♥ November 30, 2012 ♥

Good news for me, my new ring came today from Blue Steel. I love it! I tried wearing it on my left hand middle finger but it kept clanging against my other Blue Steel ring that I wear on my ring finger, so I moved it over to my index finger. Perfect fit! This ring is Titanium & has a bronze colored chain in the middle. What I didn't know until I got it out of the box is that is the chain spins. It's a spinner ring! Love it! I also got my Gangham Style socks. HA! They're too cute. Pete came home from work yesterday to take Josh to work (he

had to be there at 2) & since he was coming back here after instead of heading straight back to work, I got to go along for the ride & get out of the house for a bit. We dropped Josh off & came back to have a great pot roast that I had slow cooked. Then Pete went to work on his brakes but found out that in addition to needing the brake pads he bought, the caliper is also broken. That was the loud pop he heard up there. His car is now up on a jack with the

front wheel removed & he's still using my truck to get to work. While Pete was working on his car I cooked a boiled egg for a future breakfast, watered the bedroom plant, cleaning the dining table, folded some laundry, dusted the living room lights, Neatened my bookshelf by taking the Dallas script that I had on the top shelf facing out (blocking a bunch of stuff) & put it down on the 2nd shelf neatly in between the other books. Now I can see all the books on my

top shelf again. I swept the bathroom & then Pete was back off to work. I checked eBay, deleted the FastFood app off my iPhone (I know where all the food is, trust me), knitted a thin white panel on the knitting machine, checked the mail, Twitter, & Woot! & then loaded up Sims for the evening until Pete got home with Josh. Then it was a quick dinner of leftover pot roast, Big Bang, 2½ Men & then bed. Today my best friend Ann-Marie gifted me PSPX5. WOOHOO! SWEET!! THANK YOU!!! I paid my bills for the pay period & then loaded up Sims. I completed the family room in Worthington & the loaded one of my favorite creations, Northmont. The 1st screenshot is my 2nd gen Sim, Michael Goth trick or treating on Spooky Day. He dressed up as a diver. The 2nd screenshot is beautiful Northmont in winter with red icicle lights. SO PRETTY! The 3rd pic is my brand new ring (Golden Lava)! The last screenshot is the living room of Worthington. There's not much to say about the Northmont game this time. It's stuck. When I say stuck, I mean everything was humming along just fine ... Michael's mom, my 1st gen Sim named Scarlet, cheated on Gunther Goth with her boss Iqbal Alvi. They ended up arguing & fighting for days & then Gunther divorced her so I was forced to kick her out of the house. That left just Gunther & Michael Goth. Michael had a best friend in grade school that I thought he was going to marry, but she got stuck. Never aged up past child which happens often. Then he met a girl in high school & they never get stuck so I thought, OK ... she's the one he's going to marry. He works from home, so meeting someone on the job is out of the question. Well, he aged up to young adult & his future wife was still in high school, so he registered as a self employed painter (artist) with a lifetime wish of Master of the Arts. He needs to master the painting & guitar skills. No problem. He'll work on those while he waits a couple days for his future wife to age up. Well, 4 days went by (the amount of time a teen is a teen in my game) & nothing. She was still in high school. I never had a teen get stuck before. After about a week in game time, I realized that NO ONE was aging up. (?!) Michael, hasn't aged a day. His dad hasn't aged a day. His friends haven't aged a day. it's stuck! The seasons are progressing, but that's it. I've gone into the settings many time & enable aging IS checked. I even unchecked it, rechecked it ... nothing. It was humming along great until Michael became a young adult. Then it all just froze. Why? Any ideas? Anyone? It's no fun if I can't continue the line, have multiple generations, & do new & different things. Michael is almost maxed out on painting & guitar & also in his career. Once that happens, it's going to get real boring, real fast. I don't want to have to use cheats which would be easy enough to do. Back in real life ... December starts TOMORROW!

Agendas aren't just for the office (TOLD YA!). An agenda for yourself for an important personal call can help you stay on topic & ensure you don't forget to mention anything important.

Can you make money flipping houses? Yeah. But if you're going to do it, pay cash for the house. You have to remember - an old real estate dog has said - when it comes to real estate, your money is made in the real estate business at the buy. When you buy it is when you make money. You obviously don't get the cash in your hand until you sell it, but the point is, don't pay too much. It's all about price of purchase. You want to steal it, or you don't want to buy it. And you want to pay cash for it.

Go for a brisk walk. Vigorous exercise burns nervous energy & pumps you full of feel-good endorphins.

It can be cracked; it can be made. It can be told; it can be played. What is it?

I've always suspected you were a pinata, which would explain why __________.

Jeopardy! contestant's record winning streak ends (2004):

On this day in 2004, after winning 74 straight games and more than $2.5 million--a record for U.S. game shows--Jeopardy! contestant Ken Jennings loses. Jennings' extended winning streak gave the game show a huge ratings boost and turned the software engineer from Salt Lake City, Utah into a TV hero and household name, at least temporarily. Barbara Walters named him one of the 10 most fascinating people of the year (along with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Republican operative Karl Rove and hotel heiress-socialite Paris Hilton, among others) and Jennings appeared on such shows as Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and even Sesame Street.

Jennings, who was born in 1974, outside of Seattle, Washington, graduated from Brigham Young University in 2000, where he headed the school's national quiz bowl team. Having grown up watching Jeopardy!, he made his first appearance on the show in June 2004. After a record-setting six-month run, Jennings lost on a show that aired November 30, 2004, when he was stumped by the answer: "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year." The correct response was the tax preparation company H&R Block. Propelled by his Jeopardy! fame, Jennings went on to become a pitchman for various products and write several books.

At the time of Jennings' appearance, Jeopardy! was well-established as one of the top-rated game shows in American history. Created by TV talk-show host and entertainment mogul Merv Griffin (1925-2007), Jeopardy! debuted in 1964 on NBC, with Art Fleming serving as host. Griffin (who went on to create another hugely popular, long-running game show, Wheel of Fortune, which premiered in 1975) suggested a format in which contestants were given trivia answers in a variety of categories and then required to come up with the questions. Cancelled in 1975, Jeopardy! returned briefly, airing from 1978 through 1979. In September 1984, a syndicated version of Jeopardy! launched with Alex Trebek as host and Johnny Gilbert as the announcer.

Trebek, who was born in 1940 in Sudbury, Ontario, began his broadcast career in Canada and moved to America in the early 1970s, where he hosted such game shows as High Rollers and Battlestars. In 1991, he became the first person ever to host three game shows at one time, when he served as master of ceremonies for Jeopardy! along with Classic Concentration and To Tell the Truth. After more than two decades on Jeopardy!, Trebek has become a pop-culture icon and has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The erudite, articulate host is also a favorite parody target on Saturday Night Live and other shows.

NPR Music:

***Featured in the App Store's "Music Discovery" App Essentials Collection***
NPR MUSIC for iPhone and iPad
The ultimate music experience at your fingertips! Discover new music of all genres – Rock, Jazz & Blues, World, Classical and Hip Hop/R&B. You get music handpicked by the country's best DJs and the quality storytelling you expect from NPR. Listen to exclusive album previews, live concerts and interviews. Read the latest music news and reviews. Watch videos like Tiny Desk Concerts and Favorite Sessions. Share new discoveries and purchase featured music.
The NPR Music app – it’s love at first listen.
******************************************
★ Highlights of the iPhone app:
- Multi-genre music content, with news, music streams, live concerts and interviews.
- Live music streams from more than 100 public radio stations. Browse by genre and set favorites.
- Signature programs and popular series such as First Listen, All Songs Considered, Tiny Desk Concerts, World Cafe and Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz.
- A searchable artist directory of more than 5,000 bands, musicians and singers, including performances, interviews and reviews from the NPR Music archives.
- Customizable playlist.
★ Highlights of the iPad app:
- Stunning magazine layout lets you visually browse and easily filter content.
- Stream your favorite music stations and discover new ones.
- Live video streaming of NPR Music concerts and festival coverage.
- Story pages provide rich editorial content.
- “Related Stories” offers additional content you might like.
- Enhanced playlist features:
* Ability to save your playlist items for offline listening.
* Groundbreaking visual design.
* Our “Recommended For You” section suggests other stories based on what’s in your playlist.
* Opt-in feature suggests NPR Music stories based on artists in your iTunes Library.

Recalcitrant:

1: Obstinately defiant of authority or restraint. 2a: Difficult to manage or operate. b: Not responsive to treatment. c: Resistant.

Anna's doctor ordered a week of complete bed rest, but, ever recalcitrant with doctors' orders, she was up & baking a cake after 2 days.

Long before any human was dubbed "recalcitrant" in English (the 1st written occurrence dates to one of William Thackeray's works from 1843), there were stubborn mules & horses kicking back their heels. The ancient Romans noted as much (Pliny the Elder among them), & they had a word for it - recalcitrare, which literally means "to kick back." (Its root calc meaning "heel," is also the root of calcaneus," the large bone of the heel in humans.) Certainly Roman citizens in Pliny's time were sometimes willful & hardheaded - as attested by various Latin words meaning "stubborn" - but it wasn't until later that writers of Late Latin applied recalcitrare & its derivative adjective to humans who were stubborn as mules.

Something that's relevant & connected with what has gone before is considered what?

A. Apropos

B. Infer

C. Bona fide

D. Plutonic

Answer: Apropos

Volunteer your help & pitch in with daily chores. Be neat. (This especially applies to the 22 year old who lives with us who does NOT pay rent. The LEAST you can do is clean the house. You're living for free ... no rent, no utilities ... at least be grateful).

What was the first dirty job featured on TV’s gritty Dirty Jobs series?

Bat cave scavenger, a job that involves collecting bat guano (bat poop) for fertilizer. The episode aired in November 2003.

Which comes 1st on the Periodic Table?

A. Lithium

B. Helium

C. Hydrogen

Which famous composer wrote the score for The Nutcracker?

A. Tchaikovsky

B. Handel

C. Mozart

D. Debussy

Which of these dishes is the spiciest?

A. Korma

B. Vindaloo

C. Masala

BCA. Originally introduced to London in the late 19th century, this inauthentic adaptation of Indian food is now the mainstay of the Englishman's diet.

Who gave Greenland its name?