I’ve spent the last three years of my life immersed in our medical systems and believe me I’m not complaining. Our healthcare systems are almost certainly overpriced but since they’ve kept me alive for the last three years, I don’t mind so much. Another plus for me is that I’ve had more time than I ever thought possible to read and digest ten tons of medical jargon and terminology. Am I any smarter? Probably not, but I picked up a boatload of trivia and useless information that I feel obligated to pass onto you. Here are some facts you probably never wanted to know but what the hell, here they are anyway
Did You Know . . .
There are more than 2 million sweat glands (estimated 2,381,248) on the skin of an average human, according to Gray’s anatomy.
The technical name for a human armpit is the axilla.
If you ever see a human being with uncontrollable winking of the eyes, they are exhibiting symptoms of blepharospasms.
The only bone in the human body that is not connected to another bone is in the throat, at the back of the tongue. It is a horseshoe shaped bone called the hyoid.
The largest organ in the human body by weight are the lungs. Together they weigh approximately 42 ounces. The right lung is 2 ounces heavier than the left, and the lungs of males are heavier than the female.
Could you find your buccal cavity? It’s not a trick question, that is the terminology used for the inside of your mouth.
Were you aware that the epidermis, the outer layer of skin, replaces itself every four weeks.
The kidney was the first organ ever transplanted. The operation was by Dr. Richard H Lawler in 1956. His patient Ruth Tucker, lived for five years with her new kidney.
Did you know there are approximately 45 miles of nerves in the adult human body?
The average lifespan of a human being’s tastebud is from 7 to 10 days.
HUMAN BODY’S ARE AMAZING – THE PEOPLE UNFORTUNEATELY ARE NOT
I’ve talked about “Fake News” in the past and it seems to be a current buzz word when talking about the politicians and media. What many people don’t realize is that fake news is nothing new. It’s been around forever. For years as I grew up, I accompanied my mother and two ex-wives on food shopping trips. While they were checking out, I had the misfortune of killing time reading some of the cheesy tabloids available at the registers. They were full of impossible news items which were funny as hell but hopefully only a fool would have thought any of them to be true. Here is a small collection of headlines from that era that will bring a smile to your face.
1993
BAT WITH A HUMAN FACE
TOWN ELECTS MIDGET POLICE CHIEF
BABY CATCHES BULLET WITH HIS GUMS
KID WITH 3 ARMS IS BASEBALL SENSATION
JUNK FOOD CAUSES TEENS TO WORSHIP THE DEVIL
MY WIFE’S GOST STILL COOKS, CLEAN & IRONS MY SHIRTS
HUMAN JELLYFISH SAYS RUB MY BELLY
WHALE EATERS UNITE
MAN KILLED BY FALLING BIBLE
SWORD SWALLOWER LAUGHED SO HARD HE SLIT HIS THROAT
GOLIATH’S SKULL FOUND IN HOLY LAND
STADIUM HAS SPECIAL AREA FOR NUDISTS
SECRET INGREDIENT IN NEW SKIN CREAM – GOBS OF HUMAN FAT
CHURCH COMMUNION CAN SPREAD AIDS
MAN GIVES GIRLFRIEND PERFUME MADE FROM HIS OWN SWEAT
As I’ve stated many times in the past, I’ve always had a fascination with graveyards and cemeteries. With that thought in mind, here are a few of my favorite humorous epithets. It’s good to have a sense of humor even after death.
I’ll be the history fanatic today offering you a few facts that most people haven’t heard or read about. So, no run-of-the-mill stuff today. I hope you enjoy them.
1900
In Brussels, a young anarchist made an assassination attempt on the Prince of Wales. (Future King Edward VII). His Royal Highness reputedly explained, “Fuck it, I’ve taken a bullet.”, although he was in fact untouched.
1902
So numerous were the mistresses of Edward VII that at his coronation a special pew, known as the “loose box” was reserved for them.
1904
The French physician and psychiatrist, Madeleine Pelletier, A cross-dressing celibate feminist, became a Freemason, joining the Novell Jerusalem lodge.
1905
The 25-stone Chelsea goalkeeper, William “Fatty” Folkes, lifted a Port Vale forward off the ground and hurled him into his own goal. The penalty was awarded against Chelsea.
1905
Maurice Garin won the Tour de France, but four months later it was shown that he had traveled some of the route by train rather than by bicycle.
1909
On 12 December, King Leopold II of the Belgians married Caroline Lacroix, a prostitute who had borne him two sons. He died five days later.
1912
As soon as the Titanic went down, the White Star Line, the ship’s owners, stopped the wages of the crew.
1914
On November 4, a British attempt to capture the port of Tanga in German East Africa was repelled when the invaders were attacked by swarms of bees and were obliged to retreat into the sea.
1915
In New York, the French artist Marcel Duchamp submitted a work entitled Fountain to the Salon des Independents, which rejected it. The work comprised a porcelain urinal, signed by “R. Mutt”
I thought today we might talk a little bit about food and drink. Just a little bit of trivia concerning some of our favorite consumables and some not so favorite. Don’t read this before you eat your lunch, it might put you off a little bit.
To make 1 pound of honey, bees must tap an average of 2 million flowers and fly more than 50,000 miles.
In ancient times oranges, not apples, were known as the” Fruits of the Gods”.
Some fast-food hamburgers are made of only 12% meat.
More than 45% of Americans eat fast food once a week.
To burn the calories consumed while eating a McDonald’s Big Mac, large fries, and a large soda, you must walk briskly for seven straight hours.
The US FDA allows pizza sauce at fast food restaurants to contain a maximum of 30 fly eggs per 100 grams, or 15 fly eggs and one maggot per 100 grams.
Each day McDonald’s feeds more people than the entire population of Spain.
Worcestershire sauce is created by dissolving the whole anchovies in vinegar, until the bones melt.
Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.
Honey is the only natural food that does not rot. Theoretically honey could sit for 1 million years and remain completely edible.
On average there are more than 1200 calories in movie theater popcorn if you include the butter topping. That’s the equivalent of the calories in one pound of baby back ribs or two McDonald’s Big Macs.
M&Ms are the top-selling candy in the United States. Second is Reese’s peanut butter cups and third is the Snickers bar.
In China, the most popular use of ketchup is as a condiment for fried chicken.
The French government banned ketchup in its primary schools in 2011, fearing it would encourage children to develop Americanized taste preferences.
No more than two rodent hairs, or 29 gnawed kernels, can be shipped in a pound of popcorn.
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.
The subject of this posting is synchronicity which is just another fancy word for coincidence. Being a former criminal investigator I was trained to believe there is no such thing as coincidence. For quite a few years I truly believed that there weren’t but one midnight shift in the summer of 1974 change all that. I’ll try to keep this as short as possible but I tend to ramble so bear with me.
It was an extremely hot August night; it was Sunday which was one of the slowest days of the week for police business. My partner and I were bored out of our minds because due to the heat there was very little activity. Around 2:30 in the morning we drove back to the state police barracks to check on the desk man who was working alone in the building. We brought him some soft drinks and lunch and we settled down to kill a few minutes.
We walked into the desk area, and it was like a bomb went off in there. He had been given an assignment on a slow night to start purging old reports from the files. We’re talking reports going back for years or more and he had three large trash barrels completely filled with pink slips. The pink slips were slips where each call was recorded and then forwarded to the appropriate officers for follow-up and reports. While both of us felt really sorry for the desk man, we didn’t feel sorry enough to jump into that nightmare. After 20 minutes of whining, we were guilted into helping the poor guy.
I was standing over one of the trash barrels that must’ve contained at least 400 old pink slips. While I was talking to the desk man I randomly picked one up and quickly read the title. Now you got to go back with me a few minutes because an hour or so prior to our visit to the barracks we’d been on a call for a suspicious vehicle at a specific residence at a specific time in the northern part of our county. I looked down at the pink slip I’d picked out of the barrel, and it was dated exactly one year ago and concerned a suspicious vehicle at a specific residence at a specific time in the northern part of the county. It was identical to the call we just completed. Exactly the same residence at exactly the same time and for the same reason. Then it got really weird because the officers assigned to the original complaint were my partner and me. To say we were stunned is an understatement.
To this day I can hardly believe the whole thing happened but it did. I have absolutely no explanation as to how that could have come about which I suppose is what keeps it interesting to this day. It’s made me wonder upon occasion if some of the weird coincidences we hear about are absolutely true.
I just finished reading a book titled Incredible Coincidences, written by Alan Vaughan. He documents dozens and dozens of cases similar to this and of course can offer no explanation for his either. It seems to me that it happens way more than we think if his book is any indicator. I’m still not a big believer in all the weirdness that people alleged is out there, but this incident gave me pause.
Like everyone else I spend an inordinate amount of my time people watching, listening, and wondering. We all do it and most of us find it enjoyable but even those that don’t do find it interesting and curious. As I surf the Net I’ve read thousands of articles that center most of their interests on people. Looking at it from my perspective, what else is there to write about that will capture an audience. People are by far the most interesting and disturbing characters to examine that I’ve found. Dogs? No way, Cats? Not so much, Trees? Boring . . .
Once I made the decision to write primarily about people is when I stumbled upon reams and reams of information that I found cute, somewhat interesting, and some that were just down-right stupid. With that in mind I thought I’d send along a few facts to amuse and inform you.
40% of all people who come to a party in your home snoop in your medicine cabinet. (Remember this when you throw your next party)
Every day 200 million couples make love, 400,000 babies are born, and 140,000 people die. (Our three main interests)
Over the same period of time, women who read romance novels tend to have twice as many lovers as those who don’t. (Romance novels = motivation)
The frequency with which a woman has orgasms during her sleep actually increases as she ages during her childbearing years. (Is it any wonder they think they can do without man completely)
Mothers pregnant with boys are less forgetful than those carrying girls. (I don’t know what to make of this tidbit)
Girls have more taste buds than boys. (I can go off-color here but I won’t)
As I’ve stated many times before I want to meet the people who research these odd bits of information just out of sheer curiosity. I’d like to know if these facts are really as accurate as they say. I also want to submit my resume to them for their next job opening. This would have to be the best freaking job on the planet and I want in.
I am not now or ever have been considered a religious person. I’ve read as much information as I could find on almost every major religion over the years. It was my vain attempt to convince myself one way or the other that such a thing was necessary in my life. I accomplished my goal but it left me with volumes of information on religions both interesting and some not so much. Today I’ll post some strange but true religious trivia and you can do with it what you will.
The temple of all faiths: Birla Temple in New Delhi, India, includes separate areas for worship for every known religion.
It was not until the fourth century that the church (Christianity) began to celebrate the feast of Christmas.
The first Bible printed in America in 1663 was a translation into the Algonkian language.
The word “and” appears 46,277 times in the King James version of the Bible.
Hijmar, a holy man of Benares, India, held his left arm in the same position for 12 years.
The first book digest: Dubash Meghji, of Zanzibar., ate one page of the Koran each day for thirty years.
Each year Shia Muslims in Ahmadabad, India, mourn the death of Imam Husain, a descendant of the prophet Mohammad, by whipping themselves with knife-tipped chains.
In 1993, Israel’s telephone company offered a service for people to fax messages to God, to be placed in the Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall.
Forty nuns at a convent in Stetyl, the Netherlands, have maintained a continuous prayer in their chapel for ninety-eight years.
The people who worship a nail: The Maria Gonds of Chandra, India, pray only to a 12 inch spike.
In 1685 a church bell from a Protestant chapel in France was whipped and burned after being charged with “inflaming the hearts of heretics”.
Prayer stones addressed to Egyptian god Ra and sold to worshippers in Ancient Egypt had large ears engraved on them – so Ra would be sure to hear their messages.
In 1992 a historic church in Melle, France, installed a juke box that plays Gregorian chants, Tibetan mantras, and Jewish liturgical music.
And last but not least:
Ancient Egyptian priests in 450 b.c. trained baboons to sweep out their temples.
It’s easy to get on a lengthy sentimental journey of sorts during the Christmas season but with this posting I hope to avoid that. Christmas and all of it’s incarnations worldwide are interesting and strange to say the least. Here are a host of weird and strange Christmas factoids you may not be aware of but are true nonetheless.
Japanese people traditionally eat at KFC for Christmas dinner, thanks to a successful marketing campaign 40 years ago. KFC is so popular that customers must place their Christmas orders 2 months in advance.
Paul McCartney earns $400,000 a year off his Christmas song, which is widely regarded as the worst song he ever recorded.
Mistletoe kissing originated with fertility rites. The hanging sprig is a very ancient symbol of virility and therefore anybody standing beneath it is signaling that he or she is sexually available.
About half of Sweden’s population watches Donald Duck cartoons every Christmas Eve since 1960 .
Mormon missionaries can only call home twice a year: once on Mother’s Day and again on Christmas.
Don’t you feel bad for poor old Paul McCartney. He reaped only $400,000.00 a year for a crappy song. Keep the lucky bastard in your Christmas prayers. And KFC for Christmas in Japan? That’s as weird as it gets.
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen is the only record to get the UK Christmas Singles Chart Number One twice, once in 1975 and again in 1991.
Engineers designing the Voyager Space mission planned it to avoid planetary encounters over Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The US playing card company ‘Bicycle’ had manufactured a playing card in WW2. That, when the card was soaked, it would reveal an escape route for POWs. These cards were Christmas presents for all POWs in Germany. The Nazis were none the wiser.
The people of Oslo, Norway donate the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree every year in gratitude to the people of London for their assistance during WWII.
The Christmas Tree is a manufactured tradition. Victorian intellectuals invented the tradition as part of a social movement to consciously reform Christmas away from its tradition of raucous drinking.
Hooray for Freddy Mercury and Queen. Their Christmas song just has to be better than McCartney’s. The Victorians did us no favors so bring back all that raucous drinking, please.
Christmas as a "day off" is a recent innovation. As late as 1850, December 25 was not a legal holiday in New England.
The Beatles hold the record for most Xmas number 1 singles, topping the charts in 1963, 65 and 67.
The highest-grossing holiday movie is 2000’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas, which has raked in $175m so far.
Hanging stockings comes from the Dutch custom of leaving shoes packed with food for St Nicholas’s donkeys. He would leave small gifts in return.
There is no reference to angels singing anywhere in the Bible.
No angels singing in the Bible. Isn’t that just a giant kick in the ass? Personally I don’t think there was much singing at all in the Bible. People were too busy begatting and killing to have time for singing.
Jesus was probably born in a cave and not a wooden stable, say Biblical scholars.
In 1999, residents of the state of Maine in America built the world’s biggest ever snowman. He stood at 113ft tall.
The holly in a wreath symbolizes Christ’s crown of thorns while the red berries are drops of his blood.
Jingle Bells was the first song broadcast from space when Gemini 6 astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra sang it on December 16, 1965.
Astronomers believe the Star Of Bethlehem, which guided the wise men to Jesus, may have been a comet or the planet Uranus.
I’m glad to see the state of Maine making the list. Although how proud can you be about a giant snowman. Snow is about all we have to offer except for a few billion pine trees.
Santa Claus has different names around the world – Kriss Kringle in Germany, Le Befana in Italy, Pere Noel in France and Deushka Moroz (Grandfather Frost) in Russia.
In Britain, the best-selling holiday song is Band Aid’s 1984 track, Do They Know It’s Christmas?, which sold 3.5 million copies. Wham! is next in the same year with Last Christmas, selling 1.4 million.
US scientists calculated that Santa would have to visit 822 homes a second to deliver all the world’s presents on Christmas Eve, travelling at 650 miles a second.
Despite the tale of three wise men paying homage to baby Jesus, the Bible never gives a number. Matthew’s Gospel refers to merely "wise men".
There are 13 Santa’s in Iceland, each leaving a gift for children. They come down from the mountain one by one, starting on December 12 and have names like Spoon Licker, Door Sniffer and Meat Hook.
Another misquote from the Bible. Are you shocked? Not me. And thanks to all of those scientists for taking the time out of their busy work day to compute those figures. Get a life guys.
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