TidBitts -- Odds & Ends

Get INTO Jail Free??

In this day of hand-held electronic gadgets with which you can play games 24/7 and no need to find another person to play with, there is a whole generation that may have heard the term "Get Out of Jail Free card," but have never seen -- let alone played -- Monopoly®. You'd think Hasbro, who owns rights to Monopoly®, would appreciate a little "free advertising" on the web and elsewhere. But it seems that is not the case.

To find out what Hasbro has been doing to one of us "little guys," and to learn about the history of "Get Out of Hell Free" cards, drop by and visit Hasbro - This is True

Spend some time on the website and see if you'd like to subscribe to a guaranteed wry smile (it's free!) every week in This Is True.

Lost in Translation

I'm a writer, among other things. One reason is because the English language can be fun -- it is so wonderfully flexible yet can be so very precise. But the very nature of the language makes learning it complex, and translating it a challenge. Add to that the fact that we are human beings capable of missing things or misunderstanding things, and "getting the message out" can be very interesting indeed.

But if you think maybe computers will eventually solve that problem, dream on. And then go visit this page and play with words for awhile.

Lost in Translation

Be warned -- there is a high potential for smiles in this exercise.

Who Says We Don't Want Open Records??

I received some very interesting information from an assistant for the California Mutual Consent (Adoption) Registry [ Here's the URL ].

Of the more than 2,600 people actively ISO at the registry, over 600 are birthfamily members. That is twenty-three percent [23%] of all active registrants, and doesn't count the 26 "matches" made this summer.

Well over half of the birthfamily members who are searching are older -- with adoptee dates of birth in the 50's and 60's. That would seem to indicate that confidentiality was neither promised to, nor wanted by, birthmothers from those "oh so proper" decades.

"It's true that the California Birth Index is now an on-line public record. But it only lists birth names back to 1956. Many of the birthfamlies searching prior to 1956 do not have the exact date of birth anymore. Yet they can't get into the records to find this information out, ostensibly to protect their own privacy.

Times have changed; its time the laws of this country reflected that." -- Janice Johnston

Grandma's Gift

When I was much younger, quick to be honest in word and deed -- before I was properly "civilized" and taught to not always tell the truth because it's not polite -- my grandmother took me aside one day after I'd been cruel as only a young child can be. She told me that every person I met had something to teach me, something I could benefit from.

I wanted to know what a smelly dirty old bum had to teach me!

"He can teach you about what you don't want to be," was her quiet reply.

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