GOLDBLOOM’S PADDED CELL

Well for your enjoyment and culinary delight I’ve decided to showcase some interesting food and drink which you might want to give a try. Bon Appetite!

Heinz Spotted Dick Pudding. While shopping at the local Meijer last night I was quite shocked when my 17 year old daughter shouted “spotted dick” and went into a fit of laughter. She’s a chip off the old block aint she? She does me proud. LOL

Anyone up for some groin? Quick break out the Grill!

The name of this drink suggests to me that it may be flammable! So make sure you’re wearing flame retardant pants before you crack open one of these babies.

Did I forget to tell you that we’ve got a scanner now??? 

Isn’t Drags just the cutest thing?

Is there anything more exhilarating than the good ole yearly physical? Well I guess I’ll find out in a few minutes because I have an appointment for one this morning.  Yuck! I’m getting about sick of Doctors, hey are they supposed to make you sick? I’ve already got the yearly eye exam and bi-annual teeth cleaning out of the way so what the hell I might as well go for the boob smashing, needle poking, alien probing and ahem all the other pleasantries. The only thing I’m interested in (regarding this appointment anyway) is finding out my cholesterol level. The last three years it has been doing a steady climb and so far I’ve been able to talk the doctor out of putting me on Lipitor. So anyway send positive cholesterol lowering vibes my way….PLEASE! Anyways I’ll let y’all know what my cholesterol level is when I find out, but now I must go prepare for my appointment…Wish me luck!

…my post this morning. I have taken down the post for a while, but will put it back up when circumstances allow. 

UPDATE: I decided to add this glorious screen shot from the video!

Well it appears that I have won the Haiku contest over at sparrow’s nest, I haven’t gotten the official word yet but the voting ended at 9am est time. Thanks to all of you who voted for my lovely Haiku…LOL. The prize for this contest is a Deluxe Care Package sent to a member of the military serving in harm’s way, and I get to choose the soldier who will receive this package. This is where those of you who voted for me come into play. If any of you knows a soldier serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, and you would like to see them receive this package please leave a comment below…and maybe give a little info about the soldier. Also email me with the soldier’s shipping info so that I can relay it to Sparrow. If more than one soldier is nominated I’ll do an update on this post to let you guys know which soldier I selected.  Again thanks for voting for me…I love you guys :::sniff sniff:::: Now look what’s happened I’ve done went and got all mushy.

 UPDATE: Dazd’s friend SFC Scott A. Shaw will be the recipient of the Deluxe Care Package…congrats!

Okay everyone I need a favor…please go to the following link and vote for my Haiku poem….PLEASE!!!!PLEASE!!!!PLEASE!!!! Oh BTW here’s my poem:

His, mine, ours or not
This house has been overwrought
Oh where to begin!

http://chromedcurses.com/allatwitter/

Yesterday Dazd got me to thinking about our economy and how it seems that we’re heading for another great depression. I have to admit the signs are there, and things are getting a little scary, okay in some instances WAY scary. Anyway this morning I’ve been reading up on things that lead to the depression of the 1930’s and thought I’d share it with you guys. So if you’re ready for a history lesson here goes…Oh BTW I got the following info from www.encarta.msn.com.

• Americans in the Roaring Twenties turned inward, away from international issues and social concernsand toward greater individualism. The emphasis was on getting rich and enjoying new fads, new inventions, and new ideas.
• The self-centered attitudes of the 1920s seemed to fit nicely with the needs of the economy. Modern industry had the capacity to produce vast quantities of consumer goods, but this created a fundamental problem: Prosperity could continue only if demand was made to grow as rapidly as supply. Accordingly, people had to be persuaded to abandon such traditional values as saving, postponing pleasures and purchases, and buying only what they needed.
• Many people who were willing to listen to the advertisers and purchase new products did not have enough money to do so. To get around this difficulty, the 1920s produced another innovation—“credit,” an attractive name for consumer debt. People were allowed to “buy now, pay later.” But this only put off the day when consumers accumulated so much debt that they could not keep buying up all the products coming off assembly lines. That day came in 1929.
• Farmers had expanded their output during World War I, when demand for farm goods was high and production in Europe was cut sharply. But after the war, farmers found themselves competing in an over-supplied international market. Prices fell, and farmers were often unable to sell their products for a profit.
• After World War I the United States became the world’s chief creditor as European countries struggled to pay war debts and reparations. Many American bankers were not ready for this new role. They lent heavily and unwisely to borrowers in Europe, especially Germany, who would have difficulty repaying the loans, particularly if there was a serious economic downturn. These huge debts made the international banking structure extremely unstable by the late 1920s.
• In addition, the United States maintained high tariffs on goods imported from other countries, at the same time that it was making foreign loans and trying to export products. This combination could not be sustained: If other nations could not sell their goods in the United States, they could not make enough money to buy American products or repay American loans.
• The rising incomes of the wealthiest Americans fueled rapid growth in the stock market (see Stock Exchange), especially between 1927 and 1929. Soon the prices of stocks were rising far beyond the worth of the shares of the companies they represented. People were willing to pay inflated prices because they believed the stock prices would continue to rise and they could soon sell their stocks at a profit.
• In the fall of 1929 confidence that prices would keep rising faltered, then failed. Starting in late October the market plummeted as investors began selling stocks. On October 29, in the worst day of the panic, stocks lost $10 billion to $15 billion in value. By mid-November almost all of the gains of the previous two years had been wiped out, with losses estimated at $30 billion.
• The stock market crash announced the beginning of the Great Depression, but the deep economic problems of the 1920s had already converged a few months earlier to start the downward spiral. The credit of a large portion of the nation’s consumers had been exhausted, and they were spending much of their current income to pay for past, rather than new, purchases. Unsold inventories had begun to pile up in warehouses during the summer of 1929.
• The stock market crash was just the first dramatic phase of a prolonged economic collapse. Conditions continued to worsen for the next three years, as the confident, optimistic attitudes of the 1920s gave way to a sense of defeat and despair. Stock prices continued to decline. By late 1932 they were only about 20 percent of what they had been before the crash. With little consumer demand for products, hundreds of factories and mills closed, and the output of American manufacturing plants was cut almost in half from 1929 to 1932.
• Unemployment in those three years soared from 3.2 percent to 24.9 percent, leaving more than 15 million Americans out of work. Some remained unemployed for years; those who had jobs faced major wage cuts, and many people could find only part-time work.
• Many banks had made loans to businesses and people who now could not repay them, and some banks had also lost money by investing in the stock market. When depositors hit by the depression needed to withdraw their savings, the banks often did not have the money to give them. This caused other depositors to panic and demand their cash, ruining the banks. By the winter of 1932 to 1933, the banking system reached the point of nearly complete collapse; more than 5,000 banks failed by March 1933, wiping out the savings of millions of people.
• The plight of farmers, who had been in a depression since 1920, worsened. Already low prices for their goods fell by 50 percent between 1929 and 1932. While many people went hungry, surplus crops couldn’t be sold for a profit.
• Although economic conditions improved by the late 1930s, unemployment in 1939 was still about 15 percent. However, with the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939, the U.S. government began expanding the national defense system, spending large amounts of money to produce ships, aircraft, weapons, and other war material. This stimulated industrial growth, and unemployment declined rapidly. After the United States entered the war in December 1941, all sectors of the economy were mobilized to support the war effort. Industry greatly expanded, and unemployment was replaced by a shortage of workers.

Banana Jokes:

Q: Why don’t blondes eat bananas?
A: They can’t find the zipper.

Q: What kind of bananas are never bright?
A: Dole bananas!

Q: Why did the banana go to the doctor?
A: Because it wasn’t peeling well

Two bananas are laying on the bank of a river. A turd floats by and says, “Come on in! The water’s fine!” One banana turns to the other and says, “You believe that shit?!”

Banana facts:

• A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are known as fingers.
• As bananas ripen, the starch in the fruit turns to sugar. Therefore, the riper the banana the sweeter it will taste.
• Banana plants are the largest plants on earth without a woody stem. They are actually giant herbs of the same family as lilies, orchids and palms.
• Bananas are available all year-round. They are harvested every day of the year.
• Bananas are great for athletic and fitness activity because they replenish necessary carbohydrates, glycogen and body fluids burned during exercise.
• Bananas are not grown commercially in the continental United States. They are grown in Latin and South America from countries like Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Honduras, Panama and Guatemala.
• Bananas are one of the few fruits that ripen best off the plant. If left on the plant, the fruit splits open and the pulp has a “cottony” texture and flavor. Even in tropical growing areas, bananas for domestic consumption are cut green and stored in moist shady places to ripen slowly.
• Bananas are perennial crops that are grown and harvested year-round. The banana plant does not grow from a seed but rather from a rhizome or bulb. Each fleshy bulb will sprout new shoots year after year.
• Bananas were officially introduced to the American public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Each banana was wrapped in foil and sold for 10 cents. Before that time, bananas came to America on the decks of sailing ships as sailors took a few stems home after traveling in the Caribbean.
• Each banana plant bears only one stem of fruit. To produce a new stem, only two shoots - known as the daughter and the granddaughter - are allowed to grow and be cultivated from the main plant.
• In 1516, Friar Tomas sailed to the Caribbean bringing banana roots with him; and planted bananas in the rich, fertile soil of the tropics, thus beginning the banana’s future in American life.
• In 2001, there were more than 300 banana-related accidents in Britain, most involving people slipping on skins.
• In Eastern Africa you can buy banana beer. This beer is brewed from bananas.
• In some lands bananas were considered the principal food. Early travelers and settlers would carry the roots of the plant as they migrated to the Middle East and Africa. From there Portuguese traders carried banana roots to the Canary Islands, where bananas are still grown commercially.
• In South East Asia, the banana leaf is used to wrap food (in the place of plastic bags and cling wraps), providing a unique flavor and aroma to nasi lemak and the Indian banana leaf rice.
• India is by far the largest world producer of bananas, growing 16.5 million tonnes in 2002, followed by Brazil which produced 6.5 million tonnes of bananas in 2002. To the Indians, the flower from the banana tree is sacred. During religious and important ceremonies such as weddings, banana flowers are tied around the head, for they believe this will bring good luck.
• Some horticulturists suspect that the banana was the earth’s first fruit. Banana plants have been in cultivation since the time of recorded history. One of the first records of bananas dates back to Alexander the Great’s conquest of India where he first discovered bananas in 327 B.C.
• The average American consumes over 28 pounds of bananas each year.
• The banana plant reaches its full height of 15 to 30 feet in about one year. The trunk of a banana plant is made of sheaths of overlapping leaves, tightly wrapped around each other like celery stalks.
• The origin of bananas is traced back to the Malaysian jungles of Southeast Asia, where so many varieties and names for the banana are in that area.
• The word ‘banan’ is Arabic for finger.
• There are more than 500 varieties of banana in the world: The most common kinds are Dwarf Cavendish, Valery, and Williams Hybrid bananas. Other types of bananas include Apple and a small red banana called the Red Jamaica. A large type of banana called the plantain is hard and starchy and is almost eaten as a cooked vegetable. The Cavendish is the most common variety of bananas now imported to the United States. The Cavendish is a shorter, stubbier plant than earlier varieties. It was developed to resist plant diseases, insects and windstorms better than its predecessors. The Cavendish fruit is of medium size, has a creamier, smooth texture, and a thinner peel than earlier varieties.
• There is no such thing as a banana tree. Bananas grow on plants.

Life is like a big book and for the most part it’s up to us to decide what the pages within are filled with.  Of course outside factors can influence the books direction too, but taking control and getting our story back on track is up to us.

Your book can change drastically from one chapter to the next, in one chapter it’s all romance and puppies and then in the very next chapter your book has taken a turn into the sad and tragic. The secret to having a successful book is to take control of the writing and be diligent with the editing. 

Deciding when to start a new chapter is another important aspect of your Life’s book . Some chapter changes just happen as a natural part of life, but then there are the chapter changes we must make on our own. Ending a chapter prematurely can be devastating to the book so caution must be used. However the same can be said for dragging out a chapter that has lost its direction. Sometimes ending a chapter in your book can be a daunting, emotional decision but some chapters just have to be ended for the good of the book. After-all the goal of the book is to make sure there is a happy ending…isn’t it?

Oh well sorry for the weird post, but you know this is a Padded Cell, and I am allowed to ramble like a lunatic.