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Post by Phalon on Jun 15, 2008 5:58:35 GMT -6
I'm not quite sure what you mean, Joxie; I think we may be talking about two different things. I was referring to the site you posted - it had nearly every idiom and saying listed except "everything but the kitchen sink".
And the link would have also fit into "Everything Including the Kitchen Sink", though the site mentioned everything but the kitchen sink.....excluding 'everything but the kitchen sink'.
Huh? Now I'm confused.
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Post by Mini Mia on Jun 15, 2008 18:42:09 GMT -6
Awww ... I thought you meant the thread link was missing from my "Quick Links" thread. Me bad.
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Post by Siren on Jun 17, 2008 22:51:41 GMT -6
Worldwide, mosquito-borne diseases kill more people than any other single factor.
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Post by Phalon on Jun 19, 2008 4:28:25 GMT -6
< smack> Damn mosquitos! Here's the buzz about a more beneficial insect. Every third bite of food we eat has been pollinated by a honeybee. Although too much of a good thing too close to home is not quite sweet as honey... www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23617763/
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Post by Siren on Jun 21, 2008 18:30:05 GMT -6
Frank Sinatra's epitaph is "The Best Is Yet To Come".
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Post by moonglum on Jun 22, 2008 2:50:22 GMT -6
All the planets in the Solar System rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It's the only planet that rotates clockwise.
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Post by Phalon on Jun 22, 2008 7:20:51 GMT -6
I think it's fitting, (and it's not fitting for me to think in the morning), that Venus spins opposite of the other planets. Like The Best is Yet to Come Frank, Love does things her own way.
I once read a poetry book that was a collection of epitaphs; some were very poetic, and some were funny. Then there was that Dorothy Parker short story collection I recently read that said she wanted her epitaph to read "Excuse my dust".
Some others of famous people....
Mel Blanc, (who did the voice of Porky the Pig): "That's All Folks!"
Bette Davis: "She did it the hard way."
W.C. Fields: "Here lies W.C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia."
Jack London: "The Stone the Builders Rejected."
Fly Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." ~ Edgar Allan Poe
Winston Churchill: "I am ready tmeet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
Robert Frost: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world"
H.G. Wells: "I told you so, you damned fools."
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Post by vox on Jun 22, 2008 14:41:04 GMT -6
Here's an intersting fact!
The Nobel Prize resulted form a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence - he invented dynamite.
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Post by vox on Jun 26, 2008 14:35:14 GMT -6
another useless one!
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted!
Albert Einstein
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Post by Siren on Jun 29, 2008 21:23:01 GMT -6
There are over 120,000 species of flies ranging in size from 1/20th of an inch to well over three inches.
Imagine that - a 3-inch fly!
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Post by Phalon on Jun 30, 2008 6:01:21 GMT -6
Eeeew! I'd rather not, Siren.
How about something less icky instead, concerning another type of "fly" - a butterfly.
The top butterfly flight speed is 12 miles per hour. Some moths can fly 25 miles per hour!
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Post by vox on Jun 30, 2008 14:45:20 GMT -6
Useless trivia
This term originally comes from US theatrical slang
Top Banana
The 'top banana' was the comedian on the top of the bill. The 'second banana' was the supporting comedian
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Post by katina2nd on Jun 30, 2008 22:02:14 GMT -6
Eeeew! I'd rather not, Siren. I'm with you Lady P, outta sight outta mind is my motto, yikes if one of those suckers flew into you it would be a bit unpleasant I imagine. The Bee Hummingbird is the smallest bird in the world, weighing 1.8 grams (0.06 ounces) and measuring about 5 cm (2 inches)....... Sheesh that's smaller then Sirens fly. The smallest species of Hummingbird [ the Bee Hummingbird I'm guessing ] has a wing beat of around 50/70 beats per second. The heart rate for a hummingbird is about 1260 beats per minute.
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Post by vox on Jul 1, 2008 14:33:59 GMT -6
A dragonfly flaps its wings 20 to 40 times a second, bees and houseflies 200 times, some mosquitoes 600 times, and a tiny gnat 1,000 times.
A fly can react to something it sees and change direction in 30 milliseconds.
A housefly can transport germs as far as 15 miles away from the original source of contamination.
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Post by Siren on Jul 1, 2008 22:03:56 GMT -6
kat, after I read your post, I just had to get a look at a bee hummingbird. Y'all check this out: www.avianweb.com/beehummingbirds.htmlVox, flies can carry germs from 15 miles away? Let's see, within 15 miles, we have a feedlot, a sewage treatment plant....ewwwwww!
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Post by katina2nd on Jul 2, 2008 6:16:49 GMT -6
Superb little creatures aren't they, hard to comprehend a bird that tiny. Thanks for posting the link Siren, great photos there. Vox, flies can carry germs from 15 miles away? Let's see, within 15 miles, we have a feedlot, a sewage treatment plant....ewwwwww! And just imagine the size of the germs those three inch flies could carry; on second thoughts it's probably better not to imagine em ...... double ewwwwww!
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Post by vox on Jul 2, 2008 13:45:39 GMT -6
The pictures of the birds are fantastic Siren, thanks!
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Post by Siren on Jul 2, 2008 21:45:59 GMT -6
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Post by Phalon on Jul 3, 2008 4:39:49 GMT -6
Those hummingbird pictures remind me of an e-mail I received about a month or so ago - a slide-show kind of thing. A woman stumbled upon a hummingbird nest in her garden, and was lucky enough to get camera shots of what took place inside the nest from the time the baby hummers hatched to when they were big enough to leave the nest. The pictures were wonderful, but it was the last one that put all the others in perspective: when the nest was empty, she placed a penny inside it, and a pencil next to it to show it's depth and width. Amazing that all that took place inside a nest no bigger than a penny.
I wonder, Siren, if that skyscraper was built for the Wright Price?
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Post by Siren on Jul 5, 2008 9:24:45 GMT -6
Imagine that - a bird nest the size of a half dollar. *shaking head, wonderingly*
I think "Wright Price" was no object, Gams - it was built by an oil baron.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The average American eats about 28 pounds of bananas per year (about 112 bananas). The average Ugandan eats about 500 pounds of bananas per year.
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Post by Phalon on Jul 10, 2008 4:36:39 GMT -6
"The Mac", a sailboating tradition celebrating its 100th running next week, is the longest freshwater race in the world. It starts in Chicago to Mackinac Island - 333 miles of sometimes the sometimes gruelingly rough waters of Lake Michigan. One of my favorite customers, (and the inspiration for the "Getting Wordy" thread), is getting ready to compete in her 37th Mac race; she entered her first race at a time when it was rare for women to race - she was considered a pioneer. She is legend in the sailing community. An interesting article about a very interesting woman. www.lakemagazine.com/magazine/article.asp?articleid=LID-64-S6ZXQ-20085355
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Post by Siren on Jul 14, 2008 22:01:31 GMT -6
Wow, what an interesting person she is, Gams! Thanks for sharing her story. I really enjoyed that!
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Post by Phalon on Jul 15, 2008 4:27:31 GMT -6
Interesting, and a totally cool person to talk with, Siren. I'm glad you enjoyed the article. One of the neat things I learned while reading the article was The Legend of Sleeping Bear Dunes - about the mother bear and her cubs fleeing the forest fire. There is a popular children's book about the legend, but I've never read it; I think a trip to see the Library Biddies is in order. We visited Sleeping Bear National Park last year while we were camping. It's unbelievable - some of the most awesomely beautiful scenery I've ever experienced. In some places the dunes tower 460 feet above Lake Michigan! We took loads of pictures, but none of them do the place justice - nothing can compare to standing out on the bluffs overlooking the Lake, with a sheer drop of dune at the edge of your feet. Here's one of our pictures taken from the Mother Bear's point of view, looking out at her cubs. And one that sort of gives you an idea of how high the dunes are. The picture doesn't quite show it, but the shoreline below is a straight drop.
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Post by Phalon on Jul 25, 2008 4:24:07 GMT -6
The nursery's ad that'll run in the local paper this Sunday, is atypical from our usual garden quotes, plant descriptions, and seasonal tips. It'll read: Judy, you Rock! Congratulations on your "Mac" victory! The woman featured in the article link sailed to victory, coming in first out of the forty similar boats in that class.
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Post by Phalon on Jul 29, 2008 5:47:10 GMT -6
Summertime means fresh sweet corn-on-the-cob. We sit on the back porch to shuck the ears to avoid getting the silk all over the kitchen. BP tends to act like she's just stuck her hand in a cobweb; the silk gets stuck to her fingers, and she shakes her hand as if it's an icky thing. I usually have to go back and pull the silk strands off the cobs she's shucked - she leaves more on than she pulls off.
Did you know an average ear of corn has approximately 800 kernels arranged in 16 rows.
A pound of corn consists of approximately 1,300 kernels.
There is one strand of silk for every kernal on the cob.
That's a whole lotta cob-webby silk to get stuck to your fingers.
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Post by Siren on Jul 29, 2008 8:42:53 GMT -6
Those are some surprising numbers about something so common, yet so completely, swooningly delicious: an ear of fresh corn.
When I was a kid, we used to sit by the pasture fence to shuck the corn we'd just picked. Our beautiful Jersey cow, Miss Toad (her shape inspired the name), would stand there, blissfully happy, and eat the shucks as we passed them through the fence to her. Our other barnyard companion for this job, our pet hen, Matilda, waited for the occasional corn worm we found among the kernels as we trimmed the ears. She would leap in the air and pluck the worm from our fingers.
I never eat corn on the cob without thinking of my niece, Jojo. When she was little, she wore glasses, which she removed while eating corn. She said the corn squirted onto the lenses!
~~~~~~~~~~~ So glad to hear that your adventurous friend won the race, Gams!
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Post by Mini Mia on Jul 29, 2008 20:08:10 GMT -6
Our cats loved when Mom shucked corn to make cream corn. They liked sucking on the cob after she cut off the kernels and ran her blade down the cob to get the milk. Sometimes she'd leave a bit of milk on there for them.
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Post by Phalon on Jul 31, 2008 4:28:20 GMT -6
We used to have a cat, Joxie, who would steal the corn cobs out of the trash can before we got it outside. He'd hold the cob in his paws sucking the buttery remains, and looking like a dog gnawing on a bone. There was at least once that I remember we didn't take the trash out that evening, and I stumbled across the floor in the dark, stepping on a cob he'd dug out during the night. What the heck? Nothing feels quite so odd as a cold, wet corn cob on bare feet and not knowing what it is at the time you step on it.
Too funny about Jojo, Siren. Hubs takes off his glasses when he drains the corn in the sink. The hot steam makes them foggy.
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Post by Siren on Aug 4, 2008 0:10:39 GMT -6
Tootsie Roll Industries produces about 60 million individual Tootsie Rolls per day, and about 20 million Tootsie Pops per day.
This is from a 2006 article, so it may not be correct today. But aren't those numbers amazing?? I found those figures while finishing off an orange Tootsie Pop, my favorite flavor.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 6, 2008 22:09:33 GMT -6
Just cleaning out some computer files, and ran across of bunch of useless facts I had saved for whatever reason, (the reasons of which, I can not remember now). So here, in one fell swoop, I'll pawn them off and get rid of them all. Ahh....I love a nice clean computer. Cinnamon was used in ancient Egypt to embalm the dead. * * * During the Han dynasty, people were required to put a piece of clove in their mouths to hide bad breath before they were allowed to talk to the Emperor. * * * The banana tree is not actually a tree but, botanically, the world’s largest herb. * * * In some cultures, a bowl of cabbage soup is given to newlyweds the morning after their wedding as part of a fertility ritual. Perhaps that’s were the concept for “cabbage patch kids” came from. * * * Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, right after oil. * * * Coffee has been cultivated since 1000 A.D. Coffee was mainly used for medicinal purposes until around one thousand years ago, when people began drinking it as a hot beverage. It took time for the beverage’s popularity to grow in Europe. Christians first thought that coffee was evil until the Pope tried some and thought it was delicious and blessed it. * * * Cumin was used for both culinary and medicinal purposes in ancient Egypt. Egyptians not only seasoned their meats with it but also mummified their dead with cumin. * * * The Spanish called eggplant “berengenas’, the “apple of love”; whereas other Europeans called it ‘mala insane”, “mad apple”, because they thought it caused insanity. * * * At one time, it was popular to sprinkle fresh ginger in steins of beer at English pubs, hence the name and origin of “ginger ale”. * * * Ancient Romans and Greeks would crown a bride and groom with oregano during a wedding ceremony because the herb was believed to banish sadness. * * * Pistachios from outside the United States were originally dyed red to hide imperfections resulting from crude harvest methods. But natural pistachios grown in the U.S. today hare harvested with state-of-the-art equipment that preserves their natural beauty. “Red” pistachios are still available for those who prefer them. * * * In Bunol, Valencia, Spain, there’s an annual tradition of pelting thy fellow neighbor with tomatoes, called “La Tomatina”.
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