A duck's quack doesn't echo...

and nobody knows why.

HACKED ATM

Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands when typed.
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye."

I got an e-mail from Thrifty soliciting feedback on my car rental experience.
Hey, they asked.

Quoting from a news story:
"Scientists have unearthed a skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in Earth's history." How in the world do they know that? How can they use the superlative "most" when they don't know what they'll find next week or next month? "...most primitive to date..." I could understand but that's not what the article said.
And another thing; when they find a fossil they do a reconstruction, show us what the animal (or human precursor) looked like in real life. How do they know, from bones, what kind of skin it had, or where on its body it had hair?
I've never heard that explained.

I watched some of Wimbledon again this morning and Pam Shriver told about an answer she heard Ana Ivanovic give to a question at a press conference. Ivanovic, at 20 years old, won the French Open three weeks ago, her first win in a major. She was asked if that put pressure on her to win at Wimbledon. Her answer: "Pressure is the result of your own ambitions. It's the price you pay for expecting great things of yourself."
Never mind her age, that is an outstanding answer!
Perhaps it explains why some people never feel much pressure; they don't ever expect much of themselves. I think back to times when I've felt real pressure going into something, and she's right - it was because I held myself to a high standard.
I wish someone had explained that to me then. It might have made me feel better about the pressure. It would still be there but I'd know it had a positive side to it.
And it makes me think that I don't want to avoid that kind of pressure in the future. I want to put myself in situations where I expect great things of myself and run the risk of failure. I think maybe it's easy, the older we get, to live inside a safe zone, never pushing ourselves to succeed at anything challenging.
So tomorrow I'm going to go until 10:00 a.m. without a Diet Coke.