Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Yesterday I posted a list of sayings, and most were attributed to people who are or were once famous. The response to that posting was excellent leading me to try something a little different. Have you ever heard a friend or acquaintance say something that “stuck with you”, something funny or profound? Today’s list will be pearls of wisdom from the smartest person in the world, “Anonymous”. We never seem to realize just how smart that SOB can be.
- A gossip tells things before you have a chance to tell them.
- We expect our children to learn good table manners without ever seeing any.
- The other night, while lying on the couch, I reviewed the high point of my life and fell asleep.
- Imagination makes a man think he can run the business better than the boss.
- He who peeps through a hole may see what will vex him.
- Strange how much you’ve got to know before you know how little you know.
- People are living longer now; they have too – who can afford to die?
- Some people are easily entertained. All you have to do is sit down and listen to them.
- Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.
- Marriage is a wonderful institution. If it weren’t for marriage, husbands and wives would have to fight with perfect strangers.
THANK YOU ANONYMOUS
I’m a lover of quotations as you all know. Some are poignant and other are a bit to smarmy and silly. They’re all good if you take them at face value. Just don’t read too much into them or your in trouble. I’ve collected many that are funny and those are my favorites regardless of who supplied them. These following sayings are from all sorts of people, some well known but most are not. Here they are . . .
- The devils boots don’t creak. Scottish Proverb
- Losing weight is a triumph of mind over platter. Anon
- Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable. Jean de la Fontaine
- It is easier to know how to do than it is to do. Chinese Proverb
- When dealing with people remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity. Dale Carnegie
- Speak well of your enemies, sir, you made them. Oren Arnold
- God is a father; luck, a stepfather. Yiddish Proverb
- A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults. Louis Nizer
- My lawyer was hurt – the ambulance backed up suddenly. Anon
- A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say, “We did it ourselves.” Lao-tzu
HAVE A BEAUTIFUL FALL DAY
I decided to dig into the archives for a few of my favorite classified adds from a number of sources. How many of these would motivate you to call?
- Free puppies . . . part German Shepherd/part dog.
- Cows, calves never bred . . . also one gay bull for sale.
- Full sized mattress: 20 year warranty. Like new. Slight urine smell.
- Free, one can of pork & beans with purchase of 3 bedroom, 2 bath home.
- Get a Little John. The Traveling Urinal – holds two and half beers.
- Free: farm kittens. Ready to eat.
- American Flag – 60 stars – pole included – $100.00.
- Our sofa seats the whole mob – and it’s made of 100% Italian leather.
- Open House – Body Shapers Toning Salon – Free Coffee and Donuts.
- Dinner Special – Turkey $2.35, Chicken or Beef $2.25, Children $2.00.
As I’ve heard it said so many times in the past: “You just can’t make this shit up!” After reading through Craig’s List, it wasn’t much better there. Yikes!
GIANT A-HOLE FOR SALE . . . CALL THE WHITE HOUSE ASAP
I had so much fun yesterday I thought I’d continue with more interesting but totally useless information. Enjoy.
- The worlds largest pancake was cooked in England measuring 15 meters in diameter, weighed 3 tons, and contained approximately 2 million calories.
- “Lucifer” is Latin for “light-bringer”.
- One twenty-fifth of the energy released by an incandescent light bulb is light. The rest is heat.
- A “rusticle” is a rust formation similar to an icicle. It occurs under water when wrought iron rusts, as on shipwrecks.
- One ton of iron will produce a ton and a half of rust.
- The fly of a pair of jeans is the fold of cloth over the zipper, not the zipper itself.
- Twinkies are 68% air and 32% Twinkie stuff, which means you can pack three Twinkies in the same space taken up by only one.
- Throughout it’s lifetime, an elephant goes through six sets of teeth. The elephant starves to death once the sixth set of teeth falls out.
- The Spanish exclamation “Ole!” commonly heard at bullfights and flamenco dances, comes from Allah, meaning “Praise be to God”.
- The average lifespan of an NHL hockey puck is 7 minutes. Those that don’t fly into the stands are removed because they warm up from friction and bounce on the ice. Game pucks are chilled to -10 degrees Fahrenheit for maximum performance. They are kept in a freezer in the penalty box.
BE HAPPY, IT’S ALMOST FRIDAY
Today’s a good day for miscellaneous nonsense. A few odd and weird truths that you may not have heard before.
- An average McDonald’s Big Mac bun has 178 sesame seeds.
- The “spa” dates back almost 2000 years to when Roman soldiers, marching home from battle, stopped overnight in a Belgian village that had hot mineral springs. The town name “Spa”,became a popular resting spot for Roman soldiers returning from battle.
- John Lennon was the first person to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
- Manhattan is about half the size of Disney World.
- A caterpillar has nearly 5 to 6 times as many muscles in his body as a human.
- Domino’s has marketed a reindeer sausage pizza in Iceland.
- An average office chair moves a total of roughly 8 miles over the course of the year.
- Princess Diana appeared on the cover of People magazine more than 50 times.
- The chili and the frijole are the official vegetables of the state of New Mexico.
- Blondes typically have more individual hairs on their heads than brunettes. Redheads have the fewest of the three.
- The launch of the shuttle Discovery was once delayed after woodpeckers pecked holes in the spacecraft’s foam insulation. Decoy plastic owls, purchased at Walmart, deterred the woodpeckers and solved the problem.
- Tickets to the very first Super Bowl sold for $12 – and that was for the most expensive seat.
ENJOY HUMP DAY
I’m always good for more limericks and today’s offering is from one of my favs, John Ciardi. I’ve been a huge fan of his limericks since reading the book he shared with Issac Azimov. Two crazy smart limerick aficionados.
For a friend . . .
In a lane, a young fellow named Cooper
Committed a terrible blooper.
He had his girl bare those with more
In his car, unaware
Of a vigilant nearby state trooper.
*****
A carefree young woman named Nola
At one time in a summer pergola
Took care of three men
Again and again
And did it on just Coca-Cola.
*****
A little adultery spices
Our lives, but just look at those prices!
If they charge all that dough,
Man can’t buy it, you know,
And there’ll be a frustrational crisis.
*****
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.
*****
LIMERICKS RULE!
Are you an avid reader? I’ve been one since a very early age and it will continue forever. One of my favorite reads is just about anything ever written by Isaac Azimov. He was a prolific writer as well as a noted intellectual. His areas of interest were many but today I’ll post a few facts he gathered concerning books since we’ve both shared a love for them. Books are great and history is even greater. How can I go wrong posting about the history of books?
- Columbus had with him on his first voyage to the New World a copy of Marco Polo’s book about his 13th century, twenty-two-year odyssey to China and back.
- Twice as many books on religion were published in England as works of fiction in 1870. Sixteen years later, novels far outnumbered religious works.
- The Library of Congress houses over 72 million pieces of research material, including over 16.5 million books and 31 million manuscripts, and costs over $150 million a year to run.
- The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels was ignored in Germany when it was published in 1848, and a Russian translation was suppressed by censors in the 1860’s. It remained a rare pamphlet until it was reprinted in 1872.
- The art of printing from wooden blocks with the characters in reverse was initiated in Buddhist monasteries in China. The oldest surviving printed book that can be reliably dated is a Buddhist text, the Diamond Sutra, made in China in 868 A.D.
- Euclid is the most successful textbook writer of all time. His book Elements dated around 300 B.C. has gone through more than 1000 editions since the invention of printing.
- General Lew Wallace’s bestseller Ben Hur was published in 1880 and was the first work of fiction to be blessed by a Pope.
- America’s first best-selling novelist was a woman, Susanna Haswell Rowson. Although it was a melodramatic work with wooden characters and a hackneyed plot, Charlotte Temple, published in 1791, appealed to popular tastes. It went through more than 200 editions.
- Icelanders read more books per capita than any other people in the world.
- To get her book published, in 1896, Fannie Farmer had to pay publishers Little, Brown and Company the printing costs for the first 3000 copies. The publisher refused to take the risk, saying that women would not buy still another collection of recipes. Ironically, her Boston Cooking School Cook Book eventually became the most popular cookbook of its time and a “gold mine” through the years for the publisher; millions of copies have been sold in dozens of editions.
THANK YOU ISAAC
Living in rural Maine has some distinct advantages. Less noise, less people, lots of wildlife and just enough of a wilderness feel to keep me happy. Along with the pluses come a number of minuses. Do you like gnats, black flies, mosquitos, wasps, bumble bees and honeybees? If you do, then pack your bags and move to Maine. We have them all and then some. Also bring with you a few gallons of bug spray because if you leave the house without spraying down, you’ll be itching and scratching all day. With that being said I still love this place. Adjusting to insect life is a chore but people have been making that adjustment for centuries. Here are a few interesting facts about some of those pests.
- There’s an old wife’s tale that claims if you’re stung by a bee, you should rub grass on the sting and breathe on the grass while you’re rubbing the bite. It will bring you lots of good luck.
- If a bee flies into your home through a window, don’t kill it and don’t panic. It has been said that the bee is a harbinger of good news.
- If bees build their nest under the eaves of your home, none of your daughters will marry.
- Hornets are another matter entirely. If you kill the first hornet in the spring, that’s unlucky, but in England killing the first one means you’re very lucky.
- If wasps decide to nest in your home, it’s a sign you’re a miserly spendthrift and you’ll come to want.
- Looking back to ancient times it’s reported that Pliny the Elder claimed that to cure a fever you should catch a wasp in your left hand.
- Most ancient peoples believed that seeing a swarm of bees meant good luck, wealth, and success, no matter what continent they and the bees inhabited.
- Seeing a swarm of bees is one thing but having them settle on the ground, means someone will die. And if by chance a swarm lands on a tree branch in your yard, you will soon die.
- If while strolling outdoors and you see a bee fly by stay away from its nest. If you leave the nest undisturbed it’s likely you will shortly receive good news.
- It is very bad luck to kill a bee but if you accidentally kill one, keep the dead bug in your purse or wallet. This will supposedly bring you wealth.
It seems that our ancestors were just a tad superstitious about damn near everything. Regardless, there’s no way I’ll be carrying a dead bee around in my wallet. I have a bad history with stinging insects, and I think they know it. They’re always waiting in the bushes for me to cut grass or work in the garden, and then WHAM. They get me every time.
THANK GOD I’M SAFE IN THE WINTER
I have to admit I’m a bit of a “foodie”. At one time I was confident that the food systems in the United States were closely inspected. That was until I began learning additional facts that left me wondering what I’ve actually been eating. We are a country of laws (too many for sure) but these food facts are disturbing for me.
- Ground pepper must contain fewer than 475 insect fragments per 50 grams.
- No more than two rodent hairs, or 29 gnawed kernels, can be shipped in a pound of popcorn.
- Frozen peaches may contain up to 3% wormy or moldy fruit.
- Shelled peanuts must have fewer than 20 whole insects in a 100-pound bag.
- Canned pineapple cannot contain more than 20% moldy fruit pieces.
- Chocolate must contain fewer than 60 insect fragments per 100 grams, and no more than one rodent hair.
Here are a few additional food trivia facts.
- In China, the most popular use of Ketchup is as a condiment for fried chicken.
- The top-selling candy in the United States are M&Ms. Candy was invented in 1941 and named after its two inventors, Forrest E. Mars and R. Bruce Murrie. They debuted in 1954.
- The Haribo company produces roughly 100,000,000 gummy bears per day. If all of the gummy bears produced in a year were laid head-to-paw they would circle the earth four times.
- Each year Americans spend $9 billion dollars on candy.
- Out of each dollar spent at a movie theater’s concession stand, roughly $.85 is pure profit.
EAT UP
ENJOY YOUR BUG PARTS AND RODENT HAIR
It amazes me just how fast this year has flown by. It won’t be long here in Maine until I’m whining and complaining about the snow. Thinking about snow and ice is depressing most of the time but I’ll deal with it by writing about things that make me less depressed and bored. Being a formal high school and college graduate, I found the following statements to be funny and sad. Funny because some are ridiculous and sad because they’re all taken from actual high school and college exams. This collection mostly concerns Music Appreciation ad Music History.
- A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.
- The principal singer of 19th-century opera was called the pre-Madonna.
- An interval in music is the distance between one piano to the next.
- Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music.
- A tuba is much larger than its name.
- When electric currents go through them, guitars start making sounds. So would anybody.
- I can’t reach the brakes on this piano.
- The most dangerous part about playing cymbals is near the nose.
- The correct way to find a key to a piece of music is to use a pitchfork.
HIGHER EDUCATION IS THE ULTIMATE OXYMORON
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