Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

I’d like to present the newest member of the Byrd Family, Mitzi Francis Ava. (We might have had some difficulty agreeing on the name, so she got a few of them.) She’s a beautiful, energetic German Shepherd puppy, born December 15th. We got her yesterday. Did she keep us up all night with her whining, barking and frequent potty trips? Yes. Do I have big plans for her as SWATproof guard dog? Yes. Did Rachel say I couldn’t get a bullet-proof vest for Mitzi unless I sold my closet full of swords? Yes. Anyone want a 5 foot Claymore or some gently-used Samurai swords?

Mitzi is a Germanic name which means rebellious and obstinate. Both adjectives apply fittingly to her. A runner-up name was Berlin (as in the Wall), because our dog is an essential part of our home security. The name Ava is also of German origin.

What have we learned about our dog? She has huge paws and doesn’t like to be left alone. She enjoys the Love Sac and sleeping in the laundry basket of clothes. For background, I didn’t grow up in a dog family, so I’m not an innate dog-person. Though I do have an early memory of a black, curly haired poodle named Jenny. But Jenny was “given away”* inexplicably when I was 5 or 6 years old. I do like the concept of a dog, particularly a useful dog.

Yes, we’re training Mitzi to understand German commands like we planned…

*likely a euphemism for the pound or worse.

The answer is nobody. Marie Byrd Land is a big swath (1,610,000 km²) of land in Antarctica (east of the Ross Ice Shelf, if you want to get specific.) My famous ancestor, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, explored the area in 1929, and named the area in honor of his wife.

Most of Marie Byrd Land (the portion east of 150°W) has not been claimed by any nation. It is not a recognized nation, making it by far the largest single unclaimed territory on Earth. As such, I’d like to claim it. For your information, as far as I’m aware, there is only one other unclaimed piece of land on Earth, the Bir Tawil Triangle (not actually a triangle), between Egypt and Sudan. I’d like to claim that too.

I suppose to claim land you need 1-a basis for the claim and 2-to be a sovereign nation. Acquring land is an important step in becoming a country. Foriegn Policy magazine once published an article “How to Start Your own Country in Four Easy Steps.” Those steps are:

1. Acquire land
2. Acquire a population
3. Create a constitution and a functioning government
4. Behave like a real country toward other countries.

We’ll need a flag, obvious, and a country name (Antarcticland is taken…). Most of our revenue will come from our domain name sales of our new TLD. I think The Nation of ByrdLand sounds good.

Here’s a wikihow article on Nation Starting.

Will you join my country?

W might have misused one of these today over IM, so maybe I’m correcting him because I’m sometimes an English language Nazi. Sometimes.

• Yeah - sounds like “yeh”. Means yes. Yeah is the most common of these words. It is often used as just a one-word answer to a yes-or-no question. “Hey babe, dinner and make-out?” “Yeah, I’m in.”
• Yah – is also an expression of agreement without enthusiasm. The word yah is usually just used as a more modern, slang spelling of the word yeah. It is often used in texting, and is just a shortening of yeah. Most commonly used to show agreement with an idea, in the same way yeah does. The pronunciation may be the same as yeah, or it may be pronounced more like yaw.”Ready to go?”  “yah“
• Yay – rhymes with day, May and hay and is a synonym of hooray. The opposite of “boo!” Usually used as an interjection and exclamation to show jubilation.”Did I tell you I won a sweet iPad?” “No! That rocks. Yay!”
• Ya – meaning you–  “How are ya?”
• Yea – old-fashioned formal way of saying “yes,” used mainly in voting in old-school, legislative bodies. It’s the opposite of—and rhymes with—“nay.” “All in favor say yea, all opposed nay.”

AND… yay can also refer to height, if you’re ancient and live in the South, as in “when I was yay big” [holding hand up]

srcs: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/yea.html http://www.genpink.com/yeah-yay-yah-ya/ http://herfivecents.blogspot.com/2009/02/lessons-in-spelling-and-grammar-ya-yeah.html

Just a short time ago, I wrote the following “Hollywood Video will likely be out of business in less than two years, but I predict that Blockbuster will be gone in under five. Here’s why: they are selling physical rental of electronic bits and that is becoming increasingly silly“, (Renting Bits and Losing Money.)

59 minutes ago, the major news outlets began reporting that, “Movie Gallery Inc., owner of the Hollywood Video movie rental chain, has filed for Chapter 11 protection and plans to close 805 stores — about a third of its total. Its the second trip through bankruptcy court in just three years for Movie Gallery. The company is struggling with competition as more people choose to stream videos online from Netflix Inc…“

I know, it’s only Chapter 11, which is a re-organizational bankruptcy filing, but it’s a pretty good indicator of poor financial health. They should have read RBDN…

Can they save themselves? Well, they’ll first need a strong online offering like Netflix, Hulu and Blockbuster.

Will they survive?

Hormel, maker of fine foodstuffs such as SPAM and SPAM-lite, also produces and purveys cans of Potted Meat Food Product. Sound yummy? You can pick up a few cans at any grocery store.

What’s in this sumptuous meat spread? Ingredients: Beef Tripe, Mechanically Separated Chicken, Beef Hearts, Partially Defatted Cooked Beef Fatty Tissue, Meat Broth, Vinegar, Salt, Flavoring, Sugar, Sodium Nitrite.

What is mechanically separated chicken? It’s “a paste-like poultry product produced by forcing crushed bone and tissue through a sieve or similar device to separate bone from tissue.“

This recession we’re in means you need to make more money, save more money and spend less money. Here’s a great life skill lesson on the latter. You can save a lot of money by timing the things you buy. This mainly means buying things off-season. A few examples:

Buy air conditioners and BBQ grills and houses in the winter, and buy used cars just before summer. Pick up a gym membership in the middle of summer. Purchase candy right after Halloween. Here’s a monthly breakdown the peps over at lifehacker compiled:

• January: digital cameras, carpet
• February: chocolate (after Valentine’s day)
• March: winter wear (clearance sales)
• April: used cars
• May: party supplies
• June: gym membership
• July: furniture
• August: laptops
• September: lawn mowers
• October: cookware
• November: candy
• December: wedding dresses

That will be $5, please. How do you save $?

src: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1SAYGk/lifehacker.com/5440376/the-best-times-to-buy-anything-all-year-round

src http://www.lefthandedtoons.com/

“The phonetic alphabet is a mapping of individual letters and numbers to specially chosen words which are unlikely to be mistaken for one another (for instance, none of the words in the phonetic alphabet rhyme). By substituting the NATO alphabet telephony for independent letters and numbers, you can ensure other parties (who also grasp the idea of the phonetic alphabet) can reliably interpret your communication. And you can avoid sounding like a character on a Saturday morning children’s show, repeating, “A as in apple, B as in ball…”" (packetlife.net)

Pyramids of Egypt, Chichen Itza, Pompeii, Mont St Michel, Great Wall of China, Petra, Kashmir Valley, Topkapi Palace, Taj Mahal, Nile River Cruise, Prague Old Town, Carnival in Rio, Serengeti Migration, Easter Island, Golden Temple, Stonehenge, Galapagos Islands, Cappadocia, Amalfi Drive, Angel Falls, Grand Canyon, Colosseum of Rome, Meenakshi, Yellowstone NP, Machu Picchu, Fjords of Norway, Chartres Cathedral, Santorini, Antarctica Cruise, St Peter’s Basilica, Mezquita Cordoba, Matterhorn, Iguazu Falls, Egyptian Museum, Damascus Old City, New York Skyline, Bali, Borobudur, Dubrovnik, Marrakesh, Amazon Rain Forest, Valley of the Kings, Uffizi Gallery, Eiffel Tower, Ngorongoro Crater, Hong Kong, Rio Panoramic View, Ladakh, Great Barrier Reef, Sistine Chapel, Golden Pavilion, Niagara Falls, Angkor Wat, Burj Khalifa, Delphi, British Museum, Victoria Falls, Alhambra, St. Basils Cathedral, Burj al Arab, Forbidden City, Louvre Museum, Abu Simbel, Yangtze Riv. Cruise, Bagan, Canals of Venice, St Mark’s Basilica, Yosemite NP, Karnak, Versailles, Florence Cityscape, Ayers Rock, Teotihuacan, Carlsbad Caverns, Kremlin, Hermitage Museum, Banaue Rice Terr., Mecca, Varanasi/Ganges, Chambord Chateau, Bora Bora, Kathmandu Valley, Li River Cruise, Lijiang/Shangri La, Acropolis, Metropolitan Mus, Shwedagon Stupa, Neuschwanstein, Potala Palace, Mt Everest, Sahara Desert, Banff NP, Jerusalem Old City, Temple Em. Buddha, Leaning Tower Pisa, San Francisco, TerraCotta Warriors, Hagia Sofia, Baalbek, Portofino

Generally if people say that instead of laughing, it means it’s not very funny.

Here are some actually funny quotations from Comedian Mitch Hedberg.

• An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
• Wearing a turtleneck is like being strangled by a really weak guy, all day. Wearing a backpack and a turtleneck is like a weak midget trying to bring you down.
• I want to get a vending machine, with fun sized candy bars, and the glass in front is a magnifying glass. You’ll be mad, but it will be too late.
• When someone hands you a flyer, it’s like they’re saying here you throw this away.
• I don’t have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who’d be mad at me for saying that.
• I would imagine that if you could understand Morse code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy.
• Fettucini alfredo is macaroni and cheese for adults.
• I haven’t slept for ten days, because that would be too long.
• You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let it go. They don’t want to eat the fish, they just want to make it late for something.
• I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to show it.
• A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer.
• They say Sprite is made out of lemon and lime. I tried to make it at home, there’s more to it than that.