A fun cozy mystery for horse lovers

Submitted by Katharine Swan on 10/15/12 12:54pm
Outfoxed by Rita Mae Brown

As a horse owner and a fan of well-written books about horses (whether fiction or nonfiction), I was intrigued by Rita Mae Brown's Outfoxed, a cozy mystery that takes place in a small Virginia foxhunting community. 

I enjoy mysteries, but my primary reason for picking up the book was because I really enjoy horse books written by people who really know and love horses.  Sometimes I'll pick up a book about horses, only to be completely disgusted because it's so obvious the author knows nothing about them, but I was thrilled to find that was definitely not the case with Outfoxed.

Speaking as a horse owner myself, I love it when an author who is a horse person includes certain details -- such as describing the smell of a tack room.  This book was full of such details that I could relate to, from describing the messy process of oiling tack, to explaining how a rider happened to part company with the horse over a jump.  (I can definitely relate to anything involving falling!)  Even though I have never hunted -- though there are foxhunting clubs in Colorado, believe it or not -- these things are universal no matter which discipline you ride in.

There were plenty of descriptions of the foxhunting world for horse lovers and horse owners to immerse themselves in, but the mystery itself was also very well written.  I really liked that the main character is a 70-year-old woman who is still riding and foxhunting, despite her age -- not your usual heroine by any means.  I also thought the story was sound, and although the "whodunnit" part of the mystery took a little while to get going, it was well planned and kept me guessing the entire time.

If you want a mystery that is also rich in setting and description, this is a fantastic choice.  It's only the first in a series, and I plan on reading the rest of them, too!

Vacation time for the self employed

Submitted by Katharine Swan on 10/15/12 12:22pm
A few tips to help you take time off if you work from home.

When you are self-employed and work from home, it can be very difficult to actually plan a vacation -- as in, a period of time where you stop working, whether or not you are going somewhere.  As those of us who work from home know so well, work hours can quickly expand into our leisure time.  Thoughts such as "I'll just quickly check my work email" are the first step to letting your work take over your personal as well as your professional life.

Not that it is always a bad thing.  Clients may really appreciate it if you check your email in the evening, making yourself available to help them (if you so choose) with a last minute deadline or a pressing question.  But this approach can also make it difficult to break away from needy clients (or a workaholic attitude) when you are planning time off, whether for a trip or just to give yourself some time to relax at home.

This is an issue for me right now because my husband and I are planning to go out of town for a week (a whole week!).  Although I do plan on taking my computer and picking up wifi where possible, I also don't plan on working a whole lot.  I want mainly to be able to check email, blog about the trip, download pictures from my camera, and perhaps write a little if I am so inspired.

Here are a few tips (things I have done or am doing for this trip) to help you take your vacation without work encroaching.

  1. Let your clients know well in advance.  I informed my regular clients a month in advance of our trip.  A reminder a week prior is also a good idea.  That allows them to assign any work early that they might want done over your vacation.
  2. Set a vacation response on your email.  For those clients who have forgotten about your vacation, a vacation message on your email can provide a reminder (and hopefully head off any complaints about you not responding to your emails soon enough).
  3. Plan ahead.  Your clients only bear so much responsibility.  It's your job to plan your schedule leading up to the vacation so that you accomplish everything that needs to be done before you leave.  That's why informing your clients early is such a good idea -- getting the assignments in as soon as possible will give you plenty of time to get everything done if you plan ahead.  Likewise, it's also your responsibility to say no if a client tries to give you too much work, or a last minute project that you know you can't finish before you leave.  Let them know you don't have time to do it before your vacation, and suggest that you do it as soon as you get back.

Of course, this won't solve all your problems -- I remember once, despite my best efforts to plan, when I ended up being up until the wee hours of the morning finishing my work before a vacation.  There have been other vacations, too, when work came along as something to do while traveling -- but I don't recommend that approach.  It's much nicer to start your vacation knowing everything is done and you are free to enjoy yourself!

Oh No They Didn't: Why No One Parkours In Egypt and more crazy dumps

Submitted by brodiemanthe1st on 10/15/12 10:00am

 

Parkour seems so popular, I have often wondered why its videos seem limited to certain parts of the world. This video answered that conundrum and also made me curious what the hell Egyptians use for roofs.
 
More crazy after the jump.
 
 
The thing I want to most know about this next video is what prompted the set-up. You have a ton of people around a swimming pool, a jet ski, and a daredevil who wants to show off. How does no one stop you or freaking run away at the thought of getting creamed? Maybe everyone in the "real world" is just a lot braver than I am.
 

Jet ski back 2 back flips in Pool at Kokomos

 
 
The title and length of this next video sell themselves. Here is the "Shortest Attention Span EVER", which is coincidentally the same way my wife reacts when I get naked. Aka, this.
 

Shortest Attention Span EVER!

 
 
Earle really wanted to race in this motor bike competition. His problem is that instead of getting on his bike with a helmet, he just decided the beer he was holding in his hand was a good enough piece of equipment to race with. Spoiler: He didn't win.
 

Earle get waffled but almost saves his beer

 
 
The good news about this video is that this man cannot have children anymore so the genetics that inspired this will die with this man. The bad news is the sympathy pain every man watching this will feel as their plums recede into their stomachs. 
 

Failix´s Rail Fail Bail No.2

 
 
Let's end on a high note: People being actually nice for a change. We all know by now that every single Russian seems to have a dash camera (generally for all the car-related insurance scams people try to pull), but how often do we see someone being a Good Samaritan? And even better, when it is the person driving? Thanks for keeping it real, Russia. 
 

Добро =)

 
 

 

The Simpsons: #1 fictional crossword

Submitted by erika on 10/15/12 9:24am
The Guardian pays homage to Springfield's Finest

 

You might not expect to see The Guardian talking about The Simpsons very often, and certainly not in the context of "Top 10 crosswords in fiction." But right there in the #1 spot, ahead of crosswords found in Inspector Morse, Martin Amis, and PG Wodehouse, The Simpsons tops them all.
 
The episode in question is the Season 20 episode "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words," and when I initially watched it four years ago, I had no idea how intricate or deep this episode was. It was inspired by, and riffs off of, the fantastic documentary "Wordplay" which is about competitive Scrabble players. I had just watched "Wordplay" earlier that week, so I was able to appreciate it on that level.
 
But from a technical standpoint, this may be one of the most elaborate Simpsons episodes ever constructed. It features as guest stars Merl Reagle and Will Shortz, who are true rock stars in the world of crossword puzzles. But more than that; Reagle and Shortz also consulted on the puzzles in the episode itself.
 
When Lisa becomes obsessed with crossword puzzles (a natural hobby for our brainiac and smartier-pants-than-thou little Lisa), she enters the rabbit hole of crossword puzzlery. She begins to see crosswords everywhere, and we get a glimpse of life from her perspective, with words and tiles superimposed over Springfield, nested within her hopscotch grids, and so forth.
 
But the episode's crowning achievement may be the finished crossword puzzle that provides a secret clue, a message from Homer to Lisa. Oh and by the way, the crossword puzzle which appears in the episode was a real world crossword puzzle which appeared in the New York Times the day before, secret message and all.
 
For those Simpsons fans who were also crossword puzzle fanatics, this was no doubt a truly brain-melting experience. One fan said that seeing the crossword puzzle they had completed that very morning was "a little bit scary, actually. Like "did I eat mushrooms and forget about it" scary."
 
The experience was a dream come true for Will Shortz, who had been a passionate fan of Matt Groening's work ever since Life In Hell, and had been a Simpsons fan since its earliest days. No doubt Shortz's fandom helped inspire him to truly knock this one out of the park, pulling out all the stops to lay the groundwork for a truly outstanding episode.
 

Aliens will return to The Sims 3

Submitted by erika on 10/15/12 8:59am
My brain just exploded from the awesome!

 

Aliens were a pretty great addition to The Sims 2. Occasionally (especially if your Sim was using the telescope) one of your Sims would be abducted. And sometimes after they returned, they would discover that they were pregnant. This happened to male Sims, too, and the whole "male pregnancy" thing was just aces. Plus, who wouldn't want an alien Sim baby to raise as their own?
 
Aliens have long been rumored to be returning to The Sims 3, but we finally have official confirmation that they will be arriving this November in the Seasons expansion pack. And how!
 
This official blog post by producer Graham Nardone lays it all out. Nardone worked directly on the aliens, and he starts small: aliens will be visible around town occasionally, scanning random objects at night. And yes, the aliens will abduct your Sims, especially if they have been collecting space rocks or using the telescope. 
 
It sounds like sometimes your Sims will be returned pregnant, just as in The Sims 2. Will male Sims get pregnant with alien babies? Nardone doesn't say. 
 
But wait! There's more! 
 
Just like unicorns, if you get your relationship level high enough with the aliens, you can invite them to join your family. They will become playable characters with amazing powers, like the ability to fill their own Needs by psychically draining the Needs of others. Hilarious!
 
But wait! There's more!
 
The aliens' telepathic powers sound quite prodigious. They will also be able to read the minds of nearby Sims, thus saving you the trouble of "Get to Know." And they can put other Sims under their thrall, so that you can (say) invite over a neighbor and then telepathically force them to clean your house. If you're short on cash, they can psychically transmute objects into gold and gems. 
 
And as if that wasn't enough, they can also summon a meteor to crash into the target of their choice.
 
But wait! There's more!
 
Aliens will ride around town in their UFO, of course. But you can equip that UFO with special thrusters that will allow your alien to travel to and explore distant worlds and moons. (I presume this happens rabbit hole-style, like exploring the Mausoleum.)
 
But wait! There's more!
 
YOU CAN PUT LASERS ON THE UFO AND FLY AROUND SHOOTING AT STUFF. Buildings? Probably. Other Sims? OH MY GOD I HOPE SO.

Is reality being controlled by "machine elves?"

Submitted by erika on 10/15/12 8:31am
Terence McKenna's DMT hallucinations live on

DMT is a psychedelic tryptamine found in ayahuasca, as well as inside most mammalian bodies. (Intriguingly, one researcher believes that near-death experiences are triggered by a flood of DMT being released from the pineal gland at the time of death.) Many people who take DMT report similar experiences with alien and/or magical entities, which noted psychedelic fancier and ethnobotanist Terence McKenna dubbed "machine elves."

McKenna believed that taking DMT allowed the user to punch through our reality, into the place where our reality is made. "There's a whole bunch of entities waiting on the other side," McKenna said. And everything is being created by the machine elves: tiny, self-reproducing, fractal beings who can sing matter into shape. Their "marvelous singing makes intricate toys out of the air and their own continually transforming body geometries."
 
Machine elves also pass their knowledge directly to any traveler who enters their realm. Very directly; McKenna said that they "jump into your body and then they jump back out again," and this is how they communicate ideas and thoughts to the visitor. 

The theory of machine elves has captured many aspects of the popular imagination. Some people have made the connection to similar legends in other cultures. The concept of small powerful beings is a nearly universal one, from the eponymous elves and pixies of fairytale England to the songlines of aboriginal cultures in Australia.
 
Others - including most notably Alex Jones - have latched on to the machine elves as an explanation for all conspiracy theories. The conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories, in other words, and the true source of the Illuminati. Jones apparently believes that the machine elves are the ones silently whispering into the ears of those in power, telling them what to do (and whom to kill).
 
From an external perspective, it seems likely that this phenomena is due to a combination of priming (where the user sees what they have been coached to see) and pareidolia (the brain's overwhelming urge to find pattern in noise, particularly in spotting human faces in  collections of random shapes).
 
Even McKenna, in his original report about the machine elves, mentions their similarity to the Munchkins in the film version of the Wizard of Oz. People describing the machine elves tend to use psychedelic mandalas with fractal elements and bright colors, like the image at the top of this post. It seems likely that the machine elves are just an artifact of a common psychedelic hallucination, but who can really say for sure?
 

Giant eyeball washes up on beach

Submitted by erika on 10/15/12 6:52am
Like most weirdness, it happened in Florida.

A Florida beachcomber recently made an unusual find: a giant eyeball, the size of a softball. Absent any context, the eyeball found in Pompano Beach caused quite a stir. Early speculation was that it came from a giant squid (Archeteuthis sp.) or a whale. Of course, this still doesn't explain how the eyeball managed to pop loose and float all the way into shore from the deep water locations where those animals are found.

The current consensus among experts is that the eyeball belongs to a swordfish or similar animal. Swordfish are found much closer to shore, and closer to the surface, making it more likely that the eyeball would survive the elements to float into the beach. 
 
Although the eyeball appears quite large on its own, larger than the eye you see on a swordfish, biologically speaking most of the eyeball isn't visible. If you have ever been startled by the size of a glass eye for a human, you are familiar with this phenomenon. 

Carcass remnants frequently wash up on shore, of course, but it seemed unusual that just an eyeball would be found. However, it seems most likely that the only truly remarkable aspect of this find is the size of the eyeball. Maybe eyeballs are washing up onto the beach all the time, you just don't realize it because the eyeballs of most fish are somewhat small and easily overlooked.
 
During the day swordfish stay deep under the surface, typically around 1,800 feet but they have been found as deep as 9,442 feet below the surface. They rise after dark and feed at the surface at night. Both of these behaviors explain why the swordfish needs such large eyes, the better to see in extremely low-light conditions.
 
Swordfish have few natural predators. In addition to their large size and the defensive capabilities of their swords, the swordfish is one of the fastest fish in the ocean, with an estimated speed of about 60MPH. Aside from sport fishers, swordfish are only occasionally taken by orcas or the shortfin mako shark.
 
However, the swordfish has a weakness: it is notoriously one of the most-parasitized fish in the sea. The swordfish's speed, power, and slashing bill are no defense against lamprey, tapeworms, roundworms, and parasitic copepods. Statistically speaking, the owner of the disembodied eye most likely died from its parasite load. 
 

2016 is rolling up soon!

Submitted by Maverick on 10/15/12 6:49am
Will I or won't I? I can milk it another 3 years.

 

Yep, it started again! I was just waiting for someone to ask me if I was planning to run in the next presidential election. Because everyone got bored of asking me about 2012 after a while, and then I finally had to admit that I wasn't, even though I sure had a blast driving my big ol' Constitution Mobile around the country and acting like I was running. Just testing the waters there, you know. Running it up the flagpole. Throwing it against the wall. 
 
I was planning to do the whole shebang this year, really run for office you know, but I got bored halfway through and quit. It's a lot of work, I had forgotten that. It's even more work if you're actually running, instead of just minding your business when the presidential candidate snatches you right out of bed and then proceeds to micromanage everything from that point forward.
 
Micromanagement has a bad name. And it sure was annoying. But I'll tell you what else, it was pretty nice having a bunch of other people basically doing all the work. They told me exactly what to wear and what to say, and I wore and said it, and they were happy, and I could get back to my texting and shopping and all that. That's the kind of thing where you only really miss it when it's gone. Turns out, doing it all yourself from scratch? Boring and hard, like doing the New York Times crossword puzzle or filing your taxes or some nonsense like that.
 
But hey you know what is NOT boring and hard? Watching Dancing With The Stars and voting for my beloved daughter Bristol! That little thing is just dancing her heart out, and I really want you to vote for her. I know there's some other stuff you should be voting for, other stuff you should be watching and discussing, but let's be honest. That stuff is boring. 
 
And after you finish voting for Bristol - heck, a vote for Bristol is practically a vote for me, you know - be sure to buy a copy of my latest biography, which was written by my dad and so you know it is filled with a lot of good wholesome God-fearing America-loving information about my life, 100% approved by me. He's flogging it on a book tour right now, so go support my dad!
 
And when you're done supporting every single member of my family, be sure to watch me on FOX News before you go to bed. It will give you such sweet dreams!
 

RawJuvenate System: $120 Set for $55

Submitted by sarajean on 10/14/12 10:19pm
Get a two-week supply at a deep discount.

Get a two-week supply of RawJuvenate Complete Organic Detox System for $55 with this online deal, a savings of 54%. The system includes a vegan, gluten-free, organic set of five cleansing supplements.

Strapless Bra: Save 80%

Submitted by sarajean on 10/14/12 10:11pm
Get a strapless, backless bra for just $8.

Get a strapless, backless bra from Freebra for $8 with this online deal. Up to five push-up bras may be purchased per person. Shipping not included.

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