When your toilet’s got rings and lime scale stains and you’ve got no cleaning gear on hand, grab a can of Coke out of the fridge.
According to wikiHow, you can pour Coke into a dirty toilet and the carbonic, citric, and phosphoric acids in it will break down stains, especially if you can leave it overnight to do the work.
Day: January 5, 2009
New Mexico Favorite Books
“Clear some space on your bookshelf as six of our state’s best authors name the New Mexico books that have influenced them. At the top of the list: A collection of moving environmental essays, a novel with a conscience, a historical diary, and three Southwestern classics.”
Big Ten’s play not worthy of BCS
“There are a lot of little things that go on in there,” Paterno said following the loss. “I think in all fairness without, again, being a crybaby, I think in all fairness when you play Southern Cal, they’re home and they practice where they normally practice. It’s a lot easier for them to get ready.”
If the traveling parameters are too much for the conference, then perhaps the Big Ten should pull out of the BCS altogether and commit its conference champion to the Motor City Bowl.
I say the BCS should be like European futbol — realign after each season and throw out next year’s automatic bid for the conference that performs worst. Out with the Big East, in with the Mountain West. Out with the Big 10, in with the WAC.
• The Big Ten is winless in six Rose Bowls this decade, losing by almost a two-to-one margin in those defeats — 219-121.
• It’s now lost its last five BCS games by more than a two-to-one margin — 198-97.
• The Big Ten’s BCS record of 4-10 this decade is the second-worst winning percentage of the six major conferences.
Anybody think Ohio State is going to improve upon that against Texas tonight?
Ouch
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp.’s 2008 U.S. sales plunged to a 49-year low, dragged down by a 31 percent plunge in December as demand was ravaged by the recession and concern that the biggest domestic automaker might collapse.
Toyota Motor Corp.’s U.S. deliveries plummeted 37 percent last month, while Honda Motor Co. slipped 35 percent, Ford Motor Co. fell 32 percent and Nissan Motor Co. was down 31 percent, pointing toward the industry’s worst annual volume since 1992.
… Ford’s annual U.S. sales sagged to a 47-year low, while GM’s total of 2.98 million was the least since 1959, according to trade publication Automotive News.
Update: Wow, Chrysler sales off 53%. We won’t be seeing those Dodge truck ads much longer — because we won’t be seeing Dodge trucks much longer.
Oh, and an old complaint with me. Why can’t the coverage of these statistics be more meaningful? How about a three or better yet five-year running average to compare sales against. Any one year or month can be an anomaly.
Works for me
The end of the holidays, cold weather and economic gloom will make today one of the most stressful days of the year for returning to work.
But experts have come up with an unlikely remedy – throwing a tantrum.
…‘When stress threatens to overwhelm you, try a short sustained burst of shouting, or alternatively, go somewhere quiet, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to help calm you down.’
I’m taking the tantrum remedy.
Oh, wait, I’m retired. I don’t have to return to work today. I don’t have to do anything today.
There are heroes, and then there are super heroes
Originally posted here three years ago:
Mack, official oldest grandchild of NewMexiKen, watched much of the Rose Bowl with his mother Wednesday night. Here’s the story as told by his mother, Jill:
The honorary marshal came onto the field, before the game, to flip the coin. I saw that it was Sandra Day O’Connor.
I said, “Oh, Mack, that is one of my heroes.”
“Why?”
I referenced conversations we’ve had in the past, “You know how we’ve talked about how, for thousands of years, men got to be in charge of everything and women didn’t get to do lots of things?” (Mack has a fairly solid background knowledge in this stuff, at least for a five-year-old boy.)
“Yes, like how they couldn’t vote or have a house or do lots of jobs?”
“Right. Well one job they didn’t get to do was be a judge. A judge gets to decide the laws for all the people to follow. It’s a really important job. Well, that lady was the first woman who got to be a judge. So she is one of Mommy’s heroes.” (Not strictly accurate, I know.)
Mack looked at me for a minute, then said, “Then she is one of my heroes, too.”
My heart melted. I put my arms out for a hug, so proud of my brilliant, sensitive child.
He continued, “Yes. Also Batman.”
60 Years Ago Today!
President Harry S. Truman in his State of the Union Address:
We must spare no effort to raise the general level of health in this country. In a nation as rich as ours, it is a shocking fact that tens of millions lack adequate medical care. We are short of doctors, hospitals, nurses. We must remedy these shortages. Moreover, we need–and we must have without further delay–a system of prepaid medical insurance which will enable every American to afford good medical care.
On the 12th Day of Christmas
Though advertisers and merchants would have us believe that the Christmas season begins at Thanksgiving (or possibly Halloween, or even Labor Day), liturgically it begins on Christmas Eve and extends until Twelfth Night, the eve of the Epiphany.
The Twelve Days of Christmas are Christmas through January 5th. Tonight is Twelfth night.
January 5th
Robert Duvall was born in San Diego 78 years ago today. Duvall won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies in 1983. Among other characters he has portrayed are Boo Radley, Frank Burns, Tom Hagen, Lt. Col. William ‘Bill’ Kilgore, Bull Meechum and the unforgettable Augustus McCrae.
Walter F. Mondale is 81.
Umberto Eco is 77 today.
Eco had never written any fiction, but the idea intrigued him, so he told the publisher that he would work on something. He got the idea of a murder mystery set in the Middle Ages, and he wrote about a Franciscan friar who stumbles upon a series of interrelated deaths in the Italian abbey he is visiting. He filled the book with the history of the 14th century, as well as philosophy and theology. He also used every trick he’d ever learned from studying detective novels and spy movies to create his protagonist, William of Baskerville.
When Eco finished the novel, titled The Name of the Rose, he thought that his publishers were being way too optimistic when they ordered 30,000 copies to be printed. But when it came out in 1980, The Name of the Rose sold 2 million copies.
Charlie Rose is 67 today.
Diane Keaton was born in Los Angeles 63 years ago today. Keaton won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Hall in 1977. She has had three other Oscar nominations. She has never married but has adopted two children. Her real name is Diane Hall; she changed to Keaton, her mother’s maiden name, because there was already a Diane Hall in the Actor’s Guild.
Marilyn Manson is 40.
January Jones is 31 today.
The End of the Financial World as We Know It
I thought this was good, not great, but it’s all the rage today so maybe you should take a look at Michael Lewis and David Einhorn’s The End of the Financial World as We Know It from Sunday’s New York Times.
The link is to the first of two parts. The second part is How to Repair a Broken Financial World.
In this morning’s column Krugman says, “The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.”
The 10 Best American Movies
“… like everyone else I have a list, in my case a list of the 10 best American movies ever. Here it is, with brief descriptions and no justifications. Only the first two films are in order. The others are all tied for third.”
Go take a look. I think I’ll add the ones I haven’t seen to my Netflix queue — and maybe the ones I have seen need another look, too.
I do agree that his number one, The Best Years of Our Lives, is among the very best films ever.