Good morning readers. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m within two weeks of celebrating my tenth year of blogging which I think requires me to do an honest review of myself. I have to admit it’s been a real learning experience but one I wouldn’t change for anything. I never decided to blog because I thought I had all the answers or that my philosophy of life was of any interest to anyone but me. I blog primarily to keep myself sane. Blogging is a good way for me to vent and lower my blood pressure all at the same time. I especially enjoy reading the feedback even if it’s discourteous, rude, or off-color. It’s called freedom of speech.
I initially blogged about personal stories of my life but found out very quickly that family and friends dislike notoriety. From that point on I made sure to never mention names or to post any family members photographs.
I then moved into politics and voiced my opinions rather loudly and pointedly. It helped me to quickly discover that most blog surfers are of the “sound bite” generations. My goal then became writing a variety of articles that would keep readers reading to the end. It involved a mix of politics, humor, sarcasm, trivia, and whatever else I could find. I’m interested in anyone who really wants to take the time to read every word, think about it for a while, and then comment with a yea or nay. I’m not looking for approval just honest and open discussions and opinions.
After my interest in political blogging waned I decided to return to writing about personal stories from my past. It seemed the best way to go if I wanted to increased traffic. It also seemed that I wasn’t the only person fed up with politics and politicians. I love embracing change and have done so many times over the years. An old quote I heard many years ago still holds true today: “the greatest opportunities are found on the edge of chaos”.
I have a rather loyal following of readers who’ve stayed with me through my cancer diagnosis, surgeries, and a year of little or no blog postings. I’d like to thank them all for their continuing interest and support. It made returning to this blog a much easier transition than I had ever hoped for. Thanks again.
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.
It’s been a long week and I’m a little sick of thinking or talking about politics, younger generations, and the pandemic. I’m on overload with more news about masks and all of the assorted BS that goes along with that. I think it’s time for another installment of Totally Useless Trivia. The following items came into my files over the last few years and I love saving them for these not-so-special occasions. Let’s get started.
As an adult human being you have more than 20 square feet of skin on your body about the same square footage as a blanket for a queen-size bed. How creepy is that?
We Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza each day, or 350 slices per second. Yet for some reason we still don’t seem to understand why obesity is running rampant through the country. Are we really that stupid?
An estimated 800,000 senior citizens voluntarily give up their driving privileges each year. The average age at which they surrender the wheel is 85.
All of the clocks in the movie “Pulp Fiction” read 04:20. Rent the movie and check it out.
Americans appear to have the most sex at 132 times a year, with the Russians close behind at 122 times a year. Hard to believe the the French are only at 121. Let it be known that I’m officially volunteering to verify these numbers.
A portion of the water you drink every day has already been drunk by someone else, maybe several times over. This I didn’t really need to know, Ewwwwwwww!
About 1.7 liters of saliva is produced each day in an average person. You can’t have those long sloppy wet kisses without it.
A healthy individual releases 3.5 oz of gas in a single flatulent emission, or about 17 oz in a day. Wonderful, just freaking wonderful.
A kiss stimulates 29 muscles and chemicals causing relaxation. Women seem to like it light and frequent while men like it more strenuous. I think it’s really 30 muscles if you get my drift. LOL
Condoms will last about a month when stored in a wallet; any longer and its more likely to break. Wish I would have known this back in high school. I carried one for three years.
A Georgia company will mix your loved one’s ashes with cement and drop it into the ocean to form an artificial Reef. It must be “Greenie” heaven.
35 billion emails are sent each day throughout the world. Who cares, it’s mostly SPAM anyway.
61,000 people are airborne over the US at any given time. From a former white-knuckle flier, “better them than me.”
3,400,000 Americans are considered “Extreme Commuters”. These are people who commute over 90 minutes round trip every day to work. Anyone who’s ever lived in a major metro area can verify this one. Route 128 in Boston was my home for years.
That should curb your craving for stupid and useless information for another week or so. When you start going into withdrawal, drop me an email and I’ll fix you right up.
On most days I try terribly hard to keep this blog as PG as possible. However I’m occasionally forced to break that rule when I receive information like this. Be warned, I’ll be skimming the surface of an R rating today. If you’re naive, innocent, or virginal you might skip this posting altogether. I wouldn’t want to corrupt any of you or your children.
I’ve known a few women over the years who are impossible to forget. I’ve had gay female friends, prudish female friends, promiscuous female friends, and even cute and naive female friends. This posting concerns one young lady who is memorable because of her overriding obsession with oral sex. We dated for a time but I couldn’t keep up with her no matter how hard I tried (no pun intended). We went our separate ways until she sent me an e-mail recently with these rules attached. You’ve got to remember I haven’t seen or spoken to her in 26 years but it’s somehow comforting to know somethings never change. Here are her 12 rules.
1. First and foremost, we are not obligated to do it.
2. Extension to rule number 1 – if you get one, be grateful.
3. No, I DON’T have to swallow.
4. My ears are NOT handles.
5. Having my period does not mean that it’s “HUMMER WEEK”. Get it through your head . . . I’m bloated and I feel like crap so no, I don’t feel particularly obligated to service you just because we can’t have sex right now.
6. “Blue Balls” might have worked on high school girls; If you’re that desperate, go “rub one out” and leave me alone with my Midol.
7. Leaving me in bed while you go play video games immediately after we’re done is highly inadvisable if you would like my behavior repeated any time in the future.
8. If you like how I do it, it’s probably best not to speculate about the origins of my talent. Just enjoy the moment and be happy that I’m good at it.
9. No, I don’t care about the protein content.
10. No, I will not do it while you watch TV.
11. When you hear your friends complain about how they don’t get serviced often enough, keep your mouth shut. It is inappropriate to either sympathize or to brag.
12. Just because “it’s awake” when you get up doesn’t mean I have to “kiss it good morning”.
I really hope this was sent to me as a tongue-in-cheek bit of humor but even now it’s hard for me to tell with this lady. It brought a smile to my face and made me laugh out loud which is always a great way to start my day. She was never too shy back in the day and it appears she hasn’t changed a lick (no pun intended).
This post was originally offered early in 2012 when I first started blogging for everyuselessthing. This list of questions I answered back then were an attempt by me to introduce myself to new readers. To see the original answers will require that you to search through my archives but the answers will be much the same now as they were then.
I want my readers to understand me. It’s the wish of almost every other human being on the planet that someone “gets us”. I’m going to list one hundred really stupid and simple questions and then post my answers. If you read them all and then bundle them into one huge ball of useless information, you just might have a better understanding of me. It may work or it may not but you’ll never know until you give it a try. To test it further ask a friend, lover, or family member to answer them. You might be surprised to find out they’re not exactly the person you thought. Here we go.
1. Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed? Open.
2. Do you take the shampoos and conditioner bottles from hotel? Yes.
3:Do you sleep with your sheets tucked in or out?Tucked out.
4:Have you ever stolen a street sign? Yes
5:Do you like to use post-it notes? Yes
6:Do you cut out coupons but then never use them? No, I hate coupons.
7:Would you rather be attacked by a big bear or a swarm of a bees? Bees, at least I’d survive.
8:Do you have freckles? A few scattered here and there.
9:Do you always smile for pictures? No, I hate being photographed.
10:What is your biggest pet peeve? People who talk-over me while in conversation.
11:Do you ever count your steps when you walk? Almost always.
12:Have you ever peed in the woods? Yes, it’s the best.
13:What about pooped in the woods? I have but it’s unpleasant.
14:Do you ever dance even if there’s no music playing? Only when I’m alone.
15:Do you chew your pens and pencils? Only pencils.
16:How many people have you slept with this week? Does my cat count? If she does then “2”.
17:What size is your bed? Queen.
18:What is your Song of the week? Marvin Gaye – Charlie Puth
19:Is it okay for guys to wear pink? Yes.
20:Do you still watch cartoons? Almost never.
21:What’s your least favorite movie? Anything with Will Ferrell in it.
22:Where would you bury hidden treasure if you had some? None of your business. It’s called ‘hidden treasure’ for a reason.
23:What do you drink with dinner? Seltzer Water or wine.
24:What do you dip a chicken nugget in? Ketchup.
25:What is your favorite food? Hamburgers.
26:What movies could you watch over and over and still love? Anything prior to 1950.
27:Last person you kissed/kissed you? My better-half.
28:Were you ever a boy/girl scout? Yes.
29:Would you ever strip or pose nude in a magazine? No, it might scare people.
30:When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper? 1990.
31:Can you change the oil on a car? Yes.
32:Ever gotten a speeding ticket? Oh yeah.
33:Ever ran out of gas? Once in 1975.
34:Favorite kind of sandwich? BLT, with lots of B.
35:Best thing to eat for breakfast? Bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee.
36:What is your usual bedtime? 11 PM.
37:Are you lazy? No.
38:When you were a kid, what did you dress up as for Halloween? At 45, I was Woody Allen.
39. Who is your favorite dead singer? Amy Winehouse
Loved Her
40:How many languages can you speak? 1.5
41:Do you have any magazine subscriptions? Yes, one.
42:Which are better Legos or Lincoln logs? Legos.
43:Are you stubborn?Yes.
44:Who is better…Leno or Letterman? Johnny Carson.
45:Ever watch soap operas? I used to.
46:Are you afraid of heights? Not really, no.
47:Do you sing in the car? Sometimes.
48:Do you sing in the shower? No.
49: Do you sleep clothed or naked? Naked.
50:Ever used a gun? Yes.
51:Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer? I was two years old.
52:Do you think musicals are cheesy? Some are, some not.
53:Is Christmas stressful? Yes, it’s a pain in the ass.
54:Ever eat a pierogi? Hundreds of times, Yummmm!
55:Favorite type of fruit pie? Apple.
56:Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid? Archeologist.
57:Do you believe in ghosts? No.
58:Ever have a Deja-vu feeling? Yes.
59:Take a vitamin daily? Yes.
60:Wear slippers? Yes.
61:Wear a bath robe? Yes.
62: How old were you when you lost your virginity? 14.
63:First concert? Harry Chapin.
64:Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart? Walmart, to people watch.
65:Nike or Adidas? Dr. Scholl
66:Cheetos Or Fritos? Cape Cod Potato Chips.
67:Peanuts or Sunflower seeds? Cashews.
68:Ever hear of the group Tres Bien? Hell no.
69:Ever take dance lessons? Yes. as a kid, 3 years.
70:Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing? No, there won’t be a future spouse.
71:Can you curl your tongue? Yes, and I know how to use it too.
72:Ever won a spelling bee? No.
73:Have you ever cried because you were so happy? Yes, at my divorce hearing.
74:Own any record albums? Yes, vinyl and CD’s.
75:Own a record player?Yes.
76:Regularly burn incense? Yes.
77:Ever been in love? Yes.
78:Who would you like to see in concert? Celine Dion.
79:How many tattoos do you have? Six small ones.
80:Hot tea or cold tea? Hot.
81:Tea or coffee? Coffee.
82:Sugar or snickerdoodles? Sweet’n’Low
83:Can you swim well? Yes.
84:Can you hold your breath without holding your nose? Yes.
85:Are you patient? Not really.
86:DJ or band, at a wedding? DJ.
87:Ever won a contest? Yes.
88:Ever have plastic surgery? No.
89:Which are better black or green olives? Green.
90:Can you knit or crochet? Neither.
91:Best room for a fireplace? Bed room.
92:Do you want to get married? Never again.
93. Do you wear glasses? Yes.
94:Who was your HS crush? Beth.
95:Do you ever cry and throw a fit until you get your own way? Only as an infant.
96:Do you have kids? Yes.
97:Do you want kids? No more thank you very much.
98:What’s your favorite color? Blue.
99:Do you miss anyone right now? Yes.
100: Have you ever been stung by a bee? Yes.
* * *
There you have it. My screwed up and over-explained personality in a nutshell. Remove a few of these questions and add your own. Personalize it as much as you think is necessary. Then have a few of your friends compete the questions and invite them over for a few bottles of wine and a group discussion. It might be a great deal of fun but even if it isn’t make sure you’re serving a really good wine.
Over the years I’ve wasted a great deal of my valuable time and efforts arguing about politics and political strategy. How stupid am I? Don’t answer that. It always feels good at first when your spewing your expert opinions to anyone who will listen. Fifty percent of them listen politely, smile, and later talk about what a bore you’ve become. The other fifty percent listen politely, wait until you’ve stopped talking, and then begin filling the air with their opinions and nonsense. They’ve listened to none of your ideas but waited patiently for you to shut up. You just gotta hate those A Type personalities.
I’ve always enjoyed finding and reading quotations from deceased politicians and a very few politically deceased politicians. Some are inciteful but many are not. The current hoard of elected officials never have quotes that are even a tiny bit interesting. Realizing that has forced me to find some lesser known politicians and journalists with quotes from the past that could actually impart some information that’s worth reading. You may not recognize some of the names but the quotes will speak for themselves.
“A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read.” Thomas Babbington (1859)
“A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation.” James F. Clark (1888)
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.
Bertrand Russell (1951)
“The press conference is a politician’s way of being informative without saying anything. Should he accidently say something, he has at his side a press officer who immediately explains it away by “clarifying” it.”
Emery Kelen (1960)
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” Groucho Marx (1977)
“I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.
Adlai Stevenson (1952)
These kinds of quotations were once plentiful but no longer. With newspapers losing readership there’s much less chance of any pearls of wisdom making the headlines. It’s truly a damn shame. Here’s one last and extremely old quote which remains as true today as it did in 1947.
“Politicians . . . rise predominantly from . . . the “lower middle class””; most are self-made men . . .; most depend on their political jobs for a livelihood and most have little time, inclination, of opportunity for adult education; hence the dominating qualities of so many are greed, vulgarity, attention to special interest, avarice, and selfishness.
I’m a huge internet rat and have been for years. I’ve seen ten thousand things I like and unfortunately a hundred thousand things I hate. Facebook has been going downhill in recent years in my humble opinion. I understand their need to continually come up with things to maintain and increase their numbers but come on . . . .
This recent rash of postings with people standing around with an arm load of signs attempting to take up as much of my time as possible to deliver a message to some blindfolded idiot. The individuals standing there being blindfolded and videoed are just sooooooooooo surprised and amazed. FAKE…FAKE…FAKE
Add to that the BS drama of outing a cheating partner or spouse with dozens of stupid flash cards makes me want to scream. It’s obvious to me that the ridiculous sign gimmick is just being used to increase their face time on-line. While some of them are somewhat believable the great majority are just LAME. Add into that all of the cheesy marriage proposals and I immediately feel the need to hurl.
Just as a side note: I’m a proud veteran who served for years. I don’t mind seeing the return-home videos but it has become ridiculous. People are posting happy returns from someone who served for 6 months in a training situation. As with everything on Facebook, these fads run their course after a time and become silly.
2d Side Note: Someone should make a universal announcement to the planet that the old and very stupid gimmick of wrapping a present in an endless number of packages became overused in the 1970’s. It’s just like bell bottom pants and platform shoes. SO OVER !!!!!
I expect nothing of importance from Facebook anyway so it’s hard to disappoint me. This crap will continue to clog the internet and drive any normal person mad.
After the last eighteen months of my illness there are many things that I’ve really missed. The Pandemic being the least of them. With all of the various surgeries, cancer, and chemotherapy dominating my every thought I’ve come to appreciate a long list of many little things that I took for granted for most of my life. The adage “Stop and Smell the Roses” suddenly means something. I’m glad I still have time left to really appreciate each and every one of them.
Spending an hour or two totally lost in a painting.
Spending time over the last few years watching two grandsons becoming thinking and intelligent little men.
Realizing after all these years just how precious these days have come to mean to me while sitting on the deck with my better-half enjoying the first sunshine of Spring.
Relaxing and sipping a Jack and Coke that I’m finally able to have now that my newly rebuilt liver permits it.
Being able to bitch and complain about anything that irks me and not giving a good damn about what people think.
Enjoying all of the freedoms that come with old age that you can’t really appreciate until you get here.
You can thank my better-half and three glasses of Jack and Coke for this posting. Maybe it will give those of you approaching the AARP age of fifty that it’s not quite as bad as you might think. When you’re given lemons make lemonade but make sure you have some Jack Daniels in it.
Now that Mr. Trump has been elected it’s been a real treat watching the Liberals and Mainstream Media losing their minds. The truth about media bias is no longer the big secret it once was except for those of us who have been paying attention for years. I thought after a few months of this nonsense it would gradually ease up but it hasn’t. They continue to chew on that dried up old bone until their brains explode. I’m a patient guy who will gladly wait around to watch their continuous escapades to strike out at Mr. Trump with little or no success.
This next item was sent to me by a friend. The first line is a the Medias lame attempt to belittle the President as being nothing more than a former reality television star. The fact that he is also a billionaire real estate developer is never mentioned.
Senator (To Be) Caitlyn Jenner
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Caitlyn Jenner has joined the list of celebrities who are considering running for political office in the United States following the election of former reality television star Donald Trump as president.
The remainder of the article concerned a short list of celebrities just dying to enter the political arena to teach the rest of us mouth-breathers just how things are supposed to be done. I say let them try. If we can have Obama for eight years and survive, we can live with Senator Caitlyn Bruce Jenner, Senator Kid Rock, or God forbid, President Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Just more humorous shit to enjoy as the country slowly slides towards some sort of Third-World status. Maybe we could start a new type of NATO organization to help keep us safe from our enemies. It could be called CRAP, the Cluster of Real Arab Pals. We could take a firm stand against Europe, China, and Russia with our new allies Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. We could sit around the meeting table and try desperately to convince each other what a bunch of bad asses we once were and how we will eventually rule the world. It’s much too depressing to contemplate.
I’m trying my hardest to not get into a rant about all of this but it isn’t easy. Let me calm down some and pass along a humorous joke sent my way recently from a friend in Kansas City. Here it is:
I was walking in the mall and I saw that there was a Muslim bookstore. The sign outside led me to wonder just what exactly was in a Muslim bookstore, so I went in.
As I was wandering around taking a look, the clerk gave me the stink eye, but asked if he could help me. I know I didn’t look like his normal clientele, so I asked, “Do you have a copy of Donald Trump’s book on his U.S. immigration policy regarding Muslims and illegal aliens?” The clerk said, “Kiss my ass, Get out, and Stay out!”
I said, “Yes, that’s the one. Do you have it in paperback?”
I’ve always been a lover of Nature and almost anything related to it. As a photographer I spend as much time as I can out-and-about communing with Mother Nature. I come by it honestly because as a kid growing up I spent more than half of my time in the woods with my friends. We lived on the edge of huge state park directly adjacent to the Allegheny River and knew every inch of the place. My father, a hunter, spent a lot of time explaining about local wildlife and how they lived and traveled in the wild. It was just a very cool place to grow up.
So I thought I’d share a few interesting factoids about Nature with you. Here they are.
Every year the world’s deserts produce 1.7 billion tons of dust.
Nature reserves and national park cover 3% of the worlds surface.
Over 99.9% of the land on earth is not occupied by a person at a given time.
A tenth of the world’s population relies on the Ganges for water.
It takes one hundred years for the deep-sea clam to grow to the length of a third of an inch.
Nearly half of the carbon dioxide emitted by humans since the beginning of the nineteenth century has been absorbed by the oceans.
An estimated 30% of Earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production.
Since the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, the sun has become 25-30% hotter.
More than 90% of the world’s rubies come from Burma (or whatever they’re calling it these days).
Lake Baikal in Russia contains about 20% of the world’s fresh water.
That’s it for today. It’s time to turn off this computer and get to work in the yard. Winter’s coming and the garden has to be deconstructed.
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