Haynes.tv

99% of our lives today are dominated by advertising (source, my little brother). 5 year old kids are being sold like DVD rentals to advertising companies who parade them around places where five year olds hang out (Disney world, Mickey D’s, basements of forty year old men). TV shows have way too many sponsors. “Olympia Sports presents the Nike Burger King tournament of Odor Eaters Bank of America Championship at the Met Life Golf Course built by Goodyear. Closed Captioning by Walden Books.” I know people have to make money, like this site
Haynes.TV
for Example uses advetising for support

but I mean come on. We’re not hitting you with 50 pop ups per second (pups) trying to get you to buy anything from anti-wedgie cream to Japanese slaves. We’re just trying to make sure Mr. Haynes can pay off his Wal*Mart bill. But, these large corporations seem to be more interested in buying every second of our lives than on improving their product. Movie producers will spend more than half of their budget on advertising. I say they should more guns, bigger explosions, better stunt doubles, free popcorn for us all. But that will never happen, instead they will paint MI4 on some fat guy’s back for fifty bucks.

Despite the large, grotesque volume of advertising in the modern world, the most aggravating aspect the the evil world is suicidal advertising. Ads so annoying they can bring a depressed person to the edge of death, if they don’t bring the company there first. For example the head on commercials. Head-on apply directly to the forehead. Head-on apply directly to the forehead. Head-on apply directly to the, what was it, oh yeah forehead. This one commercial had brought hours of pain and agony to me and Mr. Haynes. I want to know who came up with that commercial. Do they teach in advertising school that if you say a product’s name repeatedly the consumer will either buy the product of donate their TV to a homeless person (I perfer the latter). I don’t even know what Head-on does, and since my doctor tells me I have a perfect forehead, I will never buy the item. And to take it a step further I want the ad pulled, fearing it will lead to a generation of americans that will associate their foreheads with emotional trauma (if you would like to join the noble fight leave a commment).

A reveiw of Head-On from EPinions.com

“I tried HeadOn headache relief for the first time. I used it according to the directions and within a few minutes the skin on my forehead began to become irritated. It was “cold” and “burning” at the same time! I tried to wash it off with soap and water but the irritation only got worse. After about 20 or 30 minutes the burning sensation stopped. It didn’t seem to do much for my headache either. I’m not at all impressed with this product.”

To conclude, the rich have money. The rest of us have to work hard. However, if you like the content provided here and would like to help make sure Mr. Haynes can pay off his Wal*Mart bill make a donation using paypal:

Who invented the word “yo”? Who knows? Who cares? I do. Yo is one of the most versatile words in our modern English language. It can be used as a friendly greeting, “Yo, whats up my . . . “, to answer a question in a positive way, “yo, for real,” and in a negative way, “yo, what you talking ’bout,” and with the exception of baby, it is the most common word in contemporary music. All these facts make this word very appealing to a bored, middle class white guy. So I decided to to some research.

The 2006 Merriam-Webster dictionary defined yo as an interjection used especially to draw attention or express affirmation. While this may be what some old professor may interpret the meaning of the word to be, it is not a proper definition of what a yo response may indicate. This definition equates yo to words such as “hey”, and “yes”, but it obviously has a more important meaning to the world. MTV did not reach out to a generation and an era by saying “Hey we rap”, they simply said “Yo MTV Raps”, and by doing so they reached millions of Americans.

An online etymology(the study of the origins of linguistic styles) dictionary gave this response,
“as a greeting, 1859, but the word is attested as a sailor’s or huntsman’s utterance since c.1420. Modern popularity dates from World War II (when, it is said, it was a common response at roll calls) and seems to have been most intense in Philadelphia. ” So I decided to do some research. Why did philadelphians say yo so frequently, and why were sailors and “huntsmen” uttering the word in the 15th century.

The answer to the second question exists in the Greek language. Apparently the Greek word “loa” was used in the same context as our beloved yo. And apparently when English folk heard the word they anglicanized it by changing the “L” sound to a similar “Y” and came up with yo. And as mentioned, this translation is credited with occurring in the 15th century. I still don’t know why the definition credits sailors and huntsman, perhaps sailor commonly sailed to Greece, and picked up the word in that manner. And maybe huntsman just wanted to sound cool.

In the Military sense the word comes from the danish word for yes “yo” which rapidly became slang for here during role call. Its likely the word was picked up by the British who came to the aid of Denmark and Norway when the Nazis invaded in 1940.

However the American word yo is documented as originating in Philadelphia due to a large Italian and African American population that contracted the words you and your to simply yo. Its first documented use was, as mentioned, during role calls in the military. However it did not rise in popularity until the 1970s when Rocky Balboa famously declared, “Yo! Adrian.” Since then the word received common use, and with the popularity of hip hop it has become one of the most recognizable words on earth.

The Dog days of summer are once again upon us, and we all know that very little work gets done during these dog days. Have you ever wondered why these hot sultry days are described as “dog days”.

The term “dog days” actually refers to the stars; well one stars in particular, the dog star, Sirius (as in Sirius satellite radio). Sirius is the brightest star of the night sky, however during these summer months Sirius is setting and rising with the sun so we can not see it now. Therefore the ancients, particularly the Europeans and possibly the Egyptians, believed that the star would add to the heat of the sun during this time and for 20 days before and after the conjunction of the dog star with the sun. Of course we now know that the star adds very little if any heat during this period, and that the main reason for summer heat is the 23.5 degree tilt of the earth.

I was listening to the radio today and the DJ happened to mention these super mosquitoes in Greece, which are faster (about 30%) and bigger (about 15%) than normal mosquitoes and are also immune to insect repellents, and if all this is not enough they can also smell human blood from almost twice as far away. These things sound like a nightmare, and according to the report it is because of air pollution, yet another good reason for us to work even harder break our oil addiction.

Here is the scope according to IOL:

Athens – Cramped housing conditions and air pollution in Athens have given rise to a “super breed” of mosquito that is larger, faster and more adept at locating human prey, a Greek daily reported on Tuesday.
Athens-based mosquitoes can detect humans at a distance of 25m – 30m and also distinguish colours, unlike their colour-blind counterparts elsewhere in the country that only smell blood at 15m – 20m, Ta Nea daily reported.

The “super mosquitoes” of the Greek capital also beat their wings up to 500 times a second – compared to 350 beats for other variations – and are larger by 0,3 micrograms on average, the paper said, citing a study conducted by Aristotelio University in the northern city of Salonika.

According to the study, the mosquitoes of Athens have adapted to deal with air pollution and insect repellents, and overpopulation in the Greek capital of over four million has provided them with a healthy food supply.