Jennifer Bray-Weber's Blog, page 33

Hump Day Kick Start – Chicken Edition

Hump Day Kick Start – for your muse, a writing picture prompt, or ju st a visual treat.

 

It’s all fun and games until you hit your head on the ceiling fan.

Now that the stress of the elections is over, how about a fun prompt?

Who is our jubilant couple? The highwire act practicing her landing? Frat boy frolicking with the dean’s daughter, hoping to convince her break into daddy’s office so he can hack the computer and change his grades? Had he won a bet with his buddies that he couldn’t get the hot neighbor to “ride him”? Could she be trying to change a lightbulb?  Is she a starlet who won at playing chicken with a rival actress and this is her expression after laying that biotch out?

What’s your take? Tell me a tale or caption the pic.

Link of the Week – Daily Infographic

This is a fun site for all your infographic needs, Daily Infographic. They “scour the internet for data visualizations with the best content and design to bring our users facts and figures in the most easily consumed format.” In other words, they just want to make us smarter in an age where people love quick and easy pics. Whatever your heart desires in health, entertainment, food, surviving an apocalypse, just about anything you want or didn’t realize you needed to know. Oh, and they can help create an infographic should you need one.

Check them out. http://www.dailyinfographic.com/

Here’s a nifty infographic on blood stain analysis. Handy for writers and potential criminals.

Friday Fun Facts- Lady Liberty!

She is a piece of art. She was a gift. She means so much more.

See if you knew these facts-

She is hit by lightning over 600 times per year.
Her torch was refurbished in 1984 with a new copper base and then overlaid in 24 carat gold leaf.
The 7 spikes on her crown represent the 7 continents and 7 oceans of the world. Peace is a global desire that knows no boundaries.
The statue’s full name is Liberty Enlightening The World.
Lady Liberty has a size 879 shoe and a 35 foot waistline.
The face was said to be modeled after the sculptor’s mother, Charlotte.
Her feet are not easy to see but she is, in fact, standing among a broken shackle and chains. Her right foot is raised like she’s walking away from slavery and oppression.
In 1984 she was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Two people have committed suicide by jumping of the statue. The first was in 1929 and the other in 1932. (I wonder if it had anything to do with the economic crash.) Many others have jumped and survived!
Andy Warhol painted this great lady as part of his “Pop Art” series in the 1960s. The painting is said to be worth more than 35 million dollars today!!
**I never knew this!** In 1916, the statue sustained damage when Germans saboteurs set off an explosion during World War I. The torch-bearing arm sustained the most damage with $100,000 in repairs! (That was a HUGE amount of money back in 1916) The stairs in the torch were closed for safety and has never been re-opened.
During a storm, once winds reach 50 mph, the statue can sway up to 3 inches while the torch can dance around up to 5 inches.
The most famous movie going shot of the statue was in Planet of the Apes. She’s broken and all we see is her head buried on the beach. Chilling moment.
In 1944, the lights in her crown signaled dot-dot-dot-dash. That’s Morse code  for V, Victory in Europe!
For many years she also served as a lighthouse with lights that could be seen for 24 miles.
She is 130 yrs. old this year.
If the statue were to be built today, it would cost over 10 million dollars. (Yet, a painting of it costs over 35 million??)
The statue was inspired by the pagan Roman goddess, Libertas.

Hump Day Kick Start – Sniper Edition

Hump Day Kick Start – for your muse, a writing picture prompt, or ju st a visual treat.

Some days…

Tell me about today’s prompt. Who is he and who or what is in his sights? Is he s hired gun, deadly mercenary, or amateur sniper? Is his target a mob boss? Collateral damage? A dignitary? A scientist with the cure to cancer? Is there a war on his country’s soil? Does he have a conscious? Or could he be fueled by duty or vengeance? What if he is from the future and his assignment is to take out the person who destroys humanity in fifty years? Ooh, instead what if his target was the destroyer’s mother? Take her out and the villain would never be born. What if that same woman was his mother, too?

I’d love to hear your take. Tell me a tale or simply caption the pic.

Friday Fun Facts-Our First President!

George Washington was the father of our country. The first President. What do you know about him beyond cutting down his dad’s cherry tree? (Which wasn’t true- it came from a poem written after he had died.) Let’s find out…

He was unanimously voted in as our first president with all 69 members of Congress casting their ballots for him. No popular vote existed.
He was one of the largest presidents we’ve had. He stood at 6’2″ and weighed 200 lbs.
His favorite foods were peanut soup, mashed sweet potatoes with coconut, and string beans with mushrooms.
He had no children but had hound dogs that were treated like family.
He only attended school from the age of 6 to 15. He then became a surveyor because his mother couldn’t afford to send him to college.
He had chronic toothaches until at 57, he had all of his teeth pulled. He wore a set of dentures carved from Ivory and set on a silver plate.
President Washington may have owned one of the first goldfish in America! They were a gift from a naval officer.
He was the richest president. Ever. His assets today would have been valued over $500 million.
He had 2 stepchildren, but the girl died at 16 due to a seizure, and the boy died when he contracted a disease at a military encampment.
Washington was a military hero by the time he was 22.
He was also a distiller of whiskey and produced 11,000 gallons in one year.
Before fighting against the British, he actually fought for the British.
At 67 he came down with a bad cold and was dead within 48 hours. Researchers now say, he died of medical malpractice. He was subjected to 4 rounds of bloodletting.
It is said that he introduced mules to America. He received donkeys from the King of Spain and bred them to his horses.
He didn’t wear a wig! That hair we see in pictures is all his!!

Hump Day Kick Start – Morgue Edition

Hump Day Kick Start – for your muse, a writing picture prompt, or ju st a visual treat.

It’s coming! Halloween, that is. And what better way to celebrate the holiday than with something…creepy.

Tell me about today’s prompt. What’s going on here? Is she a scientific experiment gone wrong? The beginning of a zombie apocalypse? Had he not killed her after all (or maybe he had) and she’s coming back for him? What if this is a case of mistaken identity?

Come on, ghosts and ghoulies. Tell me a tale or caption the pic.

Link of the Week – Morguefile

Being a blogger and writer of a newsletter, among many other creative hats, I find that I’m often in need of stock photos. No doubt I’m not alone. There are loads of great sites out there that offer both free and paid royalty free pics—Depositphotos, Dreamstime, CreativeCommons, iStock, Bigstock, to name just a few.

Here’s another to add to the list—Morguefile.  http://www.morguefile.com/

Morguefile is “a community-based free photo site, and all photos found in the Morguefile archive are free for you to download and re-use in your work, be it commercial or not. The photos have been contributed by a wide range of creatives from around the world, ranging from amateur photo hobbyists to professionals.”

For those who like to take pictures, Morguefile also offers a daily photo challenge called #Quest. Check it out! http://www.morguefile.com/quest/1

 

Friday Fun Facts- John F. Kennedy

I’m not sure why, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the presidency of the United States. Call me crazy, I just can’t get it off my mind. (Note the heavy sarcasm)

I don’t want to talk about modern politics, but it sent me searching about Lincoln last week and Kennedy this week. Check out what I discovered.

John F. Kennedy was obsessed with his weight and traveled with a bathroom scale everywhere he went. Seriously?
This is a shout-out to the author, Will Graham who is a Bond aficionado and faithful MuseTracks follower! President Kennedy was a Bond fanatic and To Russia With Love was his all-time favorite book! He even tried writing his own Bond like book about a coup d’etat headed by Lyndon Johnson!!
He was the first president to dance with black women at the Inauguration Ball.
His last year in office is when his son, Patrick, died.
A month before his death, he created a “James Bond” movie about his own assassination! The grieving widow was played by Jackie and frazzled Secret Service agents were, indeed, played by his very reluctant Secret Service agents. Now that is creepy.
He spent time in the company of his mistresses, but after Patrick’s death, he never had sex with any of them. He drew much closer to Jackie and was determined to “keep the White House, white”.
On Nov. 11, 1963, he laid a wreath on The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington. He would be buried at that cemetery two weeks later.
The open top limo that he rode in on that fateful day was flown in from Washington. .
Lyndon B. Johnson became president 99 minutes after the shooting.
Jackie removed her wedding ring and put it on his finger to be buried with him.
One of his legs was shorter than the other which caused life-long back pain.
Kennedy desperately wanted to learn to speak French. Jackie was fluent and he often turned to her and their daughter Caroline for help. It was…a struggle never mastered.
President Kennedy bought 1200 Cuban cigars the day before he set a ban on them. Hmmmm…….
Taken from ABC’s article on President Kennedy: “Kennedy had been the target of at least four assassination attempts before Dallas, one barely a month after he was elected president, when a retired postal worker, his car loaded with dynamite, followed the president-elect from Hyannis Port to Georgetown to Palm Beach. “Brother, they could have gotten me in Palm Beach. There is no way to keep anyone from killing me,” Kennedy told a Secret Service agent shortly after the suspect was apprehended, recounted Thurston Clarke in “JFK’s Last Hundred Days.” Two more assassination plots — one in Chicago, one in Tampa, Fla. — were uncovered in the weeks before Nov. 22, 1963.”
President Kennedy gave his entire $100,000 salary to charity every year.

 

 

 

Hump Day Kick Start – Death’s Shadow Edition

Hump Day Kick Start – for your muse, a writing picture prompt, or ju st a visual treat.

 

Still October, still spooky prompts. A step over to the freaky side.

What’s the story? Is the setting modern day or from a time long past? Is the shadow real or could a ghost playing a trick or issuing a warning? Who was she? Witch? Victim of the voices in her head or something or someone more nefarious? Was this intentional or a murder? No matter the answer, the next question would be why. This could be a real horror story. *shivers*

What’s your take?

Link Of The Week-Throw Downs!

There was no one quite like the Bard himself to throw down the best insults ever. No matter what you write, this is a great place to get unique ideas about insulting someone.

http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/

“Thou puking pottle-deep coxcomb!”

“If you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt.”