Coffee Filters: A Jack of All Trades

Of all things, coffee filters, who knew! And you can buy 1,000 at the Dollar Store for almost nothing.

1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters make excellent covers.

2. Clean windows and mirrors. Coffee filters are lint-free so they’ll leave windows sparkling.

3. Protect China. Separate your good dishes by putting a coffee filter between each dish.

4. Filter broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter.

5. Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.

6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.

7. Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.

8. Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale.

9. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.

10. Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes.

11. Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.

12. Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use strips of coffee filters.

13. Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc. on them. Soaks out all the grease.

14. Keep in the bathroom. They make great “razor nick fixers.”

Oh yeah, they’re also great to use in your coffee makers too.  Good Day. 

Source:  Bits & Pieces

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Photograph of the Day: Love

Credit: Pizdaus, The House of Pics We Like

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Nostalgia for the Old Club Union of Casco Viejo (Panama)

For many decades el Club Union was the most exclusive and elegant social club in Panama City.  It was the place where the well off used to meet and have fun. It was the preferred spot of Panama crème de la crème .

Their banquets, lavish formal balls and other entertainment activities were envied by those who were  not invited.  It was a members club only, and being admitted was a complicated process.  One of the pre-requisites was to have money and lots of social and political influence.

As the Casco Viejo decayed, the affluent families initiated a migration to other parts of the city such as Marbella, El Cangrejo, Paitilla and Costa del Este.  El Club Union was not longer the center of attention of the Panama upper class society.  The Club Union was then turned over to the the military regime and its name was changed to Club de Clases y Tropas.

On December 20, 1989, Noriega’s regime was toppled by the U.S. military forces, and the Club de Clases y Tropas was abandoned to this date.  The walls are falling down and vegetation has grown through the cracks of the building.  The once proud building of Casco Viejo is dying a slow death as abandoned old building usually do until they are finally demolished.  However, there is still an air of nostalgia hovering over its white washed walls.

Once the revered Club Union, this waterfront property is one of Casco Viejo’s most memorable and scenic landmarks. It’s full of history, considering the strongman Manuel Noriega once used the club to throw parties for generals and friends alike.

The building is now under plans to become a new high-end hotel, perhaps the opportunity for tourists and investors to experience old-world Casco Viejo in all its glory. The Old Club Union is also a current favorite spot for skateboarders to hang out on weekends, for the time being at least, until construction begins.

When I last visited Casco Viejo on February 13, 2009; I witnessed the nostalgia of the old Club Union and took some photos to capture its dilapidated conditions before it’s destroyed.

This is what I saw through the lens of my camera.  Here we go.

The front section of the old Club Union located at Casco Viejo in Panama City, Panama.

An artistic approach to the previous photograph of the old Club Union performed by Michael Moore.

The dilapidated condition of the historic building. Notice the vegetation growing on top of the structure.

An artistic picture of the Club Union created by professional photographer Michael Moore.

As you can see through these pictures, Panama is more than a canal.  It’s a land rich with tradition and history.  Good Day.

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Joke: The Wire Brush

An Army Major visits the sick soldiers, goes up to one private and asks:

—“What’s your problem, soldier?”
—“Chronic syphilis, sir”
—“What treatment are you getting?”
—“Five minutes with the wire brush each day.”
—“What’s your ambition?”
—“To get back to the front, sir.”
—“Good man.” says the Major.

He goes to the next bed. “What’s your problem, soldier?”
—“Chronic piles, sir”
—“What treatment are you getting?”
—“Five minutes with the wire brush each day.”
—“What’s your ambition?”
—“To get back to the front, sir.”
—“Good man.” says the Major.

He goes to the next bed. “What’s your problem, soldier?”
—“Chronic gum disease, sir”
—“What treatment are you getting?”
—“Five minutes with the wire brush each day.”
—“What’s your ambition?”
—“To get the wire brush before the other two, sir”

I would give the last soldier a promotion, would you?  Good Day.

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Are Newspapers Obsolete?

As technology evolves, many great inventions give way to new ones.  I remember great products like the floppy disks, the Betamax recorder, the manual typewriter, the four propeller passenger plane, the carbon copy; all of these once useful products went the way of the Dodo.  The survival of the fittest applied.

Even as we speak, we are evidencing the slow disappearance of newspapers.  They are being displaced by the Internet and in a couple of years, newspapers will only be a faint remembrance of the way we received our news on paper.   Now receive our news in pixels.  A name that comes to my mind for our current electronic news is Nexels (news-pixels).

This morning, while reading the news on my computer, I learned that The Rocky Mountain News. Colorado’s oldest newspaper, which launched in Denver in 1859, printed its last edition Friday, leaving The Denver Post as the only daily newspaper in town.

“Goodbye, Colorado,” read the headline on a 52-page commemorative edition wrapping the regular newspaper. “STOP THE PRESSES,” read the front-page headline inside.

Four owners of 33 U.S. daily newspapers have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the past 2 1/2 months.   A number of other newspapers are up for sale.

Another newspaper whose head is on the chopping block is the San Francisco Chronicle.  San Francisco may lose its main newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, as owner Hearst Corp. cuts a “significant” number of jobs and decides whether to shut or sell the money-losing daily.

Hearst said on Tuesday that it might sell or close The San Francisco Chronicle if it cannot wring enough savings from the money-losing newspaper.

The announcement is the latest in a string of bad news for the newspaper industry, as several large papers and their publishers contemplate filing for bankruptcy amid plummeting advertising and circulation numbers.

The privately held New York-based publisher already is considering shutting a second West Coast paper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, in the face of a devastating decline in advertising revenue and big losses.

There’s a reason the newspaper industry has been complaining about decline in readership for the past 10 years. The overhead associated with printing and delivering a physical product is enormous and it is a cost that is passed right on to the consumer.

The Internet (even Internet that isn’t blazingly fast) can load up any content that a newspaper displays. Reading a newspaper at work is quite a bit more conspicuous than checking out the New York Times in another browser tab while you work. The Internet is the way of the future when it comes to news delivery:  The writing is on the wall.

Gadgets like the Kindle are making things worse for the dying newspaper industry.  I for one, don’t find the need to buy a newspaper.  I can get all the news I want, by booting up my computer every morning.  Good Day.

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Our Daily Photograph: Native of Kuna Yala Islands (Panama)

Credit: Omar Upegui R./Michael Moore

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A Humble Complaint Letter to a Bank

(Shown below is what is purported to be an actual letter that was sent to a bank by an 86-year-old woman. The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in the NY Times.)

Dear Sir:

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it.

I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank. My thoughtfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.

I noticed that whereas I personally answer your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, pre-recorded, over-charging faceless entity which your bank has become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic but will arrive at your bank, by check, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate.

Be aware that it is an offense under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find an Application Contact which I require your chosen employee complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Notary Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course, at MY convenience, I will issue your employee with a PIN which he/she must quote in dealings with me

I regret that this number cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further.

When you call me, press buttons as follows:

1. To make an appointment to see me.
2 To query a missing payment
3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.
4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.
5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.
6 . To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.
7. To leave a message, a password is required. Password will be communicated to you at a later date to that Authorized Contact mentioned earlier.
8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 7 may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.
9. Press ~ for English.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement. May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous New Year?

Your Humble Client

Source:  Old Horsetail Snake

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Cartoon: Joint Bank Account

Hey, me too!  Good Day.

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Surrealism at Casco Viejo, Panama

While I was scanning the Casco Viejo (Old Quarters), looking for interesting scenes for Lingua Franca, I practically bumped into two eye catching metallic statues.  One statue showed a lady concentrated over an old sewing machine and the other was a street peddler pushing a cart.  They appeared out of nowhere right where people walked in the area of Las Bovedas in the Plaza of Francia (France Plaza).

To me, they looked like surrealistic pieces of art in the style of André Breton or Salvador Dalí. I always enjoyed Dalí’s paintings.  They looked so…different. Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, in order to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, in order to evoke empathy from the viewer.

I needed to capture these sculptures with my camera.  And I did so in my own amateurish way of taking pictures.  To make them look decent, I sent them to my friend Michael Moore who has the skills of creating polished photographic images like I hadn’t seen before.

Michael Moore is a professional photographer, member of the Dallas Professional Photographers Association. He has other college degrees as well. This is how he defines himself at his photo Web site, Biographies of the heart Photography:

“I’ve attended the USAF School of Photography and served my country as photographer. I’m a member of the Dallas Professional Photographers Association. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in business and several professional certifications.

I shoot portraits (on location or in my home) and those events and people that have special meaning to you. While I provide the standard photographic services like other photographers, I specialize in creating video biographies about the special events in your life through the language of photographs and music. I’m located just east of Dallas, Tx. You may contact me at bothphoto @ gmail.com (remove spaces) for references, session availability, pricing and a sample slide show….regards…Michael”

These are the photographs of the metallic sculpture that Michael, like a modern Mandrake, pulled out of his magic hat.  Enjoy.

This is what I saw at the Plaza de Francia in front of Las Bóvedas. It grabbed my attention immediately.

The statue is now shown in black and white and the change is dramatic, in search of a better word.

Michael exhibits his photographic skills to show us a sculpture that has an interesting liquefied appearance.

The appearance of this picture  reminded me of the movie  “The Terminator”, portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.   In the movie, Robert Patrick played a lethal, liquid-metal, chrome T-1000 cyborg terminator.

The sleek, modern android was composed of poly-mimetic metal, meaning it could take on the shape, color, and texture of anything it touched (such as a porcelain-tiled floor), and could also mimic human behavior, such as imitating the voices of its victims; it could transform its hands into jaw-like blades, and completely absorb shotgun blasts to its midsection or head. In one remarkable scene, the T-1000 was shattered into pieces, but then the pieces reassembled themselves.

This final picture resembles a French impressionist painting, typical of the 19th century.

My visit to Casco Viejo was a breath of fresh air in the middle of a normally chaotic city.  I’m sure I’m in for other surprises if I keep my eyes wide open and my camera handy.  Life is so beautiful if you only stop your rush and appreciate your circumstances.  Good Day.

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Joke: Puns – Two Old Maids

One night, a policeman was busy making the rounds in his small town. Around midnight he spotted two old maids sitting in a car in a used car lot. The policeman approached the car and asked the ladies, “Excuse me, but why are you sitting in a car on this used car lot after business hours? Are you trying to steal this car?”

—“Good heavens, no!” one of the ladies said, “I just bought this car today, officer.”

—“Have you come back tonight to drive your car home?” the policeman asked.

—“Not at all,” the woman replies, “I don’t have a driver’s license.”

—“Then why did you buy this car?”

—“Well, we were told by our friends that if we bought a car from this used car lot, that we’d get screwed. Now we’re just waiting here for our screwing, and we’re not leaving until we get it!”

How about giving me a faint smile on this one?  Good Day.

Source:  Bits & Pieces

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