Subject: random posts

Freedom 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/07/08/fireworks-death-uncle-sam-hat/74327428007/ 

Allen's wife said he wore an Uncle Sam star-spangled suit and a matching top hat before the blast took place, adding he "ultimately died doing what he loved," the local Post and Courier reported.

What he loved - getting drunk and acting the fool? 

That story would also fit well in the "Darwin Awards" thread(s).

People talk like Spanish midfielder Lamine Yamal is Pelé Himself back in '57...(the Information Age introduces infinitely more infinitely earlier).

Politics not allowed here

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AVN1IjJHeds 

Shredders start young these days.

Legendary Fitness Guru Richard Simmons Dead at 76...the man certainly helped many people in need of healthful improvements in lifestyle; his family can remain proud.

I just wonder how long it will be before Fox news starts showing alien baby stories.

Shelley Duval the 11th

Dr Ruth the 12th

Richard Simmons the 13th

Shannon Doherty the 13th

I've had this elephant ear plant for about 5 years. It's been slow growing. It would never have more than two leaves at a time. When one would come in, it would replace a perfect leaf. Until this year it took off. I didn't know they had flowers. From what I've read, some plants will never have a bloom. I'm glad mine did. Might never do it again.

Red: I had one shoot out six blooms, one at a time, two years ago! I posted three pictures of it on the picture page. Touch my name, then "pictures" if you can't find the picture page. (I can't). You can see a few blooms at different stages! Kudos to you for growing one inside. Give it sun and a wet spot!

Lol. I didn't do a thing for this to happen. Nothing at all!

Someone gave me an aloe plant a few years ago. It got huge and I put it in the ground. Another one has come out of the ground next to it and it's gotten pretty big. I used to have aloes that had pups grow out of the plant, and you had to take them out and plant them.

The last three years, the big aloe has shot out a single big stem that is taller than the plant. Then it blooms a bunch of yellow blooms.

Your flowers with just their simplicity are just plain beautiful, I also have an aloe that blooms and they do grow pretty tall. Last year I tried my luck at dahlias, which I had moderate success. This year it's zinnias, carnations and snapdragons. I'll try anything to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Since I live on a city block, it's necessary to brighten up the asphalt and concrete.

https://apnews.com/article/monocarpic-plants-bloom-4ff294772faec92926b4343f26c51231

Big Al this morning. Thank you red 🌷and good luck with your flowers 🌺 

Erma Bombeck was in a Deep Thought today, which reminded me of her book title:

~The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank~ 😁😆😭💀

I don't have nicknames for my plants, but there's always time. I've been trying my luck growing from seed instead of having instant gratification from the nursery. Seeds of the carnations and snapdragons are no bigger than ground pepper, so seeing something come out of that, is very satisfying.

I was just now looking at this and thinking about what I'll do to that garden thing tomorrow. I was also thinking about editing the post to include Little Al, which I swear I just now was thinking that. I don't name mine either. I started to write Big Aloe, and I did that in the moment. 

FYI outskirts: Big Al is the mascot for the University of Alabama (he's an elephant). If you don't want to root for them, you might want to rethink that one (spoken as someone who avoided rooting for them for about a dozen years of grad school), but it is such a fitting name for your beautiful aloe plant.

Skirts, I have an indoor aloe and never thought to plant in ground. Does it do better that way?

I thought I’d try my hand at gardening first summer Covid hit. With all things I learn or hobby, I tend to overdo it. First tried a schefflera and fern, both small & on sale. We get rlly humid summers so in a few months both were nearly as big as I am. Having not killed those, I went crazy buying up pint plants you can get cheap at home stores. Have to get mostly dog safe / at least non fatal for ‘em.

Find coleus, vinca (annual kind), salvia, portulaca, purslane, zinnias, dusty miller, mona lavender, dianthus and torenias to do really well in our summers. (Some of those aren’t dog safe but gen won’t give more than a tummyache and they don’t go outside without me anyway.) Snapdragons & Angelonia also, tho tend to get scraggly on hottest days near summers end. +I only have bit of shade in places I plant. Most roses also surprisingly easy, as are hydrangeas. 

I’m now fully addicted and boast well over 50 plants, some indoor, most out. Mexican petunias are a fave—crazy easy & beautiful, as are reg petunias, but the former is considered a weed in some places as it’s SO invasive (I don’t mind yet but man they DO spread fast, so I may soon!) and the latter I have many of, but tend to under/overwater after few months of thriving. Only ones I can’t seem to get hang of are flowering begonias (tho my maculata is HUGE), geraniums, & lavender (can’t grow English lavender to save my life!)  

Whats your fave flower /non vegetable plant to grow? (I can’t plant veggies, tons of squirrels)

I live on 10 acres in Florida. I can't begin to name or count the plants, trees and bamboos or name a favorite.        

And thank you Genie! I was forced to put Big Al in the ground because he outgrew my biggest containers and then a milk crate. I could barely lift it out of that it was so heavy. 

GoAdopt if you tell me bamboo is invasive I am done here.

😆

Skirts, the house we moved into when I was young had lots of bamboo around the fence line. Years later when I was in college, my mom had it all cut down :(  I’m still annoyed by this because I love bamboo but also at her house now you can see straight into 3 other yards, so I don’t rlly understand the point. 

I mostly plant in pots solely because we have clay soil, lots of spiders to scare me, and mostly because I hate digging. However, when I do plant in ground, I often still find bamboo roots. 

FL is pretty similar to us temp wise, with slightly more humidity. That salt air does many plants (and ppl) good I bet! 

Also, I’ve yet to figure out how to make large potted plants easier to deal with. If you ever learn some trick, pls share!

If you mention bamboo to anyone, the first words out their mouths is "...  yada yada - invasive."

I'm like R U Kidding Me 😑

Don't listen to people, people. Listen to me. 

That’s how I feel abt the Mexican petunias. Google em if you haven’t seen, they’re very pretty with purple tubular flowers and abt half as tall as bamboo. Hummers love them. 

But tbh, if you plant one in yard for summer, next summer they’ll be abt 20 there. 

That said, you legit don’t have to do anything for ‘em. They technically like boggy conditions tho, so somewhere they’ll at least get rain is good. They propagate so easily and make nice vase flowers that don’t run out. Mine are in a very wet part of yard, so they may be spreading even quicker than norm, idk. They can’t get too much water, they grow near swamps. Think I read FL is actually one of the places where ppl pull them up because of spread. So obvi they’d do well in your yard, ha

Another one of those news items exposing the dangers of unhealthy 'foods':

https://apnews.com/article/museum-of-ice-cream-sprinkle-pool-lawsuit-69526a6d20fbd569cec166ae1be9f3b5

"The museum should not make it tempting for people like me to do something really stupid. Like jumping into a pit of sprinlkes."

Enjoy your Darwin Award. At least you lived through it. 

I’ve managed to sort of tame a young feral-ish cat. 

Mostly because she’s young so not lifer feral—prob abt 6-7 mo’s old now. She now lets me pet her, rubs against my leg, and basically lives on my porch all day and night waiting for meals. I wouldn’t call her feral now, but she’s not exactly lining up to come inside even tho it’s crazy hot out. She’s seen my dogs and doesn’t trust I put ‘em up before inviting her in. But she can’t live on my back porch forever.

I’d rather not kill her trust by trapping her, since I managed so much in just a few months. Anybody ever do this before? Tame a feral /stray? Any tips?

Here is the gif I couldn't make work in here.

https://tenor.com/view/good-vibes-only-good-vibes-stay-positive-positive-vibes-positivity-gif-208834640158088906 

It's something I had posted on fb on the 9th!

Speaking of ice milk, here is a Gordon Parks photo that I post now and then. I noticed the sign when I was viewing it recently. See next post for link.

https://www.gordonparksfoundation.org/gordon-parks/photography-archive/segregation-in-the-south-1956

This is what's important to me.

My Richard Simmons story.

I had Richard on my Facebook and loved him very much. He joked one day about what his rapper name would be. He was so very creative with names and just everything. He had come up with the name Gift Rap. Here at freecell we were posting about ice milk, so I thought of the name Ice Milk, for Richard. Lol. I didn't tell him but he would have LHAO.

I have lots of exotic bamboos, long story. I did love the one that grew crooked but it didn't survive. I think it was called crookshank. I also really loved the black bamboo which also didn't survive!

In the 70s I ate lunch at DQ a lot because it was a quick walk from my job. I was told by the owner that shakes were called shakes because legally they couldn't call them milkshakes because there was no milk in them. 

Yes, you can buy your own flamethrowing robot dog (read down a bit):

Ukraine unleashes ‘four-legged robo killing machines’ against Putin’s forces (msn.com)

That's a pretty cheap price for that level of destructive power. 

Great toy to play around with at the next Cellstock. 🔥

Also.............I'm fairly flabbergasted that that's legal to possess in the U.S.

Almost posted in the "Physics" thread, but.........it's here:

Addison Rae's new Diet Pepsi™ commercial is compelling...(Hustler e-mag gave it a "fully erect" rating)...

Only meant for thought.

 A white man and an elderly Native man became pretty good friends, so the white guy decided to ask him: “What do you think about Indian mascots?” The Native elder responded, “Here’s what you’ve got to understand. When you look at black people, you see ghosts of all the slavery and the rapes and the hangings and the chains. When you look at Jews, you see ghosts of all those bodies piled up in death camps. And those ghosts keep you trying to do the right thing. “But when you look at us you don’t see the ghosts of the little babies with their heads smashed in by rifle butts at the Big Hole, or the old folks dying by the side of the trail on the way to Oklahoma while their families cried and tried to make them comfortable, or the dead mothers at Wounded Knee or the little kids at Sand Creek who were shot for target practice. You don’t see any ghosts at all. “Instead you see casinos and drunks and junk cars and shacks. “Well, we see those ghosts. And they make our hearts sad and they hurt our little children. And when we try to say something, you tell us, ‘Get over it. This is America. Look at the American dream.’ But as long as you’re calling us Redskins and doing tomahawk chops, we can’t look at the American dream, because those things remind us that we are not real human beings to you. And when people aren’t humans, you can turn them into slaves or kill six million of them or shoot them down with Hotchkiss guns and throw them into mass graves at Wounded Knee. “No, we’re not looking at the American dream. And why should we? We still haven’t woken up from the American nightmare. ~source unknown

“I ain’t draft dodging. I ain’t burning no flag. I ain’t running to Canada. I’m staying right here. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead. I’ve been in jail for 400 years. I could be there for four or five more, but I ain’t going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people.

"If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fightin' you, if I want to die. You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You won’t even stand up for me right here at home. “

- Muhammad Ali

Watch out, when you're on the road. Drive defensively. They're out there. It could be an 18 year old girl. 

https://youtu.be/3BukpqE7OGs?si=hqxJaadN0mwmSe2D 

The dye in Doritos allow see through skin when rubbed on. On mice, not us, our skin is ten times thicker. Has something to do with filtering out blue. and ultraviolet. I was going to put it in the science thread or a food one, but I got lazy.

You and TN were of the same mind. TN posted a similar story in the More, different BIG science news thread, but his story was sourced to CNN who were quoting your info from Science. Your figure is the graphical abstract from the Science article.  

======================

Here's the text version of the abstract: 

Structured Abstract

There is also a very substantial difference in refractive indices between 4x7s, 8x2s and 8x4s.  Huge gradient of "transparencies".  Just a Public Service Announcement.

Haven't yet tried rubbing Doritos on my computer screen with any of those.  Perhaps SirPape has?