It’s another anniversary of 9/11 and on top of that we are trying to cope with another cowardly assassination of another intelligent and charismatic, god-fearing patriot, Charlie Kirk. I’ve been around almost 80 years and that young man touched me deeply. I hope those of you on the left realize what a tragedy this is and the adverse effect it will have on you. Charlie was a true believer in God and wished only good things for this country and it’s people. I hope he didn’t die in vain and that his millions of young followers listened to him and will take up the cause he loved so much.
I can’t possible post anything else today. I’m mourning his loss and my heart just isn’t into it. I wish his close friends and family my deepest condolences. I hope all of the seeds he’s planted over the years take root and produce more people just like him.
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
I’m what most of you crazy avid sports fans would call a “fair weather fan”. I confess to that description to a certain degree. Only one sport has ever been all-consuming for me and that is baseball. I spent the better part of my youth playing baseball in Little League, high school teams, American Legion teams, and one local semi-pro team. Playing baseball was my life. Being on the field and playing was heaven for me but it has made watching modern baseball absolute torture. I was never bored while I was playing but watching it now is painful.
Todays blog will return me to those early years of baseball and will test those of you super-fans who have knowledge of the history of the sport. Here are some nicknames of well-known players from the past. Lets see how you do! As always the answers will be listed below.
WHO?
High Pockets
The Iron Horse
Goose
Little Poison
Three Fingered
Gabby
Bucky
Rube
The Trojan
Lippy
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Answers
George Kelly, Lou Gehrig, Leon Goslin, Lloyd James Warner, Mordecai Peter Brown, Charles Leo Hartnett, Stanley Raymond Harris, George Edward Waddell, John Joseph Evers, and Leo Durocher.
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.”
Now that the NFL preseason has kicked off, I can once again turn into the fanatical Steeler fan that tends to irritate everyone in Maine or New England. I’m not as rabid as some fans but I am criminally loyal to the Pittsburgh Steelers. I swore when the season started this year I was never going to be a Steeler fan again because of their lousy record in actually playing football in playoff games.
Sorry, but I once again lied. I’ve now decided to include the Tampa Buccaneers as my backup team if the Steelers suck again this year. I’ve always been a Baker Mayfield fan and I would love to see him in the Superbowl if the Steelers don’t or can’t make it.And one additional comment: Tell T.J. Watt to get with the program. Doesn’t he realize by now he’s letting his ego send a wrong message to the fan base (my personal opinion). He sounds a little whiny for the big bruiser that he is. Also, his post seasons are nothing to brag about either.
Today’s post is a trivia quiz on sports for those crazy-ass sports fanatics that are waiting to show me how good they are. We shall see. As always the answers are at the bottom.
Where did the territorial-capture board game Go originate, 4000 years ago?
During a serve in American racquetball, what is the first surface the ball must hit after the racket?
How many unique numbers are used in Sudoku?
When did Ralph Samuelson invent waterskiing?
What is the minimum number of moves needed to achieve checkmate in chess?
Which of these sports is not represented in the Olympics? Basketball, Cricket, Dressage, or Handball
Sam Roth hit the fastest tennis serve ever recorded in 2012. How fast was it?
Who holds the record for most points (100) in a single NBA game?
Who invented the game of Scrabble
When Bingo started sometime around 1929, what was it called?
1896
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Answers
China, The front wall, 9, 1922, 2, Cricket, 163 mi./h, Wilt Chamberlain, Alfred Mosher Butts, Beano.
I find it a little strange that the minute I blog about the 1980’s my responses go through the roof. I lived through the 80’s and was never all that fascinated by the things that occurred then. People love the crudeness and rudeness of 80’s humor and don’t get me started on the limericks. Through the effing roof. In keeping with reader demands, todays little quiz will test your memories of the 80’s unless you were “stoned” most of the time. I’ll excuse all of you stoners out there just this once. As always, the answers are below.
Operation Able Archer was the codename of _______ that took place in 1983.
_______ was the teacher who died in the Challenger disaster.
What year did the Berlin Wall come tumbling down?
Margaret Thatcher is a member of what British political party?
Muammar Gadhafi was the dictator of what Middle Eastern country?
Mikhail Gorbachev initiated reforms meant to _______ the Soviet Union.
The passenger jet the Soviets shot down in 1983 was from what company?
How many points to did the Dow Jones Industrial Index lose on Black Monday?
What caused the Challenger disaster?
President Reagan ordered the _______ of Libya after a terrorist attack in West Berlin.
Answers
NATO wargames, Christa McAuliffe, 1989, Conservative, Libya, Save, Korean air lines/Korean Air, 508, O-ring failure, Aerial bombing.
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.
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.
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