Archive for the ‘Love’ Category
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910)
I first became a fan of Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain as a youngster. I was quite the reader at a very young age and was instantly captivated by the story of Tom Sawyer and his adventures along and on the Mississippi river. That’s when I discovered one of my first “Happy Places”, my ability to get totally consumed by a book. That ability has served me well for more than seventy years and it still makes me happy. He lived an adventurous life and is famous for his biting sense of humor. Here’s why.
- “Always do right. This greatly gratifies some people and astonish the rest.”
- “When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.”
- “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
- “It takes your enemy and your friend working together to hurt you to the heart: one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.”
- “Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to.”
- “Familiarity breeds contempt . . . and children.”
- “Confession may be good for my soul, but it sure plays hell with my reputation.”
- “Good breeding exists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”
- “It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.”
- “I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.”
And finally, one of my all-time favorite quotes from Mr. Clemens which could apply to so many things.
“Noise prevents nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.”
PICK UP A GOOD BOOK AND LOSE YOURSELF
Since yesterday’s posting was all about people and how and when they lost their virginities, I thought today I would do a short but interesting look at the history of “kissing”. It was always among my favorite things and the older I got the higher up my list of favorite things it went.
- I guess we should start with the Garden of Eden and Adam. Scripture says that God breathed the “spirit of life” into him and it might explain why many religious ceremonies include kissing.
- A Canadian anthropologist demonstrated that 97% of women shut their eyes during a kiss but only 37% of men did.
- As with many things it seems the Romans got involved with kissing early on. A husband returning from work would kiss his wife on the lips to see if she’d been drinking during the day. The Romans had three different types of kisses: abasium, the kiss on the lips; osculum, a friendly kiss on the cheek, anduavium, the full mouth and tongue. Emperor Tiberius once banned the practice of kissing after an epidemic of lip sores.
- Kissing at one point was frowned upon because it had been used as a sign of betrayal by Judas Iscariot. He identified Jesus to his enemies in the garden of Gethsemane by kissing him.
- Kissing under the mistletoe is an English tradition and started with the kissing bough, which had mistletoe at its center. When the Christmas tree replaced the kissing bough, the mistletoe was salvaged.
- How and where you kiss used to be a sign of where you stood in the social pecking order. Equals kissed each other on the cheek. The lower you ranked to another person, the lower you had to kiss him. Thus, a slave would kiss his masters’ feet, and a prisoner not even allowed to do that. They were forced to kiss the ground near the foot.
- Alice Johnson, a 23-year-old American waitress, won a car in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after kissing it for 32 hours and 20 minutes in a 1994 competition. She loosened four teeth in the process.
- An American insurance company discovered that men were less likely to have a car accident on their way to work if they were kissed before they set off.
- In Sicily, members of the Mafia have stopped kissing each other because the way they kiss was a dead giveaway to the police, and mobsters were getting arrested.
- The first film kiss was in, appropriately enough, the 1896 movie The Kiss. The participants were John C. Rice and Mae Erwin.
- My last entry will give all of you a reason to kiss a little more often. Kissing can prevent illnesses. When you absorb other people’s saliva, you also receive their enzymes, which gives you their immunities like a kind of antibiotic. Unfortunately kissing can also pass on diseases too.
“YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS; A KISS IS JUST A KISS.”
Dooley Wilson in Casablanca
What’s a day without a load of trivial and useless information. If you want to know everything about celebrity’s losing their virginities this is the place to be today. In no particular order.
Jimi Hendrix – age 12
Johnny Depp – age 13
Clint Eastwood – age 14
David Duchovny – age 14
Bruce Willis – age 14
Michael Caine age 15
Charlie Sheen age 15
Madonna age 15
Victoria Beckham – age 17
Brad Pitt age 18
Leonardo DiCaprio – age 18
Brooke Shields – age 18
Mira Sorvino – age 20
Mariah Carey – age 23
Lisa Kudrow – age 31
I LOST MINE AT AGE 14 WITH SANDRA
I’ve been ranting a bit for the last few days about politics and politicians, and I’ve run out of energy. Bitching and complaining is a total waste of time because it gets me nowhere very quickly. Today I’ll return to a topic I love and enjoy, limericks, especially those written by children. They make me smile and laugh out loud occasionally. Politics does not.
By Gareth Owen
Winnifred Gristle could whistle through thistles.
At whistling through thistles our Winn was a dream.
No-one out whistled Miss Gristle,
Winnifred Gristle, the whistler supreme.
💥💥💥
By John Hegley
There once was an organic leek
That had managed to learn how to speak.
At the sight of a knife
It would fear for its life,
And go: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
💥💥💥
By Anon
The daughter of the farrier
could find no-one to marry her.
Because she said
She would not wed
A man who could not carry her.
💥💥💥
By Marian Swinger
Two Dinosaurs strolling arms linked,
Met a little old lady who blinked,
And said, in surprise,
Whilst rubbing her eyes,
“They told me that you were extinct!”
💥💥💥
HOORAY, IT’S HUMP DAY
While I’m not much of a sports fan these days, I did play a lot of sports over the years. I loved playing sports but watching them now is as much fun as watching paint dry. I’m still a lover of trivia too so it’s about time I matched them up. Here are a few sports trivia facts you may not have been aware of.
- Wilt Chamberlain averaged 48.5 minutes per game in 1961–62. That means he played every minute of every game and every minute of every overtime.
- Pittsburgh is the only city where every one of its professional sports teams wears the same colors.
- Major league baseball uses approximately 900,000 balls every season.
- Prior to the 1930s in the NBA a jump ball used to follow every made basket.
- One of the greatest pitchers in MLB history was known to run off the field during games to chase firetrucks. Rube Waddell was fascinated with firetrucks and managers had a difficult time keeping him on the mound if one drove by. It didn’t stop him from being one of the greatest strikeout pitchers in the history of the game.
- Wilt Chamberlain once averaged over 50 points per game for an entire season.
- Before Babe Ruth, MLB’s career home run record was just 138. When the babe retired, the new record was 714.
- Jackie Mitchell, one of the first (and only) female player in the major league baseball system, once struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in consecutive at-bats. The strikeouts occurred during a minor league exhibition game against the Yankees.
- For 43 years, the NFL record for the longest made field goal was held by a man (Tom Dempsey) with no toes on his kicking foot.
- Jackie Robinson was not the first black player in major league baseball. William Edward White, a former slave, served as a one-game replacement player in 1879. Moses Fleetwood Walker lasted slightly longer, playing nearly a full season in 1884, 63 years before Jackie Robinson made his historic debut.
PLAY BALL ! !
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
As much as I love bawdy limericks, I also love those written by the kids for other kids. And it’s also nice to know that another generation of limerick lovers and writers are waiting in the wings.
Amanda Chew – Age 13
There is a math teacher called Rundle
Who ties up his books in a bundle.
It’s too heavy he feels,
So, he puts it on wheels.
Now Rundle can trundle his bundle!
😊😊😊
Raymond Coleman – Age 11
There was a young lad called Davy
Who hated the food in the Navy.
He couldn’t have beef
In case his false teeth
Would drop out and fall in the gravy.
😜😜😜
Mark Rothery – Age 8
A certain young goalie named Finn
Lost count of the goals he let in.
When his coach bawled “Eight!”
He replied, quite sedate:
“Then we only need nine goals to win!”
😄😄😄
Rebecca Telford – Age 7
There was a brown dog named Spot
Who tied up his tail with a knot,
To remember his bone
Which he left back at home
When he sometimes went out for a trot.
😏😏😏
GIVE A HAND TO THESE FUTURE POETS
To say I am a baseball fan would be an understatement and when writing about famous orators how could I forget the man, “Yogi Berra”. For me, he’s the perfect example of what old time baseball was all about. He was a great player and manager and always made the Yankees fans proud. Weirdly enough he has since become almost as famous for his stream of hilarious quotations. Here are a few for your entertainment.
- “I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early.”
- “Baseball is 90% mental- the other half is physical.”
- “Nobody goes there anymore – it’s too crowded.”
- “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
- “This is like déjà vu all over again.”
- “You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”
- “It gets late early out there.”
- “Think! How the hell are you going to think and hit at the same time?”
- “Slump? I ain’t in no slump. I just ain’t hitting.”
- When his wife asked, “Yogi, you are from St. Louis, we live in New Jersey, and you played ball in New York. If you go before I do, where would you like me to have you buried?” His response was, “Surprise me.”
THE AMBASSADOR OF BASEBALL
I am a longtime lover of feet. When most guys were scoping out boobs and butts, I was looking for women wearing sandles. I’m not sure why or when I developed this love of feet, but it started at a very young age. Over the years it has been a wonderful addition to my dating repertoire. With that in mind here are some odd facts about feet you may not have been aware of. Read on and be converted you butt loving and boob loving men (or women). It’s all good.
- The world’s tallest man, Robert Pershing Wadlow (8’11”) wore size 37 shoes.
- In many Asian countries is considered the height of rudeness to let the soles of your feet face another person.
- Your foot and ankle together contain 26 bones.
- The Achilles tendon is the longest and strongest tendon in your foot. The tendon is named after the Greek warrior who was killed when he was hit there with an arrow.
- The skin on the soles of your feet is .2 inches (5 mm) thick.
- Athletes foot can cause intense itching and pain. It is a fungus that grows between your toes because it likes the dark, moist conditions found there.
- It takes 20 muscles to hold each of your feet together and allow them to move as in dancing, running, and skipping.
- Getting “cold feet” means you want to back down or walk away from something you had planned to do.
- Your toes can get into lots of trouble. You could have hammer toes, claw toes, and overlapping toes, not to mention ingrown toenails. In some cases, people have been known to have their second toe a half inch or longer than the big toe (you know who you are).
- If you have fallen arches, the arch of your foot has flattened. The entire sole of your foot is on the ground, so you don’t have a natural shock absorber system as you walk.
There you have a few oddities about feet. Most of the things I mentioned are a rarity and doesn’t do anything to disturb my foot fetish. I remain as always, a dedicated (disturbingly so) lover of women’s feet. Add to that bright red, blood red nail polish and I’m yours for the taking. LOL
EVERYONE NEEDS AT LEAST ONE INTERESTING FETISH
I’ve posted previously about what Number Freaking is all about. If you’re really interested just do a search to read those posts. Today’s number freaking facts and stats concern sex. I knew that would get your attention very quickly. Read on and be educated . . .
- The Penguin Atlas of Human Sexual Behavior claims sexual intercourse takes place, worldwide, 120 million times every day. Assuming an average of one male per coupling and one orgasm per male It is estimated that 30 million billion (30 quadrillion) sperms are in the hunt every day.
- Assuming a healthy male can make as many as 1500 sperm a second, in 1 min. he can produce 90,000 sperm.
- There are 2.2 billion adult women on earth. It would take one man 17 days to make one’s sperm per woman.
- The average number of kids born per women worldwide is 2.8. So, assume an average woman will lose 28 menstruating months to pregnancy during her lifetime.
- The average woman will menstruate 19.66 quarts of blood in her lifetime. That’s about the same amount as two cases of wine.
- The average American man first gets married at the age of 28.7 years and dies at the age of 76. A duration of 47.8 years. If he could manage having sex three times a day every day until he dies, he would’ve had intercourse 52,376 times.
- According to the Penguin Atlas of Human Sexual Behavior the country boasting the longest lasting sexual intercourse is Brazil at 30 min. The USA, Canada, and Brits follow with 28, 23, and 21 min. respectively. The quickest sex in the world takes place in Thailand in 10 min. and Russia in 12 min.
- The data shows that almost 88% of men’s penises measure between 5 and 7 inches when erect. When relaxed 90% of men are 3 to 5 inches.
- Kinsey also reports that the average vagina is 3 inches long with a diameter of .8 inches when aroused, and 3.75 to 4.1 inches long with a diameter of 2.3 to 2.5 inches when stimulated (so it’s wide enough for birth).
- Women in Kinsey studies said that on average they took just under 4 min. to achieve orgasm, flying solo. Practicing with a partner, however, it took between 10 and 20 min.
And here is one of my favorite factoids concerning men. There is a popular assumption that man think constantly about sex. Globally, life expectancy at birth, for a man, is 65 years. If we assume men start thinking about sex with the advent of puberty, which we’ll assume to be at age 13, that means men will think about sex every 6 seconds for 52 years or 273.5 million times.
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL AN OBSESSION
everyuselessthing.com 