Relations are simply a tedious pack of people who haven't got
the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

- Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest
 

Friends are like melons.  Shall I tell you why?
To find one good, you must a hundred try.

- Claude Mermet
 

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.

- Anthony Robbins
 

An Ideal Home for Dysfunctional Families? - William Sherman, chairman of the department of architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Virginia, says all the cut-up spaces make families more isolated and lonelier than ever.  "People don't even gather in the same spot to watch tv anymore," Mr Sherman says.  "It's sad."

Gardens - "It means something quite unexpected - the snake in the grass that creeps up and bites you."  One side of the 70-foot slither through the earth is walled with timber; the other is planted with sedum...

Fun Guns - We run out of bullets in 30 minutes, turn in our weapons, and pay the bill: $68, tax included.  The Los Angeles night is still weatherless... Also Gun Resort - Front Sight, Nevada aims to be heaven on earth for committed gun enthusiasts.  It has been called a shooter's Disneyland...

Control Your Television - Somehow what this person describes seems to me to be about as far away from controlling tv as you can get...

Don't Ash, Don't Tell - US agents have charged a Charlotte man in a scheme to extort money from a movie theatre chain by claiming he made "cannibal corn" by putting his aunt's cremated remains in cinema popcorn...

Hair's the Facts Ma'am - Every healthy person with a full head of hair loses between 40 and 70 hairs a day.  That is not only normal, it's necessary.  Hairs aged and battered by several years of hard living are being replaced by new ones...

Handbags - What does yours tell other people about you?

Baby Steps - Do our first three years determine how our whole lives turn out - or not really?

Good Grief, Goodbye - According to results of a recent study, excessively strict mothers may be interfering with their child's ability to show empathy.

Business of Motherhood - I feel guilt, I feel bad.  Though I ain't done nothing wrong, I feel bad...

Second Child Too Much for Working Mums - "Most women are totally unprepared for the impact of a second child on their working lives - the lack of time, the strain on relationships of having both parents in work, the complex logistics of working life with two children..."

Pet the Kid - Public schools should be open until at least 7 or 8pm, on weekdays.  They should also be open on weekends and in the summer.  Schools should bring in coaches, counselors, and mentors to offer kids havens of sports and supervised activity - or even study...

These Are the Times That Bind - Confronted with a choice between stress at work and stress at home, both men and women choose work, where at least they enjoy contact with colleagues, are taken seriously, and get paid for their pains, whereas at home they feel isolated, taken for granted and ground down with never-ending demands.  Work has become home, and home has become hard work...

What's Really Important to Parents - don't let your kid smoke cigarettes?  You mean, that's IT?

This Week Will Never End?! - Ten to twelve years ago Mum, who didn't work, would pack up the caravan, which was in the backyard, on a Friday.  Dad would come home from work and the family would head off for the weekend.  These days there are no backyards, Mum and Dad both work full time and one, or possibly both, work on a Saturday.

Living on the Road - Today, the larger motorhomes come with a washer and dryer.  The larger travel trailers come with an optional fireplace...

An Unusual Dessert - I haven't yet tried this recipe, but if you should happen to, please drop me an email and let me know if they could've just as easily said "develop" flavour or if they really, truly meant "improve".

Eat Right and Exercise - A quarter of all teenagers and children are overweight.  Obesity rates have soared despite the proliferation of diet programs, pills and foods.  The myth is that overweight is cured by dieting...

Walking Works Health Wonders - If you're looking for the ideal way to comfortably improve your health, walking is the nearly ideal exercise.  From burning fat to rekindling romance, "You can change your life through walking..."

Turn Back the Clock - Exercise, even moderate, can reverse the effects of ageing by decades.  For all those who have slipped into the paunch and inactivity of middle age, there's hope yet.  The results of a 30-year study offer the prospect that starting a moderate but consistent exercise program later in life - even after years of falling out of shape - can restore aerobic capacity to levels one had as a young adult...

Sugar Addiction - "If I have a cookie, I want another, and another.  If I taste a brownie, I'd hate to confess how many I've been known to devour.  I've gorged on sweets, only to have the bottom fall out of my energy, my body left feeling sick, poisoned..."

Saline Solutions - Did you know that there are about 14,000 different uses for salt?

A Hearty Cup of Tea - Drinking tea quenches thirst, relieves indigestion, clears the throat, reduces sleepiness, brightens eyesight, promotes thinking, eliminates anguish and cuts down grease.  One cannot live a day without tea...

How to Stop Smoking - Stress is probably the main reason for going back to smoking after attempting to quit.  No life is stress-free, however.  We try to work on new ways of coping with stress when quitting smoking: exercise, deep breathing, et cetera.  In the end, keep trying, even in the presence of stress...

Smoking Redux - What's in a Cigarette?  Plus two Flash files (3 meg and 4 meg respectively) which require a fast connection and a shockwave plugin - but are funny...

What Smells Bad in Here?! - Food, room, body, feet, breath, earwax (earwax?): what to do about them...

Houston, We Have a BIG Problem! - Some folks in Houston are tired of being picked on.  "All cities are fat.  To choose one is silly," says John Foreyt, an obesity expert at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.  "Yes, Houston is fat, but so is every other city.  We are a fat society.  Period."

Feast - By the time the pastries arrived on wheeled carts, the waiters were naked.  They used ivory tongs to offer cakes of a thousand layers to the patrons, not waiting for a reply before placing two, three, or four selections at each place.  Some guests wept and pushed the cakes onto the floor...

Friends - The most satisfied people have networks of about 16 people on average, while those reporting they are less happy have only about 10 friends to call on...

Happy at All Cost - Should "happy pills" be freely available to everyone?  Would people sit around being happy, eating less and less, smiling themselves away?  Would that thin the population out (ha ha) so that those left were the ones who found happiness naturally?  Or could do without it?  (Somehow, that world doesn't sound very appealing...)

High Stakes - People skills - including being able to motivate, resolve disputes, persuade, and inspire - are the ones properly raising children reinforces in mothers (business schools don't come close).  Yet the business world doesn't seek out retired mothers to hire.  Raising children may have a huge emotional reward, but a life-long cost in terms of career.  A woman's cumulative happiness isn't affected no matter which she chooses.  Can the same be said for her spouse and children?

Feeling Old? - Just in case you weren't feeling too old today, this will certainly change things...

Live to Bee 98 - Kehrle was a Benedictine monk who pioneered artificial insemination for bees ("A very delicate operation," remarked a colleague of his).  Brother Adam loved his bees: he talked to them, stroked them, calmed them.  "Bees," he said, "would never behave like people..."

Some Years Are Easier than Others - Nature gives you the face you have when you are 20.  Life shapes the face you have at 30.  But it is up to you to earn the face you have at 50...

Spanning the Shift - The explosion in life expectancy that many scientists believe will make 100-year lifespans commonplace over the next decades is more than a numbers game of a growing army of older people needing more of this and less of that.  It's a genuine revolution that will dramatically transform life on this planet...

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