Yep, it's that time folks. I'm headed back to work as a camp counselor again this summer, which means for the next 9 weeks, this blog is likely to look almost deserted. I'll do what I can to post from time to time, but I can't guarantee that it'll even be weekly. Don't fret too much, though, because for the summer adventure, I've started another blog. I did this last year, too, only I used Xanga at the time....and it was specifically for my forum friends and such that I wanted to stay in touch with while I had very limited internet access and couldn't possibly keep each and every one of them updated individually. I can't do that this year either, so it's time to bring everybody back to a common place (scary!!) and attempt to write for everyone at the same time....even though everyone knows a different Jessi (even scarier!!), hehe. So head on over, if you'd like, and get yourself acquainted with where I'll be this summer.
May the spaghetti-filled hair, homesick kids, and incredibly hot, humid days in the mountains be upon us....literally.
The Quirky World of Camp--Jessi Leaves for the Summer
Unusual Cards for Any Occasion--Thank You For Lowering Your Expectations
A while back, I mentioned e-cards to be sent to those who'd just had an abortion. It was a pretty unique idea, in my opinion, although I'm not sure what exactly what to think beyond that. Well here's another set of interesting cards, but these cover a much wider range of topics and are much funnier, at times. Browse through lots of cards, including ones that say things like "Our safe word scares me," "If there's anything you need, ask someone who isn't afraid of getting sick," and in the 'flirting' section, "If I had a blog, I'd write a reasonably decent post about you." You'll find a card for about any occasion or thought you could think of....andif you need a quirkier version of the usual 'happy birthday', 'get well soon', and 'congratulation' cards, they've got those, too. Have fun!
SomeEcards.com
Goat Island, Not Duck Island!--Media Errors
The media is constantly being criticized for this thing or that. I stumbled across this site earlier today and couldn't help but point out even more errors....or well, send you in the direction of the errors. ReportTheError.com brings all sorts of media errors together in one spot. Here are a couple recent ones:
A photograph of Bill Clinton and Officer Alan Davis on Page 3B in Monday's local section did not intend to imply that the former president had involvement in a sexual solicitation case against the officer. Davis and Clinton were photographed together when the officer did bomb checks during a visit by Clinton. Davis was arrested Sunday and charged with solicitation and transportation with the purpose of prostitution.
A map on Monday with an article about fears that tourism in the Niagara Falls area will suffer when tighter border restrictions take effect mislabeled an island in the Niagara River between New York and Ontario. It is Goat Island, not Duck Island
Of course, it looks a lot fancier on their site because the include the paper logo (like The New York Times, The Star, etc) and it doesn't just look like a bunch of text, but you get the idea. :P
Notting Hill, London Diner Offering Free Food to Tiny Models
Watch the short video and you'll see that a local restaurant is offering free food to any model who can prove she has a BMI of 18 or less. On one hand, it sounds like an encouragement for them to eat a hearty meal and 'put on some weight'.....even though we all know that it isn't a lack of money that keeps them at that size. On the other hand, it almost seems like a reward for being that thin. So far, no one has taken them up on the offer. What do you think about this?
The Computer Swallowed Grandma
The computer swallowed grandma.
Yes, honestly its true!
She pressed 'control' and 'enter'
And disappeared from view.
It devoured her completely,
The thought just makes me squirm.
She must have caught a virus
Or been eaten by a worm.
I've searched through the recycle bin
And files of every kind;
I've even used the Internet,
But nothing did I find.
In desperation, I asked Jeeves
My searches to refine.
The reply from him was negative,
Not a thing was found 'online.'
So, if inside your 'Inbox,'
My Grandma you should see,
Please 'Copy,''Scan' and 'Paste' her
And send her back to me!
3 Year Old VanGogh
Quite the finger painter here. Before you laugh, watch him create masterpieces on his own...
Labels Are There for a Reason--Sports Cream Death
Seriously, please pay attention to the recommended use for medicines.....and that includes those creams you use on your body. Arielle Newman, a cross country star, died yesterday after her body absorbed too much of a chemical found in her sports cream. She used the cream itself in excess, and also was wearing anti-inflammatory adhesive pads containing the chemical methyl salicylate. This was no special cream/pad either. This chemical is found in your everyday, run of the mill Bengay and Icy Hot. In moderation, it's safe, but when used too frequently (recommended to be used no more than 3-4 times daily, similar to the maximum times you should take things like ibuprofen and aspirin), the body can intake too much, and in this case, it was fatal. Beware for yourself and teach your children the same. Her mother is in shock over discovering her death was because of sports cream. It's something you'd never think of. My heart goes out to her and her family, and I hope everyone else heeds this as a warning to check the labels and listen to them.
Read the article with more details here.
Weird Converter--Quirky to the Max
We've all seen the converters to figure out how many pounds are in a ton....or what the equivalent of a pound is in kilograms. Well I thought this converter was going to be no different until I saw that it really is quite out of the ordinary. Pounds and kilograms are both there....but so is male polar bear, Tom Cruise, Winston Cup tire, African elephant, and many other random items to compare weights to. It's really fun to play around with. Put in your own weight and see how many U.S. quarters it'd take to balance out a scale with you.
Weird Weight Converter
And if that's not enough quirkiness for you, try out the height version. See how many of you it would take to stack up to the Great Wall of China or how many human tongues are in a mile. Have fun!
Weird Height/Length Converter
Summer Time Water Activities
About.com had a recent article on fun water activities recently, so I thought I'd pass the link on.
Water Games
I personally like the sound of Ice Cube Melt Relay. Even if there's only 2 people on each team, it can easily be done, and with ice involved, it's sure to cause lots of giggling and help cool off sweating bodies, even if it's only their hands being exposed to ice!
The Twister water version sounds like lots of fun, too. It's the type of game any age group can enjoy, and with water involved, it's going to be blast, even if you lose! If your family isn't very large, invite over a couple of your kids' friends for the afternoon and enjoy. You're sure to be a hit. :D
National Chocolate Ice Cream Day
Yep, it's today, June 7th. Time to celebrate...woot! Maybe you could use some of your fancy new non-ice cream cone, ice cream cones, hehe.
100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers
This thing is almost 10 minutes long, but if you're a movie buff or even just slightly bored, you'll enjoy it. It counts down from 100, quoting each number in a different movie. Nicely done!
An Ice Cream Cone...without the Cone....But with a Cone
No really....it makes sense, I promise. Look at that thing. It's an ice cream cone...literally...but it's plastic, so it's not a 'true' ice cream cone. Kinda weird if you ask me....but hey, that's what this blog is about, so it's all good. They can be found here if for some reason you want them for yourself. $9.95 and four of these bad boys are all yours...plus shipping, of course. ;-)
On the plus side, they're dishwasher safe and don't leak...on the downside, you can't eat them! But if you're a dieter and think this is going to cut way down on calories and let you eat two scoops of ice cream guilt-free, I'm sorry to burst your bubble...one of those little basic ice cream cones only has about 20 calories....and considering how much it looks like you can fit in these plastic things, you'd end up eating more in a double scoop full of one of these than having 'two' regular sized cones. Whatever floats your boat, though!
(And fyi, I'm now craving two huge sugar cone ones, stuffed full of as many calories of chocolate I can get, but shhh....it'd give some of you crazy dieters heart attacks...wouldn't want to work you up too much)
Blog Business
Okay guys, time to get you updated on what's going on here.....
First of all, in about 2 weeks, I will pretty much disappear from here for 2-3 months. I work at a children's camp up in Connecticut over the summer and there's very limited internet access. Last year, I kept a blog of sorts (Xanga account) for keeping several people updated, but I haven't decided yet if I'll do that again or not. If I do, I'll link y'all to it, but don't expect much true quirkiness and they'll be no linking to other places like I usually do here. It'll just be stories about the kids, the drunks that I babysit on our nights off, and maybe some pictures here and there.
Second of all, I want to introduce a few new additions for here. On the right hand column, you'll see a couple new widgets. I don't typically like seeing those sorts of things on blogs, but I figure hey, it's better than being cluttered with ads, so why not? Besides, spicy made theirs completely customizable and I was able to make it all blue and look halfway decent. And fuelmyblog recently had a widget competition, and the winner's was pretty cool, so I thought I'd just go ahead and add them both. Soon, FMB's will require you to be a member, but for now, you can click it and 'fuel' me if you'd like....and if you don't, it doesn't hurt my feelings any because I rarely click other people's side bar crap. As for Spicy, I honestly don't know if you have to be a member....I only go there when I get an annoying little email that says some random people have messaged me.
Thirdly, I think it's kinda cool where I rank at a few places now. The entire thing that even sparked this post was that I started getting a strange amount of people showing up here by searching for "Jessi." That may not seem odd considering this place is called The Quirky World of *Jessi* and it's written by Quirky *Jessi* and the url is www.quirky*jessi*.com but a few months after I started this blog, I was on something like page 29 of a google search for "Jessi"....and I'm sorry, but nobody's going to go through 29 pages of search results just to 'stumble' across this place. I'm happy to say that I'm finally on page one, though, so yay! Before that goes to my head, however, I must mention that I'm also second in line for a search on "ramen noodle anorexia," so um, I'm not sure what that means, lol.
Also, before I forget, I reached the top 10 of a fellow blogger's "Top Blog List"....which isn't saying too terribly much considering there are only 27 current members and it only takes me an average of 29ish readers a day to end up there, but for me, that's quite the task considering I haven't been putting out much effort for the last while. I mainly just wanted to give him shout out and a link from here so in case any other bloggers wanted to head over and join, they could.
I think that's it, folks. I don't do this often....I don't 'like' doing this actually, lol....so I wanted to cram in as much as I could here while it was on my mind. That being said, I'm outta here. :D
Toogle Image Search--Pictures in Words
Toogle Image Search
Toogle takes your image searches....and shows you them using a colored word...the very word(s) you just typed in. So if you search for "cow", you'll see a picture of a cow made out of the word cow being shown repeatedly, but in different shades and colors. You've probably seen this sort of thing before, but this is a huge database of this sort of thing (although small compared to what it could be....they only have one picture for each word,so when I type in something like 'quirky', I got a picture of a woman with a fish...eek!) Give it a go and see if you can find anything interesting.
100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know
And their parents...and college/online school graduates....and drop outs....and military men....and...you get the idea. Here's what the editor's of American Heritage dictionaries came up with. If you ask me, I'm sure most of us are lacking in the area of many of these particular words. Yikes!
"The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language."
The following is the entire list of 100 words:
abjure
abrogate abstemious acumen antebellum auspicious belie bellicose bowdlerize chicanery chromosome churlish circumlocution circumnavigate deciduous deleterious diffident enervate enfranchise epiphany equinox euro evanescent expurgate facetious fatuous feckless fiduciary filibuster gamete gauche gerrymander hegemony hemoglobin homogeneous hubris hypotenuse impeach incognito incontrovertible inculcate infrastructure interpolate irony jejune kinetic kowtow laissez faire lexicon loquacious |
lugubrious
metamorphosis mitosis moiety nanotechnology nihilism nomenclature nonsectarian notarize obsequious oligarchy omnipotent orthography oxidize parabola paradigm parameter pecuniary photosynthesis plagiarize plasma polymer precipitous quasar quotidian recapitulate reciprocal reparation respiration sanguine soliloquy subjugate suffragist supercilious tautology taxonomy tectonic tempestuous thermodynamics totalitarian unctuous usurp vacuous vehement vortex winnow wrought xenophobe yeoman ziggurat |
Throw Away Your Chinese Toothpaste
So we all know that things are cheaper when made in China. Some of immediately think about kids working in sweat shops. Some begin turning red hot from the thoughts about outsourcing and people losing jobs because US companies begin opening shops overseas instead of here. Others think about the recent incident Yet others don't pay any attention to it at all.
Regardless of people's standpoints, though, it's nearly impossible to buy 'everything' from American-based manufacturers (and even if you could, it's almost guaranteed that all the materials and ingredients within are not from America). This is just a warning that the US government is stopping all imports of certain toothpastes made in China because they've been found to contain DEG. The article below explains more, but if you happen to buy bargain toothpaste at places like those little dollar stores, please check the label and see where it was made. If it's from China, toss the two dollar paste and move on to another.
WASHINGTON - The government warned consumers on Friday to avoid using toothpaste made in China because it may contain a poisonous chemical used in antifreeze. Out of caution, the
The government warned consumers on Friday to avoid using toothpaste made in China because it may contain a poisonous chemical used in antifreeze. Out of caution, the Food and Drug Administration said, people should throw away toothpaste with labeling that says it was made in China. The FDA is concerned that these products may contain diethylene glycol. The FDA said, people should throw away toothpaste with labeling that says it was made in China. The FDA is concerned that these products may contain diethylene glycol.The agency is not aware of any poisoning from toothpaste in the United States, but it did find the antifreeze ingredient in a shipment at the U.S. border and at two retail stores: a Dollar Plus store in Miami and a Todo A Peso store in Puerto Rico.
Officials said they are primarily concerned about toothpaste sold at bargain retail outlets. The ingredient in question, called DEG, is used as a lower-cost sweetener and thickening agent. The highest concentration of the chemical found in toothpaste so far was between 3 percent and 4 percent of the product's overall weight.
"It does not belong in toothpaste even in small concentrations," said the FDA's Deborah M. Autor.
The FDA increased its scrutiny of toothpaste made in China because of reports of contamination in several countries, including Panama.
The agency is particularly concerned about chronic exposure to DEG in children and in people with kidney or liver disease.
Agency officials said they had no estimate of how many tubes of tainted toothpaste might have made it into the U.S.
"Our concern today is potentially about all toothpaste that comes in from China," Autor said. "Our estimate is that China makes up about $3.3 million of the $2 billion U.S. toothpaste market."
The agency also issued an import alert Friday for all dental products containing DEG. The alert means toothpaste from China will be stopped at the border, she said.
Companies that make brands previously found with DEG will have to prove the toothpaste is free of the chemical before it's allowed into the country. Meanwhile, all other brands of Chinese-made toothpaste will be stopped for testing, something the agency has been doing since May 23.
The import alert posted by the government says DEG has been improperly used in a variety of sedatives, syrups and cough medicines worldwide. Most recently, a cough syrup containing DEG resulted in more than 40 deaths in Panama last September.
The alert says the agency found DEG in three products manufactured by Goldcredit International Trading in China. The products are Cooldent Fluoride, Cooldent Spearmint and Cooldent ICE. Analysis of the products revealed they contained between 3 percent and 4 percent DEG.
The agency also found the chemical in one product manufactured by Suzhou City Jinmao Daily Chemical Co. in China. Analysis of that product, Shir Fresh Mint Fluoride Paste, found it contained about 1 percent DEG.
China's food safety problems have in recent months become a matter of international concern, a situation reflected in trade talks between Chinese and U.S. officials in Washington last week.
Most notably, on March 15, FDA learned that certain pet foods were sickening and killing cats and dogs. FDA found contaminants in vegetable proteins imported into the United States from China and used as ingredients in pet food.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/chinese_toothpaste
Zombie Skunks Smell Bad
(M* is 5 and A* is 4.)
Mom--Ewww, M*, did you forget to brush your teeth?
M*--No, it was a skunk.
Mom--No, it wasn't.
M*--Yes it was, you ran over it.
Me--She ran over it? Did you see it? (There was a dead opossum on the other side of the road that we knew she'd seen.)
M*--Yeah, I saw it.
Me--Where was it?
M*--(Still peering intensely out the window, even though we'd long passed it) It was right over there.
Me--So it was over there and she swerved to hit it?
M*--(thinking) No, it was right there and then underneath the van.
Me--But wasn't it already dead over there?
M*--(thinking more) Yeah, but she hit the skunk and then it smelled really bad.
There's a long pause at this point as we're kinda giggling at her thinking so hard about this dead skunk and how it was on the other side of the road, but we hit it, when all of a sudden, A* jumps in and says:
A--So it was a zombie skunk and just walked over?
.png "Quirky Jessi on StumbleUpon")
