Interesting Quotes By Famous Women Named Anne

1)  "If you marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons, then no matter how hard you work, it's never going to work, because then you have to completely change yourself, completely change them, completely -- by that time, you're both dead."  ~  Anne Bancroft, actress

2)  "We build the worlds we wouldn't mind living in. They contain scary things, problems, but also a sense of rightness that makes them alive and makes us want to live there."  ~  Anne McCaffrey, writer

 

3)  "And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me."  ~  Anne Boleyn, Queen of England

4)  "I was raised to pretend."  ~  Anne Heche, actress

5)  "Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty."  ~  Anne Rice, writer

6)  "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."  ~  Anne Frank, writer

7)  "There's something very addictive about people pleasing. It's a thought pattern and a habit that feels really, really good until it becomes desperate."  ~  Anne Hathaway, actress

8)  "Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose -- not the one you began with perhaps, but one you'll be glad to remember."  ~  Anne Sullivan, teacher

9)  "The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere."  ~  Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer

 

10)  "I expect that any day now, I will have said all I have to say; I'll have used up all my characters, and then I'll be free to get on with my real life."  ~  Anne Tyler, writer

11)  "See into life, don't just look at it."  ~  Anne Baxter, actress

12)  "He that dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose."  ~  Anne Bronte, writer

13)  "When I appear in public people expect me to neigh, grind my teeth, paw the ground, and swish my tail -- none of which is easy."  ~  Princess Anne, British royalty

14)  "I do not at all understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us."  ~  Anne Lamott, writer

15)  "If we had no winter, the spring would  not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."  ~  Anne Bradstreet, poet

Things That Happened Today, But Not This Year

1493 – On his second voyage to the West Indies, Christopher Columbus first comes ashore on an island he had spotted the day before. He names it San Juan Bautista. The island is later renamed Puerto Rico. Of course, Columbus wasn't the first to discover it. Indigenous aboriginal peoples, known as Tainos, had already populated the island for centuries by this time.

1816 – The Royal University of Warsaw is established in Warsaw, Poland. Today, the University of Warsaw is the largest in all of Poland, with an enrollment of over 56,000 students and a staff of over 6,000, including over 3,100 educators.

1831 – James A. Garfield, the 20th U.S. President, is born. Fifty years later, Garfield is gunned down in a train station by a madman who had been stalking him for weeks. He dies two months later.

1862 – Billy Sunday, fleet-footed professional baseball player, is born. After eight seasons in the big leagues, Sunday will retire from baseball and go on to become a celebrated and fiery evangelist as well as one of the strongest supporters of Prohibition.

1863 – President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the military cemetery ceremony in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Despite Lincoln's assertion in the speech that "the world will little note nor long remember what we say here," hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren in the ensuing years have had to memorize, word for word, exactly what Lincoln said that memorable day.

1916 – Samuel Goldfish and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures, one of the earliest motion picture production companies. In 1924, Goldwyn Pictures merged with Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer pictures, and the alliance became known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, or MGM for short. Sound familiar?

Yep, that's the one!

1917 – Indira Gandhi is born. Gandhi will go on to become the four-term Prime Minister of India (1966-77, 1980-4), the first woman to hold that position. She is also only the second female in the world to ever become the head of her country's government. (Sirimavo Bandaranike of Sri Lanka was the first.)

1946 – Afghanistan, Iceland, and Sweden join the United Nations.

1955 – National Review publishes its first issue. The fortnightly magazine was founded by the late William F. Buckley, Jr. Self-described as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion," the National Review still boasts a total circulation of 166,755 in a day and age where print magazines are on their way out.

1959 – The Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel. Apparently, it didn't quite live up to the hype. Maybe it was the bad karma from the blatant sexism in this commercial...

1969 – Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum (the "Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.

1976 – Jack Dorsey is born. Thirty years later, Dorsey will go on to create a popular online social networking service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters. You might have heard of it? It's called Twitter.

1985 – In Geneva, Switzerland, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time. This would be one of several meetings between the two world leaders in an effort to end the Cold War, which had been going on for decades by that time.

1990 – Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It's True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals. Busted!

This is not even that great of a song. 

How'd it win a Grammy in the first place?

1998 – The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton.

1998 – Vincent van Gogh's Portrait Of The Artist Without A Beard sells at auction for $71.5 million. Wow! I wonder what it would have sold for if he'd painted himself with mutton chop sideburns?

What's On Your Mind, Gorilla?

Did you ever look at a gorilla and wonder what it's thinking? Probably not. But I've wondered. Of course, I have. Because I'm that guy.

Anyway...based on my "highly developed skills" of observation and imagination, I have determined what's actually going on in the minds of these hairy guys and gals. Enjoy...

"Tell me the truth: Does this rock make me look fat?"

"Why are you smiling? Do you really find seizures amusing?"

"I pooped today. Do I get a sticker?"

 "Yes, in fact, I am 'picking and grinning'..."

"I'm very disappointed in you, General Petraeus."

"Laid back...with my mind on my money and my money on my mind."

"This is my foot. You didn't need it anyway."

"I see your point. But you are wrong. End of discussion."

"Hi there, little lady. Come here often? Can I buy you a banana?"

"This is why I'm hot."

"Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!"

"You know you want me, ladies."

"No one says that about my mother and gets away with it. No one!"

"Nanny, nanny, boo, boo!"

"I'll see you in your nightmares!"

Things You'll Never Hear Me Say

1)  Please pass the rutabagas!

2)  Hey DJ, play that Neil Sedaka song again!

3)  I never liked a woodchuck I didn't meet.

4)  Sure, I'd love to hang curtains with you!

5)  No, thanks, I'd rather walk to work.

6)  Am I on time again?

7)  Miley Cyrus, oh how I love you!

8)  Let's watch the Here Comes Honey Boo Boo marathon!

9)  My, how I love cleaning the litter box!

10)  The Justin Bieber concert tickets went on sale this morning, and I was first in line!

Songs By Bands With Animal Names, Vol. 1

I just decided this morning to start a new mini-series of posts featuring songs by bands with animals in their names. Once I got into it, I realized there were way too many of these for just one post. So I've decided to break it down by the types of animals. This post will include canines, felines, and hooved animals. I don't know yet how many of these posts there will end up being, but there will definitely be more. A wide variety of musical styles, both old and new, are represented here. Enjoy!


THE CANINES


1)  Three Dog Night  ~  "Eli's Coming"

2)  Temple Of The Dog  ~  "Hunger Strike"

3)  Fleet Foxes  ~  "White Winter Hymnal"

4)  Snoop Dogg  ~  "I Wanna Rock"

5)  Skinny Puppy  ~  "Pro-Test"

THE FELINES


1)  Cat Power  ~  "Cherokee"

2)  Cat Stevens  ~  "Moonshadow"

3)  The Pussycat Dolls  ~  "Stickwitu"

4)  White Lion  ~  "When The Children Cry"

5)  John Cougar Mellencamp  ~  "Jack & Diane"

6)  Stray Cats  ~  "Rock This Town"

HOOVED ANIMALS


1)  Zebrahead  ~  "The Juggernauts"

2)  Sparklehorse  ~  "Gold Day"

3)  Caribou  ~  "She's The One"

4)  Gov't Mule  ~  "Beautifully Broken"

5)  Giraffes? Giraffes!  ~  "When The Catholic Girls Go Camping, The Nicotine Vampires Rule Supreme"

6)  Buffalo Springfield  ~  "For What It's Worth"

7)  Spacehog  ~  "In The Meantime"

8)  Zebra  ~  "Who's Behind The Door?"

Rhyme With Reason: House-Hunting Words

If you've ever read one of my "Rhyme With Reason" posts in the past, you'll already know that I am going to list a series of words which rhyme which are related in some way to each other or tie into a unified theme.

As you may remember from the day before yesterday, my wife and I are attempting to find a new place to live in a little over four weeks, when the sale of our current house closes. We've seen at least 12 houses in a two-night period now, so some of them are running together in our minds, while a select few truly stand out.

Today's theme will be words that can be used to describe our house-hunting experience. Some words may describe the houses themselves, while others may describe our thoughts and feelings in relation to this harrowing process of house-hunting.


1)  Dated:  Some of the houses were older and hadn't been updated since the 1970s or 1980s. Those were not such great choices for us. You might also say that they were outdated.


2)  Bated:  For about 48 hours (between Sunday afternoon and Tuesday evening), we waited with bated breath to see if the potential buyers of our house were going to accept our counteroffer or propose a counteroffer of their own. (They counteroffered, we countered back, and struck a deal.)


3)  Hated:  There was one house out in the country that looked like it was literally falling apart. We didn't make it past the front threshold before realizing that we hated it.


4)  Elated:  When we found out that our counteroffer to their counteroffer had been accepted, we were elated.


5)  Gated:  Our budget is not nearly large enough to live in a gated community. So we haven't even looked in any of those.


6)  Overrated:  Some houses we've seen are priced way above tax value for no discernible reason. Maybe it's the location or maybe it's just overzealous sellers, but these houses are overrated and their prices are inflated. What we need to find is a house that's excellent inside and out, but is priced well below tax value. In other words, a house that is underrated.


7)  Vacated:  Many of the houses we've looked at have already been vacated by the previous owners. Which makes it much easier to envision our stuff in the space. You might say these houses have been blank-slated.


8)  Slated:  Speaking of which, we are slated to see another handful of houses this afternoon and tonight. Hopefully, seeing even more houses in a short amount of time will help us make our decision and not cause us to become jaded (okay, it's a near rhyme, but work with me here).


9)  Debated:  After seeing several lower-priced houses on Monday, we debated about increasing our budget a bit to include houses that were more "move-in ready." Ultimately, we decided we might be able to afford a little bit more, which created a lot more options for us.


10)  Negated:  Some houses had huge bedrooms but a smaller kitchen and living spaces, both of which are extremely important to us. In these houses, the negatives all but negated the positives. And we ruled them out.


11)  Deflated:  At the end of a three-hour marathon session of house-hunting, we are quite exhausted and overloaded with information. We feel deflated, mentally and physically. At the same time, we're almost thinking too much to be able to relax and sleep well. In other circumstances (like, if one of the two of us wasn't seven months pregnant), we might do well to be sedated.


12)  Fated:  I don't believe in fate, per se, but for the sake of rhyming, we'll simply say that the house that we're fated to live in is out there somewhere. We may have seen it already, or we may see it for the first time tonight or tomorrow or Saturday. God's will is going to be done in all this, no matter how hard the process may be in getting there. We're trusting, we're praying, we're thinking, and we're looking. And it will happen. In His timing.