Sharp or Shark?

I was watching TV last night & someone accused a person of being a card shark, the person replied that it was card sharp. I've always said card shark to refer to a person who was so merciless at poker that they would have everyone else betting their cufflinks.

I just looked this up at wikipedia & either word is correct. The word shark also means parasite or predator. The word sharp derived from the meaning of shark in the 17th century. American English now sees a shark as something favorable, & sharp as something negative. What do you say? Card shark or card sharp?

Random Christmas Presents

Everyone in my family is pretty good at guessing Christmas presents. A few years ago my dad brought in my present & I noticed how heavy the gift bag was. It was filled to the top with rocks. I thought, "What, the price of coal has gone up too much?". Then for some reason, they brought in an unwrapped TV, totally unrelated to the bag of rocks. However, I hadn't guessed it was a TV, so maybe that was the point. What was your most random Christmas present?

The holly but not the ivy

After finding out so much disgusting information about mistletoe, I started wondering about all of the other Christmas plants. I know, I know Christmas is over, but the decorations are still up at my house. So I went over to wikipedia & found a few interesting facts about holly which I then summarized with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

• Guayusa, which is a form of holly has the highest caffeine content of any plant.
  

• The holly berry is mildly toxic, although can be eaten by birds.
  

• Hollies provide shelter, protections & food for birds.

• Hollies are often used in real estate by landscape architects for home security. The thorns help prevent theft when planted under a window or by a drainpipe.

I won't be a redneck

My car is pretty useless in the winter because I live on the side of a mountain & snow tires are worth more than my vehicle. I had to laugh because even though I live in the country, I always insist that I'm not a redneck. Yet, I have a car that is completely useless half of the year.

I've vowed that as soon as my car is up on blocks in the front yard, that I would look into car donation. Car Angel (www.carangel.com) creates kid's DVDs & anti drug movies. These movies are funded by car, truck, RV, & even plane donations. You'll be able to use this as a tax deduction & they'll even come & pick up your car. They are a nonprofit company that has given away 2.4 million videos.

The Christmas Truce of 1914

My favorite new Christmas song this year was called Christmas in the Trenches by Darryl Purpose. The song is based on the Christmas truce of 1914. It was such an inspiring story that I decided to visit wikipedia & find out more about it.

• The truce began when the German troops began decorating the area around their trenches on Christmas Eve. They put candles on trees & sang Christmas carols, like Stille Nacht. Then the British troops replied by singing carols in English.
  

• Then, the sides shouted greetings & made a No Man's Land where they left small gifts for each other. Fallen soldiers were brought behind lines & proper burials took place. One funeral in No Man's Land was attended by both sides.

• As the truce spread, a football match broke out. It's rumored that the Germans won 3-2.

This last part is straight from wikipedia because I didn't know how to summarize it:

British commanders Sir John French and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien vowed that no such truce would be allowed again. (However, both had left command before Christmas 1915.) In all of the following years of the war, artillery bombardments were ordered on Christmas Eve to ensure that there were no further lulls in the combat. Troops were also rotated through various sectors of the front to prevent them from becoming overly familiar with the enemy. Despite those measures, there were a few friendly encounters between enemy soldiers, but on a much smaller scale than the previous year.

The Princess & the Pea

Once upon a time there was a princess named Sarakastic. She had several tiaras, Sara means princess & she was very talented at ordering people around. However, there was one evil villain in her kingdom named princess & the pea syndrome, aka fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia ensured that she never got a decent night's sleep.

Sarakastic had a pillowtop mattress that still wasn't soft enough so she put a foam pad on top of that which shifted around in the night time & left Sarakastic feeling like her muscles had been sunburned. So every morning she woke up & yelled "CURSES" at her mattress.

Then one day, after watching a lot of Project Greenlight because she loves Matt Damon, Sarakastic decided to make her very first video. A grown up letter to Santa, asking for a miracle. Sarakastic was enamored with bedinabox.com which made owning a memory foam mattress affordable. Bedinabox.com even comes with free shipping & a 120 day home trial. Sarakastic based her movie on the catch phrase bedinabox.com uses for their testimonial section "Honk, if you love bed in a box". Sarakastic hopes that someday soon she vanquish her metal spring mattress from the kingdom & live happily ever after.

bed bedinabox health fibromyalgia sleep wellness memory+foam

Twelve Days of Christmas

I always thought that the twelve days of Christmas was just a song, & that it started on December 13th or 14th. I'm not sure which because I'm really bad at math. The Epiphany came up in conversation yesterday, also known as Three Kings Day sparking my curiosity.

I learned that the twelve days of Christmas start on Christmas day & go until January 6th & are celebrated by many different Christian religions all over the world. If we've learned anything from this, it's that I need eleven more presents click here for gift ideas. I also got this good news about Christmas decorations from wikipedia.

Traditionally, the twelfth day is the last day for decorations to be taken down. It is seen by many to be bad luck to take decorations down after this date, though decorations may be kept up until the next Christmas to avoid this bad luck.

Random Christmas Fact: Mistletoe

Mistletoe has always confused me. What about standing underneath a poisionou plant means that people should kiss? So I headed over to wikipedia to get to the bottom of this.

• Mistletoe is a parasitic plant that grows on trees & shrubs & can prove fatal to the tree or cause growth reduction.

• Prescribed in Europe for circulatory & respiratory problems. Might even be a potential treatment for tumors.

• Nicknamed vampire plant because it can grow beneath a tree & drain teh water, so it the mistletoe can survive a drought.

It's a Wonderful Life Facts

I was trying to find out about snow in movies. I vaguely remember that the snow in "It's a Wonderful Life" were in fact cornflakes. This was before all of the technology that we have today like a fiber cable & however they make movie snow nowadays. I didn't get answer to the cornflake question, but I did find out the following facts about It's a Wonderful Life.

• Considered a flop at the box office because of it's high production cost.

• The scene where Uncle Billy gets intoxicated at Harry's engagement party & staggers off screen followed by a crash & Uncle Billy yelling "I'm all right" wasn't originally planned. Set equipment had been knocked over accidentally & Capra left the ad lib in the film.

• In 1947 the film was reported to the FBI because it resembled Communist propaganda because the banker was so despised in the story.

• Copyright lapsed in 1984 due to a clerical era, which is why It's a Wonderful Life was on pretty much every channel during that time.

Random Christmas Facts: Poinsettias

I was at the store today & was surprised to see purple & blue live poinsettia plants. Granted, I thought that it was spelled pointsettas until a few days ago, so I really shouldn't have been surprised that I didn't know everything there is to know about poinsettias. I am fairly sure that the glitter poinsettias by the xbox 360 display weren't natural. I went over to wikipedia & picked up the following facts:

• There are 109 varieties of poinsettia. I'm pretty sure that glitter is not one of these varieties.

• In Cuilaxochitl the name for poinsettia means star flower.

• There's an urban legend that a two year old died after eating a poinsettia in 1919. From there, the rumor spread that this plant is toxic. The plant isn't that toxic, but can cause vomiting so it's still a good idea to avoid eating these.
  

Can you put lights on a metal tree?

I always wanted a metal tree because they are sparkly. Then I learned that I had to choose. It was either the metal tree, or the lights. What's a Christmas tree without lights?

I've been seeing pre light metal trees in the store. Everything I've read has said that electric lights on metal trees can shock people & start fires. Umm, no thank you. However, I've been seeing a lot more of these trees in the stores, so is it possible that the metal has changed? I know, I'm supposed to have the answers, but I'm stumped on this one.

Poinsettia fact

There are a few words that I always mumble so I don't mispronounce them. Yes, I went to college, but I missed that day in the third grade where we learned to read a pronunciation guide. I've pretty much been lost ever since then. Imagine my surprise today when I was trying to find pictures of a pointsetta. It's called a pointsetta because it's all pointy.

Apparently it's a POINSETTIA. It was named after J. R. Poinsett who discovered the plant in Mexico. My word was better.

Record Snowfall

I just keep telling myself, it could be worse I could live in Bellingham, Washington. Yes, I'm glad that living in Utah, I never have to worry about having a white Christmas. It would also be nice if I never had to worry about how to get in/out of my driveway.

To make myself feel better I just looked up the record for snowfall in the USA at wikipedia. I had to do something to keep myself from fantasizing about hotels Las Vegas. The record goes to Bellingham Washington in the 1998-1999 season, coming in at 1,140 inches. So my driveway didn't win. Things could be worse.