Friday Night Miscellany

An earthquake hit in the midwest at 4:37 a.m. this morning and was felt as far north as Pestigo, Wisconsin (I'm in Milwaukee). I didn't know it though, until I finally got up shortly after 6 a.m. and eventually rambled downstairs to turn the radio on, feed my critters and make some coffee. It was all over the "all news all the time" radio station I listen to while I get ready for work, complete with "live witness accounts" phoned in (with obviously phoney accounts of stuff jumping off the walls and loud thunder-like noises, but I digress!) I didn't feel a thing (no bed shaking, no rattling of windows) but I was awake. Actually, I awoke according to my clock at 4:38 a.m., but my clock is about 3 minutes fast, so I woke up and rolled over to look at the clock about 4:35 a.m., a full two minutes before the quake occurred. Assuming it would take perhaps a minute for the vibrations to make their way through the bedrock to hit Milwaukee, I anticipated the earthquake by at least 2 minutes, if not more. Stranger still, I distinctly remember hearing a semi-loud "crack" which I attributed to one or more of the trusses in the roof and/or garage roof making their usual strange "house noise." As I rolled over again, thumped my pillows and settled back in to try and get a little more sleep (an iffy thing these days) before I knew the alarm would go off at 6 a.m., I remember thinking somewhat fuzzily that it was rather strange that the wood should crack as it did, as there had been no drastic temperature changes during the past few days and no rain, and so there was nothing to account for one or more wood joints deciding to make such a loud noise. But, as we all know, houses and apartments invariably make strange noises at all hours of the day and night, and who knows the rhyme or reason therefor? Soooo, I missed the Friday Night Miscellany next - oops! - last - week. I had intended to put it up the next day, but got sidetracked by other things, and etc. But I'm back tonight - for a little while. Tomorrow will be a busy day, hopefully not dodging raindrops as the forecast presently calls for. We were supposed to have rain last night and today, too, but none fell, yippee! We surely don't need it. I'm absolutely itching to get out in the yard and start cleaning up. I did manage to pick up the largest branches that came crashing down during the long winter - but we've had several windy days since then and more have come down since the yard waste pick-up on April 15th. Isn't that always the way it goes, lol! It's still soggy and mushy out there! We had one 70 degree day - the Goddess and her Temptress ways teasing us with a hint of real spring. Sigh. Not enough to dry out the ground sufficiently to be thoroughly raked and cleaned, at least, not in my back yard. On the plus side, the stock market was up over 200 points today and was at its highest in several weeks. The various portfolios in which I have an interest have responded accordingly, yippee :) Wish I had millions invested instead of mere thousands. Oh well. You know, darlings, I must have been suffering through post-post-menstrual syndrome the past week or more, as absolutely nothing, and I do mean nothing, that I read in the "latest archaeological news" did a thing for me, no, not a single thing. I forced myself to post a few items here at the blog because there's been very little chess femme news to cover - I'm waiting for the next big advert of tournament news at The Week in Chess. A double drought! No really big discoveries, nothing related to women and/or the goddess - how frustrating. I couldn't even summon up sufficient enthusiasm for anything at the Daily Grail but, in keeping with the tenor of my usual Friday Night Miscellany posts, I will do my best, so here goes: Oh, this is wonderful news: ... A team of disease hunters has announced the discovery of a deadly new virus, found in a remote village in South America. Experts say the virus – named Chapare – is probably limited to a small swathe of Bolivia, but urbanisation and climate change could expand its range... "Vanishing lakes" have been in the news over the past several months. Here's the latest. Query: What happens if the glaciers really melt all the way down? What do people who depend on glacier-fed springs and rivers for drinking water do if there are no more glaciers? Oh my! Okay, now I've heard it all: the way to solve the current food crisis is through growing more POTATOES. Yeah, and not a mention of the some 4 million Irish who died during the great Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's, famine that caused a world-wide diaspora of ethnic Irish. That was then - before modern-day immigration laws, and a hard time they had of it, too. And how many died shipping over in un-seaworthy ships? What would happen now if millions of acres of modern-day potatoes should fail due to "blight?" Europe and the USA already have an immigration problem. Where would the masses of hungry go then? Russia? China? Geez, I really MUST be post-hormonal tonight Yikes! Nothing but doom and gloom. Peru occuses Yale of stealing 40,000 artifacts...Yale says they are having problems counting... Okay, okay, I'll try to do better... The Case of the Cursed Baseball Jersey: Jersey buried by Red Sox Fan uncovered at new Yankee Stadium (under construction, forever, apparently), and - get this: the Yankees plan to donate the jersey to charity, and may pursue a lawsuit against the construction worker. Geez, what a bunch of frigging jerks! Lizardman is blameless! It was actually Bigfoot who done it... 'night.