More Useless Tidbits!!

For those of you new to my blog (WELCOME and THANKS!)

you may not know

that besides photography, I sometimes post some other blogposts

now and then for my meek attempt at humor.

One of the regular blogsposts I do

is

"Useless Tidbits"

along with

MY COMMENTS

in

bold italics.

Sometimes the Useless Tidbits

aren't that funny, and that's okay.

Sometimes they are just interesting.

It has been a while since I did one,

so

TODAY

IS

THE

DAY!!!

These are more interesting than funny today...

so grabba cuppa coffee,

and enjoy!

******************************************************************

1.  Spot, Data's cat on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was played by six different cats.

Oh, for heaven's sake!  Even cats have DOUBLES! Who knew? Maybe the first cat died? But what about the "cats have nine lives" thing? Wonder if it was a he or a she?

2. The longest U.S. highway is route 6 starting in Cape Cod, Massachusetts going through 14 states, and ending in Bishop, California.
I thought it was Route 66 or maybe Highway 41...which is by us...it goes from Copper Harbor Michigan all the way down to Florida...I know, because we drove it! And my butt knew it too!

3. The number of the trash compactor in Star Wars (20th Century Fox, 1977) is 3263827.
Wonder what the significance of this was? The director's prison number? Lottery ticket numbers? My measurements (32-63-82..plus size 7 shoes).  Okay, people, I am a slight bit on the wide hips side and my waist? Well, let's just say..blame it on the homemade apple pies from our orchard....

4. "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."
Go ahead, get the dictionary and check it out. We'll wait.
 
(When, oh when, will you trust me?)
 There.
                                     Feel better now?

5. A full seven percent of the entire Irish barley crop goes to the production of Guinness beer.
Thank goodness!
I mean, who needs to EAT
when you have beer?
I think we should form a group to support 10 percent instead of 7...are you WITH ME people??

6. If you toss a penny 10000 times, it will not be heads 5000 times, but more like 4950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
Do the football teams know about this?
Remember the next time someone says: "heads or tails?"..automatically say TAILS...(unless of course, they are proposing sex to you..then, well, you are on your OWN. It's all about preferences, people!)

7. The housefly hums in the middle octave, key of F.

Just in case you want to do a concert.....and especially if you are (ahem) spending some "quality time" in an outhouse....you'll have a CHOIR of

them humming in the key of F.

8. Mr. Snuffleupagas' first name was Alyoisus.
WHAT was his mother THINKING? Isn't this some form of child abuse?
 Here, I would like you to meet my son, his name is Alyoisus Snuffleupagas.
And, can you imagine Alyoisus's first day in kindergarden? 
"Today, children...we are going to learn how to write our NAMES."
And then he had that NOSE.....
I'd say both are good for twenty or thirty years of therapy.....

9. In the movie "the Right Stuff" there is a scene where a government recruiter for the Mercury astronaut program (played by Jeff Goldblum) is in a bar at Muroc Dry Lake, California. His partner suggests Chuck Yeager as a good astronaut candidate. Jeff proceeds to bad mouth Yeager claiming they need someone who went to college. During the conversation the real Chuck Yeager is playing a bartender who is standing behind the recruiters eavesdropping. General Yeager is listed low in the movie credits as 'Fred.'
That is a riot!  I wonder why he did that?
And, I think there is a urinal scene in the movie too...wonder who the dude is peeing next to him?  Probably the President of some third world country or something....(It's not like I looked at his FACE in the scene, you know what I mean???)

***********************************************************************

NOW HEAR THIS!!

TODAY
IS
THE

DEADLINE

for June's FREE PHOTO CONTEST!!

You have until midnight TONIGHT

to send me

a

FLOWER photo

following

these rules....

HURRY!!!!

More Useless Tidbits!

Yes, it is time again for USELESS TIDBITS, along with MY COMMENTS in bold italics.

So,

here we go................................

1. Only 1/3 of the people that can twitch their ears can twitch only one at a time.

I  just know that tomorrow, at work.... you will take this survey. You will wander aimlessly through work cubicles and ask people if they can twitch their ears. 
And then, when you finally find someone who CAN....you will ask if they can twitch them both at the same time. 
And they will feel awful, because they THOUGHT they were special to be an ear twitcher, but failed to twitch two at the same time...
and then they will go home and sit in front of their mirrors and TRY to twitch them both at the same time.
And they will try and TRY and then be upset that they cannot do it. 
And then you will wonder why you didn't get that last promotion at work.

2. The volume of the Earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.

Just in case you wanted to empty them both and remeasure their volumes.
Who on earth figures this stuff out?
And why?
Do we care?
Well, maybe if I was a whale in the Pacific Ocean I might be a tad interested, but it isn't like I planned a trip to the moon because it has the same volume.






3. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.

So blame it on your relatives!!! Wonder if Athlete's feet are too?
Wonder if it is more common on your mom's side or your dad's? Another survey opportunity!
Send emails to all your relatives out of nowhere and ask them if they suffer from ingrown toenails. I dare you.
Because the family needs something more to gossip about, and why not make it YOU?

4. The largest city in the United States with a one syllable name is Flint, Michigan.

As a fellow Michigander, I can't tell you how proud that makes me. 
Seriously.
I have tears in my eyes.

5. On the cartoon show 'The Jetsons', Jane is 33 years old and her daughter Judy is 15.

So Jane was only 18 when she had Judy???? Wow!  Wonder if she was born out of wedlock?
Maybe George kinda liked the younger women, you know what I mean?

6. In Mel Brooks' 'Silent Movie,' mime Marcel Marceau is the only person who has a speaking role.

Ironic, I know.  I love Mel Brooks. His humor, his silly satire...everything but his hair.
But I can ignore that, because usually I am laughing too  hard.

7. Only humans and horses have hymens.

No. Comment.
Except for saying: "Except for Mr. Ed" (because obviously he is a MISTER).

8. The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

I know....you are going to look this up. Again. To see if it is correct.
Go ahead.
We'll wait.
And, if you find another one that beats it, you will have something to blog about,  right?



9. The state with the longest coastline in the US is Alaska.

And all your Californians and Floridians thought you had bragging rights, didn't you?
I would like to visit all three of these states to take photographs.  Anyone have a bed and breakfast you wanna give to me free to stay in when I come to visit you there? I guarantee I would put your picture in my blog for doing so!  O.K., Joan...quit begging so obviously, be subtle, be subtle!

10. We will have four consecutive full moons making two blue moons in 1999 (January 2 and 31, March 2 and 31.) The only other time it happened this century was in 1915 (January 1 and 31, March 1 and 31.)
You probably all knew this because of the recent blue moon that made the news, right?
And you know they really aren't BLUE, right?

****************************************************************************

And now, you can thank me the next time you are a hit at your next dinner party and pull all of these wonderful facts right out of your butt......

You're welcome.

More Useless Tidbits

Time for more Useless Tidbits, folks !!! (Along with MY COMMENTS in bold italics).

1. Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of the blue whale.
I probably don't want to know how they tested this one. Please tell me they didn't cut the tongue off a blue whale and place it on a scale to test this theory.
Besides, who knew that blue whales even HAD a tongue?
I mean I guess if I really thought about it, they must have a tongue, but I don't sit around and think about whales' tongues....but I will NOW. And so will YOU, now won't you? WON'T YOU?????
That's it.
Try NOT to think of a blue whale's tongue....
Besides...that is a helluva lot of tongue if it weighs MORE than an elephant.
Think of the size of the sucker you'd have to make to satisfy a whale. Or ice cream cone.
Do two blue whales french kiss? Wow, now there's a visual!




2. Butterflies taste with their hind feet.
I bet everything tastes like dirt
or dust then, to a butterfly.
Husband butterfly: honey, did you taste that rose?
Wife butterfly: Yes, yes I did.
Husband butterfly: It kinda tasted like my mother's roses did. No roses taste now like my mother's roses used to.
Wife butterfly: How can you tell? They all taste like dirt. Besides, are you saying that MY roses don't taste as good as your mother's did? Because let me tell you mister...if you washed your hind feet a little more you'd be able to tell that MY roses are better than your mother's ever did, and besides did your mother work outside the home AND raise your children from hell AND have to put up with a husband that doesn't wash his hind feet? Because let me tell you, if she did......
Husband butterfly: (Sigh).





3. Only female mosquitoes bite.
Of course, it is the PMS. Our blood tastes like chocolate to them.






4. Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as
to any other color.
And they say animals are colorblinded! Who knew that mosquitoes could see color?
So if you go into the woods, wear your black jeans, not your blue ones. They must know that our blood is really blue (until oxygen hits it, then it turns red). Smart little buggers, aren't they?





5. If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
All right. Don't go in the desert wandering around looking for scorpions to do this to just for jollies. That is cruel.
Wait, I'm talking about scorpions here....never mind....go ahead! (I'll wait here, hiding under my couch).





6. Every night, wasps bite into the stem of a plant, lock their mandibles
(jaws) into position, stretch out at right angles to the stem, and, with legs dangling, fall asleep.

Heck, I call that foreplay where I come from.
Unless I feel like spooning. Then there is less dangling.



7. Ants stretch when they wake up. They also appear to yawn in a very human
manner before taking up the tasks of the day.
I know, what is with all the BUG useless tidbits today?
I don't know, I am on a roll.
So back to the ants.
I want to know who had a hidden camera to catch ants exactly when they wake up to know this?
And how can you TELL they just woke up? Their little eyelids flutter? Do ants even HAVE eyelids?
And yawn? With those creepy mandible fangy things they have? YIKES!
I am going to have nightmares tonight about HUGE blue whale tongues, being bitten by FEMALE mosquitos (they like blue remember?) beside a squirming, drunken scorpion and a stretching, yawning ant who is bored with it all.



8. Bees have 5 eyes. There are 3 small eyes on the top of a bee's head and 2
larger ones in front.
I bet Mom bees really DO see everything their little brat bee kids are doing behind
their back.
Mom Bee: Junior, stop pinching your sister!
Junior: I wasn't pinching her, MOM.
Mom Bee: Don't lie to me, you little buzzer! I can SEE you, you know..every which way, top or front....so just knock it off!
Junior: I'm allowed to knock her off? Suzie....come heeeeerrrrrr........
Mom Bee: (Sigh).



9. The outdoor temperature can be estimated to within several degrees by timing the chirps of a cricket. It is done this way: count the number of chirps in a 15-second period, and add 37 to the total. The result will be very close to the actual Fahrenheit temperature. This formula, however, only works in warm weather.
OMG. I am TOTALLY going to try this.
But the question is, WHO even NOTICED this phenomenon? Who started counting the chirps of a cricket and then realized they needed to add 37 (not 38, and not 39 and not even 36...but 37) to it and it would tell you the fahrenheit temperature????
Someone VERRRRRY bored???? I can see it now...laying in bed...can't sleep.....hmmmm...think I will count sheep. Nope, I'm up to 12,345 sheep now...not working.....Wait!...what is that sound outside?....oh..crickets! Will they EVER shut up?.... Oh well, I will count the chirps they make.....hmmmm...they are all chirping 40 times.....then 40 times again....then 40 times again. Crap...now I can't sleep because of the damn crickets....won't just ONE of the little buggers chirp 21 times or 19 times.....nope...damn..... another one chirped 40 times...I cannot take this!!!...I'll get up and make coffee....and check the temperature outside...hmmm..it is 77 degrees...............................
(ten years pass)......
(another sleepless night occurs).....
damn, MORE crickets chirping again....shit!!!...I have that big meeting tomorrow.....wait a minute!!...remember when that night happened where I couldn't sleep...and I counted the crickets chirping?:....and they all chirped exactly 40 times???.....and it was 77 degrees out?...hmmm...I wonder if every chirp plus, oh...I don't know...37...would add up to the temp. outside?.....let's see...this time they are chirping 38 times.....and that plus 37 equals 75...I'll get up and check the thermometer.........GOOD GRIEF>>I am RIGHT...it is 75 degrees out!!!! Shit! Who can I call and tell about this????
(yawns)
....maybe tomorrow...all of a sudden I feel verrrry sleeeeeepy............



10. In the United States, a pound of potato chips cost two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.
And a helluva lot more to lose the weight CAUSED by those very same potato chips. Not to mention the cost of all of those Doctor visits to take care of the high cholesterol they caused......

Isn't life grand?

Useless Facts and Trivia: Volume 16

Here are more "Useless Facts and Trivia" for you, along with MY COMMENTS in bold italics, of course!:

1. The original game of "Monopoly" was circular.

Similar to life, money goes in and goes right out! Makes sense, doesn't it? Interesting that they changed the shape later.

2. It costs more to buy a new car today in the United States than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World.

That is probably right. That is why the whole 37+ years we have been married, we have always bought used cars. Who wants to pay interest fees on discovering a whole new world?? Yikes!!

3. One-fourth of the world's population lives on less than $200 a year.

I bet none of them own cars. If they do, they are probably living in them. This is a sad statistic, isn't it? Think of it: ONE FOURTH of the world's people make LESS than $200 a year!! Remember that the next time you feel sorry that you can't buy that new pair of shoes until next payday.

4. Ninety million people survive on less than $75 a year.

That is even more shocking than #3 above, isn't it?

5. The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.

I SEE you looking for the X-Y and Z...go ahead...sing the abc song...I'll wait.

There.

Are you done? See? They are all there!!

6. The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.

Again, I see that you checked both of those words to make sure. One of these days, you are going to trust me.

7. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words.

Boy, I can see why. Now I am kind of scared of them too. And here I thought it was supercalafragilisticexpealodocious from Mary Poppins. I better take a spoon full of sugar...

8. Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.

And you thought you were "special"!! ha

Of course you share your birthday...there are only so many days in a year you know? But you are the only one with your name and address and mom and dad and dog and family, etc. And that DOES make you special!!

9. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

I KNEW it!! Who else could have thought of a place where you sit and be tortured??? It makes perfect sense to me. In fact, it just might be the dentist that I had as a kid when my dad was in the Air Force...because I don't remember any novacaine, and I do remember begging for my life.

10. All polar bears, despite being near the North Pole, are southpaws.

You can tell, because when you are flying away from the North Pole, they are waving goodbye with their left hands and blowing kisses at you with their left hands too.

11. "GO" is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

There you go again. Checking the dictionary. And here I thought it was FU.

12.Americans eat an average of 18 acres of pizza every day.

I am amazed it is not MORE acrege. No, come to think of it, that would be everybody's waistlines.

************************************************************************************

Hope you enjoyed this week's Useless Facts and Trivia!

P.S. By the time you are reading this, I am probably sleeping at home, just back from my Florida trip. (I had preposted the blogposts above before I left on my trip.)

So the next few blogposts I will be posting will be in "real time" and will be photos from the trip...so get ready! Brew some strong coffee and get ready for me to get you caught up on all that happened while I was away!! I missed reading everyone's blogs in a timely fashion and leaving comments as often as I usually do on your blogs while I was away!!!

Useless Facts and Trivia: Volume 15

Oh, yes!

It's time again for the next volume of Useless Facts and Trivia, along with MY COMMENTS in bold italics.




1. Killer whales are not, technically, whales. They are orcas, a relative of the porpoise and the dolphin.

That's not the part of their name that bothers me....umm..its the KILLER part of their name. I don't care if they are KILLER teddy bears, they must have an anger management problem, right?

2. If you stroke a shark from nose to tail, it is smooth. If you stroke it the other way, it is rough, and on some species, can even give you hand lacerations.

Oh yeah. I am going to swim right out and test that little gem of a theory. Here, sharkey, sharkey. I wanna pet you from tail to nose...because if you don't eat me you will just give me hand lacerations.

Who tried that to let us know anyway? Oh, I know! The guy with that bloody stump of an arm over there.

3. Elephants are the only land mammals that can't jump.

Do we really WANT them to? The china in my cupboards would not appreciate it.

I haven't invited them over for a game of hopscotch lately, have you? And you can't buy tutus that large, anyway.

4. More about elephants: If you add up the circumference of two feet, you get exactly the elephant's height. (?!)

Again, who has the time to check out these things?

I know there are theories about a man's feet and the size of his....(oh, don't act shocked! YOU have heard this, I know!!) but I didn't know they were measuring feet of elephants to know their height. What if the baby elephant is exactly two feet tall. Would that be an oxymoron?

5. Your foot is nearly the same length as your forearm as measured from the inside of the elbow to the wrist.

Okay. Now I am SURE someone with a measuring fetish is around doing all of these weird experiments on animal and human bodies.

And I KNOW you have already gone to get a tape measure to check out if this is true...so, is it? Doesn't it look like your arm would be longer from your elbow to your wrist is longer than your foot?

Why did God do this? One day, was he just at the drawing board and in a funny mood, turned to the angels and say: "Hey, lets have a little fun. It's Friday and I am really waiting for Sunday's day of rest. Just for today, let's change the drawings and measure man's arm from his wrist to his elbow and let's make his feet exactly the same length. Then let's see how long it takes man to realize my clever design!!? Are you with me on this one?? Oh, I just crack myself up!!!"

6. In 10 minutes, a hurricane expends more energy than all of the nuclear weapons in the world combined.

Now, I don't want ANYONE out there to test this one. It is one of those claims that someone can state and no one will ever challenge them on. Let's see if I can do one....Here: if you plucked everyone's nose hairs on the face of the earth and then picked every tulip on the face of the earth, the number would match exactly. Isn't that amazing?

7. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

I wonder if they are writing their own obituaries when they are doing this?

So BIC stands for ballpoints induce choking?

How do they know that EXACTLY 100 people do this every year? When they get to 100 people having done this, do they then decide to send out the warning to everyone else?

Last I knew, my ballpoint tasted awful in my mouth. So, who knew that people liked to ingest or inhale them? Maybe they thought the little tube of ink inside was a straw so they are sucking on it?

8. 90% of all New York cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.

No surprise there....the other 10% own 7-11 stores.

9. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

I am so glad I am one of them, isn't that just amazing that I got picked to do this?

Maybe the others are that old, they just don't remember how old they really are?

10. A snail can sleep for three months.

Oh, and any teenager presently living in your house, also. They forgot to mention that.