Archive for the ‘Trivia’ Category

03/27/2022 The List   2 comments

I received this list many years ago from a very close friend. Where he came by it, I don’t have a clue. Someone obviously put a great deal of thought into it, and I guess that’s a good enough reason for me to pass it on. Do I agree with everything on it, NO WAY! But again, it’s not just about me. It’s a bit of a long read but you never know, you might find a pearl of wisdom or two in it.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE

-Eat plenty of whole rice.
-Give people more than they expect and do it willfully.
-Learn by heart your favorite song.
-Don’t believe anything you hear and do not sleep as much as you would like to.
-When you say, “I love you”, say it truthfully.
-When you say, “I’m sorry”, say it with eye contact.
-An engagement period of 6 months is crucial before marriage.
-Believe in love at first sight.
-Never mock others’ dreams.
-Love deeply and passionately. You may get hurt, but this is the only way to live life to the fullest.


-Deal with discontentment, fight fairly but do not offend.
-Do not judge others because of their relatives.
-Talk slow, think fast.
-When someone asks you a question you do not want to answer, smile and ask: “Why do you want to know?”
-Remember that the greatest love and the greatest successes also hold many risks.
-Call your mom.
-Bless a person who has just sneezed.
-When you lose, do not lose the lesson.
-Remember:  Respect for yourself, respect for others and responsibility for your actions.
-Do not allow a small disagreement to hurt a great friendship.


-When you notice you have made a mistake, take the appropriate steps in order to correct it.
-Smile when you answer the phone. Those who call can “hear” your smile.
-Marry the person you love talking to the most. When you get old, conversation will be important more than anything else.
-Spend some time alone.
-Accept change with open arms; yet do not give up your values.
-Remember that sometimes, silence is the best answer.
-Read more books and watch television less.
-Live a good, honorable life. Later, when you grow old and remember the past, you will enjoy them once more.
-Believe and trust god, whomever / whatever you conceive God to be, but securely lock your car.
-An atmosphere of love at your home is most important. Do all that you can in order to create a calm home full of love.


-Do not bring back the past.
-Read in between the lines.
-Share your knowledge. It is the way to live forever.
-Be gentle with our Earth planet.
-Pray. Prayer has incredible power.
-Never interrupt someone who flatters you.
-Take care of your problems.
-Do not trust a man or a woman who do not close their eyes when you kiss them.
-Once a year, visit a place you never did before.
-If you make a lot of money, channel it so as to help others while you are alive. This is the greatest satisfaction a treasure can reward you.

-Remember that sometimes, not getting what you want is being very lucky.
-Learn all the rules, and then break some.
-Remember that the greatest relationships are the ones in which the love between two people is greater than the need one has of the other.
-Judge your success in light of what you had to give up in order to obtain it.
-Relate to love and to the kitchen completely.

I CAN TELL, YOUR HAPPIER ALREADY

03/27/2022 Sporty Limericks   Leave a comment

Well, it looks like winter is finally fading away. What does that mean to most of us? Warm weather and lots of sports. Today I want to combine your love of sports with my love of limericks. Here are four limericks concerning golf and baseball. Enjoy!

They say that ex-president Taft,

When hit by a golf ball, just laughed,

And said:” I’m not sore,

But although he called “Fore”,

The place that it struck me was “aft!”

🍀🍀🍀

A golfer, employing a wedge,

Clipped his chip shot behind a thick hedge.

But he hadn’t been seen,

So, he strolled to the green

And dropped a new ball on the edge.

🍀🍀🍀

The slider just slid past the bat,

And the curveball? Too flat to get at.

The pitcher’s last ball

Was his fastest fastball,

So, I’m three strikes and out. And that’s that!

🍀🍀🍀

I hit every home run we score.

I catch every catch and what’s more

I ain’t missed a game,

You may not know my name,

But I’m up here in row eighty-four.

PLAY BALL!!!

03/25/2022 Quote of the Week   Leave a comment

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-1527)

“A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances; and if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.”

In my years of working in corporate America, I made it a point to read his writings, especially “The Prince”. I couldn’t have survived as long as I did without it. Machiavelli has always had a bad name and to be “Machiavellian” is to be totally unscrupulous and cunning. But one thing most scholars are in agreement about: however bad his influence may have been, the real Machiavelli was not the wicked figure of popular tradition.

LEARN FROM THE PAST

03/21/2022 Kids & Limericks   Leave a comment

A few days ago, I posted a mish-mosh of items which included two limericks from young children. I love the fact that there are kids growing up into a new generation of limerick writers. I would hate to think limericks would fall by the wayside here in the 21st century when they’ve added so much amusement and laughter for hundreds of years. I have a collection of children’s limericks that I’ll share with you periodically because they are cute, adorable and much less bawdy than their adult counterparts. These are for those of you who are too delicate to read the real deal. I hope you enjoy them.

👩🏻👳🏻‍♂️👲🏻

Consider the poor hippopotamus

His life is unduly monotonous.

He lives half sleep

At the edge of the deep,

And his face is as big as his bottom is.

👩🏻👩🏻‍🦰👩🏻‍🦳

A sea serpent saw a big tanker,

Bit 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 bank of the Ouse,

His radio blared,

And passers-by stared,

For all he had on was the news!

👼🏻👱🏻‍♂️👳🏻‍♂️

“What,” said our teacher, Ms. Pink,

“Is this moth doing here in my ink?”

Said a cheeky young lass,

At the front of the class,

“The Butterfly Stroke, I should think!”

NOT TOO BAD FOR YOUNGSTERS

03/19/2022 Celebrity Phobias   Leave a comment

Now that I’ve finished my first two cups of coffee and I’m reasonably awake and alert, I’m trying to decide exactly what I’ll be posting about today. I have many categories to choose from, but I’ve come up with a few things that I found very interesting concerning one of my and your favorite topics – ‘Celebrities’.

The amount of unbelievable interest in celebrities has always boggled my mind. So many people in this country seem to think that because they’re celebrities their lives are totally different from ours. They certainly have more money than most of us, but they also lose their “right to privacy”. So, they have some good things we don’t have and a few things we’d probably never want. Here are a few facts that may help make them seem a little more human than we ever thought.

  • Superstore Madonna is reportedly deathly afraid of cockroaches. She once confessed:” Whenever I saw them, I screamed and ran away.”
  • Hollywood actress and producer Drew Barrymore, suffers from claustrophobia, a fear of confined spaces.
  • Hollywood star Johnny Depp suffers from clourophobia, a fear of clowns. He sees darkness and evil in those painted faces.
  • English actor Orlando Bloom once broke his back falling from a third story roof terrace, but he isn’t afraid of heights – he’s terrified of pigs.
  • American singer and actor, Justin Timberlake, suffers from galeophobia, ophidiophobia, and arachnophobia – that’s fear of sharks, snakes, and spiders.
  • Oprah Winfrey fears chewing gum.
  • Actress Nicole Kidman is afraid of butterflies.
  • Christina Ricci suffers from a form of botanophobia – she is frightened by indoor plants.
  • The English actor, the late Roger Moore, was licensed to kill as James Bond but he had a fear of guns.
  • The legendary British suspense director Alfred Hitchcock was afraid of eggs. He thought they were absolutely disgusting.

And there you have it folks, just a few facts about celebrities that show they’re no different than the rest of us. They suffer from the same stupid phobias and issues just like everyone else. Now as I’m finishing this posting I must throw one more fact out there. It concerns a celebrity I’ve never been particularly fond of, Roseanne Barr. It appears that she is deathly afraid of anything – people or objects – touching her toes. For some reason I find that hilarious, but that’s just me.

HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND

03/14/2022 “Epithets”   2 comments

For many years after moving to New England, I spent a great deal of time in dozens of local cemeteries in southern Maine, checking out epithets, and anything else interesting that I could find. There was a time when I would stretch T-shirts over old tombstones and do rubbings of family names and places which I then sold in a local gift shop. Business became so brisk I was able to take requests from certain families to memorialize their long dead relatives. It was a little weird at times but very interesting. I also got to meet a few of the local law enforcement officers who repeatedly stopped to check me out. The epithets were remarkable since most of the early deaths were colonists from England, the home of the limerick. What follows are not the ones I discovered back then but discoveries made by other morbid folks who were also fascinated by them. Here are a few priceless ones I think you might enjoy.

Sacred to the memory of Anthony Drake,

Who died for peace and quietness’ sake.

His wife was constantly scolding and scoffin’,

So, he sought for repose in a twelve-dollar coffin.

Burlington Massachusetts

🎇🎇🎇

Here lies Ann Mann;

She lived an old maid and

She died an old Mann.

Bath Abbey, England

🎇🎇🎇

Sacred to the memory of

Elisha Philbrook and his wife Sarah

Beneath these stones do lie,

Back-to-back, my wife and I!

When the last trumpet the air shall fill,

If she gets up, I’ll just lie still.

Sargentville, Maine

🎇🎇🎇

Sacred to the memory of

Jared Bates

who died August 6, 1800.

His widow, age 24, lives at 7 Elm

Street, has every qualification for a

good wife and yearns to be comforted.

Lincoln, Maine

🎇🎇🎇

THINK UP A GOOD ONE FOR YOURSELF

AND LEAVE IT WITH A FRIEND

03/10/2022 “Good Old Albert”   Leave a comment

“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my

talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”

Albert Einstein 1985

03/09/2022 “Artists?”   Leave a comment

Carl Gustav Jung

“The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature herself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle.”

Carl Gustav Jung (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. During that time, he came to the attention of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Jung was also an artist, craftsman, builder and a prolific writer. Many of his works were not published until after his death and some are still awaiting publication.

ART IS THE SEX OF THE IMAGINATION

03/08/2022 “Oddities”   Leave a comment

I am a constant collector of weird and unusual facts and information. During my travels if I see something that even looks a little bit interesting, I collected it. I have many books in my archives that I’ve not read as thoroughly as I’d like and information your see here is from one of those books. Hope you enjoy it.

  • As the great Chicago fire of 1871 killed 300 people, an even deadlier fire was under way 200 miles to the north. It devastated Peshtigo, Wisconsin, killing 600 people; but somehow it never got the same attention.
  • All of Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, is heated by underground hot springs. Reykjavík is probably the cleanest capital city in the world.
  • The first hydrogen bomb, tested in 1952, was as powerful as the total of all the bombs dropped on Germany and Japan during World War II, including both of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
  • The African climate is not always warm. The Nile River has frozen over at least twice, in 829 A.D. and in 1010.
  • For amusement, it was agreed by four friends holidaying in Switzerland that each would write a ghost story. Percy B Shelley, George Byron, and Dr. John William Polidori never finished theirs. Only 18-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin did. She published it anonymously two years later, in 1818, with a preface by her husband, Shelley. Mary Shelley’s novel about Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his monstrous creation became a classic.
  • Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norkay deservedly received much praise when they were the first to climb to the summit of Mount Everest. Less known is the fact that they had a roster of 12 climbers, 40 Sherpa guides, and 700 porters.
  • Three pairs of common English rabbits were let loose in Australia, in the middle of the 19th century. Within a decade, the six rabbits had multiplied into millions, menacing the country’s agriculture.
  • Japan did not send an ambassador to another nation until it sent Niimi Masaoki to the US for a few weeks in 1860.
  • The daughters of a mother who is colorblind and a father who has normal vision will have normal vision. The sons will be colorblind, however.
  • Up to 150 tons of meteorite fragments slammed into the Earth each year. As far as is known, only seven people have been struck by such rocks from space.
  • By “deciphering” the Book of Revelations, a minister in Lochau in East Germany proclaimed that the world would end on October 18, 1533. When it didn’t happen, the minister, Michael Stiftel, was given a thorough thrashing by the townspeople.

I certainly hope you enjoy reading these obscure facts. It’s almost as much fun as actually collecting them. More are certain to follow because I barely scratched the surface of books I haven’t thoroughly read yet.

WHEN IN DOUBT, READ A BOOK

03/07/2022 Weird Animal Trivia   Leave a comment

Everyone seems to love animals. Here are a few facts that are interesting, and some that are a bit disgusting. Read on . . .

  • Squid have the largest eyes of any animal on earth.
  • Giraffes sleep the least of any mammal.
  • Many lipsticks contain fish scales.
  • Sharks, including hammerheads, as well as mackerels have the ability to skip sleep altogether.
  • Thirty-two pigeons, twenty-eight dogs, three horses, and one cat have received medals for bravery in wartime.
  • 99.9% of all species that have existed on the earth are now extinct.
  • An ostrich’s eye is larger than its brain.
  • Hangfish can fill a gallon sized bucket with slime in less than 1 minute.
  • Catfish have a better sense of taste than humans.
  • Cat urine glows under a black light.
  • Dogs generally prefer to eat the protein-rich poop of cats.
  • Birds do not pee.
  • Cow’s milk gives most cats a case of diarrhea.
  • Fish, jellyfish, frogs, and toads have all been known to fall out of the sky.
  • Some fish can walk.

Who knew that animals could be so bizarre? Maybe next time I’ll come up with a list of oddities from us humans. It’s likely they’ll be even stranger than the ones about animals.

NOAH’S ARK MUST HAVE BEEN A HOOT