Signs Of The Friday Times

1) Rockstar found this on Youtube last night and wants me to lead with it today:

Insane Domino Tricks. My favorite entry in the comments to these two kids was “you’re either prodigies in school or you’re getting Ds in everything” 😀

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2) 17 creepiest things kids have said. Most are hilarious. Some are creepy. Then you get to the reader comments and it starts getting really, really creepy when some readers start sharing their own experiences.

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3) Signs of the times… Vintage ads that would be offensive today.

Speaking of creeps…

If you thought the visual was bad, read the small print in the ads in the link.

“Indoors, women are useful – even pleasant…”

“…..7-up is so pure, so wholesome, you can give it to babies and feel good about it… Notice that all our ingredients are listed…..”

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4) Contrast that with “buckle up to get down,” Virgin Airlines safety video. Or, how they got 7 million (and counting!) people to watch the airline safety video – when they weren’t even on a plane. My favorite part is How To Put The Life Jacket On – Robot Style. Thought the nun was overkill though…

http://youtu.be/DtyfiPIHsIg

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5) Sunny Obama knocks over toddler in White House. Sunny is the first family’s new dog. What’s funnier than the fact this made news were some of the ironic comments, like “black dog knocks over white kid” and “whether the White House covered up any previous ‘vicious dog attacks’ by the First Family’s dogs.”

pic from Huffingtonpost.com

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5) Madoff Henchman Rats Out Co-Workers

I used to coin the phrase “as long as it pays more to be a crook than an auditor/regulator you will get first-rate crooks and second-rate auditors/regulators” so it was with great interest that I read about “an external auditor at KPMG” who picked up on Madoff Henchman’s slip up comment that they only retained the end-of-month trades prices and pursued it. (And then the bits about duping said auditor by putting newly printed still-warm documents containing the prices said auditor persisted in seeing in the fridge after throwing them about “like a medicine ball… …so the documents would look used” were just…. very interesting. It goes to show the extent at which some people did go to in order to fool the auditors/regulators.)

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pic from dailybeast.com

6) The Goldfinch is a fiction novel that revolves around a real 250 year old painting of the same name. “The picture is real, it exists, the story is not really…” All in the interests of finding something to talk to Rockstar about, re his latest learning unit about stories being a way to express ideas and experiences differently.

7) This week’s 5-second skit is titled: Little Miss Does Magic (she makes her hand disappear!)

Step 1: Insert hand in carton used to hold her animal magnets

Where did it go? Where could your hand be?

Step 2: Ask volunteer from audience to hold carton

“Issa hand!” when she pulls her hand out. This trick totally cracks her up right now.

Rockstar pretends to be impressed….

In between being impressed, Rockstar turns and whispers to me, “I actually know how the trick is done!”

Have a good weekend…