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Thursday, February 6, 2014
Sometimes when I sit down to open a vein I mean, write a column my mind is skittering all over the place and I cant decide on a topic. So today you get mind skitter stuff.
First up: There are great posts on my Facebook wall. My friends are both funny and wise. Below are some recent favorites:
When life gets to be more than you can stand kneel.
Ive had so much coffee I can thread a sewing machine while its still running.
The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
When it seems like God is pushing you to the limit, two things can happen: Either Hell catch you when you fall, or He will teach you how to fly.
Make the most of your mistakes. Instead of slapping your forehead and saying, What was I thinking? ask yourself, What was I learning?
What if we began to treat our Bibles the way we treat our cell phones carried it with us everywhere, went back home if we forgot it, checked it for messages throughout the day, used it in case of emergency and spent hours poring over it every day?
You dont have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. C.S. Lewis
Carpe the hell out of this diem.
We are all just walking each other home. Ram Dass.
Dont judge someone just because they sin differently than you.
If God didnt want us to have guns, he wouldnt have given us trigger fingers! Yosemite Sam
Our purpose in life is to help others. And if you cant help them, at least don t hurt them, the Dali Lama.
Mommy needs to either take a nap or sell the kids.
Sometimes you have to take a deep breath, smile, toss the match and watch that bridge burn.
I am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. Augusten Burroughs
* * *
Widdle and I go through spurts where we watch a lot of movies, at home and at the theater. (We also go through spurts where we rent movies, then take them back late and still unwatched. I hate that.)
What follows is a list of recent movies with capsule reviews:
Arthur NewmanThis flick, starring Colin Firth and Emily Blunt as two wounded souls on a road trip, made exactly $207,853 at theaters. No wonder, when the plot has them breaking into empty houses to do the wild thing together. Not a minute of it makes sense.
Lone Survivor Mark Wahlberg and Emile Hirsch are great in this true account of Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan. You know how it ends, but its still an absorbing, gut-wrenching ride.
Jayne Mansfields CarWhy Billy Bob Thornton, Robert Duvall, Kevin Bacon and John Hurt made this unholy mess is beyond human comprehension. The only remarkable scene is when Billy Bob pins his military medals on his naked chest.
Thank You for SharingMark Ruffalo and Tim Robbins play recovering sex addicts; Josh Gad and Pink are new to the program. A smart, witty look at the 12-step community, and Gwyneth Paltrow looks great in a garter belt.
Dallas Buyers ClubMy pick for the Best Picture Oscar. Matthew McConaughey is a man on fire, and Jared Leto nails the role of Rayon, a cross-dressing AIDS patient. Dramatic, funny, doomed. Watch it.
Girl Most LikelyBig-city playwright (Kristen Wiig) crashes and burns, then must live with her wacky mom (Annette Bening). Not a lot happens, except her character belatedly learns that family is, you know, kind of important.
Julie R. Smith, who cant look away from a bad movie, can be reached at email@example.com.
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Top Definition
A contemporary object or style containing elements of, but not replicating, an object or style from a previous era.
Have you seen those new cars with the retro look?
ayon kay swotty ika-14 ng Oktubre, 2003
Trending Now
Can you define these popular missing words?
something that is old fashioned but currently cool!
That indie chick goes for the retro look
ayon kay puke ika-23 ng Abril, 2003
When someone wears an old style clothing that was popular years past. This can include vintage hairstyles, shoes, pants, shirts, jewelry, etc.
I like looking retro.
ayon kay Anonymous ika-17 ng Setyembre, 2003
an adjective describing something from the past, usually anywhere from the 20's to the 80's.
My Grandmother's sweater is mad retro.
ayon kay Dina Peone ika-18 ng Hulyo, 2003
An article of usualy clothing that resembles a style from the past. Can also be other items or decorations.
oh my gawwwd! i like LOVE your earings! theyre so retro!
ayon kay randiLOVESryan ika-04 ng Hulyo, 2005
pertaining to something from the past (in a nostalgic way)
He is obsessed with retro fashion.
ayon kay Light Joker ika-31 ng Agosto, 2005
Similar to swag. But in an old school way. Something that represents how dope you are.
Man, Kevin and Gibson are going retro.
ayon kay KGswag ika-18 ng Pebrero, 2011

subset: commoncrawl


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Movie cars race for title of most memorable
POSTED: 12:36 PM PST Dec 15, 2011 UPDATED: 02:39 PM PDT Oct 29, 2013
Some of the biggest movie stars in film history haven't been actors, but the cars that the actors drove.
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A late first-set surge helped spark the Stetson volleyball team to a 3-0 road sweep over USC Upstate in an Atlantic Sun Conference match Saturday afternoon at the Hodge Center.
The Hatters (14-8, 5-2 A-Sun) won by scores of 27-25, 25-18, 25-18 to claim their fifth conference victory of the season and their first league win on the road.
"It was huge for us," Loesch said about the road win. "It's always going to be tough in a conference match, everyone is always going to compete hard, but especially when they are at home and we are away. It was a long trip and (Upstate) had a good crowd there but our girls generated their own enthusiasm. Our bench was loud, cheering for the girls on the court. We are just excited to get a win on the road."
After falling 3-0 at ETSU Friday night, the Hatters found themselves trailing early in the match as the Spartans (1-15, 1-6) jumped out to leads of 12-5, 16-10, and 22-18 in the opening set. Stetson eventually staved off three set points in the frame, and behind a pair of late kills from Erika White, rallied for a 27-25 win.
Stetson used early 9-4 and 7-1 runs in sets two and three to cruise to the victory.
"We played with a lot more passion and enthusiasm today," Loesch said. "We were more competitive and we fought a lot harder for every point. That was really important in the first set. USC Upstate came out strong and had a lead. We fought our way back and kept fighting that hard the rest of the way. When the girls are playing hard and playing for each other, that is always fun to watch."
Kaley Melville posted her eighth double-double of the season (15 kills, 12 digs) to lead the Hatters. Her performance moved her into fifth place among Stetson's all-time career leaders in both kills (1148) and digs (1065).
Tiffany Creamer registered 12 kills and hit .400 (12-2-25) for the match, while Ellen Hawks added 10 kills and a .500 (10-1-18) attack percentage.
Kayla Weller collected 41 assists and three aces while Michelle Kastner picked up 20 digs.
"We really did a great job passing, defending, and hitting today," Loesch said. "It was great to see it all come together and for everyone to contribute."
Stetson hit .323 for the match, posting 19 team kills in each the first and third sets.
"We did attack better today," Loesch said. "Kayla got us some one-on-ones and set some very nice balls that were easy to hit. Our hitters were smarter today, they were able to hit around the block, over the block, and off the block instead of into the block. We got blocked a lot yesterday. Today we made better decisions attacking."
Loesch also said the Hatters served more aggressively and did a better job receiving and passing the ball than they did at ETSU.
The victory moves Stetson into a tie for fourth-place in the league standings with a 5-2 mark.
"It looks like the conference is going to be a battle this year and we are just glad we are in the thick of it," Loesch said.
Stetson returns home to face Northern Kentucky Friday at 6 p.m.
Notes: Stetson's 14 overall wins and five A-Sun wins is the team's highest total since 2002 (15-14, 6-5) ... The Hatters' last A-Sun road win came in 2008 at UNF.


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Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Its that time of year; time for the annual Catfish Festival in St. Stephen.
A while back the fine folks from that town invited me to help judge their annual catfish stew cook-off, which takes place during the annual event.
I told them that Id be happy to be a judge, knowing full well I A: didnt like catfish; B: ever had catfish stew, and C: had never been a judge before.
I dont eat fish. This stems from a traumatic childhood incident involving an embedded shard of fishbone, my uvula - that little bell-looking thingy hanging down at the top of my throat, and my moms insistence on dislodging the bone-shard with a steak knife.
The thought of catfish stew made my stomach roil.
How can I judge a contest when the very thought of fish made me gag?
I resolved my dilemma this way: That which does not make me gag wins the blue ribbon.
There I sat, at a table with my fellow judges and this big bowl of lime sherbet. To clean your palate, they told us. I hadnt eaten since breakfast. My palate was pretty dirty.
Dessert first Cool.
So I started in on the lime sherbet.
Before I could lift the spoon to my mouth, two big bowls of steaming-hot catfish stew appeared before me. Our job: taste the stew; judge the best.
My stomach growled when I saw all that stew.
Free eats, I thought.
This didnt smell half bad. No gag reflex to stifle. I thought, when in Rome. I grabbed the spoon and dug in.
I discovered, much to my surprise there was no fish taste.
This was good.
Dang tasty, in fact.
I wolfed down the first bowl because I was hungry, even tilting the Styrofoam cup and scraping every last morsel of stew from the bowl. I smiled when I saw the waiting second bowl.
Oh yeah. I can really get used to this judging thing.
Now this bowl had some heat, and some serious bite. It tasted better than the first.
Thats when the lady set yet two more bowls of stew in front of me.
I started to sweat.
I looked to my left and right to see the other judges savoring each bite and then cleansing their palates with the spoonful of sherbet. I was just wolfing down catfish stew and falling behind.
So I polished off bowl number two in short order.
Someone belched and I thought, Oh goodness ... that was me.
Two more bowls of stew joined the line. Four more? Far be it from me to shirk my judging duties so I popped a shirt button, loosened my belt buckle and knocked off bowls three and four in short order.
My judging partner cut me a look when I groaned, I dont think I can eat all this.
He looked at the stack of five empty stew bowls with this wide-eyed gape that said, This guys an idiot.
Then he looked at my pale, blanched complexion, hearing a deep rumble that sounded like someone dropped a really big rock into a very deep pond.
It wasnt thunder.
Did you eat it all?
I swallowed thickly and nodded.
Uh huh.
Youre not supposed to eat it all, he said. You only take a taste or two of each bowl.
Now you tell me.
Nobody told me I wasnt supposed to eat everything they gave me. Nobody bothered to explain I only had to take a taste.
Nobody said I had to eat the whole thing. But I did, in about 15 minutes in fact.
I hear this low, thick gurgle that said I had twenty minutes to get home or all bets were off.
You know, the contest organizer said as I bolted for my car. All you can eat catfish stew, just five bucks.
I think I already had all the catfish stew I could eat.
And then some.
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text:
lizzy-she's breathe taking.. very sporty..smart acashionly, trust worthy, the most sweetest girl ever...kind nice beautiful, shes a flirter, lot's of friends. she iss deffiantly sporty outgojgin how ever u call it.) boy's lovee herr. so boys don't be shy! one of a kind personalaty! funny, smart,hasss onther one of a kind talent.gorgeous smile.. :). kicks butt at modern warfar 2 and nazi zombies.
she's awesome
she's sporty
she'S HOTTT
love her, lizzy
she's sporty
she'S HOTTT
love her, lizzy
ayon kay nuna buiness ika-11 ng Marso, 2010
Trending Now
Can you define these popular missing words?
Top Definition
Usually a name associated with extreme maturity and an amazing sense of humor as well as some serious junk in the trunk.
Hey did u see Lizzy the other day? She was being all mature by wearing clothes that dont show off her perfect booty.
ayon kay thetank941 ika-23 ng Nobyembre, 2007
The most beautiful thing in the world, a wonderful girl that's fun to hangout with but is a giant tease. And one can't get enough of her because she is so addictive and has a really nice donk.
Friend: Hey man, looks like you haven't had sleep in a long time.
Me: Yea I've been talking to Lizzy.
Me: Yea I've been talking to Lizzy.
ayon kay G-Kiddie ika-17 ng Disyembre, 2009
Perfect;Flawless;Beautiful;Utterly Amazing
She's so....perfect.
Yeah,that's a Lizzy.
Yeah,that's a Lizzy.
ayon kay Nick-Nick ika-21 ng Nobyembre, 2011
A girl with an adorable laugh that she hates for some reason. She has the greatest smile in the world and makes you feel good just by looking at you. She is sweet,caring,sometimes doesn't think about things that she should probably consider but everyone still loves her anyway,or at least I do. :) she can't get any prettier I wouldn't change a thing about her. She's the perfect girl to have and she's easy to love on. If you don't have a friend named Lizzy,find one. It'll be the best thing you ever did. Oh and Lizzy has the best hugs everrrr. <3
Guy 1- "I can't get enough of Lizzy's smile"
Guy 2- "yea I know what ya mean"
Guy 1- "dude Lizzy is fucking HOT!"
Guy 2- "So sexy"
Guy 2- "yea I know what ya mean"
Guy 1- "dude Lizzy is fucking HOT!"
Guy 2- "So sexy"
ayon kay That guy that notices you ika-23 ng Oktubre, 2012
the slag term for a warm kind hearted, thoughtful person. a 'lizzy' has some serious junk in the trunk and apart from being delightful and loving she also has the freaky side, they're usually very imaginative and creative and have allot of stamina. they get allot of boys attention on their travels and many girls envy them.
sam: wow look at that girl over there, she's fine
joe: yeah, that's a lizzy i can tell by the ass
joe: yeah, that's a lizzy i can tell by the ass
ayon kay fgyuuhgfdfghhgf ika-07 ng Enero, 2012
possibly the coolest person alive, in a completely unbiased way. she/he loves dinosaurs and pokemon. their favorite color is yellow. she/he is the funniest and best friend in the world.
i'm so jealous, i wish i could be a lizzy!
dannnnnnnnnnng, what a hottie; definitely a lizzy!
dannnnnnnnnnng, what a hottie; definitely a lizzy!
ayon kay gaynaan ika-10 ng Marso, 2010


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Top Definition
A place where deadbeats and no-mates losers hang out. Named after the boat party trip participants from the film 'One flew over the cuckoos nest'
What a dork! He should be hanging out at the Cuckoosnest along with the other freakzoids.
מאת Tetchy Steve 2 בדצמבר, 2010
Trending Now
Can you define these popular missing words?
a mental hospital, an insane asylum
I felt like I was visiting him at the cuckoo's nest.
מאת The Return of Light Joker 9 בפברואר, 2012
A rather humorous term for a woman's pussy.
I skipped right past the foreplay and put it right in the cuckoo's nest.
מאת Lloyd 18 ביוני, 2006


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Wednesday, February 19, 2014
The only thing more fun than being trapped indoors during the 2014 Ice Festival was being trapped indoors without electricity, running water, wine or chocolate.
Its all a distant memory now, isnt it? Temperatures crept up, the sun came out and life went on. But the interim was decidedly unpleasant. And you know me I compiled a list, lest we forget. A lot of these cover food, because when you cant fry an egg or nuke a Healthy Choice, its all you think about.
Seventeen Things We Learned from the Ice
Clichés become clichés for a reason: An ice-laden pine branch snapping off a tree really does sound like a shotgun blast.
Go out right now and buy 15 coolers. Take out a loan if you have to. In the coolers put all the food that you dont want to kill you when you eat it. A simple strategy.
Fill up the bathtubs with water. (You thought I was going to suggest gin?) Actually, you dont need to fill them unless you plan on flushing a toilet during the three days you are trapped inside, and what are the odds of that happening?
Everyone on Facebook has more broken limbs and trees in their yards than you do, and they post 27,500 photos to prove it. Dont get caught up in the competition. Move on.
Stock up on staples like Beanie-Weenies, beef stew and canned chili. Because nobody becomes a vegetarian during an ice storm.
Open the refrigerator as often as you wish; in three days youre going to throw the contents in the trash anyway.
If your husband has an iPad and you have no iPad, it is perfectly okay to steal his iPad.
Reading the Bible by the light of a Coleman lantern is both surreal and soothing.
The best way to tell if your freezer is keeping food cold enough is to remove cartons of frozen yogurt and test the consistency with spoons. Straight from the carton, leaning over the kitchen sink, test for at least 20 minutes. Mankind is counting on you.
Keep flashlights in every room, so you can knock them over while groping around in the dark.
You will be surprised at how many foods can be eaten at room temperature.
The results of an ice storm are beautiful for about 15 minutes. Then realityand gravitysets in and you realize life is going to be dark and nasty for a while.
If you go to a grocery store and it is actually open and still contains food, avoid the deli at all costs. Thats where starving zombies go to grab rotisserie chickens. Do not engage them, especially if theyre armed with cartons of coleslaw. Their aim is deadly.
When you hear the thunderous crash that signifies another falling limb (or entire tree), do not rush out to capture the moment on your cell phone. Because sure as shooting, another branch will fall on you.
This is a really good time to perfect your poker game.
Prepare your dog for her new mortal enemy: The generator. She will either attack it or refuse to get within 10 yards of it. Thus when its 4 a.m. and 20 degrees, you have to bundle up like a Russian fishwife and take her outside amongst the falling icicles. Which she will also flee from in terror.
The nadir: You find yourself reading a five-year-old copy of Field & Stream by flashlight.
Julie R. Smith, whos done all of the above and more, can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.
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Celeb roommates before they were stars
POSTED: 12:27 PM PDT Jul 05, 2012 UPDATED: 11:00 PM PDT Sep 05, 2016
Even celebrities had to start out somewhere while waiting for that big break, and in some cases that meant rooming with fellow struggling artists bound to also make it big.
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Pat Howard: Badams' pay freeze foreshadows 2014 contract talks with teachers
I wouldn't be surprised if Erie schools Superintendent Jay Badams' personal labor concession draws a certain strain of backlash in a town where paying out six figures to any government official sparks some populist fury.
Asking your bosses to freeze your pay and cut your perks as they extend your tenure is a good-faith move, but it will be devalued in some minds by the number attached. Under the five-year contract approved Wednesday by the Erie School Board, Badams' pay will stall at its current level, $185,000, through March 2018.
That might not sound like much of a sacrifice to people trying to keep the family fed, the house heated and the car gassed up from paycheck to paycheck. Everything's relative, especially when a piece of Badams' money is impounded from yours.
Badams signed on in 2010 at $169,500 and took less than three years to climb to $185,000. Then there's the $120,000 the public paid over three years for him to complete a doctorate he'll be free to peddle elsewhere whenever his run in Erie ends. He's doing fine, in other words, and still will be in five years.
What the purely populist argument doesn't account for is that some of those six-figure public posts are big, complicated jobs that demand serious expertise, management chops and commitment. Running an urban school system beset by intertwined educational, financial and socioeconomic problems is certainly among them.
And the flip side of relativity in this case is that Badams is a bargain compared with his predecessor. Former Superintendent James Barker was pulling down $228,000-plus by the time he finished mismanaging the school district into an enormous hole in his final years.
It's worth remembering also that Barker painted accepting the huge raises in his final contract as selfless.
"I made a conscious decision not to pursue other opportunities because I feel we're on the edge of something significant in the district," he said when the School Board approved his deal in 2007. "A change of leadership at this time would be too disruptive to the city that's been too good to me."
Too good, indeed. In hindsight, disruption was exactly what the school system needed.
A more useful comparison for Badams is outgoing Millcreek schools Superintendent Michael Golde. He was (still is, actually) making $172,000 to run a smaller district with much better socioeconomic conditions and -- its current self-inflicted troubles aside -- just a fraction of the financial trials facing the city system.
Erie schools superintendent just might be the biggest, toughest and ultimately most consequential public job in the Erie region. And so far Badams has proven to be an excellent fit for it.
Leading by example on his own pay and perks will help set the tone for one of his and the School Board's looming, high-stakes challenges. It involves mitigating one of Barker's worst moves.
Even as the economy was crashing late in 2008, Barker and the School Board signed off on an early-bird, five-year sweetheart deal with the district's teachers union. The union's members -- those who survived the budget ax, at least -- have been doing very well through the worst of the school system's fiscal crisis.
News of Badams' new contract served as a reminder that the union, the Erie Education Association, would not agree to a pay freeze when the wave of red ink crashed over the district in 2010. That made cuts in other areas deeper and more damaging.
In a letter to the editor on today's Viewpoint page, EEA President Gregory J. Henderson writes that union leadership did offer to present a wage freeze to its membership in exchange for a guarantee that no teachers would be furloughed. What he doesn't mention is that it was a meaningless and entirely unworkable concession offer given the depth of the district's budget crater.
The teachers did agree the next year, as Henderson notes, to a modest one-year increase in their health-care contributions. The $800,000 saved was welcome, of course, but that one-shot deal did next to nothing to alter the district's budget trajectory.
The teachers' cushy contract expires in June of 2014. And because labor costs are central to the school system's chronic, systemic financial problems, that sets up an interesting and crucial test of the teachers union's civic spirit and Badams' and the School Board's stomach for conflict.
The superintendent and board have more leverage than Mayor Joe Sinnott does at City Hall, where binding arbitration for police officers and firefighters rigs the game in favor of the city's two biggest unions. But the possibility of a teachers strike and the attendant disruption to thousands of families is messy, contentious business.
Flattening the growth of the district's pay and benefit costs will be indispensable to realigning its spending with its means. Freezing Badams' pay, at his own suggestion, gives him some cover for taking a hard line.
Write to Managing Editor Pat Howard at 205 W. 12th St., Erie, PA 16534, or e-mail him at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNhoward.


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Celebrities who served in the military
POSTED: 09:04 AM PDT Jun 13, 2011 UPDATED: 11:00 PM PDT May 29, 2016
Many celebrities have served in the military over the years. In honor of Memorial Day, take a look at who served in what branch.
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