Tired Friday

So tired today -- wish I could take a month off and go to a cottage on a lake to recharge like the Finnish people working at Nokia do. (Nokia is a Finnish company.)

At this time of year, the rest of us in the company get emails like the one below(written in Finn-glish):

Kindly notice that whole team will be on vacation for next three-four weeks, so in case any questions, you'll have to wait!!

On to another subject. Here's some cute pics my sis-in-law in London sent:

If They were Women

Leo diCaprio


George Foreman


Harry Potter

Bodily orifice

Robert Novak, a US TV guy, hit a pedestrian yesterday while driving his black Corvette. I was reading about an accident he had earlier but they couldn't report what he actually said so they wrote this (below):

In 2001, the longtime political columnist cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania and 13th St., NW, for allegedly jay walking.

“’Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!’ Novak snapped before speeding away,” according to an item in the Washington Post’s Reliable Source column.

OJ can bring on diabetes?

Is there nothing left to enjoy in life?? :) News today that too much fruit juice can bring on diabetes (below). I remember when I went to a nutritionist to get some weight off after I had my first baby, she told me to remember that drinking a big glass of juice had the same amount of calories/sugar as having a can of Coke -- that stopped me in my tracks and from then on, I only had a small glass in the morning. Here's the scoop:

Just one glass of orange juice a day could significantly increase the risk of diabetes.

Research shows that fruit juices, regarded by many as a healthy way to start the day, raise the odds of a form of diabetes linked to poor diet and obesity by up to a quarter.

Eating whole pieces of fruit however, cuts the likelihood of developing the disease which affects 2.5million Britons.

It is thought the lack of fibre in juices may cause dangerous spikes in blood sugar levels, according to researchers from the Harvard Medical School in the U.S.

Wise words from my sis-in-law

Always remember you're unique. Just like everyone else.

No one is listening until you Fart.

If you think nobody cares whether you're alive or dead, try missing a couple of mortgage payments.

Before you criticise someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticise them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

Things I am mulling over this afternoon as I work:

1. Spanish phrases that my friend at work is trying to teach me. I have a month before I got on vacation in Mallorca so need to learn as much as poss.

2. Some crossword entries that have eluded me from yesterday.

3. The breaking story about John Edwards having a mistress and a love child -- and doing all this while campaigning for president and getting a lot of mileage out of his wife having cancer.

The story is here but I am blocked from viewing it, I guess because I am overseas? But you Americans can groove:

John Edwards' Juicy Story

Can this really be true??

Buddhism dying out?

We've discussed the declining fortunes of the Anglican/Episcopalian church in this blog, but I never realized that other religions are suffering as well. I thought Buddhism was on the upswing, but that is probably just because I see high-profile Hollywood converts like Richard Gere in papers.

From the International Herald Tribune:

"The Japanese have long taken an easygoing, buffetlike approach to religion, ringing out the old year at Buddhist temples and welcoming the new year, several hours later, at Shinto shrines.

Weddings hew to Shinto rituals or, just as easily, to Christian ones.

When it comes to funerals, though, the Japanese have traditionally been inflexibly Buddhist - so much so that Buddhism in Japan is often called "funeral Buddhism," a reference to the religion's former near-monopoly on the elaborate, and lucrative, ceremonies surrounding deaths and memorial services.

But that expression also describes a religion that, by appearing to cater more to the needs of the dead than to those of the living, is losing its standing in Japanese society.

'That's the image of funeral Buddhism: that it doesn't meet people's spiritual needs,' said Ryoko Mori, the chief priest at the 700-year-old Zuikoji Temple here in northern Japan. 'In Islam or Christianity, they hold sermons on spiritual matters. But in Japan nowadays, very few Buddhist priests do that.'

Mori, 48, the 21st head priest of the temple, was unsure whether it would survive into the tenure of a 22nd.

'If Japanese Buddhism doesn't act now, it will die out,' he said. 'We can't afford to wait. We have to do something.'

Love that blue eyeshadow

Such responsive readers I have. After a complaint was made over a boring post, I asked people to send stuff in so this complainer wouldn't fall asleep while reading the blog. And I already have a fine submission -- this postcard comes all the way from 1970s Louisiana:

Imagine this woman posing for the postcard now. She would have had a boob job first.

Crosswords

The British love their crossword puzzles. I remember reading this about a great Shakespearean actor after his death: "John Gielgud was a wonderful friend. He loved gossip and he loved political stupidity. And he loved crossword puzzles. Working with John, by five to 10, just before we began rehearsing, he'd have finished The Times crossword."

I noticed at rehearsals on Saturday that some singers had snuck in crosswords underneath their scores and was amused to see in the flute section, a woman had her crossword on the music stand and was working on it while the other sections were rehearsing. I thought I need to get in on this British fondness for crosswords. It's supposed to do wonders for your IQ too.

Brits do cryptic crosswords that are hard to figure out. I'm going to start out with an easy one -- a Newsday crossword from the US. Here it is for you to try too, and let's see how we do with it. Just think how much stronger our brains will be by the end of the day. :)

Click on the link to pull up the puzzle. Here: Newsday crossword

The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution. Stephen Sondheim