Author Archive
Being a collector of useless information and all types of odd trivia, I offer for your enjoyment today the following list of really strange occurrences and/or coincidences. I’ve firmly believed for years that there are no such things as coincidences but maybe these will prove me wrong.
- The Surete, the French precursor and modern counterpart of the FBI, was founded in 1812 by a man who was once named Public Enemy Number One. Eugene-Francois Vidocq, a thief and outlaw, evaded the police for years, turned police spy, joined the force as a detective, and used his knowledge of crime to establish a new crime fighting organization, the Surete.
- The carpenter who built the first stocks in Boston in 1634, a man named Palmer, was the first to occupy them. He was charged with over-billing the town elders for the construction, found guilty, and sentenced to spend a half-hour in the stocks he had recently completed.
- To help determine on what floor it should have its offices in one of the two World Trade Center towers, a Japanese company hired a soothsayer to throw dice.
- A Harvard student on his way home to visit his parents fell between two railroad cars in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was rescued by an actor on his way to visit his sister in Philadelphia. The student was Robert Lincoln, heading to the White House to visit his father. The actor was Edwin Booth, the brother of the man who in a few weeks would murder the student’s father.
- The celebrated seventeenth-century pirate William Kidd was a wealthy landowner in New York state.
- Mark Twain was born in 1835 when Halley’s comet appeared. He predicted he would die when Halley’s comet next returned to scare everyone – and he did, in 1910. The comet returned again in 1986.
- U.S. Congressmen expressed surprise on learning in 1977 that it takes fifteen months of instruction at the Pentagon’s School of Music to turn out a bandleader but merely thirteen months to train a jet pilot.
- Eleven days before the statute of limitations was to expire on the three-million-dollar Brink’s bank robbery in Boston in 1950, one of the robbers confessed and betrayed his fellow robbers.
- During the Gold Rush days in California, Charlie Parkhurst was a stagecoach driver, taking passengers and gold shipments along dangerous roads. Charlie smoked cigars, chewed tobacco, played cards, drank and at one time shot dead two highwaymen. On December 31, 1879, Charlie was found dead at his home. As they were dressing the body for burial it was discovered that Charlie Parkhurst was a woman.
- The slave, Henry Brown escaped from Virginia in 1858 by hiding (with a box of biscuits and a bladder of water) in a box that was shipped from Richmond to Philadelphia. There, he popped out into “the free world.” He was forever after known as “Box” Brown.
Here is a message from my new 2023 calendar that specializes in profanity laced sayings.
January 5 – CHASE YOUR BIG F*****G DREAMS
Today is as good a day as any to continue this series with installment #5. It should make for interesting discussions to start the new year. I hope you enjoy these topics because they seem to be more interesting than those that came before. Just remember:
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates
- Can you urinate in front of another person?
- If you walk out of your house one morning and saw a bird with a broken wing huddled in some nearby bushes, what would you do?
- Assume there were a technological breakthrough that would allow people to travel as easily and cheaply between continents as between nearby cities. Unfortunately, there would also be 100,000 deaths a year from the device. Would you try to prevent its use?
- You and a person you love deeply are placed in separate rooms with a button next to each of you. You know you will both be killed unless one of you presses your button before 60 minutes pass; furthermore, the first to press the button will save the other person but will immediately be killed. What do you think you would do?
- When you tell a story, do you often exaggerate or embellish it? If so, why?
*****
- Do you feel that advice from older people carries a special weight because of their greater experience?
- Without your kidney as a transplant, someone close to you will die within one month. The odds that you will survive the operation are only 50%, but should you survive, you would be certain of a normal life expectancy. Would you consent to the operation?
- When has your life dramatically changed as the result of some seemingly random external influence? How much do you feel in control of the course of your life?
- If a friend were almost always late, would you resent it or simply allow for it? Can you be counted on to be on time?
- When did you last yell at someone? Why? Did you later regret it?
*****
- Would you be willing to have horrible nightmares every night for a year if you would be rewarded with extraordinary wealth?
- If you could have free, unlimited service for five years from an extremely good cook, chauffeur, housekeeper, masseuse, or personal secretary, which would you choose?
- Would you be willing to go to a slaughterhouse? Do you eat meat?
- Would you enjoy spending a month of solitude in a beautiful natural setting? Food and shelter would be provided but you would not see another person.
- After a medical examination, your doctor calls and gravely says you have a rare lymphatic cancer with only a few months to live. Five days later, she informs you that the lab test was mislabeled, and you are perfectly healthy. Forced for a moment to look death in the face, you have been allowed to turn and go on. During those difficult days you would certainly have gained some insights about yourself. Do you think they would be worth the pain?
*****
THESE ONES WILL GET YOU THINKING
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973)
I’m not one to celebrate birthdays on this blog but as with everything there are exceptions. Today is the birthday of my favorite writer whose works have captivated me for more than fifty years. It all started in 1968 while I was serving in the Republic of South Korea. I discovered a copy of the Hobbit in the hooch of a young lady I was seeing. She couldn’t read English and I had no reading material worth reading at the time. She made it a gift to me, and I began reading it immediately.
I became lost in his world of the Shire, the hobbits, the dwarves, the elves, and the wizards. I read a portion of that book by the light of a flashlight as I sat in a foxhole. I had no access to the trilogy at that time and was forced to take a short leave, a quick hop on an Air Force plane to the Tokyo PX, where I purchased my first copies.
Over the years I’ve read those books at least a dozen times. Along the way I read everything I could find about J.R.R. including a number of books later published by his son. I still have some beautiful calendars from the 1970’s and 1980’s painted by a number of well-known artist of scenes from his stories. I also found out that alcohol and tattooing mix rather well together since I have the door symbol from the door of Moria on my upper arm. Right next to that I have a beautiful tattoo of Smaug.
I almost lost my mind when someone who was real fan of the books made the movies. I never thought it would happen. I was again truly excited when Amazon and Jeff Bezos released the latest prequel, The Rings of Power. I was happy to see they did a great job in tying it into the original story line. I became so interested I went back and began reading the Silmarillion for the fifth time. I look forward to the new season as any good fan would.
The man was amazing, and his works will be read and loved by millions more in the coming years.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN
I’ thought I’d start the new year with a small collection of limericks. This collection should be rated “PG”, so keep the youngsters away. Happy New Year to all of you limerick aficionados. Today’s collection concerns:
Sexual Misfortunes
Two middle-aged ladies from Fordham,
Went out for a walk but it bored ’em.
As they made their way back,
A crazed sex maniac
Leapt out of a bush and ignored ’em.
🍷🍷🍷
An unfortunate sailor name Bates,
Had performed the fandango on skates.
But a fall on his cutlass
Had rendered him nutless
And, well – virtually useless on dates!
🍆🍆🍆
A nudist, named Roger McPeet,
Loved to dance in the snow and the sleet.
Till, one chilly December,
He froze his poor member,
And retired to a monkish retreat.
🍩🍩🍩
Ancient octogenarian, Hugh,
To his wife remained steadfastly true.
This was not from compunction,
But more the dysfunction
Of his spermatic glands – nuts to you.
🍆🍩🍆
What better way to kick off a new year. Here’s one final limerick with a religious bent for an oh-so inclined friend.
❤️
When Lazarus came back from the dead,
He still couldn’t function in bed.
“What good’s Resurrection
Without an erection?”
Old Lazarus testily said.
AMEN TO THAT
I love sticking my finger in the eye of the American education system. It seems to me to be little more than a means to raise revenues more than educating our children. As in all things the term, “Follow the Money”, remains consistently true. In my early years a number of former teachers of mine did everything in their power to convince me to become an educator. Thankfully they were unsuccessful. I know now that only certain types of people can enjoy a successful career as a teacher and I’m not one of them. I’d love to teach young children but would probably be fired for my continuing conflicts with a multi-layered and liberally biased administration. It’s when I read things like I’m going to list, I’d lose my ever-loving mind. These “malaprops” were collected from test papers from grade school, high school, and college student’s papers. OMG
- Samuel Morris invented a code for telepathy.
- Gutenberg invented the Bible.
- Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English.
- Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
- There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn’t climb over to see what their neighbors were doing.
- Afterwords, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments.
- Good punctuation means not to be late.
- Adam and Eve wore nothing but figments.
- When a baby is born, the doctor cuts its biblical chord.
- If a pronoun is a word used in place of a noun, a proverb is a pronoun used in place of a verb.
I have one more I’d like to add which will be the cherry on top of this educational sundae.
“Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul.”
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
These are the normal lame and politically correct ones. Let’s get real for a change!!
I post my resolutions almost every year and I have yet to complete them all. Once again, I’ll post my top ten and just hope for the best like always. Well here goes nothing one more time.
- Read 8.33 books a month (That’s 100 books for all of you math majors).
- Keep the number of F-Bombs to less than a hundred a week. (I’m dreaming on this one.)
- Spend less than $50.00 a week on Dunkin Coffee. (That’s just for my better-half. They’re too expensive for me.)
- Drink less than last year but more next year. (I’m dreaming!)
- Visit only the classiest porn sites. (No more than 10 per week unless provoked)
💥💥💥
- No naked dancing near the picture window in the living room. (We have nervous neighbors!)
- Try not to argue with my better-half too much. (The operative word here is to try.)
- Teach the grandsons no more than five new swear words. (And maybe learn one or two new ones from them.)
- Try to be more polite to all of the doctors that have been manhandling me for years.
💥💥💥
There are my ten candidates for 2023. I’ll be certain to post a midyear review in June.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL
Drive Safe
Roy Howard Kerridge (11/26/1923 – 04/29/2011)
Many times over the years I have offered up quotations from the rich and famous in an attempt to make a point. As you do any type of research on the web you’ll find that many of those type of quotations are repeated over and over again. Some are supposed to be profound and informative, but I always wonder if the quote was actually written by the person its ascribed too. That’s just my cynical side rearing its ugly head for the thousandth time.
In recent years I’ve tried to search out the more obscure authors and philosophers that most people have never heard of. As I was exploring recently, I found a quote concerning prisons and criminal behavior. I was drawn to it immediately because of my Criminal Justice background. I’d never heard of the author but as I soon discovered he had a lot to say about a lot of subjects. They actual appealed to me because the author is known for his eccentric and idiosyncratic writings in many national newspapers and magazines, and of course in his column in the Salisbury Review. The Salisbury Review is a quarterly British magazine since 1982 and reflects conservative thought and ideals. Roy Kerridge was so obscure he received no mention in their Wikipedia entry even though he wrote many articles for them. He was an author who chronicled lost causes and also authored over 30 books on various subjects. Here is his take on the rehabilitation of criminals in a prison system.
“That is the whole beauty of prisons – the benefit is not to the prisoner, of being reformed or rehabilitated, but to the public. Prisons give those outside a resting period from town bullies and horrible characters, and for this we should be very grateful.”
This was his quote from The Lone Conformist in 1984
*****
R.I.P. ROY
I’m a lover of trivia as you all know. Many of you claim to be as well and in recent weeks I’ve had a few people boasting of their knowledge of trivia from that era. I decided today to supply all of you with ten questions pertaining to the 1980’s and all of the weirdness that went on at that time. The answers will be provided at the end of the post. No cheating please.
1. For appearing in what magazine did Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America, have to give up her title?
2. What movie featured the Beach Boys only number one hit of the 1980s, Kokomo?
3. What company introduced the popular arcade videogame Centipede in 1980?
4. Who sang the number one hit “Shake You Down” in 1986?
5. In commercials for cars and trucks, what was pitch man “Joe Isuzu” known for?
6. What strange and unpopular character was quickly dispatched as a Burger King pitch man in 1986?
7. What was “The Icky Shuffle”?
8. What was the name of Doc Brown’s dog in the movie Back to the Future?
9. What popular videogame character made his debut in the 1981 arcade hit Donkey Kong?
10.What arcade character was chased by a purple snake named Colly?
HOW MANY DID YOU ACTUALLY GET RIGHT?
1-Penthouse, 2-Cocktail, 3-Atari, 4-Gregory Abbott, 5-Lying, 6-Herb, 7-NFL Touchdown dance, 8-Einstein ,9-Mario, 10-Q*bert
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“The unexamined life is not worth living”
Socrates
Since Christmas has finally come and gone, I thought another installment of An Examined Life would get us all thinking about the end of another year and what we’ve accomplished or didn’t accomplish. Maybe these postings can assist us in deciding what our New Year’s resolutions might be. They’re always fun to write and I’ll be posting mine very soon. How about you?
- When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
- You have the power to go any distance into the future and after one year, return to the present with any knowledge you have gained from your experience, but you cannot bring any physical objects with you. Would you make the journey if it carried a 50% risk of death?
- Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as your dinner guest? As your closest friend? As your lover?
- While working late at night, you slightly scraped the side of a nearby Porsche. You’re certain no one else is aware of what happened. The damage is minor and would not be covered by insurance anyway. Would you leave a note?
- If you could choose the manner of your death, what would it be?
*****
- Do you have any specific long-term goals? What is one and how you plan to reach it?
- For what in your life do you feel the most grateful?
- How do you react when people sing “Happy Birthday” to you in a restaurant?
- What is the worst psychological torture you can imagine suffering? Anything causing even minor physical injury should not be considered.
- Would you like your spouse to be both smarter and more attractive than you?
*****
- If you found that a good friend had AIDS, would you avoid him or her? What if your brother or sister had it?
- Would you be willing to give up sex for one year if you knew it would give you a much deeper sense of peace than you have now?
- A good friend pulls off a well-conceived practical joke that plays on one of your foibles and makes you look ridiculous. How would you react?
- By controlling medical research funds, you are in the position to guarantee that a cure will be found in fifteen years for any disease you choose. Unfortunately, no progress on any others would be made during that period. Would you target one disease?
- Would you accept one year of life if it meant taking one year from the life of someone in the world selected at random? Would it matter if you were told whose life you had shortened?
*****
THESE SHOULD GENERATE SOME CONVERSATIONS
I’m in dire need of anything that will help me forget this Christmas season. First, we had windstorms, then rainstorms, then 4 feet of water in the backyard, then a loss of power, loss of internet, no telephone service, and finally cooking what was to have been a great dinner on the gas grill on the deck. Scallops, mussels and clams just aren’t the same after trying to cook them properly when its 15 effing degrees. Am I whining too much? I sure am. I have to be man enough to put all this crap behind me and start fresh, but I just can’t do it. I’d like to string both Mother Nature and Santa Clause from the nearest tree by various body parts that I won’t mention. I can assure you they would be painful.
Maybe my attitude will improve once I can shower and shave with hot water. The electric just turned back on at 10am today. Scrub-a-dub-dub.
BRING ON FREAKING NEW YEARS
everyuselessthing.com 