It’s 7am and I’m sitting here drinking my coffee and staring out the window. It’s a sky full or gray and dark clouds and a light annoying rain. I get to top that off with another annoying doctors visit later in the day. How did I ever manage to stay alive this long before I had all these experts making me pay for the privilege?
I feel better now that I’ve gotten that whine out of the way. I think todays post should consist of a general list of interesting oddities. It’s just what the doctor ordered (no pun intended). Enjoy . . .
In the 10th century, the Grand Viser of Persia, carried 117,000 books with him as he traveled. It took 400 camels to carry all of the volumes.
Sportscaster Foster Hewitt is credited with being the first person to say, “He shoots! He scores!” It happened at a hockey game between 1931 and 1935.
In 1985, 300 people who were alive in 1910 gathered to watch Haley’s Comet make its first return to Earth in 75 years.
In 1967, the town of St. Paul, Alberta, built the world’s first UFO landing pad as a project to mark Canada’s 100th birthday.
A typical child laughs 26.67 times more per day than the typical adult.
Vatican City claims the honor of having both the lowest divorce rate and the lowest birth rate of anywhere in the world.
The first snowboard was called a “snurfer” and was made with two skis attached together.
The “Spirit of Ecstasy” is the name of the sculpture on the hood ornament of a Rolls-Royce.
Each of your nostril’s registers smell differently. Your right nostril detects the more pleasant smells, but your left one is more accurate.
It has been reported in Ripley’s Believe It or Not that the toe tag from the corpse of Lee Harvey Oswald, President Kennedy’s alleged assassin, sold at auction for $9500.
Recently while watching Facebook, I was entertained by a British comedian whose name I can’t remember, and his whole routine was based on mishearing or misreading music lyrics. He was hysterically funny and motivated me to do a little more research on the subject. Here are few samples of misheard lyrics that I’ve stumbled upon and will share with you.
“Gladly, the cross-eyed bear” This was taken from an old hymn, “Gladly the Cross I’d Bear”
“Dead ants are my friends, they’re blowing in the wind” from Bob Dylan, “The answer my friend is blow’in in the wind.”
“There’s a bathroom on the right.” Creedence Clearwater Revival, “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”
“Doughnuts make my brown eyes blue.” Crystal Gayle, “Don’t it make my brown eyes blue.”
“Just brush my teeth before you leave me.” Juice Newton, “Just touch my cheek before you leave me.”
“Baking carrot biscuits.” Bachman-Turner Overdrive, “Taking care of business.”
“I am a pool hall ace.” The Police, “My poor heart aches.”
“The girl with colitis goes by.” The Beatles, “The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.”
“You and me and Leslie.” The Rascals, “You and me endlessly.”
“Midnight after you’re wasted.” Maria Muldaur, “Midnight at the oasis.”
I’m sure this has happened to all of us at one time or another as we cruised around in our car with the radio blaring. Traffic noises mixed with loud rock music and garbled lyrics make for some interesting mistakes. One or two of the ones listed above sound very similar to some I’ve made and there are many more but I’m not listing them. It’s a little embarrassing.
It’s Tuesday but unfortunately it feels a lot like Monday. I have about two hours to kill before a doctor’s appointment and I need to get this posting finished before I go. I thought I’d share with you some truths about people that are a little odd and interesting.
Tattoos have apparently been around for a very long time. In 1990, the frozen and well-preserved remains of a Bronze Age man was found between Austria and Italy in the Alps. The so-called “Iceman”, as he was dubbed, is believed to be more than 5000 years old, and he clearly had a series of lines tattooed on his lower back, ankles, knees, and foot. Possibly the very first “tramp stamp”.
The human head is a quarter of our total length at birth but only an eighth of our total length by the time we reach adulthood. It’s too bad this doesn’t apply to other body parts.
Food typically travels from the mouth, through the esophagus, and into the stomach in just 7 seconds. Just so you know, it works for beer as well.
At age 77, New Yorker Clarence Kinder won $50,000 on the state lottery on a Thursday night – and died from a heart attack the following day. A 24-hour success story.
The British royal family changed its name from “Sax-Coburg and Gotha” to “Windsor” in 1917, during World War I, because it sounded too German. My only comment is “Who cares?”.
The brain requires more than 25% of the oxygen used by the human body. That certainly explains a lot about a few of my friends who I’m sure use a lot less tan 25%.
On September 13, 1859, California Senator David Broderick established a record that is unlikely to ever be broken or repeated, for that matter. He became the only sitting US senator to be killed in a duel. That’s what I call “term limits.”
The founder of the Smithsonian Institute, James Smithson, who in 1826 willed $508,318 to the United States to “create an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge’. Strangely enough, he never set foot in the United States. He was apparently smarter than he once looked.
Have you ever had the pleasure of talking with someone who has mastered the art of speaking in clichés? ? I’ve met one or two over the years and it’s actually pretty funny. We all use clichés everyday but almost no one knows how they originated and what their original meaning was. Here are just a few examples . . .
BAKER’S DOZEN
This phrase dates back to medieval England. Henry III (1216-1272) instituted a law, The Assize of Bread and Ale, that called for severe punishment for any baker caught shortchanging customers. English bakers developed the habit of including an extra loaf of bread when asked for a dozen to ensure that if one were stolen, dropped, or lost, they wouldn’t be accused of shortchanging their customers.
BY THE SKIN OF ONE’AS TEETH
By the narrowest of margins. By a hairs breath. There are several metaphors emphasizing the physical danger of a given situation from which one might just have escaped. “By the skin of one’s teeth” specifically is a slightly misquoted biblical phrase that means to have suffered a “close shave”.
“My bone cleaveth to my skin, and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” Job 19:20
COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE THE BALLS OFF A BRASS MONKEY
This means that the weather is extremely cold, and although the expression sounds delightfully vulgar, it was not originally a reference to a monkey’s testicles. A brass monkey is a type of rack in which cannonballs were stored. Being brass, the “monkey” contracted in cold weather, resulting in the cannonballs being ejected. The expression has also mutated into a shortened form, again commenting on the temperature, as “brass monkey weather”.
EVERY DOG HAS IT’S DAY
This is a commonly used phrase that seems to have appeared in an English writing of R. Tavener in 1539 and subsequently by Shakespeare:
“Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will mew, and the dog will have his day.” Hamlet (1600;5:1)
Well, there you have it. These three clichés have been used by millions of people and now you’re one of the few that knows the actual story behind them.
I love the English language. There are so many strange and interesting euphemisms that I could spend the rest of my life searching through. I recently stumbled onto a list of 228 euphemisms for sexual intercourse. Of course, I won’t be listing them all but here are ten you might find interesting or humorous.
Dance the Buttock Jig
Do a Dicky Dunk
Do a Grumble and Grunt
Buzz the Brillo
Peel Your Best End
Play Pickle-me, Tickle-me
Take a Trip Up the Rhine
Pray With the Knees Upward
Trade a Bit of Hard for a Bit of Soft
Make the Chimney Smoke
And last but not least, here are ten euphemisms for sexual arousal: To Be Hot in the Biscuit, To Be Dripping for It, To Be Rooty, To Be in Season, To Be Constitutionally Inclined to Gallantry, To Have Peas in the Pot, To Be Hunky, To Be Affy, To Be Mashed, and finally To Be Primed.
WELCOME TO THE SEXUAL SIDE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
The Connecticut Court of Appeals upheld the kidnapping-robbery convictions of Michael Carter, thus rejecting his claim that witnesses’ identification of him should have been suppressed at his trial. At the time of arrest, according to New Haven police officer Dario Aponte, Carter had proclaimed his innocence but resisted being returned to the scene of the crime so witnesses could see him, asking Aponte, “How can they identify me? I had a mask on.”
David Posman, 33, was arrested recently in Providence, R.I, after allegedly knocking out an armored car driver and stealing the closest four bags of money. It turned out they contained $800 in PENNIES, weighed 30 pounds each, and slowed him to a stagger during his getaway so that police officers easily jumped him from behind.
Clever drug traffickers used a propane tanker truck entering El Paso from Mexico. They rigged it so propane gas would be released from all of its valves while the truck also concealed 6,240 pounds of marijuana. They were clever, but not bright. They misspelled the name of the gas company on the side of the truck.
The judge rose from the bench. “Madam, I have waited years for a schoolteacher to appear before this court,” he smiled with delight. “Now sit down at that table and write ‘I will not pass through a red light’ five hundred times.”
A judge in Louisville decided a jury went “a little bit too far” in recommending a sentence of 5,005 years for a man who was convicted of five robberies and a kidnapping. The judge reduced the sentence to 1,001 years.
We should all thank these geniuses for helping to make law enforcement easier.
As I’ve stated on many occasions, I am not a religious person. But as I do my homework for this blog, I discover many things that I didn’t know before about religion. While I disagree with most organized religions that currently exist, I found that there are a few that I had no knowledge of at all and that being said, I thought I’d pass along their information to all of you.
The first group is the Universe People. They live in and around the Czech Republic and believe that ancient non-earthly beings operate a fleet of spaceships orbiting the earth. The Universe People followers are waiting to be transported into another dimension. I hope they have a really nice trip!
The second group is named after Bhagwan Shee Rajneesh. This gentleman was an India-born mystic who settled in Oregon in the 1980s. The group’s claim to religious fame is that Rolls-Royce’s are a sign of holiness. He owned dozens of them. He also tried to poison nonbelievers by introducing salmonella into the salad bars of several Oregon fast-food restaurants. Take no communion wafers from these folks.
The third group is called the World Church of the Creator. It’s a white separatist movement advocating a white-only religion called Creativity. Ironically, despite their name, group members do not believe in God. They are atheists! They are also idiots, pure and simple.
Number four is called Nuwaubianism. It’s a loose term referring to the religion founded by Dwight York, a black supremacist leader and convicted child molester (currently serving a 135-year prison sentence). These people believe all humans have seven clones living on different parts of the planet. Humans were bred on Mars as part of a Homo erectus breeding program gone awry, and famed scientist, Nikola Tesla, was born on the planet Venus. Let’s have a big AMEN here!
Number five is one I’ll only mention briefly because they’re all dead. And that was Heaven’s Gate. A cult founded by Marshall Applewhite, whose followers believed that once they were free of their earthly bodies, a spaceship would take them away to a celestial paradise. In 1997 with the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet they were assured their spaceship had arrived. In March of that year all 36 members of the cult were found dead in a mass suicide. Problem solved!
What more can I say about organized religions. My only
comment is that “You just can’t make this shit up.”
This day requires only a short posting since I too am independent. I plan on enjoying this day of celebration by drinking more than I should and misbehaving when I can. With that thought in mind, enjoy these tidbits of independent American thought.
“So, lead your life that you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell.”
An anonymous quote repeated by John D Rockerfeller Jr. at Dartmouth College
🎇🎇🎇
“I don’t give a damn for any damned man that don’t give a damn for me.”
Anonymous American Saying
🎆🎆🎆
AND FINALLY
DANIEL WEBSTER
“It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment – independence nowand independence forever.”
Daniel Webster’s eulogy for John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, 08/02/1826
I’m normally not one to celebrate holidays on this blog but I think celebrating the 4th of July is important. So let me climb up on my “soap box” for a few minutes. I’m a former vet who enlisted in the army in the 60’s and served two and a half years overseas. It changed my life forever, for the better I might add. Independence Day is celebrated as the day we forced our independence on the Brits. Without servicemen that would never would have happened. I celebrate this day by honoring the men and women who served this country in the past and the men and women of the future.
For the last 4 days I’ve been watching a Netflix special called Dateline World War II. The program is 80 short episodes chronicling the war from the 1930’s to the final day with the surrender of Japan. This documentary is a collection of films taken by photographers from both the Allies and the Axis countries. It’s impossible to spend this many hours and see the murderous, hateful, destruction and loss of life without being affected. Numerous times while I was bingeing the series I had to stop and to take a time out. I made it through the 80 episodes in 5 days and have an even greater appreciation of this country than before.
For those generations like mine that came into existence because of World War II (the baby boomers), it’s a reminder of what our parents and their generation went through to ensure our independence. I come from a proud family that had a grandfather seriously injured in France during WW I, my father and uncle serving on destroyer escorts fighting U-Boats to get supplies to England in WW II, and I’m the third generation.
I would hope some of our generation and members of the generations that followed would take the time to watch this documentary. It’s hard to know where your country’s headed unless you have some idea of where it’s been.
ENJOY YOUR INDEPENDENCE – WE’VE PAID A HEAVY PRICE TO KEEP IT
everyuselessthing.com 