Wednesday,
December 31st, 2003
In Today's Tribune
I'm sorry if this edition
seems hastily put together. At the last moment I was called to a
special meeting in Las Vegas for New Year's Eve. So it appears that
this will be the last edition of 2003.
I just want to say that
these last few months of doing this website has been an extremely
enriching, sometimes frustrating, educational and satisfying time
for me. I want to thank Neen and Joseph for having the faith in me
to pull it off. I couldn't have done it without them. Yes, I was
reluctant to do it at first but I dug in and with Joseph's
encouragement and knowledge, I've managed to maintain this site way
further than I could've imagined.
I want to thank all of you
who have given me the encouragement to stick with it and for all
your kind words.
I encourage all of you to
take a try at this, especially if you have dreams of creating your
own website.
Dylan, I got your e-mail.
Thank you so much.
Have a prosperous and Happy
New Year everybody.
Here's today's
tidbits
Born on December 31st
Henri Matisse
(1869)
Odetta
(1930)
Anthony Hopkins
(1937)
Sarah Miles
(1941)
Ben Kingsley
(1943)
John Denver
(1943)
Barbara Carrera
(1945)
Patti Smith
(1946)
Donna Summer
(1948)
Val Kilmer
(1959)
Joe McIntyre
(1972)
Hillary
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Al
Gore were in an airplane that crashed. They're up in heaven, and
God's sitting on the great white throne.
God addresses Al first. "Al, what do
you believe in?"
Al replies, "Well, I believe I won that
election, but that it was your will that I did not serve. And I've
come to understand that now."
God thinks for a second and says "Okay,
very good. Come and sit at my left."
God then addresses Bill. "Bill, what do
you believe in?" Bill replies, "I believe in forgiveness. I've
sinned, but I've never held a grudge against my fellow man, and I
hope no grudges are held against me."
God thinks for a second and says "You
are forgiven, my son. Come and sit at my right.
God then address Hillary. "Hillary,
what do you believe in?"
"I believe you're in my chair."
What
is the Daily Buzzword for December 31st?
confetti
\kun-FEH-tee\ noun
What does it mean?
: small bits of brightly colored paper made for throwing (as
at weddings)
How do you use it?
As the clock struck twelve, my little brother leaped into
the air, hurled two fistfuls of confetti skyward, and
shouted,
"Happy New Year!"
Are you a word wiz?
Which party-loving people do you think gave us the word
"confetti"?
A. the Japanese
B. the Italians
C. the Dutch
D. the Hawaiians
Answer:
Have you ever been to a parade where the people marching
along tossed candy to the crowd? If so, you already know a
lot about the history of "confetti." "Confetti" comes from
the plural of "confetto," the Italian word for "a little
candy or bonbon." The Italians had a custom of throwing
candies (or bits of paper meant to imitate candies) at
festivals. We borrowed their word and custom to liven up our
own celebrations.
Today's Jigsaw
puzzle
CLICK HERE 
GINA & STEPHANIE
That's all for this
year. Have a safe and Happy New Year..
The following is what appeared in
Tuesday's
edition.....................
In Today's Tribune
Every year in December our
publisher, Neen, gives us her State of the Website address. Here it
is.
A Letter from
the Publisher
Here we are going into our 4th year. Hardly seems
possible. Four years already!
This has been a trying year for the website and its employees.
Joseph has turned over the reins to his protégé, Benny (who, I might
say, accepted rather reluctantly). In spite of the fact that he was
a novice and with the help of his mentor,
Joseph,
he has improved greatly and has found ways to make each and every
issue as humorous, interesting, thought-provoking and appealing to
all who venture there. I know I can hardly wait for each issue to
come out to see what he has come up with.
For years we have been brainstorming to come up with ways to get
more participation from all of you out there and only a few of you
have responded. For you, I am thankful.
For all you others out there, I know you have busy and full lives as
well as the rest of us, but it only takes a minute to put a message
on the message board to let us know that you are out there and that
all our efforts are not in vain. Without your feedback and
participation, we get very discouraged and are tempted to quit. It
is not fair that only a few have the responsibility of keeping this
Family Website
going day after day, week after week, year after year.
I
am hoping that we can all participate more fully in maintaining our
family website. If one family could just take it over fully for one
month, including the monthly payment and having complete editorial
freedom (within legal and moral limits), then and only then can you
really appreciate
the time and effort it takes and understand what we have been
harping about for these past years!
You might say, “I don’t know anything about doing this”, have no
fear. Those were Benny’s words exactly and look at what he’s
become! You will have plenty of help!
It is my dream to have this come to fruition in the near future.
Sure, we have all enjoyed the tremendous job that Joseph has done in
the past. It took a tremendous effort and countless hours in order
to set up the website. He graciously accepted the challenge and was
not compensated for what his job was worth. We enjoyed his
witticisms and flair that he contributed to each and every issue of
the Neen Tribune. Now we enjoy the terrific job that Benny is doing
adding his special talents and flavor.
Although some of you may not be aware of it, we almost didn’t make
it this far. This has been a very trying year for me personally,
both medically and financially and at times I didn’t know if and how
I could keep the website going. Thanks to my good friends and
family and their moral, spiritual and financial support, I was able
to keep it going.
I
want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for seeing me
through this really difficult time in my life. I have already
thanked you personally so you all know who I am talking about.
I hope we can enjoy many more years of keeping in touch through
this website with your cooperation and participation.
Here's today's
tidbits
Born on December 30th
Rudyard Kipling
(1865)
Bert Parks
(1914)
Jack Lord
(1920)
Bo Diddley
(1928)
Russ Tamblyn
(1934)
Sandy Koufax
(1935)
Del Shannon
(1939)
Michael Nesmith
(1942)
Davy Jones
(1945)
Matt Lauer
(1957)
Tracey Ullman
(1959)
Tiger Woods
(1975)
Laila Ali
(1977)
Clipping From The Oakland
Tribune
Sent in by Mixed Flavas
What
is the Daily Buzzword for December 30th?
landscape \LAND-skayp\
noun
What does it mean?
1 : a picture of natural scenery
2 : the land that can be seen in one glance
How do you use it?
The artist Thomas Cole is famous for his landscapes of the
Hudson River Valley.
Are you a word wiz?
English speakers borrowed "landscape" from another
language. What language do you think "landscape" came from
originally?
A. Arabic
B. Russian
C. Dutch
D. Japanese
Answer:
We're indebted to the Dutch for our word "landscape." It
comes from "landschap," the Dutch word for "landscape," which
appeared in English about 400 years ago. Over the centuries,
Dutch has contributed a good number of words to English.
"Lottery," "wiseacre," and "yacht" all have Dutch as part of
their histories. Some other Dutch borrowings focus on food.
For example, "cookie" comes from a Dutch word meaning "little
cake." Another is "waffle," which comes from "wafel." A third,
"coleslaw," comes from the Dutch word "koolsla," a combination
of "kool," meaning "cabbage," and "sla," meaning "salad."
Today's Jigsaw
puzzle
CLICK HERE
XXX-MAS CARD
That's all for now. Have a nice day.
The following is what appeared in Monday's
edition.....................
In Today's Tribune
Senility Prayer
God, grant me
the Senility
To forget the people
I never liked anyway,
The good fortune
To run into the ones I do,
And the eyesight
To tell the difference.
Here's today's
tidbits
Born on December 29th
Charles Goodyear
(1800)
Andrew Johnson
(1808)
Mary Tyler Moore
(1936)
Jon Voight
(1938)
Marianne Faithfull
(1946)
Ted Danson
(1947)
Ed Autry
(1954)
Bryan "Dexter" Holland
(1966)
Jude Law
(1972)
Mildred
Aging Mildred was a 93-year-old woman
who was particularly despondent over the recent death of her
husband, Earl.
She decided that she would just kill
herself and join him in death.
Thinking that it would be best to get it over with quickly, she took
out Earl's old Army pistol and made the decision to shoot herself in
the heart, since it was so badly broken in the first place.
Not wanting to miss the vital organ and become a vegetable and
burden to someone, she called her doctor's office to inquire as to
just exactly where the heart would be on a woman.
The doctor said, "Your heart would be
just below your left breast."
Later that night, Mildred was admitted to the hospital with a
gunshot wound to her knee.
Today's useless
fact -
How do
astronauts go to the bathroom in space?
No snickering here, folks; this is
serious business. When you gotta go, you gotta go, even if you're an
astronaut. Consider the problem. In your regular earth toilet, the
user (A) places him- or herself above the toilet (B). Waste gets
from point A to point B by means of the miracle of gravity. In
space, you don't have gravity. Stuff just floats. You see the
difficulty this presents. (I'm certainly not going to spell it out
for you.) So scientists had to use a different way to get waste from
point A to point B. What they came up with was a high- tech vacuum
cleaner.
Here's how it works. The astronaut sits
firmly on a special toilet seat. The seat makes a firm seal with the
astronaut's skin, preventing anything from drifting off Into the
cabin. Then he or she switches on a fan inside the toilet. This
creates a gentle suction that pulls the waste into the toilet . The
solid stuff collects in a special bag, while the wet stuff flows
through the bag into a pipe and eventually gets pumped to a storage
tank. When the astronaut is done, he or she closes the top of the
toilet tightly and opens a valve that permits the air Inside the
toilet to escape into the vacuum of space. This causes the moisture
in the solids to boil away instantly. A special gizmo packs away
what remains for disposal when the spacecraft gets back to the
ground.
Great, you say. But what if, as so
often happens in the space program, it doesn't work? Well, there are
several backup systems. If all else fails, there's always the
"Apollo bag," so called because it was what the astronauts used on
the Apollo flights. Basically, It's a plastic bag. You use it pretty
much the way you'd figure you'd use it. Believe me, being an
astronaut is a lot less glamorous than it's made out to be.
What
is the Daily Buzzword for December 29th?
sinuous \SIN-yuh-wus\
adjective
What does it mean?
: of a snakelike or wavy form : winding
How do you use it?
The map shows a long sinuous river snaking between
mountains as it makes its way to the ocean.
Are you a word wiz?
"Sinuous" probably makes you think of snakes more than
head colds, but "sinuous" and "sinus" both come from the
Latin word "sinus." What do you think "sinus" means in Latin?
A. curve, hollow
B. straight, flat
C. bend, solid
D. turn, rough
Answer:
Did you wind your way to A? It's easy to see that "sinuous"
could descend from the Latin "sinus," meaning "curve." But it
may not be so easy to see how "sinuous" is related to our word
"sinus," meaning "a hollow place, cavity, especially any of
several cavities in the skull that usually connect with the
nostrils." Knowing that the Latin root "sinus" also means
"hollow" helps explain how "sinuous" and "sinus" are related.
Today's Jigsaw
puzzle
CLICK HERE
RALPH
That's all for now. Have a nice day.
