Archive for the ‘stupid’ Tag
As you already know I really love passing on my never-ending lists of totally useless crap to my readers. I hope it helps make all of you moderately good Trivial Pursuit players as well as the winner of many a bar wager. I thought I’d take a somewhat different approach this time and make things a bit more interesting.
Usually I just supply the facts for you to enjoy but not today. I had a few readers give me some grief recently about never having any interesting facts from the music sector. The following ten questions need answered and it’s up to each of you to provide them. Are you up for the challenge? Even if you’re a true musical aficionado these music related questions should challenge even you. I’ll supply the answers tomorrow so let’s see just how good your trivia skills really are.
1. In 1926, the police raided Mae West Broadway show ‘Sex’ and jailed her on vice charges. What did the wisecracking blonde sexpot claim when she was freed after serving 8 days of her 10 day sentence?
2. Who was the first person ever awarded a gold record?
3. What singer named Clara Ann Fowler at birth adopted the name of the milk company that sponsored her first radio show?
4. What famous entertainer was known as Annie Mae Bullock before she adopted her stage name?
5. The singing duo of Caesar and Cleo only achieved fame under another name. What was it?
6. Country music comedienne, Minnie Pearl, always wore a hat with a price tag on it when she performed. What was the amount written on the price tag?
7. Who was the only cast member of the hit rock musical ‘Hair’ who refused to shed her clothes in the nude closing number?
8. What top rock group took it’s name from a song by blues great Muddy Waters?
9. Under what name did New Wave singer-songwriter Declan McManus gain fame?
10. What famous singer, after receiving an honorary degree from Georgetown University, enrolled as a freshman and earned a BA in Theology?
I told you they weren’t easy. I’m guessing anyone who scores more than five correct answers really knows their stuff. Check back tomorrow for the answers. I think you’ll find them interesting.
It’s not unusual these days to hear people from other countries constantly complaining about America, Americans, and everything else American. We’re too loud, we’re too arrogant, we’re bullies, and on and on it goes. After continuously hearing all of that I then wonder why it is that so many of the same people from every nation on the planet would die to come here. Many hundreds of illegals have died in the deserts of northern Mexico just trying to cross the border to get here.
I always assume that money is the motivation for everything as well as political persecution but both of those things can be avoided by fleeing to many other countries besides the United States. Why then does everyone want to be here? As I lounged in my bed this morning a thought came to me that might explain it. As you know many countries have an odd assortment of traditions and customs that are truly weird and strange to us. I think many of our traditions are equally strange to them. They can’t seem to understand why we do certain things but they want to experience them with us. I’ve put together a list of ten things we Americans do that even I don’t understand. Lets take a look at them.
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Black Friday Shopping Sprees – My better-half and hundreds of thousands of others religiously participate in this insanity. I know that she and I will never spend Black Friday together unless I bow to this tradition.
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Presidential Turkey Pardons – This is so lame it’s embarrassing to admit that it’s true. Eat the freaking bird and be done with it. So freaking dumb!
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Gay Pride Parades - I can’t think of any reason why these are necessary at all. Maybe we need a Heterosexual Pride Parade every so often where we can get crazy and half-naked and make complete fools of ourselves. Oh wait, I forgot we have Spring Break for that.
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Tailgate Parties – This is just a further extension of the nations sports obsession. These get togethers continue to get more ridiculous every year but it’s something the Food channel can’t survive without.
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Cow Tipping – This is reported to be a true American tradition from the Midwestern part of the country. I’ve never seen it done nor have I ever participated in cow tipping. It’s just another reason to give the folks living in farm country a hard time. Funny but unverified.
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Punkin Chunkin – I’ve watched this on TV a few times but really didn’t think it was much of a tradition until two years ago. My better-half and I were riding around enjoying the pretty Fall colors when we came upon dozens of cars parked near a farmers field. People were standing around in groups watching some locals chunking pumpkins across the field. Every time one exploded everyone cheered. Why, I have no freaking idea.
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Watching Super Bowl Commercials – I have many more friends who watch the Super Bowl just for the commercials rather than the game itself. Go figure!
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Roadside Death Shrines - Over the years I’ve seen hundreds of these shrines built by friends and family of people killed in traffic accidents. Again, I don’t understand the need to build a shrine along some road. Some are really unbelievable. I saw one near my home that had it’s own decorated Christmas Tree.
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Sensationalism - Everything in this country is sensationalized. Crimes of the Century, Games of the Century, Storms of the Century, and anything else you can think of. If it isn’t the biggest and baddest in history it just isn’t worth mentioning. This is one tradition we could do without.
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Ground Hog Day Predictions - This is so stupid I really thought about not mentioning it at all. So consider it not mentioned.
Come one! Come all! All you crazy folks from around the globe. It’s taken America more than two hundred years but we finally developed and celebrate as many weird and stupid things as the people in your homeland do. You should fit right into this looney-bin we call America. So come on down.
I’ve been accused on occasion of thinking everyone I’ve ever met is stupid. I’m really not that jaded to think something that’s so ridiculous. I do believe that every person on the planet has the capability to have moments of genius and just as many have moments of stupid, myself included. I’m just fascinated and maybe overly so by people either being “stupid” or just acting “stupid”. I’ve dealt with and interviewed thousands of people over the years and the number that could be considered “stupid” by any normal human being is nothing less than mind boggling. I’ve also known my fair share of genius level people, both male and female, and almost all of them come across as “stupid” when you discuss anything except their specific fields of interest. They are so focused on them that everything else is unimportant.
I’ve reread a book recently that’s translated from the Italian and it was all about “Stupid”. The authors name was Carlo M. Cipolla and he was Professor Emeritus of Economic History at Berkeley. His first book was published in 1988 in Bologna and in that book there’s an essay called The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, which may be the best thing ever written on the subject.
Here are his Five Laws of Stupidity somewhat paraphrased:
1. We always underestimate the number of stupid people.
He also observes that it is impossible to set a percentage, because any number we choose will be too small.
2. The probability of a person being stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
Militant feminists may be incensed, says Cipolla, but the stupidity factor is the same in both genders (or as many genders, or sexes, as you may choose to consider). No difference in the sigma factor, as Cipolla calls it, can be found by race, color, ethnic heritage, education, etcetera.
3. (And Golden) A stupid person is someone who causes damage to another person, or a group of people, without any advantage accruing to himself (or herself) — or even with some resultant self-damage.
(We shall come back to this, because it is the pivotal concept of the Cipolla Theory.)
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid people. They constantly forget that at any moment, and in any circumstance, associating with stupid people invariably constitutes an expensive mistake.
That (I would say) suggests that non-stupid people are a bit stupid — but I shall get back to this point at the end.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous person in existence.
This is probably the most widely understood of the Laws, if only because it is common knowledge that intelligent people, hostile as they might be, are predictable, while stupid people are not. Moreover, its basic corollary:
A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.
He leads us to the heart of the Cipolla Theory. There are four types of people, he says, depending on their behavior in a transaction:
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Hapless – Someone whose actions tend to generate self-damage, but also to create advantage for someone else.
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Intelligent – Someone whose actions tend to generate self-advantage, as well as advantage for others.
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Bandit – Someone whose actions tend to generate self-advantage while causing damage to others.
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Stupid – We already have this definition in the Third Law.
It has become painfully obvious to me that I haven’t even scratched the surface of “stupid” compared to Mr. Cipolla. I’ve accepted the fact that my reading and understanding of “stupid” must be taken to the next level or maybe I’m just being “stupid” too.
I have a lot of fun pointing out “stupid” on this blog and will continue to do until it stops being funny. Hopefully at some point in the future I’ll be able to sit down and rewrite Cipolla’s Laws from a more modern perspective and with a touch more humor.
“IT IS ONE OF THE BLESSINGS OF OLD FRIENDS THAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO BE STUPID WITH THEM”. Ralph Waldo Emerson
In my effort to maintain some sort of handle on our modern day culture I spend a portion of my time exploring the odd and weird corners of this wonderful tool called the Internet. You’ll notice that nowhere in that last sentence was the word FUN mentioned. The reason being that most of the time there is no fun involved.
I may have made a few mentions in the past concerning women, their foibles and humorous approaches to life in general. Sometimes they are interesting and sometimes not so much. Today it’s time to even things up a little and give some men the boot in the ass they seem to deserve.
I landed on a web site recently called askmen.com where a list of the Top 99 Women of 2013 had been created and posted. I’m not sure how you determine the 99 Top Women for 2013 when it’s only April. I guess if you’re a women who does something really great or interesting in the last eight months of this year, you don’t count. The site is a little unclear who was responsible for making this list or the requirements needed to be named. Is it the prettiest, the sexiest, the smartest, the biggest boobs, the nicest ass, or what? I still don’t know.
Being the curious person that I am I began at the bottom of the list with Berenice Marlohe. Who the hell is that you ask, why it’s the newest James Bond girl. My first thought was “So What!” Then to Kim Kardashian, who needs no introduction to her stupid and ignorant fans in this country. Next I find Kate Moss, the former drug using model who now gets naked so she can appear with Rihanna in the magazine "V".
Let’s recap so far. One untested actress, one money hungry TV slut, and one second rate model forced to show her goods as a backdrop to Rihanna. That tells me immediately this is not the list of possible women role models for our younger generations nor is it the list of women who’ve made any noticeable contributions to our society. It’s the list of what some unknown list-maker has decided are the most sexy and easiest babes to look at. I might be forced to question this list-maker’s qualifications because in my opinion he doesn’t have a clue. I don’t want to get into a rant on this subject just yet so let’s check out a few more of their so called candidates for fame and fortune.
Next is Paula Gretsky, daughter of Wayne. Fresh from her bikini shoot at Maxim magazine. Then comes Raquel Diaz aka Rocsi, a BET video show hostess, and then Jenna Marbles, a former YouTube sensation, who put out a half-assed video that happened to go viral. WTF is going on? I should tell you now that Jennifer Lawrence was the number one selection for 2013 and that Charlize Theron came in at number 97. This list-maker is either blind, stupid, or fifteen years old. Does that make any kind of sense to you at all? It doesn’t for me.
I’ve always gone out of my way to defend my gender but it’s times like this I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. This web site should be avoided at all costs and I won’t be providing a link to it here. These so-called lists created from their so-called readership seem to me to be bogus. It’s just a cheap and lame attempt to drive the hit rate of their site with as many hot female bodies as they can find. It’s the same scheme used by Sports Illustrated every year with their Swimsuit Edition. Hey guys, it’s already been done to death so please stop. As a man I’m a little embarrassed by the whole thing and so should all of you.
I think today will be designated as “OMG I’m So Effing Bored Day”. I have an industrial strength case of the blah’s and a total lack of interest in just about everything. Since this blog has been officially christened “Every Useless Thing”, I should build on that. There are times when mind-numbing bullshit is necessary to help clear away the cob webs, to give me the ability to turn off the freaking cell phone, to stay at home away from the world, and chill.
Did you know that:
“PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS”
is the longest technical word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It is a type of lung disease. If that little tidbit of BS doesn’t set off your snooze alarm then there’s something wrong and you need to seek professional help.
Try this one:
Showers account for 32% of home water usage.
Someone who feels much as I do today took time out of his boring ass life to do that research. Are you properly impressed, I doubt it.
Here’s another:
People who collect Teddy Bears are archtophilists.
Or this:
In ballet, a male dancer is called a danseur.
That’s real shocking piece of useless trivia. What the hell else would they be called. Are you snoring yet? Give me a few more minutes. Try this one on for size:
The small intestine is longer than the large intestine.
It only gets worse from here:
When humans are at rest, 15% of their blood is in their brains.
The lesson learned from that fact is that no matter what men tell you, this is the truth of things. Let’s continue.
Sexual intercourse between chimpanzees lasts, on average, 3 seconds.
And you ladies out there thought your high school boyfriends were bad. It just goes to show the dumber you are the quicker you succumb. I could continue on like this for hours but as I said earlier I’m effing bored today so I’ll do one more then stop.
In the State of Arizona it’s illegal to keep more than 2 dildo’s in your house.
Reason number 355 why you don’t ever want to live there. Well, this has been a barrel of laughs but I’m done. Tomorrow’s is definitely another day.
everyuselessthing.com 