from Bruce
Anecdotes
Children and Teenagers
• According to the Bible, we are all children of God. A little girl once asked a new girl in the neighborhood what church she attended. However, the new girl replied, “I don’t go to church. I go to a temple. I’m a Jew.” The first girl asked, “What’s that?” The new girl answered, “You know that there are Protestants, Catholics, and Jews—they’re all just different ways of voting for God.”
• James Roosevelt took his five-year-old son, Franklin Delano, to see President Grover Cleveland in the White House. President Cleveland told young Franklin, “My little man, I am making a strange wish for you. It is that you may never be President of the United States.” The wish did not come true—Franklin grew up to become the 32nd President of the United States.
• Soccer star Michelle Akers almost did not get involved in soccer. When she was eight years old, her mother signed her up to play soccer. However, Michelle wanted to quit right away because her team’s uniforms were pink and yellow, which she considered “girlie” colors. Fortunately for soccer fans everywhere, she kept playing.
• As a child, figure skater Ingo Steuer participated in the athletic system of East Germany, a communist country known for its strict control of athletes, all of whom were expected to train and diet rigorously. One day, Ingo bought and ate an ice cream cone. The next morning, his coach not only knew that he had eaten an ice cream cone, but its flavor.
• While in a store, Donna McLean’s eight-year-old son wanted a toy but didn’t have the money to buy it. Since Ms. McLean wanted him to learn fiscal responsibility, she said that she wouldn’t give him the extra money. Therefore, her son reached into his mouth and pulled out a baby tooth, then handed it to her. She bought him the toy.
• When she was a child, Hillary Rodham Clinton was victimized by a bully named Suzy. Hillary often ran home crying to her mother, until her mother told her, “There’s no room in this house for cowards. You’re going to have to stand up to her.” The next time Suzy tried to victimize Hillary, Hillary knocked her down.
• A family walked past a Baptist church primarily attended by African-Americans. Inside the church, the worshippers were making “a joyful noise unto the Lord.” The family’s seven-year-old son asked his mother, “Why can’t we go to this church? They have a lot more fun than we do.”
• When he was a six-year-old boy, baseball player Cal Ripken, Jr., attempted to set up a five-jump move in a checkers game against a friend. When he succeeded, he was so excited that he jumped up, hit his head on a concrete windowsill, and opened a gash that required stitches.
• When Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated from Columbia Law School in 1959, her daughter yelled as Ms. Ginsburg walked across the stage, “That’s my Mommy!” In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Ms. Ginsburg to the United States Supreme Court.
• When home run king Willie Mays was thirteen years old, he climbed a tree to watch a high school baseball game. The game was exciting, and Willie forgot that he was in a tree. He started to applaud a play, fell to the ground, and broke an arm.
• In 1997, when Tara Lipinski became the youngest person ever to win a United States senior figure skating championship, she was just 14 years and 8 months old. In fact, one week before becoming champion, she had lost her one remaining baby tooth.
• Speed skater Bonnie Blair won three Olympic gold medals in the 500-meter race. As a child, she competed in Tiny Tots races, but she was so young that she sometimes got very tired, fell asleep in her mother’s lap, and slept through her races.
• When he was very young, Maury Maverick, Jr., attended a movie theater which showed a March of Time newsreel in which his politician father was featured. Young Maury yelled, “That’s my pop!”—and was almost kicked out of the theater.
• When horror writer Stephen King’s children were growing up, they earned their allowance by recording books—such as novels by John Steinbeck—on tape so their father could listen to them as he drove.
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
The Funniest People in Families, Volume 2 — Free Downloads
The Funniest People in Families, Volume 2 — Smashwords (Free Download)
The Funniest People in Families, Volume 2 — Apple (Free Download)
The Funniest People in Families, Volume 2 — Kobo (Free Download)
The Funniest People in Families, Volume 2 — Barnes and Noble (Free Download)
The Funniest People in Families, Volume 2 — (Read Online Free — Smashwords Online Reader)
MANY FREE PDFs:
davidbrucebooks: FREE PDFs
David Bruce at Smashwords (PDFs and Other Formats)
NEW BLOG - davidbrucebooks: FREE PDFs
Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Track: "Venus Fly Trap"
Album: WARM
Artist: The Milk Lizards
Artist Location: Sunderland, UK
Info:
“The North East Coast's [of Great Britain] premier instrumental surf band.”
“Written by The Milk Lizards except ‘Monster From The Surf’ written by Frank Sinatra Jr, adapted by The Phantom Surfers”
Price: 3.50 (GBP) for nine-track album; tracks cannot be purchased separately
Genre: Surf. Instrumental Rock.
Links:
WARM
The Milk Lizards on Bandcamp
The Milk Lizards on YouTube
The Milk Lizards Official Website
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
davidbrucebooks: EDUCATE YOURSELF - Free PDFs
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Branding
David
Thanks, Dave!
Stephen Suggests
2-Fer
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
3-Fer
Soft on Crime
Mrs. Betty Bowers
Andrew Tobias: Save Big On Drugs
My doctor prescribed 7 tabs of a generic drug that Walgreen’s was set to fill for $161.92, considerably less than the $460 list price, Walgreen’s website let me know, because I have insurance.
But then I signed up for Mark Cuban’s CostPlusDrugs, and instead of those 7 tabs, which I canceled, I got ninety of them for $22, delivered. Which works out to 25 cents each versus $23. Without having to go wait in line to pick them up.
Check it out.
Here he explains how it works.
I was already a Cuban fan (see fifth paragraph of this page), but am now even more indebted.
Andrew Tobias: Save Big On Drugs
Cost Plus Drugs
Other Links:
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
davidbrucebooks: EDUCATE YOURSELF - Free PDFs
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Gas was $5.83/gal (cash) at the no-name cash-preferred station.
$1.7 Million
Bob Dylan
The Jokerman himself, Bob Dylan is up to his rascally old tricks again. The 81-year-old legend, the writer of such tracks as “It Ain’t Me Babe,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and “Here Comes Santa,” who recently sold his entire music catalog for $300 million, just picked up another million at auction, off-loading a one-of-a-kind new version of “Blowin’ In The Wind.”
Pitched as a “full rebellion against mass consumerism” by legendary producer T-Bone Burnett, who orchestrated the coup, the newly recorded version of Bob Dylan singing “Blowin’ In The Wind” sold at Christie’s in London today for 1.4 million pounds or $1.7 million. The winner of the auction, whose name has not been revealed (though we’ll just go ahead and assume it was Martin Shkreli), received a one-of-a-kind version of the song pressed onto a state-of-the-art acetate disc called Ionic Original.
Said to be nearly impervious to wear-and-tear, the Ionic Original also boasts “higher fidelity” than other formats, which, for nearly $2 million, it fuckin’ better. Thankfully, the winner won’t need to buy a new record player to spin it. Any old hunk of junk you pick up from Urban Outfitters will do. Might we suggest one of those turntables that also looks like an old-timey radio?
Now for the brutal part. Despite this being a new version of a classic Dylan song, which T-Bone Burnett called “the best record I’ve ever heard in my life,” us penniless peons will never get to hear it. You see, this was all in an effort to show NFTs what actual scarcity is. “An Ionic Original is not a ‘copy,’” Burnett said. “It is an original recording. We are not contriving scarcity. This is actually scarce. It is a unique, handmade, original recording.” This isn’t just downloading JPEGs of ugly monkeys and calling it art. It’s a singular work by a singular artist that we’ll never get to give a C+ to, and that really grinds our gears.
Bob Dylan
Good Guy
Paul Rudd
"My poor son. Doesn't seem like it's getting any better," Cassandra captioned a photo of his near-empty autograph page. "2 teachers and a total of 2 students wrote in his yearbook despite Brody asking all kinds of kids to sign it."
A Washington Post article later detailed how older students stepped in to support the Colorado preteen. In the piece, his mother revealed that her son has endured excessive bullying and "been through a lot."
The story caught the attention of Marvel star Rudd, who gave the boy a signed Ant-Man helmet and a handwritten letter. And if that weren't enough, he also surprised him with a FaceTime call.
The touching story also caught the attention of the Dear Evan Hansen cast, who invited Brody to attend the Broadway production of the show and bring his yearbook for them to sign.
Paul Rudd
‘Nope’ Film Set
Universal Studios
When Jordan Peele’s upcoming horror epic “Nope” opens later this month, it will have something no other film ever has: an attraction that’s part of the world-famous Universal Studios Backlot Tour, opening on the same day.
The Jupiter’s Claim set from the movie will be accessible beginning July 22, the same day “Nope” arrives in theaters nationwide. It’s the first time that a Studio Tour attraction has opened day-and-date with a movie release and will now become a part of the storied tour, alongside the crashed airplane from Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” the Bates Motel from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and the Courthouse Square from Robert Zemeckis’ “Back to the Future” (and countless other films). That’s good company.
The Jupiter’s Claim set, a rustic Old West town (originally filmed near Santa Clarita, California), was designed by production designer Ruth DeJong (Peele’s “Us,” “Yellowstone”). It was disassembled during post-production and shipped to Universal Studios Hollywood. The set was then “meticulously reconstructed on site, complete with original props and details from the film” (according to the official press release).
On the official in-universe website, Jupiter’s Claim is described as “the bestest darn California Gold Rush theme park in the Santa Clarita / Lancaster area! Perfect for family outings, school groups, and birthday parties!” Jupiter’s Claim is owned and operated by former child actor (“Kid Sheriff”) and reality TV star, Ricky “Jupe” Park (played by the great Steven Yeun). The theme park “becomes a pivotal location as the characters seek to investigate mysterious, unexplained phenomena, leading them toward increasing danger and terrifying consequences,” according to the official press release.
Universal Studios
'Unrecognized' Addresses
Russia
Moscow has taken a page out of Washington’s playbook to troll both the U.S. and the U.K. by renaming the streets in front of their embassies in the Russian capital.
The streets are now officially named for the two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine where fighting is now the fiercest. Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized their independence in February just before sending in troops to “liberate” them from Ukraine.
The U.S. and Britain have not recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics,” but Moscow officials said they will at least have to recognize the new addresses if they want to receive their mail.
A sign went up Friday renaming the street in front of the British Embassy the Luhansk People’s Republic Square. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow since last month has been located on Donetsk People’s Republic Square.
The U.S., however, has played this game far longer. In the 1980s, the section of 16th St. outside the Soviet Embassy in Washington was symbolically renamed Andrei Sakharov Plaza, in honor of the Soviet nuclear physicist and leading human rights activist and dissident.
Russia
Love Offerings
Ohio
Feces were mailed to Ohio’s 25 Republican state senators this week, prompting an investigation by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a spokesperson for the lawmakers confirmed Friday.
Mailroom employees in the Ohio Statehouse and post offices in Cleveland and Akron intercepted the letters, which never made it to their intended recipients.
Why they were sent remains unclear. No policy issues or certain grievances were included in the letters, said Senate GOP spokesperson John Fortney. The return addresses on the letters were deemed fake.
The U.S. Postal Service’s law enforcement arm is investigating the matter as a federal crime. It wouldn’t comment Friday about the ongoing investigation, including whether the waste was human or animal.
Ohio
Killed Tamir Rice
Timothy Loehmann
The former Cleveland police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 withdrew from the police force of a Pennsylvania town Thursday amid backlash and media coverage over his hiring.
Timothy Loehmann was sworn in Tuesday as the lone police officer in Tioga — a community of about 600 in rural north-central Pennsylvania, 300 miles (480 kilometers) from Cleveland — but left the $18-per-hour position without having worked a single shift, according to borough council President Steve Hazlett.
“The community spoke. They got their feelings out, and we listened to them and we’re going to react to it and that will be that,” he said in a phone interview. “We thank the community for stepping forward and letting their voices be heard.”
Loehmann has since made multiple attempts to find work in law enforcement. He landed a part-time position with a police department in the southeast Ohio village of Bellaire in October 2018 but withdrew his application days later after Tamir’s mother, Samaria, and others criticized the hiring.
Timothy Loehmann
Magnetic Field
Earth
Yesterday, a crack opened in Earth’s magnetic field and stayed open for nearly 14 hours, allowing Vecna and his minions through from the Upside Down. OK, perhaps not that last bit, but it did allow some powerful solar winds to pour through the hole, creating a geomagnetic storm that sparked some pretty epic aurora.
The crack in the magnet field was created by a rare phenomenon called a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) from the Sun. CIRs are large-scale plasma structures generated in the low and mid-latitude regions of the heliosphere – the region surrounding the Sun that includes the solar magnetic field and the solar winds – when fast and slow-moving streams of solar wind interact.
Like coronal mass ejections (CMEs), CIRs get flung out from the Sun towards Earth and can contain shockwaves and compressed magnetic fields that cause stormy space weather, which usually presents itself to us as pretty aurorae.
This one hit Earth’s magnetic field in the early hours of July 7 and caused a long-lasting G1-class geomagnetic storm. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) analysts suspect a CME was embedded in the solar wind ahead of the CIR, Spaceweather.com reports.
The Sun is gearing up towards its most active period in the solar cycle (July 2025) and is already unusually active quite early. Your chances of spotting aurora are already pretty good right now but they're just going to get better and better over the next three years.
Earth
Matchbooks
Nittosha
Matches are more than just matches at century-old Nittosha.
The tiny but proud manufacturer is tucked away in the sleepy Japanese city of Himeji, famous for little other than an ancient castle, gourmet seawater eels and the matches.
Nittosha, which employs 130 people, is a testament to the hard work and dedication at small and medium-size companies that are the backbones of large economies, including the U.S. and Japan.
But when the company recently announced it would stop taking orders for matchbooks at the end of June, the news drew an outpouring of emotions, especially on Japanese social media.
Nittosha
Double Down On Fine Art
Casinos
The Louvre, The Museum of Modern Art and ... the Hard Rock?
Hoping to expand their appeal beyond the slot machine and buffet crowd, some casinos are turning to fine art galleries or exhibitions to bring in new business from customers who might not otherwise visit a gambling hall.
In the process, they are helping not only broaden their own customer bases, but are also putting new eyeballs in front of some of the world’s great works of art.
One such effort began Friday at Atlantic City’s Hard Rock casino, where the highly acclaimed “Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” exhibit opened. The 30,000-square-foot display uses over 300 of Van Gogh’s works, reproducing them digitally and projecting them onto screens, walls and floors.
Other casinos are doing likewise. The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art in Las Vegas has displayed works by Picasso, Monet, Warhol, Titian and Van Gogh.
Casinos
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
