Coleridge wrote: "“There is no way of arriving at any sciential end but by finding it at every step.”"
Source: Page-A-Day calendar e-mail. The * indicates which meaning the sentence is illustrating.
jenk: Faye (read)
I know, haven't been posting much. I've been sick for the last week. Slept on and off til 4. I do feel rested for the first time in a long time. Nice.

Today's P-I crossword led me to read about John Brown. Wow. I had no idea Kansas's slave status involved so much blood....

Hm

Jan. 12th, 2006 10:48 am
jenk: Faye (read)
From the online Page-A-Day 365 Words A Year Calendar:
abulia
n : abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions

By about two in the afternoon, I feel as if abulia has set in and I just can'’t go on without another cup of coffee.
Abulia just seems like such a useful word I just had to share ;)
jenk: Faye (jen36)
Utah was the 45th state.

rive, v.
  1. To rend or tear apart.
  2. To break into pieces, as by a blow; cleave or split asunder.
  3. To break or distress (the spirit, for example).

    [Middle English riven, from Old Norse rfa.]
Adds a bit of tone to the name Rivendell, eh?

Latin notes:
"Road for Caesar" is iter. It means "the way".
"To be" for Brutus is esse. Think "essence"...


Easy but neat:
Spaces: 4
Clue: West & Jemison
Answer: here )

A little harder:
Spaces: 5
Clue: Pack to the future?
Answer: here )

Link - http://www.uclick.com/client/spi/fcx/ (note there's a new puzzle each day)
jenk: Faye (eyes)
Space: 4 letters
Clue: "Cup holders?"
Answer: ready? )

Fun facts

Dec. 6th, 2005 11:52 am
jenk: Faye (lilo)
From today's crossword:
Agra is on the Jumna River.

The British sailor Ellen McArthur set a new world record for solo circumnavigation of the world in her trimaran B&Q/Castorama, arriving in February 2005 after just over 71 days at sea.

Glass snakes are actually lizards, not snakes.
And from ze Crickler, a blood donation center in Japan is offering perks like free coffee, donuts, and hamburgers. You can even get a manicure :)
jenk: Faye (wedding)
Spotted in today's Crickler: South Africa's highest court issued a ruling Wednesday that the exclusion of same-sex marriages in South African law "Represented a harsh if oblique statement by the law that same-sex couples are outsiders, and that their need for affirmation and protection of their intimate relations as human beings is somehow less than that of heterosexual couples."

More info in Wikipedia.

Growing up, all I really heard about South Africa was how backward and bigoted it was. Ironic that its providing more rights than America.
jenk: Faye (working)
Today's weird crossword vocabulary term: snee )
jenk: Faye (eyes)
Lately I've been getting into online crossword puzzles. Why online?
  1. Usually I can confirm the answers as I go.
  2. IMDB, Wikipedia, and Google are online.
  3. If I'm really stuck, I can cheat. By the letter or word. :)
  4. It can be convenient to have a puzzle as a background task while I'm waiting for a build or eating lunch.
Yes, there's a nifty sense of accomplishment with finishing a puzzle. But at least once a day I find something that piques my interest - usually in Wikipedia - and explore a bit more. I've been filling in some of the gaps in my year-long course of high school history. A few examples from the last week:

...Antigone was Oedipus' daughter/sister. (I read Oedipus in high school, but not Antigone.)

...Winston Churchill escaped from a POW camp during the second Anglo-Boer war.

..."All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." - Winston Churchill

...Arleen Sorkin does the voice of Harly Quinn.

...Prince Charles referred to the Chinese bigwigs as "waxworks" in his diary during the Hong Kong handoff ceremonies.

...It's believed that Rembrandt based "Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicholeas Tulp" on real a real, public dissection/anatomy lesson. (These were supposed to have been social events in the 17th century.)

...The Mississippi River has the world's 3rd-largest drainage basin in the world. Only the Amazon and the Congo have bigger watersheds.

An organized method of self-improvement it's not, but it's interesting.

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