Another April Fool’s Day is upon us unfortunately.  I usually escape the day unscathed, but this year, that is not the case.  Seems some clever “hacker” decided to “get” us tangents.org bloggers with false threats of blog erasures…

I did not think it was funny.  Maybe I’m not a good sport, but the joke hit where it hurt – how many valuable documents; including pictures, diaries, even my oldest daughter’s electronic baby book, have I lost due to computer malfunctions?  I’m not saying my blogs are valuable, but I have spent lots of time on them.  They’ve also essentially replaced my family diary I was keeping since I now put most of my kids milestones in my blogs…

But I guess most people get a kick out of the day.  Drew Carey even got into the spirit today on The Price is Right.  They put in a joke showcase and were going to make some poor lady bid on a trip to Lebanon or someplace!  I was half-watching, wish I had seen the whole thing, it seemed hilarious.  But anyway, I hope others are better sports than I, and they find the blog prank funny.  And I’m sorry to the gleeful jokester who really wanted to have some fun at my expense before I spoiled it.  Maybe I’m just a spoiled sport because I can’t think of any good pranks myself.  But now that I know the playing field is wide open and I have a whole year to think about it, stay away from me this year and WATCH OUT for me next year 😉

Came across this news story after linking to the one about the hugely tall spire they’re going to build in the Middle East:

First Wedding Dress Shop for Pregnant Brides ONLY Opens

I agree with the people who posted comments at the end of the article – what is the world coming to when maternity wedding dresses are seen as a normal need to fulfill in the buyer’s market?  Should we be happy that these women are getting married rather than staying single?  What about the fact that they might be rushing into marriage just for the sake of getting to buy a pretty dress, or more likely, because it’s becoming extremely socially acceptable, which will surely raise the already obscenely high divorce rate?  And why are they bothering to make these maternity bridal gowns WHITE?

All I can say is, thank goodness this article isn’t about the good old USA – but then again, we probably have an American maternity bridal store chain or two or three already.

THIS BLOG HAS BE HACKED BY

THE MAD HACKER!

All of your posts will be erased at 8:30PM EST!

Originally this post was called “CUBS WIN!!!”  And I followed it up with: gee, I sure hope I’m not jinxing anything by posting this.  And as I was typing that, the dang Brewers scored 3 runs!  Now that I’ve changed the title of the post, the awful half-inning ended and the Cubs are now up with a chance to save the game and have one man on base.  Unfortunately for me, I will have to miss the finale and seeing if the Cubs pull it off because I can’t suspend my entire life for baseball, as much as I’d like to.  I already rearranged my schedule around this game today, and wouldn’t you know it, there were not one, but TWO rain delays, which is why the Cubs are still playing and why I have to miss the end of the game because my poor family has gone without dinner long enough!  So, hope for me and for the Cubs that they pull this off – I must say it’s starting to look good with 2 men on now and NO OUTS – this game has reached a fever pitch as their pitcher is starting to choke and walk Cubs out the wazoo….  OH MY GOSH – FUKUDOME JUST HIT A 3-RUN HOMER TO TIE THE GAME!!!  My daughter can stand in the rain waiting for me to pick her up, can’t she?  It’s opening day!  Is there an emoticon for fingers crossed?!?!?

When choosing a best man for a wedding, a future groom generally would believe that the person asked to stand with him on his wedding day would actually show up.  Tuesday night, my cousin’s fiance found out that his best man had to work Saturday, the day of the wedding.  DUHHHHHHH!!! How long in advance was the ceremony scheduled?  I knew last May on which date the ceremony was going to be.  One has to wonder where this “best man’s” priorities lied.

Never fear, there were back ups in place.  Hopefully, one who fit the tux.  One was the groom’s brother Eric who was arriving from Pennsylvania with his boyfriend, Jamie on Tuesday.  Eric was already serving as an usher.

The other was a former schoolmate and friend of the groom.  In the end, the schoolmate was chosen.

So when choosing your best man, maid (matron) of honor, be sure that they will actually be able to schedule your ceremony around their busy life.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE 3-27 EPISODE OF ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5TH GRADER (AND CARE TO) SKIP THIS POST)

Last thursday night on the coming attraction for tonight’s “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader”, it was announced that someone gets to the million dollar question and answers it. I was totally flabergasted that they would actually announce that someone would finally win the top prize more than a year after the show first aired. Then I remembered watching “Live with Regis and Kelly” (or was it Kathie Lee at the time…. who cares). On one particular morning, Regis announced that on that very night someone would win a million on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” At the time, it seemed exciting and of course I watched. I even remember the question (Which president made an appearance on the television series “Laugh In?”). Over the past few years, it seems like a cheap way to increase ratings.

It seemed like deja-vu while watching 5th Grader until the contestant who graduated from UCLA and has an MBA from USC got to the second question:

“What is the subject of the following sentence? Sierra baked a cake for Olivia.” He even got the three choices:

A: pronoun; B: proper noun; C: common noun

Unfortunately, this smart (?) guy thought the subject of the sentence was “cake” so he chose answer C. Sorry to say, the fifth grade student who could have saved him also chose the wrong answer. So the bright guy who knew he would be the first million dollar winner on the show flunked out on the second question and went home with nothing.

AH, but wait….. since the man was sooooo sure that he would not only get to the top question but answer it correctly, Jeff showed the question and it was answered correctly.

I guess the advertisement did not say that the million dollars was actually won only that the question was asked and answered. CHEAP RATINGS PLOY. If it were five days from now, some would have shouted “APRIL FOOLS!!!“

It took me 8 minutes to win this game.  It will probably take you much longer.

[swf]https://www.gigarcade.com/swf/20136.swf[/swf]

In case you haven’t read the comments at the end of my Mini-Golf – The Sequel! post, I talked about how much I didn’t like the new version I had posted because it was obscenely difficult.  The first version was simplistic and easy to play after some practice.  The second version I got (which was evidently the 3rd version of the game) turned out to be way too difficult, and the added complications (sandtraps, water) made the game lose part of its charm.  Unfortunately, I did not play the game before I posted the link, so that’s why I had to comment on it.  I suggest you give it a try if you like these computer mini-golf games though, I did appreciate the “bounciness” of the ball off the walls.  But, if you’re like me, and you think the second game (3rd version) I posted was way too difficult to enjoy, then give this one a try also:

 https://www.gigarcade.com/full-744-Forest-Challenge-2.html

[swf]https://www.gigarcade.com/swf/20754.swf[/swf]

It has some sand and water traps, but it also has the “bounce-back” reaction of the ball, and the slope grades are dipicted in such a way that you can actually tell the difference between them.  I think I may have noticed a scoring glitch in the game though.  If there’s no glitch, then I am very good at this and scored a 3 😉

Watch out for hole #18 – it’s a par 8, so that should tell you something!

Thanks to my awesome husband for finding this…  I haven’t had a chance to try it yet but I am about to, so I will post my best score…  which will probably be at least twice the score of you “experts” out there!  Oh well, they are fun…  let’s see how this one compares: https://www.gigarcade.com/full-960-MiniPutt-3.html

…is the title of an AP article I read the other day about the price of celebrity divorces, inspired by, of course, the McCartney-Mills divorce that’s been dominating the headlines lately.  I took note of this article because I was surprised that the McCartney-Mills settlement was not in the top 5 most expensive divorce settlements.  In fact, the top 5 were surprising to me; just people I would not have guessed that would have had that much money or who would have not been able to protect themselves and their assets any better.  Actually, the McCartney-Mills divorce settlement at $48.6 million equaled a little over half of # 5 on the list.  Here it is:

1.  Michael and Juanita Jordan – possibly more than $150 million settlement pending, 2006.

2.  Neil Diamond and Marcia Murphey – $150 million, 1994.

3.  Steven Spielberg and Amy Irving – $100 million, 1989.

4.  Harrison Ford and Melissa Mathison – $85 million, 2004.

5.  Kevin Costner and Cindy Silva – $80 million, 1994.

I wonder what some of these amounts would be if adjusted for inflation also.  This article would have been a little more interesting if they had included the wedding date or how long the couple was together before the divorce.  I am often amused when I look in the local newspaper and see divorces between couples who were only married a few years, some only a few months!  My dear friends are wedding photographers, and they’ve shared at least one story of a couple who was no longer together by the time their wedding photos were ready to be picked up!  It’s amusing, yet sad at the same time, especially of course any time there are children involved.  I wish people would think a little bit harder about the commitment and sacrifice involved in marriage, and I wish that more people would treat marriage like the institution it was meant to be.