I was wondering to myself if the response to this posting will be affected by the unusual title. I guess I’ll have my answer sometime tomorrow, but nothing would really surprise me. It’s just my sneaky way of beginning a post on religion. I’m not a big fan as you would already know if you’ve read this blog in the past. I have a friend or two that are true believers, and this is my subtle way of expressing my thoughts on the subject. Many religious folks enjoy using their religions sacred writings to make their points with me, but I find that a bit ludicrous. To take those documents as the literal word of some god is frightening in its naivete. Here are a few blurbs from various religions to help me make my point once again.
According to the Bible If your wife defends your life in a fight by grabbing your attackers genitals, you should cut off your wife’s hand and have no pity on her.
If robbers came to your house while you were having guests, it’s better to offer up your two virgin daughters to the robbers than for your guests to come to any harm.
The proper way to seal a deal in the Bible is to exchange sandals.
More than 60% of Americans think the story of Noah’s Ark is literal truth.
It is better to dwell alone in the desert than at home with a nagging and complaining wife. (Proverbs 21:19)
More than 46% of Americans believe God created humans in their present form, at one time, within the last 10,000 years.
God has commanded Mormons to avoid coffee and tea.
On the eve of Yom Kippur, some observant Jews swing live chickens over their head three times to atone for their sins. It’s called kaparos.
If you want to sleep with your brother’s wife, it’s better to masturbate – or better yet, to pull out early and ejaculate on the ground, in order to avoid getting her pregnant.
Men should not shave any parts of their head and beards.
May the Lord bless everyone who beats your children against the rocks. (Psalm 137:9)
Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden was located in northern Missouri.
For months I’ve been posting a collection of rather tame limericks written by and for children and young adults. While I certainly enjoy them, I still miss the naughtier limericks that I find absolutely hilarious. It’s true than many limericks are really crude and nasty but be sure those will never see the light of day on this blog. For today these limericks are:
Unfortunately I won’t be blogging about April Fool’s Day pranks but if you must know I was a hardworking, inventive, dedicated, and persistent prankster for most of my life. Enjoy the day and prank as many people as you can. It’s just so very satisfying.
I thought I would also post a number of trivia items that you normally wouldn’t see. My feeling is the more obscure the better. Here we go . . .
Most healthy adults can go without eating for a month or longer. But they must drink at least two quarts of water a day.
The Romans were so fond of eating mice that the upper classes raised them domestically. The rodents were kept in specially designed cages and fed a mixture of assorted nuts.
When tea was first introduced in the American colonies, many housewives, in their ignorance, served the tea leaves with sugar or syrup after throwing away the water in which they had been boiled.
The modern dinner plate is a fairly recent development. Until the fifteenth century, it was customary to eat on a thick slice of stale bread, called a “trencher,” that soaked up the juice.
At the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, Richard Blechynden, an Englishman, had a tea concession. On one very hot day none of the fairgoers were interested in hot tea. In a desperate attempt for business, he served the tea cold – and invented iced tea.
Kernels of popcorn were found in the graves of pre-Columbian Indians.
To celebrate in 537 AD, the dedication of the new church, Hagia Sofia – Emperor Justinian held a banquet that caused the slaughtering of more than 10,000 sheep, oxen, swine, poultry, and deer.
To make one pound of honey, bees must collect nectar from approximately two million flowers.
Any day is a good day for limericks whether they be bawdy, funny, or cute. Anything to make us smile a little is certainly worth the effort. Since we’ve all loved our years of school and our family pets, here are four related limericks and they’re relatively child friendly as well.
I just love reading and listening to news and current events, not for their overwhelming truthfulness but for their misleading and sometimes stupid inaccuracies. Once upon a time the news was reported by actual journalists who dug up the information and submitted it to highly capable editors to keep things as accurate as possible. Unfortunately, these days we have a huge selection of news readers and talking heads with nice hair, big boobs, all handsome and beautiful, who all get their stories as reported to them by the general use wire services. They’re lucky if they can pronounce some of the words properly. Here are a few of my favorite headlines that are both ridiculous and ludicrous.
LARGER KANGAROOS LEAP FURTHER, RESEARCHERS FIND
ALCOHOL ADS PROMOTE DRINKING
CHILDS DEATH RUINS COUPLE’S HOLIDAY
QUEEN MARY HAVING BOTTOM SCRAPED
ILLITERATE? WRITE TODAY FOR FREE HELP
SURVEY FINDS DIRTIER SUBWAYS FTER CLEANING JOBS WERE CUT
SCIENTISTS SEE QUAKES IN L. A. FUTURE
MAN SHOOTS NEIGHBOR WITH MACHETE
I think these headlines have helped make my point. Pay close attention to all of those alleged reporters as you watch their multitude of news programs and opinion pieces!
For most of my life I’ve loved the winter and snow and cold weather. That being said this may have been the worse winter ever with continual losses of electric power, telephone coverage, and internet and that doesn’t even include my fractured ankle and finally being exposed to Covid-19. As global warming continues to wreak havoc on the weather patterns, there’s no normal anymore. Maybe it’s time for me to move further north and live above the arctic circle. The snow, ice, and cold remain consistent there.
Here are a few items of weather-related trivia that you might find interesting.
The Antarctic ice is forced out over the Ross Sea – a large inlet into Antarctica – in a layer hundreds of feet thick. It is called the Ross Ice Shelf (see above) and it’s area is about that of France.
At the height of various ice ages of the last million years, as much as thirty percent of all the land of the planet was covered with a thick layer of ice.
The first mention of an iceberg in world literature did not come until 800 A.D. An account of the travels of the Irish monk, St. Brendan in the north Atlantic, three centuries before, appeared around then and mentioned having sighted a “a floating crystal castle”,
An iceberg larger than Belgium was observed in the South Pacific in 1956. It was 208 miles long and 60 miles wide – the largest ever seen.
The temperature can become so cold in eastern Siberia that the moisture in a persons breath can freeze in the air and fall to the earth.
The most recent ice age reached it’s peak in 16,000 B.C., and it wasn’t until 8000 B.C. that the ice began it’s final retreat. In 6000 B.C. the Great Lakes were clear, and for the first time in 25,000 years Canada began to lose its ice cover. It was not until 3000 B.C. that the ice retreated to its present location; by then human beings were establishing cities throughout the Middle East.
After reading all of that, maybe this wasn’t such a bad year after all.
I haven’t been posting much in recent weeks due in part to my broken ankle and my inability to walk. I won’t drag this out because other people’s medical problems are truly uninteresting to most everyone else. Here is my short version of events.
Ankle Surgery – 2 days in hospital
Returned home to discover my better-half diagnosed with Covid-19
2d day I was also found to be positive for Covid-19
A total of 12 days of isolation for us both accompanied by all of the fun Covid symptoms.
Now that Covid-19 has been dealt with we can once again try to get back to some kind of normal.
Thats the extent of my whining, bitching, and complaining about this run of bad luck. I’m still not very mobile but on the bright side, in four or five more weeks I should be back to what I once thought was normal. Hopefully my blogging will increase as well.
Since I decided to reduce my posting to three days a week thing have gotten even more screwed up. I just spent two glorious days in the Southern Maine Medical Center for surgery on my ankle. I was walking around my home, minding my own business, when I took a step from a carpeted room to the hardwood floor of the living room. Tip #1: Never wear thick cotton socks on hardwood floors. I went down hard after sliding on the floor and absolutely crushed my ankle. The surgery lasted a couple of hours and now I’m screwed for the next 6-8 weeks.
The two days in the hospital were exactly as you’d suspect; they were the worst. Uncomfortable beds, questionable food, and not just a few condescending staff members. I was my fun-loving self except for a few profane outbursts that frightened a few of the more sensitive caregivers. One exceptional nurse stood out from the others. She was everything you could hope for, and I wish there were many more like her. A big thanks to Heather for her handling of a big hard-to-get-along-with ape like me under really crappy circumstances. She did herself proud.
Needless to say, my blogging will be sporadic at best until the wheelchair arrives.
Today’s history lesson contains a few unusual occurrences as recorded by European media during the last 100 years. They are quirky and strange but nonetheless true. After reading some of these you can understand how we Americans are at times a bit bizarre as well. We get it honestly from many previous generations from the Continent.
On April 14, 1930, the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky shot himself. In his suicide note he said, “I do not recommend it for others.”
In 1931 the Spanish tennis player Lily de Alvarez Shop the tennis world when she appeared at Wimbledon wearing a divided skirt (culottes), the forerunner of shorts.
On October 23, 1933, a temperature inversion trapped fog and smog over London, obliterating the sun and causing total darkness at midday.
On December 24, 1935, the death of the avant-garde Austrian composer Alban Berg from an insect bite was reported.
In 1936 King Edward VIII once avoided what he thought might be an awkward interview with his private secretary by jumping out of a window of Buckingham palace and running away to hide in the garden.
On July 21, 1937, at six o’clock in the evening, all BBC transmitters and post office wireless telegraph and wireless telephone stations in the British Isles closedown for 2 minutes, to coincide with the funeral of Guglielmo Marconi the inventor of the radio.
On June 1, 1938, the Hungarian playwright Odon von Horvath, who had lived in fear of being struck by lightning all of his life, was killed in Paris when a branch fell on his head during a thunderstorm.
In 1939 a patent application was lodged for the “Wind Bag”, designed for receiving and storing gas formed by the digestion of foods. A tube linked the rectum led to a collection chamber, while the device was held in place under one’s clothes by a belt.
In 1940 during the height of the German spy scare, a vicar’s daughter in Winchester reported the British officer billeted with them to the authorities on the grounds of his suspiciously foreign behavior. The man had failed to flush the toilet.
On July 23, 1943, Eric Brown, blew up his paralyzed father by attaching a landmine to his wheelchair. He later explained to the court that he had not liked his father’s attitude. Brown was eventually declared insane.
I’ve posted about many odd and strange things that have taken place in the United States, and I think it’s only fair that these postings today give our European forefathers credit for some of their weirdness.
It’s time for me to try and convince you non-limerick lovers that they can be something other than lewd and bawdy. They’re fun to create and even more fun to read when written by members of the younger generations. Here are a few written by and for children. Enjoy!
There once was a young chap from Eugene.
Who grew so abnormally lean,
And flat and compressed
That his back met his chest,
And, viewed sideways, he couldn’t be seen!
😗😗😗
A sea serpent saw a big tanker.
Bit a hole in its side and then sank her.
He swallowed the crew
In a minute or two,
And then picked his teeth with the anchor.
😊😊😊
There was a young bather from Bewes,
Who reclined on the banks of the Ouse.
His radio blared,
And passers-by stared,
For all he had on was the news!
🙃🙃🙃
There are men in the village of Erith
Whom nobody seeth or heareth.
They spend hours afloat
In a flat-bottomed boat,
Which nobody roweth or steereth.
🤩🤩🤩
And here’s one final extra limerick for a nurse I once knew.
Believe me, this limerick is understating her illness. LOL
everyuselessthing.com 