What does "obtuse" mean? Isn't that an angle greater than 90 degrees? Why does geometry come into play? This just keeps getting worse. I'm sorry I ever mentioned it. Todd will explain it. He understands.

We may be about to lose our housemaid. We are decorating the house for Halloween and it is causing a bit of a problem. The maid is extremely religious. She goes to church 7 days a week in her little Eritrean subcommunity here. If she were American, she would be a card-carrying member of the Moral Majority. Anyway, she is now convinced we are devil worshipers. She throws things away that have any hint of Halloween. When DD2 put on the devil costume, the maid got out her Bible and started yelling chants at the poor girl. Her work is suffering because she is up all night praying for our souls. Next thing I know she will be asking us to stop sacrificing dogs and cats!

Just kidding!

She would never ask us to do that. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Pio and Group,

As a walking, talking lexicon, I am happy to explain what the word obtuse means. For the record, the information that follows is known by approximately 60 peope in this world. So, feel very priviliged.

First, a rough definition is "being slow of mind" or "not swift of mind". The origin of the word comes from a French gentleman (oxymoron) name Olin Bashe Tuse. Last name was pronounced "two-say". Little Olin was not very errr... how do you say? Gifted. He was a little slow. When he entered high school, he completed his enrollment form and entered his name as O B Tuse as was common in old Frahn-say. From the first day of his first class, little Olin fell behind the rest of the students. One day the teacher called on him to answer a question and little Olin misunderstood the question although the teacher went to great pains to explain it. She glanced at her class log and ran his initials together and called little Olin "Obtuse". The name stuck and it was just a matter of time before Webster, Thorndike and Gates caught on and entered the new word in their versions of the dictionary.

True story: believe it or not.

So when you say "don't be obtuse", what you are really saying is "don't be like a stupid frenchie". Okay. I'll buy that.

I have another question. Where did the term "Jay Walking" come from? It just doesn't make any sense.


Okay I just went to askoxford.com and apparently being "a jay" means you are being obtuse traffic-wise and they say the term originated in 1917.

Exactly. You catch on fast...


Jaywalking consists of two separate words: jay and walking. The derivation is very interesting. In the People's Republic of Massachusetts before the Tea Party, if the British were not able to collect levies from a citizen of the New World, they would take his possessions and strip him of his clothes. Hence, the term "naked as a jaybird" was conceived. On the way home, the so stripped citizens would never cross at the crosswalk, but would cross streets in the middle all the while dodging cars. Just a matter of time before the term "jaywalker" was invented.

Just to add a bonus in here, you will recall that John Jay was one of the writers of the Federalist Papers. His family formerly carried the name of Watson. But so many Watsons in the early days were stripped and hence became jaywalkers that their neighbors began referring to them as the "Jay" family instead of Watson. The name stuck and today, we have no idea that John Jay could have easily been Jay Watson.

I have a question. Back in the 1700's, were the colonists allowed to own cars or was it only the British?

This is quite a common occurence in Mexico City today. Any link?

How O B Tuse of me! Of course, I mean horse drawn carriages. Back in the 1700's, only professional athletes had cars. Seemed obvious to me, but since you asked, there...

How nice to see the merriment, even from poor sick (((Pio))).

Todd, I will share the O B Tuse story with my boys. They will probably think the teacher was mean...oh wait...does that mean they're obtuse?

"Americans aren't that dumb" Thanks BigK! Sweet of you in a backhanded sort of way. Hey, that's probably one of the nicest compliments we're likely to get these days.

KY Jelly, gawd you engineers, so literal, must have things spelled out for you. Lossen up the mind a tad, use your imagination. Actually, watch a little T.V.. You'll see an add with a man reading in bed & his W showing him the bottle of lubricant, the one that heats up. He's confused at first because she uses the word jelly instead of lubricant. Clearly an engineer. Finally that come hither look in his W's eye gets through his thick skull.

Clearly we have people interested in history here so I'll ask how did the town of King of Prussia, PA get it's name?

Wake up y'all or I'm leavin! Humph!

y'all are nuts....

Which is worse......black walnuts or sweetgum balls falling from your neighbor's tree into your yard?

That must be a trick question. My neighbor has a tree - I don't know what kind - and it drops SOMETHING on my yard and driveway twice a year for about two months each time. It is nasty stuff. So I bought a Remington pole saw and cut every bit of his tree from over my driveway. He came out and caught me and said "hey that looks great! can you cut some more?". He also asked me to pull a stump for him. You don't have to ask me that twice! Anything that requires horsepower and I'm in!

nams - you need to move to a new time zone or else get insomnia.

As much as I'd like to go back to being unable to sleep & spend more time here, I'll take the sleep I get, thank you very much.

Tonight was the last night of our auction & it went well. There was a small bidding war with one of my pieces so I told the woman who lost the bid that I'd brought my contribution of food for the night on a similar piece. She bought it. One man told me the piece of mine he bought was the best deal of the night. When I'd first had the piece in a show I priced it at $150, I think he got it for $60. That's OK, he really liked it & understood the amount of work that went into it so I'm glad he got it. I like to see people touch my work & connect with it & he did.

The food was great & it was a fun night so all's well. Tomorrow I'll work in the studio & I'll see how my kiln load came out. If I get anything fantastic I'll post a pic. Five new glazes, we'll see...I can hardly wait, it's like Christmas when I unload my kiln. Sometimes a Christmas filed with all I asked for, sometimes it's all the wrong stuff, most of the time it's somewhere in between.

Well I am strugling with my air brush. I have two air brushes. One is suction and the other is gravity feed. I can't even get water to come out the darn things. I have the air pressure where it says it should be. Air comes out - but no water - much less paint! I must be doing something fundamentally wrong.

Okay I took one of the airbrushes completely apart. I polished everything and put WD-40 on anything that moved or slid. Now I can get water out. Going to try paint.

Too bad the air brush does not operate on hot air....you would have no problems.

I was not going to post this update but it is so slow, I figure why not. WW called last night, drunk. Before you whack me, I have no caller ID here so I cannot screen calls. She said that she had talked to DS3 earlier today and told him that she was going to Bermuda for Thanksgiving with friends from work. Then she said she had plenty of options. I reminded her of NC and hung up.

DS3 called later that night and I offered to rent a cottage at the lake and golf community during Thanksgiving weekend since WW was going to be in Bermuda. He said what? Mom is going to Bermuda for Thansgiving? She obvsiously had not told him. Then he said he had to go. I know he called her immediately. Good. Let WW deal with DS3 for a while.

Good for you, Todd. Good for you. I know it must be hard. But, at least he may see that she isn't all sweetness and truth and light.

Meanwhile, I would suggest you stop peppering pio with DJs. He can't help being the way he is. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />