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Think You Know Everything? Think Again! A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; a group of geese in the air is a skein. A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. A snail can sleep for three years. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill. All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20." Almonds are a member of the peach family. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age. Butterflies taste with their feet. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10. Did you know that crocodiles never outgrow the pool in which they live? "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt". February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak. In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated. If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction. If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights. In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10 . It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye." Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. Shakespeare invented the word 'assassination' and 'bump.' "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand; lollipop" with your right. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing... The Bible does not say there were three wise men; it only says there were three gifts. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is screeched. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable". The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet. The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid. The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes). There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball. There are more chickens than people in the world. There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious." There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility." There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables Vitamins. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself. ... ... ....Now, if you're a women,you know everything!
Handy Hints 03/18/01 1. Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips. 2. Use a meat baster to "squeeze" your pancake batter onto the hot griddle and you'll get perfectly shaped pancakes every time. 3. To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes. 4. To prevent egg shells from cracking, add a pinch of salt to the water before hard boiling. 5. Run your hands under cold water before pressing Rice Krispies treats in the pan and the marshmallow won't stick to your fingers. 6. To get the most juice out of fresh lemons, bring them to room temperature and roll them under your palm against the kitchen counter before squeezing. 7. To easily remove burnt on food from your skillet, simply add a drop or two of dish soap and enough water to cover bottom of pan, and bring to a boil on stovetop. 8. Spray your Tupperware with nonstick cooking spray before pouring in tomato based sauces and there won't be any stains. 9. When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake. 10. If you accidentally over salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant "fix me up," 11. Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks. 12. Brush some beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish. 13. Place a slice of apple in hardened brown sugar to soften it. 14. When boiling corn on the cob, add a pinch of sugar to help bring out the corn's natural sweetness. 15. To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh, but if it rises to the surface, throw it away. 16. Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away. 17. Don't throw out all that leftover wine Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces. 18. If you have a problem opening jars: Try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non slip grip that makes opening jars easy. 19. Potatoes will take food stains off your fingers. Just slice and rub raw potato on the stains and rinse with water. 20. To get rid of itch from mosquito bites, try applying soap on the area and you will experience instant relief. 21. Ants, ants, ants everywhere ... Well, they are said to never cross a chalk line. So get your chalk out and draw a line on the floor or wherever ants tend to march. See for yourself. 22. Use air freshener to clean mirrors. It does a good job and better still, leaves a lovely smell to the shine. 23. When you get a splinter, reach for the scotch tape before resorting to tweezers or a needle. Simply put the scotch tape over the splinter, then pull it off. Scotch tape removes most splinters painlessly and easily. 24. Now look what you can do with Alka Seltzer. Clean a toilet. Drop in two Alka-Seltzer tablets, wait twenty minutes, brush and flush. The citric acid and effervescent action clean vitreous China. 25. Clean a vase. To remove a stain from the bottom of a glass vase or cruet, fill with water and drop in two Alka-Seltzer tablets. 26. Polish jewelry. Drop two Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water and immerse the jewelry for two minutes. 27. Clean a thermos bottle. Fill the bottle with water, drop in four Alka-Seltzer tablets, and let soak for an hour (or longer, if necessary). 28. Unclog a drain. Clear the sink drain by dropping three Alka-Seltzer tablets down the drain followed by a cup of Heinz White Vinegar - Wait a few minutes, then run the hot water. 29. Do your friends a favor. Pass this on to a friend or two. Some Strange bits of Information 03/04/01 The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush. American car horns beep in the tone of F. No piece of paper can be folded more than 7 times. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes. 1 in every 4 Americans has appeared on television. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache. A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning. The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin. The first owner of the Marlboro company died of lung cancer. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Betsy Ross is the only real person to ever have been the head on a Pez dispenser. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. Marilyn Monroe had six toes. All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public. Walt Disney was afraid of mice. The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in jelly. Debra Winger was the voice of E.T. Pearls melt in vinegar. It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order. Average life span of a major league baseball: seven pitches. A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why. Richard Milhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second? William Jefferson Clinton.
The Many Uses of Coca Cola 2/11/01 1. In many states the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident. 2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of coke and it will be gone in two days. 3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl... Let the "real thing" sit for one hour, then flush clean. 4. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china. 5. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a crumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola. 6. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away corrosion. 7. To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes. 8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield. 9.The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days. 10.To carry Coca Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the Hazardous material place cards reserved for Highly Corrosive materials. 11.The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years! Now, here's some trivial stuff that'll make you think twice 5/16/99 1. The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs in it. 2. The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night. 3. A cockroach can live nine days without its head before it starves to death. 4. A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair. 5. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes. 6. A polar bear's skin is black. Its fur is not white, but actually clear. 7. Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis' middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his brother. 8. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors. 9. Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants. 10. More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes. 11. Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand. 12. Shakespeare invented the word "assassination" and "bump." 13. Marilyn Monroe had six toes. 14. If you keep a Goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white. 15. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. 16. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. 17. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language. 18. The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with. 19. The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want. 20. TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard. 21. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction 22. The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left. 23. A snail can sleep for 3 years. 24. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class. 25. China has more English speakers than the United States. 26. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. 27. Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, with a population of 1000 and a size 108.7 acres. 28. The longest town name in the world has 167 letters. 29. Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world. 30. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. 31. The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct part of DNA. 32. No president of the United States was an only child. 33. The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies. Here are some fun and interesting facts that you may find of interest: MISCELLANEOUS 12/27/98 Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling. If a statue in the park bears the likeness of a person on a horse with both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes. Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young University. (But you knew that didn't you?) Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic (the language of the ancient Bible) did not contain an easy way to say "many things" and used a term which has come down to us as 40. This means that when the bible -- in many places -- refers to "40 days," they meant many days. No words in the English language rhyme with month, orange, silver, or purple. Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired." Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village". There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards." But a different explanation has also been given: "The whole nine yards" come from sailing ships- a "yard" was a sail. On common 3-masted sailing ships- each mast carrying three sails, to go fast was to go to full sail- or to use "the whole nine yards." The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy." Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance. The most common name in the world is Mohammed. Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fish was named Livingston. The 'y' in signs reading "ye olde.." is properly pronounced with a 'th' sound, not 'y'. The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Roman occupied (present day) England use the rune "thorn" to represent "th" sounds. With the advent of the printing press the character from the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lower case "y". The word "samba" means "to rub navels together." The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher. The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are radioactive--so much so that they will set of an alarm at a nuclear reactor. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots. Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of about 32. So a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5! Though it goes to 10, 9 is estimated to be the point of total tetonic destruction (2 is the smallest that can be felt unaided.) Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in the 1600s by a translator. It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her. Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize *this* was the day of the changeover. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo. Subject: Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 17:43:00 -0800 MISCELLANEOUS 12/06/98 Weird facts If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. On average people fear spiders more than they do death. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. You can't kill yourself by holding your breath. Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie. Did you know that you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider? Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eye-brows and eyelashes. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. Polar bears are left handed. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds, more than any other animal. The flea can jump 350 times its body length, that is like a human jumping the length of a football field. A cockroach will live nine days without it's head. The only reason it doesn't live longer is it's unable to eat. Butterflies taste with their feet. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump. (thankfully) A cat's urine glows under a blacklight. An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. Starfish don't have brains. MISCELLANEOUS 7/26/98 The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. The average secretary's left hand does 56% of the typing. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. There are more chickens than people in the world. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. SPORTS 5/17/98 A bowling pin must tilt only 7.5 degrees in order to fall down. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball. It takes 3000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs. Basketball was invented in 1892 by James Naismith. As originally played, a ladder was used to retrieve the ball from the basket. TRIVIA 5/3/98 Historical records indicate that the wooden gondolas of Venice, Italy were first used in about 1094. In 1709, Quaker ironmaster Abraham Darby discovered that coke, made from coal, could be substituted for charcoal, made from wood, to create pig iron and cast iron ... giving rise to the Industrial Revolution. The incense cedar of the High Sierra mountains is the wood most widely used to make pencils in the United States. WORDS 3/29/98 The term the "Boogey man will get you" comes from the Boogey people, who still inhabit an area of Indonesia. They still act as pirates today and attack ships that pass. Thus the phrase, "If you don't watch out the Boogey man will get you." Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, "L.A." STRANGE LAWS 3/08/98 In Quitman, Georgia, it is illegal for a chicken to cross the road. In Chicago, Illinois, it is illegal to take a French poodle to the opera. In Tennessee, it is illegal to use a lasso to catch a fish. In Minnesota, it is illegal to tease skunks. In Oklahoma, it is illegal to make "ugly faces" at dogs. TV SHOWS and MOVIES 2/27/98 The movie Wayne's World was filmed in two weeks. Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays. Kelsey Grammer sings and plays the piano for the theme song of Fraser. Four people played Darth Vader: David Prowse was his body, James Earl Jones did the voice, Sebastian Shaw was his face and a fourth person did the breathing. When the first home TV set was demonstrated in 1928, the screen was 3 inches by 4 inches. NAMES 2/14/98 Bingo is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box. Nipper is the name of the RCA Victor dog. Fauntleroy is Donald Duck's middle name. "Pinocchio" is Italian for "pine eyes". Ralph Lauren's original name was Ralph Lifshitz. Sara Lee is the largest American corporation named for its owner's daughter. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village." The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life". The most common name in the world is Mohammed. FOOD 2/7/98 * Almonds are members of the peach family. * Cucumbers are 96 percent water. * Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously. * Fully ripened cranberries can be dribbled like a basketball. * Olive trees were sacred in ancient Athens. Their fruit belonged to the state, and death was the penalty for chopping one down. MUSIC 1/31/98 The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield was "Rock the Casbah" by the Clash. The musical group ABBA got its name from the first letter from each of their first names (Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, Anni-frid.) John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles. The Beatles song "Dear Prudence" was written about Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, when she wouldn't come out and play with Mia and the Beatles at a religious retreat in India. The world's largest drum set, consisting of 308 pieces, was built by rock musician Dan McCourt of Pontiac, Michigan, in 1994. It consisted of 153 drums, 77 cymbals, 33 cowbells, 12 hi-hats, 8 tambourines, 6 wood blocks, 3 gongs, 3 bell trees, 2 maracas, 2 triangles, 2 rain sticks, 2 bells, 1 ratchet, 1 set of chimes, 1 xylophone, 1 affuche and 1 doorbell. Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F. Telephone dial tones are also in F. COLLEGE LIFE According to the just-released UCLA study of 252,000 freshmen at 464 colleges and universities around the United States ("The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1997"), the percentage of freshmen who said they... Study 6 or
more times a week: Have overslept
and missed class: Frequently
feel overwhelmed: Believe it's
important to promote racial understanding: Vote in student
elections: LANGUAGE "I am" and "I do" are the shortest English-language sentences with a subject and verb. "Floccinaucinihilipilification" is the longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary. It means "the act of estimating as worthless." The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwenuaki tanatahu, a New Zealand hill. It means, "The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knee who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as land-eater, played on his flute to his loved one." THE YEAR 2000 - We are 3 years away from the next millennium now, not 2. The 21st Century begins on Jan. 1, 2001. Why? Because there was no year Zero. The modern calendar (used since the 6th Century) jumps from 1 BC to AD 1. (By the beginning of AD 2, only one year had elapsed.) The 19th Century ran from the first day of 1801 until the last day of 1900. The current century will end on Dec. 31, 2000. This factoid probably won't stop people (or their computers) from going berserk when all the numbers change on the evening of Dec. 31, 1999, though. In his "March of the Millennia," Isaac Asimov writes that the monk Dionysius Exiguus erred in his 6th-century calculations when he pegged Christ's birth year as AD 1 (year 754 under the old Roman calendar, which was based on the founding of the city). Asimov notes that King Herod was alive when Jesus Christ was born, but Herod died in 4 BC. "If we were really counting from the birth of Jesus, the year we call 2000 is really somewhere between 2004 and 2020, and the actual year of AD 2000 may already have passed," Asimov writes. The South Pacific island nation of Kiribati moved its little corner of the International Dateline so that it could be the first to usher in the new millennium. HAMBURGERS - The hamburger's roots can be traced back to to the tribes of the Tartary living in the Baltic provinces in the Middle Ages. German trading partners developed the Hamburg Steak - fried beef seasoned with onions - and brought it to America in the 19th century. Stories vary on just how the Hamburg Steak evolved into the present day hamburger. Some credit Charlie Nagreen of Seymour Wis. with inventing it in 1885 and selling it at the Outagamie County Fair. Others say Louis Lassen of New Haven Conn. created the hamburger steak in 1900 as a means for using the triimmings from the steak sandwich he featured at his lunch wagon. In any case, the hamburger as we know it today gained widespread attention at the World's Fair in St. Louis, where it was said to be all the rage. In 1921,
White White Castle became the the world's first hamburger chain. A GUIDE TO CHILDREN'S SPORTS PARTICIPATION
( Entertainer &
Lifestyle Magazine - Jody Sims author of The Youth Sports Directory
and Resource Guide) |
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