► September 27, 2012 ★

Started out with housework yesterday ... cleaned the bathroom sink, fed the cats & dogs, de-cobwebbed the dining room, did a couple loads of laundry, hosed off the back porch, & refilled the fountain after pulling most of the dead bugs out of it. Apparently it's a butterfly magnet. Poor little butterflies. I don't know how many I pulled out of there, along with other random bugs & some leaves, one of which made it to the bottom & was stuck to the intake on the filter, constricting the water flow & making the filter work harder. After housework I made a cheese omelet for Josh & I, did my weekly banking (check accounts, totals, sync Quicken, etc.), went through the mail for the week, & had lunch. I just love the pumpernickel / rye swirl bread. It's even better with Skippy on it! Did the eBay thing ... which gave me a headache. The last 3 transactions in a row turned out bad. The 1st lady was really nice & said she was going to swap the items out & cover return shipping, which she hasn't yet ... but we'll see. The 2nd only replied to me twice with the same form letter reply that if I pay return shipping, she'll refund my purchase. Uhhh ... why should I pay return shipping when I didn't completely botch the whole thing? eBay had to take over & force the refund. The 3rd, after ripping off the post office by sending glass via media mail, in the original purchase box with NO padding for shipping, didn't reply to my messages for 3 days, blamed it on her pc being down (if you have a business, you FIND A WAY to check your messages every day ... go to the damn library if you have to!), got pissed at ME for leaving negative feedback & threatened to do the same. Why? I didn't screw up. I paid for the item immediately after the end of the auction which should be immediate positive feedback for my prompt payment. But NO ... she completely botched the whole thing & is now threatening retaliatory negative feedback. Just gotta love these amateur business people. No idea what customer service is OR how to run a business. You don't threaten your customers because YOU screwed up! I'd shop elsewhere, but you get prices on eBay that you can't match anywhere else & MOSTLY it's a good experience. I don't know what happened with these last 3, but this isn't the norm. Anyway, after all that I rolled over to the knitting machine & knitted a panel while watching Men In Black, then loaded up Sims. Another house I built shown above at night with its lighted wrap around porch & upper deck. Tahoe Pines in Riverview. My 1st generation Sim, Olivia, has a lifetime wish of becoming a star. Well, that would be great in Bridgeport, but here in Riverview there's no movie studio. After the game loaded, I had to edit the town, delete the largest house in town (along with the family who lived in it), & place the movie studio on the only 64 X 64 lot. I saved the changes, went back into game play, Olivia went & applied for a job at the studio, went back home ... & Pete pulled in the driveway. Well, THAT was a short game! 1 minute. Sheesh! OK, FINE! I close down the game, we had a quick dinner (didn't make the enchiladas as planned ... will make those tonight instead), & then watched Vegas & headed to bed earlier than usual. I was glad that I'd get an early start on today! I set my alarm & drifted off to sleep. When I woke up, it was from Princeton getting toned out. Dispatch said the time & my eyes opened wide. What?! What do you mean 9:30?! My alarm was set for 9! I sat up, pressed the button on my phone & it said 9:30a ... & the "Stop Alarm" button was just sitting there. WTH?! The alarm went off, but apparently the cat must have walked on the alarm clock turning the night & stepped on a button, disconnecting the radio from the iPhone. Sonofa ... oh well, same start time as usual now. Josh went to work super early this morning, Pete drove him in. Instead of driving him to work at 3, I pick him UP at 3. It works out either way. I drive him in & Pete picks him up or Pete drives him in & I pick him up. Too bad he didn't have the same hours Pete does. That would save him a fortune because it's $7.50 for each round trip I make in my truck. His 1st paycheck he had to hand me $90 for commuting. Poor guy! If I make both trips in 1 day, it's $15. I love my truck, I do ... but it's SO expensive to run & it definitely is NOT a commuter vehicle. When we bought it, it was a big red school bus. I used it to drive the kids to & from school. Not that long of a trip, large, safe, & fuel was a LOT cheaper.

1st Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis later worked as an editor for what major book publisher?

A. Doubleday

B. Imprint

C. Penguin

D. Random House

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How many religious services do observant Jews attend during Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement?

5—the 1st just prior to sunset on the eve of the holiday, 2 more the following morning, another that afternoon, & the last as sunset again approaches.

Hubris:

Exaggerated pride or self-confidence.

The company's failure was ultimately brought on by the hubris of its founder.

English picked up both the concept of hubris & the term for that particular brand of cockiness from the ancient Greeks, who considered hubris a dangerous character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the gods. in classical Greek tragedy, hubris was often a fatal shortcoming that brought about the fall of the tragic hero. Typically, overconfidence led the hero to attempt to overstep the boundaries of human limitations & assume a godlike status, & the gods inevitably humbled the offender with a sharp reminder of his or her mortality.

Humans typically have 46 chromosomes; how many do potatoes have?

I love the way you __________. Did I say love? Because I meant __________.

In the 1st televised U.S. presidential debate, Senator John F. Kennedy appeared relaxed & confident while Vice President Richard Nixon, who refused to wear makeup for the cameras, looked tired & nervous. About 70 million Americans tuned in to watch the debate.

Minimize the space bikes take up in your garage by hanging them from the ceiling or using a vertical storage option such as a bike tree to keep them out of the way when they're not in use.

Placido Domingo breaks Caruso's opening-night record at the Metropolitan Opera (1999):

On September 27, 1999, operatic tenor Placido Domingo makes his 18th opening-night appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House, breaking an "unbreakable" record previously held by the great Enrico Caruso.

Caruso, of course, was the biggest star the world of opera had ever seen. Following his New York debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1903, he made opening-night appearances at the Met in 16 of the next 17 years. With his death in 1921, Caruso's streak stopped at 17—a mark that no other singer even remotely approached for the next 60 years. The Italian bass-baritone Ezio Pinza was the closest challenger to Caruso before Placido Domingo came along, but even Pinza failed to reach double digits, topping out at nine opening nights with the Met over the course of his 22-year career. Even Domingo never thought that Caruso's record would be broken, much less that he would be the one to break it. "But when I was in my 11th or 12th opening night," he recalled during an interview before his record-setting performance, "somebody asked me, 'Do you realize how close you are to the number of times Caruso opened the Met season?' What can I tell you? I started to think maybe I can do it.''

As a contemporary of the great Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo never enjoyed undisputed status as the greatest tenor of his time. But his far superior stamina and his broader repertoire made him the go-to choice for opening nights at the Met, of which Pavarotti sang only seven. Domingo sang his first opening with the Met in 1971, in Verdi's Don Carlo, and over the years he sang opening-night parts as diverse as the title role in Verdi's Otello and Sigmund in Wagner's Die Walkurie. When he sang at his record-setting 18th opening night on this day in 1999, Domingo did so, appropriately enough, as Canio in Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci—a role most closely associated the man whose record he surpassed, Enrico Caruso.

Set out a bucket of water pistols for a water-gun fight.

Tip on the pre-tax amount of the bill, not on the total.

Which color are the Olympic rings from left to right?

A. Black

B. Blue

C. Red

Which of thesed are brass instruments?

Oboe, trumpet, clarinet, coronet, flute, French horn?

Trumpet, coronet, & French horn.

Which Tennessee Williams play was written 1st, 2nd, & 3rd?

A. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

B. The Glass Menagerie

C. A Streetcar Named Desire

BCA. Williams once sent a struggling young actor named Brando cab fare to get to his audition. Smart investment, Tennessee.

You can tell a collector is lying because their mouth is moving. If you make a deal with a collector & that deal isn't in writing, don't trust it. You have no proof that they accepted the deal. So I would tell them this: "We're king of at loggerhead here, because I have a policy not to accept settlements & give out money unless there's a settlement accepted in writing." No writing, no money.