Blog Marco

No. Female chickens are called hens. Male chickens are called roosters or cocks or cockerel. And yes all the chickens we eat are females. The egg-laying hens are genetically-modified/bred so that they only lay eggs that are female. Any male ones are wastage and are often gassed to provide food for snakes. This is because male chickens tend to have a tougher meat.

Yes, all cows are female. However, the species as a whole are referred to as "cattle" are also known colloquially as cows. But strictly speaking, male cattle are bulls, female cattle are cows and castrated cattle are called steer. Most beef we eat are from steer. Dairy cows don't have as much meat in prime cuts such as loin and rump so they are mostly ground to make hamburgers.

Racehorses are both. Stallions, geldings and colts are male race horses. Mares and fillies are female race horses. In Australia, the males and females usually race against each other. There are races for one sex only, but most of them have them competing against one another. A mare named Makybe Diva is the one and only race horse to win the prestigious Melbourne Cup three times. Phar Lap was a Gelding who won the Melbourne Cup in 1930.

Dictionary reading was a favourite pastime of mine when I was younger. I love discovering new words such as psychosomatic and many others. Other popular words... I was taking a quiz on definitions online when these 10 words popped up:

Banal: lacking force or originality; trite; commonplace

Erudite: having or showing extensive scholarship; learned

Loquacious: characterized by or showing a tendency to talk a great deal

Lugubrious: excessively mournful; doleful

Maudlin: foolishly tearful or sentimental, as when drunk

Obsequious: obedient or attentive in an ingratiating or servile manner

Perturbing: 1. To disturb greatly; make uneasy or anxious; 2. To throw into great confusion.

Platitude: 1. a trite, dull, or obvious remark or statement; a commonplace; 2. staleness or insipidity of thought or language; triteness

Animals with genetic mutations are popping up around the world - for realz. Checkout the photos below...

Remember the Simpsons episode called "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish"? This is the episode where Bart and Lisa go fishing downstream of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and Springfield Shopper reporter Dave Shutton pulls up just as Bart catches a three-eyed fish, which the media nicknames Blinky. Then later in the episode, Marge serves Blinky for dinner to Mr Burns. The animals below come with extra legs, extra faces and single eye abnormalities from genetic mutations.

I was watching an old episode of The Outer Limits and they talked about Hyperspace. Hyperspace. We keep hearing about it in various science fiction movies. It's showcased in Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Babylon 5 and Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy (but not Battlestar Galactica where they use some sort of FTL via "jumps"). Is hyperspace real? Sadly not. Hyperdrives are a work of fiction. Hyperspace is a plot device sometimes used in science fiction. It is typically described as an alternate region of space co-existing with our own universe which may be entered using an energy field or other device. Travel in hyperspace is frequently depicted as faster-than-light travel in normal space.

Hyperspace is sometimes used to enable and explain faster than light (FTL) travel in science fiction stories where FTL is necessary for interstellar travel or intergalactic travel.

Here's a list of modern Christmas songs. It's time to fill up your ipod with some Christmas Cheer:

Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
Merry Christmas, Baby - Bruce Springsteen
Please Come Home For Christmas - Eagles
All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
O Holy Night - Mariah Carey
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Mariah Carey
Miss You Most (At Christmas Time) - Mariah Carey
What Christmas Means To Me - Stevie Wonder
Someday At Christmas - Stevie Wonder
Do You Hear What I Hear - Whitney Houston
U2 - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
John Lennon - Happy Xmas (war is over)
Relient K - I Celebrate the Day
Josh Groban - Believe
98 degrees - This Gift
Billy mack - Christmas is all around
Coldplay - Have yourself a merry little christmas
Mariah Carey - All I want for Christmas is you
Kelly Clarkson - My Grown up Christmas
Travis - Last Christmas

Two divas to get you into the Christmas spirit:
All I want for Christmas is you - Mariah Carey

Top 20 Office cliches. British based, Dorcas Pratt, Director of International Development for charity The Brooke carried out the study.

1. At the end of the day
2. What goes around, comes around
3. It's not rocket science
4. Thinking outside the box
5. Flogging a dead horse
6. Don't shoot the messenger
7. Going forward
8. By the close of play
9. Give you the heads up
10. Live and learn
11. C'est la vie
12. Don't put all your eggs in one basket
13. Hit the ground running
14. Always look on the bright side of life
15. Suck it and see
16. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth
17. Don't worry, be happy
18. I know it's a big ask
19. I'm out
20. There are no flies on me

Join the latest craze! Instead of wearing a sexy bikini consider wearing a Burqini this Summer beach season. With in-built SPF50+ protection, this modest swimsuit for any lady, woman or girl, you won't need to worry about sunscreen. (except for the exposed facial part). Made with polyester, it is chlorine, water repellent and quick drying.

Aheda Zanetti is the Australian inventor of this modest swimsuit, humbly called a Burqini (a play on the word bikini). The leg and head covering polyester swimsuit was brought to market in 2003 and is highly controversial in many countries. The swimsuit was banned in most countries before being accepted. For example, the burqini was initially banned in the UK, The Netherlands Germany, Sweden and Austria before being approved. More recently, a 35-year-old French woman was banned from her local swimming pool after wearing the swimsuit. Business is booming for the burqini as Muslim and non-Muslim women seek a conservative approach in their swimwear.

The Seven Deadly Sins, the Capital Vices or Cardinal Sins, is a list of the most objectionable vices which tend to destroy the life of grace and create eternal damnation that can only be absolved through Confession or be forgiven through the perfect contrition of the penitent.

The Lord, in the Book of Proverbs, specifically regards these as haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief, a deceitful witness that uttereth lies and him that soweth discord among brethren.

The Epistle to the Galatians gave another list which also included the traditional seven sins. Pope Gregory I, in 590 AD, revised such but was consequently changed because the traits weren't collectively referred to by the Bible itself. The modern concept of the Seven Deadly Sins is linked to Evagrius Ponticus, a 4th century monk, who listed eight Latin evil thoughts which then gave birth to the modern concept of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Is it incest to marry your first cousin? Why am I even writing and researching this? My inquiries all started with this unusual question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire where the hosts asks: "Which of these famous people was never married to his first cousin?" Is that even legal? Did you know household names such as Edgar Allan Poe, HG Wells, Charles Darwin, Johann Bach, Jerry Lee Lewis, Igor Stravinsky, John Adams and Albert Einstein have married their first cousins? (oh and perhaps most of Europe's royal family - but I think thats common knowledge) oh and also (Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, and his second cousin once removed, Regina Peruggi)... plenty more names...

I have the mother of all conspiracy theories... The robots and the bears are quietly planning their conquest for world domination. The bears have been busy examining bikes and learning how to cycle. While robots are advancing so fast... Where am I coming up with all these weird and crazy ideas?

There were two articles of interest in my weekend reading: "Bear-Proof Can Is Pop-Top Picnic for a Crafty Thief" and "Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man".

Be Afraid... Be very afraid... the robots are soon going to be taking over the world... complete with Skynet and Terminator...

Cars.Gov the new cash for clunkers website was launched last Monday. The government website offers information on how the process of trading an older vehicle for a more-efficient model will work, and urges customers to call dealers to see if they will register for the program. Last Thursday, US Congress sent the $1-billion Cash for Clunkers 2009 bill to President Barack Obama for his signature. The Cash for Clunkers program should put $3,500 to $4,500 in the pockets of about 250,000 people trading in older gas guzzlers for new, more environmentally friendly cars.

Cash for Clunkers 2009 – Car Allowance Rebate System

The cash for clunkers program is supposed to help get old cars off the road and replace them with newer more safer, fuel efficient vehicles. Here are the rules:

• Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
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Submitted by Marco on Wed, 24/06/2009 - 8:43am.

I was reading a few forums about learning about "money making" schemes and gurus and one forum member advised to take their advice "with a pinch of salt." To take (advice) with a pinch of salt means: to listen to a story or an explanation with considerable doubt or to take a story and not completely believing in it and refusing to believe it is completely true. Where does this idiom come from? In Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, 77 A.D. he writes:

After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.

More recently, John Trapp wrote in "Commentary on the Old and New Testaments", 1647:

"This is to be taken with a grain of salt."