I’m sitting here looking out the window and watching our first snowfall of 2025. If their estimate proves accurate we’ll have 7-10 inches by morning. From listening to the experts it does appear this may be the start of one helluva bad winter. I’m well prepared with a full can of gas, a working snowblower, and a desire to go play in the snow a little. If you’re in the same predicament then sit back in your warm and comfy chair to enjoy some interesting and varied trivia facts. Here we go . . .
Leonard Skinner was the name of the gym teacher of the boys who went on to form the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. He once told them “You boys will never amount to nothing.” The band’s front man, Ronnie Van Zant, decided to adopt the name but change the spelling, as a joke on his former teacher.
Richard Gere’s middle name is Tiffany.
Goldie Hawn’s career as an actress-comedienne was launched after she was spotted as a dancer in the chorus line on The Andy Griffith Show in 1966.
Keith Moon of the band, The Who, inspired the Muppet drummer Animal.
Under the Motion Picture censorship code, which was effective from 1934 to 1968, a screen kiss could only last 30 seconds before being labeled “indecent.”
In the early episodes of Start Trek, Dr. McCoy’s medical scanner was just an ordinary saltshaker.
The blood in the famous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was in fact Hershey’s chocolate syrup.
A snake has the best heat-detecting equipment in nature. Using the two organs between its eyes and nostrils it can locate a mouse by its body heat at a distance of 15 miles.
In a survey of 80,000 American women it was found that those who drank moderately had only half the heart-attack risk of those who didn’t drink at all.
When you sneeze, all your bodily functions stop – including the heart.
🏃♂️🏃♀️🏃♂️
Here’s one of my Fav’s. If your a true fan of the Olympics you’ll love it too.
Nudity was considered perfectly acceptable in ancient Greece, but it was declared indecent if a man revealed an erection.
I’ve spent the last five and a half years being tended to by a score of doctors and nurses and it saved my life. It’s given me time to really examine their profession and the the abilities they have to save lives. Todays post will introduce odd facts and historical information where the roots of our current medical treatments began. Some of it is a little strange and also a little frightening but that’s how we’ve learned the skills being used today.
The first image of the doctors stitching up a wound can be found on the Edwin Smith Papyrus (1600 B.C.).
Ancient Egyptian medicine was considered so advanced that the rulers of neighboring kingdoms would often bribe, cajole, or even send someone to kidnap the Pharaoh’s best doctors.
The 3000-year-old “Ebers Papyrus” was written on a 65 foot long scroll and describes treatments for the eyes, skin, extremities, and organs. It also lists medicinal plants such as mustard, saffron, onions, garlic, thyme, sesame, caraway, and poppy seed, and offers more than 800 recipes for their use.
The Egyptians used opium as crude forms of anesthesia when operating on patients. They also created a milder painkiller by mixing water with vinegar and adding ground Memphite stone. The resulting “laughing gas” was inhaled.
The first known surgery for cataracts was performed in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in about A.D. 100.
A collection of 37 surgical instruments is engraved on the wall in the Egyptian Temple of Kom-Ombo (2d century B.C.). Some show amazing similarities to modern surgical instruments and includes scalpels, scissors, needles, forceps, lancets, hooks, and pincers.
The original Hippocratic Oath was written by a school of philosophers known as the Pythagoreans and was actually a reaction against the writings of Hippocrates. The Pythagoreans were conservative and even backward looking in many ways forbidding many medical practices, including the surgery.
The Romans considered cabbage to be a magically protective food. The philosopher Cato wrote that Romans should not only eat cabbage at every meal, but also drink the urine of someone who’d eaten cabbage two days before.
In both ancient Greece and Rome, doctors didn’t need licenses or any formal training to practice. Anyone could call himself a doctor. If his methods worked, he attracted more patients, if not, he found himself another job.
Most Roman surgical instruments were made of bronze, or occasionally of silver. Iron was considered taboo by both Greeks and Romans and was never used for surgical instruments on religious grounds.
Seventy percent of Swedish women claim to have participated in a threesome.
Every year more than 11,000 Americans hurt themselves trying out bizarre sexual positions.
The average person spends two weeks of their life kissing.
Forty-six percent of women say a good night’s sleep is better than sex.
Elvis Presley called his penis “Little Elvis.”
The sperm count of American men is down thirty percent from thirty years ago.
Americans spend more money each year at strip clubs than that all the theaters and classical concert halls in the country combined.
In ancient Greece and Rome dildos were made out of animal horns, ivory, gold, silver, and even glass.
Only thirty-one percent of men admit to looking at other women when in the company of their spouse or girlfriend. Their partners say the figure is actually closer to sixty-four percent.
In ancient Rome, men found guilty of rape had their testicles crushed between two stones as a punishment.
And here’s one of my all-time favorite sexual facts: Four popes have died while participating in sexual acts.
Welcome to another hot sweltering and sweaty day in Maine. I’ve been confined to my man-cave because it’s the only place in this house where I won’t sweat through my clothing. It’s so bad even my cat is sleeping on a chair right next to me directly under a fan. I’ve always suspected my cat was more intelligent that it was letting on and this just proves it. Since the cat and I are having a week off from my better-half who is vacationing and visiting relatives in Maryland, we can do as we please for a change. We can eat what we want, sleep when we want, and misbehave if necessary. It’s our vacation too.
Today’s post is prompted by a series of facts I’ve recently discovered concerning wives and mistresses. Since I’m the guy who knows virtually nothing about women, I hoped these snippets would give me a better frame of reference. They probably won’t but what the hell, here they are anyway . . .
👩🏻👩🏻🦰👱🏻♀️
Peter the Great had his wife’s lover executed and his head placed into a jar of alcohol. She was required to keep it in her bedroom at all times. (That’s a kinky threesome, for sure.)
Mary Todd (OMG)
Stephen Douglas’s antagonism towards Abraham Lincoln stemmed partly from the fact that Mary Todd had chosen Lincoln over Douglas as a suitor. Mary Todd met both Douglas and Lincoln at the same time and was courted by both. Her ambition led her to evaluate the two men and she chose Lincoln as the most likely to attain future success and as her own best chance for glory.(Who knew Mary Todd wasn’t just crazy but was a slut too?)
In ancient Greece, women counted their age from the date on which they were married, not from the day they were born, signifying that the wedding marked the start of a women’s real-life.(You could end up with a wife who was supposedly twenty years old but really fifty. Yikes!)
The fourth Mogul Emperor, Jahangir, who ruled from 1605 to 1627, had a harem of 300 royal wives, 5000 additional women, and 1000 young men for alternate pleasures.(The man was obviously horny and insane.)
Alexander Gustave Eiffel, the builder of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which opened in 1889, created at its peak the highest man-made love nest so that he could carry on his personal trysts. The aerie is now opened to all visitors. (Guys will do anything to get high and get laid.)
👩🏻👩🏻🦰👱🏻♀️
The British trounced George Washington’s depleted army at White Plains, then at Fort Washington, then at Brandywine, then at Germantown, and could have easily delivered the knockout blow at Valley Forge in the ferocious winter of 1777–78. But they didn’t. They didn’t attack because William Howell, the British general in command of George III’s forces in the colonies, had found warm comfort in nearby Philadelphia with a certain Mrs. Loring. By spring, the colonial army was able to wiggle off the hook.(Wow! Our country was saved by one piece of strange.)
The Babylonians auctioned off marriageable girls every year. Men had to bid high for the most attractive girls, and their money provided dowries so that the ugly girls, for whom no one would bid, could find husbands. (I think we should reinstitute this immediately.)
By the end of the 16th century, there were approximately 11,600 courtesans in Venice, twelve times the number of patrician wives. The names and addresses of the courtesans were published in a book, copies of which may be seen today in the library of St. Mark. The courtesans were the only commoners who mixed with ease with the Venetian upper class. (And you thought Las Vegas was bad.)
Catherine the Great BOW WOW!
After his love affair of two years with Catherine the Great, Gregory Alexandrovich Potemkin continued to be an important advisor to Catherine. He even helped to choose many of her subsequent lovers. (Every court should have a well-placed pimp in residence.)
When the Elector of Hanover became George I of England in 1714, His wife did not become Queen because she had committed adultery. He placed her under house arrest in Ahlden Castle, where she stayed for 32 years. Those who knew her fate called her the “Prisoner of Ahlden,” And so she remains in history. Ironically, George had arrived in England with his two mistresses. At that time adultery was only a crime for wives.(I’ll bet her guards were well satisfied.)
The first mention of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was in the 5th century BCE. They were some of the greatest human achievements at that time. The list was used over the centuries by many medieval writers but was mainly concerned with the accomplishments of the Greek or Roman empires. At that time very little was known of faraway cultures and their creations. Here is the traditional list of seven:
Giza Pyramids (Egypt), The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Iraq), Temple of Artemis (Turkey), Statue of Zeus (Greece), the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (Turkey), the Colossus of Rhodes (Greece), and the Pharos of Alexandria (Egypt).
While these seven were indeed a wonder, there were many other places elsewhere on the globe with achievements worthy of mention. Here are just a few to make my point:
The Great Wall (China), Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Machu Picchu (Peru), the Taj Mahal (India), the Moai Statues (Easter Island), the Aztec Temple of Tenochtitlan (Mexico), the Shwedagon Pagoda (Myanmar), and the Coliseum (Italy).
These were just a few. I could easily have named at least two dozen more. Let’s change categories now to name the Seven Wonders of the Industrial Age.
The Transcontinental Railroad (USA), the London Sewer System England), the Panama Canal (Panama), Hoover Dam (USA), the Three Gorges Dam (China), the Banaue Rice Terraces (Philippines), and the Bell Rock Lighthouse (Scotland).
What about the modern world and it’s wonders? Here are seven more to consider:
Itaipu Dam (Brazil), the Channel Tunnel (England/France), the Twin Towers (USA), the Zuider Zee Dam (Netherlands), the Petronas Towers (Indonesia), the CN Tower (Canada), and the Burj Khalifa (UAE).
I’ve offered up a lot of information here and many will likely disagree with some of my choices. The point of this historical rampage was to show that creativity and wonder aren’t limited to one country or one continent. The wonders of the world are too numerous to list, and every country has their own favorites. I find it amazing that as a species we have so many similarities and so little understanding of each other. Maybe someday it will improve.
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.
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