Archive for the ‘useless’ Tag
- The childhood nickname for advice columnist Ann Landers was “Eppie”.
- The name of the Weasley owl in the Harry Potter series of books by J.K. Rowling was “Errol”.
- The letters FTD originally stood for Florists Transworld Delivery.
- The word Pennsylvania is misspelled on the Liberty Bell as “Pensylvania”
- The 19 1/2 foot tall statue that stands atop the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. was designed by Thomas Crawford, installed on December 2, 1863, and is named the Statue of Freedom.
- The letters TCB of the gold pendant often worn by Elvis Presley, stood for “Taking care of business.”
- Tokyo Tsushin Denki was the original name of the Sony Corporation.
- Woolworth is a term in bowling for a 5-10 split.
- “For breakfast it’s dandy, for snacks it’s quite handy, or eat it like candy.” was the original advertising slogan for Post Sugar Crisp Cereal.
- Eric Clapton’s last name was actually “Clapp”.
And finally something interesting from Maine.
A 15-year-old resident of Farmington Maine who invented earmuffs in 1873 was Chester Greenwood.
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EVERYUSELESSTHING RULES
All those years ago when I started this blog I had difficulty deciding on the proper name for it. After weeks of overthinking and indecision I decided on everyuselessthing. Initially I did a lot of political ranting but that was a wasted effort. Political discussions are to me as boring and useless as discussions of religion and sports. This blog name gave me the freedom to say whatever I wanted about any subject that tweaked my interest. Occasionally I shift gears and blog about unrelated and quirky information I’ve gathered over the years. Trivia is a favorite topic for me and today I’m going to fill your trivia basket with weird and hopefully interesting facts. Here we go . . .
- Sean Connery once worked as a coffin polisher.
- Johnny Mathis dubbed Miss Piggy’s singing voice in The Muppet Movie.
- Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.
- The first TV sitcom couple to share a double bed were the Munster’s in 1964.
- The blood in the famous shower scene in Psycho was really Hershey’s chocolate syrup.
- A pigs orgasm lasts for thirty minutes.
- Twelve or more cows are known as a flink.
- There are 450 hairs in an average eyebrow.
- The billionth decimal digit of the numerical value pi is nine.
- Woman blink twice as often as men.
That completes the first ten items of this post and hopefully the final ten will be even more useless.
- The first person to refer to a coward as a “chicken” was William Shakespeare.
- The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
- Mark Twain failed to graduate from elementary school.
- President Andrew Jackson’s pet parrot had to be removed from his funeral in 1845 because it was swearing.
- Australia is the only continent without an active volcano.
- On November 29, 2000, Pope John Paul II was made an honorary Harlem Globetrotter.
- The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
- The colors blue, red, yellow, black, and green were chosen for the Olympic Rings because at least one of them appears on the flag of every nation in the world.
- In 1956 the Physical Culture and Sports Commission of communist China recognized the sport of hand-grenade throwing.
- Butter was the first food product allowed by law to have artificial coloring. It is totally white in it’s natural state.
That’s it for today. More trivia lists will follow in the future. Now, I’ve got better things to do like cutting grass and then picking ticks off my body. Who doesn’t love Summer.
Here’s your first dose of totally useless information (Trivia) for 2016. I can only assume many of you readers will be spending some time this year in your tavern of choice and many of you will attempt to participate in some sort of Trivia challenge or bar bet. Since it’s obvious to me from some of the emails and comments I receive that many of you drink regularly you will probably need these factoids to help you out a little. This information is my New Year’s gift to you so let’s get started with a few items about the Internet.
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The time spent deleting spam emails costs U.S. Businesses approximately $10 billion annually.
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The highest publicly reported amount paid for a domain name is $7.5 million in stock options, to buy business.com.
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Thirty-five billion emails are sent each day throughout the world.
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Thirty-two percent of all singles think they will meet their mate online.
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The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com.
Now for a few more interesting facts concerning our new beat friends . . . our cell phones.
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More than fifty percent of the people on the earth have never made or received a telephone call.
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Approximately 1,314 phone calls are misplaced by telecom services every minute.
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There are 150,000,000 cell phones in use in the United States, more than one for every two human beings in the country.
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As much as eighty percent of microwaves from cell phones are said to be absorbed by your head.
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A Belgian couple were married by short message service (SMS) because text messaging played such a big part in their relationship.
Now for what you’ve all been waiting for. A few tidbits of information on our ever so interesting and at times nasty bodily functions.
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The average heart beats 2.5 billion times in a lifetime. The heart beats about 100,000 times each day.
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The body gives off enough heat in thirty minutes to bring a gallon of water to a boil.
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A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s.
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A pair of human feet contains 250,000 sweat glands. There are about one trillion bacteria on each foot.
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During a kiss, as many as 278 bacteria colonies are exchanged.
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The body loses half a liter of water a day through breathing.
This was just the first of many trivia postings you can expect this year. I think it’s time for this blog to start living up to it’s name. You can’t have too much useless information in your life and I’m here to guarantee that you get yours.
Today feels exceptionally uninteresting. It’s a little blah, a little gray, and a little cold which means I’m suffering from a total lack of interest. I was just advised by my better-half that I’d be spending the better part of this day being dragged along on her shopping safari. Thank God I recharged my Kindle last night so I’m now good to go. That means I get to sit in the car and read while she shops.
If I use my head and offer up a little charm I might just convince her to buy me some sort of breakfast. I have a serious need for bacon and I need it right now. I swear it’s a worse addiction than cigarettes or coffee. It’s maybe the only thing that keeps these shopping forays bearable for me.
This blog needs a bit of a breather from stories about my life and times. Today I’ll supply the world with a few really useless but possibly interesting tidbits of information. It’s been a while since I’ve dished out a dose of these factoids and today’s the day. Here we go . . .
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The average American two-car garage is 25 percent bigger than the average Tokyo home.
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The European Union exports more to Switzerland than to China.
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During the first year of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Red Army issued 800,000 death sentences to it’s own soldiers.
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The first year in which there was no recorded lynching of a black American was 1952.
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There were 658 suicide bombings around the world in 2007 – more than double the number in any of the previous twenty-five years. Afghanistan and Iraq were responsible for 542 of them.
I didn’t say that all of the factoids would be funny or uplifting because life on this planet leaves a lot to be desired at times.
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In 1976, the United States had 30 percent of the world’s college students. By 2006, that had dropped to 14 percent.
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Intel employees collectively send or read 3 million emails a day.
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The Mafia accounts for 7 percent of the Italian GDP, more than any single business.
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There are as many fake doctors practicing in India as real ones.
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The average male orgasm lasts eight seconds, the average female orgasm twenty seconds.
I guess that last one explains a lot of things. Women not only orgasm longer but get to have multiples as well. That’s just unfair.
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In the United States, adult bookshops outnumber McDonald’s restaurants three to one.
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Napoleon often masturbated before going into battle.
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Red Bull is illegal in Norway, Denmark, and Ireland.
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In 2007, twenty-four people killed themselves jumping under Paris Metro trains. On the New York City Subway the figure was twenty-six, and on the London Underground fifty.
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Men produce twice as much saliva as women.
I think that’s enough for today. I wouldn’t want you to overdose on all this useless stuff. It’s Sunday, watch some football, drink a beer or two, eat some nacho’s and belch like you have a pair. That’s what I call “a day of rest”.
HAPPY SUNDAY
I think it’s time for another installment of what this blog is all about, everyuselessthing. It’s a few of those less than important facts you’ve never known you wanted to know. I have a lot more free time this week since my better-half left Maine for vacation in Delaware. Why Delaware? Who knows, maybe she’s attracted to the second-rate beaches and the throngs of uninteresting people. Things are beautifully quiet here and my time is my own at least for the next four days. The cat and I have settled in rather easily as two lone bachelors.
So lets kick this off right now with a load of these odd, weird, and true facts.
Enjoy.
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Dean Martin, born Dino Crocetti, boxed under the name Kid Crochet as a teenager.
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A fully mature oak tree sheds around seven hundred thousand leaves every year.
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Banging your head against the wall burns 150 calories an hour.
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The storage capacity of the human brain exceeds four terrabytes.
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The average talker sprays about three hundred microscopic saliva drops per minute – about two and a half droplets per word.
Not bored yet? Keep reading, I’m not nearly finished.
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Societies in ancient Rome, Germany, and China used urine as a mouthwash.
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It takes only seven pounds of pressure to rip off your ear.
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The world’s termites outweigh the world’s humans by ten to one.
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An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
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The par for the world’s largest golf hole – the 909 yard seventh hole on Japan’s Sano golf course – is seven.
Now lets look into the wonderful and delicious world of food.
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Miss Piggy once said, “Never eat more than you can lift.”
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Almonds are members of the peach family.
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Pepper is the top selling spice in the world. The second is mustard.
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Bombay Duck is actually dry, salted fish.
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Tic Tac’s contain carnauba wax. The same ingredient found in car polishes.
And last but not least a few sexual tidbits.
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Humans spend two years of their lives making love.
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Four pope’s died while participating in sexual acts.
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Every year more than eleven thousand Americans hurt themselves trying out bizarre sexual positions.
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A real orgasm is said to burn 112 calories. A fake orgasm is said to burn off 315 calories.
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On average it takes two tablespoons of blood to make a man’s penis erect.
Do you feel any smarter than you did a few minutes ago? If you do then I suspect you’re delusional or just kidding yourself. It’s called useless information for a reason and it will have no redeeming social value whatsoever.
I’m almost sorry about that but not quite.
‘From the time when we believed the government knew what the hell it was doing.’
Gray, cloudy, cold, wet, Maine, Fall, Daylight Savings Time, and OMFG. The last few days have kinda sucked in so many ways. It’s too crappy to go out to do much of anything because of the weather which left me no choice but to find things to do in and around the house. The best that I could come up was to sit and look out the picture window at 5:30 am waiting for the town workers to come by and paint the new lines on the recently paved road. I actually found myself getting a little excited.
I’m firmly of the opinion that it’s long overdue for the powers-that-be to once and for all eliminate the insanity that is Daylight Savings Time. I’ve never really heard a reasonable explanation as to why it is necessary and for every explanation put forth there are two reasons given explaining why it’s all so much BS.
‘From the time when hoe actually meant hoe.’
I’ve been hearing my whole life those famous words, "spring forward, fall back". It’s time to dispel all of the misinformation that’s been shoveled our way by a government that probably has no clue as to why it’s doing this foolishness at all. Here are a few uninteresting facts about DST that you’ve probably never heard before and might just help convince you it’s time to scrap this stupid old idea once and for all.
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Germany was the first country to implement DST on April 30, 1916 when the clocks were set forward at 11:00 pm (23:00). (When have the Germans ever been right about anything?)
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US inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin first proposed the concept of DST in 1784, but modern Daylight Saving Time first saw the light of day, in 1895 in New Zealand. (Even Ben could be wrong once in a while.)
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Some studies show that DST could lead to fewer road accidents and injuries by supplying more daylight during the hours when more people are on the roads. (Total BS)
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Other studies claim that people’s health might suffer due to DST changes. (I sure agree about this one.)
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It is claimed that DST is also used to reduce the amount of energy needed for artificial lighting during the evening hours. However, many other studies totally disagree and dispute any DST energy savings capabilities. (Again, no agreement on the possible benefits which might just mean they’re really aren’t any.)
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Today clocks are almost always set one hour back or ahead, but throughout history there have been several variations, like half adjustment (30 minutes) or double adjustment (two hours), and adjustments of 20 and 40 minutes have also been used. (More confusing answers with no agreements on any one point.)
‘Everyone seems to agree that Native Americans have the ability to understand things we don’t. This is a perfect example.’
I’ve had it explained to me my entire life that when improvements are introduced, technological or otherwise, we should fight our instincts not to change and just DO IT. There’s absolutely no consensus that DST is accomplishing anything but we still keep doing it. I realize for some of you it may seem to be fun to have your sleep cycles, bodily functions, and general well being screwed with by the government but I do not. By the time I’ve finally adjusted to this stupid hour change it’s time to switch back. Utter and complete government sponsored insanity.
STOP THE MADNESS!!!
everyuselessthing.com 