Living In the World, Not on It

Andy Rooney on Women Over Forty By:  Veronica Kavanagh ( View Profile )   Andy Rooney says: As I grow in age, I value women who are over forty most of all. Here are just a few reasons why: A woman over forty will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think. If a woman over forty doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it’s usually something more interesting. A woman over forty knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of forty give a hoot what you might think about her or what she’s doing. Women over forty are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, th...

In the 1970s, bigger was better. In the ’80s and ’90s, its popularity waxed and waned. But in the ’00s, that once-revered patch of lovely lady locks performed a vanishing act. We’re talking about pubic hair, folks, and the fact that once upon a time, people embraced the bush, but over the last decade, it has fallen out of favor as more and more women opt for bald vajayjays. Some people blame porn and a youth-obsessed culture that infantilizes women for the vilification of pubic hair, while others trace its demise to Sex and the City and Carrie Bradshaw’s introduction of the Brazilian wax to the mainstream. Whatever the case, the trend has caught on enough for a college-age man in Minnesota to say that he’d never hook up with a girl with pubic hair and that he’d be disgusted to undress a woman and discover a, as the Atlantic put it, “veil of genital fur.” But the tide may be changing on this “bare is better” mentality, or at least that’s what our friends at Jeze...

There’s a lot of advice about how to blog out there. Much like parenting, there are a lot of “experts” out there, whether they’re actually experts or just amateurs who can put on a convincing show. I found a list of the Top 100 Blog Tips of All Time . I’m sure there are a lot more than 100 tips out there, but it doesn’t surprise me that someone was able to compile that many. Some of them are common sense. A few stand out as pretty good ideas. Others are the kind that you read and you just want to smack whoever wrote those particular tips. This latter variety is the kind we’re focusing on. When you have 100 options, finding seven that you think are the most annoying shouldn’t be too difficult. That’s your challenge for this week. Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and to keep the conversation going! Here is this week’s “ S...

Here are a few more follow-up questions to previous questions I’ve asked in some of the earliest editions of the Saturday Six . I hope you enjoy these, and I invite you to take go back and play any old set you haven’t already played: it’s never too late to play! Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and keep the conversation going! Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog… But don’t forget to leave a link to your blog so that everyone else can visit! Permission is not granted to copy the questions to message boards for the purpose of having members answer and play along there. Enjoy! 1. Follow-up to a question from Episode 37 : What is your least favorite Christmas dessert? Um... I don't know... I don't usually eat dessert....

On 14 December I posted the Old Farmer's Almanac information and other fun tidbits for this month. If you read it, you may recall that I described the Ember Days that come up four times a year, predicated on specific Roman Catholic holy days. Today is the second Ember Day in December, and by folklore, determines the overall weather in February. Here is a reminder of the Ember Days and how they work: Ember Days: The four periods formerly observed by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches for prayer, fasting, and the ordination of clergy are called Ember Days. Specifically, these are the Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays the follow in succession following (1) the First Sunday in Lent; (2) Whitsunday - Pentecost; (3) the Feast of the Holy Cross, September 14; and (4) the Feast of St. Lucia, December 13. The word ember is perhaps a corruption of the Latin quatuor tempora , "four times." Folklore has it that the weather on each of the three days foret...

On 1 December I posted the Old Farmer's Almanac information and other fun tidbits for this month. If you read it, you may recall that I described the Ember Days that come up four times a year, predicated on specific Roman Catholic holy days. Today is the first Ember Day in December, and by folklore, determines the overall weather in January. Here is a reminder of the Ember Days and how they work: Ember Days: The four periods formerly observed by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches for prayer, fasting, and the ordination of clergy are called Ember Days. Specifically, these are the Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays the follow in succession following (1) the First Sunday in Lent; (2) Whitsunday - Pentecost; (3) the Feast of the Holy Cross, September 14; and (4) the Feast of St. Lucia, December 13. The word ember is perhaps a corruption of the Latin quatuor tempora , "four times." Folklore has it that the weather on each of the three days foretells th...

The Blue Memory Meme, Part Two Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme. Let's go!!! Today we ripped off a blogger and...

The Blue Memory Meme, Part One Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme. Let's go!!! Today we ripped off a blogger and...

Here’s a list of Time magazine’s All-Time 100 greatest and most influential gadgets since 1923. With items that range from cell phones to ballpoint pens, there are surely at least a few items on that list that you have either owned or used. Can you name seven of them? That’s your challenge for this week. Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and to keep the conversation going! Here is this week’s “ Sunday Seven ” question. Either answer in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog (with a link here), and then comment here with a link back to your blog so that everyone else can visit! Permission is not granted to copy the questions to message boards for the purpose of having members answer and play along there. Enjoy! THIS WEEK’S QUESTION : Name seven of Time’s 100 All-Time Gadgets that you’ve eithe...

No one is more surprised than I am that the Saturday Six has now reached its 400th edition! By my calculations, that represents about 7.6 years, with an asterisk: these 400 editions have only spanned 399 consecutive weeks, because there was one weekend in which I gave readers two different editions on the same day. I’m glad you’re reading this, and I hope you’ll enjoy this week’s set of questions! Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and keep the conversation going! Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog… But don’t forget to leave a link to your blog so that everyone else can visit! Permission is not granted to copy the questions to message boards for the purpose of having members answer and play along there. Enjoy! 1. While going through ...

This week, I’m going back to early editions of the Saturday Six and asking follow-up questions to some of the original questions I asked so long ago. The questions are random as always, but there is that hint of nostalgia since I’m building on those previous editions. Since the Saturday Six never closes, you could always pick a random edition and play along if there’s ever a day in which you want to post something but can’t because of writer’s block. In the meantime, enjoy these! Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and keep the conversation going! Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog… But don’t forget to leave a link to your blog so that everyone else can visit! Permission is not granted to copy the questions to message boards for the purp...

Farmer's Calendar - December December 22. First day of winter. Feels like the hundredth. Snow came early, and now the roads are covered with semi-frozen slush, the Sun is hardly to be seen, and a keen little north wind cuts down out of the sky the color of a prison wall. Despite the chill, I decide to take the dogs down the road. They need the outing. So do I. The difference is, they don't believe it. They're dachshunds, which is to say, independent thinkers. They're also old. Time was, they couldn't wait for their walk. They surged ahead, quartering avidly back and forth across the road. Today, however, they plod gloomily along, dragging their feet, pulling up lame, feeling sorry for themselves. You can't blame them, they're 15. By one formula, this makes them 90 in human years; by another, 105. Now, the fact is, I'm no longer young in human years, myself, and so, short of our normal halfway point, I stop and prepare to turn back. And here,...

1) Marc over at Marc and Angel Hack Life recently shared the 30 books that he's glad he read before he turned 30. What is one book you're really glad you read? Wow. I have read thousands of books, and I'm grateful for reading most of them. This is extremely hard to answer with all the reading I do. And the answer is probably different at any given time, since the book I'm thinking of maybe different tomorrow (or five minutes from now). At this moment, I would say I am very happy that I have read The Planets by Dava Sobel; it took astronomy and turned it into art, poetry and scientific knowledge - the best of all worlds! Here is an excerpt from Genesis (The Sun): "At totality, when the Moon is a pool of soot hiding the bright solar sphere, and the sky deepens to a crepuscular blue, the Sun's magnificent corona, normally invisible, flashes into view. Pearl and platinum-colored streamers of coronal gas surround the vanished Sun like a jagge...

Prepare to be amused... at least, I was. Two weeks ago, I received my usual issue of People Magazine - the one dated 28 November 2011 (which is magazine land time as today is the 29th), aptly entitled THE SEXIEST MAN ALIVE! And 123 Super Hot Men We Love... (what do you expect? It's People Magazine, and to some degree it is appealing to a wide age-range. I went through it as I usually do and yes, Bradley Cooper is pretty good looking. Quite frankly, I haven't the faintest idea who he is, but that is typical for me. And I leafed through the other hot men; some I agreed were truly wowwers and some not so much. I mean, who is going to say no to Patrick Dempsey, Patrick Wilson (with those incredibly blue eyes!), Taye Diggs, Hugh Jackman (growl!), Ewan McGregor and Alex O'Loughlin (except for the tattoos around each nipple - yuck). And Brían O'Byrne (with the same diacritical mark as in my name - truly a good Irishman!) is growing on me. But then I got to the SEXY ...

Welcome to The Queens's Meme 7 Royal Questions on Tuesday Someone in the castle is having a birthday today. Homer says it's not him. Who, oh who, could it be?! Whether or not it's your birthday, you should be able to answer these age-related questions. Sounds like fun, eh? Or not. I'm going to talk to the birthday girl. She needs a good talking to. 1. If you could turn back the hands of time, where would you go? Have you and the Saturday 9 writer been in cahoots this week? I just answered a very similar question to this... I would relive 28 June 2009 - my day in Yellowstone National Park with David trying to fit in so many things to see - I took over 900 images in that one day! It was the most incredible magical day ever! 2. What was your favorite age and why?   Interesting question! I have to say that despite the poor health and issues, every year I experience now and for the last six years were my favourite. I was an unhappy child, a very torture...