Ohhh

While looking for housing on Craigslist I kept coming across 420 friendly. I love the internet. Answer at fingertips. Don't judge.

What I Was Thinking While I Was on the Toilet Today

The toilet really has got to be the best modern invention ever.* Imagine if everyone was still doing their business in trenches and holes with no plumbing to flush it away. Blech. Yes, although there are many parts of the world that unfortunately still have to resort to that, at least there is a foreseeable solution. Thank you, Sir John Harrington. You, you really deserve inventor of the millenium award. Hm, maybe that's why the toilet is called the john.

I learned from Wiki answers that it takes about 1.6 gallons of water per toilet flush. That's quite a bit of water. It grossed me out when I first started doing this, but usually I would wait until the second trip to the bathroom to flush the toilet. I got over the gross-ness, because it's my own anyway, and now I get to use two times less water! (This is for number one only, of course =]) Gotta stick to the best mantra learned from Meet the Fockers.

<3. If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.

*The next best invention is tampons.

My Dad on the Debt Ceiling, Colonel Sanders, and World Population Boom

你不給人家錢, 他們要怎麼做事?

Says my dad as he watches news about the debt ceiling. Basically he's saying that if the debt ceiling isn't raised, how can Obama get things done? I don't know what coming "very close" to an agreement means, but hopefully that's really the case and both parties can stop this political bickering that has dragged for way too long. It's like they're voting down the other side's proposal just for the sake of doing it.

I learned today that Colonel Sanders opened KFC when he lost his restaurant business at age 65 and traversed the country on his social security funds in search of a new business opportunity. That business opportunity is now a nation-wide fried chicken chain and booming in China. I wonder what Colonel Sanders knew or thought about China during his living years. Did he ever imagine the remote possibility that his restaurant would become the literal and symbolic provender of a rising middle class in a country with over 1 billion people?
Anyway, he's my new hero for becoming an entrepreneur at an age when most people retire or just die.

And OMG, the world population is expected to hit 7 billion this year. The developing world, Africa in particular, is expected to contribute 49% of the world's growth while the developed is expected to contribute 3%. Crazy. So...should academics begin studying migration dynamics? Because I have a feeling it's only going to becoming a hotter topic in these next few decades...

Stick to Your Knitting

Who thinks of these idioms? I'd be interested in learning the history behind this one.

Stick to knitting: if a person or company sticks to their knitting, they continue to do what they have always done instead of trying to do something they know very little about. He believes the key to a company's success is to stick to its knitting rather than trying to diversify.

From The Free Dictionary

The things you learn each day.

Ding a Dong Ling Long

Today I learned that Vietnam's national currency is called the dong.

The things you learn each day...

From the USC Theses and Dissertation Formatting Guidebook

The things you learn each day...

"A widow occurs when the last line of a paragraph appears as the first line of a page. To
eliminate a widow, insert a page break a line earlier so that the last two lines of the
paragraph appear at the top of the next page.
An orphan occurs when a heading or the first line of a paragraph appears as the last line of a page. To eliminate an orphan, insert a page break before the orphan line."