ryyannon

Wait a minute here....Admin, Ken, Jjajh, Offshore, Nanuq, Willith, Thor!? All honorable members of Chinese Triad?! And Mama-san Understood? Yakuza Queen and Japanese Connection? I'm beginning to see the Mafia EVERYWHERE!

There's a family resemblance to models by at least two major players, but I wonder who was copying who...

robertk, do you have any idea of how many businesses are already either generating or laundering Mafia money? I'm no specialist, but I say lots. And you rarely ever hear about them. As far as Scorcese, I'm not talking about guys in fedoras pulling up to his offices with grimy paper bags full of loot from the latest heist: if it's being done, the funds are virtual, transfered from one reputable merchant bank to another, and quite possibly passing through the Studios' financing structures as they go. Again, as for the Mob not being able to afford to bankroll his films... :-) Now that the debate is heating up a bit, I did a little very superficial Googling and came up with this very superficial description of how some of this works: http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_29.html Back in the days when Subfrog was just a gleam in his Daddyfrog's eye, I was living in a little place on Cornelia Street in the West Village. Besides being one of the shortest streets in New York, Cornelia was a haven of peace and tranquility: no break-ins, no mugging, no criminality whatsoever. The only notable anomaly was that every Sunday, a big chauffer-driven limo would double-park on the narrow street for several hours. But no one ever complained, and it seemed invisible to the police. Intrigued by the phenomenon, I asked one of the shop-keepers about it. His answer was that Mr. X's (an Italian crime-family name which I have since forgotten) mother lived on the street, and every Sunday, Mr. X had lunch with her. 'And that,' said the shopkeeper, 'is why nothing ever happens here. Anyone dumb enough to make trouble on Cornelia Street is a dead man.' So yeah, I can relate to what you're saying, Subfrog. Come to think of it, I was dumb enough to make trouble on Cornelia Street: I cheated on the girl I was living with and got found out. We broke up, and sure enough, I felt like a dead man for a long time after....

Interesting story and very nice watches...really brings one back to another time and place....

Writers, whether in the loop or not, aren't exempt from shooting their mouths off like everyone else. It's true that the Scorcese-Mafia link sounds too believable to be true - an Urban Legend in the making with no way to confirm or infirm the information. What is true is his preoccupation with Mob-related themes and his use of guys in second and third roles whose family names have a familiar and rather special ring to them. From there to say that he's being funded by the Mafia is anybody's crapshoot. Like I say, it just stuck in my head and I thought I'd relay it here to be kicked around by anyone who was interested...(the idea, not my head, guys).

We're talking writers, not journalists, C-Stone. And hell, in NYC, both are totally in the loop. They ARE the loop.

I've nothing particular to contribute at the moment, other than this bit of gossip from an American writer I met last night, introduced by a mutual friend. The three of us were sitting around over some glasses of wine, talking about about films and film-makers and he mentions that a friend of his is associated with Martin Scorcese. According to his friend the formula for turning out films for the Scorcese organization is "three for them (the Mob), one for us." Meaning that the money that Scorcese gets for producing his films comes from Mafia investments. I have no idea of knowing whether this is true or not, but I thought I'd just pass it along. Been stuck in my mind since yesterday evening....

61% (Yankee) No one can be 100% bad.

Yes, it looks like even the Officine is getting into the vintage re-edition act. The nerve of some people.... Nevertheless, even those gens don't look as good as some of WM hommages (especially the 2533) and even Narikaa's presumably mass-produced piece with that gorgeous yellow lume and perfect dial (also a 2533). Since a picture is worth a thousand words (and probably ten thousand of mine) I'm taking the liberty of using Narikaa's own pic of the 2533 in question - and hoping that he will not object. Thank you, Narikka, and if the truth must be known, this is the best version I've ever seen - including WM's lovely hommage - but unlike WM, at an extremely affordable price. In short, this watch has everything going for it, other than the fact that Narikaa only had one of them for sale. Let's hope he'll be offering more the next time. Anyway, the 2533: How could anyone in their right mind resist this? The truth is that I did, but only because of those old 47mm fixed-lug no display back bugaboos that I've mentioned above. As for the distressed look, it just makes me feel a bit distressed myself. I have seen fabulous work done by members to make their vintage look as if it was unearthed from the ruins of Pompei, and while I have unlimited respect for their skill, taste and ingenuity, I just have to say that the 'this watch survived Hiroshima' look doesn't do it for me. So no, I personally would prefer clean versions at the outset. If I want to permanently distress or otherwise traumatise these puppies, I can always send them to Nanuq's Finishing School For Wayward Watches, or put an icepick and a blowtorch to them myself. My two cents.

I've suggested this to several other custom watch craftsmen on this board - one of whom is considering the idea. In the meantime, I think the first person to offer a series of the three classic Panerai Vintage dials in a clean 45mm Radiomir format (with moveable lugs, yellow lume, a decent movment and a display back)....is going to sell a lot of them. By classic vintages I mean the 2533, and the two 3646 dials (California and the simple Base version). Why in a 45mm case with all of the above features? Because many of us just don't look good with a 47mm case on our wrists. Because many of us would like to be able to change straps - and don't care for the riveted straps that come with the fixed-lug models. Because we like display-back cases. Because nothing is prettier on a vintage Panerai than yellow lume. Because it's just a matter of time before someone figures all this out for themselves - Narikaa had a stunning 2533 with yellow lume up for sale the other day, but in the 47mm format with a solid back and fixed lugs. It was nevertheless the first knock-out 2533 that got the visuals right. Purists notwithstanding, at least from my point of view....

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because...... WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to! deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

Hippo: "That's Od..."

Check it out for yourself, Ken: (population 110,000): http://www.google.com/maps?hl=en&lr=&ie=UT...ada&output=html

Let that poor bird out of your echo chamber: It sounds like he's yelling 'Pug!' Didn't know it was already posted at TRC. As for the donuts, check with your local police department

Useless Facts: For every human being on earth, there are about 200 million insects. The harmonica is the world's most popular instrument. By the time they are 65 years old, most Americans have watched more than nine years worth of television. The puck in ice hockey can travel at up to 118 mph (190 km/h). If you stretched all the nerves in the body from end to end, they would be about 47 miles long. Humans have more than 600 muscles in their bodies. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. There are more chickens than people in the world. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched." All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt." All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill. Almonds are a member of the peach family. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. The largest cabbage weighed 144 lbs. There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula" - and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: "L.A." A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. Tigers have striped skin, not just stripped fur. In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life." A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try this at home!) The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball. "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand. Many hamsters blink one eye at a time. The inventor of the flushing toilet was Admin Crapper. The average bed is home to over 6 billion dust mites. Plastic lawn flamingos outnumber real flamingos in the U.S.A. Whitby, Ontario has more donut stores per capita than any other place in the world. Starfish have no brain. Dolphins sleep with one eye open. Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel with over 50,000 words, none of which contained the letter "E". Bulls are color blind. A can of SPAM is opened every 4 seconds. "Babe" was played by over 48 pigs. Mosquitoes have 47 teeth. Lip stick contains fish scales. The Poison Arrow frog has enough poison to kill 2200 people. The largest known kidney stone weighed 1.36 kilograms. Kidney stones come in any color from yellow to brown. Women blink twice as many times as men do. A bowling pin only has to tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down. The first episode of Leave It To Beaver aired on October 4, 1957. Beaver Cleaver's locker number is 9. The first flushing toilet seen on TV was on Leave It To Beaver. Jerry Seinfeld's apartment number (on the show) is 5A. In the old episodes it was 3A. The life span of a taste bud is ten days. Pi has been calculated to 2,260,321,363 digits. The billionth digit in Pi is 9. The first 100 numbers of Pi are: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510 58209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679. A stretched out Slinky is 87 feet long. An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes. Emus can't walk backwards. A group of unicorns is called a blessing. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of geese is called a gaggle. A group of owls is called a parliament. A group of ravens is called a murder. A group of bears is called a sleuth. 12 or more cows is called a flink. A baby oyster is called a spat. Chickens can't swallow while they are upside down. In the October 22, 1945 edition of Life magazine there was a picture of a chicken with its head cut off. It was alive too! The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head. Pinocchio was made of pine. The largest pumpkin weighed 1262 lbs. A mule won't sink in quicksand but a donkey will. More people are killed annually by donkeys than in airplane crashes. Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button for it was eliminated during surgery. There are 22 stars in the Paramount logo. The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime. A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. Cranberry Jell-0 is the only kind that contains real fruit. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets. Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie. The pound sign # is called anoctothorpe. Maine is the toothpick capital of the world. New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 spoons from almost all the states. There was once a town in West Virginia called "6". Singapore only has one train station. The parking meter was invented in North Dakota. Napolean made his battle plans in a sandbox. Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a senator. The green stuff on the occasional freak potato chip is chlorophyll. If you ate too many carrots you would turn orange. Pluto's orbit crosses Neptune's making Pluto the eighth planet from the sun. It has been that way since 1979 and will remain that way until 1999. The earth is approx. 6,588,000,000,000,000,000 tons. The force of 1 billion people jumping at the same time is equal to 500 tons of TNT. Popeye was 5'6". Howdy Doody had 48 freckles. The first word spoken on the moon was "Okay". Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first. The average speed of Heinz ketchup leaving the bottle is 25 miles per year. Hilary Clinton once said We are the President. The percent of women who wash their hands after leaving a restroom is 80%. The percent of men who wash their hands after using a restroom is 55%. T here are 333 toilet paper squares on a toilet paper roll. The Eifel Tower has 2,500,000 rivets in it. "Jaws" is the most common name for a goldfish. On an average work day, a typist's fingers travel 12.6 miles. The average American eats 2 donuts a day. The longest word in the Old Testament is Malhershalahashbaz. The longest time a person has been in a coma is 37 years. Every minute in the U.S 6 people turn 17. It takes the Where's Waldo artist one month to complete a drawing. 2500 lefties die each year using products designed for righties. A baby is born every 7 seconds. 10 tons of space dust fall on the Earth everyday. On average, a 4 year old child asks 437 questions a day. Blue and white are the most common school colors. Swimming pools in Phoenix, Arizona, pick up 20 pounds of dust a year. The first message tapped by Samuel Morse over his invention the telegraph was: What hath God wrought?. The first words spoken by over Alexander Bell over the telephone were: Watson, please come here. I want you. The first words spoken by Admin Edison over the phonograph were: Mary had a little lamb The three words in the English language with the letters uu are: vacuum, residuum and continuum. A baby in Florida was named: Truewilllaughinglifebuckyboomermanifestdestiny. His middle name is George James. It is illegal to ride a street car on Sunday if you have been eating garlic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In a normal life time an American will eat 200 pounds of peanuts and 10,000 pounds of meat. A new book is published every 13 minutes in America. America's best selling ice-cream flavour is vanilla. Americans eat 18 billion hot dogs a year. Americans eat 134 pounds of sugar a year. Every year the sun loses 360 million tons. Because of Animal Crackers, many kids until they reach the age of ten, believe a bear is as tall as a giraffe. You can tell if a skunk is about if you smell only .000 000 000 000 071 ounce of its spray. Animal breeders in Russia once claimed to have bred sheep with blue wool. Penguins are the only bird that can leap into the air like porpoises. India has 50 million monkeys. By some unknown means, an iguana can end its own life. Americans spend around $3 billion for cat and dog food a year. Pigs can cover a mile in 7.5 minutes when running at top speed. You breathe about 10 million times a year. The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you'll have a bad dream. The first non-human to win an Oscar was Mickey Mouse. Lee Harvey Oswald was booked with mugshot number 54018. The Gulf Stream could carry a message in a bottle at an average of 4 miles per hour. The bullseye on a dartboard must be 5 feet 8 inches off the ground. The foot is the most common body part bitten by insects. The most common time for a wake up call is 7am. The doorbell was invented in 1831. The are 255 squares on a Scrabble board. The electric shaver was patented on November 6, 1928. There are 500 sheets of paper in a ream. The monkey wrench was invented by Charles Moncke. Japan is the largest exporter of frog's legs. There are seven points on the Statue of Liberty's crown. There are approx. 550 hairs in the eyebrow. The most common non-contagious disease in the world is tooth decay. The shell constitutes 12 percent of an egg's weight. A squid has 10 tentacles. A snail's reproductive organs are in its head. A cow's only sweat glands are in its nose. The word "AND" appears 46,277 times in the Bible. The first word played in the Scrabble rules demonstration game is "horn". The telephone's U.S. patent number is 174,465. The typical person goes to the bathroom 6 times a day. There are 17 steps leading up to Sherlock Holme's apartment. When a horned toad is angry, it squirts blood from it's eyes. Napoleon was terrified of cats. The first Lifesaver flavor was peppermint. The typical American eats 263 eggs a year. The ballpoint pen was invented in 1938 by Laszlo and Georg Biro. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger. The parking meter was invented by C.C. Magee in 1935. In 1961, an IBM 7090 computer calculated Pi to 100 265 digits. The human body weighs forty times more than the brain. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp. A person swallows approximately 295 times while eating dinner. The oldest known vegetable is the pea. Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes. The avocado has the most calories of any fruit. The first zoo in the USA was in Philadelphia. The letter N ends all Japanese words not ending in a vowel. France has the highest per capita consumption of cheese. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone. 4000 people are injured by teapots each year. The typical American consumes 27 pounds of cheese each year. The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is feedback. The ostrich has a 46 foot long small intestine. The state of California raises the most turkeys out of all of the states. The most sensitive finger on the human hand is the index finger. George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. The typical hen lays 19 dozen eggs a year. Stainless stell was invented by Harry Brearley in 1913. A scallop has 35 blue eyes. The left leg of a chicken in more tender than the right one. The only dog that doesn't have a pink tongue is the chow. Iceland was the first country to legalize abortion in 1935. The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal. The dumbest domesticated animal is the turkey. Russia has the most movie theaters in the world. Albert Blake [censored] invented the mimeograph machine. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. The most fatal car accidents occur on Saturday. An Oscar weighs seven pounds. It takes the typical person seven minutes to fall asleep. Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer. The Eiffel Tower has 1792 steps. The mongoose was barred live entry into the U.S. in 1902. Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning. Admin Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark. About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30. A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 600 m.p.h. The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year. Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet. Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue. A jellyfish is 95 percent water. The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump. The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly. America once issued a 5-cent bill. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different. Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails. You blink about 84,000,000 times a year. In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word. A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans. Every 45 seconds, a house catches on fire in the United States. The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny. A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death. The most used letter in the English alphabet is 'E', and ' Q' is the least used. Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right of left handed... or is that pawed? The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven. Men are 6 times more likely to be struck by lighting than women. Of all the words in the English language, the word set has the most definitions. Bulls are colorblind, therefore will usually charge at a matador's waving cape no matter what color it is -- be it red or neon yellow. Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the mornings. Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight. After eating, a housefly regurgitates its food and then eats it again! When someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and whack them in the head. Coca-Cola was originally green. Hong Kong has the most Rolls Royce's per capita. Alaska is the state with highest percent of people who walk to work. 28 percent of Africa is wilderness. 38 percent of America is wilderness. A duck's quack does not echo and no one knows why. It costs $6400 to raise a medium size dog to age of 11. Average number of people airborne over the U.S. during any given hour: 61,000. 70 percent of Americans have visited Disneyland/World. I ntelligent people have more copper and zinc in their hair. The youngest pope was 11 years old. Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other country. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet and was developed by Western Union to test telex/twx communications. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches. The San Francisco Cable cars are the only "mobile" National Monuments. The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter "uncopyrightable." Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ? The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and learned how to walk up standard staircases. When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror. T he Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because, when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of unwanted people (without killing them) used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired." Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds. David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know his voice was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie. The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites. The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-star Game. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older. Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order. It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined. Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. On average people fear spiders more than they do death. You can't kill yourself by holding your breath. You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. Butterflies taste with their feet. A cat's urine glows under a blacklight. The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone. The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words. A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words. There are more collect calls made on Father's Day than on any other day. Every day more money is printed for monopoly than the US Treasury. Men can read smaller print than women, women can hear better than men. The world's youngest parents were 8 & 9 and lived in China in 1910. Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace. The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosey is a rhyme about the bubonic plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores (Ring around the Rosey...). These sores would smell very bad so people would hide flowers on their bodies in an attempt to mask the smell ("pocket full of posies..."). People who died from the plague would be burned to reduce the spread of the disease ("ashes, ashes, we all fall down"). The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma. American car horns beep in the tone of F. No piece of paper can be folded more than 7 times. 1 in every 4 Americans has appeared on television. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache. A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA." The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin. Timekeepers have clocked the action in a 60 minute football game to actually be around 14 minutes. The word "funky" appears in Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers. A domestic cat has eighteen claws: five on each of its front paws and four on each of its back paws. The tip of a whip makes a cracking sound because it is moving faster than the speed of sound. An ear of corn almost always has an even number of rows (twelve, fourteen, or sixteen). Earthworms have five hearts. Whale vomit is used in perfume and the flavoring of dried fruit and tobacco. All Polar bears are left handed. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. China has more English speakers than the United States. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white. L eonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction. The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. It is impossible to lick your elbow. A shrimp's heart is in its head. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. Between 1937 and 1945 Heinz produced a version of Alphabetic Spaghetti specially for the German market that consisted solely of little pasta swastikas. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call. Rats and horses can't vomit. The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married. 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks. In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. A snail can sleep for three years. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. "Typewriter" is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. "Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. The average fart travels over 16 feet when released. An ant can live underwater for over 14 days. Camels have a straight spine despite their hump. In some places in Egypt it is free to use the restroom but you must bring/buy your own toilet pater. The pickle while only containing 7 calories has no nutritional value. Dill pickles have more calories than sweet ones, which only have 6.

Or again, this: http://perfect-clones.com/product_info.php...products_id=573 Nothing more elegant and understated than a Calatrava. Other dealers offer an 'Officer's' Calatrava model which is also lovely. Very much like this: http://perfect-clones.com/product_info.php...products_id=253 For the price, you can always have it replated in thick micron yellow or rose gold. The case will probably even take a Swiss ETA if you want to upgrade. Interesting link to the real deals w/prices: http://www.tic-tock.com/wingates/watch-sea...Philippe/0/150/

It may be made for Dracula, but the crown looks pretty anemic to me....

As follows:

"The severed head, coupled with Time's statement to police, set off an investigation that led to the discovery of Time's estranged wife's headless body hours later in the couple's home. By midday, police confirmed that they had found the body of 47-year-old Theresa N. Time sitting up in the driver's seat of a white passenger car parked in the garage." Not since Henry VIII, Gran.

"Police knew the head didn't come from a body at the scene." Come on, Clive Where could you find entertainment like this in the UK?

yes, well....thanks for not sharing

@watchgirl: Since you seem to be well-informed on the question, where would you go for the very best (Korean?) Birkin Bag? I mention Korean since I've learned that they are a cut above the Chinese (Francis Tse) reps... I've been in contact with Sana from Pursuation, but have hesitated pulling the trigger - always imagining that there's an even better rep out there. Your experience and suggestions would be appreciated....:-)

As Clive wouldn't say, 'Gotta love those crazy Yanks!' Sorry, but no pics available. Posted on Fri, Jun. 16, 2006 Man charged after wife's head is found at accident scene BY PATRICK ORR, HEATH DRUZIN, SANDRA FORESTER AND EMILY SIMNITT Knight Ridder Newspapers BOISE, Idaho - Alofa Time's violence tore two families apart, police say. The 50-year-old Nampa, Idaho, man is accused of beheading his estranged wife Thursday and hours later killing a mother and daughter in a horrific early morning car crash. Time is in jail, charged with first-degree murder in the beheading and two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Samantha Murphy and her 4-year-old daughter Jaelynne Grimes, whose car Alofa Time slammed into on Franklin Road in West Boise. The severed head of Time's estranged wife, Theresa, was found at the crash scene; her body was later found at the couple's Nampa home. Samantha Murphy was driving her children to day care Thursday morning, and then heading to work - just like any other day. But shortly before 6:30 a.m., a man driving a pickup truck east on Franklin Road swerved into the young family's westbound Nissan Sentra and hit them straight on. A Boise police officer on his way to investigate another accident saw the truck driving erratically on Franklin Road, then witnessed the crash. First responders tried to save Murphy, 36, and Jaelynne, 4, but it was too late. The mother and her daughter died at the scene, just a mile from their West Boise home. Another daughter, Syndee Murphy, 8, was taken to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Officers then turned their attention to a disoriented Alofa Time and his severely damaged truck. One wheel was off the pickup's front, and broken beer bottles littered the road, along with a radio, some tools and other debris. Then officers made a grisly discovery: A severed female head lay on Franklin Road about 30 feet from the truck. The head had apparently been thrown from the truck, and the passenger side of the truck bed was spattered with blood. Police knew the head didn't come from a body at the scene. Once he was in custody, Time told Boise police that he was involved in a murder in Nampa. "It's as bad as you can imagine," said Michael Webb, a deputy chief with the Boise Police Department, at a news conference three hours after the accident. "We have a horrific piece of evidence." As Webb spoke, the bodies of the Samantha Murphy and her daughter had yet to be removed from the wreckage, and the head had just been removed from Franklin Road, which was closed to traffic for more than six hours. The severed head, coupled with Time's statement to police, set off an investigation that led to the discovery of Time's estranged wife's headless body hours later in the couple's home. By midday, police confirmed that they had found the body of 47-year-old Theresa N. Time sitting up in the driver's seat of a white passenger car parked in the garage. "In my 22 years (in the coroner's office), this is the most brutal I've seen," Canyon County Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris said. About 3:50 p.m., a tow truck removed the four-door white Hyundai Sonata from Time's garage. As the car was pulled away, two streaks of blood were visible on the driver's door. Officials don't know if Theresa died before being decapitated. DeGeus-Morris said she didn't see any other wounds on the body, but the cause and time of death won't be determined until an autopsy, scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday. The coroner said it appears Theresa Time died Wednesday night. Nampa police Lt. Leroy Forsman said late Thursday that Boise police found what might have been the murder weapon in the wreckage of the pickup, but he didn't say what it was. The series of events leading up to Theresa Time's death and the subsequent tragic accident on Franklin Road began months before. Theresa Time told police this spring that she and Alofa had been together for 4 1/2 years and married last fall. She told police they divorced in January, but a Statesman search of public records found no report of their divorce.

Ubi, thanks for the generous offer, but just convince him to do one of these for me and I'll be happy to finance it myself....

From the title, I thought that someone had bought the damn thing for me. Nearly had a heart-attack :-)