Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Who Asked Cardine?

The answer: nobody. Nobody asked me any of this, but I'm going to share my opinion. This week I've been noticing stories in the news.

(I should warn you here that today I discovered that my "sence" of humor was completely gone and that I was not finding much pleasure, if any, in the musings of others. If you're expecting a happy post, you should know that this will be laden with ... complaining or bitterness or something of that sort. I would tell you to stop reading here, but I desire all people to be miserable like unto myself and to find no pleasure, so please, read on.)

Anyway, first story: On August 28, 2006, the oldest person in the world died. Her name is Maria Esther de Capovilla. She was born the same year as Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler, which means that she was 116. That's nice.

Hello!!! Didn't the oldest person just die? Isn't the oldest person dying about every year? Is this news? They're OLD. After one dies, the next oldest person is still old. They're going to die soon, too. Is that news? Is it in the news everytime the youngest person is born? No! It's because it happens everyday! Now the presumed oldest person is Elizabeth Bolden of Memphis, TN. She is also 116. When will she die? Probably in the next year. Maybe not, though.

Just for fun, here is a list of the last eight oldest person deaths (all of this data is taken from various sources on the internet):

August 28, 2006 - Maria Esther de Capovilla - 116
May 29, 2004 - Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan - 114
November 13, 2003 - Mitoyo Kawate - 114
October 31, 2003 - Kamato Hongo - 116
March 18, 2002 - Maude Ferris-Luse - 114
June 6, 2001 - Marie Bremont - 115
November 2, 2000 - Eva Morris - 115
December 30, 1999 - Sarah Knauss - 119

Maybe it is interesting to note this stuff. Maybe people read those sort of news stories and are intrigued. Maybe it's because a non-oldest lady had a column about her earlier this month that I am thinking it happens everyday. Maybe I actually had a good time finding the oldest people and reading about them. D'oh! I'm starting to feel non-bitter.

Next up: Pluto is not a planet anymore. If you haven't heard, the International Astronomical Union voted to define planets differently, so now there are just the eight planets. Remember waaaaay back in elementary school when you learned that "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas (or Pine Nuts, depending on the year)? Well, there's no "P" anymore. What!?! You mean, there's no pizza? Don't worry, folks. I have decided that a good substitute for 'pizza' would be to switch 'nine' to 'nachos.' I think that it will be an easy way to remember the eight planets, even for the latino kids in the country. Council of Nicea, anyone?



Okay, but here's the kicker. Pluto is now defined as a dwarf planet. But they say that dwarf planets are not planets. Um, guys? If something is a planet, doesn't it mean that it's a planet? I mean, if it's not a planet, why are they calling it a planet? In this case does the word 'dwarf' mean 'not a?' So, did you know that there is a 'not a planet' that resides between Mars and Jupiter? It's called Ceres. But, it's not a planet, so you don't need to memorize it. It's just a dwarf planet. And then there's this mass that's called 'Charon,' but it's called a satellite. It is bigger than Pluto and was previously considered to be a moon of Pluto.

And then there's 2003 UB313. Yes, that's the name of it. It is also a dwarf planet. It's a good thing they didn't decide that 2003 UB313 is a real planet. Could you imagine trying to put that into the sentence? If all of those were planets, it would have to go "My very educated mother cunningly just served us nine cheese pizzas on 2003 UB313." Um, does that work? I should note that sometimes 2003 UB313 is called "Xena." Um, that doesn't work either. "... nine cheese pizzas..." ...uh... xylophones? X-rays? Xanthous? Xenophobia? Xerox? Xenobiology? Xystus? See, it doesn't work. So, I guess they were doing us a favor. Thanks to the 5% of astronomers for voting and keeping the elementary school kids in mind.

Lastly, but not news: So, have you ever noticed those advertisements for finding your classmates? They look something like this:






Do you think the one that says "SHE MARRIED HIM??!!" is really funny?

Did you ever see the one with the three girls? One of them had really weird sticking out hair and the one of them looked like this girl from my high school. Sometimes the pictures of the girls were slightly different? And did you ever see the one with the shifty eyes? That one was freaky. I haven't seen it around in a while. Do you think the above-posted middle girl looks like Katherine Zeta-Jones? Do you think people actually try to find their classmates on that site? Do you think that sometimes it's like the guy from the movie Fargo? What do you think?






*This blog was edited to include the above section of freaky girls who sometimes have shifty eyes. The girl on the left is the one who I feel like looks like a girl from my high school. The girl on the right is the one that I think has weird hair (not that the others don't have weird hair, but this one is especially strange).

7 comments:

tearese said...

sorry cardine, your site didn't make me miserable, it made me laugh. I think the 'she married him ad' is definitely funny. YEss, I saw the shifty eye one...creepy. I like the girl with the funny hair too. One of the girls in that one looks like a girl from 'that 70's show'.
I like reading outer space stories. It was my favorite unit in second grade. I was very proud that I memorized the planets without any anagrams...in fact, I don't know any , even about pizza.
I think Joseph registered on one of those highschool sites, but only for the free parts.
In other weird news... I read an article today about plastic made from corn. Turns out, its not as nifty as it is touted to be, even though Wal-mart has bought into it and will be packaging some products in corn-plastic.

Cardine said...

Goodness me, you're quick! I added some artwork while you were typing your comment. It's more of a get well card for Pluto. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Oh, yes, I thought she looked like the "That 70's Show" girl, too.

I think I've read something about plastic made from corn. Hmmm.

Jill said...

My husband has been complaining about the news lately and how they keep airing "not-news" all the time. In fact, that's all I hear from him as we watch the news. "Not news, not news, that's not news." But you're right, they are kind of pathetic.

I think the classmates ads are dorky, but there is one that definitely reminds me of someone from HS. I wonder if we're thinking of the same ad and the same person...

julie said...

Oh that was hilarious! I LOVED this post!!! Maybe it's the complete lack of sleep I'm getting, but I laughed so hard! My favorite bit was the part about dwarf meaning "not a". Thank ou so much; I really needed a good laugh.

Booklogged said...

I tried to hang my lower lip and well up tears in my eyes, but I just couldn't manage it. I was overcome with laughter. Being a science teacher that was one of my first thoughts, too - what will the new saying be. Nachos solves the problem nicely.

And I loved the story of the oldest person to die. Your take on it was great! Can you imagine someone was still alive who was born in the same year as Hitler and Chaplin. Aren't we glad Hitler died sooner than later? Great post, Cardine. Thanks!

Framed said...

How funny. I've never paid much attention to the oldest person dying. I can't imagine it was somthing they aspire to and I'm sure they're ecstatic to pass on the mantle. I was pretty disgusted with the whole planet thing also. I think it's a ploy to sell mroe textbooks. My complaint about the news is how the same stories repeat over and over and over. Currently, it's the man who claimed to have killed Jon Benet. Yeah, let's give that guy more attention. Is there nothing else going on?

Anonymous said...

I've been reading Greek mythology recently, Cardine. Of course we know that most planets are named after the Greek gods (in their Latin names), but did you know that Pluto is the Latin name for Hades, god of the underworld? So this demotion of Pluto is almost like Zeus and the rest of the Olympian gods deciding that Hades -- residing alone in his underworld -- is no longer an Olympian despite the fact that he's Zeus' brother. Hades decided to take revenge by stealing Persephone (Zeus' daughter by way of raping his sister Demeter -- I know, totally screwed up) away into the underworld. This is kind of like Pluto's classification now with other "dwarf planets" like Ceres (also named for a character in Greek mythology) and that UB-313 satellite (so named because some astronomer lacked creativity).