I’m a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit rounder, but still none the wiser. Happy New Year!

The New Year is the day that marks the time of the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which the year count of the specific calendar used is incremented. For many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner.

The New Year of the Gregorian calendar, today in worldwide use, falls on 1 January, continuing the practice of the Roman calendar. There are numerous calendars that remain in regional use that calculate the New Year differently.

The order of months in the Roman calendar has been January to December since King Numa Pompilius in about 700 BC, according to Plutarch and Macrobius. According to the Christian tradition, 1 January is the day of the circumcision of Jesus (on the eighth day of his birth), when the name of Jesus was given to him (Luke 2:21).

It was only relatively recently that 1 January became the first day of the year in Western culture. Upto 1751 in England and Wales (and all the British King’s dominions) the new year started on 25 March – Lady Day, one of the four quarter days (the change to 1 January took place in 1600 in Scotland). Since then, 1 January has been the first day of the year. During the Middle Ages several other days were the first (1 March, 25 March, Easter, 1 September, 25 December).

The New Year may be a significant event for many people. But the absurdities of the celebration cannot escape a skeptic’s mind. Here are some funny New Year quotes. What better way to start a New Year than with a hearty laugh? You can share your joy by greeting everybody with these funny New Year quotes.

Mark Twain
New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions. 

Brooks Atkinson
Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.

Bill Vaughan
Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to. 

P. J. O’Rourke
The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to.

Jay Leno
Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average… which means, you have met your New Year’s resolution.

James Agate
New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. 

Eric Zorn
Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.

Bill Vaughan
An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.

Charles Lamb
New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday.

Oprah Winfrey
Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.

Mark Twain
New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

Judith Crist
Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let’s just wish each other a bile-less New Year and leave it at that.

Anonymous
Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.

Joey Adams
May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions!

Anais Nin
I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.

Oscar Wilde
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Robert Paul
I’m a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit rounder, but still none the wiser.

Anonymous
A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other.

Leonard Bernstein
From New Year’s on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining.

G. K. Chesterton
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Live the Time – Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

 
Dear friends and readers / Prezados amigos e leitores,

English
It has been an awesome year. With your support, we’ve had 60,243 views for 393 posts, including this one, and the year is not over yet. In 2011, we posted no less than 324 articles, almost one a day!

Even restless souls need, well…, some rest. With this post, we would like not only to thank you, but to wish a Merry Christmas and a wondeful 2012. Our gift is two videos called, respectively, “Live the Time” and “Paciência” that we prepared and posted on our Youtube channel.

‘Live the Time’ was filmed by Neil Bronhall, cameraman / photographer awarded with an Emmy for camera work on the BBC Sir David Attenborough ‘The Private Life of Plants’ series’. Neil was fascinated with clip’s background music and simple editing, and despite contracts with BBC, in which permission could not have been granted, he personaly allowed us to use his video for three months only. I hope you enjoy and share.

‘Paciência’ is an amazing song by Lenine, a Brazilian singer / composer, and makes us stop and think as we read the hear the lyrics. We usually subtitle songs in English so that our viewers can practice their listening comprehension, but this time we translated it with subtitles in English.

For the time being we are giving the blog a well deserved pause. You can follow our posts in Facebook and there should be more videos uploaded on our Youtube channel. Oh, almost forgot, we do have a page entirely for entertainment also on Facebook. Ckeck it out!

See you all again in mid January, 2012.

Português
2011 foi um ano incrível. Com seu apoio, nós tivemos 60.243 visitas em 393 posts, incluindo este, e o ano ainda não acabou. Em 2011 nós postamos nada menos que 324 artigos, quase um por dia!

Mesmo almas inquietas precisam, bem …, descansar um pouco. Com este post, gostaríamos não somente de agradecer a todos, mas também desejar um Feliz Natal e um 2012 de muito sucesso. Nosso presente são dois vídeos chamados, respectivamente, “Live the Time” e “Paciência”, que nós preparamos e postamos no nosso canal no Youtube.

‘Live the Time’ foi filmado por Neil Bronhall, cameraman e fotógrafo da BBC e vencedor do Emmy pela filmagem da série de Sir David Attenborough ‘The Private Life of Plants’. Neil se encantou com a música e edição e nos autorizou a veiculação por apenas 3 meses devido a contratos com a BBC pelo qual nem poderia nos conceder o vídeo. Espero que gostem e compartilhem.

‘Paciência’ é uma canção incrível de Lenine, um cantor / compositor brasileiro, e nos faz parar e pensar com suas palavras. Nós geralmente legendamos músicas em inglês para que os nossos leitores possam praticar a compreensão, mas desta vez traduzimos a canção e a legendamos em inglês.

Estamos dando ao nosso blog de ​​uma pausa bem merecida. Você pode acompanhar os nossos posts no Facebook e mais videos em nosso canal do Youtube. Ah, quase esqueci, temos uma página inteiramente para o entretenimento também no Facebook. Ckeck it out!

Nos vemos novamente em meados de janeiro de 2012.

Man tries to pay overdue bill with spider drawing

David Thorne’s alleged conversation with an account clerk in which she refused to accept the childish painting as payment but agreed to email it back to him has been forwarded around the world.

Please, give my camera back…

 

Ads from the past. Remember?

Like a Boss

1. What you say to make things sound cooler/more exiting then it actually is, originated from the song like a boss, by the Lonley Island: “yeah, I did my homework. like a boss”

2. The act of doing something as a boss would do.

3. Used to describe something that someone did as amazing or awesome: “man, I just took that guy out like a boss!”

Here’s a “modest” way to travel like a boss:

[Updated] Words of Wisdom

Languages change, usually very slowly, sometimes very rapidly.  There are many reasons a language might change.  One obvious reason is interaction with other languages. We find that the language of the elite often shows the influence of constant interaction with the majority, while the majority language imports vocabulary and speaking styles from the elite language.

Why and how do words change? Clipping (or truncation), for example, is a process whereby an appreciable chunk of an existing word is omitted, leaving what is sometimes called a stump word: gymnasium was shortened to form gym. The creation of the the verb enthuse from the noun enthusiasm is also an example of a back-formation.

This post, however, is not to be taken seriously. It is all about humor. We simply compiled a list of new meanings for old words to entertain our readers. Some definitions are tricky, though, and do require knowledge of the language, thus our intention: edutain = educate + entertain.

The list below is just a sample. It will be updated from time to time. The full list can be accessed at our Facebook page, under the category photos: the album is called Words of Wisdom. Check it out! Click here.

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To Whom it May Concern

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his depositing the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly transfer of funds from my modest savings account, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty-one years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has recently become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan repayments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by check, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offense under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.

Please find attached an Application Contact Status form which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Notary Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Please allow me to level the playing field even further. When you call me, you will now have a menu of options on my new voice mail system to choose from.

Please press the buttons as follows:

1. To make an appointment to see me.

2 .To query a missing payment.

3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.

5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.

7. To leave a message on my computer, a password to access my computer is required. Password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorized Contact.

8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 7.

9. To make a general complaint or inquiry. The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee of $50 to cover the setting up of this new arrangement. Please credit my account after each occasion.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client,

Comma, Splices?

 

 http://theyuniversity.tumblr.com/post/13765834465/whats-up-with-comma-splices

And the People’s Choice Teacher of the Year Award goes to:

Miss Doubtfire, for her outstanding motivational words which have inspired this new generation of students to become better citizens.
 

 

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