Dinner is Served!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Now this is an interesting piece of news. I saw where rat meat is now in serious demand in some Asian places like Vietman and Thailand. They have always been eating rats there but now due to inflation, the demand is increasing and the price is going higher for it. Here is a short clip from the article:

The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials said on Wednesday.

With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel (69 pence) from 1,200 riel last year.

Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.

Full story. I do not think I could eat a rat or a mouse. It is because when I was in elementary, middle and high school, I had these animals as pets. My mother was a teacher and had hampsters and mice in her classroom as pets. During the summer all these animals came home and we kept them as pets. We had gerbils and ginny pigs also. Small rodents as food? I could never eat them. They are pets to me. Sacred. Pets....not to be eaten. If I were in a desperate, survival situation, it might be a different story. But trust me. It would be the ultimate, very last resort.

Trunk Secrets

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

My car trunk has had a secret for the past year and a half. It has been the home of my wine and other spirits. When my father died, I felt reluctant to pour all my wine, vodka and Canadian club down the drain because I had no where to put it when I moved in with my mother. She does not drink and does not allow any alcohol in her home. My father was a alcoholic who never took a drink as long as I can remember. He stopped drinking before I was born.

Where and what could I do with it? It was all packed up in boxes and I simply left those boxes in my trunk for the past year and a half. I wondered if the bottle would survive the extremes in cold and heat of the seasons. Well, I just moved into my own place again and out came the bottles. Celebration! They all seem intact. I have not tried any wine to see if the taste was still good. I am just glad that the trunk has given up it's secrets.

I was always fearful of being stopped for some reason and the trunk was inspected. What would be the outcome? Would those bottles be counted as open containers because they were bottles in varying degrees of fullness?

I am just glad it is over! I am free to have a glass of wine again. The trunk has finally given up it's secrets!

Something Really Scary

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

"I Robot" is not just a movie anymore. Scientists have developed a robot that has feelings. Does this not scare anyone else out there? This new robot can feel happy or sad based on our reaction to it. In addition, it has a heart that can beat and it can breathe also. Scary...really. He looks like a small child in this picture, all wrapped around this handler.

Coffee Wars

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

For the past week the coffee wars have raged in the office. It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. It all began about a week and a half ago when someone in the front office drank the last of the coffee in the pot and did not make a new pot. The time was about 9am so coffee drinking was in full force by all. The women in the admin office went to the break room and saw that and it was on. Next thing I see is them walking around the office with the empty coffee pot acusing everyone, one by one of drinking the last cup and not making a new pot. The cultprit was found out and since that day, if the coffee gets low, most people go around telling everyone that there is enough for about 1 more cup before a new pot will need to be made.

Well, then the entire process of how you make you cup of coffee has become part of the war. Who is it that carelessly leaves sugar all over the silver tray for others to clean up? Noone confesses to this so people now watch every one when they leave the coffee area and women swarm in to see if there is sugar on the tray....if so that person is called out. Then, who is it that leaves the coffee dingleberries in the sugar.....not rinsing the spoon before putting it in the sugar causing drops of coffee to harden into hard, tan balls in the sugar? Who is not rinsing the spoon? Who is not turning the spoon over so that coffee or water does not pool in the middle of the spoon? Water will cause clear coffee dignleberries in the sugar. It is just plain ridiculous.

Three hours of each morning is spent calling out in the halls, or from office to office on the status of coffee levels in the pot, who was the last in, who just got a cup, who rinsed the community stirring spoon, who did not, who let the coffee dingleberries in the sugar this morning and then the clear ones? Will it never end?

You would think we had no work to do. We are all consumed with the status of coffee. My god! What is this world coming to?

Man Beheads Passenger on Bus

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

This was a terrible and most odd story. What is the world coming to?

Terrified passengers on a Greyhound Canada bus travelling on the
Trans-Canada Highway stood by helpless Thursday as a man repeatedly stabbed and then beheaded a young fellow passenger.The attack shocked the other 35
passengers on board, some of which were children, including one just six years
old, as it appeared to spring from nowhere.

The man responsible appeared normal
and had been sharing a cup of tea at a stop prior to going into a stabbing
frenzy. He had boarded the bus about an hour before the attack.The youth
attacked, who appeared to witnesses to be about 19, was sleeping at the time. It
is not known if the two knew each other, but first indications are that it was a
random attack.The Greyhound bus was driving west of Portage la Prairie, in
Manitoba on Wednesday night when the attack occurred.'There was a bloodcurdling
scream. I was just reading my book, and all of a sudden, I heard it,' Garnet
Caton, who was sitting in front of the two men, told Canadian TV network, CBC.
'It was like something between a dog howling and a baby crying, I guess you
could say,' Caton said. 'I don't think it will leave me for a while.'

The bus jerked to a halt when the stabbing commenced. Passengers then fled the bus before returning to block the exit of the attacker. A truck driver stopped and
lent assistance.Caton, the bus driver, and the trucker re-boarded the bus to
check on the victim."When we came back on the bus, it was visible at the end of
the bus he was cutting the guy's head off and pretty much gutting him up," Caton
told CBC.The attacker ran at them, Caton said, and they ran out of the bus,
holding the door shut as he tried to slash at the trio.When the attacker tried
to drive the bus away, the driver disabled the vehicle, he said."While we were
watching the door, he calmly walks up to the front with the head in his hand and
the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us,"
said Caton.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police crisis teams, including negotiators,
negotiated with the suspect, believed to be a 40-year-old man, for several hours
while he was on the bus. Around 1:30am he attempted to jump from a bus window
and was subdued and arrested, the RCMP said.The man is now in the custody of the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Manitoba, an RCNP spokesman said. The spokesman
said he had yet to be charged.The bus was travelling from Edmonton, Alberta, to
Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was about 45 minutes from its destination when the
attack occurred, Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh in Dallas, Texas
said.Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said that like most
Canadians, he was horrified to hear witness accounts of the homicide."The
horrific nature of it is probably one of a kind in Canadian history," he told
reporters late Thursday morning in Levis, Que.Greyhound Canada is the largest
provider of intercity bus transportation in Canada, serving nearly 700
communities and facilitating 1,000 daily departures across the country.

Vicious Grasshopper!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Whoever said grasshoppers were harmless? Are not they the cousin to the locust? Last night about 9pm I was coming home and I approached the side door off the garage. There was a bright green, really pretty grasshopper on the door. If I put in my key I was afraid it would hop on me. I am not afraid of the grass hopper like I am of the killer praying mantis. Just the same, I did not want it too close to me.

I raised the Art of War and waved it near the grasshoppser hoping it would hopaway to some other place. It did. It hopped to the opposite wall next to the door. I waited about 10 seconds and it was very still. I did not move. It was now to my right and I would have no problems getting the key in the lock. I made a step forward and all of a sudden, it leaped, with fangs outstretched toward my face into my face and hit me in the bottom lip. It clung to my lip and I began to jump and flail my arms and made movements toward my lip. fiannly it let go and off it flew to parts unknown. Grasshoppers harmless my eye! They are the distant cousin to the mantis. I should have know better. Next time, no waving of the book. It will be smashing of the book on its lime green body!

You Are Never More Than 6 Feet Away From A Spider!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Who was it who said that you are never more than six feet from a spider? I do not know but I just heard it again recently on a tv show. CSI? Tracking a woman who has split personalities? No, it was Cold Case or something. I forget. She collected spiders and milked them. This morning I get into the shower and I was scrubbing when something told me to look down. I had the odd sensation that something was near my heel. The left one. I looked down and smashed was a very large spider. I had smashed it with my foot while I was taking a shower. Not a daddy long legs. It was some hideously large spider with a bulbous stomach. It legs were all crunched up and the only thin I could think of was Arachnaphobia! I almost screamed. I looked frantically up and around the shower in all directions. Was there a web? Were there more? I was freaked. I told myself to hurry up and get out. I did. Where did it come from? It was hunting for me and I luckily won. Not by any skill, but by having my eyes closed, washing my face in the shower.

My motto? The only good spider is a crushed spider! It is true no matter what you are doing or where in the world you are. Even in the most spotlessly clean homes, those spiders are lurking. Even while sleeping. You are never more than six feet from a spider.

Squeakfart!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

I work in an office with someone who has a lot of bodily noises. I mean she is a woman and she has to be just about the grossest person to be around. I used to think I had a strong stomach. Now I am not so sure. All throughout a normal day when she is not sick the noises are incredible. I sit about 1 door down from her office and it is just amazing all the odd noises her body makes. She is in a very small office that she shares with another girl. I feel so sorry for the other girl.

From my desk, all day long, I can hear burping, belching, hiccuping and sneezing. How loud? Sometimes the burps are off the scale as far as decibels. Then I can hear farting and next, I hear the other girl running out of the office to take a break. If she eats in the office, there is an odd, loud clicking or popping of her tongue as she eats. WTF? I have never heard or seen anyone make that noise as they eat with their tongue. It sounds like she is popping gum, yet she has no gum in her mouth. I can't eat around her. Makes me want to vomit. Literally.

God help us all if she is sick. Imagine all that above each day and on top of it the following. If she has a cold..nasal....well she is snuffling up mucus all day. Hawking up mucus all day and coughing. Just writing about it is making my stomach turn. She does not want to blow her nose so the mucus is constant. I tell her to blow it out. Not keep it in. When she is sick her office mate spends as much time away from the office as possible. I cannot blame her. It is disgusting.

The other thing is that she does not seem to care. I have reached the point where I tell her all her bodily noises are offensive to all. It does not phase her one bit. She relishes in it....many times saying what needs to come out...fart, burp..has to come out. So we are stuck with "Squeakfart." Even worse....think about it. She is most likely being on her best behavior in the office. Imagine her relaxed at home.

Night Scapes

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Last night I was dreaming. About what I can't recall.
Now in the light of day.
It was a good time. I was most interested, then odd and out of the blue.
I heard a voice yell MOM.
In my dream, like an alarm.
It fit nowhere with anything that was happening.

Awoke I did. The time was not 3:15AM. Dark was all. And Quiet.
I listened. Was it my REAL child? Was something happening and she called me with her mind?
Those circumstances would be dangerous for her.

I got up just to see. I sleep in the other wing. Isolated and alone.
I padded heavily back to her room and all was well.
I peeked in to see drawers half open, clothes on the floor.
Typical room. Typical teen.

I went to her. Pulled the covers back slightly and she stirred.
Her eyes opened but she did not see me....really.
This morning she had no recollection of my visit.

That call puzzles me still.
MOM!
It was a voice of alarm from another place.
Me, it wanted. Me.
I hope she is alright
I could not get to her.

Call again......I am here!

11:11

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

I am plagued by the 11:11 phenomena. It has been occuring for many years, but moreso since my father died in 2006. Before 2006 I did not have the 11:11 that I could even notice. What I did have was street lights turning on and off at a particular light whenever I passed. It was most odd. I at first contributed it to a short but then it happened so many times it was something that could not be associated with short of a bad timing mechanism.

Just about 3 weeks ago I decided to google 11:11 and lo and behold, there is a mess of stuff out there. I had no idea. I was amazed. It is not a random thing. Millions of folks all around the world are now seeing these amazing 11:11 prompts. They are folks of all colours, all religions, all beliefs. It's spreading, and becoming far more common; it's become a major phenomenon. You can't stop it, because YOU aren't doing it. Sometimes you will even see these numbers flashing after a power outage, even though digital clocks are supposed to reset to 12:00, not 11:11 or 12:12. Now I would be very upset if the clock reset to 11:11. Creepy.

It is not me. It is my spirit guide who is letting me know that I am on the right path. They are apparently letting us know we are in the middle of an era of awaking. I just know it sure is odd.

I Want To Live HERE!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

This is my dream house. I am a sci-fi geek, extraordinaire, so this house is right up my alley. UFO's are real and aliens do live among us now. I believe that and always have. I have seen a ship as well. That was what changed my life....seeing that ship when I was in college, my freshman year. It was a horrible and terrifying experience. It made me very fearful for a long time..like I could be seen ny them at any time and just taken.

This great home has a starting bid of $100,000. I know it will only go up from there. More here.

Child Born With Four Legs

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

A child was born with four legs at the Lebowakgomo hospital outside Polokwane on Thursday night, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio news reports.

Provincial health department spokesperson Phuthi Seloba said: ""This is a very strange case. In the past 10 years in this province we've never seen such a case.

"But most of our doctors are familiar with this type of problem and they've committed themselves and vowed that they will continue to support the mother and help the baby to live a normal life," he said.

The condition of being born with extra limbs, known as "polymelia", is rare among both humans and animals.

A case last occurred in Zambia in July 2003, the SABC reported.

New Taste Sensations

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Fried Tarantulas

Toss spiders in a mixture of msg, sugar, and salt; fry crushed garlic is in oil until fragrant, then add spiders and fry alongside the garlic until “the legs are almost completely stiff, by which time the contents of the abdomen are not so runny. Cool and enjoy the crunch!

What can you expect? The taste is mostly described as bland, with a textural contrast between a crispy exterior and soft centre. The legs contain little flesh, while the head and body have “a delicate white meat inside”. The abdomen, however, many find not as pleasant: inside is a brown paste consisting perhaps of organs, eggs, or excrement. Some call it a delicacy while others recommend not eating it.

After doing a search on spiders of the Amazon, I found out all sorts of lovely things. Tarantulas are eaten by many people there. Some tarantulas are the size of blue crabs on up to a 12 inch pizza pan. Some are even bigger, like the goliath bird eating tarantula. Imagine how big if they are eating birds. These spiders are roasted over an open fire until cooked. Legs are cracked open like crabs and eaten and then the body is eaten. The needlelike long fangs are used as toothpicks by the villagers who eat them.

Odd News of the Day

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Now this is something you would not even think exists...vats of fish feces?

Rescuers cut through a filtration tank of dense fish feces to reach four workers who fell into the sludgy dung Friday while cleaning the 18-foot tank at a western Massachusetts farm.

The workers became trapped for 45 minutes after a bracket holding a plastic filtration pad collapsed as workers stood on it to clean the fiberglass tank at the Australis Aquaculture fish farm, said Turners Falls Fire Capt. David Dion and the fish farm's manager, Josh Goldman.
More here

Bats in the belfry! Be sure to check your attic from time to time!

An upstate New York couple didn't think a few bats in the attic were much of a problem when they were buying a house last summer.

Months later, they found out how wrong they were -- when they discovered more than a ton-and-a-half of bat droppings up there.

Nick LaBoda and Jenna Caputo say a home inspector informed them about the bats. They called an exterminator, who told them to wait awhile before removing the bats because the babies were too young to fly.
More here

Two hearts are better than one! Now this story I really do not think is right. That heart was in another person's body already. I would think that it would need to be checked out. Who knows what the person who had it did as far as upkeep of his own health once he got it. Plus all the drugs to stop rejection. This does not sound like such a good thing.

Two months ago at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, surgeons removed a transplanted heart from a patient who had died and re-transplanted it in another recipient.

"To my knowledge, this is the first time this has been done with a transplanted heart," Dr. Lawrence S. C. Czer, medical director of the center's heart transplant program, told Reuters. "Even with other organs, repeat transplantation is very rare."

The second patient was a 45-year-old man with noncompaction syndrome, a rare cardiac condition in which the heart assumes a sponge-like appearance. The disease is progressive, and the man's heart became more and more disabled despite the best medical therapy.
More here

The king and queen of thugs are at it again. Bobby GET A JOB!

Bobby Brown is suing ex-wife Whitney Houston and seeking to change the terms of their custody arrangement for their 14-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina.

In court documents filed in Orange County, Calif., Brown, 40, says that financial and emotional problems prevented him from filing a response to Houston's divorce papers.

"After Whitney and I separated, I had nowhere to go and very little money to live on," Brown states. "I was, for all intents and purposes, homeless."
More here

Fighting Over Vivaldi?

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Who gets into a fight at the symphony? It is not like it was a truck rally and everyone is drinking beer! I can't believe it! Did one thing the note was allegro verses not? A whole and not a half? Bass clef and not treble? What could have resultedin a fight at the symphony?

Concert-goers, and even Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, were caught off-guard when a fight broke out on opening night at usually sedate Symphony Hall.

Television video of the fight Wednesday night showed two men struggling in the balcony -- one with his shirt pulled off -- as several people stood around them.

Lockhart briefly halted the performance, which featured singer-songwriter Ben Folds, while the men were escorted out.

Spiders Snap, Crackle & Pop!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

What do spiders sound like when the walk on your eardrums? They snap, crackle and pop. this boy found that out when he had an earache and went to the doctors. They found live spiders living in his ears. Can we say gross and when was the last time he had a bath and washed his ears? I would be terrified! His mother should be appalled. They had made a home in his ears and were living there! They weren't little either! Now his mother has taken them to work as show and tell. How clean is that house? I would have to think really hard about sleeping there. Or eating there for that matter. Yuk!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy's ear -- "like Rice Krispies" -- ended up as an earache, and the doctor's diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear.

"They were walking on my eardrums," Jesse Courtney said.

One of the spiders was still alive after the doctor flushed the fourth-grader's left ear canal. His mother, Diane Courtney, said her son insisted he kept hearing a faint popping in his ear -- "like Rice Krispies."

Dr. David Irvine said it looked like the boy had something in his ear when he examined him.

When he irrigated the ear, the first spider came out, dead. The other spider took a second dousing before it emerged, still alive. Both were about the size of a pencil eraser.

Jesse was given the spiders -- now both dead -- as a souvenir. He has taken them to school and his mother has taken them to work.

Wicca Symbol Allowed on Military Headstones

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

I have heard it all. Wicca figure is now allowed on military headstones. I know that the government is not allowed to get mixed up in religion but something just seems not right with this. I guess it is the mystery and darkness that surrounds Wicca. I confess that I know nothing about Wicca and that belief system. From the movies and horror it seems to be something scary and dark. With that being allowed on headstones, it seems like the dark side is being recognized. It is a different world now. Anything goes. In a country where freedom of religion is a right, it means all religion. Even the Wicca.

The Wiccan pentacle has been added to the list of emblems allowed in national cemeteries and on goverment-issued headstones of fallen soldiers, according to a settlement announced Monday.

A settlement between the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Wiccans adds the five-pointed star to the list of "emblems of belief" allowed on VA grave markers.

Eleven families nationwide are waiting for grave markers with the pentacle, said Selena Fox, a Wiccan high priestess with Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wis., a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The settlement calls for the pentacle, whose five points represent earth, air, fire, water and spirit, to be placed on grave markers within 14 days for those who have pending requests with the VA.

Odd Fungal News

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Scientists have identified the Godzilla of fungi, a giant, prehistoric fossil that has evaded classification for more than a century, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

A chemical analysis has shown that the 20-foot-tall (6-metre) organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago, according to a study appearing in the May issue of the journal Geology.

Known as Prototaxites, the giant fungus originally was thought to be a conifer. Then some believed it was a lichen, or various types of algae. Some suspected it was a fungus.

"A 20-foot-fungus doesn't make any sense. Neither does a 20-foot-tall algae make any sense, but here's the fossil," C. Kevin Boyce, a University of Chicago assistant professor of geophysical sciences, said in a statement.

Francis Hueber of the National Museum of Natural History first suggested the fungus possibility based on an analysis of the fossil's internal structure, but had no conclusive proof.

Boyce and colleagues filled in the blanks, comparing the types of carbon found in the giant fossil with plants that lived about the same time, about 400 million years ago.

If Prototaxites were a plant, its carbon structures would resemble similar plants. Instead, Boyce found a much greater diversity in carbon content than would have been expected of a plant.

Fungi, which include yeast, mold and mushrooms, represent their own kingdom, neither plant nor animal. Once classified as plants, they are now considered a closer cousin to animals but they absorb rather than eat their food.

Samples of the giant fungi have been found all over the world from 420 million to 350 million years ago during a period in which millipedes, bugs and worms were among the first creatures to make their home on dry land. No animals with a backbone had left the oceans yet.

The tallest trees stood no more than a couple of feet (a meter) high, offering little competition for the towering fungi.

Plant-eating dinosaurs had not yet evolved to trample Prototaxites' to the ground. "It's hard to imagine these things surviving in the modern world," Boyce said.

God Sent a Horsefly to Wake Me Up

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

I was told a fantastic story on yesterday by my mother. She actually believes this. Long ago when she was first married to my father, the heat went out one very cold night. They were using space heaters and she moved a small heater to the bedroom. She went to sleep. Some hours later she was awaken by the sound of a loud horsefly buzzing right by her head.

The fly woke her up. She looked up and the fly was on the curtain above her looking down at her. She realized that she needed to get up and turn off the heater and open the door. All the air was being sucked out of that room and she was way too hot. She swears that the horsefly was sent by god to wake her up.

My take? I told her no such thing happened. It just happened to be a fly in the room flying around. She swears the fly just disappeared after that. My take? She opened the door and it flew into another part of the house. There is just no changing her mind.

World Dribble

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.


Today more but different.
Dribble of the world.

Putin is going to take over the U.S. government and one day we will wake up and someone else will be in power.

I don't want to eat anything from China. Too many people over there. Too many people for them to be clean. They are dirty people.

Jim Jones is the devil. Satan.

Bush is the worst president ever. I can't wait for him to get out of office.

Most of the followers of Jim Jones were ignorant and uneducated. He would have to cut off all my fingers before I signed a paper giving him my children.

I get so sick of hearing it. Opinions convoluted with a few facts. Twisted into thoughts that make no sense. Dribble.

I think world dribble is the worst. A little knowledge CAN be a dangerous thing.

It can caused dribble which can be dangerous to the ears.
Dribble.

World Dribble.