Grandma goes on 4 hour 18 minute CRAP!

Can you imagine?
Could you sit through it?
Just who keeps track of this kind of thing?

A record-breaking 4 hour and 18 minutes CRAP!

Pat DeMauro, a New Jersey grandma, hit the gaming tables this holiday weekend in Atlantic City for a "little craps". She ended up throwing the bones (shooting the dice) 154 times before crapping out by rolling a "7".

Officials at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City said the woman bought into the craps game for $100 on Saturday. She then proceeded to make the 154 rolls, spanning 4 hours and 18 minutes, before failing to make her point by rolling the dastardly "7" and crapping out.

Neither the casino nor DeMauro declared how much money she won during the streak. She did state this was only her second attempt to play the craps tables, and that with her winnings she was going to take her grandkids to Disney World. The casino treated DeMauro and her friend to champagne, dinner, and a free room to further celebrate her run on the table.

The previous craps world record was 3 hours and 6 minutes, and it stood for just short of 10 years as it was set on May 28, 1989.

While the Guinness Book of World Records does not list craps records, there are several gaming organizations that do collect and report such gambling feats.

Gather Releases Upgrade Codenamed - Lemon

Last night Gather.com bounced all the members off the site for 4 hours so their development department could install their latest upgrade [upgrade is gather-speak for installing a new set of bugs!] Gather's codename for their latest release is Lemon, well, that is what the members are calling it, officially it is Lennon.

OK, so now we are back online -- what's new?

Here's what I have found so far:

1- There are a couple new links on the top of your personal home-page.
The invite and email preferences are new to me.

Hi, Altair
Gather Points™: ####
*share *invite *mail *my account *email preferences
Altair I'm just a figment of your imagination. - update status

2 - Now you can directly reply to comments and they are threaded.
All i can say is it's way long over-due! Comments on most sites have been collated and threaded as far back as text-only bulletin boards, why did it take Gather so long to get their act together on this feature?

3 - The comment box has new features to allow easy insertions of links and the ability to edit html.
I am just certain that these additions to commenting will in no way add to what the Director of Member Services refers to as - LITTER!

4 - You can now subscribe or "follow" a post or comment thread, getting email updates.
follow this conversation by email
Just click on the link by the little envelop on top of the comment box.
As if there wasn't already enough junk-mail being spewed out by the Gather servers.

5 - Some cosmetic changes to a few pages.
Click on one of the tabs at the top of the page - People or Groups - or the Explore tab and then select - Posts Photos of Videos - and there are new page formats. Nothing particularly wonderful or any exciting new features. Curiously though, the old Gather Essentials logos are now prominently displayed in the right-hand column. Does this mean that after a year of Gather ignoring those channels they are coming back?
Even more curious is Gather's concept of "popular" when they list things such as posts, photos, groups, etc on these pages. Basically Gather does not understand the definition of "popular" or they are just impudent when it comes to applying the concept to their search algorithms. If you check out the "popular" groups you will find several listed that have only a couple dozen members and if you investigate one of these low-profile groups you will find they also don't have very much activity - posting and commenting - by their members, especially compared to some groups that are truly "popular" using the popular (and accepted normal) definition of the word.

6 - One HUGE omission in the upgrade - Gather again failed to address the issue with ratings!

So what do you think of the 'new' Gather?

Did you find any other new things?

Gold Medal and Mirrored Ball - Shawn Johnson is the DWTS Winner

Shawn Johnson, a Gold Medal Gymnast at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and her dance partner Mark Ballas vaulted over the other two remaining couples in the finals to win the 8th season of Dancing With The Stars!

The tiny teen with the huge smile steadily improved her performances during the course of the season. Shawn seemed surprisingly unsteady at the beginning of the season for a world-class athlete that performs in the intensely scrutinized and ultra competitive arena of women's gymnastics.

Shawn and Mark out-scored the second place team of actor Gilles Marini (Sex and the City) and his partner Cheryl Burke with an Olympic-like total of less than 1%. Melissa Rycroft (a jilted winner on The Bachelor), who joined DWTS as a last-minute replacement only days before the season 8th's premier show, and her partner Tony Dovolani finished third.

During show segments leading up to the teams' final dances and scores, Shawn's deminuitive size was a target for some good-natured jibs and trash talk, culminating with Melissa's quip, "Shawn can't win, you have to be at least 'this tall' (holding her hand over Shawn's head) to take home the trophy!" However, Shawn got the last laugh and adds the "Mirrored Ball" Dancing With The Stars trophy to her cache of Beijing Olympic medals - Team silver, two individual silvers, and the Gold Medal for Balance Beam. Not only is Shawn the smallest (shortest) DWTS winner, she is also the youngest winner to date, she celebrated her 17th birthday just weeks before the 8th season of Dancing With The Stars kicked off!

Gone to Ghana?

Have you or anyone you know ever gone to Ghana? Not very likely!

Beware of this email spam scam. Be suspicious of anyone who claims they live in the USA, but are on assignment in Ghana, Nigeria, or other African countries because they are an engineer, aid worker or business person and they suddenly need money because they have been robbed or a victim of some disaster.

As we head into the summer travel months also be on the watch for emails claiming they are a friend, neighbor, or distant relative's high school or college age child that is backpacking through Europe and has lost their money and passport, been robbed, or suffered some other catastrophe on their vacation.

Help curb this kind of spam by reporting anyone who asks you for money to your site or email provider. And remember - NEVER EVER SEND MONEY TO ANYONE WHO YOU MEET ONLINE!

TB & BLAT Attact

or better known as -

What's for Lunch?

One of my favorite pairings for lunch is a bowl of Tomato Bisque and a BLAT sandwich. That would be a Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, and Tomato sandwich!

I like my BLAT (and most of my sliced bread type sandwiches) on lightly toasted slices of my special high-fiber whole wheat bread, only 80 calories total for two slices and 25% of your minimum daily fiber. It is also low in fat, but more on fat in a minute.

I zapped a couple strips of bacon in the microwave until they were nice and crispy. Cut slices of firm and fresh tomato and some from a ripe avocado, rinsed a leaf of romaine lettuce, and waited for the timers on the toaster and microwave to ring and ding signaling that their contents were ready to proceed with assembly.

I placed a couple slices of avocado on each piece of toast, giving them a smear with the side of the knife. No mayo, salad dressing, mustard or other such common spreads on the bread. Then I give the spread avocado a light sprinkle of garlic powder and pepper. Add a layer of bacon, the tomato slices, break the romaine leaf into pieces that will cover the sandwich and top with the second slice of avocado spread toast. Slice sandwich into halves or quarters. Serve with the tomato bisque that has been simmering on the stove. Voila! lunch!!!

Tomato Bisque!
Where's the Tomato Bisque?
umm, well, there wasn't really any Tomato Bisque.
I'm sorry! Unlike Bree I am not a Desperate Housewife and I have a life!
So I didn't really make Tomato Bisque today, instead I supped up some tomato soup right out of a can! Empty can into sauce pan and heat following directions on the side of the can! There! Happy now? :-) Ok, I did add some chopped fresh basil and oregano, a little finely minced garlic and onion, and a sprinkle of pepper. While the soup simmered I fixed my BLAT sandwich.

Back to the Fat
Admittedly bacon is mostly fat. Not really a good thing, but it does taste good, and with moderation most people can slurge once in a while and have a little bacon. Ok, I can hear some of you starting murmur about the avocado and how it's full of fat too. And it is, but it is a different kind of fat. Avocados are a mono-saturated fat, as are olives and most fish fats (which also have omega oils). Mono-saturated fats are the good fats and in moderate quantities are very benefitial to your health. Avocados also are extremely high in fiber which helps offset some of their fat calories. Spreading the avocado on my sandwich is better than using mayonnaise or Miracle Whip which are both high in calories and low in beneficial ingredients. I don't usually have bacon around the house, but I did today because I was wrapping up some filet mignons for tomorrow. Usually I make my BLAT sandwich with Turkey Bacon, which I know a lot of folks don't like, but I have found the extra-lean brands can be cooked up nice and crisp and taste very good, almost as good as the old style fatty real bacon.

So what did you have for lunch today?

sliding into home

what a day

after surviving the ultra slow Gather page loading
and retrieving my website
I settled in for the night with a frozen pizza and cold beer
only to discover another anomaly from today's shopping.

the supermarket, besides having all their frozen pizzas on
sale, was having a special on Mexican beer.
I like a real cerveza and just had to pick up a few bottles.

One of my favorite Mexican brews is Negra Modela, which
is actually easier to find here than south of the border, most
of it gets exported and domestic distribution is sketchy. So I
when I saw it was part of the special I grabbed a 12-pack.

Then I searched through the other labels looking for a light,
in color and taste, not a "lite" beer to go with the dark and
caramel flavor of the Modela. I passed on the Corona, as
usual, and several other brands settling for La Cerveza del
Pacifico. A brand similar to Corona but that was priced quite
a bit less. Two six-packs of the Pacifico were almost $5.00
less than a 12-pack of Corona or Tecate. Sounded like a
pretty darned good deal, so I got the two packs of Pacifico.

When i got home I realized the deal was, well not great, it
was just OK. The bottles of Pacifico have really long necks
making them as tall as the Negra Modelas, which are actually
kind of short but fat 12oz bottles. The Pacificos have the long
neck but the body of the bottle is really small and they turn
out to be only 8oz beers! So ultimately the Pacificos cost
almost the same per ounce as the Coronas were selling for.
But on the plus side, the Pacificos taste great, and with the
midget bottles I can have dos cervezas with my pizza without
getting too tipsy!!!

rounding third

Supermarkets are crazy places to begin with
ever more so on Friday evenings
and today was definitely not an exception.

I had a short list. I had made a major shopping trip the first
of the month that covered the basic necessities and filled the
pantry with the foodstuff staples. Of course, as always, i had
forgotten a couple things, plus didn't get anything of the true
splurge type items to satisfy whims and cravings. I would have
been able to go through the express lane, if only it had been
open, and if a cart would fit through the express lane, they
are set up for only the hand baskets or what you can carry
in your arms. I did not have many items, but some were much
too large to fit in a hand basket, and too bulky to drag all of it
around the store in my arms, so I had to use a cart. I don't know,
maybe a 12-pack of paper towels is pushing the boundaries of
the express lane after all.

There's no calling Dominos or Pizza Hut for delivery where I live
so pizza cravings are sated with either a night on the town or
by keeping a couple of frozen ones on-call in the freezer. The
store seemed to be having a special on every brand of pizza
that they stocked. I was down to just one in the freezer and
was hankering to have a couple slices for dinner, so I picked up
four pizzas, a couple brands I hadn't tried before.

I have always preferred thin crispy crusts on my pizza, and have
been very happy that over the past few years more and more
brands of frozen pizza have come out with thin crust varieties.
One of the new pizzas I grabbed up was from Freschetta, a brand
I used to pass by because of their thick self-rising crusts, but they
now had a spinach-mushroom-chicken on a thin crust which I
thought sounded yummy.

When I got home and started unpacking the pizza I discovered
there were lots of new things about this pizza. Things I missed
by not reading all of the packaging. First, the pizza came packed
on its own pan. Well, not really a pan, but yet a pan of sorts,
a one-use compressed paper pan to bake it on. I started to
toss the "pan" and just bake the pizza on the wire rack the way
I bake other frozen pizzas, but then I discovered new-thing #2 -
I couldn't really bake the whole pizza on the wire rack, because,
well, it wasn't actually a whole pizza. Yes! I did buy a whole pie
in fact I bought two of them, but the pizzas themselves are not
whole. Not whole as in it is a "whole" pizza but in pieces. The
pizza was pre-cut! So you need the pan it comes on to keep the
wedges from falling through the oven rack.

I had no idea that there were people in the world that needed
their pizza pre-cut. I mean, come on folks, sliced bread is one
thing, but are you telling me that you can't make four cuts to
sub-divide your pizza into eight slices? Really it is kind of
superfluous because while the Freschetta pre-cut pizza is in the
oven baking on its special little paper pan, the eight pre-cut
slices tend to bake together anyway as the cheese on top melts
and swarms into the gaps between the slices glueing them
together. When you remove the pizza from the oven you still
must cut the slices apart, and it can be hard to tell where the
pre-cuts are. You have to wonder what marketing group thought
that the pre-cut feature is one that consumers couldn't live without.

Once baked, and properly cut, the pizza is pretty tasty. The spinach
was not as well distributed as some other brands, it was in about
4 or 5 clumps, and the crust was more like medium thick than thin,
but definitely not thick like Freschetta's rising crust. The quantities
of cheese and chicken were adequate for a frozen pizza, meaning
there was enough but you'd like a little more. The mushrooms were
a bit skimpy and sliced paper thin, they need to be thicker slices and
really needs more of them. For the $4.29 sale price the pizza was an
OK deal, but I probably won't buy any of them at the regular price.

second thought

slow
slower
non-existent

a couple months ago I switched hosting companies for one of my websites
I was with the previous web host for almost two years, but things just
came apart over the winter and the server my site was hosted on would
be offline for days at a time. which pretty much nullified their claims of 99%
up-time! After a month of going round-and-round with their customer
non-service I went in search of a new host and moved my website.

The new host set me up and I had no problems loading a copy of my web
pages, setting up the SQL servers, and transferring all my data. Maybe it
was too easy. Everything has been great since the move, pages seem to
be loading faster than with the previous host, the c-panel was a little
strange at first, but actually is better and easier to use at the new host.

Then this morning came.
Started my checking routine and
well
nothing!
Well, not exactly nothing, but almost the same,
or maybe worse than nothing
in place of my home page there was a notice
saying my account had been suspended!

Oh my! what could have caused that?
my site is clean, no porn, a few good niche affiliate programs,
some photos, etc. Nothing that should get a person banned.

Well, it turns out that too have your site hosted with this company
you have to login no less than every two weeks. They don't want any
orphaned sites on their servers. After logging into my c-panel and
clicking the "notices" link I found the answer and in the process also
cured the problem by just logging in. A quick note to the help desk
was answered in 30 minutes and told me about the no-orphan-sites
and login policy. I don't have to add to or edit anything on my web
site, just login at least every two weeks so the system knows that I
am still there and actively using the service.

Whew! My site is back online! :-)

first off

let's see,
gather has been running kind of slow the past couple months
then the past couple days it has been really really slow!
I notice that Tommy Gerace recently posted that Gather made
some reductions, cut backs, cuts to their staff, etc
however, the slower the site gets
the more I wonder if Gather also cut their band width??????

8 Glasses a Day - OK, but what's the Challenge?

Let's see, I joined the Delicious Change group, some free Crystal Light would be nice to have, but I don't understand what the challenge is all about. Here is the blurb from gather:

Are focused on keeping yourself hydrated and getting the recommended eight glasses of water each day? Join us in the Eight Glasses a Day Challenge. We want you to drink eight glasses of water a day for eight days straight. We hope from it you will develop a healthy habit to keep yourself hydrated!

Beyond the odd Gather grammar I just don't get where the challenge is in all of this.
Do I have to "add" another 8 glasses of water per day to my regular routine?

I currently drink 2 to 3 liters of water, some days more, depending on what I am doing on any given day. The greater my activity, the more water I have to drink. A day spent mostly at my desk will be closer to just 2 liters of agua, but if I go for a run, bike ride, hike, snow-shoe or need to chop wood, fix fence, or any of a myriad of other chores around the ol' homestead, I will drink much more to replace all the sweat.

When I think of drinking water, I think of crisp, cold, crystal clear Rocky Mountain spring water! No, not Coors beer, though I occasionally enjoy one of those on a hot afternoon or with a plate of enchiladas, which just happens to be brewed with the same type of water I prefer to drink. The "water" I drink is just that - water! Nothing but real and fresh water in my glass or my CamelBack. I try to avoid pre-bottled water if I can, but if I am on the go I may buy a bottle of water every once in a while.

I also drink some flavored water during the day, but I do not count that in my 2+ liters per day of water. Most mornings start with coffee, sometimes tea, but only after my first of the day glass of water and vitamins. During the day there might be some iced-tea or even some drinks made with Crystal Light, I especially like their lemon-aide, or one of Coors' servings of Rocky Mountain spring water, but none of these count in my daily ration of water.

So, to this liquid challenge, unless I am going to get catherized or spend the entire day sitting on the toilet, I just do not know of a way to add 8 more glasses of water, flavored or original, to my already very fluid daily routine!