Henry David Thoreau once burned down 300 acres of forest trying to cook a fish.
Abraham Lincoln once stated, “No matter how much the fight, there always seems to be plenty of kittens.”
A Loony Law from the 1950’s – It was illegal for a flying saucer to land in a French vineyard.
Cicero once stated, “Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.”
To quote William Randolph Hearst: “News is what people don’t want you to print. Everything else is ads.”
Ghandi speaking about Adolf Hitler – “I do not consider him to be as bad as depicted. He’s showing an ability that is amazing, and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed.”
Sigmund Freud once stated, “What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would’ve burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.”
During an interview in the 1950’s, Pope John XXIII was asked how many people work in the Vatican. He immediately stated: “About half.”
“I would’ve made a good Pope.” – Once stated by Richard Nixon
Random fact: License plates came before cars – as they were used on horse-drawn carriages in 1884.
This quote is one of my favorites as it applies to me:
“Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a God.” Aristotle
I’ve stated many times as to my love for limericks especially those written by Isaac Asimov. Along with Isaac you must give a shout out to John Ciardi as well. He and Asimov had great fun trying to outdo each other with their written limericks. They even jointly published a book about their limerick feud which is a classic. These four limericks were written by John Ciardi for that book in response to a few that Asimov had written. I’ve read their book many times and still enjoy their bawdy humor. I hope you will enjoy it as well.
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The Times tells the world what is doing; Who’s winning, who’s losing, who’s suing, Whose striking, who’s stealing, Who’s dying, whose healing, But won’t say a word on who’s screwing.
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The girl who is really unbeatable Is the one with whom sex is repeatable. Who’s eternally screwable And always renewable, And who, most of all, is found eatable.
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There was a young woman named Cora Lee Who said, “I will do it immorally On top and bottom, Any way that I’ve got them, Vaginally, anally, and orally”.
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There once was a wicked old squire Who burned with libidinous desire. After screwing a nun And the minister son, He took all the girls in the choir.
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THE BOOK IS TITLED – ISAAC ASIMOV & JOHN CIARDI – A WAR OF WORDS
Are there any wanna-be botanists out there? If so, todays post should really interest you. Finding interesting trivia about plants was a serious challenge but I’ve had some success. Here are twenty items you never knew about plants and botany. Here we go . . .
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At 167 calories per 3.5 ounces, avocados have the highest number of calories of any fruit.
The foxglove plant can help prevent congestive heart failure.
The cellulose in celery (mostly in its stringy fibers) is impossible for humans to digest. Most of the celery passes right through your digestive tract.
Juniper berries smell so strongly of evergreen trees that they have been chewed as a breath freshener.
Orchids have the smallest seeds. It takes more than 1.25 million seeds to weigh one gram.
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Oak trees do not have acorns until they are 50 years old or older.
Pollen is considered the “male” part of a plants reproductive system.
The greens, you see covering ponds might actually be a carpet of duckweed – the smallest plant with a complete root, stem, and leaf structure.
Cayenne pepper stimulates the appetite, as do the herbs dill, celery, dandelion, caraway, anise, garlic, leek, mint, tarragon, saffron, and parsley.
The word “herb” is from the old Sanskrit word bharb, meaning “to eat”.
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A lemon will lose 20% of its vitamin C content after being left at room temperature for eight hours, or in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
The eggplant is a member of the nightshade family, along with the potato and tomato.
An uncooked apple is 84% water.
If you wash an area of skin that has been exposed to poison ivy within 3 min. after exposure, the chemical urushhiol does not have time to penetrate the skin.
The herb peony, when dried and chewed, can help heal a cold sore.
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A banana is technically an herb because it grows on dense, waterfilled leaf stalks that die after the first fruit is produced. Botanists call the banana plant a herbaceous perennial.
Bananas are one of the easiest fruits to digest and trigger very few allergies. This is why they are an ideal food for babies.
It takes a coffee bean plant five years to yield consumable fruit.
The most widely cultivated and extensively used nut in the world is the almond.
Plant life in the oceans makes up 85% of all the greenery on earth.
As most of you are well aware, I love limericks. And I don’t discriminate, I like them dirty, sexy, sassy, and any other way you can think of. With that in mind I recently discovered a book, a very small little book of limericks that were written more than 25 years ago. They’re not dirty, sexy, or sassy, but they are cute. These are silly limericks that will make you grin just a little and were almost certainly written for children. So if your let loose your inner child for just a bit you should enjoy these immensely.
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A ghost in the town of Khartoum Asked a skeleton up to his room. They spent the whole night In the eeriest fight As to who should be frightened of whom.
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A glutton who lived on the Rhine When asked what time he would dine, Replied, “At eleven, Four, six, three and seven, And eight and a quarter to nine.”
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A cheerful old bear at the zoo Could always find something to do. When it bored him to go On a walk to and fro, He reversed it, and walks fro and to.
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There was an old fellow named Green Who grew so abnormally lean, And flat, and compressed, His back touched his chest, And sideways he couldn’t be seen.
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There was the man from the city Who met what he thought was a kitty. He gave it a pat And said, “Nice little cat.” Just look at him now – what a pity!
This blog is titled Every Useless Thing and I’m feeling today that you all must certainly need a huge dose of useless information. Just when I thought I’ve heard the weirdest s**t possible I just keep finding more and more and more. After all the years of my doing trivia it still amazes me how often I find things that boggle my mind. Let’s see if that will happen to you today.
The waist produced by a single chicken in its lifetime could supply enough electricity to run a 100 watt bulb for five hours.
The odds of being struck by lightning are one in 10 million.
Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
In 1992 convicted killer Robert Alton Harris stated just before entering the gas chamber: “You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper.”
The highest score ever achieved for one word in a Scrabble competition was 392 for the word caziques down two triple-word scores.
Mike Love, Pancho Villa, and Zsa Zsa Gabor were each married nine times.
Groucho Marx ate his first bagel at the age of 81..
Harrison Ford’s first film role was as a bellboy and his only line was “Paging Mr. Ellis”. Ellis was played by James Coburn.
Click Eastwood, Yasser Arafat, Elizabeth Taylor, Patrick Swayze, Sting, Luciana Pavarotti, Rowan Atkinson, and Ted Kennedy all survived plane crashes.
The odds of being killed in a road accident are one in 15,800.
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One of My Favorite Bands
The rock group 3 Dog Night obtained their name from an old Australian saying.“On a freezing night in the outback, a man would need to sleep with one dog to keep warm on a cold night, two dogs on a very cold night and three dogs on the coldest night.”
I want introduce you today to a few limericks which have been laundered. I guess laundered means a lot of the truly vulgar language has been cleaned out and made more readable to entertain a larger group of people. I discovered these limericks in a very small little book published in 1960. They were newly written at the time but they’re still just as enjoyable as they were then.
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A herder who hailed from Terre Haute Fell in love with a young nanny goat. The daughter he sired Was greatly admired For her beautiful angora coat.
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There was the young laundress named Singer Whose bust was a round pink humdinger. But flat, black and blue It emerged into view The day it got caught in the wringer.
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A merchant addressing a debtor Remarked in the course of his letter. That he chose to suppose A man knows what he owes And the sooner he pays it the better.
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The bashful young bachelor Cleary Of girls was exceedingly leery. Then a lady named Lou Showed him how and with who He could render his evenings more cheery.
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And here’s a tongue twister for you.
Drew drew Lulu in a tutu, Lulu in a tutu Drew drew, Lulu drew Drew, too, Drew drew a few anew, Till who knew who in the hell drew who.
I really hate to admit this, I’ve turned into a raging paranoic. I’ve blogged many times about fake and biased news and while it’s being addressed nationally these days, a lot of everyday folks love believing everything they read or hear. Today’s blog is a list of random nonsense being spoken of by good old ordinary Americans who obviously don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. It scares me a little because the more you tell a lie the more likely it is that some of the boneheads you’re telling believe it without question. I can’t do anything to stop that but I’ll certainly point out some strange shit that I’ve been seeing and hearing recently.
More than 1% of the US population is currently in jail. FALSE
Aspirin was originally invented to treat erectile dysfunction. FALSE
Left-handed people live an average of nine years longer than right-handed people. FALSE
Legendary children’s show host Mr. Rogers was once a Marine sniper with thousands of killed under his belt. FALSE
Despite being a common joke today, Robin never actually says Holy Cow (or Toledo)Batman during any episodes. FALSE
The planet Mercury is the hottest planet in the solar system. FALSE
If we removed every boat, ship, and submarine from the oceans, sea level would fall about 6 inches. FALSE
The popular online rumor suggests that hippopotamus milk is pink. FALSE
The word FUCK was once said over 1000 times in one movie. FALSE
Humans are the only animals on earth to perform oral sex on each other. FALSE
As a rule I try to keep the people in my life unnamed in this blog. I’ve had a few family members get upset in the early days and after the bitching and complaining was over I set a new policy. No family members names or photographs will ever be used. I’ve managed to follow that policy religiously for years until today. I appreciate poetry and try to experience as much of it as I can from a variety of poets. Today I’m going to reproduce a letter written by Kahlil Gibran from his collection of love letters. It is titled “To Mary”. It touched me deeply. I hope you enjoy it.
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I love the valley in winter, Mary, when we sit by the fire, with the fragrance of burnt evergreen cypress filling the house and snow falling outside, the wind blowing [it], the ice-lamps hanging outside the window-panes, and the distant sound of the river and the voice of the white storm uniting in our ears.
But if my little loved-one were not near me there would be no valley, no snow, no fragrance of cypress bough, no crystal lamps of ice, no river song, no awe inspiring storm . . . Let all these things vanish if my blessed little one be far from them and from me.
I’m happy to share this little bit of emotion from a superb writer.
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.”
