I Think Today Is Friday -- Issue 213
May 3, 2024: Wild stuff, Return to sender, Are you a Viking, Swoop in to win, Be careful with those, No porcupines were injured, Or not to be, and Don't blink.
Pictures of the Week: Wild and Free
One Eyeland has announced the winners and finalists of the World’s Top 10 Wildlife Photographers 2023 competition. The competition organizers shared a list of 10 worldwide winners and the best photographers in various countries.
Here, kitty, kitty…
SALT LAKE CITY — A cat may have used a couple of its nine lives when it was accidentally shipped with an Amazon return from Utah to California.
A Utah couple was surprised when they got a call that their missing cat was found in Los Angeles.
Carrie Clark said her family’s indoor-only cat, Galena, mysteriously disappeared on April 10. Friends and family helped them search their house, neighborhood, and surrounding community for a week while they plastered missing posters around town and on social media.
Bloody Vikings…
Experts have said that any surname ending in ‘sen’ or ‘son’ is likely to be of Viking descent (big news for Emma Watson, Emma Thompson, Robert Pattinson, and co) – and surnames such as Roger/s, Rogerson, and Rendall also hint that there’s a touch of the marauder to you.
And they aren’t the only surnames that wannabe Vikings should watch out for:
Names ending in ‘sen’ or ‘son.’
Roger/s, Rogerson, Rendall
Names that nod to personal characteristics, such as ‘Love’, ‘Short’, ‘Tall’, ‘Wise’, ‘Long’, and ‘Good’ (e.g., Goodman).
Scottish surnames (e.g. McLeod, McIvor, McAvoy, McAulay)
Irish surnames (e.g., Doyle, McDowell, MacAuliffe)
Scandinavian surnames (e.g., Flett, Scarth, Linklater, Heddle, Halcro)
Sports Desk…
An accurate imitation would involve stealing food.
News From The Far Side…
By Gary Larson
Porcupine Meatballs (really) …
This cleverly named dish, which gets its moniker from the spiky grains of rice that protrude from the meatballs, became popular during the Great Depression, when rice was often added to expensive ground meat to “stretch” it. It’s still a helpful budget tip — or an easy way to eat less meat — and you might like these lighter meatballs even better than the traditional sort.
Shakespeare 101 from the Information Bucket…
Misquote, scuffle, half-blooded, hot-blooded, bedazzled, and many more everyday words and phrases are attributed to Shakespeare.
Shakespeare is the first known citation for over a thousand words and even more meanings—a diverse collection that has become a staple of everyday language. But just as OMG is older than you might think (it first appeared in a 1917 letter to Winston Churchill), the history of words is rarely straightforward, especially as more obscure old texts become easily searchable.
Related: All the world’s a page…
Ever wanted to write like Shakespeare?
Here’s a toy to translate your sentence to how The Bard of Avon would have written it.
The eyes have it…
For each set of eyes, choose which word best describes what the person in the picture is thinking or feeling. Don’t overthink it. I would have done better going with my first choice.
And Finally, What could possibly go wrong?
Throwflame bills the Thermonator as "the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog." It is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420. The company lists possible applications of the new robot as "wildfire control and prevention," "agricultural management," "ecological conservation," "snow and ice removal," and "entertainment and SFX." But most of all, it sets things on fire in various real-world scenarios.