"Double Warning"

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Cat knocks on the door to come inside.

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Text Messages a Colossal Rip-Off?

Wireless carriers charge up to 20 cents per message, but what does the service actually cost providers? Virtually nothing
In the past few years, people seem to be forgoing the conventional phone conversation to punching in short text messages on tiny keypads, all while mobile phone carriers have cashed in lucratively.
Sensing a potential rip-off, Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl, the chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, began to take a closer look at the doubling of prices American carriers were charging customers.
Sen. Kohl soon discovered that text messages are essentially very small files, costing carriers close to nothing to transmit.
"Text messaging files are very small," the senator said, "as the size of text messages are generally limited to 160 characters per message, and therefore cost carriers very little to transmit."
Text messages aren't just tiny, they're also free riders tucked into control channels, or space reserved for operation of the wireless network. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.
This explains why a message has limited character space. It must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call.
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Riddle of the day

Arnold Schwarzenegger has a big one.

Michael J. Fox has a small one.

Madonna doesn’t have one.

The Pope has one but doesn’t use it.

Clinton uses his all the time.

Bush is one.

Mickey Mouse has an unusual one.

Liberace never used his on women.

Jerry Seinfeld is very, very proud of his.

Cher claims that she took on 3.

We never saw Lucy use Desi’s.

What is it?

Put your answer in the comments.

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Peter Pan said...
Last Names

I wonder if they have "Socks"

Here's a baby elephant enjoying the water

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"Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do,"

In his book, Tom Vanderbilt takes the traffic trivia bit to a new level.
Here are some things about traffic that may surprise you.

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* People who live on streets with more traffic spend less time outside and have fewer friends.
* Saturday at 1 p.m. has heavier traffic than weekday rush hours.
* Highways can handle more cars at 55 mph than 80 mph.
* A driver driving at 30 mph sees an average of 1320 pieces of information every minute.
* The top 10 most dangerous cities for pedestrians in the U.S. are all below the Mason-Dixon line. Five are in Florida (Number One? Las Vegas)
* The average driver looks away from the road for .06 seconds every 3.4 seconds; drivers search for something in the car 10.8 times per hour.
* The most commonly dropped objects on Los Angeles freeways are ladders.

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Animal Rescues

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Missing horse rescued from well
A horse which disappeared from a West Yorkshire riding stables was rescued three days later after being found at the bottom of a 10ft well.
Eight-year-old Steffi was pulled out of the hole in the Shibden Valley near Halifax in a three-hour operation involving firemen, the RSPCA and a vet.
Stable girl Katie Clegg, 16, raised the alarm last Saturday when she could not find the horse in its field.
The mare was found on Tuesday by a dog walker, having suffered no injuries.
It is believed that a covering of plants which had hidden the well opening in the field was washed away in recent heavy rains and Steffi fell 10ft into the hole.





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Firefighters help scared pot belly pig down stairs
PINELLAS COUNTY -- Firefighters know a thing or two about getting a cat out of a tree, but this morning St. Petersburg firefighters added a new talent under their belts: rescuing a pot belly pig.
The Vietnamese pot belly pig named Dudley followed his nose into some trouble. His owner, Cynthia Taylor, says normally Dudley eats four ounces of food a day.
But one day workmen who were at Taylor's house moved some pig food and then left it where Dudley could get into it.
"The night they left the bag on the floor, he had 16 pounds of food overnight," Taylor said.
Because of all the food Dudley had, Taylor didn't give him any food Sunday. So when Taylor was walking around with Dudley's food dish Monday, the pig was keeping close to her -- a little too close.
As Taylor was walking upstairs she didn't realize Dudley was following behind her -- something the pig had never done before. Then Dudley took one look down the steep stairs and refused to go back down.
"He's never been upstairs. He's afraid of the stairs," Taylor said. "So he wouldn't come down, and I had to call the fire department."
St. Petersburg firefighter Brad Weshphal said he doesn't blame the pig for not wanting to go down the steep stairs.
Westphal, along with two other firefighters, answered the call for help.
"We've gotten cats out of trees, dogs, ferrets out of walls, snakes; but this is the first pig," Westphal said.
Fortunately, the firefighters didn't have to do much to convince Dudley down the stairs.
"We just herded him to the stairwell, and then I grabbed him around his waist and helped him down the stairs," Westphal said. "And he was squealing the whole time."
Taylor said she is thankful for the firefighters and will be getting a small gate to block the stairs.
"I think they were absolutely terrific. They had a great sense of humor," Taylor said. "They were very sweet to come help me."
Slideshow
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First-Time Mom Gives Birth to Quintuplets in New York

NEW YORK — They're first-time parents — five times over.
A set of quintuplets was born Saturday at Staten Island University Hospital, spokesman Christian Preston said. He said the four girls, one boy and their mother were doing well.
Preston declined to give the family's name, but Tony Scherillo told the Staten Island Advance the parents are his daughter and son-in-law, Jamie and Kevin Ferrante.
"Everybody was ecstatic" on learning that the new parents were expecting five babies, said Scherillo, 67. "Nobody could believe it."
The babies — all delivered within 6 minutes by Caesarean section — ranged in weight from 1 pound, 8 ounces, to about 2 pounds, 4 ounces, the newspaper said. It gave their names as Allesia Louise, Amanda Frances, Ella Lilliana, Emily Ann and Matthew Sabatino.
Fertility treatments have made multiple births more common in recent decades, but quintuplets remain rare. The federal government's National Center for Health Statistics tallied 68 quintuplet and higher-order births in 2005, compared to more than 400 quadruplets, 133,000 twins and 4.1 million births overall.
Hospitals in Houston, Phoenix and Annapolis, Md., also reported quintuplet births this year.
Saturday's quintuplet birth was a first for the Staten Island hospital, Preston said.
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Did You Know.......

Q. At a military funeral, the flag is folded with 13 folds for the original 13 states. Each fold also represents something. What are they?

A. When the flag-folding ceremony started, there was no meaning to each fold. Since then, though, some people have attributed patriotic or religious meanings to each fold:
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First fold: a symbol of life.
Second: a symbol of belief in eternal life.
Third: in honor of veterans who died on duty.
Fourth: represents mankind’s weaker nature and need to trust in God.
Fifth: a tribute to the United States.
Sixth: for where Americans’ hearts lie.
Seventh: a tribute to the American armed forces.
Eighth: a "tribute to the one who entered in to the valley of the shadow of death," and to honor mothers.
Ninth: a tribute to womanhood.
10th: a tribute to fathers.
11th: For Jewish citizens, to represent the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon
12th: for Christian citizens, to glorify the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost.
13th: When the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost, to remind people of the national motto, "In God We Trust."
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