Random Scandal Sheet for Sunday 9/6/15

What southern Florida is talking about this week:

The attack of the mockingbirds.

(Had I known then what I know now, I could have included this in my post yesterday of prayers to say in Florida before walking out the door.)

Turns out that they are known to be very aggressive to those that get a step too close to their nests (and, really, can you blame them?), but even more interesting, they apparently are able to recognize and remember the faces of those they consider a threat (who's a bird-brain now, huh?), treating them differently than others.

It ALSO turns out that they upset some seniors (because they nested near an old folks' home), who went so far as to petition the government to strike the mockingbird from being this state's bird (turns it is also the state bird for five other states, who have yet to go on record it seems about the controversy).

So stay alert out there ... in a world gone mad ... beware the mighty mockingbird the most.

ATTACK OF THE MOCKINGBIRD:
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/dive-bombing-mockingbirds-terrorize-south-florida-7160147

THEY WILL REMEMBER YOU!:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/may/18/mockingbirds-human-recognition

FOR BALANCE, SOMETHING POSITIVE RELATED TO THE MOCKINGBIRD:
http://time.com/3931171/to-kill-a-mockingbird-go-set-a-watchman/

Random Soapbox for Saturday 9/5/15

I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but ...

... I will ... AND I will use today's post as my 11th (!) edition of my "Super-short sTROYies", called PRAYERS IN FLORIDA:

... here are the prayers we say here in Florida any time we leave the house ...

Dear flakka freaks:  Seeing as how it is customary for you to strip down to nothing as your body bakes from the inside, please only be a pretty person on the gravel.

Dear exit ramp panhandlers:  Please be the normal kind of beggars ... just average ordinary folk down on their collective lucks ... and not the kind that do like that one did down in Miami practicing some authentic zombie like flesh-eating behaviors.

Dear neighborhood watch people:  Please don't get all George Zimmerman on me as I walk through the 'hood.  I've spent enough time in the sun that my skin is darker now and I do tend to walk through topless with my tattoos on display (it's too hot for hoodies in this 'hood).

Dear hurricanes:  Keep me and mine most certainly out of your cones of uncertainty.

Dear killer gators and giant pythons:  Stay to the west in the Glades where you belong and never belonged (respectively).

Dear crazies of every flavor:  Please let today be the day you decided to MAINTAIN your medication regiment.

Dear avocado, mango and palm trees:  At least until I've successfully navigated underneath past each of you, please hold on to your fruit and coconuts and branches.

Dear daily afternoon storm:  Please direct your lightning strikes somewhere other than my position.

Dear I-95 drivers:  I want to live despite needing to traverse your trails on occasion.  So old folks with diminished reflexes and young folks with enhanced impulses, and international visitors whose cars must not have turn signals in your country of origin (the deadliest of driving cocktails), stay alert and out of my way.

In Rick Scott's name we pray ... AMEN.

SAVE ME FROM THE FLESH-EATING PANHANDLERS:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/rudy-eugene-identified-as-naked-cannibal-face-attack-miami_n_1552249.html

SAVE ME FROM THE GIANT SNAKES:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/us/the-burmese-python-snake-thats-eating-florida.html?_r=0

SAVE ME FROM THE DEATHTRAP KNOWN AS I-95:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-06-07/news/fl-i-95-deadly-highway-20100607_1_i-95-lanes-broward-stretch

Random Posting for Penn State 9/5/15

Here are 9 Nittany Nuggets from today's game:

1.)  To tell the truth, I was considering doing 128 nuggets, in honor of the start of the 128th season, but even I have my limits.
2.)  Or I could have done 44, for the 44th meeting between these two teams ...
3.)  Or 32, for the number of consecutive wins against the Owls by Penn State ... EXCEPT that streak was stopped at 31 (wah-waaah).
4.)  Or I could have done just 3, for the number of years we've had Hackenberg at the helm.
5.)  Or, for that matter, 2 for the number of years we've had Franklin in charge.
6.)  But instead I'll do my usual 9 ... because that's my "shtick" and I'm "shticking" to it (insert groan here).
7.)  Speaking of groans, TEN SACKS?  I thought we had put the sceptre of "Sack"enberg behind us.
8.)  What is with the announcermen's fascination with the phrase, "hit 'em in the mouth"?  I counted *at least* three times that they said that was a side's strategy.  By the way, what I heard them say just once -- the name Paterno.  Just sayin'.
9.)  As any regular reader knows, I'm somewhat at a loss not being able to give any atta boy's to Ficken now that he's graduated ... so I'm warming up a "Good Job Joey" cheer for our 5'10", 259 lb kicker for this year ... for when we win, that is.

In closing, thanks to Jimmy Brodsky.  I know you're Temple's "ball boy", but as someone who grew up close enough to Philly, I did have to smile when you got your camera time, because you reminded me a little of Ben Franklin.  Now to learn from this game and to move on to something much much better next week ...

OH WELL ... ALL STREAKS MUST END:
http://www.sbnation.com/2015/9/5/9267111/temple-penn-state-losing-streak-win-christian-hackenberg

OH NO ... MORE SACKENBERG DRAMA:
https://twitter.com/search?q=hackenberg+sacks&ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Esearch

OH MY ... JOEY'S A BIG BOY ... JUST SAYIN':
http://www.sbnation.com/2015/9/5/9266561/penn-state-kicker-joey-julius-big-toe

Random Flashback for Friday 9/4/15

WANT MORE ... NEED MORE!

It seems wrong to close out the summer of 2015, which I've spent on Fridays flashing back to the summer of 1995 (because, well ... that's my shtick and I'm shticking to it [I'll pause while you groan]), without at least once referencing this trip, noted in my archives to have taken place in July of that year.

The list is what I kept back then of each time I crossed Pennsylvania state lines (proving that my love for travel has been a part of my personality for decades, and also hinting at the fact that I may have grown up in a small town of modest means).  So what was at exit 7A in the fine state of New Jersey?  Something I had actually visited *half* of once before on a school field trip when I was much younger ...

This was Six Flags Great America (it included the famed drive through safari section ... which was all we did during that aforementioned field trip), and for someone raised on Hersheypark and Knoebel's, it was the place to go amusement parking that was slightly more exotic.  My favorite memory of the trip is self-deprecating, and also speaks to personality traits of mine that have been present as undercurrents for many years.

Turns out that I *insisted* on wearing a long sleeve henley style green-shirt of long-john heft that day, despite it being the middle of July in a hot summer, because I was *certain* that we would be in the park getting ocean breezes and that it would be pretty darn cool on the rides.  My cohort of friends all tried to talk me out of it, but I.  Knew.  Best.  Fast forward to the middle of the afternoon, and picture a sun beating down directly for hours, and then picture a sweaty sweaty Troy who determined the only way to avoid a heat stroke was to ditch said shirt for the only replacement available ... a tank top in the park gift shop that included the park's advertising slogan of that era.  When I peeled off the shirt I was wearing, my skin had turned the same color green from the dye released by my buckets and buckets of sweat.

I found a way to suffer that consequence.  Much more difficult a burden to bear?  Having to go the rest of the day with my friends engaging in a call and response routine where one would shout half of the slogan I was now sporting ... WANT MORE ... and someone would reply with the answer ... NEED MORE!

Despite the ribbing ... it's actually one of my fondest recollections of the gang of us out and about (especially that year, which started with our group trip to DC, a story previously told on Fridays past).  Admittedly, that just might be because, to the best of my knowledge, no pictures of that day exist ... only the memories in our heads.

Random Thought for Thursday 9/3/15

I've said it before and I'll say it again ... we are living in apocalypse-adjacent times, of that I am certain.

As such, I want to provide what I consider to be useful information should you find yourself in the midst of a nuclear blast ... well, maybe more like in the *vicinity* of a nuclear blast, as if you are in the midst of a nuclear blast, you are already nothing but a shadow.

But if you are in the *vicinity* of a nuclear blast, a recent fear-mongering documentary I saw provided this advice:

FIRST, avert your eyes.  Think of it as an eclipse, and hear the voice of your elementary school science teacher saying "don't look directly into the sun"!

SECOND, open your mouth (momentarily ... see below), to save your ears.  Apparently the insta-pressure is enough to blow out the drums, and then you wouldn't be able to hear all the screams of the people around you.  On second thought ... maybe this is more an optional suggestion.

THIRD, close your mouth, for a good long time -- you know, to avoid breathing in the fallout ... for the next hundreds of millions of years or so.

After that, you're kind of on your own.  But, thanks to those tips, you'll be in a better place to explore a much worse place.

You're welcome.

MORE TIPS:
http://www.gizmag.com/survive-nuclear-bomb-shelter/31057/

AND MORE TIPS (WITH PICTURES):
http://www.wikihow.com/Survive-a-Nuclear-Attack

AND EVEN MORE TIPS (FOR GOOD MEASURE):
http://www.secretsofsurvival.com/survival/nuclear_attack.html

Random Wordplay for Wednesday 9/2/15

Kummerspeck.

Used in a sentence:  "Not every word in a foreign language can be easily translated to English ... for instance, take the German concept of Kummerspeck."

There is nothing like finding the connection between two things of which you are fond ... German (I'm a proud stubborn Prussian by partial ancestry who studied the language for years in high school and college, and capped all that off by a semester abroad in Cologne during the incorrectly named Wiedervereinigung [reunification])  and bacon (a stand-alone food group in my diet, worthy of daily servings in some form or fashion ...well  in *every* form or fashion).

As the image shows, Kummerspeck, translated to be *literally* "grief-bacon", is the word that explains "excess weight gained from emotional overeating" ... which, taken a step further, I guess means that too much Kummerspeck will give you a speck-muffin top.  Now you know.

OTHER WORDS WITHOUT ENGLISH COUNTERPARTS:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/28315/15-wonderful-words-no-english-equivalent

LOOKING BACK AT THE WIEDERVEREINIGUNG:
http://www.foothill.fhda.edu/divisions/unification/index.php

WIEDERVEREINIGUNG REPRISE FOR MODERN TIMES:
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/achieving-a-strategic-transatlantic-wiedervereinigung

Random Tune for Tuesday 9/1/15

If I were still in college ... and if Ms. Clarkson had been born back then ... (OK ... she *was* apparently born in the early 80's and I went to college [the first few times] in the early *90's* ... but she wasn't releasing albums in that timeframe) ... it may just be that *this* song would have been my go-to when I was looking to get myself all riled up instead of Don Henley's 'I Will Not Go Quietly'.

Of course, I'ma not about comparing artists or even choosing favorites from within one particular artist's collection ... I'ma just saying that there's something uplifting about a song that trumpets how "it's the low that makes the high so sweet" and that taunts the haters with the knowledge that "you can hate me, underestimate me ... do what you do cause what you do don't phase me ... just when you think I'm at the end, any second I'ma catch my second wind"!

[If you know the song, then you also know why I sprinkled three "I'ma"s throughout that last paragraph.  And come to think of it, "I will not go quietly" probably was just perfect to get fired up when I was younger, and tonight's selection suits a more mellowed aged me.]

YOU.  CAN'T.  FORGET ABOUT ME!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7-EOUc1R4A