Archive for the ‘useless information’ Tag
It’s time for another installment of totally useless information. Normally I supply true facts that are strange, ironic, or unbelievable. Today I’m taking a page from the Main Stream Media who on a regular basis use the jokes told on late night television to gauge certain politicians standing with the American people. I’ve never really understood that type of polling since most of the material used by Leno, Letterman, Kimmel, and O’Brien is written by professional writers hired and directed by their corporate owners. Of course, they’re all totally unbiased politically.
I like a good laugh and joke as much as the next guy so I’ll pass these tidbits along simply as fun "one liners". Since this country thrives on "sound bites" this style of humor is all the rage. I need to enter a disclaimer here because I’m reasonable sure that all of these items are untrue. Enjoy them for what they are, just silly and stupid jokes.
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Einstein estimated that his Theory of Relativity got him laid more than one hundred times.
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The United States border with Mexico is over 2000 miles long but only six inches wide.
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Montana is the only state where "horseplay" is illegal.
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Ninety six percent of all wrong numbers involve a guy saying, "Larry?"
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Scientists who’ve been studying pigeons agree that they’re definitely up to something.
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In Westchester, NY, there is a barber named Tony DeBarber.
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Newton’s Fourth Law states "No fat chicks".
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Christopher Welden of Columbus, OH, is the only person ever to actually "laugh all the way to the bank".
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While their still not allowed to drive cars, as of May 2006, Saudi Arabian women may operate riding lawn mowers.
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During a screening of Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl at the Vatican, someone asked the Pope to remove his hat.
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When held by a person more than seven feet tall a ladle is just called a "spoon".
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In response to continued complaints the Campbell’s Soup company has removed the letter "F" from their alphabet soup.
Well there you have it. The first dirty dozen useless tidbits that might just make you smile but there are certainly no guarantees.
As I promised a week or so ago, if I found any interesting tidbits of useless information and trivia, I would pass them along to you. I have a few here that are obscure, a little strange, but as best I can determine accurate. Read them and remember them because you never know when you might get caught up in a vicious game of Trivial Pursuit. A number of these items were researched by the late great Isaac Asimov. He was one of the smartest men alive in his day and had a habit of collecting and researching odd tidbits of information. Enjoy!
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Drilling an oil well 5 miles deep requires drilling night and day, seven days a week, for as long as 500 days.
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The total population of the earth at the time of Julius Caesar was 150 million. The total population increase in two years on earth today is 150 million.
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During the next minute, 100 people will die 240 will be born. The world’s population problem increases by a 140 people per minute.
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Many years ago a Harvard student on his way home to visit his parents fell between two railroad cars at the station in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was rescued by an actor on his way to visit his sister in Philadelphia. The student was Robert Lincoln, heading for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The actor was Edwin Booth the brother of the man who a few weeks later would murder the students father.
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There are 2,500,000 rivets in the Eiffel Tower.
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There is a salt mine in the Polish town of Wieliczka, near Cracow, that has been in operation for nearly 1000 years.
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While Columbus was seeking new worlds to the West, Italian engineers were rebuilding the Kremlin in Moscow.
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There are more than 100 distinct ethnic groups in the Soviet Union.
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Every cubic mile of seawater holds over 150,000,000 tons of minerals. There are 350,000,000 cubic miles of seawater on the planet.
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It was proposed in the Rhode Island legislature in the 1970’s that there be enacted a two dollar tax on every act of sexual intercourse.
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Morocco was the first country to officially recognize the United States in 1789.
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Some Eskimos use refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.
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In 1978, more than 1000 deer were accidentally killed in Connecticut by automobile drivers. Only 948 were killed by hunters.
Well there you have it. More useless information for you to cram into your brain so you can amaze your friends and family and possibly win a few bar bets. More to come I’m sure.
I thought today I’d live up to this blogs name by providing a few items of really useless information which you could no doubt live without. I need to have a fun posting day for a change that will provide absolutely no useful content to any discussion about anything at all. How’s that for a total and complete disclaimer.
I’ve always been a huge trivia fan and anytime I find a few tidbits that are new to me I immediately send them along to you. So sit back in your nice soft chair with your refreshment of choice and read on.
1. Potatoes have more chromosomes than humans do – 48 versus 46.
2. The steam rising from a cup of hot coffee contains the same amount of antioxidants as three oranges.
3. Cleavage has nothing to do with breast size or shape. Women with concave ribcages exhibit cleavage, while those with convex ribcages don’t.
4. There are roughly 144,000 mosquitos for every person on earth.
5. Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham after his editor challenged him to produce a book using fewer than 50 words.
6. William McKinley was the first president to ride in an electric car – the ambulance that took him to the hospital after he was shot by an assassin.
7. In 2004, the glossy Ikea catalogue overtook the Bible as the world’s most distributed publication.
8. The Bible is the most shoplifted book in the world.
9. The actress Liz Sheridan, best known for her portrayal of Jerry Seinfeld’s TV mother, was briefly engaged to James Dean.
10. One of every five meals in America are eaten in cars.
11. The largest human cell is the female ovum. The smallest is the male sperm.
12. You can tell the temperature by listening to a cricket chirp. For the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, count the number of chirps in 15 seconds and add 37.
13. In the summer of 1967, Jimi Hendrix was the opening act for the Monkees seven times.
14. A falling object travels slower at the equator than it does at the North and South poles.
15. Winston Churchill had a heart attack in the White House while straining to open a window.
So there you have it. Fifteen more golden nuggets of useless information to use up what space you have left in your memory banks. The month of March is sure to be long and boring and to make it complete I’ll send a few more tidbits your way in a few weeks. I just know your thrilled.
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.
Well, we’re ten days into the month of November and it’s hard to believe that just a few short weeks ago I was sitting on my deck wearing a T-shirt and shorts and enjoying the warm weather. In my attempt to be optimistic I refuse to think that for the next long, boring, and weather beaten five months I’ll be housebound.
Today is a day of odds and ends. I first went to the granddaddy of all retailers, Walmart, to pick up a few things and to enjoy a reasonably nice day. Walmart as usual is a freaking zoo. Just pulling into the parking lot is an adventure where all those years of amusement park bumper cars finally paid off. It’s a Friday morning in November at 7:15 am and I was hard-pressed to find a decent parking spot. The lot was full, people wandering everywhere, and none paying the slightest attention to the moving vehicles. It was a good morning to play “idiot hockey” and test the reflexes of all the late night partiers stumbling into the Dunkin Donuts inside the Walmart. They were pretty nimble and were still moving quickly enough to avoid a vinyl bumper up their ass. I guess I’m showing my lack of patience but I really don’t care. The only thing worse than a discourteous driver is a discourteous pedestrian and I’m surprised and shocked that more of them aren’t seriously injured on a regular basis. Oh well enough of my complaining it’s time to get into the store, do my shopping, and get the hell out.
The store was fairly crowded with the normal oddballs and yahoo’s roaming around and giving us other humans something to talk about. I needed a few dietary supplements so I wandered over towards the pharmacy. As I’m walking down the aisle near the condoms I overhear two women in a rather heated discussion about which ones were the best? Should we get ribbed or lubricated? You can’t buy that size, he’s not that big. This went on for a few minutes and I found a label to read on a nearby product because I didn’t want to miss anything. I had to chuckle a few times and try not to be too obvious but my presence didn’t seem to faze them at all. They were reading the box descriptions out loud to each other, comparing notes, and laughing hysterically. Gone are the days when we men were forced to sneak into drugstores and buy condoms on the QT. I suppose it’s only fair these days that I’m occasionally required to buy feminine hygiene products for my better-half.
I thought about those ladies and their conversation all the way home. I’ve never been a big fan of condoms and when possible I wouldn’t use them. Fortunately for me when I was acting wild and crazy STD’s weren’t as a big an issue as they are today. All I had to do then was determine if the woman I was pursuing was on the pill or not. If not, I proceeded on to the next possible partner. The way things are these days I wouldn’t attempt sex with a any partner unless I wore a body condom. Bearing all that in mind when I got home I decided to do a little research on condoms. I have a fairly extensive library of books containing tons and tons of totally useless information and trivia. It took me about 10 min. to find what I was looking for and I’m making it available to you free of charge. You just can’t have enough information about condoms.
Condoms have been with us much longer than you might have imagined. Condoms are supposedly named after the apocryphal,”Dr. Condom”, or Conton, who is supposed to have made them for Charles II, out of lamb’s intestines, which were dried and then well oiled. The mail sheath, however, had been around long before the time of Charles II. Before the time of Christ, the Chinese made them with oiled silk paper (the first lubricated condoms). It is rumored that Roman soldiers would make condoms from the muscle tissue of their defeated foes. By mid-evil times, the spread of syphilis increased the use of condoms greatly. In the 1800s condoms were made from animal intestines that were soaked in an alkaline solution, scraped, disinfected with the vapor of burning brimstone, washed, insulated, dried, cut to approximately 7 inches, and fitted with a ribbon on the open end. The Catholic Church wasn’t too crazy about this prophylactic profusion and in 1826 Pope Leo the XIII condemned their use. Despite the objections of his Holiness, condoms were here to stay!
Making this detailed history of condoms available should be considered my November public service announcement.
You’re very welcome.
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