These are random musings of my life journey, the people, animals, places, and events which have woven, and continue to weave, a tapestry that is me. We all know there is no real destination, only the ongoing experiences which blend together, creating the trail. Each step gives a glimpse of what is to come, without allowing me to see the end result. It is exciting. I have a home base that is mine, that gives me a place to rest. This is it. This is where my heart is, no matter where I journey...................

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Tuesday Trivia

Today's trivia is long, sorry for that, but there is a little bonus at the end which I think is very cool, fun info.



Do you hate your job? Is your job weird? Here are some weird jobs I ran across:
  • Odor Tester - Some chemist has to make sure that all of those deodorants and antiperspirants are operating properly to keep their users free of funk!
  • Citrus Fruit Dyer - There are commercial farmers out there who dye citrus fruit a more vibrant color to hide the ripeness of the fruit.
  • IMAX Screen Cleaner - Someone has to make sure that huge screen is crystal clear for our viewing pleasure.
  • Light Bender - Making neon lights seems like it would be a relatively easy job, but it requires a lot of precision and electrical work. If the lights don't have the proper thickness and shaping, they will amount to nothing more than broken glass.
  • Weed Farmer - Weed farmers actually grow weeds rather than trying to get rid of them. They sell them to horticulture schools and labs so various people can do research and studies on them.
  • Cow Hoof Trimmer - Just like horseshoes, cows need some hoof maintenance too. Cows can have poor milk production, lameness, and decreased fertility if not properly groomed.


And I was thinking that here is one reason to keep a job ..... Credit (GAH!):
  • Credit was first used in Assyria, Babylon and Egypt 3000 years ago. The bill of exchange, the forerunner of banknotes, was established in the 14th century. Debts were settled by one-third cash and two-thirds bill of exchange. Paper money followed only in the 17th century.
  • The first advertisement for credit was placed in 1730 by Christopher Thornton, who offered furniture that could be paid off weekly.
  • From the 18th century until the early part of the 20th, tallymen sold clothes in return for small weekly payments.
  • They were called "tallymen" because they kept a record or tally of what people had bought on a wooden stick. One side of the stick was marked with notches to represent the amount of debt and the other side was a record of payments.
  • In the 1920s, a shopper's plate, a "buy now, pay later" system, was introduced in the USA. It could only be used in the shops which issued it.
  • In 1950, Diners Club and American Express launched their charge cards in the USA, the first "plastic money". In 1951, Diners Club issued the first credit card to 200 customers who could use it at 27 restaurants in New York.
  • But it was only until the establishment of standards for the magnetic strip in 1970 that the credit card became part of the information age.
  • The word credit comes from Latin, meaning "trust".
  • The first use of magnetic stripes on cards was in the early 1960's, when the London Transit Authority installed a magnetic stripe system. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit installed a paper based ticket the same size as the credit cards in the late 1960's.
  • MasterCard was originally called MasterCharge.
  • In 1950, Diners Club and American Express launched their charge cards in the USA, the first "plastic money". In 1951, Diners Club issued the first credit card to 200 customers who could use it at 27 restaurants in New York.


And because they are just interesting, some miscellaneous trivia:
  • The ZIP in Zip-code stands for "Zoning Improvement Plan." I've never known this! I just accepted it!
  • The last thing to happen is the ultimate. The next-to-last is the penultimate, and the second-to-last is the antepenultimate. Yeah, I'll be using that in conversation.
  • No piece of paper can be folded more than 7 times. [This was actually disproved on 'Mythbusters' although they had to go up to a football field-sized sheet of paper to do it!] I want to know where they got that piece of paper????
  • August has the highest percentage of births. Drunken holiday parties and New Year's Eve oopsies would be my guess.
  • The word nightmare is the private name of a medieval female demon that attacked sleeping people. "Mare" means goblin in Old English.
  • 6/5/08, is an important day in history. On this day in 1977 the Apple II, the first practical personal computer, went on sale. Just think...in a mere thirty years practically the entire world has been knit together using personal computers and the Internet. Quite an accomplishment. Yay, Apple! Now you know why I like my Mac .... I'm cutting edge since about 1990-1991! :D
  • A 'Meme' is a fad that spreads quickly through the Internet. The term is derived from either French meme (lit. "same"), or Greek mimeme (something imitated). Who is responsible? I'm gonna get 'em!!
  • The Oak Island Money Pit is the site of the world's longest running hunt for lost treasure. For hundreds of years, treasure hunters have ventured to Nova Scotia and tried to recover the treasure which is protected by a series of ingenious traps. Strange man made artifacts have been recovered from the pit over the years, but to this day, the treasure still remains buried. Anywon wanna go to Nova Scotia?
  • The Wow! signal was a strong, narrowband radio signal detected by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977 while working on a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project at the Big Ear radio telescope of the Ohio State University. The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar system origin. It lasted for 72 seconds, the full duration Big Ear observed it, but has not been detected again.
  • Air pollution may contribute to two percent of all deaths in the US, some 50,000 cases per year. A nine-year study of US cities showed a strong correlation between death rates and periods of significant pollution. Dare I say it? DUH.
  • The world's largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. Visitors would have to walk 15 miles to see the 322 galleries which house nearly 3 million works of art. Uh, that's a bit bigger than where I work! giggle!
  • Before the year 1000, the word "she" did not exist in the English language. The singular female reference was the word "heo", which also was the plural of all genders. The word "she" appeared only in the 12th century, about 400 years after English began to take form. "She" probably derived from the Old English feminine "seo", the Viking word for feminine reference.
  • In 1984 the Minnesota State Legislature ordered that all gender-specific language, which only refers to one gender, usually males, be removed from the state laws. After two years of work, the rewritten laws were adopted. Only 301 of 20,000 pronouns were feminine. "His" was changed 10,000 times and "he" was changed 6,000 times. "She" didn't exist before 1000, and it took another 984 to be recognized officially in Minnesota; the wheels of time do, indeed, grind slowly.
  • The Taliban ordered demolition experts to blow up the Great Buddhas of Bamiyan, carved in the 5th century. At 175 feet and 120 feet, the twin monuments were two of Asia's greatest archeological treasures.
  • High school graduation is the No. 1 reason for purchasing graduation cards, and the average graduate receives 17.5 graduation cards. Sixty percent of all graduation cards are purchased for high-school graduates. College graduation is the No. 2 reason for buying graduation cards, and the average college graduate receives 7.5 cards. I kept going back for more edjakashion 'cause I like gettin' cards!
  • For many years, the globe on the NBC Nightly News spun in the wrong direction. On January 2, 1984, NBC finally set the world back in the proper direction. I must say .... I felt the world was unbalanced and in 1984, it suddenly felt right. Now I know why!!!!
  • Olympic wrestling winners have been recorded since 708 B.C.
  • Psycho was the first Hollywood film that showed a toilet flushing,thereby generating many complaints.I can even remember when people got all excited about Lucy and Desi being preggers in 1953! (see below ** for a side not to this)
  • The first European travelers in a hot-air balloon were a sheep, a duck and a rooster. The 1783 maiden flight lasted eight minutes. So many things come to mind with this. So few printable. I'll just let it stand!


** Back in the 1950s, the bedroom was not only off limits to male-female entwinements but was often shunned entirely. And when it actually was shown, the husband and wife were always separated on twin beds.

Lucy's Pregnancy - Despite the moral concerns and the attempts at keeping "pregnancy" in the closet, the subject did eventually make it onto the television tube. The most memorable pregnancy from the golden days of television had to be the birth of Ricky, Jr. to Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Ricky (Desi Arnaz) Ricardo on the Jan 19, 1953 episode "Lucy is Enceinte" on the sitcom series I LOVE LUCY. That same night Lucille Ball gave birth to her second child, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV. Surprisingly, their real-life baby never was used on the series. When the character Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) was pregnant, the censors would not let the word "pregnant" be used on the air. Instead, they used "Expecting." After a priest, a minister and a Rabbi consulted with Desi Arnaz at Desilu Studios, they agreed that the pregnancy was appropriate for the sitcom and that people would empathize with, rather that resent or be affronted by it. After the episode aired only 207 letters arrived disapproving of the pregnancy whereas thousands who were pregnant sent letters of support. TRIVIA NOTE: When Little Ricky Ricardo was born on 1/19/53, 69.2 percent of TV households viewed the event. When Pebbles Flintstones was born on 2/22/1963, 39% percent of TV households viewed the blessed event.

"I Love Lucy" was the first television show whose main star was a woman.


Bonjour, mes amis!! Et ĂȘtre de bonne santĂ©

5 comments:

  1. The August tidbit is making me giggle!

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  2. MQ<, I recently emailed another blogger who has been absent from her blog to be sure she is OK. He wrote back saying saying she has been very busy at work (she works in an OB/Gyn office), and "It seems like every woman in Dallas is pregnant!!"

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  3. I was thinking the Flintstones showed Fred and Wilma sharing the same bed but I cant remember going to have to pay more attention to boomerang I guess.

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  4. Redfrog, I don't know on that point, but you may be right. I'll bet you could google it and find out.

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If you have something to say about it, just stick out your thumb, and I'll slow down so you can hop aboard! But hang on, 'cause I'm movin' on down the road!!! No time to waste!!!