Archive for July 2025
The heatwave continues making all of us suffer for another week with no end in sight. I’m recuperating from recent cataract surgery and I’m somewhat limited to certain activities. Fortunately, writing the blog and working on my paintings has been approved without consequences. I thought today we’d have a little trivia test on the early years of cinema. As always the answers will be listed below.
- For what two films did Elizabeth Taylor win best actress Oscars?
- What American actress once described herself as “pure as the driven slush”?
- Who was Gene Kelly’s unusual dancing partner in the imaginative 1945 film, Anchors Away?
- Whose lengthy Oscar acceptance speech prompted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to set a time limit for later award ceremonies?
- In the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, what song did HAL, the computer, learn to sing?
- What was the movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn’s real name?
- In what film did the star *proposed by saying, “Marry me and I’ll never look at another horse”?
- What film star won a special Oscar as “the most outstanding personality of 1934”?
- Or which Alfred Hitchcock film did artist Salvador Dali designed the graphics?
- Who did Fred Astaire name as his favorite dance partner?
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The Answers
Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Tallulah Bankhead, Jerry the animated mouse from the cartoon show, Greer Garson who spent 5 1/2 min. at the 1943 ceremonies for the film, were Mrs. Miniver, A Bicycle Built For Two, Samuel Goldfish, A Day at the Races with Groucho Marx, Shirley Temple, Spellbound in 1945, Gene Kelly.
It’s another gray and rainy day here in Maine which always gives me a terrible case of the blahs. So, this is the perfect day for me to return to my easel and complete some art projects that I’ve had going on for some weeks now. I can just relax and get into “the zone” while working on these projects which helps me forget what a really crappy day it is. With that thought in mind, I dug into my archives of old limericks for a selection dated in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Maybe one or more of them will make you smile a bit, who knows? For the most part they are rated PG.
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A virgin emerged from her bath
In a state of righteous wrath,
For she had been deflowered
When she bent as she showered,
And the handle was right in the path.
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A born again Christian named Claire
Was having her first love affair.
As she climbed into bed
She reverently said,
“I wish to be opened with prayer.”
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A penny-less colleague named Cy,
Remark to a lass passing by,
“I’ve never adjusted
To being flat busted.”
Said she, with a sigh, “Nor have I.”
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There was a young fellow named Dice
Who remarked, ‘They say bigamy’s nice.
Even two is a bore
I prefer three or four,
For the plural of spouse, it is spice.”
One of my Fav’s.
An organic chemist soon found,
While pushing aminos around,
He’d no sense of smell,
And couldn’t quite tell
His acids from holes in the ground.
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I thought I’d try something a little different today. I usually have lists of trivia facts about all sorts of topics and at times they can be interesting, funny, and every so often downright weird. Today’s trivia is a little more on the darker side but still interesting. Here are ten bits of trivia that’ll make you think and possibly shudder a little.
- Howard Hughes at times wore empty tissue boxes as shoes. He also blew his nose in his socks.
- Napoleon Bonaparte was afraid of cats, but he wasn’t alone: other ailurophobe’s included Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Julius Caesar.
- Actress Cybill Shepherd dated Elvis Presley in the early 1970s and once hinted on the Oprah Winfrey show that she had to teach the singer how to perform cunnilingus.
- And here are two Osbourne family tidbits. Kelly Osbourne once expressed interest in posing nude for Playboy, but said that her breasts would need “some airbrushing.” Playboy founder Hugh Hefner later replied, “We don’t airbrush to that extent.”
- Sharon Osbourne, wife of the late great Ozzy Osbourne, once admitted to sending her own excrement wrapped in Tiffany boxes to several people who criticized her family. When a journalist criticized her teenage children, Jack and Kelly, Ms. Osborne sent a box of excrement with a note that read, “I heard you got an eating disorder. Eat this.“
- After his death in 1955, Elbert Einstein’s brain was removed and kept in a jar by Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the pathologist who conducted Einstein’s autopsy. Harvey was later fired from his job at Princeton Hospital for refusing to relinquish the organ.
- Once upon a time an Italian stripper suffocated to death after waiting an hour to jump out of a sealed cake at a bachelor party.
- The Cannibal Killer, Dorangel Vargas, The Hannibal Lector of the Andes, told the press that he preferred the taste of men to women, and never ate hands, feet, or testicles. “I have standards, you know”, said Vargas.
- The FBI estimates that more than half a million pedophiles are online every day.
- Television remote controls are the worst carriers of bacteria in hospital rooms; they spread antibiotic resistant Staphylococcus, which contributes to the 90,000 annual deaths from infection acquired in hospitals.
ENJOY YOUR DAY
Today is a good day for a little innocent and harmless pop culture trivia. Whenever I find something odd or strange that catches my interest I make note of it and today is the day that I’m going to publish some of those notes. Some are interesting and some not so much. You decide.
- Although Sean Connery played Harrison Ford’s father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Connery is just 12 years older than Ford.
- Among the actors who auditioned for the Han Solo role in the original Star Wars were Kurt Russell, Robert Englund, and even Sylvester Stallone.
- The state of Maine is really a popular state for fictional murders. It has been used as the setting for a surprising number of mysteries and thrillers by Stephen King.
- According to legend, hard rocking band Alice Cooper chose their name after using a Ouija board to communicate with a spirit named Alice Cooper.
- Yoda from Star Wars, the cookie monster from Sesame Street, and Miss Piggy from the Muppet Show were all voiced by the same person, Frank Oz.
- Sir Paul McCartney once released an album under the name Thrills Thrillington.
- Sean Connery turned down the role of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings because he didn’t understand the script.
- In the Wizard of Oz movie, the dog playing Toto was paid an actual salary of $125 a week. Ironically this was more money than many of the film actors were paid.
- The first interracial kiss in television history happened on Star Trek.
And last but not least . . . .
- Actor Nicolas Cage was named after the comic book hero Luke Cage. Oddly enough my youngest grandson was named Cage after Nicolas Cage.
POP GOES THE WEASEL
I’ve spend a great deal of my life investigating matters which required me to become well versed in verbal gymnastics by people who were skilled in the art of lying. I’ve interviewed and interrogated thousands of individuals, suspects, criminals of all types, and just plain evil people. Many were well skilled at lying and confusing the facts and had to be verbally dissected by me to get at the truth. I actually had a company send me to a school in Chicago where I was thoroughly trained to become a human polygraph. Learning body language and advanced interrogation techniques helped me immensely in identifying and dealing with those sneaking folks who used more silent and damaging techniques through the use of rumor and innuendo. I met and was constantly challenged by some truly smart but dishonest and dangerous people. Was I always successful? No! To this day I still look back on some that got away and it still angers me.
Years ago I stumbled upon a book that I later came to cherish. It was written in the 1960’s and was titled The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense compiled by Suzette Haden Elgin. She published an excellent book that organized and defined the subject of verbal abuse. She explained how to identify verbal attacks and how to defend against them. This post will contain a number of quotes from that book that may help us all to better understand the problem and the possible defenses against it.
The Four Basic Principals
Know that you are under attack.
Know what kind of attack you are facing.
Know how to make your defense fit the attack.
Know how to follow through.
There is a well know therapist, Virginia Satir who in her books has developed a set of terms for common verbal behaviors. These five patterns are called the Five Satir Modes and identify the types of people to look out for. It’s much easier to defend yourself if you can identify the type of person who is creating your difficulties.
Five Satir Identifiers
The Placater
The Placater is frightened that other people will become angry, will go away, and never come back.
The Blamer
The Blamer feels that nobody cares about him/her, that there is no respect or affection for him/her and that people are indifferent to his/her needs and feelings.
The Computer
The Computer is analytical. He/she is terrified that someone will find out what his/her feelings really are. If possible the Computer will give the impression that he/she has no feelings whatsoever.
The Distracter
The Distrater is a tricky one to keep up with, because her/she does not hold to any of the other previous patterns. He/she cycles rapidly between modes, with an underlying feeling of panic with surface behavior being a chaotic mix.
The Leveler
The true Leveler does just what the name implies; this person levels with you. A phony Leveler, however, is more dangerous than all the other categories combined, and hard to spot. If you assume you are discussing the genuine article, what the Leveler is actually saying is only what he/she is feeling.
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Needless to say this is just a bare-bones summary of what could always be a difficult and dangerous situation. Maybe it will help.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY
I’m quite the fan of word games, puns, and almost anything related to the written or spoken word. The English language is a real minefield for immigrants to navigate and truthfully it’s just as tough for some of us home grown types. Todays quiz will test your knowledge of our language with trivia on words and phrases and how they came to be. As always the answers will be listed below.
- What is the measurement of “one foot’ based on?
- Who invented word “carport”?
- What ails you if your suffering from a bilateral preorbital hematoma?
- What are you afraid of if you have ergophobia?
- In Japan, what automobile part is known as a bakkumira?
- What is the chief symptom of someone suffering from oniomania?
- What is the origin of the word hoax?
- What does Iwo Jima mean in Japanese?
- How did the common airgun become known as a BB gun?
- How did “bloomers”, ladies pantaloons, get their name?
Answers
One third of the length of King Henry I’s arm, Frank Lloyd Wright, A black eye, Work, A rearview mirror, Graying of the hair, Uncontrollable urge to buy things, Its a contraction from hocus pocus, Sulfur Island, From it’s Ball Bearing ammunition, From suffragette Amelia Bloomer.
As you can see by the title this post is a Limerick Alert. Sometimes that means bawdy and off-color, and other times lame and just plain entertaining. Something else that we all seem to love are our pets and animals, therefore all of today’s limericks will be “animal” related. Here are four examples that caught my eye and I hope you enjoy them. I’d rate these limericks as “G” so the kids can read them too.
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There once was a young lady named Maggie
Whose pet dog was terribly shaggy,
The front end of him
Look quite vicious and grim,
But the tail was always friendly and waggy.
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The thoughts of a rabbit and sex
Are seldom, if ever, complex.
For a rabbit in need
Is a rabbit indeed,
And does just as one might expect.
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A freshman from down in Laguna
Fell madly in love with a tuna.
The affair, although comic,
Was so economic,
He wished he’d have thought of it soona!
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A sightseer from far McAboo,
Observed a strange beast at the Zoo,
When she asked: “Is it old? “
She was smilingly told
It’s not an old beast, but a gnu!.
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And finally a clean favorite for my better-half the gardener:
TIME TO YUCK IT UP
I’ve always enjoyed spicing up my posts with quotes from a variety of people from politicians, writers, and even a few not-brain-dead celebrities. I’ve been quoted a number of times myself primarily by my fellow subordinate associates after reading my comments on their performance reviews. I was always a little too frank in my comments and I may have hurt a few feelings over the years but it was also those same people who quoted me the most. I’ve always enjoyed quotes that were made by people whose ass I wasn’t required to kiss and always found more truth in frank discussions than politically correct nonsense. Here’s a sampling of quotes that were made concerning CRITICS.
- “Insects sting, not from malice but because they want to live. It is the same with critics – they desire our blood, not pain.” Friedrich Nietzsche
- “Don’t pay attention to bad reviews. Today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s toilet paper.” Jack Warner
- “He always praises the first production of each season, being reluctant to stone the first cast.“ Walter Winchell
- “The tongue is the only instrument that gets sharper with use.” Washington Irving
- “Critics are like eunuchs at a gang-bang.” George Burns
- “A good review from the critics is just another stay of execution.” Dustin Hoffman
- “Critics? – I love every bone in their heads.” Eugene O’Neill
- “Time is the only critic without ambition.” John Steinbeck
- “In judging others, folks will work overtime for no pay.” Charles Carruthers
AND last but not least:
- “Critics are a dissembling, dishonest, contemptible race of men. Asking a working writer what he feels about critics is like asking a lamppost what he feels about dogs.” John Osbourne
YOU SUCK! AND YOUR FIRED!
- Abraham Lincoln lost five different elections prior to becoming a United States president.
- There are 13 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.
- The only word that begins and ends with the letters “und” is the word underground.
- Due to contrasting gravity, a person normally weighing 200 pounds on earth will weigh just 76 pounds on Mars.
- Recycling one glass jar will save enough energy for three hours of television.
- A tsunami can move at the same speed as a jet plane.
- You could fit almost 900,000,000,000,000 footballs into the Grand Canyon.
- Rio de Janeiro means River of January.
- Sometimes when you are sleeping, your brain is busier than when you’re awake.
- The left and right sides of your body are controlled by the opposite sides of your brain.
- In Japan you can buy square watermelons, specifically created to stack more easily in supermarkets.
- Wild lions usually do not kill more than 20 times a year.
- Crocodiles along the banks of the Nile River are accountable for over 1000 deaths per year.
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And last but not least some information that I hope our
current generation of scientists are paying attention to.
1. The First Law of robotics is a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. The Second Law of robotics is that a robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. The Third Law of robotics is that a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
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SPECIAL THANKS TO ISAAC ASIMOV
My father, a former USN sailor, absolutely loved Bermuda. His ship made numerous stops there during the war and he told me on many occasions how he wished he could live there. I’ve never been lucky enough to visit Bermuda but it certainly looks like a wonderful place. Here’s a short historical story you might enjoy.
Fact: Bermuda has a robust history of pirating.
Seven supply ships sent out for Virginia in June 1609. It was the maiden voyage of the London Companies flagship Sea Venture, the first British merchant vessel designed to transport passengers. Battered for days by a hurricane, the fleet was scattered, and construction flaws caused the Sea Venture to leak badly. Spotting land, company Adm. Sir George Somers deliberately steered the ship onto the reefs, enabling his crew and passengers to escape. Stranded on a desert island, the survivors built two boats and finally reached Jamestown nine months later.
Based on that shipwreck, England laid claim to Bermuda, which was incorporated into the London Company’s charter. And a later account by Sea Venture survivor William Strachey reached England and became the inspiration for William Shakespeare’s final play, the Tempest.
Fact: Rainwater captured from the roofs of its buildings is Bermuda’s only source of fresh water.
A poem of Bermuda:
wings catch the wind’s plea,
ancient calls across the miles,
new lands greet the sun.
everyuselessthing.com 