Joe's profilejyfleePhotosBlogListsMore  |  Tools Help |
|
jyfleeJune 29 Trivia and others (June 29, 2009)Trivia (June 29, 2009)
1. In astronomy, what is the symbol for a new moon: black circle, crescent, or white circle?
2. Which black gourmet fungus is a native of France’s Perigord region?
3. What two continents have never been the sites of a major military conflict?
4. Is pertussis more commonly known as influenza or whooping cough?
5. Which seasoning includes up to 20 herbs and spices including turmeric, fenugreek, and cumin?
Answers: 1. Black circle. 2. Truffle. 3. Antarctica and Australia. 4. Whooping cough. 5. Curry powder.
----------------------------------------
On The Lighter Side (June 29, 2009)
Why is the word abbreviation such a long word?
Are part-time bandleaders called semi-conductors?
Life can be a grind. Use it sharpen your character.
Sign on a towing truck: We do not charge an arm and a leg. We want tows!
If the black box survives a plane crash, why is the whole airplane not made out of the stuff?
Some people will see the light only when they feel the heat.
When women go wrong, men go right after them.
Forty is not considered old if you are a tree.
A backward poet writes inverse.
How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out that it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
You are struck with your debt if you cannot budge it.
Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking.
------------------------------------------------------
Did You Know (June 29, 2009)
Mad hatters People who made hats back in the 19th century were slowly poisoned by the mercury that they used to treat the felt. It affected their central nervous system and caused them to act very strangely thus the phrase “mad as a hatter.”
Looking pretty People were really into makeup in Egypt in 4,000 B.C. They liked green eye shadow, blue-black lipstick, red rouge and orange Henna on their fingers and toes.
Getting older As horses get older their gums recede which makes their teeth look longer. That is where the saying “long in the tooth” comes from.
Do not forget your second string If you were an archer in the Middle Ages, you never left home without a second string for your bow, in case it broke in the middle of a battle. That is why “second string” means replacement or backup.
Unlucky 13 If you think the number 13 is unlucky, you have what is called triskaidekaphobia. Sounds serious, but remember, there were 13 steps to the gallows and 13 twists in the rope used to hang a man.
-----------------------------------------------------
What did we learn (June 29, 2009)
Jaws again In 1974, moviegoers were on the edge of their seats because they watched a great white shark terrorize the community of South Beach, on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, in the movie, “Jaws.” Townsfolk in South Beach had reason to be genuinely scared when a report of a great white shark sighting was made to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. The sharks are rarely seen in the waters off New England, but officials were taking no chances. They cleared the water and called in a plane to try to confirm the sighting. “No shark was seen,” said Lisa Capone, a spokesperson for the department.
Sock snatcher A Belleville, Illinois, man is headed to jail for the fourth time because he keeps breaking into homes an stealing women’s socks. James Dowdy admits that he has a sock fetish, and it is a problem that keeps landing him in trouble with the law. But, a local police officer has lost his sympathy for the man. Captain Don Sax says that Dowdy has had plenty of opportunity to seek treatment for his psychiatric problem, but nothing has changed. Most recently, the 36 years old man was caught stealing socks from someone’s laundry room in Belleville, a suburb of St. Louis.
Big job It is no easy feat recycling in Kamikatsu, a community in Japan. That is because folks have to sort their recycled items into 34 different categories. The town does not have garbage collection, so green-minded residents either head to local shops with their trash, or go to the Zero Waste Center, where 34 bins await the assorted trash. There are bins for different types of plastic bottles, pens, razors, Styrofoam containers and other miscellaneous items. Hatsue Katayama, a housewife committed to recycling, says that it is a big job to take her things there, but she supports it.
Dog savior Greg LeNoir did not hesitate when he realized a shark was about to make an evening snack out of his 14-pound terrier, Jake. He jumped into the water and rammed the shark in the hopes of dislodging the dog from the shark’s jaw. Jake had been doing what he often does, going for a dip in the ocean near LeNoir’s Florida Keys home, while LeNoir watched from the pier. That is when the shark attacked. LeNoir successfully rescued the dog (and avoided and getting bitten himself), then headed for the vet. Jake was stitched up and survived. LeNoir says, “I was afraid, but I knew that I had to do something.” June 22 Quotable Quotes and others (June 22, 2009)Quotable Quotes (June 22, 2009)
“Shared joy is a double joy and shared sorrow is half sorrow.” – Swedish proverb
“Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened.” – Billy Graham
“Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You are able to benefit from the unique view points of others, without being crippled by your own judgment.” – Ralph Marston
---------------------------------------------------------
Trivia (June 22, 2009)
1. What fell from the sky in a rain shower in England in 1939 - frogs, mice or cats?
2. How many steps are there to the top of the Eiffel tower – 1789 or 1879?
3. What part of a cola tree is used to flavor drinks?
4. Which metal is made from bauxite?
5. What is the name of the bone in your thigh?
Answers: 1. Frogs. 2. 1789. 3. Nuts. 4. Aluminum. 5. Femur.
--------------------------------------------------------------
On the Lighter Side (June 22, 2009)
There was a ship that ran aground. It was filled with red paint. The crew was marooned.
Laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of the heart.
Where did Noah keep his bees? He kept his bees in archives.
Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.
Why did the chicken cross the basketball court? “Wearing of the garment does not enable you to fly.”
You are having a good day when driving to an early morning appointment that you are just ahead of the school bus.
Why do we pay to go up in tall buildings and then put money In binoculars to see things on the ground?
---------------------------------------------------------
Did You Know (June 22, 2009)
Find the word Sometimes we search for the right word, but that is not surprising since most of us store up to 6,000 words in our brain. But, despite our impressive vocabulary, we will not find a word in the English language that rhymes with month, orange, purple or silver.
Eye opener The eye of an ostrich is about the size of a regulation tennis ball. It is larger than the brain of the ostrich.
Nice gift The British troops fighting in the Boer War in South Africa in 1900 got a pleasant surprise when Queen Victoria sent her Christmas greetings. The greetings came in the form of a specially molded chocolate bar.
Big brown bears Alaskan brown bears are the world’s largest land-living meat eaters. They can weigh as much as 1,700 pounds. The smallest species is called sun or Malayan bears, which weigh less than 143 pounds.
Get laughing Studies show that having a good laugh lowers stress and strengthens the immune system. Six years old children laugh about 300 times a day, but alas, adults, on average, only laugh 15 to 100 times a day. June 15 On the Lighter Side and others (June 15, 2009)On the Lighter Side (June 15, 2009)
What do you call twin babies waiting to be born? They are called as wombmates.
If you do not succeed at first, you may call it version 1.0.
It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.
A dog applied for a job with the foreign-service and passed all the examinations easily. The interview then said: “You will need to show that you are bilingual.” The dog said: “Miaow!”
You may seek out the road to success, but you do not be surprised if you find that it is still under construction.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
What is the different between one yard and two yards? The different is a fence.
You obey gravity because it is the law.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Trivia (June 15, 2009)
1. What is serigraphy also known as?
2. Which do two South American countries produce the most coffee?
3. Who or what is halitosis?
4. What did the Big Bang theory create?
5. What is the main diet of hedgehogs?
Answers: 1. Silk-screen printing? 2. Brazil and Columbia. 3. Bad breath. 4. The Universe. 5. Insects.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Did You Know (June 15, 2009)
Four-square Please give this a try: fold a dry square piece of paper in half. Now fold it in half again, and again. You will discover that it cannot be folded in half more than seven times.
Deadly treat Most humans cannot live without a little taste of chocolate now and then. But for dogs, that yummy stuff can affect their hearts and nervous systems. A few ounces of chocolate are enough to kill a small dog.
Brewing coffee Coffee may have been discovered by an Ethiopian goat-herder in 850 A.D., but it was not until 1800 A.D. that the precursor of a coffee pot was invented by a Frenchman. Before that, people simple poured boiling water through ground beans held in a make-shift filter.
Night vision Tigers do not need night-vision goggles like humans do. Their built-in night vision is five times better than a human’s ability to see in the dark.
Banana family A banana is American’s number one fruit. But, it is really a giant herb. It is in the same family as lilies, orchids and palms. India grows most of the world’s bananas, 16.2 million tons, and Brazil followed with 6.5 million tons in 2002.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
What did we learn (June 15, 2009)
Hometown advantage If you want to increase your chances of winning a ball game, you shall then stick close to home. Dr. W Christopher Winter, who heads up the Sleep Medicine Center at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia, has studied 10 years worth of major league baseball scores, and have concluded that a team is likely to lose a game if it is jet-lagged severely. His research shows that teams traveling through one or two time zones to get to the game lose 52 percent of the time. If they have gone through three time zones, the likelihood increases to 60 percent. He says: “There is clearly a benefit to being acclimatized to your time zone.”
Keeping cops busy A driver in upstate New York was pulled over for drunk driving twice in three hours. The deputies of Sheriff in Westmoreland stopped Victor Sauerhafer, 37, at 1:26 a.m. and he registered 0.25 on the Breathalyzer. Cops would have put him in the drunk-tank if they could had one, but they did not. So, they released him to a friend. But just three hours later, at 4:08 a.m., they stopped Sauerhafer again, driving a different car, and this time he blew 0.23. Captain Richard Antanavige of Sheriff says: “When you usually release someone to a third party, someone to a third party, they do drive again.” Sauerhafer was taken to the county jail this time.
Hitting pay dirt Janice Peterson of Provo, Utah, was devastated when she realized that she has thrown $188,000 in cash and checks into the trash. She figures that the garbage bags had already been taken to the landfill and finding the money again was going to be nearly impossible. But in an amazing bit of luck, the first bag Peterson pulled open at the landfill, where thousands upon thousands of bags had been dropped, was the bag with the money. Brad Rollins, Sanitation Manager, had warned Peterson that it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. But, he was wrong. He marveled: “It only took five or 10 minutes of Peterson.”
Here is some help People who put together furniture or other at-home, do-it-yourself kits often do not get around to actually reading the instructions. That is where Stavros Antifakos thinks that he has hit upon a good idea. He says that people find instructions so annoying which they do not follow them. For those folks, the Swiss inventor has come up with a system of parts imbedded with microprocessors that tell the do-it-yourselfer whether he or she is doing it right. The microprocessors monitor assembly and send instructions, tips and warnings to your computer screen. Antifakos says that he next wants to develop a system of flashing lights that will tell a person if they are connecting something incorrectly. June 08 Quotable Quotes and others (June 8, 2009)Quotable Quotes (June 8, 2009)
“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso
“To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift that you can offer to the universe.” = Eckhart Tolle
“The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.” – Albert Einstein
---------------------------------------------------
On the Lighter Side (June 8, 2009)
If your brakes do not work, please try using an anchor.
A cemetery raised its costs, but blamed it on the cost of living.
The right brain is the source of inspiration and the left brain is the seat of reason. That is why inspired people always think that they are right and reasonable people get left out in the cold.
Proofread carefully to see if you are any words out.
If you have been fishing for several hours and have not caught anything except an old rubber boot, please remember that you are still better off than the worm.
Overweight is something that just snacks up on you.
Saturn is the richest planet because you can tell by all its rings.
Your children have started growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and start refusing to tell you where they are going.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trivia (June 8, 2009)
1. Carbohydrates are made up of carbon, hydrogen and what?
2. Which number code system is based on the digits 0 and 1?
3. How many years are celebrated by a pearl anniversary?
4. What is the zodiac sign of balance?
5. ON which side of the road do the Japanese drive?
Answers: 1. Oxygen. 2. The Binary System. 3. 30. 4. Libra. 5. Left.
------------------------------------------------------------
Did You Know (June 8, 2009)
Not from Africa Tigers and lions may be from the same type of family tree, but whereas lions live in Africa and tigers have never lived in that continent. All wild tigers live in Asia.
Number facts The opposite sides of a die cube always add up to seven. Four is the only word in the English language whose number of letters is equal to its value.
Piano player You might make an interesting piano player if you have hexadectylism. It means that you have six fingers or six toes on one or both hands and feet.
Loudest sound The Blue Whale produces the loudest sound of any animal. Its call can register 188 decibels; not surprising, considering it is believed to be one of the largest mammals in existence.
Hairless In ancient Egypt, priests had an objection to body hair. That is why they plucked every hair from their bodies. That included their eyebrows and eyelashes.
Rat catchers If you have a rate problem, you might consider hiring a pair of nesting barn owls to hang around. The duo can catch and dine on nearly 3,000 rats a year. June 01 On the lighter side and others (June 1, 2009)On the Lighter Side (June 1, 2009)
Before you say something off the cuff, please make sure that your shirt is clean.
The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches.
A Buddhist monk walked up to a hot-dog stand. “Make me one with everything,” he said.
Life is like a children’s playground. It does not mean a thing if it is not got that swing!
If we ever figure out how to preserve people, we will really be in a jam.
Patient says, “Doctor, you have to help me. Some days I think I am Mickey Mouse. Some days I think I am Donald Duck.” Doctor then says,” How long have you had these Disney spells?”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trivia (June 1, 2009)
1. What is a group of foxes called: poach, skulk or shadow?
2. Which organ of the body does insulin secret?
3. Which chemical element is with the symbol of “S”?
4. Which hormone makes the heart pound in times of stress?
5. Which color head does a male mallard usually have?
Answers: 1. Skulk. 2. Pancreas. 3. Sulfur. 4. Adrenalin. 5. Green.
----------------------------------------------------------
Did You Know (June 1, 2009)
Big seller When Americans go shopping, over 96 percent of them bring home bananas at least once a month. The average American eats over 28 pounds of bananas a year.
Do not mess with them A hippopotamus is so aggressive that it is considered to be one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. So you must watch out when you take a tour in Saharan Africa. There is an estimated 125,000 to 150,000 of them lurking in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Superstitious We all know people who are superstitions and believe Friday the 13th is unlucky. So, they will not go out the door on that day. Their belief costs the economy about $750 million in lost business.
Oldest flute The oldest musical instrument in the world that is still playable is a flute made from a bird’s wing bone over 9,000 years ago. It was found with other flutes in a very old burial site in China.
Nighty-night The United States has many “sleepy” towns: Sleepy Creek, Oregon; Sleepers Bend, California; Sleepy Eye, Minnesota; and Sleepy Beauty Peak, Arizona.
-------------------------------------------------------------
What did we learn (June 1, 2009)
Baseball team The Arndt family of Belleville, Illinois, could be called “a league of their own”. That is because Rick Arndt’s baseball team consists of nine of his 13 sons. Arndt had once dreamed of playing professional baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals, but when he did not make the cut, he chose farming instead. He created a ball diamond in his cornfield, which was inspired by the movie of “Field of Dreams”. That is where the team practices for the 80 regular league games that they play each season. “The team puts their first names on their jerseys, otherwise it would be too confusing,” oldest son Paul laughs.
Paws-itive action When Mimi Ausland heard that the local animal shelter where she volunteered could not afford to buy dog food, she came up with a unique way to help. The 11-year-old girl in central Oregon created a website called www.freekibble.com and invited per lovers to play a canine trivia game that she invented. When people play the game, pet food suppliers give the shelter free dog food for every correct answer. The website gets hits from across the country. “We are really excited about what Mimi is doging for us,” Lynne Ouchida says, from the Humane Society of Central Oregon.
Hot foot You should watch where you step in Golden Hill Park in Colorado Springs, Colorado. That is because there is a sport in the park where the ground is so hot that it can melt your shoes. Matt Bershinski, 8, was one of the people who discovered the hot spot the hard way. He suddenly began to yell when the plastic shoes he was wearing began melting, and his parents quickly grabbed him to get him off the spot. Fire chief Kent Matthews says that they cannot figure out why the earth reaches temperatures of 800 degrees in that particular spot, but adds that geological experts are continuing to investigate.
Work camp Adrian and Tiffany McKinnon of Montgomery, Alabama, created their own little prison work camp for the man that they found looting their home. The couple had arrived at their house after a vacation just in time to discover that the man had ransacked their house, turning everything upside down. The burglar was in the middle of upending things in another room when Adrian came in. “I was crying because there were piles of trash everywhere,” Tiffany said. While she called police, Adrian made the man put everything back where it belonged. When the cops arrived to take the thief to jail, the man complained that the McKinnons had made him work too hard. |
|
|||||
|
|
