Grandpa Richard Speaks

Considering my enjoyment at speaking about the differences between males and females, I thought you might enjoy this.

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A man was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching his wife, who was looking at herself in the mirror. Since her birthday was not far off he asked what she’d like to have for her birthday.

‘I’d like to be six again’, she replied, still looking in the mirror .

On the morning of her Birthday, he arose early, made her a nice big bowl of Lucky Charms, and then took her to Six Flags theme park. What a day! He put her on every ride in the park; the Death Slide, the Wall of Fear, the Screaming Roller Coaster, everything there was.

Five hours later they staggered out of the theme park. Her head was reeling and her stomach felt upside down. He then took her to a McDonald’s where he ordered her a Happy Meal with extra fries and a chocolate shake.

Then it was off to a movie, popcorn, a soda pop, and her favorite candy, M&M’s. What a fabulous adventure!

Finally she wobbled home with her husband and collapsed into bed exhausted.

He leaned over his wife with a big smile and lovingly asked, ‘Well Dear, what was it like being six again?’

Her eyes slowly opened and her expression suddenly changed.

‘I meant my dress size, you retard!!!!’

The moral of the story: Even when a man is listening, he is gonna get it wrong.

Interesting book that was discussed on a radio show I happened upon. “Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough”, by author Lori Gottlieb.

To quote some of the description that I found on Amazon …

Suddenly finding herself forty and single, Lori Gottlieb said the unthinkable in her March 2008 article in The Atlantic: Maybe she and single women everywhere, needed to stop chasing the elusive Prince Charming and instead go for Mr. Good Enough.

Looking at her friends’ happy marriages to good enough guys who happen to be excellent husbands and fathers, Gottlieb declared it time to reevaluate what we really need in a partner. Her ideas created a firestorm of controversy from outlets like the Today show to The Washington Post, which wrote, “Given the perennial shortage of perfect men, Gottlieb’s probably got a point,” to Newsweek and NPR, which declared, “Lori Gottlieb didn’t want to take her mother’s advice to be less picky, but now that she’s turned forty, she wonders if her mother is right.” Women all over the world were talking. But while many people agreed that they should have more realistic expectations, what did that actually mean out in the real world, where Gottlieb and women like her were inexorably drawn to their “type”?

Hmmm. Am I, a single, unattached grandpa, good enough?

There is a 7 minute video interview of Lori at the Atlantic; I laughed several times while watching. You might also enjoy the commentary at the Toronto Star.

Here is a quote from the video…..

Gave up the 8 to hold out for the 10, and now they’re 40 and they can only get a 5.

Hmmm. What is my score?

(you can read more about this book by clicking the ad below this line)

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59.

Wow. Only one year of my youth is left.

Sigh.

(is it true what they say – age is just a number? – leave a comment – thanks)

p.s. my 7 year old grand daughter asked this question after I explained how old I was and that my next birthday will be # 60 … “Is 60 the last birthday you have?”

LOL !!!!!

How many times have you received an email about a dying child wanting to be in the Book of Records for most postcards, or an especially sad story about some missing child? Often, these emails are based on urban legends or just plain phoney stories some prankster starts.

A number of sites can be used to verify these stories. Here are 2 well known ones.

Snopes dot com

Urban Legends at About dot com

Here is a great sample.

From The London Times:

Outside the Bristol Zoo, in England, there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 coaches, or buses.

It was manned by a very pleasant attendant with a ticket machine charging cars 1 pound (about $1.40) and coaches 5 (about $7).

This parking attendant worked there solid for all of 25 years. Then, one day, he just didn’t turn up for work.

“Oh well”, said Bristol Zoo Management – “we’d better phone up the City Council and get them to send a new parking attendant…”

“Err … no”, said the Council, “that parking lot is your responsibility.”

“Err … no”, said Bristol Zoo Management, “the attendant was employed by the City Council, wasn’t he?”

“Err … NO!” insisted the Council.

Sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain, is a bloke who had been taking the parking lot fees, estimated at 400 pounds (about $560) per day at Bristol Zoo for the last 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over 3.6 million pounds ($7 million).

And no one even knows his name.

Analysis: If ever there was a story too good to be true, this is it. Not only have reporters at the Bristol Evening Post investigated and found the tale of the phantom car park attendant to be “nothing more than an urban myth,” they have also pinned down its point of origin: the Bristol Evening Post!

“A version of the story did appear in the Evening Post two years ago,” explains an article in the June 13, 2009 edition of the paper, “in a feature on urban myths published to coincide with April Fools’ Day.”

So it’s a two-year-old April Fools prank gone viral, nothing more to it than that. For the record, the article further states that Bristol Zoo actually has several car parks — none of which are open to coaches — with a number of duly-hired attendants on duty.

So …… the next time you get some form of sob story asking you to forward it to EVERYONE you know, check it out first using one of the authority sites. Save some email bandwidth by stopping the stories in their tracks.

(p.s. I find the “kid with cancer”, or “missing kid” ones especially bothersome, as they get so many people’s emotions going when in fact they are fake stories)

The Apple iPad. We knew it was coming. It was just a question of features and pricing.

Well, the experts think the pricing is aggressive. The jury might be out on features.

Here is Grandpa Richard’s quick view.

pricing = not sure
size = plus
colour = plus
touch keypad = good
no SD card slot = bad (although an optional card reader is available)
no phone = who cares
no camera = who cares
can’t play Internet flash movies = HORRIBLE

The simple fact is that I am in the market for a gadget that can play MP3, MP4, FLV, WMV, SWF, MPG, and PDF. I have licence to a large variety of training material. The most common file types in that genre are PDF, FLV, and SWF, along with some in each of the others mentioned. I spend a lot of time on public transit. My older iPod does a great job of playing the MP3 files. I am reluctant to spend $200 on a newer iPod that can play some of the video file formats. I’d like a bigger screen.

I have tried laptops and netbooks, but I do not do well with laptop batteries. The first 3 months I get the 2-3 hours, and then they degrade to 30-45 minutes. Useless. My iPod is over 2 years old and the battery is still doing well. The iPad is supposed to be good for 10 hours, which would be awesome for me.

What do you think? Is there a gadget that would fit my needs, or am I too fussy?

Avatar.

Final Fantasy XIII.

Graphics keep getting better as hardware becomes more powerful.

“Imagine when 3D TV gets good enough, and priced right for common home use”, I stated to a friend.

His response was to bring up the idea of 3D virtual reality, possibly as portrayed on this Wikipedia page. He went further to contemplate the idea of not just a game world that you can enter with a headset and hand motion sensors, but a complete world.

Think The Matrix, especially when Neo meets the gal in the red dress. Afterwards, his co-traveller offers to introduce Neo to the gal. Just keep in mind that she is not real, but rather a virtual reality hottie.

Another movie that comes to mind is Surrogates in which people stayed home while robotic surrogates went about day-to-day life controlled by the brain waves of real people.

Although the idea behind Surrogates may be a while off, being able to immerse yourself in a 3D reality world may not be quite so far away.

We then both agreed that there is a line that should not be crossed. I will admit that in cases of mild depression (hey, I lost a wife of 22 years to a split, and I did not want to) I play more video games, specifically Age of Empires II, and can easily lose myself to its graphical world for 3 or 4 hours.

While in that world, I leave the real world, with its pain. The thought of having a 3D world like The Matrix is scary. Come home from work, eat something, get comfy in the lazy-boy, put on the 3D visor, and really zone out until falling asleep.

Leaving this reality for a virtual one is bound to ruin your life.

What is that term? A slippery slope?

My younger daughter Kristina gave birth to a boy (Logan) last night at 7 pm. He weighed 3,826 grams. A brother for Jasmine. A grandson for Grandpa Richard.

Congratulations to Les and Kristina.

Interesting item in the Toronto Star about the so-called “Chicago School” of neo-con economists, whose free-market doctrines laid the groundwork for the epic global financial crisis we’ve just endured.

Some of them have been converted to Keynesianism, but there are others still in denial.

The best part of the article was the following comment that a reader made.

Why does society pay so much heed to economists, and so little heed to astrologers, when their records of predictions are about the same?

Have you seen the movie “2012″? I would have rather waited and seen it on TV or via a rental. Not worth the big bucks at the theatre. Personal opinion.

Does it surprise me that someone is hawking a product based on the background story? No.

If you are curious, check it out. Is 2012 real? There is some free “sales copy” type info, before the pitch comes. The site also has a cool count down timer. Only 1,068 days to go! (as of Jan 17, 2010)

(p.s. if you actually buy it, I get a small commission!)