[PennySerenade]

Toronto senior surprised with nearly 300 cards in the mail for her 98th birthday



TORONTO -- Frieda Motsch’s family has always made the effort to make her birthday special and COVID-19 was not going to change that.

“During a pandemic, what do you do when you can’t have party?” Annie Hudson, Motsch’s daughter, told CTV News Toronto. “We thought, well, we’ll have a card party!”

Hudson put the call out to family on friends on Facebook, asking them to surprise her mother with a card for her 98th birthday.

Over the course of a few days, Motsch received nearly 300 cards.

“It surprised me. I had so many!” Motsch said. “I was very happy somebody think of me.”

Motsch, known to most simply as ‘Oma,’ lives alone in Toronto’s Guildwood neighbourhood. She admitted to CTV News Toronto that the pandemic hasn’t always been easy for her.

“I feel sometimes is a little depressing,” she said. When asked about how this birthday was different from her usual celebrations, she said “my friends, they could not come this year.”

When the birthday cards started arriving at Oma’s house, Hudson says there was a lot of joy.

“She ended up, every day, going to the mailbox and she’d pick up five cards, maybe 10, sometimes it was 20,” Hudson explained. “She did nothing but laugh. And she goes ‘oh, I think you guys had something to do with this’.”



The cards are on display around Motsch’s home – hanging from the ceiling in the living room and dining room. The plan is to have them up and visible until Christmas.

“I will leave it in until somebody take it off!” Motsch laughs.

Hudson says they are still waiting for more cards to arrive from friends and family members overseas, and that spreading out the arrival of the cards was part of the plan.

“We had it going on for about a month because we didn’t want her overwhelmed with one day worth of cards,” she said. “It worked out quite nicely.”

Motsch came to Canada from Germany and settled in Toronto with her husband and four children. Now, she is a grandmother to 13, a great-grandmother of 25, and great-great-grandmother to one.

“She is amazing,” Hudson said. “She is kind of like the boss of all of us, which is true. Sorry mom!”



As for the number of cards pouring in, Motsch’s great-grandson Ryan Budhai says he is not surprised.

“I knew when everyone would hear the message and the initiative we took to make this project happen that everyone would be so excited to take part,” he tolls CTV News Toronto. “I gathered all my friends and said we should all write a good heartfelt message to her and make her feel good on her birthday.”

Motsch says the ‘card party’ certainly has made her feel good.

“I appreciate everybody and to everybody I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you.”



Her family suggests that others consider something similar for their loved one during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think everybody should do this for their elderly people that are homebound,” Hudson said. “Just to let people know that you’re thinking of them.”

[sherlockx]

Sex positions that don't involve face-to-face contact see a rise in Google searches post-lockdown, figures show - after advice to couples to wear face masks and avoid kissing in bed

Couples took to Google to search for sex positions without face-to-face contact
Second on the list was 'doggy' with 18,100 UK searches
Third was 'spooning, also with 18,100 searches in the last month
Searches have increased dramatically since before coronavirus lockdown
Terrence Higgins Trust previously warned couples to avoid face-to-face contact
Searches for positions which do not require face-to-face contact have increased in numbers compared to before the virus struck, research shows.

In the past month, 'reverse cow girl' has been searched for by Britons more than 60,000 times and 'doggy' has been looked up 18,100 times.

In contrast, in January - before the March lockdown - there were 49,500 searches for 'reverse cowgirl' and 14,800 searches for 'doggy'.

It comes after sexual health charity the Terrence Higgins Trust advised sexual partners to avoid kissing, wear a face covering and choose positions which are not face-to-face during sex.
The statistics were compiled by cleaning firm End of Tenancy London, which wanted to see which positions were most popular.

The term 'sex positions' has been Googled 2.7 million times in the last month alone.

Placing third on the list of searches for non-face-to-face positions was the 'spooning', which also had 18,100 searches, up from 14,800 in January.

Also in the list of nine is the '69' in fourth, with 12,100 searches in the past month, up from 8,100 in January.
The 'wheelbarrow' in fifth was searched for 880 times, up from 590 times in January.

During the nationwide lockdown, couples who lived apart were ordered not to visit each other.

But although couples can now see each other, they could minismise risk by having sex in all of the researched positions - whilst still following the Terrence Higgins Trust's advice.

The charity also suggested couples engage in 'phone sex' and use sex toys to replace in-person intimacy while the virus remains a threat.

[WordDiva]

Is 2020 truly the worst year ever?

Not really, considering the other candidates. And besides, 2020 isn't over yet.



2020. Worst year ever.

You've heard that, haven't you? Maybe even said it. I hear it from friends and on social media, from commentators on the news. It's the name of a podcast.

I heard the phrase a few days ago when I stopped by the strip mall where I often go for coffee. The doors of most of the stores — Pottery Barn, West Elm, Best Buy — were shattered, casualties of Chicago's overnight looting.

In the North Side parking lot that morning, people were sweeping up glass while workers fastened boards on what had been doors and windows. In the middle of the parking lot, Darnell Crittenden, a longtime security guard known around the mall as Officer D, stood surveying the scene. He'd had to take a $55 Uber to work from his home on the West Side because his regular bus was canceled in response to the chaos.

"One thing I know," he said, shaking his head, "is that out of the 54 years I've been in Chicago, this city ain't like it was. I try to go back in the Officer D time machine, and it was bad, but not as bad as it is now."

As we walked over to the nearby Binny's Beverage Depot, where the doors had been shattered and the liquor shelves ransacked, he added, "2020 has been the worst year ever, for everybody."

The past few days in Chicago have accentuated that feeling for a lot of people. But it's useful to remember that the 2020 doomsday mood didn't start last week, and it's hardly confined to Chicago, and that in the long rocky history of the world this is probably not the worst year ever.

When we talk about 2020 as the worst year ever we mean many entangled things: A pandemic. The death and economic destruction caused by the pandemic. The governmental mismanagement of the pandemic. The ways the pandemic has exposed the failures of our social system. The ways it has divorced us from routines we rely on and people we love and our delusion that the future is in our control.

And "worst year ever" encompasses the social upheaval that flared after police killed a Black man named George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd's death led to legitimate and important protests, some of them accompanied by looting. And while the protests may lead to productive change, for now they leave the country shaken. That shakiness is one reason this year feels so hard.

But 2020 isn't the first "worst year ever."

Some historians say that the truly worst year was 536. That's the year a volcano erupted in Iceland and the sun dimmed for a year and a half, leading to a catastrophic global cold spell.

You could argue that 1918, the year of the Spanish flu pandemic, was the worst. Or that any of the years of the Great Depression, from 1929 to 1933, deserve the title.

You could say that in modern history, 1968 was the worst. In that year, the Vietnam War raged, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, police beat protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and all over the country rebellions erupted in the streets.

But most people alive today didn't live through any of those years, and we feel most deeply what we know firsthand. We know this year. 2020.

This worst year ever has been far worse for some than others, but it's touched us all. Our loss, grief and anger is collective. It's deepened by the constant media invasion telling us what an awful year it is.

But for most people there's more than one kind of "worst" year. There's this public collective kind, and there's the private kind. This year the public and private may overlap — the death of a loved one, the loss of a job — but if pressed, a lot of people would acknowledge that this isn't the worst year of their lives.

Sometimes when we say "worst" what we really mean is strange. This is a very strange year, and frightening in its unfamiliarity. Even so, most of us can look around on most days and find pleasure and beauty not conjured by the word "worst." A sunrise, a sunset, the light of an August afternoon in a tree.

And it helps to remember that 2020 isn't over yet. There are three months until November and a presidential election. Who knows? The worst year ever could turn into something far better.

https://www.startribune.com/is-2020-truly-the-worst-year-ever/572153892/

[FRKJ]

Factory malfunction causes chocolate rain in Switzerland


Officials with the Lindt & Spruengli chocolate company confirmed a ventilation system malfunction at a factory in Olten, Switzerland, caused cocoa powder to rain down on the surrounding area.

A Swiss candy company confirmed a malfunction in a factory ventilation system caused cocoa powder to rain down on the surrounding area.

Residents of Olten reported spotting snow-like cocoa powder in the air and on the ground near the city's Lindt & Spruengli candy factory.

Lindt & Spruengli confirmed Tuesday that the chocolate rain was the result of a ventilation system malfunction during the production of a line of roasted cocoa nibs, fragments of crushed cocoa beans.

The company said strong winds in recent days caused the powder to spread around the surrounding area.

Officials said they would cover any cleaning costs for vehicles or other property covered in the cocoa powder.

The company said the powder does not pose any danger to the local environment and the ventilation system has now been repaired.

[Fivetide]

Tiny Asteroid Buzzes by Earth - the Closest Flyby on Record


This illustration shows asteroid 2020 QG's trajectory bending during its close approach to Earth. The asteroid is the closest known non-impacting asteroid ever detected.
The asteroid passed by 1,830 miles (2,945 kilometers) above the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday, Aug. 16 at 12:08 a.m. EDT

An SUV-size space rock flew past our planet over the weekend and was detected by a NASA-funded asteroid survey as it departed.

Near Earth Asteroids, or NEAs, pass by our home planet all the time. But an SUV-size asteroid set the record this past weekend for coming closer to Earth than any other known NEA: It passed 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) above the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday, Aug. 16 at 12:08 a.m. EDT (Saturday, Aug. 15 at 9:08 p.m. PDT).

At roughly 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters) across, asteroid 2020 QG is very small by asteroid standards: If it had actually been on an impact trajectory, it would likely have become a fireball as it broke up in Earth's atmosphere, which happens several times a year.

By some estimates, there are hundreds of millions of small asteroids the size of 2020 QG, but they are extremely hard to discover until they get very close to Earth. The vast majority of NEAs pass by safely at much greater distances - usually much farther away than the Moon.

"It's really cool to see a small asteroid come by this close, because we can see the Earth's gravity dramatically bend its trajectory," said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "Our calculations show that this asteroid got turned by 45 degrees or so as it swung by our planet."

Zipping along at almost 8 miles per second (12.3 kilometers per second) - a little slower than average, Chodas noted - 2020 QG was first recorded as just a long streak in a wide-field camera image taken by the Zwicky Transient Facility. The image was taken six hours after the closest point of approach as the asteroid was heading away from Earth. A sky-scanning survey telescope funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, the Zwicky Transient Facility is based at Caltech's Palomar Observatory in San Diego County. NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program funds data processing for NEO detections.

Asteroid 2020 QG enters the record books as the closest known nonimpacting asteroid; many very small asteroids impact our planet every year, but only a few have actually been detected in space a few hours before impacting Earth. On average, an asteroid the size of 2020 QG passes this closely only a few times a year.

In 2005, Congress assigned NASA the goal of finding 90% of the near-Earth asteroids that are about 460 feet (140 meters) or larger in size. These larger asteroids pose a much greater threat if they were to impact, and they can be detected much farther away from Earth, because their rate of motion across the sky is typically much smaller at that distance.

"It's quite an accomplishment to find these tiny close-in asteroids in the first place, because they pass by so fast," Chodas said. "There's typically only a short window of a couple of days before or after close approach when this small of an asteroid is close enough to Earth to be bright enough but not so close that it moves too fast in the sky to be detected by a telescope."

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2020-160

[Governor3]

Chuck Schumer, LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy & More Advocate To Save Independent NYC Venues



Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy and other locals held a press conference in front of Baby's All Right in Williamsburg on Tuesday to announce support for bipartisan legislation meant to provide financial relief to independent live venues that are struggling during the pandemic.


“Independent venues, like theaters and concert halls, are the beating heart of New York’s cultural life and a driving force in the economy. These local businesses were among the first to shut down at the start of the pandemic, are struggling to stay afloat, and will be among the last to reopen,” said Senator Schumer. “That’s why it’s so important to provide dedicated federal assistance to independent venues so when it is safe, we can gather again for music, comedy, theater and other live performances in venues that have been around for generations. I’m proud to co-sponsor the Save Our Stages Act, and I’ll fight to include federal funding for independent venues in any coronavirus relief legislation.”

Earlier this month, a group of over 100 independent music venues in NYC joined forces to form New York Independent Venue Association (NYIVA), which is working in affiliation with the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) to try to get politicians to vote for in favor of the Save Our Stages and Restart bills, which would provide financial relief for venues during this period when most are completely shut down. Without those federal funds, they estimate that 90% of indie venues will be forced to close permanently.

“These venues are places that occupy parts of cities that nobody wants to be in when they start," said Murphy, who in addition to being the frontman of LCD Soundsystem, also owns a wine bar and cafe in Williamsburg. "They fill in the gaps and communities spring up around them. They take those warehouses that nobody wanted to be in and they build places that foster the most diverse music scene in the world. Thank you to the venues that let me play and let me work for the 30 years I’ve lived here. We’re not going to be able to rebuild these from zero. You can’t knock out all the mom and pops and think that more mom and pops will spring up. If we knock them out, it’s just chains."

https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/independent-venues-losing-their-edge

They put a parking lot on a piece of land
When the supermarket used to stand
Before that they put up a bowling alley
On the site that used to be the local pally
That's where the big bands used to come and play
My sister went there on a Saturday
Come dancing
All her boyfriends used to come and call
Why not come dancing, it's only natural


sigh...

[johngriffen]

IN BREAKING NEWS

NOTE: I CAN NOT WIN ANYTHING IF I POST SOMETHING

Remember this story from the "example" post...

Elsa might now be the world's most famous wild boar - and her celebrity has drawn a crowd of fans campaigning to save her from hunters.
Elsa is the name given to the sow who was chased by a German nudist in Berlin, after she snatched his plastic bag containing a laptop.
Pictures of the chase, in a popular bathing area, went viral. The boar managed to flee with her two piglets.
But officials do not rule out that she could be culled, with other boars.
Hopefully the campaign will help

[peaceableone]

Struggling Waitress Surprised With Car From Regular Customers


A couple gifted a waitress a car after learning the struggling single mother had been taking an Uber to get to work.
Lisa Mollet has been working at the Empire Diner in New Jersey for the last four years.

But when COVID hit, everything went downhill.

She was off work from March through June, and upon returning to work, her car broke down.

"It was hard, it was very challenging. I'm a single mom with two kids. I have my own house. Paying the bills, trying to get everyone right, keep everyone happy," Mollet told Fox 29.

So, Mollet had been using Uber to get to work –- until now.

On Sunday, a pair of regular customers gave her the tip of a lifetime: a Nissan Ultima.

"It's a blessing. They blessed me," Mollet said of the gift from the unnamed customers. "They are wonderful people. They come here constantly. They come here with their family. They're like family to me."

The generous customers didn't their names out there, but did want to spread some joy to someone who could use it. The diner's owner Dervis Akturk said he couldn't think of anyone more deserving.

"They said they had a car for Lisa and I said, 'Wow!' It was a shock for me. I even had goosebumps. There is still good people out there," Akturk said.

[eradicator2]

'Forlorn' tortoise has his own lonely hearts ad as he's desperately seeking love




Lonely male, 50, seeks female companion who enjoys digging, eating tomatoes and will take VERY slow strolls around the garden with him.

It's not exactly your typical lonely hearts ad, but then again, Fred isn't your typical lonely heart.

The 50-year-old isn't a man, but a tortoise and the quirky advert was penned by his worried owner Angela Matchett.

Angela explained to The Daily Record that she believes her pet is desperate for some company of his own kind as he constantly wanders around the garden trying to make friends with random shell-shaped objects.

The full advert, which was shared on social media, states that Fred needs "a hardy female who loves the great outdoors and is used to living in a garden."

--------

(Accidently posted twice this day.)

[Governor3]

Tokyo Now Has Transparent Public Toilets. Let Us Explain.

Using “smart glass,” a Pritzker Prize-winning architect created colorful toilet stalls to allay fears about safety and hygiene. The toilets were set up in two public parks.



HONG KONG — Public toilets around the globe have a reputation for being dark, dirty and dangerous. Tokyo recently unveiled new restrooms in two public parks that aim to address those concerns.

For one thing, they are brightly lit and colorful.

For another, they are transparent.

This way, the logic goes, those who need to use them can check out the cleanliness and safety of the stalls without having to walk inside or touch a thing.

Japan has long experimented with toilets, resulting in lids that open and close automatically and seats that warm up. But the new stalls — designed by Shigeru Ban, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect — are made out of an opacity-changing “smart glass” that is already used in offices and other buildings to provide privacy when needed.

The toilets were installed in Japan’s capital this month, coinciding with a nationwide campaign to phase out the city’s old-fashioned public toilets ahead of the now-delayed Summer Olympics. Set up in front of a cluster of trees in the Shibuya district, the stalls stand out like a Mondrian painting, bearing tinted walls with colors like mango, watermelon, lime, violet and teal.

When occupied and locked properly, the tinted glass toilet stalls become frosted and opaque. When the door is unlocked, an electric current realigns the crystals in the glass to allow more light to pass through, creating a transparent effect. The toilets were presented as another futuristic and aesthetically pleasing example of the country’s technological advancements.

The reviews were mixed.

“I’m worried it will become transparent due to a malfunction,” a social media user with the Twitter handle @yukio wrote in a widely circulated post.
“I am not willing to risk my privacy because someone wants to make a fancy toilet,” Sachiko Ishikawa, a 32-year-old writer and translator, said in a phone interview on Wednesday from Tokyo.

Serah Copperwhite, a technology worker based in a district south of Tokyo, said that while she normally avoided public toilets, she would be more inclined to use the new ones because they appeared bright and clean. “I trust the science,” Ms. Copperwhite, 28, said in a phone interview Wednesday, addressing concerns on social media about the reliability of the glass technology.

Ms. Ishikawa said she was concerned that human error would make it too easy for bathroom users to inadvertently expose themselves. The transparent structure could also make them more vulnerable to assailants, she said.

“They could be waiting for you if you’re getting out of the bathroom,” she said. “So the argument of protection does not hold for me.”

Predecessors to Tokyo’s transparent toilets appeared in Switzerland in 2002 and 2015, when the designer Olivier Rambert unveiled two glass bathrooms in the city of Lausanne. They had a controversial safety feature that automatically opened the doors and turned the glass transparent if sensors detected no motion for 10 minutes. That could conceivably help users who fall unconscious and need medical attention, he was quoted as saying.

Other countries have faced other issues with public bathrooms.

South Korea has been plagued by a proliferation of tiny cameras placed surreptitiously in public toilet stalls as well as changing rooms in shops and hotels. The problem became so serious that the government in Seoul, the capital, appointed 8,000 workers in 2018 to inspect the city’s public bathrooms.

Two billion people, or about a quarter of the world’s population, do not have access to toilets or latrines, according to data published by the World Health Organization in 2019. For World Toilet Day in 2015, a nonprofit organization in New York installed a flushable toilet surrounded by one-way mirrors looking out on Washington Square Park to simulate the experience of relieving oneself in public view.

Organizers said 200 people tried out the stall over the course of the day. Some of them later said they had felt uneasy even though they knew they could not be seen from the outside.

In Japan, the Nippon Foundation plans to install toilets designed by other prominent architects at 17 locations by next year. But Thalia Harris, a freelance writer who has lived in Tokyo for seven years, said she did not see the project as a practical solution to safety concerns.

“Personally, I think this will make people feel even more uncomfortable, especially for women,” Ms. Harris, 29, said in a phone interview Tuesday.

She said she would continue to use the public bathrooms in Tokyo’s train stations, despite the lack of hand soap. She always brings her own, particularly because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“I would like them to address that before having these particular magic new toilets,” she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/worl ... 682318f0ec

[Fatima99]

If you can't muster a real smile, researchers suggest you "fake it till you make it"

‘Fake it till you make it’ is an aphorism that suggests that by imitating confidence or an optimistic mindset, a person can realize those qualities in their real life.

A new study from researchers at the University of South Australia have confirmed that the very act of smiling by simply moving your facial muscles, can actually trick your mind into being more positive.

The study, published in Experimental Psychology, evaluated the impact of a covert smile on perception of face and body expressions. In both scenarios, a smile was induced by participants holding a pen between their teeth, forcing their facial muscles to replicate the movement of a smile.

The results found that facial muscular activity generates more positive emotions.

Lead researcher and human and artificial cognition expert, UniSA’s Dr Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos says the finding has important insights for mental health.

“When your muscles say you’re happy, you’re more likely to see the world around you in a positive way,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.

“In our research we found that when you forcefully practice smiling, it stimulates the amygdala—the emotional centre of the brain—which releases neurotransmitters to encourage an emotionally positive state.

“For mental health, this has interesting implications. If we can trick the brain into perceiving stimuli as ‘happy’, then we can potentially use this mechanism to help boost mental health.”

[FRKJ]

--

(Accidently posted twice this day.)

[goldie0608]

delete please...thought it was a new round

(John, I think your post above fooled us )

[johngriffen]

IN OTHER NEWS
THURSDAY AUGUST 20

A new "news cycle" has begun.
Time for our Ace Reporters to file another story

As a reminder...
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Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
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Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
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It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final