As most of you are aware I love using quotes to make an interesting point and they’re usually of a complimentary nature. Todays post will change that. These are quotes from recognizable people who don’t appear to be as happy about things as we all thought they were. I’m providing a selection of quotes concerning the Media and other related matters that might be considered somewhat negative. I live for the negative, how about you?
Newspapers
“The most truthful part of a newspaper is the advertisements.” Thomas Jefferson
“In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the press.” Oscar Wilde
“Newspapermen ask dumb questions. They look up at the sun and ask you if it’s shining.” Sonny Liston
“Looking at yourself through the media is like looking at one of those rippled mirrors in an amusement park.” Edmund Muskie
Publishers & Journalists
“Jack Anderson is the lowest form of human being to walk the earth. He’s a muckraker who lies, steals, and he’ll go lower than dog shit for a story.” J. Edgar Hoover
“Dorothy Kilgallen is the only woman I wouldn’t mind my wife catching me with. I don’t know why she took such umbrage at my comments on birth control, she’s such a living argument for it.” Johnny Carson
“If Hugh Hefner truly thinks that being spread-eagled is so fantastic, how come we haven’t seen his little wahoo with a staple in the middle?” CBS-TV
Television
“Acting on television is like being asked by the captain to entertain the passengers while the ship goes down.” Peter Ustinov
“Dealing with network executives is like being nibbled to death by ducks.” Eric Sevaride
“I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set I go into the other room and read a book.” Groucho Marx
“TV is a medium, because it is neither rare nor well done.” Ernie Kovacs
Education
“Colleges are like old-age homes, except for the fact that more people die in colleges.” Bob Dylan
“Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and dead.” Sinclair Lewis
“The schools ain’t what they used to be and never was.” Will Rogers
❤️Anonymous (always the best)❤️
“Tabloids are fast reading for the slow thinkers.”
“The mission of the modern newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
Doctors bury mistakes. Lawyers hang them. But journalists put theirs on the front page.”
“Criticism is the disapproval of people, not for having faults but for having faults different from theirs.”
“You can tell a Harvard man, but you can’t tell him much.”
I recently posted about my historic meeting ( historic for me) with “Stan the Man” Musial in 1961. One person I failed to mention was another first baseman who I met prior to a playoff game in in Williamsport. I was fortunate to meet an elderly gentleman seated in the stands behind home plate. He was my number two all time favorite player since he was also a first baseman. It was the great George Harold Sisler. Todays post will be a short bio on Mr. Sisler which will stun you. I still treasure meeting him and getting his autograph to this day. Lets do a little time traveling and learn about a true baseball legend.
In 1915 Sisler was pitching for the Saint Louis Browns when his manager approached him and convinced him to give up pitching and become their first baseman. He was hesitant but went along. He was a self-effacing player and took to his new job immediately. In his first eight seasons he compiled an incredible batting average of .367! In 1920 he hit .407 and two seasons later he batted .420. In 1920 he had 257 hits. In his 16 years as a first baseman he hit safely 2812 times, stole 375 bases, and wound up with a lifetime batting average of .340.
His career was shortened when he was stricken with a disease that effected his optic nerve causing double vision. He still starred in the league for an additional eight years and was able to bat over .340 twice even with his bad eyes. In three of his last eight years he collected 200 hits and in his last season he still batted over .300.
I decided this post needed to be put out there because so many of the early Hall of Famers who helped make the sport so great are slowing being forgotten. But not by me!
Todays post will contain a few little known facts about everything. There’s no theme just twenty odd bits of information you might find interesting. Lets get started . . .
Cable television was introduced in Pennsylvania in 1948.
The first drive-in movie theater was constructed in Camden, NJ in 1933.
Talcum powder kills ants.
A cats sense of smell is fourteen times more acute than that of a human.
William Henry Harrison had the shortest term in office as President. He passed away just thirty-one days after his inauguration.
The first umbrella factory was established in Baltimore, Maryland in 1928.
Musicians Billy Joel, singer Wayne Newton, and actor Cary Grant were all high school dropouts
The jackfruit which is indigenous to India, can weigh as much as a hundred pounds.
The native name for Greenland is Kalaallit.
Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, rises to the height of 19,431 feet.
FDR had the first presidential airplane but it wasn’t called Air Force One until JFK was elected.
To convert degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius, subtract 32 degrees and divide by 1.8.
The minimum wage instituted in 1938 in the United States was $.25 an hour.
Peter Merholtz is credited with coming up with the term “blog”.
Pu Yi was two years old when he became the Emperor of China in 1908. He abdicated the throne 6 years later.
In 1780 Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish slavery.
The first professional basketball game was held in 1896 in Trenton, NJ.
Coco Chanel named her perfume Chanel #5 because five was her lucky number.
Pornography is the Greek word for “the writings of prostitutes.”
Most people dream for two hours in an eight hour night of sleep.
Well the weather has taken an unfriendly turn into winter. The electric blanket has been officially plugged in and the heavy clothing is being unpacked and aired out. I have the distinct feeling that this winter may be one to remember and I hope I’m wrong. Rather than thinking thoughts of the coming winter I’ll do as I always do – POST MORE LIMERICKS. I’ve dug into the archives once again to retrieve a few winners that should not be read by the youngsters. I’d rate these as PG or worse. Here goes nothing . . .
I’ve been a lover of baseball for my entire life beginning at the age of four. When I get obsessed with something I really do it right. I played three years of Little League, then two seasons of Senior Little League, then Pony League, 3 years of High School baseball, and finally two seasons of American Legion baseball. I tell you this not to brag but to convince you just how nuts I am about baseball. Throughout all of those years I had one major league ball player who was my idol. That was “Stan the Man” Musial. He was a lefthander from Pennsylvania who played both first base and the outfield. I was a lefty from Pennsylvania too and played first base and I pitched as well. His batting stance was my batting stance.
My biggest day occurred at the old Forbes Field stadium in Pittsburgh in 1961. Our team was invited to appear in a ceremony prior to the game. The pirates were playing St. Louis and guess who had his picture taken with Stan . . . that would be me. I also got to meet all of the players from the 1960 Pittsburgh World Series Champions, Roberto Clemente, Bill Virdon, Al McBean, Bill Mazeroski, just to name a few. Now you know why I love baseball. I have quite a collection of books on baseball and baseball trivia. Here are a few facts you may not have heard before and I hope you enjoy them.
THE MAN
Babe Ruth named his bat “Black Beauty”.
Hall of Famer outfielder, Edd Roush used a 48-ounce bat- the heaviest ever used in the major leagues.
On September 15, 1946 the Dodgers beat the Cubs 2-0 in five innings. The game was called because of gnats, who became a problem for the players, the umpires, and the fans.
On August 2, 1938 the Dodgers and the Cardinals used a yellow baseball as an experiment in the first game of the double header. The Dodgers won the game, 6-2, and the yellow ball was never used again.
“Wee Willie” Keeler, at five feet and one-half inch and weighing in at 142 pounds, was the smallest player in the Hall of Fame.
Bert Campanaris of the Kansas City A’s played all nine positions in a single game on September 8, 1965.
First baseman Ted Kluszewski of the Reds has such muscular arms that he had to cut the sleeves of his uniform to get into it.
And “last but least” another fact about the Pirates.
1960 World Champs
In 1988 former Yankee pitcher Art Ditmar, lost his lawsuit against a beer company and an ad agency that had mistakenly identified him as the pitcher who had given up Pirate Bill Mazeroski’s home run that won the 1960 World Series. Actually, it was Ralph Terry, but the judge ruled that Ditmar failed to provide more than speculation that the commercial had caused him any financial harm.
It’s time for another quiz concerning language. I’ve discovered over the years that my knowledge of the uses of language has slowly improved but it needs to get even better. Todays quiz contains ten questions related to language and it will make you rethink how much you really know. As always the answers will be listed below. Good luck . . .
What are zoonoses?
What part of an airplane is the empennage?
What is the most common name we use for the physical affliction known as furfur?
What do the letters in the computer-world acronym BASIC represent?
What are you afraid of if you have pogonophobia?
In computerize what’s the difference between a bit and a byte?
What is the meaning of the Japanese word “judo”?
What is the unfriendly meaning of the acronym NIMBY?
What is “wagger pagger bagger” slang for in England?
What was the original meaning of “ezel”, the name 17th century Dutch artists gave to the three-legged stand we know today as an easel?
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Answers
Animal diseases communicable to man, The complete tail assembly, Dandruff, Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, Beards, A bit is a single basic unit of info and a byte is generally 8 bits, The Gentle Way, Not In My Back Yard, A wastepaper basket, Ezel is Dutch for “donkey”.
I’m not much of a celebrity watcher but I understand that many of you are. Todays post is a list of fifteen items of totally useless information (EUT) about a variety of celebs from a number of different decades. Here we go . . .
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Mae West (my favorite) was born in Greenpoint Brooklyn.
Clint Eastwood once pumped gas while a student on the G.I. Bill at LA City College.
Actress Angelina Jolie is the goddaughter of Jacqueline Bisset.
People Magazine named their first “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1985. It was Mel Gibson.
Brad Pitt was born in Shawnee ,Oklahoma.
Tom Cruise once attended a seminary to become a Catholic priest.
Actor Nicholas Cage is the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola.
Diane Keaton was a member of the original cast of Hair.
Actress Natalie Portman was discovered by a scout in a pizza parlor in1991.
Brittany Spears and Jason Allen were married for less than a day.
Tom Cruise is dyslexic.
Actor Michael Douglas flunked out of college.
Mia Farrow was on the cover of the first issue of People Magazine in 1974.
Sara Michelle Gellar was once a competitive figure skater.
Actor Dustin Hoffman once worked as a toy salesman at Macy’s.
In my humble opinion the most important thing a person can have is a healthy sense of humor. Without that a person loses most of their true personality and likeability. In the worst of times being able to “crack wise” and smile a little goes a long way to calm any situation. I constantly post quotations because they tell me more about a person than meeting them in person and having a casual conversation. Even people who I really don’t care for occasionally surprise me with their quotes and a few times I actually forgave them their stupidity and changed my opinion of them. That sounds a little harsh but all of us have the capability of being harsh, crass, and opinionated and still have thoughts worth sharing. Todays post contains quotations from some of my favorite people: comedians.
“Always look out for Number One and be careful not to step in Number Two.” Rodney Dangerfield
“It is said that life begins when the fetus can exist apart from it’s mother. By this definition, many people in Hollywood are legally dead.” Jay Leno
“I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.” Lily Tomlin
“My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.” Steven Wright
“I am at two with nature.” Woody Allen
“Men read maps better than women because only men can understand the concept of an inch equaling a hundred miles.” Rosanne Barr
You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again”. Joan Rivers
“My plastic surgeon told me my face looked like a bouquet of elbows.” Phyllis Diller
“When I meet a man I ask myself, “Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?” Rita Rudner
“In breeding cattle you need one bull for every twenty-five cows, unless the cows are known sluts.” Johnny Carson
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BONUS FOR RETIREES
“Sex after ninety is like trying to shoot pool with a rope. Even putting my cigar in it’s holder is a thrill.”
Okay everyone, say goodbye to March. It certainly won’t be missed with it’s sucky weather patterns and frigid cold which seems to last forever. My really big and repeating bitch is the local snowplow driver who once again sent my mailbox flying into the neighbors yard in pieces. That’s happened twice this winter and once while I was standing nearby. The mailbox will need to be replaced again which is nothing new, we replaced it four times in the last seven years. Enough of my whining lets get to some hopefully interesting but odd facts.
When you receive a kidney transplant, the doctors usually leave the original kidney inside of you.
There are 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ways to arrange a deck of cards.
Studies suggest that placebos work even when the subject knows they are taking a placebo.
The darkest substance known is called “vantablack” and it absorbs 99.965% of all visible light.
A dying someone once actually left a cat an inheritance of 12.5 million dollars.
If you ate natural wasabi, you wouldn’t find it spicy. For spiciness it must be crushed.
Nuclear fallout was once measured in “sunshine units”.
Some blind humans are capable of echolocation.
In the 1800’s, a man proclaimed himself emperor of the United States and issued his own currency.
The Declaration of Independence was written on animal skin.
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FUNNY AND UNCONFIRMED
Reports suggest that during the cold war, the CIA planned to demoralize the soviet people by air dropping thousands of magnum-sized American condoms labeled “Small”. (I certainly hope this isn’t true but you never know with the CIA involved.)
I’m what some people would call a member of the “TV Generation”. I’ve never taken that description as a negative because it’s the truth. I’ve lived through seven decades of TV and I’m sure it only damaged me a little. I’ve enjoyed huge hit shows and series in almost very decade except for my years overseas with the Army. Truthfully I enjoy it just as much now as I did then. There have been huge changes over the years but if you see TV as simply entertainment then you won’t be too disappointed. Todays post is a short quiz about TV in the 90’s. Answers will be listed below.
A Festivas celebration includes the airing of what?
The famous catchy theme song for Friends, “I’ll Be There For You” was played by what duo?
Who hosted the first Academy Awards show in 1990?
Who did Mila Kunis play on That 70’s Show?
In what year did the final episode of Cheers air?
What type of animal is Ren from The Ren & Stimpy Show?
From what show was the Chicago-set Family Matters a spin-off?
What are the twins name on Rugrats?
What was the most popular salad dressing in the USA in 1992?
What was Ross’s reason for believing he didn’t cheat on Rachel?
📺BONUS QUESTION📺
What was the Seinfeld’s creator Larry David’s motto for the show, ensuring there would be no sentimentality or character growth?
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Answers
Grievances’, The Rembrandts, Billy Crystal, Jackie Burkhart, 1993, Perfect Strangers, Phil & Lil, A Chihuahua, Ranch Dressing, “They were on a break.”, BONUS- No hugging & no learning.
