TerryColon.com

How often do goofy ideas pop into your head? Would they amuse anyone else? What do you do with them? In the old days you might try turning them into copier humor passing them around on paper. Later this became fax humor. Now-a-days we have the internet to make it faster and easier to share these silly things with email and blogs.

Of course the "old days" mentioned started in the 1970s. Before that, you just kept it to yourself. Which, in many cases might be where they should have remained.

File under Odds & Ends

8/24/10 World Cup Afterthought

Why are there so many national teams from the UK in FIFA? There's an England team and a Scotland team. And I think a Wales team and a Northern Ireland team, too. On the other hand, there's no Bavaria team, Prussia team, and a Sturm and Taxis team, there's only a Germany team. One team for the whole country. What's so special about the UK it has more than one?

After all, doesn't UK mean United Kingdom? If they're so united why the separate teams? No other country splits its soccer effort up that way. Why do they do it? How did this happen? What does the rest of the world think about the UK having multiple teams when everyone else only gets one each?

It's not like the UK was only recently united. Not that long ago Germany had two teams, East and West, but since reunification now have one. Korea has two, but then there are two Koreas. What gives? Is the UK a single country or an empire of several countries? They only have one queen, right? Heck, the Prince of Wales will become the King of England some day.

Makes you wonder. Well, even if it doesn't make you wonder, it makes me wonder.

On a related but non-sports note, this division within the UK explains the Union Jack. It's actually three flags in one. First is Saint George's cross, which is England. Next is Saint Andrew's cross, for Scotland. Finally there's Saint Patrick's cross, representing Ireland, or Northern Ireland since the rest of Ireland became independent.

You might wonder, what happened to Wales, where's the Welsh flag in the Union Jack. That flag, a red dragon on a white over green field, is not incorporated because Wales was considered part of England when the first Union Jack was devised in 1606 which combined only the flags of England and Scotland. Ireland, and the red X, was added in 1801.

Now then, if you're Scottish you might not care for that dominating Saint George's cross. In which case you might prefer the flag have Saint Andrew's cross over it, as below left. That wouldn't sit well with someone from Northern Ireland who might like to see it as at the center left. If Wales finally were included, perhaps they could add a Welsh dragon as at the center right. Though maybe the dragon is a bit much, an alternative might be to add the green field from the bottom of the Welsh flag as at the far right.

Since the UK is so fond of combining flags, why not combine the soccer teams while they're at it? Just a thought.

File under The Casual Sportsman

8/19/10 You Know, the Big Guy With the Bolts in His Neck, What’s-his-name

As you may know already, Frankenstein was the name of the doctor and not his creation. You likely also know Dr. Frankenstein's assistant was named Igor. Frankenstein's monster had a name, too. Do you know it? If you don't, here's a hint: what would a man "playing God" name the "man" he created?

The creature was named Adam.

Yes, a short one this time. Feel cheated? Well, there is a picture and a picture is worth a thousand words. So this entry is one thousand, one hundred forty-three words long. One thousand, one hundred forty-six if contractions count as two words. Or one thousand, one hundred thirty-eight if hyphenated terms count as one word.

File under Fun Facts & Trivia

8/9/10 Pig Sty

"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes right to the bone." —Dorothy Parker

OK. Rather amusing. But is it true? If we take our cue from the real estate game it would be. That's because a house that can't be made to look good by slapping on a coat of paint, a house that's just plain ugly with awkward architecture, ungainly features, oddly done additions, slap-dash improvements is said to have "bad bones." That's not good for the old "curb appeal" as they say.

To make such a structure attractive would require more than a simple make-over, more like cosmetic surgery. This brings up another saying entirely, "Like putting lipstick on a pig." Which is a lot like the old saw about making silk purses out of sows' ears. But let's not get carried away with pig stories.

So then, what can you do with a house with bad bones? My solution, trees. Or really big bushes. Plant these everywhere. Any kind will do, but evergreens work best. Just be sure you can't see the house for the trees. Like the poet said, there's nothing lovelier. No lipstick required.

I have lot's of other gardening and home selling advice, but that will have to wait for another entry another time.

File under Quotes & Sayings

8/4/10 Rain Drops

Infrequently Answered Question #49: Why doesn't water fall from clouds as mist? I mean, how can raindrops grow so large before falling when water is so much heavier than air? What's holding them up until then?

A: This is one of the unsolved mysteries of nature. Not that nature hasn't solved it, after all it happens. Fact is, clouds and rain are well-known, but not well understood. At least not by me. Be that as it may, let me postulate my own hypothetical conjecture. Meaning make something up.

Raindrops don't float, they drop, which is why they're called raindrops. Before they drop they're rainfloats. These float because they're made of H2O, two bits of hydrogen, which are lighter than air, and one bit of oxygen, which is air. So of course it would float. The real mystery is why it ever drops.

Rainfloats turn into raindrops because rain clouds are electrical. Rainfloats have a positive charge and are repulsed by the earth which has a positive charge. The electrical activity in rainclouds turn the charge negative, transforming rainfloats into raindrops. Having the opposite charge they are drawn to the ground. So the raindrops drop becoming rainfall, though not raindroppings.

At this point you might be thinking this is a load of nonsense. Well, you're right. Thor had red hair and a beard and Vikings didn't sport helmets festooned with horns.

File under Infrequently Answered Questions

7/29/10 Spikey Clean

spick-and-span (spik en SPAN) adj. 1. Neat and clean; spotless. 2. Brand-new; fresh.

So then, spick-and-span means neat and clean. Nobody ever uses only one, as in "This room is so spick" or "This room is really span." They always go hand in hand like Siamese twins, which one guesses might account for the hyphens.

Though one wonders if one means neat and the other means clean. Can your house be span without being spick as well? I mean, if you're neat and not clean, organized and dirty, are you spick or span?

Now I suppose we might learn something from the word's derivation which comes from the Dutch spiksplinter nieuw meaning "spike-splinter-new". How that means neat and clean, your guess is as good as mine. Better, if you're Dutch and get how spikes and splinters are neat and clean.

File under Word Definitions & Origins

Stabilizing the Unstable.
Not an Instruction, but an Explanation.

Bike riders know it's easier to maintain balance the faster you go. But why? Some say it's because wheels are gyroscopes. Others say stability is designed into the bike from what's called trail. Still others say stability comes from forward momentum.

To know which proposition might be correct it would be helpful to know how we balance in the first place. Intuitively you'd figure riders balance by leaning side-to-side. Though according to basic physics leaning shouldn't help us balance this way. As per Newton's third law of motion, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." A rider leaning one way tilts the bike the opposite way, but the combined center of mass, the balance remains the same. There is a way for you to test this idea to see for yourself. Or if you trust my account of the same test you can save yourself the trouble.

I inserted a slat of wood up against the front wheel inside the front fork as shown. I tied the back end to the frame below the seat and tied the front to the wheel. Now the front end will not turn and the bike won't roll forward or back. About the only thing you can do with the bike like this is spin the peddles backwards, which won't get you very far.

Seated on the bike with my feet off the ground, no matter how I leaned or moved it was impossible to balance and stay upright more than about a second or so. Once it started falling one way or the other, no amount of leaning would stop it. Should you try the experiment for yourself, you will see there is no way to balance such a bike by leaning alone.

This suggests leaning doesn't help balance a bike. There is a problem though because bikes don't have slats of wood preventing the front end turning. Bikes change shape as the front end turns. Plus the front end has a wheel where the bottom, the support point or what's called the contact patch, changes when pitched. In other words, bikes have variable geometry.

Variable geometry means a bike doesn't behave like a simple unchanging object like the bike with the slat of wood. As a result leaning does help a rider balance a bike, just not in the obvious way. Explaining this is what I hope to do with this article...

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Here's another 'Last Laugh' bit I did for the Reader's Digest March 2010 issue. Parts reproduced with permission of Reader's Digest

Certain combinations just don't work. Vinegar plus baking soda causes an explosion, as do Kathy Griffen and an open mike. Here are some other questionable combinations in handy venn diagram form.

The above is the part that made it into the magazine. For the terrycolon.com reader there's more...

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A Trick Tricky Geography Quiz

Terra Incognita is Latin for 'Land Unknown.' That's what they used to put on maps of unexplored territory. Very little of the Earth's lands are incognita these days. Still, how well do you know the details? Take the quiz and test yourself.

Sometimes the geography is tricky, sometimes the question is tricky, and sometimes the answer is tricky. Sometimes by 'tricky' I mean 'silly,' though the reader might take it to mean 'stupid.' Whatever the case may be, you may find it all curious if trivial.

1. Which is further north; London, Ontario or London, England?

2. Which is further west; Los Angeles, California or Reno, Nevada?

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Half-Baked Buzz Phrases and Overcooked Terms

Are you a couch potato gobbling great gobs of un-natural junkfood washed down with lavish doses of empty-calorie soda? Are your kids tater tots stuffing their pie holes with processed non-organic foods? Do you wonder what does it all mean? Not the riddle of life, but what's the meaning of those terms scattered throughout the first two sentences like so many multi-colored sprinkles on a donut. Let's examine, shall we.

Empty Calorie. A calorie is fuel the body burns for energy, part of a process we call "being alive." So, if something is a calorie it's fuel and so not empty at all. If it's empty it must lack fuel, so it can't be a calorie. The term empty calorie makes as much sense as a full hole.

Is a calorie from a potato chip unburnable while one from a baked potato is? Consider, water has no calories or vitamins. Does that make it an "empty liquid"? You can't live on a zero calorie diet no matter what other goodies it contains...

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How the Wheels of the Bureaucracy Grind

Without government there would be anarchy and the law of the jungle would prevail, which is really more of a catch-phrase than actual law. Despite people's love of nature, it's a pretty violent and dangerous place with animals eating each other and whatnot. To prevent this sort of thing happening between people civilization was invented to organize human activity with rules. Like, no eating your neighbor's food, or your neighbor for that matter. To keep people playing by the rules they instituted government.

Over the centuries many types of governmental systems have evolved. Aristocracy: rule by an inbred class of nobles born to the job. Theocracy: rule by priests, religious doctrine, or in the name of God since God himself is very reclusive. Democracy: rule by the people, or the majority, or the majority that bother to vote. Mobocracy: also rule by the people, but usually with torches and pitchforks. Plutocracy: rule by animated cartoon dogs...

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I Will Read Your Mind

Are you worried about spyware? Do you fret over internet identity theft? Do you quake in your boots over the prospect of any miscreant with a laptop hacking the most intimate details of your life? Well, it gets worse because people can read your mind via the world wide web. And there are no firewalls to safeguard you from the spectre of internetelepathy.

The internet is a powerful and amazing thing. Maybe even mysterious and magical. I don't really know how it works, do you? So, prepare to have your mind boggled. If you'd rather not be boggled, how about amazed or amused? Here's a pair of tricks for you in which I will attempt to read your mind...

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