Archives for March 2006

I do and so do these people.

If you are a prospective vendor who is interested in earning my business you need to know that I am not real keen on being kept waiting.

But if you have to keep me waiting, if you must keep me hanging on then you should have the sense to call me on the phone to let me know that you are running late.

Such a lack of manners indicate that you must be from cleveland.

My dear Shmata Queen is upset because I haven’t blogged about her lately. So here you go, my monkey mistress. Your very own post.

Are you happy now, or are you going to keep calling me.

“Can openers, scissors and spiral-bound notebooks discriminate against lefties. Despite such challenges, 10 to 12 percent of the human population has historically preferred the left hand.

Why doesn’t the number ever waiver? Nobody knows for sure, but new research supports a body of evidence that suggests genetics have a hand in it all.

In the meantime, the myth remains that lefties are more artistic. And the idea that left-handed fighters have an advantage persists on scant evidence, supported by Scottish lore and Rocky Balboa’s heroics in the ring.

Look, Mom: Both hands!

Like many traits, handedness is probably determined by a complex interaction between genes and the environment, experts figure.

Left-handers are more likely to have a left-handed relative. But researchers have yet to find the gene or set of genes that pick one hand over the other.

Most scientists agree that handedness exists on a continuum. The idea helps explain why some people bowl with their left but hold a spoon in their right. Truly ambidextrous people, who have indifferent preference for either hand, are extremely rare.

In a new study, researchers measured the width of elbows in living people and in skeletons from a medieval British farming community.

The researchers assumed the 9-to-1 ratio of handedness would match the ratio of bigger right to left elbows. The prediction held true in the modern-day group, but not for the medieval bones.

Most of the ancient farmers’ left and right elbows were the same size.

“It’s obvious that they were using both hands equally,” said anthropologist Amanda Blackburn from the University of Manitoba. “It’s not fair to say they were ambidextrous in the true sense of the word, but they may have had a tendency to use both hands equally. It’s a behavior they may have learned rather than just being born like that.”

The findings will be published in the April issue of the journal Current Anthropology.”

Read the whole story here.

Tuition, Tuition, Tuition. I can’t get that word out of my head. It is like someone took a spear and left it lodged inside my skull, a tiny implant that beeps and whistles.

My son has been accepted to a private school that I really like. Out of all of the schools that he could attend this is unquestionably my first choice, but life is never that easy.

You see, I have the same challenge as so many other parents. How the hell can I pay for school without going bankrupt. He is not an only child. Whatever I do for him has to be done for his sister too.

I went to public school and I turned out just fine, it is not impossible that he could too. But the thing is that I am not at all impressed with the local public school, the neighborhood school. It left me underwhelmed and unimpressed, so he is not going to go there.

There is a chance that he might be able to get into a different public school, but no guarantee that this will happen.

Given the choice I prefer this private school I mentioned. I think that it meets his needs in so many ways.

All of this begs the question of when does sacrificing for your children cross the line of reality and common sense.

I just don’t. I don’t find it funny. Ryan Seacrest is among the most irritating people I can think of and the music generally sucks. Feh on American Idol.