Some Internet users use the idioms "face time", "meatspace" or "meat world", which contrast with the term "cyberspace".  "Meatspace" has appeared in the Financial Times and in science fiction literature.  Some early uses of the term include a post to the Usenet newsgroup austin.public-net in 1993 and an article in the Seattle Times about John Perry Barlow in 1995.   The term entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2000.  The terms "meatspace" and "meat world" are apparently derived originally from the science fiction novel Neuromancer by William Gibson, published in 1984, which also coined the term "cyberspace."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_life 

First monument for the first state  The First State National Monument, part of the National Park Service, was created in March, 2013 when President Obama signed a proclamation establishing such monuments in five states.  The White House says the sites “help tell the story of significant people and extraordinary events in American history, as well as protect unique natural resources for the benefit of all Americans.”  The First State National Monument in Delaware consists of the New Castle Courthouse Museum and The Green in New Castle, the Woodlawn Tract natural area north of Wilmington, and The Green in Dover.  http://www.udel.edu/udmessenger/vol21no4/stories/alumni-smith.html 

Gobsmacked combines the northern English and Scottish slang term gob, mouth, with the verb smack.  It suggests the speaker is utterly astonished or astounded.  It’s much stronger than just being surprised; it’s used for something that leaves you speechless, or otherwise stops you dead in your tracks.  Gobsmacked, like gob itself, comes from northern English and southern Scottish dialects.  One reason why it starts to appear in print in the 1980s is that it was used by the writers of gritty television series set in northern cities, such as Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff, about five Liverpudlian tarmac layers, and Coronation Street, set in a fictional suburb of Manchester (Jeffrey Miller included it in his glossary Street Talk — The Language of Coronation Street in 1986).  It was taken up shortly afterwards by broadsheet newspapers such as The Times, the Sunday Times and the Independent as well as the Guardian and by politicians who used it to display their demotic credentials.  It has since travelled widely.  William Safire commented in The New York Times in 2004 that the “locution is sweeping the English world”. The success of the Scottish singer Susan Boyle in BBC television’s Britain’s Got Talent in 2009 led to a further boost, since she used it copiously in interviews.  It’s an obvious derivation of an existing term, since gob has been a dialect and slang term for the mouth for four hundred years (often in insulting phrases like shut your gob! to tell somebody to be quiet).  It possibly goes back to a Scottish Gaelic word meaning a beak or a mouth, which has also bequeathed us the verb to gob, meaning to spit.  Another form of the word is gab, from which we get gift of the gab.  http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gob1.htm

Ultimate Block Party events in 2013:  three will be inaugural events.  Baltimore, which hosted a Block Party last fall, is revving up for a second celebration.   Thanks to these efforts, and several others about to launch, play has begun to get attention in the news.  The Christian Science Monitor interviewed UBP’s Susan Magsamen and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek for a story about the value of play in children’s lives.  UBP received prominent mention as a new way for families to relearn the once known, but now seemingly radical idea that play equals learning in childhood.  The Ultimate Block Party is also proud to announce the launch of a new Web portal highlighting the science of learning from our sister organization, the Learning Resource Network, or L-rn.  L-rn is an exciting, new, in-depth resource designed for families and educators to understand what prominent researchers in education, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive and behavioral science have been uncovering about how children learn.  L-rn is designed to provide this important science learning to adults involved in children’s lives to facilitate their intellect, curiosity, social and emotional learning, and development of new skills for 21st century learning.  Best of all, with activities and tools for engagement, L-rn gives parents, teachers, childcare providers, counselors and health professionals a platform to discuss what these innovations mean in kids’ lives.  http://www.ultimateblockparty.com/ 

Learning language is play on words  Find more on cognitive development, Ultimate Block Party, and get advice for parents at http://www.udel.edu/udmessenger/vol21no4/stories/alumni-zosh 

Origin of 'over the moon'  The source was included, as High Diddle Diddle, in the influential 16th century nursery rhyme collection, Mother Goose's Melody; or Sonnets from the Cradle, circa 1760:  High diddle diddle, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Cow jump'd over the Moon, The little dog laugh'd to see such Craft, And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.  As with most nursery rhymes, the first appearance in print may well post-date the first use by years, centuries even .  Whatever the origin may have been, the version passed down to us is quite probably nonsense and isn't easily interpreted.  What is clear is that the 'over the moon' line is a reference to excitement and energy.  That's evidenced by one of the earliest allusions to the phrase in print - Charles Molloy's The Coquet, or, The English Chevalier, 1718:  "Tis he! I know him now:  I shall jump over the Moon for Joy!"  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/over-the-moon.html 

Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine runs at the Art Institute of Chicago through Jan. 27, 2014.  This exhibition brings together over 100 paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts from the 18th through the 20th century, along with a selection of period cookbooks, menus, trade cards, and posters, to explore the art and culture of food and examine the many meanings and interpretations of eating in America.   See slide show and link to more information including an online cookbook at http://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/art-and-appetite-american-painting-culture-and-cuisine 

Becoming the Fifth Branch, William A. Birdthistle; Illinois Institute of Technology – Chicago-Kent College of Law, M. Todd Henderson, University of Chicago – Law School. Cornell Law Review, Vol. 99, 2013 and University of Chicago Institute for Law & Economics Olin Research Paper No. 618. “Observers of our federal republic have long acknowledged that a fourth branch of government comprising administrative agencies has arisen to join the original three set forth in the Constitution.  In this Article, we focus our attention on the emergence of yet another branch comprising financial self-regulatory organizations (SROs).  In the late eighteenth century, long before the establishment of state and federal securities authorities, the financial industry created its own SROs.  These private institutions then coexisted with the public authorities for much of the past century in a complementary array of informal and formal policing mechanisms.  That equilibrium, however, appears to be growing increasingly imbalanced as financial SROs such as FINRA transform from “self-regulatory” into “quasi-governmental” organizations."

Eleanor Parker, best known for her role as the Baroness in The Sound of Music has died, aged 91.  The Oscar-nominated actress died at a medical facility close to her home in Palm Springs, California due to complications from pneumonia, reports The Hollywood Reporter.  Parker played Baroness Elsa Schraeder who wanted to send the Von Trapp children to boarding school.  The Sound of Music star was nominated three times for an Academy Award - for her roles in 1950's Caged, 1951's Detective Story and 1955's Interrupted Melody.  She acted opposite some of Hollywood's heavyweights like Frank Sinatra - in The Man With the Golden Arm - and Kirk Douglas - in Detective Story - and more than held her own.  In later years she starred in television shows like Murder She Wrote and Hawaii Five-O but her final credit came from the 1991 TV movie Dead on the Money.  Carl Greenwood  See picture and watch clip from Sound of Music at http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/julie-andrews-love-rival-sound-2910746 

Ida Pollock, the author of more than 120 books,  died  on Dec. 3, 2013 in England at the age of 105.  Mrs. Pollock had her first stories published while she was in her teens and went on to write scores of books under almost a dozen pseudonyms.  Her output included some 70 “bodice-rippers” for romance publisher Mills & Boon, the British arm of Harlequin Enterprises.  After an adventurous early life that included a solo trip to Morocco while a teenager and work in London during the Blitz, Mrs. Pollock took up writing intensely to support her family after her husband went bankrupt in 1950.  Mrs. Pollock said her books were “full of hope and romance rather than sex” and always contained one crucial element:  “A happy ending is an absolute must.”  She also published a memoir, “Starlight.”  Her 124th and 125th novels, romances set in the Regency period, are due to be published next year.  Jill Lawless  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ida-pollock-british-romance-novelist-who-wrote-more-than-120-books-dies-at-105/2013/12/09/bf8bc1a8-60f5-11e3-8beb-3f9a9942850f_story.html