Myanmar is the Southeast Asian nation formerly known as Burma, so maybe that name change is why people can't find it on a map.
But if you're into precious rocks and what-have-you, you might want to sidle on over to Myanmar, because that's where their state media reported the discovery of an 11,000-carat ruby last week. A lot of gemstones turn up in that country, but this one just has to be one of the biggest ever.
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| Kinda looks like a strawberry, does it not? |
Coup leader-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing was shown on the cover of the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper, checking out the 4.8-pound rock at his office. I'm sure he thought, "nice paperweight!"
The government said the ruby is "exceptionally large, rare, and difficult to find," "has a purplish-red color with yellowish undertones and is considered to have a high-quality color grade."
All this took place in the valley of Mogok in the Mandalay region, where there are said to be plenty more of these "unique pigeon-blood" stones hidden in the ground. Many people go to Mogok in search of a fortune, and many others are over there looking for a Mandalay.
Drop me a postcard if you make the trip, won't you?
The is (or was) an Italian punk band known as Skiantos. On April 2, 1979, they were performing in the Bologna Rock punk rock and new wave festival, to wide acclaim. But here is what they did onstage: they dragged out a whole kitchen set - refrigerator, hot plate, table and TV. Then they boiled water in the makeshift kitchen, boiled some pasta and ate it, in front of a bellowing crowd of disappointed festival attendees. One of the band hollered, "You do not understand a *^&%#ing thing: this is avant-garde, you piece-of-$#!t audience."
I'm a bit surprised that I never heard about this before, but from all indications, it did happen, and it demonstrates a certain level of disdain for the audience that punk performers found appealing.
What they missed in this particular performance is that punk aficionados enjoy these nihilistic stunts when they are set to music. It was OK for the Sex Pistols to set fire to their underwear while performing "God Save The Queen." That made a musical statement.
But having the Pistols onstage eating fish and chips is just not the same level of arrogance, and that's why we never heard of these people.
When I worked on the midnight shift in the Baltimore County Courthouse, I spent many a lunch 1/2 hour roaming the building. Just reading the legal notices that were posted in accordance with law was a fascinating pastime, and the postings of people who paid $110 to change their names legally were the best.
A lot of these were women who were divorced and wanted their original name back (that should be free, IMHO) and some were people who disliked being called "Poindexter" or "Jor-El" or whatever, and some were the kind who were into spending that kind of money for a joke, such as the newly-christened "Bud" Wiser or "Dixie" Normus.
But would you change your name for sushi? Over in Taiwan, people have been changing their names, but enough is enough, say the local officials.
There is a sushi chain called Akindo Sushiro. They offered free chow on Wednesdays and Thursdays to "whole tables of customers named Gui Yu, or 'Salmon'." All you had to do was to make "Salmon" part of your name. Local media called the resultant commotion "salmon chaos."
By the end of the first day, dozens of people had gotten their free suppers, and more than a thousand had eaten at half off just for changing their names to a name with aquatic associations.
And the government offices reported that about 150 "mostly young" people had come in to change their names.
"Salmon Prince," "Meteor Salmon King" and "Salmon Fried Rice" got their meals for free, and one freeloader changed his name to something that set the Taiwanese name for all-time longest name: "Chen Loves Taiwan, Abalone, Tuna, Salmon, Snow Crab, Sea Urchin, Scallop, Lobster and Beef, Mayfull, Palais de Chine, Regent, Hilton, Caesar Park, Hotel Royal."
One college student went with "Explosive Good Looking Salmon," and he and his squad gobbled $235 worth of sushi.
Another student who changed their name and their friends ate about $460 worth of sushi.
"I do not think we will want to eat salmon again for a while," they wrote online, per the local news.
Predictably, Taiwan officials didn't find all this very amusing as they coped with all the red tape. Deputy Interior minister Chen Tsung-yen said that the changes for free food were wasting time and causing unnecessary paperwork, according to AFP.
"I hope everyone can be more rational about it," Tsung-yen told reporters.
Diners with new names were telling reporters that were going to change their names back to their original non-sushi names after the free meal. The process fee for a name change and new ID card is less than $3.
And Taiwanese official Ann Chovy took to the airwaves to urge residents to "be careful to take good care of your name."
People who think that only males have the brains or talent or initiative to invent things should learn about Margaret Eloise Knight, who had a mind for invention and used it!
Ms Knight was born on Valentine's Day, 1838 in York, Maine. Her dad died when she was but a child, and her mom moved the family to New Hampshire, where young Margaret went to work at a cotton mill at the age of 12 to help the family get by. That was the end of her formal education.
Cotton mills involved dangerous machinery, and - still a pre-teen - Margaret, having seen other workers injured, came up with her first invention to prevent machine injuries.
Of course, someone stole the idea. There was no way she could have accessed the patenting process, so she saw mills across the country using her idea without compensating her.
She moved on to Springfield, Massachusetts and found another factory job, this time at the Columbia Paper Bag Company. And again, she saw dangerous and inefficient conditions, and she put her mind to work. In 1868, she invented a machine that could fold and glue paper bags. It was she who developed the technology of making paper bags with the flat bottom that we came to see over the years when bagging up our grapefruits, ginger ale, and Vienna sausages at the ShopSumMor.
Ms Knight was not about to get burned again with the patent. She saw a man (I shouldn't mention his name) (Charles Annan) trying to rip off her idea, but she had her original blueprints and won a patent lawsuit in 1871.
This model of her bag machine is in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
And from this, she co-founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in Hartford, Connecticut, and went on to patent some 25 more inventions, including a shoe-making machine and a clasp for robes. The woman who once said, “I’m only sorry I couldn’t have had as good a chance as a boy” was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.
I keep a jar (or a squeeze bottle that looks like a honeybear) of honey in the pantry. I sweeten my spaghetti sauce and iced tea with it, and I happily jumped on the hot honey trend with my fried chicken. I slather on Texas Pete hot sauce, then glaze it with honey, and boy howdy! That's good eating!
But - there is history "bee"hind all this....over in Egypt, archeologists have dug into the pyramids and found pots filled with honey that has never spoiled!
The AllRecipes website talked to a beekeeper name of Whendi Grad. Her husband Garnett Puett is a fourth-generation beekeeper at Big Island Bees in Hawaii. The two of them keep up with 2,000 hives using traditional beekeeping methods.
And Grad wants you to know, if you store honey properly, it will not go bad.
"Honey will darken and/or crystallize, but it is still safe to eat," she said. It may oxidize, due to being store in metal or plastic containers, and being around heat can change its flavor. So don't do that!
Grad says, to keep your honey from fermenting, seal it in an air-tight glass container. And be sure to use clean, dry utensils to scoop it out of the jar, because moisture will harm the honey.
Honey is low in moisture content. That thwarts any bacteria from surviving. And no bacteria means no spoilage. Plus, surprise! honey is acidic enough to get rid of the bacteria and organisms that spoil other food.
And - adding to the marvels of nature - bees add their own enzymes to their honey. Those enzymes produce hydrogen peroxide - the same stuff we use to treat wounds and dye our hair.
So that is why bees are half blonde.
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| Aunt Bee |
I missed seeing any live coverage of the Met "Gala" this year because I have no interest in it whatsoever. I ignored the whole thing, even though the theme of this year's "Let's See How Weird We Can Look" shindig was "Fashion is Art."
Art who? Art Fleming, original host of "Jeopardy"? Art Donovan, beloved Baltimore Colt from 1953 -1962? Art VanDeLay, millionaire industrialist from "Seinfeld"? Garfunkel, Carney, Linkletter? The list goes on.
I feel that by saying fashion is art, one is also saying, "we're special because we put on these outrageous get-ups and prance around the steps of a museum." There's an art to knowing how to dress, I grant you. My summer uniform of polo shirt and cargo shorts is functional, and since the pants and the shirts are in different piles in my closet, it's only by pure chance that the colors match, if they do. Wintertime, I'll be in blue jeans, with a long-sleeved tee or sweatshirt covered by a short-sleeved tee shirt.
That's my fashion, and I am comfortable with it.
But I have to throw a penalty flag at Sheinelle Jones on the TODAY show. The day after that big blowout, she showed a video of herself talking to some fashion icon on those fabled steps, and the important person she spoke with had some sort of equipment failure...a broken strap, some loose sequins, something popped out that should not have, I dunno.
But Sheinelle said, "Oh, the stars! They're just like us!"
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| It is TOO Heidi Klum! |
No, they are not. We are home doing things, reading books, helping children or friends, calling sick friends, volunteering at food banks, baking bread, building models, playing online Parcheesi, doing one of a thousand and one things. We're not traipsing around in bizarre garmentry while people tell us how fabulous we are. "Fabulous" comes to us from the word "fable," meaning "made-up stories."
We keep it real real here in the real world. That's fabulous, darling.
I keep telling everyone that I would be glad to eat a salad with dinner every night! I'm not fond of a lot of green things - keep your peas and your okra - but you pile torn up lettuce and cherry tomatoes and slivers of carrot and celery and bleu cheese crumbles and anchovies in a bowl, and stand back out of the way!
There used to be a guy I knew who made salads for a swanky eatery. We called him "Edward Garlic-hands." Ditch* the garlic, double the anchovies, and let's have extra tomatoes and bleu crumbles.
*I almost said "86 the garlic" but we don't want to upset you-know-who.
I guess it means you've been around a while when you start losing friends in groups. That's my story. A friend of mine - a guy I've known since broadcasting school, who replaced me at the station in Salisbury when I got a job at a station in Baltimore, died on Friday. Colin did radio very well and became an all-around fill-in guy at a couple of stations here in Baltimore.
And then on Saturday afternoon, a guy who joined our class in sixth grade and went all the way through high school, and then on to college and law school, was killed APPARENTLY by his son-in-law during a family domestic. Bob has been an attorney around here for over 50 years.
I'm told that disease took Colin, and the insidious disease of people resolving their personal differences with bullets took Bob from us.
I looked it up, how to react to losing two friends at once or in close succession. The internet, font of all wisdom, says that sort of double blow "creates a profound, overwhelming experience known as cumulative or 'stacked' grief, which can lead to intense shock, deep emotional distress, and isolation."
I'm sad. I'm not in shock, because at this point the only shocking thing would be for nothing bad to happen to anyone I care about. Our lives take twists and turns, and we do well if we just happen to hold the bar on this roller coaster ride.
And this is another reminder to enjoy every day! Tomorrow is not promised to any of us, but it's a good idea to keep that in mind. I'm grateful to be around and grateful to have this (occasionally ham-handed) way of sharing my feelings.
Thank you.
Because my father was in the Navy in World War II, serving aboard the USS Delta, he was served Spam (the meat byproduct, not the fake email) as often as three meals a day. One result of this was his lifelong disdain for fatty canned meat foods, so we never once had it for any meal around the house when I was supposed to be growing up.
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| Wondering if they serve Hot Pockets in prison |
I don't cut my own lawn anymore, so I don't have to go to the lawn mower repair place around the corner. And between the price of mower repairs and the price to hire some really dependable guys to mow our 1/4 acre, I figure we break even.
But I drive by the shop because, like I say, it is right around the corner, and last week one of the mower repair guys was outside cutting the lawn of the shop. So that got me to thinking.
I guess barbers and hairdressers are more or less obligated to cut each other's hair. But if you're a a butcher, do you have to supply the rib-eyes for the neighborhood cookout? If you're a baker, does it fall on you to show up at family gatherings with a nicely done up gâteau? If your profession is making candlesticks, does everyone wait for you at dinnertime to light the wicks?
Let's say you're an air traffic controller. ("You're an air traffic controller.") Now let's say, when you go on vacation to see the folks back home in Crystal Falls, do you climb up in the tower and help land a few? Kennel workers, do you find others expecting you to groom their pets? Servers, does Aunt Minnie expect you to dish out the chow on Thanksgiving?
If you work at the local US Post Office that is supposed to bring us our mail, I don't expect you to do anything. I'm shocked any time you show up, frankly.
And yes, I know from asking, meteorologists are always being asked for weather forecasts. ("Minnie's daughter Eloise is getting married on the 23rd of next month. Do you think it will be sunny and nice that day?")
And, anyone who has ever been on the radio is used to people saying, "Say something like you would say it on the radio!" The only answer is, "I just did."
I was hauling out the bags o' trash the other night when I saw him. Short, red-haired, pointy face and nose. He was lurking around the house across the street, and then, suddenly, he took off in pursuit of a rabbit. No further details.
Suspect #1, the short red guy, looked like this to the sketch artist to whom I described him:
There used to be a sizable warren of foxes over near I-95, but when they widened that road so they could charge you extra to ride in a lane with fewer cars (which I have never done and never will, owing to my lifelong parsimony) those foxes and their friends and kinfolk moved up past the mall and into our neighborhoods. They are welcome; they give the place a rustic feel and, as omnivores, you never hear them complain about their food choices.
They do not attack people unless cornered, and even then, their main weapon is their keening howl and irritating panting. Although...I had a tough time convincing a woman of that back in the way. She had called 911 in the middle of the night and refused to take the operator seriously, so she wound up talking to me.
Her chief complaint was that a fox was walking down her street in one our county's toniest neighborhoods. I told her that walking down the street in the middle of the night was pretty much what a fox would do after a night out and that she had nothing to fear. Close the door, go back to bed, read "Town & Country" magazine awhile, and get some sleep, I urged.
"BUT! What if he gets in the house somehow and gets me and the children!"
I shouldn't have been this insouciant, but I said, "Ma'am, is it just barely possible that you're thinking of the Big Bad Wolf, huffing and puffing and blowing your house down? We've dealt with this before and Natural Resources says just leave him alone and you'll be fine."
At length she relented and we both went on with our lives. But I still wondered for a while if she still fretted about unprovoked fox attacks, or "UFAs" as they would be called if they ever happened.
Odd spellings of names, do you mind them?
I mean, I don't mind how you spell your name; it's none of my beeswax. And as a person named Mark, I see a whole lot of people spelling my name "Marc." But as long as they get my pizza order right, it's fine.
But I really want to hear from people whose parents named them with an intentionally odd spelling. Let's say your name is pronounced "Frank" but your folks thought it would be interesting to christen you "Franque." Or "Lennard" for Leonard, or "Dayvid" for David, or whatever.
Besides growing awfully weary of saying to strangers, "No, it's "A-L-I-K-Z. Alikz," there's the pain of not having one of those little name license tags for your bicycle.
I just want to know if the uniqueness of having an alternately-spelled name makes up for the corrections and explanations.
I was talking to someone who spends their free time cleaning rivers in Maryland of all the junk people toss away. And she showed a video of her "haul" - these aren't hamburger wrappers and beer cans people are throwing in the river. Shopping carts, truck tires, wooden platforms...and why? People think so little of our natural resources that they befoul rivers with the junk that should be in the landfills.
I was reading about Baltimore County police arresting a man and two women for stealing more than $14,000 worth of jewelry from people around Catonsville.
Police say the game was, the crooks would pull up to their victims in a car and ask them to step over to them. Then they would ask for directions, or offer a blessing, following that up with snatching the victims' necklaces and zooming off.
They've recovered more than 150 pieces of jewelry.
It will always astound me that people will dump their unwanted household detritus on the property of others, or go around literally ripping off the possessions of others, and act like they're not doing wrong.
Police recommend that we stay far away from these people. In many cases, Chicago wouldn't be too far away from here.
You may have heard that Mauricio Jimenez, a former Home Depot Manager from Florida, was arrested for giving frequent shopper discounts that the Home Depot know nothing about and which cost them millions.
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| Jimenez |
Jimenez, 48, could stand trials for organized fraud of $50,000 or more, and first-degree grand theft.
Apparently, he had a scheme to use "deliberate" and "systematic" fraud tactics by giving big savings on at least 4,500 unauthorized purchases from December 2023 to April 2026. The shady deals totaled around $55 million in merchandise.
Jimenez's attorney says, "There's nothing that says that he was receiving any kickbacks, like he was getting any benefit from this. It just says that he was issuing discounts to different companies.”
BUT - by building his store's sales volume, he was compensated with larger bonuses. So that's the crime they allege.
It all reminds me of the supermarket some time ago, I think it was in West Virginia, where all 11 of the cash registers rang up big happy sales every week. BUT - it turned out, they were only supposed to have 10 registers. The manager had come up with an extra, set it up, and whatever that extra cashbox took in was all gravy for the manager.
There are as many crooked schemes as there are crooks, and very few of them work as intended. But they keep trying!
It is said that if you stand in Times Square in New York City long enough, you will eventually see every person you've ever met. And that never made sense to me, since it assumes that every person you ever met will a) go to New York at some time and b) go to Times Square.
I promise you, if I ever have to seek medical attention for a sprained neck, it's going to be because I can't stop reading stories like this in the news.
A man named Gage Flood, 19, stands charged with armed robbery, first-degree assault and other firearm-related offenses (nine counts in all) after he tried to commit a robbery in a dorm at Towson University last week.
He's not a student, not affiliated with the U in any way, but the object of his felonious intentions was a $1,000 Celine hat.
You can stop rubbing your eyes now. Someone was wearing a French hat that cost a thousand simoleons, and Flood wanted it, so he tried to remove it from their head and place it on his own.
In the process, he shot himself in the leg.
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| This TV screenshot shows the ALLEGED gunman being taken away by Baltimore County paramedics, none of whom were wearing $1000 hats. |
Then he handed his weapon over a student who was present during the entire caper.
Don't worry; he's going to be all right, and I will keep you posted about his upcoming trial.
I can hear the defense attorney now: "Your honor, my client has never known the luxurious feel of a thousand-dollar hat, and he felt he deserved to have one."
