Odds and Ends

I find myself uninspired for a full length entry today, but I've got a few snippets from my "odds and ends" file to cobble an entry together with.

Many times, I get ideas for writing while going about my business, frequently when driving or showering. It's best if I jot down the key word or idea as quickly as possible, because if my attention moves on to something else, it's quite likely I'll forget it. Sometimes, the idea will come back to me of its own accord, especially if I'm relaxed and don't try to force it, but fairly often, once I forget it, it's gone.

Some might say this is a sign of getting old, which I've heard referred to either as CRS (Can't Remember Shit) or its more serious cousin, CRAFT (Can't Remember a Fucking Thing).

I don't know if it's necessarily a degradation of memory. It seems to me that the longer one lives, the more facts and experiences the brain is hosting as compared to the relatively emptier mind of a younger person, who has far fewer life experiences to keep track of.
_______________

My brother stutters. He always has, since my earliest years. It's lessened some as he's gotten older, but he still does it from time to time. I don't know anyone else in the family who does.

While listening to the radio the other day, a public service announcement came on about stuttering, telling people it was a neurological thing having nothing to do with intelligence or being overly nervous.

I'd always known it wasn't related to intelligence because of my brother, who is a skilled surgical nurse, but the common belief in our family was that his stuttering had a psychological component related to the issues he had with our father.
_______________

Why is it that when you encounter double glass doors to enter a business, one of them is always locked? What's up with this? Why even have the door if it's always going to be locked?
_______________

Some advertising phrases and what they really mean:

Get up to fifty percent off!

You'll get ten percent off. If you were going to get fifty percent off, the modifier "up to" would not be in the sentence.

Pay as low as 99 dollars a month!

Again, if you had a reasonable chance of getting this price, "as low as" would not be part of the sentence.

Pay 99 dollars a month, with approved credit.

....with only .00001% of customers having sufficiently approved credit.

Results not typical

This is a typical disclaimer in weight loss ads, shown at the bottom of the_ page in microscopic letters. So, this means that, even though Ms A lost 100 pounds in six months, your likely weight loss will be about three ounces. And that will be from your wallet.
__________________

Books of the Week

I made a library run yesterday and here are the books I chose:

Do You Speak American by Robert MacNeil and William Cran. This is a look at various American dialects and how they've evolved over the years.

The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty by Kitty Kelley. Dishing the dirt on the Bush family.

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. Recently written bio of one of our Founding Fathers.