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The tale of the rattler's tail

1/4/2012

1 Comment

 
_A mile on the ocean is further than a mile on land.

Holy mackerel would include the tuna, albacore and the bonito. Not the holy part, per se, but the mackerel.

If the volcano is submerged it's an atoll.

A lobster's body has 19 parts. That's more than the puzzle I just completed.

When 10 segments or so accumulate on the end of a rattler's tail, they begin to fall off. Because of this, that is not the best way to accurately guess their age. Some have noted it is a good way, much like the rings of a tree or my uncle's stomach.

Let's get this straight. Henry Ford did not invent the automobile.

Somehow, seven elephants and bears survived the Titanic ordeal. Didn't see that in the movie.

It was burnt bread that was placed in a Roman's drink. Thus became the toast.

The first woman on an airplane was probably earlier than you think. If you said 1908, you win the luggage. But, why so early in the progression of flight? She, or a woman named Hart Berg, took a two-minute flight with Wilber Wright.

Chicken pox has nothing to do with chickens and yet, the book of Genesis mentions chickens but not the egg. Hmmm.

Smut is a fungi. To some, I'm sure it is. I do not mind it, however.

IN CLOSING: "An F in English? Bobby, you speak English." From Hank Hill to his son, Bobby, on "King of the Hill."
1 Comment

Albert Einstein never learned to drive

12/28/2011

2 Comments

 
_Helen Keller was not born deaf, dumb and blind. A fever caused that.

If it's chirping, it's a male cricket. If it's belching and rolling around naked, it's my uncle.

As best as I can see, two presidents, who held their top spots at the same time, were also born in the same state. Now, follow me on this. President Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States and President Jefferson Davis was president of the Confederate States of America. Both were born in Kentucky. That's an item not seen or heard all the time.

For the last time, Leap Years do not occur every four years.

Do not blame humans for the extinction of the dodo. Most likely culprits were pigs and monkeys. They loved the eggs.

For most of the life of the Earth, the poles were ice free. Just think about that for a second and now read the headlines and read the panic.

Tears do not flow in space.

As for bones, they are not white. We see them that way because they are cleaned up a bit.

Alexander Graham Bell could play music by ear but it looked stupid and really hurt.

He may have been a genius but he never learned how to drive. He was Albert Einstein. Maybe he was on to something.
2 Comments

Baseball and Abner Doubleday? Forget about it

12/28/2011

2 Comments

 
_Abner Doubleday, who did not "invent" baseball, did fight at the battle of Gettysburg. And George Bailey fought the battle of Bedford Falls. Come on, you get that one. Think Mary, Clarence and Zuzu's petals.

There have been more vice presidents than presidents. Yet, some presidents had no vice president for a term here and there.

Simply put, the word husband once meant the head of household. Not much else.

After the White House burned during the term of James Madison, he never returned to it. He was out of office when it was refurbished.
Many early colonists were afraid of forests.

During the Middle Ages, only the wealthy wore gloves. The rest - - mittens. I prefer sock puppets.

"It was a gift, for crying out loud." That's my quote for Vincent Van Gogh after he cut off part of his ear to give to his love, Rachel. Remember, it was part of his ear, not the whole darn thing.

The original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. Real "great" huh? When they refer to destroyed I'm assuming burned but water could do some serious damage as well. It's your turn to do some research.

Pigs can become drunks and drunks can become pigs.

When someone screams, "Holy Toledo," I look at them in disgust for two reasons. One being it's loud and the second is pondering: "Who the heck uses that phrase anymore?" This item has veered so much, I have no idea where I'm at now. Check with me later.

"Holy Toledo" referred to Toledo, Spain. There now, that was easy.

2 Comments

Thomas Edison was indeed a slob; he deserved to be, too

11/16/2011

11 Comments

 
_- A buckskin sold for a dollar, thus a buck was born.

- In 1778, Daniel Boone was arrested because some thought him a British Spy. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, he deliberately exposed himself (no, not that way) to smallpox.

- Truth is, Buffalo Bill was a popular nickname in the Old West. Please, make sure you track down the right when when writing about him.

- By most accounts, Thomas Edison was a slob. A good one, too.

- Those large termites known as soldiers cannot feed themselves. Now I feel sorry for them.

- Magnets, attached to cats, thrown off their navigational skills, so stop it right now.

- I can burn one calorie a minute while I sleep. So I sleep for 250 hours when I can.

- A Eurasian beaver rarely builds a dam or gives one, either. Now, have you ever seen a Eurasian beaver? Let's move on.

- Ben Franklin was in Europe when the Tea Party took place.

- Nostradamus and his writings indicate Napoleon as the first anti-christ. The second would be Napoleon Dynamite for thinking his hijinks would last.

- When Sir Walter Raleigh lit up a bit of tobacco in front of the queen, he came into quite a drenching. They di think he was on fire.

- In the Middle Ages, baths were taken by doctor's request. I request the same thing daily to my Uncle Willie. I just wished he would listen.

- Chopin hated the number seven. Not the movie, just the number.

- Fiddler back in the day, whatever that means, were fit because of tall that fiddling. Therefore, they were "fit as a fiddle."

- In London, the word bug refers to bedbugs - - all the others are insects. Is this still true?

- The pineapple was not originally native to Hawaii. As for those tiny bubbles, we are still checking.

- A male swan could be called a cob, sans the corn on the ...this item got away from me somehow.

- Oh, you may have heard that the flounder has both eyes on the same side of its head, but so does the halibut. Furthermore, you may have heard that the halibut has both eyes on the same side of its head, but so does the flounder. Huh?

- The first person to go over Niagara Falls was a woman, that is well documented. But, she could not swim. She did survive, unlike my Aunt Wilma, who could swim, ate her vegetables, and ate fish. She did all the right things, but Niagara got her. She slipped taking a photo of someone going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

- As for mammals, true flight goes to the bat. The others, they glide. Let's hear it for the bats.

- Dr. David Livingston, I presume, was embalmed with sand. Oh, his heart was buried under a tree.

- Folks in Maine celebrated Thanksgiving before the Pilgrims and they had turkey. The Pilgrims did not. The ones who talk and hear about did not, that is.

- Barbers did indeed exist in Biblical times. It strikes me odd to say Biblical times. What? Forget that, now?

- Apple seeds are not the only thing Johnny Appleseed went around planting and throwing about.

11 Comments

Is the groundhog scared of its shadow?

11/7/2011

11 Comments

 
- There is a legend out there that doesn't get much coverage, especially in February. That would be, groundhogs are actually afraid of their shadows.

- Kangaroos keep growing throughout their entire lives.

- Sometimes, when it rains, a camel will run and never come back.

- A parasite wasp is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. No, make it this one. OK, try this one. Enough.

- The skin of the hippo weighs half a ton. No wonder why it sinks to the bottom and feeds. Baby hippos will swim before they walk. Someone who knows such things has told me the longest hippo fight on record was 8 hours.

- Short-term memory is at its best from 9-10 a.m. What? I didn't catch that. Ask me again later.

- The rhino charges many things for a reason we may not understand. They have bad eyesight. On second thought, we do understand, I'm guessing.

- Nothing is ever at rest. Nothing, ever.

- The force of gravity pulls all of us toward the center of the Earth. Let's journey, shall we? Nice stretch to get to "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in this item.

- If we did not produces saliva, we would not taste anything.
11 Comments

"Sucker State" - try Illinois; once, it was

10/27/2011

1 Comment

 
- "I could dance with you until the cows come home. On second thought I would rather dance with cows until you come home." - Groucho Marx, "Duck Soup"
- Truth be told, Napoleon couldn't really ride a horse that well. I'm thinking because he always had that hand in his coat - - because of stomach problems.
- The rarest diamond is blood red or the one that I would buy.
- You have a greater chance of contracting rabies from a cow than a rat. You, not me.
- If you need helium, try going to Kansas. By the way, we refused to give Germany helium, so they couldn't use it in the Hindenburg. Boom.
- Illinois was once called the "Sucker State." It still feels that way today.
- Mistletoe is a parasite, so kiss me now.
- The thumb has its own area of control in the brain. Thumbs up to that one. Yes, that was stupid.
- As for age, you could call the sun, middle-aged. A crisis is coming.
- There are about 2,000,000 mites in an average double bed. I'll suggest 2,000,003.
- During the day, the sun causes your house to stretch.
- Metal hangers are sagging from the weight and as a result are giving off an ultra-low frequency groan, if you will. No, I will not. But call them Humming Hangers.
- Yes, anti-freeze is used in some toothpaste.
- A bolt of lightning is never straight.
- If we landed on Venus, we would suffocate, be crushed and roasted - - simultaneously. Road trip?
- The Jet Stream wasn't discovered until World War II.
- The world's greatest mountain range lies below the ocean.
- There is no air on the moon so shut up, I can't hear you anyway.
- Buckingham Palace was built on top of a sewer...a very large sewer.
- Cold water holds more oxygen than warm water.
1 Comment

Worms do not have ears. What?

10/27/2011

1 Comment

 
- No way was George Washington standing on that boat when it went to the other side. Standing up, what the? Wow, he could have easily taken a dive plus he would have been an easy target. Surely someone would have said, sit down George, you are rocking the boat.
- Hey, for the last time, the potato is actually a modified stem, not a root. Huh?
- Fleas do not like vitamin B. It really is that simple so let's move on. Wait, we are not done yet. They also hate the smell of cedar.
- Worms do not have ears.
- Eleanor Barry loved reading. She loved it so much she had stacks of books everywhere. One day she fell asleep while reading and one of those stacks fell on her - - and killed her. The book she was reading was "How To Properly Stack Books." No, it was not. But she did die that way.
- Twelve cockroaches can live on the glue of a postage stamp for a week. Just one more reason to shut that place down.
- Rats can tread water up to three days but I still do not know why they want to.
- Chickens have no sweat glands. Sometimes I feel like I don't either.
- We ignore the majority of the sounds we hear on a daily basis. If we didn't we would go nuts.
- As a child, Abraham Lincoln taught his pet pig to play hide and seek. As an adult, Abe did things, too.
- William Henry Harrison brought his own cow to the White House. It was his wife. Oh, come on, we do not make jokes like that anymore. OK, he did it for the milk. The cow, that is.
- Bees do not swarm before a storm.
- I have just been informed that if a pig squeals in winter, there will be a blizzard. And this is not a squeal when you try to pull its tail. Stop it.
- Why aren't we eating chicken feathers as they are 97 percent protein?
- Ben Franklin had an IQ higher than Isaac Newton. Who doesn't? Oh, they were 145 to 130, respectively. Oh, one more item. That apple most likely did not fall on his head. Nearby, sure, not on his head.
- If you were alive 65 million years ago, well, you would be very old...
- Ouch! A baby giraffe is roughly 6 feet tall when born. I use roughly for mom and ouch as well.
- Abracadabra was once thought to be the cure for a fever.
- To the moon Alice...maybe not, but Silly Putty made it to the moon.
- The largest cell is an ostrich egg, sunny side up.
- Adam named the donkey after attending a Democratic Convention. Huh? Eve went for a snack.
- There is more gold in the oceans than in all the banks in the world.

1 Comment

Fish do get seasick

10/18/2011

1 Comment

 
- There are flightless flies in Hawaii. And I still can't catch them.

- Fish can get seasick.

- A giraffe's tongue is blue unless you let them suck on a cherry sucker.

- Some people actually think it is lucky to spit on the newborn or run lard on it.

- There just weren't that many caves so the primitive man and the use and talk of cave life could be called a stretch.
1 Comment

Leaves fall so fall it is

10/18/2011

1 Comment

 
- In case you were wondering, Bonnie took 23 bullets; Clyde, 25. The car, many, too, but was mechanically unharmed.

-Fall is so because leaves fall, right? And it's not good if they all fall off the tree at one time...would surely hurt that tree.

- Sure, the Carpathia showed up hours later to help reach Titanic survivors but the Califorian should have. There radio was off and they failed to hear the warning.
 
- The Titanic head honcho was attempting a speed record, some say, and that is why he just kept going...
- I have been told that Pennsylvania fireflies flash green. So do Irish ones. OK, that was dumb.

- Big Ben is is the bell, not the clock. Either way, it, too is leaning, along with Wash. Monument, Leaning Tower and my Uncle Willie...
1 Comment

More history is a mystery - enjoy

10/12/2011

1 Comment

 
More history is a mystery from the files of Tidbits & Trivia...

- As for "survival of the fittest," it was not Charles Darwin who used it or said it first. That would be Herbert Spencer, a philosopher.

- It is simply a myth that Marie Antoinette ever said "Let them eat cake" - - at least in public. No evidence supports this but some point to a rival for creating it.

- The day after Thanksgiving is not the busiest or most money-producing sales day of the holiday season.

- Amusement parks are not empty on Super Bowl Sunday.

- Meanwhile, it was the grandson of Betsy Ross who invented the flag story and a newspaperman who invented the O'Leary's Cow story...
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    For years I had a weekly trivia column published in The Big E, the product I ran and wrote for Sauk Valley Newspapers. Before that I was a researcher for L.M. Boyd and his Crown Syndicate and for other syndications as well. Two of them were Sports Features Syndicate and World Features.

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