Some Sizzling Scintillating Speculations

Have you ever wondered about the @? That little "a" with a circle curling around it that is found in email addresses is most commonly referred to as the "at" symbol. Surprisingly though, there is no official, universal name for this sign . There are dozens of strange terms to describe the @ symbol. Several languages use words that associate the shape of the symbol with some type of animal. For instance, some quirky names for the @ symbol include: apenstaartje - Dutch for "monkey's tail" snabel - Danish for "elephant's trunk " kissanhnta - Finnish for "cat's tail" klammeraffe - German for "hanging monkey" papaki - Greek for "little duck " kukac - Hungarian for "worm" dalphaengi - Korean for "snail " grisehale - Norwegian for "pig's tail" sobachka - Russian for "little dog" Before it became the standard symbol for electronic mail, the @ symbol was used to repres...

Thought for the day: How people treat you is their karma. How you react is yours…Wayne Dyer Do you go to the supermarket to return a product you don’t need and end up giving a mile long explanation which was not asked for by the counter clerk? You tell him’ You see, I purchased this for my …… But, it turns out that we were already having a stock of this item, and I didn’t know about it .’….and so on and so forth. Or, go to the railway station and see someone desperately trying to get the date on his railway ticket changed. And, he’s explaining how his Dada’s brother’s wife’s sister’s husband’s child’s cousin has changed his or her mind, or, has fallen ill and hence they cannot leave on the day of the visit and hence the ticket needs to be changed. And, if it were him himself, he would travel by the same train but, this generation does not understand and he has another brother who’s child’s mausi’s husband’s brother is also the same, and keeps changing his travel plans. Have you ever wo...

Thought for the day: Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have. Do you think that manufacturers, especially of consumer items, dilute their products just that much less, so that their effects are not what they should be? For example, take these drain cleaner liquids. I was trying to make the kitchen drain trouble free, using the branded drain cleaners, and, each time,it would clear a bit,a bit, a bit, a bit, a bit,….. Then, I got this unbranded bottle of drain cleaner from our friendly neighbourhood spiderman, err, no, groceryman, I mean. Thinking it was diluted, I just opened the cap(Yes, this cap didn’t get lost yet), and poured a wee bit on the kitchen sink..and….snap..crackle…pop…plus smoke….as the acid went to work. For a minute, I was wondering whether there would be any drain pipe left to clean, if it worked well, but, my worries were unfounded. It did clean up the sink drain perfectly, and, did not finish off the pipe.(I checked for three...