I can easily do the "6" thing.

It's simple for me because I've trained myself to start the number six at the inside and end at the top, just as I've trained myself to write 9s and 3s starting at the bottom. And 8s are a backwards 3 starting at the top, followed by a forward 3 from the bottom.

These are just a few of the dozens of alternate ways I've taught myself to write numbers and letters. Which is something you can do too if you spend much of your day hand writing numbers and letters.

"Perhaps the more startling aspect of the video to a modern viewer is the realization that a century ago people walked, ran, drove, rode bicycles and horses wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted in the streets."

Maybe to those only familiar with US cities. What is more startling to me is that almost all the men and boys are wearing suits and felt hats. I always thought the "city folk wear suits and hats every day" meme was more of a historical romanticization than a fact of everyday life back then. The rarity of women is also unexpected and exceptional to me.

Sure, she did very well, but I don't think it lives up to its billing. I feel mislead into thinking there would be much more than a girl more or less simply staying on the line for six minutes.

Leave this sentence out "You won’t regret listening for six minutes to hear what Savannah had to say." and I wouldn't have listened nor bothered to comment here.

Looks more like a rape hut to me.

Zeezaxa, you most certainly are NOT the only one who hates the new version. The new one is worse than "New Coke", if you ask me.

Note to manufacturers: not every product marketed to children must be adorned with a cartoon face. A lot of kids prefer things that look "just like mom & dad's".

Just in case you missed it, the full audio Feliciano version is posted there with the NPR story, but I thought the context was every bit as interesting as the version of the song.

Thanks Marvin, but thanks to Jose Feliciano first.

Marvin couldn't have done it without Jose Feliciano's 1968 personalization of the Star Spangled Banner coming long before.

Even before Jimi Hendrix.

His changes were quite simple, but for the time, extremely unexpected and unappreciated.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6394213

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrY9RVfVkws

Uses flame shaped LEGO pieces. Building a large pile of realistic flames using flame shaped LEGO pieces just doesn't impress me. Not bad, though.

I want the blog to hide articles I've already seen.

Beyond this, simpler, neater, cleaner is always better.

It's been done, Skipweasel...

MONK GLOATS OVER YOGA CHAMPIONSHIP

http://peterlangston.com/Fun_People/1996/1996AWL.html

Anyone who thinks their hand dryers are good hasn't seen an elderly person (or anyone else with mild to moderate muscular control issues) trying to keep from smearing their hands all over the inside.

Hasn't seen a person in a wheelchair who can't reach up, over, and in to the device to actually use it.

Hasn't seen a small child walk out with wet hands.

Hasn't considered that they're set up for "average" height people and nobody else.

Really, I don't understand how their hand dryers even got off the drawing board, much less purchased.

I always thought his most famous contributions to speechwriting were pretty juvenile stuff, really.

Alliteration? I got over my affection for that before then end of fifth grade.

Hearing someone actually speak some of his phrases out loud as if they were serious has always reduced my opinion of the speaker.

Why not put a GPS in the cane with a map of the streets, too?

My uncle Eddie was a stoker in a steel mill back when that job was a "shovel in hand" job, and he'd eat more than half this for breakfast every weekday. I'm sure he could have handled this easily. His usual was a dozen eggs, 2/3rd loaf of toasted bread, a pound of bacon or sausage, a big chunk of cheese and a few apples.

He always ate a huge breakfast, a normal sized lunch, and barely more than a snack for dinner.

He cut way back after retirement, of course, but still ate by his maxim "eat like a prince at breakfast, a peddler at lunch, and a pauper at dinner". I've no idea whether that has anything to do with his longevity, as he lived very healthily to 96.

It doesn't matter if it's a functional business card or not, it's vintage Steve Martin.

This vain, self-serving expression of insecurity is a representation of every typical Hollywood "famous person" and therefore is an excellent representation of Steve Martin's brand of multilayered ironic humor.

It's not his best joke ever, but it's a good one.