13 Things to do on St. Patrick’s
1. Pinch someone.
2. Get pinched.
3. Argue over shades of green.
4. Argue over whether or not pinching should be done at all.
5. Agree to let the whole thing drop.
6. Offer green beer.
7. Slip laxative into said beer.
8. Refuse to take a sip first.
9. Take a shower to wash laxative filled green beer from hair.
10. Offer leprechaun gold.
11. Unwrap it and eat the chocolate inside to prove it’s real, and not Ex-lax.
12. Apologize because that was all there was.
13. Flinch to keep from getting pinched.
The hub is here
As always, I welcome the link to your Thursday Thirteen in my comments as well as in Mr. Linky.
Ah Maria, How to Run a Court
In order to save Austria, Queen Maria Theressa had to take the job of “queen” much more seriously than her predecessors. For instance, she chose a wise courtier to teach her the ropes, and another to run her Imperial Court, stunning them both.
As Count Tarouca found himself in the unenviable position of having to take charge of the Queen’s personal life, an equally important job needed doing. Running the Imperial Court.
This became the job of Count Khevenhuller-Metsch. He is not to be confused with the other Count Khevenhuller, the military fellow. Same family, though. This Count Khevenhuller had originally hoped for a diplomatic career. It was his heart’s desire. Unfortunately, he had no talent for it.
His few adventures in that direction ended in failure. Quite fortunately for him, although he didn’t see it that way, he was prevailed upon to take charge of court matters. Like Count Tarouca, he didn’t want the job. But he turned out to be the best man for it. According to one historian, “In no time at all he had developed an unsuspected talent for organization and administration.” Maria also seemed to have a real talent for picking talent. Neither of these men were doing work even vaguely similar to what Maria tapped them for so…how did she know they would do so well? Instinct, I guess.
(more…)
Computers
I can’t remember the last time I bought a computer. I’m guessing my desktop is about eight years old. Might only be six or seven, but I’m thinking eight. It’s a Dell running Windows XP. I’ve had the hard drive wiped once, and looked like I’d need to have it done again. We’re talking about geek work here. It would cost me easily over $100 to have it done. If it weren’t for some weird wiring involving the floppy drive (Yes, I said floppy. It has a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive as it’s A drive) I could do it myself.
On the off chance I might find a better solution, I went surfing the internet for new computers. Guess what I found? A miniature desktop. 8″x8″. It as a TERAbye of memory. I haven’t even used up the 30 gigs that came with my old desktop and here we are talking about 1,000 gigs? Hoooboy! It has a dual core processor and comes with Windows Vista. And it costs less than $300, shipping included. Express shipping included.
It’s supposed to come today.
I can’t wait!
How old is your desktop? How often do you replace them? Do you even bother with a desktop, or just have a laptop?
Association Meme
Let’s play a game!
Have you ever played the word association game? In that game, someone will say a word, then the next person says the first word they think of. Each person who follows simply says what ever word comes to mind, based on the previous word.
For instance:
Person 1: red
Person 2: bull
Person 3: pasture
Person 4: grass
etc.
For the meme, it would look more like this:
Alice said: Go!
Sacred Ruminations said: Forth and Multiply
Heather said: 
As you can see, I’ve taken this to another level and adjusted it for blogging. Here are the rules:
1. Anyone can play, whether they have been tagged or not.
2. Include the rules and logo in your post.
3. Copy out all the responses that were made before you.
4. Link to each of the people who responded before you.
5. Put in your response. Your response can be as little as a single word or as much as 100 words. It can be a word, a phrase, an image, a song, a video, a story, or a short rant.
6. Tag anyone you would like to challenge to play this game. You do not have to tag anyone.
7. You can do this any time you run across it, even if you were one of the previous responders.
Alice said: Excitement
I challenge Hootin’ Anni, Harriet, Nessa, Renee Lynn Scott, Hazel, Gattina, Calico Crazy, and YOU!
Each response is a link in a chain. Let’s see how long we can make the chains.
Instant Smoothie
Short of buying it pre-made I can’t think of a quicker or easier way to get a smoothie.
Combine aprox half a cup of plain yogurt with 2 Tablespoons of fruit syrup and one cup of milk.
Spiraling Out of Control
Jill: I knew I shouldn’t have gone to a new beauty parlor. Just look what she did to my hair!
Today’s theme is spiral
Previously in Jack and Jill Four In
The rules for Photohunt can be found here.
Be sure to visit the home page.
Suzie’s House 155: Throwing Lightning Bolts
It was the beginning of July when Ben caught up with me the first time. By then I’d already forgotten my agreement to read something he’d written. No doubt this was a good thing, as I’m sure I would have flinched when I saw him coming if I’d remembered.
Not that I’m unwilling to do critiques, mind you. I have no problem at all doing critiques for my critique partners. These are seasoned veterans of writing – people I know can take my comments without freaking out, and give as good as they take. It’s critiquing for the starry eyed that makes me uncomfortable. You don’t get much more starry eyed than Ben.
236/365 Sunrise II
Even with Daylight Savings Time, in a few weeks I won’t be getting up early enough to see the sunrise. Used to be I’d celebrate, but lately I’ve been enjoying the photo op.
Band Aide
Cutting corners, making do.
Enough, but never extra.
One day I cut myself.
Reached for a Band Aide.
Fancy, with shaped corners and special glue
I have to remind myself
It’s leftover, bought on sale, okay to use.
I can stop looking and bleeding
Counting the cost against the need.
I deserve this Band Aide.
Click on the image to go to hub at G-man’s blog.
