Archive for the ‘History’ Category

06-09-2016 Journal–June Garden Update!   Leave a comment

Even though June has barely started I thought an garden update was in order. The warmer weather for the last few weeks has brought everything to life in a big way.  Due to the efforts of my better-half we have flowers blooming everywhere.

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The gardens in the yard are filled with irises as you can see. we’ve planted them every where and this is the first year we get to see them in all their glory.

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Just three years ago this rhododendron was one foot tall and looking poorly. We transplanted it to this spot and here is the results of our efforts.

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One of the better-half’s passions is to have as much color in as many places as possible.  That of course includes the deck.  We get to walk through all of these flowers on our way to the table to have our morning coffee. How great is that?

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It’s things like this that help us Mainers wipe away memories of sleet, ice,  snow, and our six month’s of winter.  It’s worth waiting for. Here’s my recent photo of the vegetable and herb garden as compared with one taken in May.  The changes as we move forward will become more and more obvious.

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‘May’

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‘June’

05-16-2016 Journal–Happy Birthday to SPAM!   Leave a comment

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No, I’m not celebrating computer Spam, that would be stupid.  I’m celebrating my all time favorite meat product much loved and much hated around the world.  I began my love affair with SPAM while in the service of our great country. The Army introduced me to discipline, mean DI’s (drill instructors ), forced marches, and much, much, more including SPAM. My love for SPAM was one of the only things I left the Army with except for a bag of really ugly olive green clothing.

Many people, my better-half included, hate SPAM. I’ve never understood why because it’s freaking delicious.  Since this blog is dedicated to all categories of trivia I thought it only fair you learn something about SPAM today on it’s birthday. I collected a great deal of information from around the Net and elsewhere on this subject and here it is.

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  • George A. Hormel & Co introduces SPAM on this date in  1891 although it wasn’t marketed until 1937.
  • During WW II, Hormel sold more than half of its output to the U.S. government, which supplied SPAM to the armed forces of the U.S., and also to the U.S.S.R. under the lend-lease program.
  • A convenient source of protein that required no refrigeration, 100 million pounds of SPAM were shipped to Allied troops during World War II. Russian president Nikita Khrushchev is quoted as saying, “Without SPAM, we wouldn’t have been able to feed our army.”

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  • No one outside the company really understands what the name SPAM represents. While people have posited “Something Posing As Meat” and “Specially Processed Artificial Meat,” the title is likely derived from the words “spiced ham” or an acronym for “Shoulders of Pork And Ham.”
  • To distinguish Hormel’s "spiced ham" from similar products, the company held a contest to come up with a unique name. Kenneth Daigneau, brother of a Hormel executive, won the $100 prize with ‘SPAM.’
  • Hormel produces 44,000 cans of SPAM every single hour. If that sounds like a lot, consider the facts that the canned good is available in 41 countries and comes in 14 varieties. Despite what critics may say, the world loves “Swine Parts and More!”

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‘SPAM Sir-fry’

  • The 1 billionth can of SPAM was sold in 1959.
  • The 6 billionth can was produced in 2002.
  • The 7 billionth can was sold in 2007.
  • In 2012 SPAM was being sold in more the 44 countries.
  • Hawaii ranks highest amongst the states in SPAM consumption, downing seven million cans a year. Found in grocery stores, on the McDonald’s menu, and featured at high-end restaurants, Spam should probably be added to the state flag.

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‘SPAM & French Fries Casserole’

  • Richard LeFevre holds the world record for eating SPAM by eating 6 pounds in 12 minutes.
  • In the United States alone, 3.6 cans of SPAM are consumed every second, making it the number one product in its category (canned meat) by far.
  • On the island of Guam, more than eight cans of SPAM are consumed by every person each year.
  • West Yellowstone sponsors the ‘SPAM Cup’ cross country ski race, with the winner receiving one can of SPAM.

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‘SPAM Sushi’

  • In addition to the U.S., spam is produced in 7 other countries: Australia, Denmark, UK, Japan, Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan. SPAM is distributed in more than 50 countries.
  • The SPAMJAM Cafe opened in February 2004 in the Philippines. Except for hot dogs, French fries and desserts, all other menu items are made with SPAM, including SPAM Burger, SPAM Hero, SPAM Club, SPAM Spaghetti, SPAM Baked Macaroni, SPAM Nuggets and SPAM Caesar Salad.

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‘Only True SPAM Lover’s Can Pull These Off’

  • SPAM even has a mascot — Spammy, the miniature pig. In 1991, for its 100th anniversary, Hormel Foods opened the First Century Museum. The exhibit of SPAM memorabilia quickly became the most popular.
  • SPAM has earned a place in pop culture history partially thanks to the Brits. The canned creation made its television debut on "Monty Python’s Flying Circus" in 1970.
  • A collector’s edition SPAM — Stinky French Garlic — was introduced to celebrate the opening of "SPAM lot" in London. Not shockingly, the stinky SPAM tasted far better than anything else in the culinary-challenged country.

So there you have it. Everything you ever needed to know about SPAM but were afraid to ask.  I love it so much I always have at least one can hidden away in the house. Once my better-half goes to work I’ll get it out and prepare any one of a dozen recipes I love.  My all time favorite is my version of SPAM Fried Rice and it’s to die for.

MORE SPAM . . . MORE SPAM . . . MORE SPAM

05-06-2016 Journal–Cinco De Mayo!   Leave a comment

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I’m lying in bed this morning going through my normal morning ritual.  What better way to start your day than enjoying a couple of episodes of The Soprano’s.  I’m watching the scene where they buried Tony’s mother with all of the family smoking dope and snorting cocaine.  Not really much like my own family (Thank God) but it’s still fun to watch.

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I’m moving a little slower than usual due in part to our Cinco De Mayo celebration last night. We wanted to avoid the crowds as much as possible so we made an earlier than usual appearance at out favorite Mexican establishment, Casa Fiesta. I decided a margarita was in order so I ordered the biggest one I could find. Here it is in all it’s glory. It was one delicious drink but the three episodes of brain-freeze I could have done without.

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‘It was just as big as it looks.’

The better-half was in her glory as well when she discovered they had Pacifico beer on-tap.  That’s as happy as I’ve seen her since the start of our current weight loss program.  I had a sampler platter with all of the Mexican specialties we’ve come to know and love. The food was great and the habanero Verde sauce was delicious and brutally hot.

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‘Delicious, with third degree burns of the tongue.’

We left with habanero on our breath and a distinct glow from the margaritas and Pacifico beers.  All in all a rather enjoyable night. Maybe next year will be able to celebrate a little more boisterously with some of our friends.

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05-02-2016 Journal–Presidential Trivia!   Leave a comment

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As I prepare for the exit of Barack Obama as President my mind naturally turns to politics. I’m not going to get into the expected arguments concerning the current roster of candidates because it’s pointless. People make up their own minds and then spend all of their leisure time trying to convince everyone else to vote like they do because they’re smarter than everyone else.  It’s those kinds of discussions I don’t want taking place on this blog.

I honestly don’t care a wit for who any of you may vote for.  Just like I won’t tell you what I’m going to do. If I agree with your selection I’m smart and intelligent and if I don’t then I’m a dumb ass without a clue about politics. It’s a lose . . . lose for me and not worth my time.

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As much as I dislike politics and politicians I still love trivia.  So I’ll delve into my archives to find a few interesting political tidbits from past Presidents and presidencies.  Here they are.

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Herbert Hoover was the only president to turn over 40 years of his government paychecks to charity.

A $5.7 million dollar renovation of the White House during the Truman administration was caused when the leg of Margaret Truman’s piano broke through the floor of v\her sitting room into the room below.

President Lyndon Johnson and his wife named their dogs Him & Her. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife named their pistols His & Hers.

Camp David located in the Catoctin Mountains was originally named Shangri- La before renaming by FDR.

James Madison, the fourth President was 5’4” tall and never weighed more than 100 pounds.

George Washington’s second inaugural address was the shortest in history.  It contained only 135 words.

William Howard Taft had a bathtub installed in the White House large enough to hold four men.  He weighed in at the time at 325 pounds.

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During his 12 years as President FDR used his veto powers 635 times.

Alexander Hamilton is credited with writing George Washington’s famous Farewell Address.

The average age that Presidents have taken office is 54.

First Lady Barbara Bush’s great-great-great uncle was President Franklin Pierce.

FDR was the only President who never used the word “I” in his inaugural speech.

The nickname of the first Presidential plane (a C-45 piloted by Major Henry T. Myers in 1944) was the, ”Sacred Cow”.

John Tyler was the only President to serve as a member of of the Congress of the Confederate States.

John Quincy Adams was the first President to wear long pants rather than knee breeches to his inauguration in 1825.

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I think that’s about enough politics for me today.  Anymore and I’ll become nauseous and violently ill.

4-30-2026 Journal–Cuss’in & Swear’in!   Leave a comment

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Now that I have grandchildren running through the house occasionally I’ve been forced to curb my use of all cusswords.  I’ve always loved cursing and swearing but stopping cold-turkey has been tough.  I have no doubt they’ll be picking up a few dozen new cuss words at home and especially at daycare. We can only hope they don’t pick up too many of the really good ones for a while yet.

I decided to do a little research into cussing as it applies to what will be their daily lives soon enough.  Before I do that I thought I’d give you a short history lesson too.  Here’s a few retro cusswords from back in the good old days.

 Old School Cussing

Heavens to Betsy

Jumpin’ Jahosafat

Yikes

Gadzooks

Holy cow

Sugar

Dagnabit

flippin’

Geez Louise

Jeez oh man,

Fudge

Eat it … RAW

Hell’s bells

Oh Shoot

Great Caesar’s Ghost

Jiminy Cricket

Holy Mary-Mother of God

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They sound so lame to us now but back in the day they got the job done with us kids.  My Mom knew all of these and a few more modern words as well.  Now lets take a look at cusswords in use in the USA today. Some fool took the time to do a study to determine what states used certain cusswords  the most. Here are the results.

Asshole – New England, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Arizona

Bitch – Texas through the Carolinas – Along the coast.

Darn – Most of the Great Plains states.

Shit – Texas to Delaware along the coast.

Fuck – All coastal states, East, West, and South.

Motherfucker – Southwestern states and Maine’s

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Before too long our grandchildren will on the Web and getting introduced to Facebook and Twitter and all of the associated idiots who roam there. Here is some information and usage on both of those sites.

Twitter

Detailed work by researchers at Wright State University in Ohio has found that 34.7% of all the swearwords in their sample of 51m tweets were "fuck" or one of its long list of cognates.

In comparison, the second and third most popular swearwords – "shit" and "ass" – accounted for 15.0% and 14.5% respectively, while other highlights included "bitch" (10.3%), "hell" (4.5%), "whore" (1.8%), "dick" (1.7%), "piss" (1.5%) and "pussy" (1.2%). Between them, the top seven make up 90.6% of all the swearing on Twitter.

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Facebook

Someday, when aliens are sifting through Facebook data to find out what 21st-century humans thought and cared about, they’re going to see a lot of shit. That’s the most popular swear word on Facebook, according to an analysis by Slate. In the three-day period queried, shit appeared in 10.5 million U.S. Facebook interactions, fuck in 9.5 million, damn in 6.3 million, bitch in 4.5 million, and crap in 2 million.

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This next section applies directly to Rap Music. It’s always been known for bad language and we find out now that criticism was totally justified.  I feel bad for the fool that had to sit through this terrible music to complete this study.  It must have been brutal.

Rap Music

  • 217.7 cuss words-per-album average.
  • One song from the study had, on average, 13.76 instances of profanity.
  • Too $hort’s 1985 album Raw, Uncut & X-Rated was the most profane album, clocking 49.8 curse words per song.
  • The most profane artists per song were The Geto Boys, as they uttered cuss words on average 46.4 times per song. The second-most vulgar artist? Geto Boys’ Scarface, with 33.3 cuss words per song.
  • Bun B’s song “Some Hoes” had the most instances of profanity in its lyrics with over 113 cuss words. The words “nigga” (51 times) and “ho” (46) make up the majority. However, the study qualifies that Lil Jon’s “Roll Call” is perhaps the most vulgar with 329 cuss words but it was not used in the study.
  • The most profane year in Hip-Hop from the study was 2001 with 22.66 cuss words per song.

If both grandson’s can last more than fifteen minutes in this cuss filled society without becoming cussing experts it will be nothing short of a miracle.  Since I believe that “turn-about is fair play” I’ll just wait until they start cussing on their own then I’ll step in and add a few of mine.

SHIT ! ! !

IF IT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR FACEBOOK, IT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.

04-26-2016 Journal – Rainy Day Sexual Trivia!   Leave a comment

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It’s another gray and rainy day here in Maine. While I dislike these kinds of days they do serve a useful purpose.  They force me to stay inside out of the weather and to find other interesting things to do.  One thing that remains interesting regardless of the weather is SEX.  Sex is almost never boring (unless you know the girls from my high school class) who made sex not just boring but difficult to obtain.  It’s with them in mind that I offer up a collection of sexual facts and trivia to amuse you. Let’s get started . . .

  • The condom is said to be named after the Earl of Condom, a British physician at the court of Charles II who was asked by the king to design him something to keep him from developing syphilis. The oiled sheep intestine was a big hit.
  • Humans aren’t the only species that partake in oral sex; cheetahs, hyenas, and goats all go down too.
  • In 2000, the Mississippi state legislature introduced a bill to make it illegal for a male customer to have an erection at a strip club even if he is fully dressed.
  • The sperm of a mouse is longer than the sperm of an elephant.
  • Slang for “prostitute” in Victorian times was “blowsy” and slang for “ejaculation” was “blow,” leading to the current phrase “blow job.” In ancient Greece, a blow job was called “playing the flute.”

Oiled sheep intestines . . . YUCK. I’ll bet the donating sheep weren’t too happy either.

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  • Of all the primates, man has the largest penis. The gorilla has a two-inch penis, while the chimpanzee’s is three inches. The blue whale has the largest penis in the animal kingdom: 11 feet.
  • In 2003, a Texas man woke up from bladder surgery to discover that doctors had removed his penis without his permission.
  • For most men, the left testicle hangs lower—but in some men, most commonly left-handed men, the right one hangs lower.
  • Married people are more likely to masturbate than people living alone, according to the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS).
  • President Lyndon B. Johnson referred to his penis as “Jumbo.”

He may have been President but even “Jumbo” Johnson can’t hold a candle to that blue whale’s eleven foot penis.

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‘Head to Toe’

  • Exhaustive research published by Johnson & Johnson found that the average time between penetration and male orgasm is 7.3 minutes – this involved 1,587 couples having stopwatch-timed sex.
  • The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.
  • When men of Australia’s Walibri tribe greet each other, they shake penises instead of hands.
  • Upper Paleolithic art dating back 30,000 years depicts people using dildos to pleasure themselves and others. That means mankind invented sex toys long before the wheel.
  • The average number of times a healthy male will ejaculate in a lifetime is 7,200. Of this number, approximately 2,000 times will result from masturbation.

Thirty thousand year old dildoes.  No wonder the women of that time are pictured with huge muscular arms . . . no batteries available . . . So Sad!

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  • A teaspoon of semen contains 5 calories. A sperm takes one hour to swim seven inches.
  • Men do not need to be sexually aroused to have an erection. Erections can occur if a man is frightened, nervous, or has a full bladder. It’s normal for a man to have several erections during the dream phrase of sleep.
  • Women who went to college are more likely to enjoy receiving and giving oral sex.
  • The average man has 11 erections per day and 9 erections a night.

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And here’s an interesting theory on everyone’s favorite word.  The big F-Bomb. It’s been around almost as long as those thirty thousand year old dildoes.

  • Contrary to popular opinion, the word “fuck” is not an acronym for the phrase “Fornication Under Command of the King.” It is a very old word that is hard to trace because the editors of the initial Oxford English Dictionary considered the word taboo in 1893. It may have a Scandinavian origin, similar to the Norwegian word fukka, meaning to “copulate,” or the Swedish foka, meaning “to copulate, strike, push,” orfock, meaning “penis.”

SEX . . . YEAH !!!

04-24-2016 Journal – Around the Campfire!   2 comments

I’ve been complaining for months about wanting warmer temperatures and yesterday I got my wish. We had a gorgeous day in the mid-sixties and it was sunny without a cloud in the sky.  The cat and I even managed an hour on the deck to work on our tans a bit.  It was incredible.

How do you end the perfect day?  Always a good question I suppose. After my better-half arrived home from work we discussed just that. It was the perfect night for a bonfire to start our Spring and Summer seasons off properly. Before dark I spent a few minutes preparing.

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A  bonfire while being really great also gives me a chance to rid myself of wood scraps collected during the winter months in my workshop and from the garden repairs and upgrades.  The wood was cut and we were ready to go. Next I built the fire and lit it up.

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The darker it got the better it became. We sat quietly enjoying the warm night and the good company.  The sky was showing some light from Portland a few miles away which offered up a photo or two work keeping.

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As we fed the fire it became really cozy and intimate. No vehicles noises, no kids playing and screaming, just peace and quiet.

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The smell of burning firewood took us both back to past years around similar fires with family and friends who are no longer with us.  The heat of the fire on my face was just the best.  After a few hours we shuffled off to bed feeling good about each other and life in general.  We left the fire with some regret.

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SPRING HAS OFFICIALLY ARRIVED

04-22-2016 Journal – Creativity!   Leave a comment

I spent the first two hours of my day today in bed drinking coffee and watching a dozen or so TED speeches. If your not familiar with TED I’d recommend it to you whole heartedly. It’s a series of speeches from experts around the world on  a diverse collection of topics. The anagram of TED stands for, “Technology, Education, & Design”.

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‘It sure isn’t the Sistine Chapel!’’

My main topics for today concerned Creativity and the Arts.  Listening to people from Bali who design green homes from bamboo or others from Europe who specialize in the creation of designs and art is exciting. It’s nice to know that Creativity is alive and well on this planet and not getting lost in the technological hustle and bustle of our societies.

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I’ve always been a proponent and supporter of anyone or anything that creates something.  The best times of my life are those spent where I’m relaxed, alone with my thoughts, and putting paper to pencil. Either writing, drawing, painting, or sculpting, it’s all good.  With that in mind I thought I’d share a quick look at my lair. It’s my oasis filled with my things and represents my life in one small room.  

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For twenty years I saved every little doodad, birthday card, and memento from places I’ve been and people I’ve known.  Then I began making a series of collages or “life panels” of those years. It started out as two  small panels but grew  to more than nine with some of them measuring 4’X4’. 

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‘This is what I call a workspace.’

I never had a sufficient amount of wall space and I had them in storage for twenty years. I moved them from place to place until I finally settled down here in Maine.  I still didn’t have the wall space for them and finally decided to make them the ceiling of my so-called man-cave.

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Now I can sit at my desk surrounded by things that make me happy. I can lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling and see the people, places, and things that I’ve experienced in my life.  The photos in this posting are a quick peek into the craziness of that  space that I’ve had the pleasure of creating.

EVERYONE NEEDS A HAPPY PLACE

04-10-2016 Journal – Some “Day of Rest” Trivia!   Leave a comment

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For most of my life I’ve been lectured about religion by an oh-so Catholic mother.  Part or her lecture series was to make sure I kept the Sabbath, “A Day of Rest”.  It wasn’t until this morning, 60 years later, that I decided to remember that.  According to my Mom it was a day to relax, reexamine your week, and be sorry for every rotten thing you did or even thought about doing.  I always had more than enough things to review that it usually took me the entire day.

Since I no longer do bad things or think bad things it puts me into a quandary. What do I do with my Sundays these days?  Being a well behaved and sinless person really opens up my Sundays for other activities.  One of which is posting more useless, uninformative, and silly items of trivia.

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Some of these tidbits are really and truly interesting but the other 99% are a waste of time.  If you’re a clean living person like me then you too will have plenty of time today to read this nonsense.  Since I’ve been watching a lot of English historical programs of late, I thought we should begin with these.

  • As a prince, King Edward VI had a “whipping boy” named Barnaby Fitzpatrick, who was beaten every time the prince misbehaved during his lessons.
  • The sirloin was introduced  when King James I knighted a joint of beef (a loin), which was particularly tasty.
  • King Charles I’s favorite joke was to place his court dwarf, Jeffrey Hudson, who was eighteen inches tall, between two halves of a loaf of bread and pretend to eat him.
  • King Edward III died of gonorrhea, which he caught from his mistress when he was sixty-five years of age. Henry VIII and Edward VI also died of venereal disease.

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So much for so-called royalty.  They’re just plain disgusting pervs like the rest of us. Now onto some strikingly stupid mis-statements released by the Media. This should convince you just how overrated and inaccurate they really can be.

  • “And now the sequence of events in no particular order.” – Dan Rather
  • “We are unable to announce the weather. We depend on weather reports from the airport, which is closed, due to the weather. Whether we will be able to give you a weather report tomorrow will depend on the weather. – Actual Arab news report.
  • “Passive activity income does not include the following income for an activity that is not a passive activity.” – I.R.S. form.
  • “The Supreme Court rules that murderers shall not be electrocuted twice for the same crime.” – Cleveland Daily News

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Now a few miscellaneous items in no particular order of importance.

  • More than 200 people in West Virginia returned their license plates to the Motor Vehicle Bureau because they began with the letters “OJ”.
  • Henry Ford never had a driver’s license.
  • A survey of career women who had tattoos revealed that they preferred to adorn their left breast rather than their right by a ratio of three to one.
  • In the early days of Hollywood, Western sets were made to seven-eighth scale to make the heroes seem larger.
  • There are now said to be more Samoans in Los Angeles than in American Samoa.
  • When W.C. Fields was caught glancing through the Bible, he explained it with, “Looking for loopholes.”
  • In New Mexico more than eleven thousand people have visited a tortilla chip that has the face of Jesus Christ burned on it.

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And for all of you dieters out these, here’s my favorite food quotation from Miss Piggy. “Never eat more than you can lift.”

HAVE A PEACEFUL DAY OF REST

04-02-2016 Journal–April Fool’s Day!   Leave a comment

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‘BELATED’

For the first time in many years I made it through an April Fool’s Day without being tricked or screwed with.  I’ve never really understood why a specific prank day is necessary when everyday has potential for it.

The normal pranks that I’ve experienced were simple gags or tricks made by my ever so simple friends and workmates.  Fortunately I was never subjected to anything too complicated for the most part.

I decided to list a few pranks played by individuals and companies that have become legends.  To this day it still amazes me just how gullible the public can be when confronted with an obviously false story.  Like P.T. Barnum always said "There’s a sucker born every minute". Let’s start with the famous Taco Bell entry.

The Taco Liberty Bell

April 1, 1996: The Taco Bell Corporation took out a full-page ad that appeared in six major newspapers announcing it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours later, that it was all a practical joke. The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known, he said, as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

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The Sydney Iceberg

April 1, 1978: A barge towing a giant iceberg appeared in Sydney Harbor.  Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman, had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.

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Burger King’s Left Handed Whopper

April 1, 1998: Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own ‘right handed’ version." Left-handed products of various kinds are actually an old joke on April first, but Burger King’s announcement quickly became, by far, the most famous version of the joke.

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The Body of Nessie of Loch Ness Fame Found

April 1, 1972: Newspapers around the world reported the sensational news that the dead body of the Loch Ness Monster had been found. A team of zoologists from Yorkshire’s Flamingo Park Zoo had come across it while working at the Loch. The researchers tried to take the Nessie corpse back to Yorkshire, but Scottish police promptly stopped them, citing an old law that made it illegal to remove "unidentified creatures" from Loch Ness. However, subsequent examination of the creature determined that it wasn’t actually Nessie. Instead, it was a large bull elephant seal from the South Atlantic. But how had it gotten to Loch Ness? This was revealed the next day when the Flamingo Park’s education officer, John Shields, confessed responsibility. The seal had died the week before at Dudley Zoo. He had shaved off its whiskers, padded its cheeks with stones, and kept it frozen for a week, before surreptitiously dumping it in the Loch, intending to play an April Fool’s prank on his colleagues. He admitted the joke got somewhat out of hand when the police became involved.

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Not only are we Americans gullible, apparently everyone else on this planet is as well. I can’t wait to see future prank offerings that are sure to be accepted hook, line, and sinker by many of us stupid human beings.