So some of you who know me know that I have often can’t tell the difference between the numbers 89 and 98, between dishwashers and washing machines, and most holidays and the “J” months are an interchangeable jumbled mess to me. But here is a new one.

I apparently often type the word “guy” instead of “gym” (in fact, I just did it now until I fixed it).

A Daguerreotype is an early type of photograph. It was invented by French chemist Louis Daguerre in 1839.

In the Daguerreotype process the image is developed on a polished silver plate using heated mercury. Fun!

In lieu of a patent, the French government offered Daguerre a pension. They then made the technology readily available as a “gift to the world.” The world except for Britain, of course.

In Britain a guy bought the patent from a friend of Daguerre and was a real stickler for enforcing it. Because of this the Daguerreotype never took off in Britain like it did in the US and France.

Source: wiki while looking at Abe Lincoln pics

The Titanic had two sister ships, called The Olympic and The Britannic.

The Olympic crashed into another ship and killed 8 people. The Britannic sunk and killed 30 people (by sucking the lifeboats into the propellers). The Titanic, of course, also sunk.

A woman named Violet Jessop was on all 3 ships when the accidents happened.

She was working on the Olympic when it struck the other ship.

She worked on the Titanic as a stewardess when that ship sunk, and was instructed by another crew member to get into a life boat as a way to encourage reluctant passengers to get in. She was one of few crew members to survive.

During WWI, the Britannic was pressed into military service as a Hospital boat. Violet volunteered as a nurse. When the ship sank she was in one of the life boats that almost got sucked into the propeller, but somehow escaped.

After the war, the Olympic (the only ship of the trio that didn’t sink) went back into regular ocean-crossing service with Violet Jessop working as a stewardess on board.

Source: History Channel

There are over 100 known pictures of Abraham Lincoln, which is a huge number for someone who lived in the 19th century.

Lincoln was an early believer in photography as a way to connect with the people, and made an effort to get his image out there in front of the public.

To the left is a random picture of Abe sans beard. Enjoy.

Source: History Channel

In a story that sounds made up, but isn’t, Jacques Chirac, the pathetic excuse for a world leader who used to be the President of the feckless nation called France, was rushed to the hospital after being attacked by his “clinically-depressed” Maltese Poodle.

The animal, who is on doggie anti-depressants, (which apparently exist) has become increasingly violent recently, and bit the former president in an undisclosed part of his body.

Don’t worry though. Chirac is expected to make a full recovery. Not sure what will happen to the dog.

Source: Daily Mail

So, in our last episodes, Comcast: the worst company on Earth lost my service for several days and then offered me $5 for my trouble, told me it would take 2 weeks to upgrade my service, and then later canceled my upgrade appointment without telling me…

Yesterday, they finally came out to upgrade my service. The technician, who actually seemed to have a brain, said that the line to my house was bad (and probably had been for years). He couldn’t complete the upgrade, so I still haven’t had the honor of paying Comcast more money. So he set up a new appointment to run a new line to my house. Ok, fine. I’ll wait longer to pay them more service. But I needed to get some compensation from the fact that for over 2 years I’ve been paying for faulty service; a problem that one of the several technicians (especially the one who set it up for me) should have noticed by now.

So I call… to complain. The little jack hole tells me, “What you are complaining about? Your service works fine and there is a plan in place to run you a new line!” I, of course, asked for his manager, who, of course, was not available. So he asks if I want a call back. Yes. So he writes a note for the manager and reads it back to me. “So even though your service is working fine…”

I snapped. I cut him off. I couldn’t believe it. I yelled. And then he give me, “Is there anything else?”

Long story short, the manager called back 2 hours later and offered me a $40 credit. That’s all I wanted to start with. Well, that, and to have the privilege of having my service upgraded…

I had always thought there was a line in the Bush song Glycerine about “Bad Madmartigan.”

The line is actually:

Bad moon whine again
Bad moon whine again
As she falls around me.

In related news, the Willow character Madmartigan is Madmartigan, not Mad Martigan, as in Martigan who is always Mad.

The Wife^® received a gift certificate for a spa a few months back, and she was recently looking to cash it in. One of the spa treatments that was offered was called “Ear Candling.”

Ear Candling is a process where someone sticks a hollow candle in your ear, and then “sucks out” the earwax using the flame of the candle. At the end of the process, you look inside the hollow candle and see all the goop that was sucked out of your ear.

Turns out (surprise surprise) that Ear Candling is a fraud. Several studies have shown that it basically does nothing, and that if you just hold the candle in the air, the same goop will collect inside the candle. So save your $75.

But if Ear Candling is not the right way to clear your ears of wax, then what is?

Nothing. Just leave it there.

Your body naturally expels the wax when you talk or chew. If you chew gum you could speed up the process, but doing nothing is the recommendation made by The American Academy of Otolaryngology. And several studies have shown that the more unpronounceable a name, the more reliable the source.

If you have a serious issue (like you can’t hear), then your doctor may be able to help you out using a microscope and a little scraper tube and/or by squirting something in your ear. Otherwise, leave it alone.

Whatever you do, don’t stick a q-tip in your ear. Otherwise this will happen, and it looks bad:

Some other earwax facts:

• The medical name for earwax is cerumen.
• Despite the name, earwax isn’t really wax. It’s a water-soluble mixture of secretions, plus hair and dead skin.
• There are two types of ear wax, wet and dry, which are inherited. Dry wax is common in Asia, while wet wax is common in Western Europe. The different types of wax have lead to different home remedies in different parts of the world.

Source: Wisegeek, Dr. Hoffman, Medical News Today, and the American Hearing Research Foundation.

I caught the History Channel show where George and Laura Bush give a tour of the White House the other day. It was fascinating.

A few pieces of White House Trivia:

• The Oval Office was an original feature of the White House, designed by George Washington. (GW was the only President to never live in the White House, BTW.) The oval design was so that “no one could be backed into a corner.”
• Although the Oval Office has been around since the beginning, it is not located in the same place as it originally was. A fire destroyed the Oval Office in 1929. FDR had the new Oval Office built near the Rose Garden, since it was a place he could easily get to in his wheel chair.
• Speaking of FDR, he had a swimming pool installed. Nixon turned the pool room into a new press room.
• During the Civil War, Lincoln housed Union troops in the White House.
• Teddy Roosevelt was the first President to separate the living and working quarters. Until Roosevelt had the West Wing built the President’s office and living space were right next to each other on the second floor.
• During Truman’s Presidency the White House underwent a major renovation. They gutted the whole thing and replaced the inside with concrete and steel (it was previously wood). The renovation was prompted by an incident where Truman’s daughter was playing the piano and one of the piano legs fell through the floor.
• There have been claims that the Lincoln bedroom is haunted by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. Winston Churchill claims to have seen the ghost while he was staying at the White House during WWII. Churchill had just gotten out of the bath and was wearing “nothing but his cigar” when he saw the ghost. He said “Mr. President, you seem to have me at a disadvantage.” The ghost smiled then disappeared.

Source: History Channel

During WWII the Japanese launched a series of attacks on the United States and Canada via hydrogen filled balloons. The balloons were made by Japanese schoolchildren, and loaded up with incendiary devices. Then they were launched into the Pacific Jet Stream, which would carry them across the ocean into the US.

There were a series of timers and other devices inside the balloon that tried to keep them afloat for 3 days. After 3 days, another device would fire off to drop the bombs. The Japanese didn’t care where they were when the bombs dropped. The thought was that after 3 days they would be somewhere over the US or Canada. The idea was to cause random, chaotic damage such as forest fires in the US Mainland.

The balloons were the cause of the only US Mainland deaths during WWII. 6 people died when a child in Oregon tried to free a balloon that was stuck in a tree.

Over 9,000 balloons were thought to be launched, but no one really knows how many exploded. It is thought that several unexploded balloons may still be located in forests across the US and Canada.

In related news, Japan was working on their own atomic bomb when we dropped ours on them. In fact, Germany was sending them a shipment of Uranium via submarine when they surrendered. The sub surrendered to a US ship, and we recovered the Uranium before it got into the hands of the Japanese.

Source: History Channel