directions

“It is a well-documented fact that guys will not ask for directions. This is a biological thing. This is why it takes several million sperm cells… to locate a female egg, despite the fact that the egg is, relative to them, the size of Wisconsin.”

- Dave Barry

check up

Dr Oz, Oprah's surgeon general, came up with a list of 10 things to do to keep your health in check. This is the list:

Step 1: Find a doctor and schedule a checkup

Step 2: Know the five ingredients to avoid

Step 3: The healthy foods to add to your diet

Step 4: Take a multivitamin every single day

Step 5: Know your numbers

Step 6: Find a health advocate

Step 7: Organize your medical records

Step 8: Get the medical tests you need

Step 9: Start exercising

Step 10: Get seven to eight hours of sleep a night

pop star president

After a day of excitement and a reception that brought out the "stars" of the entertainment world, the newly minted President of the United States went to work yesterday. And guess what he did on the first day on the job? He repeated the swearing in ceremony, which was of course the whole purpose of the inauguration!

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but while I was watching the ceremony I kept thinking they could have rehearsed this before. I'm just saying, seeing as there were millions of people watching someone could have put a little thought into what it's all for ... I hope this is not a sign of things to come!

The explanation was that since both he and the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, tripped over their words, Mr Obama took the presidential oath for a second time “out of an abundance of caution”. This time around there was no Bible, but then the Bible is just for show and the oath has nothing to do with its presence.

It turns out that Obama isn't the first president to retake the oath. Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge also took the oath of office twice because of unusual circumstances. Arthur, was sworn in at his home in a private ceremony following the assassination of former president James Garfield. He was sworn in a second time two days later at the Capitol. Coolidge took the oath of office at his father's Vermont home following the death of former president Warren Harding. Coolidge's father was a justice of the peace and administered the oath. Concerns about the jurisdiction of Coolidge's father led to Coolidge taking a second oath later in Washington.

Now what do you think history will write down for Obama? His unusual circumstance was that too many people were watching and thus him and Justice Roberts were distracted! Or that he was just giggling to much! Maybe they'll say he was too young and thus too excited, who knows ...

- sources: The Economist, CBC, Getty Images

local ingredients

The get local website has a table that shows when fruit, vegetables, meat etc are in season in Vancouver. You can find it here.

plane crash

who knew?

Forbes released its list of unknown billionaires, you might want to have a look!

windfall

Billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. won a $224 million bet that Florida would escape major damage from hurricanes this year.

- source

I didn't even know that such bonds existed, but it only makes sense.

civility institute

I just think it's an interesting concept, here's the website.

recycling

After a long struggle it seems that Clorox, who owns Brita, has launched a program to recycle water filters in North America. An interesting point is that they had been recycling the filters in Europe for a while and it took so many petitions and such a long time to get it here. Anyhow, the press release on November 18th introduces two options for recycling the filters:

• Drop off: Through the Preserve Gimme 5 program, select Whole Foods Market stores will begin collecting No. 5 plastics and used Brita pitcher filters.
• Mail in: Consumers who wish to mail in used Brita pitcher filters are encouraged to package the filter in a small, used box and send it via ground shipping. The box will also be recycled by Preserve

The press release does not indicate whether or not recycling will be made available in Canada through Whole Food Market stores but I guess mailing the filters in is always an option. I will be keeping mine and collecting filters from whoever wants to hand them to me.

off the charts

This is Stephen Colbert's interview with Malcolm Gladwell the author of Outliers, the story of success, which I have yet to buy. He claims to have figures out the best year to be born in the 20th century if you want to become rich. Sorry, nothing we can do now!

to fight or not to fight

"When couples get together, one of their main jobs is reconciliation about conflict," Harburg said. "Usually nobody is trained to do this. If they have good parents, they can imitate, that's fine, but usually the couple is ignorant about the process of resolving conflict. The key matter is, when the conflict happens, how do you resolve it?"

The above is an exert from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor's news website, Newswise. Ernest Harburg is a professor emeritus with the School of Public Health and the Psychology Department at UoM and the lead author on the paper "Marital Pair Anger Coping Types May Act as an Entity to Affect Mortality: Preliminary Findings from a Prospective Study" which will appear in the Journal of Family Communications this month.

They report that in couples who do not fight, the likelihood of early death is twice as high! Now if that doesn't tell you that making your feelings known is a good thing, I don't see what does. You can find the article in Newswise here.

وقتی می آی

Albert Hall, London, 1987

Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness

"It's that time of year again!"

Lake Superior State University "maverick" word-watchers, fresh from the holiday "staycation" but without an economic "bailout" even after a "desperate search," have issued their 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. This year's list may be more "green" than any of the previous lists and includes words and phrases that people from "Wall Street to Main Street" say they love "not so much" and wish to have erased from their "carbon footprint."

- source