Our cars are getting so hot inside right now. In triple digit heat your car’s interior will get to over 160 degrees. Cracking a window just a bit doesn’t let in any rain (hah, rain) but will allow some hot air to escape. Have you ever left a bottle of water in your car during the heat of the day? Well, you need to quit doing that. Leaving water bottles in your car during summer is a bad idea, and not just because chemicals from the plastic can leach into your water when it gets hot (which is very disturbing if you ask me), but plastic leaches its component chemicals into the water much faster when heat is applied. (Is there AC on the 18-wheeler delivering the pallets of water to stores? NO.) It was described much like being when you put mint leaves in your tea. The heat extracts the mint-tasting molecules faster in hot tea than it does in cold tea. I like it when they put information in real life terms that we can understand.
A plastic bottle of water can also set your car seat on fire if sunlight hits it at just the right angle. If the conditions are right on a hot sunny day, light can shine through the front windshield, through a full water bottle, focusing heat onto one point. That concentrated beam can exceed 400 degrees onto a darker surface within seconds.
Now, back to my original point about hot cars. A few weeks back I had a doctor’s appointment because of all the beautiful sunshine that I enjoyed when I was younger – water skiing, camping, scuba, gardening, tanning beds, etc. – is now claiming bits and pieces of my skin for its very own. This was my third basal cell; they removed it from my ear, then took tissue/skin from the side of my face and placed it on my ear. Except for the fact that I couldn’t get the areas wet for a couple of weeks, it was pretty simple. Anne-Elisabeth was sweet to wash my hair at the kitchen sink. But at this rate, I may look like a completely different woman by the time I’m 80, with so much skin swap. (You know the pictures I’m talking about.) So, on the way back to LJ from the surgery, I figured I might as well treat myself to a quick trip to Total Wine since it was on my way home. I picked up 6 bottles of my “favorite at the moment” summertime Pinot Grigio. The next day when I got ready to leave the house, I remembered that box of wine in the backseat of my car. Yikes. It got so hot in my car that the corks had popped up on three of the bottles. This is serious. It’s so hot outside, it’s affecting our wine.
Her Majesty, the Queen has a new shorter hairstyle this summer. The very famous Butter Cow statue at the Iowa State Fair (August 11 – 21) in Des Moines, will weigh over 600 pounds. Ohio State University won trademark for the word THE, always said with emphasis such as, THE Ohio State University. To you and me, it’s just another everyday word, but to Buckeye fans, it’s a beloved tradition. There has been a third case of remission after a stem cell transplant using umbilical cord blood on an HIV patient. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Germany began a temporary suspension for maintenance, but now some fear Russia will not turn the supply back on. A 23-year-old American tourist fell into Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano in Italy, after trespassing to take a selfie, then dropping his phone and trying to retrieve it. He was saved by park officials. French health authorities say they have confirmed a link between nitrates added to processed meats and colon cancer. Good-bye charcuterie trays. Nitrates are added to a range of food products to improve their shelf life and flavor, and to help give pork-based products their pink hue. Beto O’Rourke will be visiting Lake Jackson on Wednesday August 3rd at noon.
Are you worried about your pet choking on a dog treat or rawhide? Well, a Florida family woke up to find that their Lab puppy, Scout, had found a potato chip bag that he put his head into, and it created a vacuum seal as he inhaled, suffocating him. Evidently it happens often, especially with pet treat bags, cereal box liners, bread bags and other plastic bags. So, before you recycle or dispose of the bags into the trash, cut along one side. Store pet food in plastic containers with an opening smaller that the pet’s head and serve snacks in bowls rather than straight from the bag. Hmmm. Can you imagine!
RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Bassist Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath is 73. Actor Lucie Arnaz is 71. Actor David Hasselhoff is 70. Country singer Luke Bryan is 46. Singer Dion is 83. Teenager In Love, Runaround Sue, The Wanderer, Ruby Baby, and Abraham, Martin and John. Actor James Brolin is 82. Singer Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandals is 81. Bluegrass singer Ricky Skaggs is 68. Actor Elizabeth McGovern of Downton Abbey is 61. Singer Vikki Carr is 82. Guitarist Brian May of Queen is 75. Guitarist Bernie Leadon of Eagles & Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is 75. Singer Urs Buhler of Il Divo is 51. Bassist John Lodge of the Moody Blues is 79. Country singer T.G. Sheppard is 78. Actor Donald Sutherland is 87.
Guitarist Carlos Santana is 75. Singer Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens is 74. Cartoonist Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury is 74. Actor Louise Fletcher is 88. Singer-actor Bobby Sherman is 79. Actor Danny Glover is 76. Singer Don Henley is 75. Actor-comedian-director Albert Brooks is 75. Composer Alan Menken of Little Mermaid, Little Shop of Horrors is 73. Singer-actor Selena Gomez is 30. Actor Woody Harrelson is 61. Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child is 42. Singer Kim Carnes is 77.
Larry Storch, the funny Cpl. Agarn in the 1960’s Western spoof, died at 99. Although F Troop lasted only two seasons from 1965 to 1967, it became a cult favorite in reruns. Devoted fans could recite almost all of the adventures of the incredibly incompetent soldiers of Fort Courage and the members of the nearby Native American tribe who only pretended to be at war with them. Monty Norman, the composer who wrote the iconic theme for the James Bond films, died at 94. James Caan died at 82. His Oscar-nominated performance as Sonny Corleone, the recklessly hotheaded son of Marlon Brando’s Mafia Don in The Godfather, is sure to be remembered as long as there are gangster movies. Sonny’s violent end, being riddled with dozens of bullets, is one of the most memorable scenes in the film. He died well. Caan also had notable roles in films including Misery, Elf, Thief, Godfather Part II, Brian’s Song, and The Gambler.
The iconic James Coney Island at the corner of Shepherd and Richmond in Houston closed recently. “We bought a lot of real estate 25 years ago when we started expanding Coney Island. They’re worth a lot of money today,” JCI President Darrin Straughan said. “The unit economics is too much to sell hot dogs out of. We made a decision to start selling off our real estate. We’re going to open Coney Islands in smaller footprints with drive-thru’s.” Ahhh. So, it’s called unit economics when your property is worth more than you can make selling your product.
Elon Musk is pulling out of his $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, so Twitter is in a bad situation of going to court to try and force the billionaire to make the purchase. His offer was for $54.20 a share, Twitter stock fell 11% to around $33 a share, losing value since late April when Musk made his offer. If he walks away, he could be on the hook for a $1 billion breakup fee. Like they were engaged and now Twitter wants to keep the engagement ring.
Pringles is asking all chip fans to sign a petition to rename the Kidney Garden Spider (that looks like it’s sporting a mustache, just like the Pringles “Mr. P” logo) to the Pringle’s Spider. The chip company also has a program that allows people to adopt a Pringles Spider. You get official adoption certification once you adopt, but you don’t actually get sent a real spider, obviously. Change.org
Wake up guys. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, women are now asking more of men concerning shared sexual responsibility. Like being equals. What a cool idea. Men, if you are finished having kids: get a vasectomy as soon as you can. For young men, many are saying that the best birth control plan is to harvest the youngest and best swimmers as early as possible, put them in a freezer under lock and key, then get a vasectomy. The end. No unwanted pregnancies, no abortion, fewer deadbeat dads. Then the only thing you would have to worry about is venereal disease and men lying about having had a vasectomy… but no babies. Well, it’s not free, but neither is labor and delivery, food, clothing, and college.
Brandy Bottone, 32-year-old Plano mom, said she could not be one minute late to pick up her son, so she made the decision and took to the HOV lane on Dallas North Tollway. You remember the lane reserved for buses or vehicles with several occupants, typically marked with large diamond shapes on the pavement. When you drive in the HOV lane, you have to have more than one person in the vehicle. Brandy was 8-months pregnant, so when the officer pulled her over, she pointed to her very pregnant belly and told him that the baby in her belly now counts as a person. She said the stand she’s now taking on the ticket isn’t for or against abortion, but that the law should be uniform. “If there’s a pro-women category, that’s my stance,” she said. “One law is saying that this is a baby and now he’s telling me this baby that’s jabbing my ribs is not a baby,” said Bottone. “Why can’t it all make sense?” Yes, indeed.
This could be your opportunity to own a 76-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton when Sotheby’s auction house offers a Gorgosaurus skeleton on July 28, (which also happens to be Geek Week.) This boney fellow is almost 10 feet tall and 22 feet long. Plenty of dinosaur skeletons have been auctioned off in the past, including Stan the T. Rex, which sold for $31.8 million in 2020; a meat-eating Allosaurus which sold for $2.36 million in 2018; and Sue the T. Rex, which sold for $8.4 million in 1997 to the Field Museum of Natural History. Experts are saying that this guy could bring up to $8 million. Paleontologists say individuals owning fossils rather than public institutions, prevents them from being viewed by the public and studied by researchers. Tina says that if she had one at her house, all the neighborhood dogs would be too scared to continue pooping in her yard.
The invasive giant African land snails are back in Florida. If you haven’t seen a picture of one, you need to. They can grow up to eight inches and can consume at least 500 plant species, but if they can’t find enough vegetation to munch on, they can also eat the paint or stucco off your house. The first battle Florida had with destructive mollusks was in the late 1960’s when 17,000 of the pests were collected over a 7-year period at a cost of $1 million, then they were found again in 2011 and 2017. In the past two weeks, 1,016 of the destructive mollusks have been collected from 29 properties. They also spread meningitis. Just when you thought it was safe to come out at night. I always use a jar lid full of beer to get rid of the snails in my garden. You would have to put out a kiddy pool full of 6-packs or kegs for these guys. Follow me next week for an Easy Garlic Escargot recipe. 😊
In southwest Virginia, Linda Skeens won quite a few ribbons at the county fair. In fact, she won first, second and third place for best cookies, and all three awards for candy, and savory bread, cake, pie, brownies, sweet bread and best overall baked good (which was strawberry fudge.) Wait, there is more. She also won for canned tomatoes, canned corn, pickled peppers, sauerkraut, relish, spaghetti sauce and both jelly and jam. Then she took top honors in quilt embroidery. People compared her to a great athlete, like NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt. She said, “Comparing me to Dale Earnhardt, Sr., I said no way I could ever be in his category. He’s my hero.” I believe she was being very humble. Especially after I read that last year at a different county fair, she won 40 ribbons. Sounds like a best-selling cookbook to me! Don’t forget to do something nice for someone TODAY. Thanks for taking the time to visit us.
LISA
Send comments to Lisa Baker at lisa@thesourceweekly.com
