Quotes from Odd Interlude, a Special Odd Thomas Adventure by Dean Koontz 

We don't need a bunch of badly behaved retirees any more than we need young hoodlums. 

I'm Odd, but I'm not nuts. 

If I am the equivalent of Tom Cruise, I will surely exit unscathed.

A drop in the bucket   a very small proportion of the whole.

Origin  From the Bible, Isaiah 40:15 (King James Version):
"Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing."  'A drop in the bucket' is the predecessor of 'a drop in the ocean', which means the same thing, and is first found in a piece from The Edinburgh Weekly Journal, July 1802:   "The votes for the appointment of Bonaparte to be Chief Consul for life are like a drop in the ocean compared with the aggregate of the population of France."  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/124000.html

The history of matches

In 1669, phosphorous was discovered - phosphorous was soon used in match heads.
In 1680, an Irish physicist named Robert Boyle (Boyle's Law) coated a small piece of paper with phosphorous and coated a small piece of wood with sulfur.  He then rubbed the wood across the paper and created a fire.  However, there was no useable match created by Robert Boyle.
In 1827, John Walker, English chemist and apothecary, discovered that if he coated the end of a stick with certain chemicals and let them dry, he could start a fire by striking the stick anywhere.  These were the first friction matches.  The chemicals he used were antimony sulfide, potassium chlorate, gum, and starch.  Walker did not patent his "Congreves" as he called the matches (alluding to the Congreve's rocket invented in 1808).  http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmatch.htm

The infamous 'dog in a manger', who occupied the manger not because he wanted to eat the hay there but to prevent the other animals from doing so, is generally said to have been the invention of the Greek storyteller Aesop (circa 620-564 BC).  Many of the fables that have been credited to Aesop do in fact date from well before the 5th century BC and modern scholarship doesn't give much credence to the idea that Aesop's Fables, as we now know them, were written by him at all.  Accounts of Aesop's life are vague and date from long after his death.  If he existed at all, it was as an editor of earlier Greek and Sumerian stories rather than as the writer of them.    Nothing written by Aesop now exists in any form.  Nevertheless, you can go into any bookshop and buy a copy of 'Aesop's Fables' and, for this book more than others, that is largely thanks to the invention of the movable type printing press.  Following the production of the Gutenberg Bible in the 1450s, European printers began to look around for other suitable works to print.  What better way to educate the common herd than to provide them with the uplifting moral tales of Aesop? The German printer Heinrich Steinhowel set to the task and printed the first German version in 1480.  The first English version followed soon after when Caxton adapted the German version into English in 1484.  It seems that Steinhowel had decided that Aesop's fables weren't quite uplifting enough and he added the 'Dog in the Manger' in his 1480 version.  There's no mention of the story in the Greek descriptions of the fables, some of which date from the 4th century BC.  While not being included by Aesop, the story itself is ancient, having been cited in several early Greek texts and in English in John Gower's Confessio Amantis, circa 1390:  Though it be not the hound's habit To eat chaff, yet will he warn off  An ox that commeth to the barn Thereof to take up any food.  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dog-in-the-manger.html 

Tiramisu (pronounced "tih-ruh-mee-SOO") was invented in the 1960's at the El Touga restaurant in Treviso, Italy.  Literally translated, Tiramisu means "pick me up" or "carry me up", which probably refers to the jolt you get after eating espresso and alcohol laced ladyfingers.   Recipe and video at:  http://www.joyofbaking.com/Tiramisu.html 

Dulce de leche or milk candy is a sweet which tastes like toffee.  This is a typical Argentinean spreadable sweet.  In some countries “dulce de leche” ice cream is available.  Recipe at:  http://cookandtranslate.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/milkcaramel-dulcedeleche/

Mar. 7, 2013  In late January, Amazon received a patent to set up an exchange for all sorts of digital material.  The retailer would presumably earn a commission on each transaction, and consumers would surely see lower prices.  But a shudder went through publishers and media companies.  Those who produce content might see their work devalued, just as they did when Amazon began selling secondhand books 13 years ago.  The price on the Internet for many used books these days is a penny.  On Mar. 6, the United States Patent and Trademark Office published Apple’s application for its own patent for a digital marketplace.  Apple’s application outlines a system for allowing users to sell or give e-books, music, movies and software to each other by transferring files rather than reproducing them.  Such a system would permit only one user to have a copy at any one time.  Meanwhile, a New York court is poised to rule on whether a start-up that created a way for people to buy and sell iTunes songs is breaking copyright law.  A victory for the company would mean that consumers would not need either Apple’s or Amazon’s exchange to resell their digital items.  Electronic bazaars would spring up instantly.  “The technology to allow the resale of digital goods is now in place, and it will cause a dramatic upheaval,” said Bill Rosenblatt, president of GiantSteps, a technology consulting firm.  “In the short term, it’s great for consumers.  Over the long term, however, it could seriously reduce creators’ incentive to create.”  Scott Turow, the best-selling novelist and president of the Authors Guild, sees immediate peril in the prospect of a secondhand digital thrift shop.  “The resale of e-books would send the price of new books crashing,” he said.  “Who would want to be the sucker who buys the book at full price when a week later everyone else can buy it for a penny?”  He acknowledged it would be good for consumers — “until there were no more authors anymore.”  Libraries, though, welcome the possibility of loosened restrictions on digital material.  “The vast majority of e-books are not available in your public library,” said Brandon Butler, director of public policy initiatives for the Association of Research Libraries.  “That’s pathetic.”  He said that 60 percent of what the association’s 125 members buy was electronic, which meant sharp restrictions on use.  Libraries cannot buy from Apple’s iTunes, he said.  And so, for example, Pixar’s Oscar-winning soundtrack for the movie “Up” is not available in any public collection.  An Apple spokesman confirmed this.  Sales of digital material are considered licenses, which give consumers little or no ability to lend the item.  The worry is that without such constraints digital goods could be infinitely reproduced while still in the possession of the original owner.  Both the Amazon and Apple systems aim to solve this problem.  Amazon’s patent envisions a book or movie or song being kept in a customer’s personalized “data store.”  When an item is no longer wanted, the user could sell or trade it to another user, an action that would automatically delete the item from the first user’s store.   The patent describes what is essentially a gigantic swap meet.  Amazon’s 152 million active customers would maintain a list of desired secondhand digital objects (“Django Unchained” or Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild”), as well as a list of used digital objects that are “available for movement” (“Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” or Lance Armstrong’s autobiography).  An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on the patent, including how soon or even whether the digital marketplace would be set up.  The patent does not make clear if such a bazaar would need the publishers’ permission.  David Streitfeld  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/technology/revolution-in-the-resale-of-digital-books-and-music.html?hpw&_r=0