Every once in a while you come across a trick that brings a smile to your lips.

I’m smiling now.

For those of you who have an iPhone or similar device, there are times when you’d like to go ‘hands-free’. Here I’m not referring to making a call, but watching a video.

Turns out there are lots of commercial “stands” that will serve your purpose, for the price of $15 to $50. But that seems a lot to pay; plus they don’t do anything except stand there.

So imagine my delight when I discovered the brilliant ‘life hack” pictured here.

This stand is not only sturdy, it fits in your pocket and comes in several flavors.

And you can floss when done, for a brilliant smile!

Simple Is Beautiful, And A Nice Smile Too!

I found this at a site called Instructables, and here is your link to the original.

In my limited testing it seems that only J&J’s Reach Ultraclean Floss will work, but that’s ok because  Sandy, my dental hygienist, turned me onto Reach earlier this year and it’s become my favorite floss. Here’s your link to Reach on Amazon.

Just remember to say “Cheese”.

New image in the repetitive patterns photography contest

…
my granny’s fav flowers photography picture

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in the Bronx during the 50’s.

We had all the modern conveniences. Like Good Humor Ice Cream delivered daily in the summer down at the corner. Served up by the Good Humor Man himself.  Otherwise known as some kid with a summer job, but at the time he looked pretty big to me.

If you got an ice cream cup instead of something on a stick, it came with a little flat wooden spoon. If you chose the ‘ice’ on a stick there was work to be done to peel the paper off before you could take that first cold bite which froze your mouth and throat in a wave of pain when you swallowed.  Which tasted really, really good in the midst of that summer heat and killer humidity.

But I digress.

Up in our apartment we didn’t have air conditioning, but we did have Seltzer every night with dinner. It was delivered every week by, wait for it, The Seltzer Man.

Again, no surprises in the 50’s

The Seltzer came in wooden cases filled with 10 or so big green, blue or clear bottles with embossed logos and lettering on the surface. On top was a silver colored valve, sporting a hair trigger. I think the bottles in this picture are a bit vintage, but it gives you an idea.

The first time you opened the value on a new bottle the pressure would invariably shoot seltzer all over the kitchen. It was absolutely, positively impossible to open the value slow enough to avoid that first spritz. Kind of like when you first learned to drive with a stick and were letting out the clutch with your Dad telling you to go slow.

But I digress, again.

This was all brought back to me recently by an article in the NY Times about Ronny Beberman, one of the last Seltzer Men.

Remember kids, we are not talking about some pansy Perrier with a twist of lemon.

We have a product we are real proud of, that starts with New York City water which “comes right outta the pipes, right outta the ground” and  then beaten (literally) into Seltzer. Watch the video if you don’t believe me.

This is Manly Seltzer, delivered by a Man’s Man.

Great stuff.

[Full Disclosure Note: At one point back in the 50's we learned that these bottles had a disconcerting habit of blowing up once in a while if there was a defect or chip created during the re-cycle process. After that discovery my Dad wouldn't put the Big Bad Boy right up on the dinner table. They hadn't invented Class Action Lawsuits yet, otherwise it would really have been all over.]

This is a milestone of sorts, our 100th post at Not A Mystery.

And so you probably say, “Big Deal”.

Fair enough.

Anyway we’ll take some time to review a few of my favorite posts. Here we go:

4011 Means Bananas

The Big 4011 Is Not A Freeway In LA allowed me to combine two of my life issues: [1] I simply cannot speak any foreign languages, and [2] Some of the automated gizmos we have to deal with every day sometimes take on a life of their own. Also I was able to get in a little dig at the French which is always a kick.

HRH As Prince

Let Them Eat Cake, And Walk It Off garnered an awful lot of hits. Perhaps because folks shared my infatuation with this picture of HRH The Prince of Wales.

The Sarko

A Day Late And A Dollar Sarko’d was a summation of a series on The Big Mac Index, at a time when the President of France was in the news. I really wanted to figure out how to get Carla Bruni into the post, since she’s a lot prettier than Sarko.

Publishers?

You Book Publishers Think You Are Sooo Intellectual This is even more timely now than when we did a series on electronic book readers. Pretty much what we’ve predicted has come to pass, and the publishing industry still can’t seem to find its derrière with both hands.

Blades Not Brains

The Swiss, Blades For Brains You’ve got to wonder where the priorities are in LA and Bern.  The ‘victim’ in the case has for years requested the authorities to give it up and leave Polanski alone. Really, it’s time to move on.

Super-Size Everything

Don’t Stop Now, Let’s Just Put Everything In Oil Drums! We’d all feel better if Congress had to live with our Health Insurance and if the nitwits who design Super-Sized detergent containers did their own laundry.

Death Can Be Profitable

What’s Better Than A Reverse Mortgage? Death Bonds! We were way ahead of the curve on Life Settlements. This was the original post that beat the NY Times by 3 months. You will read more and more about these Financial “Products” in the next few years.

There are lots more FAVS, if you would like click on the “FAV” link in the TAG CLOUD on the right side of this page.

And thanks for coming!

The Essentials

This looks like I’m posting just an hour or so after the previous one, but as my father pointed out, I meant a.m. Whatever. It’s my blog. I can mess up the time stamp if I want.

What made Molly’s day? you might come here wondering. Well, friendly reader, I’ll tell you what!

Tegan and Sara. I received the entire discography in the mail today. And now I’m listening to So Jealous. The Con is in my car. Because it’s one of my Favorite Albums Eva, so I think I’ll like having it on hand.

I’m just glad that I have physical CDs because I’m already getting tired of the ones I brought with me from Ohio. As much as I love Utada, I can only listen to Ultra Blue so many times before even Passion gets old. Plus, it’s the worst when you wear out songs you love.

Luckily, that hasn’t happened to Tegan and Sara yet. Plus, they’re funny in interviews and I’ve come to realize I like people based on how funny they are. OR, how nice they are. Because people who aren’t funny can be super nice and sweet.

But, if you’re not funny and not exceptionally nice, I just don’t feel like you have much to offer me. Not that I hate those people. I just gravitate towards those two types. So, if you’re wondering why I spit on you every time you see me, it’s probably because you don’t make me laugh and are only moderately kind.

I’m sure if you’re reading this, though, you are a lovely person who I hold dearly to my heart.

As they walked along the street, he talked just to have an excuse to keep looking at her. He gace her his arm, feeling rather old-fashioned, just to have her touching him.

Photographed by Steve Crane

This shot was taken shortly after sunrise.

– License

Sono stati in parecchi a richiedermi foto di questo singolare veicolo prodotto dalla Chenowth. La maggioranza delle immagini (ad eccezione della 12, 17 e 18***) ritraggono il Fast Attack Vehicle (FAV) in servizio presso l’oramai disciolta 9a Divisione di Fanteria di Ft. Lewis.

Qui sotto una versione sperimentale armata con due lanciarazzi per elicottero da 70mm

La versione comandata a distanza testata dall’US Marine Corps

Per maggiori info su questo veicolo visitate:
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/land/dbuggy/dbuggy.html

*** Queste tre sono dei Navy Seals

(Photos: US Army/Department Of Defense)

Recuperando algo de tiempo perdido.

Wallpapers experimentales –  Never regret, 8 (Texture provided by: Chrysti), swiss.

Propuesta de portada para la agenda de la FAV.

This morning I found myself with the oddest whim to watch Miller’s Crossing.  There I was, eating  Lucky Charms, when the thought hit me:  You know what I really need right now?  Obviously, a twenty year old gangster/noir/morality fable.

Miller’s Crossing is far and away my favorite of the Coen Brothers’ offerings.  I was around twelve when it came out, and for whatever reason it captured me, becoming another in a long line of vaguely inappropriate films that I begged my parents to see.  (I had surprisingly indulgent parents when it came to movies.  Within that year alone, they took me to see Godfather III, Miller’s Crossing, and Cape Fear.  Coppola, Coen, Scorsese…thanks mom & dad.  You guys truly were the best.)

The basic premise revolves around a Prohibition-era gang war, a Dashiell Hammett tapestry of double-crosses, love affairs, deception, lies, and blood.  It is stunning: visually arresting with crisp dialogue and an engaging anti-hero hero in Gabriel Byrne’s Tom Regan.  In keeping with personal tradition, I like my heroes flawed with hearts surrounded by steel bands-men who lie, steal, cheat, and kill but have oddly ethical notions of loyalty and honor.  Men with the potential to be so very good who nevertheless make tragic choices.  They’re my kryptonite.

And my God (I mean that with all due reverence), that scene.  That march through the woods with John Turturro begging for his pathetic life.  It remains one of my favorite cinematic moments ever-right up there with To Kill A Mockingbird’s courtroom scene and Butch & Sundance’s last stand.  It still gives me chills every time I see it.  Dead perfect.

We don’t usually comment on Celebrity Events, but today will be an exception.

ZURICH (AP) (Published: September 27, 2009) – Director Roman Polanski was arrested by Swiss police for possible extradition to the United States for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, authorities said Sunday.

Polanski was flying in to receive an honorary award at the Zurich Film Festival when he was apprehended Saturday at the airport, the Swiss Justice Ministry said in a statement. It said U.S. authorities have sought the arrest of the 76-year-old around the world since 2005.

WTF?

The only thing missing from this famous Swiss Tool, is a Brains attachment.

In Switzerland Blades Are The New Brains

If you can’t wait and need a quick news fix, here’s a NY Times report, but much better would be to get to know the story behind the publicity. For this your documentary is “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired” which was released in 2008. Leslie and I watched this several months ago and awarded it 5 Stars.

A Do Not Miss Documentary

Here’s your link for the DVD at Amazon and your link to Netflix. Both of these feature a short video preview. As I write this the Netflix version can be streamed instantly.

By-The-Way-Note: If you are a Netflix subscriber and stream ‘instant’ films, then the Roku player is highly, highly recommended. At least in our case it provided much better quality than an HP laptop (Vista) connected to a plasma display via HDMI cable; and featured a vastly superior interface. It’s $100, but worth every penny.

From the UK Telegraph, Prince Charles is urging people to abandon their cars in favour of walking and public transport.

I guess if your name starts with “HRH“, you can offer whatever advice comes to mind.

HRH The Prince of Wales in Walking Clothes

The Prince, who has two Jaguars, two Audis, a Range Rover and still drives an Aston Martin given to him by the Queen on his 21st birthday, said developers had a duty to put public transport and the pedestrian at the heart of their housing schemes.

I like this 60th. birthday portrait so much I’m willing to cut him some slack.

Besides, he means well.

It seems obvious that something unpleasant is something to be avoided – and if we’re meant to avoid it, we’re likely to be just a little bit afraid of it. Yesterday I talked about health anxiety in general, and today I want to touch on a specific sub-group of health anxiety – pain-related anxiety.

Many people will be familiar with pain-related anxiety and avoidance, the model of so-called ‘fear avoidance’ that is a compelling explanation for how so many people become deactivated and disabled when they have persistent pain. It might be a surprise to some that the term ‘fear avoidance’ is actually not technically correct! There are two parts to the phenomenon: fear (or really, pain anxiety) and avoidance. It’s possible to be fearful or anxious about something but not avoid it – and it’s the avoidance part that creates the disability, which is why we are so keen to get people to DO things, even if they’re afraid.

If we look at yesterday’s post about anxiety, and review Beck’s cognitive model of anxiety, we can see that it’s really about how a person perceives a situation rather than the facts of a situation that is the problem in health anxiety. With an increased perception of the probability that something horrible will happen, multipled by the ‘awfulness’ factor we can begin to understand how some people will be really afraid of having pain. This is modifed by their personal resources and ‘rescue’ factors which might be things that other people do to reduce the person’s distress or decrease the ‘awfulness’ factor.

Pain anxiety is somewhat more problematic, IMHO, than general health anxiety. The reason being that so many conflicting messages are available in the community about having pain. It’s all around us that to have pain means ’something is wrong’ – we’ve all grown up with this belief, developed through our own experiences with acute pain, and the media and almost all health care pushes the idea that we should not have to experience pain. Which is all very well except that it creates an unrealistic expectation for people who have persistent pain that doesn’t respond to pharmacology, surgery, injections or anything else that is ‘done to’ the person. Because like it or not, we don’t yet have all the answers to all the health care problems – just think of the common cold!

In the case of classic health anxiety, there is usually a nice clear-cut statement from a medical person that ‘there is nothing wrong’, health investigations are clear, there is nothing sinister going on, the person is not going to die from something nasty. In pain? Well all around us there are messages saying that ongoing pain is not OK, and it only takes one practitioner to suggest that there is some removable cause for their pain that will take the pain away for a person to start to worry again about their pain (and start looking for ‘the cure’).

It’s understandable. Pain isn’t pleasant – that’s part of the definition of pain! But people don’t die simply from having chronic pain. It can be depressing, distressing, and invade much of life, ruining the quality of life in many spheres – but many many people do cope well despite having pain, and have rewarding, fulfilling lives even though they have persistent pain.

The difference between being anxious about pain and living well with pain? Not so certain actually. We do know a lot about people who have pain and look for treatment. In fact, we know heaps about these people. We don’t know very much about people who don’t look for treatment simply because they don’t turn up at treatment centres. As a result, we don’t really know how people who live good lives despite their pain actually do so.

Maybe this group of people have developed ways of viewing their pain that reduces the ‘awfulness’ factor, maybe they have more resources, maybe they can be flexible about how they go about achieving what is important in their lives, maybe their goals are different, maybe they don’t have some of the vulnerability factors discussed in the paper I’ve identified today.

The fact is, we simply don’t know. Almost all our research on pain and coping is on people who are worried about their pain, anxious about it, and want it gone. Our treatments are based on models like Beck’s and Vlaeyen’s, that are developed from our understanding of people who don’t live well with their pain. So we focus on reducing the level of catastrophising, reducing the use of ’safety behaviours’ and ‘checking’ and ‘reassurance’, increasing the use of active coping, help people confront what they fear and find out that it doesn’t make life unbearable and intolerable.

This paper by Carleton, Abrams and colleagues identifies that pain-related anxiety might be a separate type of fear that exists alongside other anxiety types – blood/needle phobia, panic, OCD and so on.

It might have taken a while to recognise it, but maybe it’s important to recognise that for a reasonably large group of people, having pain, or anticipating that pain will be experienced, is such an anxiety-provoking problem that this fear needs to be treated rather than the pain itself. This is why simply removing the pain doesn’t solve the problem – in the case of a simple phobia, just not being able to see a spider doesn’t remove the fear of there possibly being spiders under the bed, in the garden, in the shed! In fact, reassurance that there are no spiders doesn’t actually help if the person still looks for one. In the same way, removing pain through anaesthetic blocks or medication or even surgery doesn’t help if the person still fears having the pain – because they’ll be checking their body, any investigations and probably any other body sensations to try to make sure there is nothing going wrong. You can be sure that any slight change in body sensation will be monitored, and in someone who is anxious about having pain, be evidence that there is something wrong, eliciting all those worries and leading to avoidance.

What to do? Not sure yet – while we can help individuals, it only takes one person to re-establish that fear by inadvertently suggesting that ’something is there’, or that pain ‘must be’ abolished – and the whole anxiety process starts again. More on this tomorrow!

Carleton, R., Abrams, M., Asmundson, G., Antony, M., & McCabe, R. (2009). Pain-related anxiety and anxiety sensitivity across anxiety and depressive disorders☆ Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 23 (6), 791-798 DOI: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.03.003

This has been our Fav Pic of the Week

Ik mag dan nog van felle kleurtjes houden en van opvallen, als ik niet veel zin heb om speciaal te doen of voor een gewone dag, zal je me vaak zien met smokey eyes (of toch donkere oogmake-up).
Velen van jullie kunnen dit too much vinden voor school, maar in mijn ogen kan alles.

Smokey eyes zijn niet zo heel moeilijk om te maken.
Zoals met alle looks is het een kwestie van oefenen en kijken wat er bij jouw past.

Wat je nodig hebt voor een smokey look is natuurlijk zwarte (of donkere ) oogschaduw en natuurlijk ook lichtere tinten.
Zelf heb ik 2 manieren om smokey’s te maken.

De eertse :
Deze is meteen ook de lichtste, en mischien wat meer geschikter voor school of werk.
Voor deze look gebruik ik drie kleuren, oogpotlood en mascara.
Verder gebruik ik 3 borstels.

Op het ooglid gebruik ik dus een donker grijs, met in de crease een donker paars ( let hier wel mee op, blauw oog effect) en dan een vleeskleurige higlighter.
Als afwerking nog wat zwarte oogpotlood rond het oog, mascara en eventueel wenkbrauwen en klaar.
De key hier is goed blenden.

De tweede versie:

Een gewone simpele donkere smokey, met zwarte oogschaduw en een highlighter.
Het keyword hier is blenden blenden blenden

Timing and Location, Dominick Dunne had them both in spades during his life.

But Dunne’s sense of timing failed him at the end. He died the day after Ted Kennedy.

[The] spokesman … initially declined to confirm the death, saying the family had hoped to wait a day before making an announcement so that Mr. Dunne’s obituary would not be obscured by the coverage of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s death.

Who was Dominick Dunne anyway? Well, if you’re like me and don’t live in Hollywood, follow Celebrity Trials, or read Vanity Fair magazine, you can still watch “Dominick Dunne, After The Party” and find out.

It's All About The Stars

Leslie found this documentary (made in 2008), and we are pleased to award it 5-Stars.

Here’s a short summary of his life from the NY Times Obituary:

Dominick Dunne…gave up producing movies in midlife and reinvented himself as a best-selling author, magazine writer, television personality and reporter whose celebrity often outshone that of his subjects…”

The film is fascinating for its voyeuristic look at behind-the-scenes celebrity and Dunne’s complete openness about his life and personal shortcomings. He presumes to hold very little back, although at times it seems he is pulling a few punches, at least to this reporter. But that just makes him more human.

For more info, here’s the Wikipedia write-up on the film.

And at the end it’s nice to know that even if his timing with Kennedy was a bit off, Dunne lived long enough to see Phil Spector put behind bars for the rest of his life.

After a lazy week, college has come and gone, the weekend starts – No Homework YAY. For years the thing I look forward to when I get home is food and Kpop, I was thinking of things to write about and seeing as nothing is really around except, Jay Park (Jaebeom) and girl groups, I will blog the latter seeing as I don’t want to keep bringing up such an unfortunate subject

So this is my,  2009’s new korean girl groups review:

In no particular order:

2ne1: Fresh and fun, is two words to describe them. Although they may not have been the first to shy away from the cute concept they definately enhanced it and made it a definate image, as a group I don’t know much about them so I can’t comment, their music however is something, I mean that in a VERY good way and I hope they have long careers in the music industry.  I know they will experiment and play with different genres because  they could probably pull it off, but I would love for them to keep that RnB essence they have.  Fav songs: 1.I Don’t Care 2.In The Club 3.Let’s go PARTY

Afterschool: Not really NEW but seeing as they only released 2 full songs and 1 mini album they can be classed as new. I have been very much interested in these girls since debut, they just stuck out and broke the cutesy rules, sexy dances, outfits, stage presence, mv and song. They’re the Korean PCD, only better. All members have a part. However, since “Diva” began I haven’t been very interested, I liked the song.. for a while. Hopefully they RETURN with some new material soon. Fav songs: 1.Play Girlz 2.AH

4Minute: Now these girls get a lot of schtick, but aside from the fanwars, you can’t deny these girl have made major improvements (Hot Issue to Muzik). They are what rookies are supposed to be, gradually getting better. Yes Cube is sister to JYPE but it’s good to see a group getting attention that doesn’t have SM,YG,JYP under their belt. It would be nice to see the two other members (the leader and maknae) sing more but we’ll see with future performances. I can see great things from these girls. Fav songs: 1.Anjullae, 2.Muzik 3. What a Girl Wants

F(x): I can’t REALLY comment because they have had only one song and they are the newest of the batch but from what I’ve seen they are typical SM material – based on the song/mv/perfs alone. The song doesn’t show much vocal skill (basically I don’t like the song) BUT their dancing does look really good, soon enough with practice their performances will be very impressive. No, I’m not on the Amber bandwagon, I think they should have made the other girls look less girly because at first I genuinely thought there was a boy in the group. Fav songs: None yet.

T-ara: Don’t know anything much about them but I was reminded like yesterday of them so I’ll write something. I only really know about the girl that was in the Womens Generation project but that’s it. They seem more of an SNSD /cutesy group. Sorry if I’m wrong I haven’t watched their performances or even their MV(s), only small parts. I don’t have any fav songs but that Lies song sounded nice.

As for the other numerous new girl groups. I haven’t looked into them, Brand New Day have nice vocals though. Oh, Gaseumi Dullyeo by Twinny/Twiny? was stuck in my head for a while =S

I’m not a FAN of these girl groups (maybe After School during AH days) but I do like them in some way, whether it’s their songs, talent, what influence they’ve had on KPOP or potential, if I disliked any I wouldn’t have bothered to mention them.

I know they’re NEW but none of them, in my mind, compare to the Brown Eyed Girls ! yes, I AM a fan

  Credit:KoreaFlows

  credit:TYPICALpocky