Heinz's Email Blog March 2007 Archive

Easter bunny (or Easter hare), a symbol of fertility, brings Easter eggs, another symbol of fertility. Naturally, it lays the eggs in the grass — when nobody's looking. This is how ... Read More

Monte, in Spanish, means mountain. You cannot only have a mountain shaped like a chocolate bar but also montes of, say, cash, fan mail or playing cards. It is from ... Read More

Supermarkets, it is said, routinely re-arrange the wares put up for sale so we the customers cannot routinely head to milk, bread, butter, flour and fruit looking neither left nor ... Read More

If you have a metal bowl with a tiny hole in it, you own a clock. Place the bowl in a reservoir of water, and it will sink at a ... Read More

In Spring, all eyes are on the hare (which is much larger than the rabbit, by the way, has ears longer than its face and sports a white belly). In ... Read More

One of the earliest examples of Greek philosophy is a hymn. The cardinal text of Yoga is sung rather than read to this day. Why? It is easier to remember when ... Read More

"Good taste, will last long and spread far away !" Says the box of Keemun tea standing next to my laptop while I wait for the water to boil. Indeed, not ... Read More

So camels do not store water in their humps. Thank you, Sunday afternoon family quiz. Still, camels go for days without water, and they can drink a lot in one go ... Read More

Shipwrecked yet again, Sinbad the sailor wakes up on the shore of a lonely island. Exploring the isle, he encounters who he thinks must be a fellow sailor from the ... Read More

Depending on the restaurant, you may want everything on the menu or, well, "not much, really." In any event, you order a couple of items, nonchalantly from memory or with ... Read More

If baking soda can deodorize a refrigerator, it should work for the litter box, too. Let's mix some sodium bicarb with the litter next time we change it and smell ... Read More

"No strings attached" initially referred to politicians, probably in combination with puppets. Around 1880, a politician not controlled remotely was said not to have any strings attached: he or she ... Read More

Astronomically, Spring begins with the vernal equinox. In the Northern hemisphere, this occurs on March 20 or March 21. In spite of its name — "equinox" means "equal night (sc. and ... Read More

Have you ever had a neighbor who listened to music? (I don't mean extremely loud music or music that raised more than mere eyebrows; just music.) Good. I bet they ... Read More

From the Egyptian hieroglyph for shelter, the letter B has come to us. The Phoenicians turned the rectangular hieroglyph into a letter and called it beth — house. While the ... Read More

Nobody likes duplicates — except when it comes to comfit, confection and chocolate maybe. But even sweet twins are eschewed if too identical. Makers of these delicacies, it is said, have ... Read More

The palm cockatoo is well known as a tool maker. The largest cockatoo and the only with totally black feathers, probosciger aterrimus has a loud voice it uses delightfully to ... Read More

In March, when forsythia begins its bright yellow bloom, the signs of early spring abound. Maybe the lovely snowdrop's petals have already faded and now the leaves are collecting energy ... Read More

The four-leaved clover, possibly because it is rare enough not to be common and frequent enough not to be a chimera, has been an omen of good fortunes since ancient ... Read More

Bored? Well, the next time you are, lean with your forehead against a wall and chew on a piece of chocolate. (I discovered that all on my own and totally ... Read More

Ireland's first harp was owned, folklore has it, by Dagda, the "good god" and leader of the Danann. When Fomorian semi-gods stole the harp, Lugh, god of light, and Ogma, ... Read More

"Typewriter" is one of the few longer words that can be typed using only the top row of a QWERTY keyboard. Apparently, this is no coincidence. Christopher Latham Sholes, the ... Read More

Arc is a very old word for anything bowed or curved. Bowed like the majestic arcs in Roman aquaeducts, for instance. (The Aqueduct of Segovia in Spain still stands firmly ... Read More

MailFollowup, the Mac OS X Mail add-on not only for the Kierkegaards among us, now comes with toolbar buttons, too, which make it even easier to follow up on messages ... Read More

I didn't know I like to receive emails with "spaced out" in the Subject line until I got one. Please send me more! Or, of course, I'll fabricate them myself from ... Read More

Not only can you turn a coffee filter into a shamrock painting, you can also make a shamrock caterpillar by cutting a few shamrocks out of fine paper, gluing them ... Read More

Good-bye Outlook Express; Hello spam filter! The email program that comes with Windows Vista is called "Windows Mail". At heart, it is Outlook Express — but with improvements worthy of note: Solid ... Read More

In a life lived enthusiastically, Alexander Graham Bell became president of the National Geographic Society (which he had co-founded) in 1898. He believed that geography and appreciation of foreign places ... Read More

We have two eyes to see three dimensions, two ears to locate the source of sound, and two nostrils to follow a trail of scent. Like dogs, yes (sniffing in ... Read More

Microsoft Office Outlook, which previously managed your day and your email, now manages your RSS news feeds (just like emails and in quite useful a fashion), too. A new search ... Read More