February 12, 2013 Today is Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras. Whatever you want to call it – it’s the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. And for many Christians it’s a day to party it up, to eat their favorite foods and drink their favorite beverages.
February 11, 2013 How many potato chip flavors do we need? For me, barbeque, salt and vinegar, maybe sour cream and onion and just plain old regular will do. But when you’re the world’s largest potato chip maker you need dozens. Lays puts out such flavors as Dill Pickle, Ketchup, Garden Tomato & Basil, Thai Sweet Chili, Oven Roasted Chicken & Thyme, even Seaweed. Most of those flavors are available overseas, but in this country Lays averages one new flavor a year and this year they’re asking for your help.
February 8, 2013 Saturday is National Toothache Day – actually the feast day of St. Appollonia – the patroness of dentistry and those who suffer from toothache. Oddly – it’s also the day in history when the Hershey Chocolate Company was founded. Just a coincidence I guess.
February 7, 2013 We learned yesterday that “Monopoly” has dumped the iron and replaced it with the cat as a play piece on the game board.
Hasbro invited “Monopoly” fans to vote on the switch and more than 10-million people did. The boot, iron and wheelbarrow received the fewest votes in support. The Scottie dog got the most support.
February 6, 2013 Funny that on a day when traffic in this area was a nightmare on the 190 and 290, the Texas Traffic Institute issued a report that says traffic congestion in the country is improving. But most of that is because the economy is so bad. When people don’t have jobs they don’t drive to work. And they also go out less in the first place.
February 5, 2013 I love kids and I love babies, but when you’re on a four hour flight and surrounded by six babies that screamed the entire way, it’s more than anybody should have to deal with. It happened to me on a flight out to California for Thanksgiving and I felt bad for the parents of those babies. What are they supposed to do? They tried their best to keep them quiet, but I think it was the change in altitude that was driving the babies crazy and they kept screaming.
February 4, 2013 Sad to hear that the inventor of the Etch a Sketch passed away. Frenchman Andre Cassagnes came up with the idea in his garage in the early 1950’s. Originally known as the The Magic Screen – it was displayed at a toy fair in Nuremberg, Germany in 1959 and it was the president of the Ohio Art Company who paid $25,000 for the rights to what eventually became the Etch a Sketch.
February 1, 2013 The most complete and accurate dictionary of the English language is the Oxford English Dictionary. It gives not only the meaning and pronunciation, but the history of over half a million words, past and present. It was 1857 when plans for the dictionary began what they figured would end up as four-volumes and 64-hundred pages.
January 31, 2013 They were known as Circus crackers, sometimes just simply Animals. Bakeries all over the United States made them. They were copies of crackers that had been imported from England, but late in the 1800’s a number of bakeries merged to form the National Biscuit Company, now known as Nabisco Brands.
January 30, 2013 For those who lived through it, it’s something you’ll never forget. It’s the worst snowstorm I’ve ever experienced and for 29 people it was the last one they would experience. The Blizzard of ’77
January 29, 2013 I like to mix up what I eat in the morning. Usually it’s tea and toast – it’s quick and easy – but in the long run, not very nutritious. So I like to mix in eggs or cereal once in a while and one thing that always makes me feel good after I eat it is oatmeal.
January 28, 2013 Great basketball game between Canisius and Niagara Sunday afternoon at the Koessler Center. The Eagles winning it by one point after a shot by the Griffs was waved off because it came after time expired.
A lot different story when Northern Illinois played at Eastern Michigan on Saturday. The Northern Illinois Huskies set a Division One record in the shot clock era by scoring only four points in the first half.
