I’m just sitting here looking out the window and it’s raining, it’s humid, and I am bored out of my mind. These days between seasons leave much to be desired. When I get this bored I fall back to something that I enjoy doing. If you don’t know by now that means diving in to my archives for useless bits of semi-interesting trivia items. The 10 I’ve listed below are interesting and a little unusual, my favorite kinds. Maybe by sharing them with you it will take the edge off my boredom before I scream out loud. Enjoy!
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
According to Genesis 1:2022 the chicken came before the egg.
Chop Suey is not a native Chinese dish, it was crafted in California by Chinese immigrants.
Chrysler built B-29’s that bombed Japan. Mitsubishi built the zeros that tried to shoot them down. Both companies now build cars in a joint plant called Diamond Star.
Due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the moon is directly overhead.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
The dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
The goldfish has a memory span of 3 seconds.
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
There’s your trivia for today. I thought I’d throw in a little something extra for you because who doesn’t love a good limerick? I have in my archives hundreds and hundreds of limericks of all categories. I have family limericks, children’s limericks, animal limericks, sporty limericks, and on and on and on. I even have naughty limericks and a category of limericks that goes three steps beyond naughty but I’ll save those for another time. Here’s one that’s rather tame but I like it.
A surgeon of some imprecision,
Decided on self-circumcision;
A slip of the knife –
“Oh, dear,” said his wife,
“Our sex-life will need some revision.”
Well there’s your limerick for today. I thought I’d stick to the medical profession for this limerick because I know how much they love off-color humor. Mostly the nurses but especially the retired ones.
Have you ever had something piss you off so bad you felt a sharp, stabbing pain behind your eyes. If you have then the following list will be perfect for you. I love reading lists and I also love writing them from time to time. Over the last few years I’ve experienced almost 60% of the things listed below and it seems to be getting worse each year instead of improving. The pandemic has done nothing to stop these annoyances, it has possibly increased them.
The person who insists on explaining at length something I have absolutely no interest in.
People who snore the paint right off the walls and then deny ever snoring.
People who love to talk over me during a conversation make me want to scream.
Waiting in my car at the ATM for 15 minutes for some moron on a bicycle making a deposit.
The guy in the next men’s room stall at Walmart who opens a stolen package of underwear, puts them on, and leaves his old pair on the floor when he departs.
The attractive woman driving the gorgeous new Lexus who rolls down her window and spits a huge oyster into the passing lane.
People who will stand quietly in line at a movie theater but can’t shut the hell up once the movie starts.
Screaming out-of-control children in public places with parents shopping elsewhere.
The woman chatting on her cell phone as she smashed into my left front fender.
Loud and obnoxious beer drinking morons at any sporting event.
People who are “close talkers” with chronic “stench breath” who won’t stop talking to me.
Finding short and curly hairs in my restaurant food.
Waiting endlessly in a register line for a customer to be trained in the use of their own debit card by the cashier.
People who loudly bitch and moan about their meals and the service at a restaurant.
City workers who insist on destroying my mailbox every year with a 10 ton snowplow.
I feel much better now that I’ve gotten all of those off my chest. It’s a very cathartic experience to say the least. I wrote these items in less than 15 minutes and I’m afraid if I took a bit more time the list would’ve doubled.
I’ve collected a large amount of miscellaneous information over the years and have saved only a small percentage of it. I only keep things that are interesting to me and a little unusual. Many of you may have seen the following information in the past in one form or another but many have not. Since it’s a lazy day here in Maine I’m sending this along for your amusement and also because of my inability to motivate myself this morning. These facts are truly strange and go well beyond the level of coincidence. Read on and enjoy some gruesome American history.
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960.
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contains seven letters.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both successors were named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names were composed of 15 letters.
Lincoln was shot at the theater named Ford.
Kennedy was shot in a car called Lincoln.
Booth ran from a theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.
Booth and Oswald were both assassinated before their trials.
And here’s the kicker
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.
I’m talking about hide and seek at dusk, sitting on the porch. Hot bread and butter, eating a super-duper sandwich (Dagwood), Red light, Green light, 123.
Chocolate milk, lunch tickets, any candy in a brown paper bag. Hopscotch, butterscotch, Double-Dutch, jacks, kickball and dodgeball. Mother, May I? Hula Hoops, sunflower seeds, jawbreakers, blow pops, Mary Janes, and running through the sprinklers. The smell of the sun and licking salty lips.
Wait . . .
Watching lightning bugs in a jar, playing slingshot and Red Rover. When around the corner seemed far away, and going downtown seemed like going somewhere.
Bedtime, climbing trees. 1 million mosquito bites and sticky fingers. Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, sitting on the curb, jumping down the steps, jumping on the bed, and pillow fights.
Being tickled to death, running until you are out of breath. Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt. Being tired from playing . . . Remember that?
I’m not finished yet . . .
What about the girl that had the big bubbly handwriting? Licking the beater when your mother made cake. When there were two types of sneakers for boys and girls (Keds and PF Flyers), and the only time you wore them at school was for “gym”.
When nobody owned a purebred dog. When the quarter was a decent allowance, and another quarter a huge bonus. When you’d reach into a muddy gutter for a penny. When girls neither dated or kissed until late high school, if then. When your mom wore nylons that came in two pieces.
When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, for free. And you didn’t pay for air, and you got trading stamps to boot! When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the boxes.
When any parent could discipline any kid, or feed him or use him to carry groceries, and nobody, not even the kid, thought anything of it. When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.
Not done yet . . .
When all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done, every day. When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed… And did! When being sent to the principal’s office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a slingshot. When nearly everyone’s Mom was at home when the kids got there.
Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn’t because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Disapproval of our parents and grandparents was a much bigger threat!
Decisions were made by going “eeny-meanie-miney-mo”. Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, “do over!” Race issue meant arguing about who ran the fastest. Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in Monopoly.
Catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening. It wasn’t odd to have two or three “best friends”. Being old, referred to anyone over 20. The net on a tennis court was the perfect height to play volleyball and rules didn’t matter. It was unbelievable that dodgeball wasn’t an Olympic event.
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties. It was magic when Dad would remove his thumb. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
I really love spending time on the internet. The amount of information available for viewing is mind-boggling to say the least. I stumbled onto a website recently filled with information on the sexual habits of animals which told me way more than I ever wanted to know about how insects and slimy things have sex. It did make me think, what about people? What kind of strange, dumb, or interesting things could I find out about us?
I began a diligent search to collect well-known, little-known, and quite possibly unknown facts about human sexuality. The amount of that available information was even more incredible than what I was able to find on animals. I accumulated a list of some of the things I thought were truly interesting and not just bizarre and strange. I just thought it might be fun to spice things up a little on this blog and at the same time distribute a little sexual trivia you may not have heard before. Hold your applause it may not be as good as you’re thinking.
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During any given period, women who read romance novels have a tendency to have twice as many lovers as those who don’t.
-321 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which sperm banks store donor semen. At this temperature, semen can be stored indefinitely,
In one hour, the average sperm can swim 7 in.
The testes increase in size by 50% when a man is sexually aroused.
Hetrosexual anal sex is something 43% of women have experienced.
During an average man’s lifetime, he will ejaculate approximately 17 liters of semen, which amounts to about half a trillion sperm.
It takes two tablespoons of blood to get the average man’s penis erect.
The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.
75% of Japanese women own a vibrator. The average worldwide is 47%.
22% of American women aged 20 gave birth while in their teens. In Switzerland and Japan, only 2% did so.
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Well there you have a collection of 10 sexual facts collected from here and there and everywhere. I have to admit I did learn a few things I didn’t previously know about our sexual proclivities and I guess that’s a good thing. I also know I would have been beheaded at age 11 if I’d been born in Indonesian. This was only a small portion of the facts I discovered. More to come . . .
I profess to be an anti-stupidity warrior and I’m proud of that title. I’m constantly pointing out the fools in our political system because they make it so damn easy. They’re “targets of opportunity” and the “gifts that keep on giving”. In recent months I’ve been much kinder to these folks because I’ve begun to feel sorry for them. Most of them are so clueless they don’t even realize what they’re doing and saying and how it’s being perceived by us low-life, mouth-breathing, and unwashed peons.
With that in mind I thought I’d broaden my search for non-political dopes who are also making themselves famous in their own right. We’ve all had exposure to the Darwin Awards which primarily deal with idiots and how they kill themselves. I’d hate to infringe on their area of expertise when so I’ll just stick to the common, everyday, garden-variety, dopes who make me smile. These following blurbs I’ve picked up over the years and are stories of real people told by other real people. Enjoy them.
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Our phones went dead and I had to call the phone repair people from a public phone.. They promised to be out between 8 a.m. and 7 pm. When I asked if they could give me a smaller time window, he asked and I quote, “Would you like us to call before we come?”
I live in a semi-rural area. We had a new neighbor call the local town hall administrative offices to request the removal of a deer crossing sign on our road. Reason: Too many deer were being hit by cars and she no longer wanted them crossing there.
My friend and her daughter went to a local Taco Bell to order some tacos. She asked the individual behind the counter for “minimal lettuce”. He said he was sorry but they only had iceberg.
A friend was at the airport, checking in at the gate, when the airport employee asked, “Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?” She said, if it was without my knowledge, how would I know? He smiled and nodded knowingly and stated, “That’s why we ask.
I once worked with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself and for the life of her, could not understand why her computer system wouldn’t turn on.
When my friend and his spouse arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up their car, they were told that the keys had been accidentally locked in it. They went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver’s side door. As my friend watched from the passenger side, he instinctively tried the door handle and discovered it was open. Hey, he said to the technician, “you know it’s open.” “I already got that side” was the immediate answer.
I’ll bet if you spent ten minutes a day you could compile a list much larger than this one in just a few days. They’re out there in big numbers just waiting to be recognized and it’s our duty as fine upstanding citizens to give them all the credit they deserve.
I’ve mentioned on many occasions about how my family and friends supply me with odd bits of information. It started decades ago and over the years I’ve read thousands of tidbits of information, sayings and quotations. When I found one that really grabbed me I’d write it down in my notebook. I’m going to list a number of them here today because I’m sure you’ll enjoy them. I don’t know the authors of many of these but that’s totally irrelevant. It’s the information that’s interesting, not so much the person who supplied it. I feel these sayings are worth repeating. Here they are…
Everyone lies about sex.
Religious men are fools!. Fools should be taken lightly.
The 10 best years of a woman’s life are between the ages of 29 and 30.
A parent is a little kid pretending to be a big kid so his little kid won’t be afraid.
Being involved with two women is like playing pool on two tables. You may have enough balls for it but you’ll wear out your stick.
When angry, count to 4; when very angry, swear.
A yawn is a silent shout.
The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom respectable.
There are no premature babies, only delayed weddings.
There’s always free cheese in a mousetrap.
Chastity is curable if detected early.
The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of their tires.
If Christian nations were nations of Christians, there would be no wars.
Colleges don’t make fools, they only develop them.
Common Sense could prevent most divorces and all marriages.
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Well there you have it. Today’s list of interesting and sometimes humorous thoughts and quotations. There will be more to come in the near future.
As most of you are aware I am a lover of all things trivial and historical. I love all history but especially my own. Now it’s time for me to take you on a little trip down memory lane back to 1960. I’m going to introduce you to someone in my life who left me with vivid memories of school and a few emotional and geographical scars.
The lady in question was my eighth grade geography teacher. She was obsessed with geography to a fault. She was one of the meanest teachers I’ve ever had but also absolutely unforgettable (and not in a good way). On the first day of classes she told our group that half of our grade for the entire year would be based on our ability to memorize all the countries of the United Nations in alphabetical order and to recite it in front of the class. We spent many a day standing in front of the classroom and reciting as best we could as many of the countries as possible. Did I learn the countries, you bet I did, and at that time there were 82 of them.
All of us students agreed that she was an absolute lunatic and that was never disproven. She passed away many years ago and I actually sat in a bar that night with a close friend, another of her students, and toasted the old girl with a few stiff drinks. I didn’t attend her funeral but I was tempted to because I wanted to make sure she was really gone. This post is a something of a memorial and tribute to miss Mabel Milldollar, one of the most unforgettable persons I’ve ever met. This list of trivia items would have been something she would have loved but only if she could have used the information to create one of her memorable pop quizzes. They were brutal. Let’s get this started….
The part of the United States that the sun shines on first is the top of Mount Cadillac in Maine.
The state of Hawaii is composed of 132 Islands.
25% of the State of California is made up of deserts.
The southernmost tip of Africa is the Cape of Agulhas.
The northernmost point in the United States is the city of Point Barrow, Alaska.
The city of Timbuktu is located in Mali in Western Africa.
The Sahara desert in North Africa has an area of 3,250,000 square miles.
Western South Dakota marks the geographical center of the United States since the addition of Hawaii and Alaska.
Piccadilly Circus in London got its name from collars, called picadillo’s, that were made by a tailor name Robert Baker who created them in the area.
The highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world is Angel Falls in Venezuela. It has a 3212 foot drop.
The lowest point of dry land on the earth is the shore of the Dead Sea, between Jordan and Israel, which is approximately 1300 feet below sea level.
I hope you’re smiling up at me Miss Milldollar because you couldn’t possibly be looking down on me. Your evil brainwashing techniques would have certainly qualified you for special duty at Club Gitmo. No terrorist in the world could have stood up to that “evil eye” you were famous for. I hope you’re sitting in the corner of wherever you happen to be with a pointy dunce cap on your head and having your hand smacked with a big ass ruler.
As I promised in an earlier post, it’s time for another installment of really weird facts and assorted nonsense. I’m going to try to supply everyone with this kind of thing each week because there’s absolutely no end to the amount of weird and useless facts available out there. It’s my job job to find them and share them with you whether you like or or not. Lets get this ball rolling.
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
A silicon chip a quarter of an inch square has the capacity of the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.
Snails can have about 25,000 teeth.
About 70% of all living organisms in the world are bacteria.
A ten gallon hat holds 3/4 of a gallon.
A whale’s heart beats only nine times a minute.
Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies room during a dance.
Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool. He changed it every two innings.
The longest one syllable word in the English language is screeched.
Well there’s your weekly installment of weird facts. I barely scratched the surface of what I have stored away for future posts. I hope you find them as interesting as I do. Enjoy your day.
As we’re all aware this last year-and-a-half with the pandemic has changed many things, some for the better and some for the worse. Since the onset of the pandemic I’ve noticed a disturbing trend with female drivers in the area and I’m assuming that it’s pretty much the same all across the country. I’ve mentioned in past posts that common courtesy is one of the victims of the pandemic and I need to take that one step further. It seems that many female drivers have taken to “flipping the bird” with a vengeance. I’ve seen teenage girls, old ladies, soccer moms, and just about everyone else getting with the program. Needless to say it sparked my curiosity which then required a little research into my archives about the practices of “throwing the finger” and here’s what I found.
SOME HISTORY OF THE BIRD
Tossing the bird has been a tradition with us men that has been passed down through the ages from grandfathers to fathers and then to their sons. Guys have been throwing the finger for a variety of reasons for as long as I can remember. We owned this gesture until the feminists arrived. Now the ladies have every right to be as obnoxious as we’ve been and believe me their certainly doing it with panache and gusto.
Thrusting up a middle finger or “flipping the bird” is one of the more familiar hand gestures across this country. Its popularity is also worldwide and has been around for a very long time in a number of European countries. No one is sure how it originated but we all know that the Romans used it at the time of Christ.
Just as there are many gestures in the world to convey one’s negative feelings about another, there are also regional differences to show approval. Men around the world have several gestures to imply that a woman is pretty. In the United States, men lift their eyebrows, in the Arab world a man grabs his beard, while in Greece he would stroke his cheek. In Italy, a man sticks his finger into his cheek and rotates it, Frenchmen kiss their fingertips, and Brazilians will pretend to hold up a telescope to their eye.
Obviously, almost any gesture can have meaning, either positive or negative, somewhere in the world. So the next time you travel abroad, be careful how you gesture with your hands. You might unwittingly attract unwanted attention from the natives, especially in the Middle East. They seem to look for any spoken word or gesture by a non-Arab as a reason to throw you into prison for a chat or to just execute you.
In my attempt to be fair I’ve also seen a few men with some unfortunate habits. While I myself would never today do something so crude. In my youth I may have lost control a few thousand times. I deeply regret those times when I “birded” nice old ladies or a few hundred clergymen. It really is nice to see that the female of the species now has the capability and the mindset to throw the bird to damn near anybody for damn near any reason. “I Am Woman” hear me roar.
And thanks to whoever placed that Ryan Gosling GIF on the net. It made my day.
