If that is not good enough, here are some bottle opener cuff links. How many folks do you know that wear cuff links to drink beer?
Apr 9, 2010
Beer Opener Cuff Links
If that is not good enough, here are some bottle opener cuff links. How many folks do you know that wear cuff links to drink beer?
Apr 6, 2010
What's in a Name
The use of an additional 'middle name' started in 17th century aristocracy, and didn't become popular among the masses until the 19th century. Only three of the first seventeen US presidents had middle names. John Quincy Adams was the first.
Odd Book Prize Awarded
The winner for 2010 is 'Crocheting Adventures With Hypberbolic Planes'.
The Diagram Prize was founded in 1978 and is run by trade magazine The Bookseller. The winner of the Diagram Prize for year's oddest book title, decided by public vote, was announced March 26.
The six finalists are "Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter;" "Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich;" "Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots;" "The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease"; "Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes;" and "What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua?"
The shortlist was narrowed down from 90 entries, including "The Origin of Feces" and "Bacon: A Love Story."
Previous champions include "Bombproof Your Horse" and "Living With Crazy Buttocks." Maybe I should have submitted my original book series, 'Terrible Tommy's Titillating Tidbits of Turpitude and Trivia.'
The Diagram Prize was founded in 1978 and is run by trade magazine The Bookseller. The winner of the Diagram Prize for year's oddest book title, decided by public vote, was announced March 26.
The six finalists are "Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter;" "Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich;" "Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots;" "The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease"; "Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes;" and "What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua?"
The shortlist was narrowed down from 90 entries, including "The Origin of Feces" and "Bacon: A Love Story."
Previous champions include "Bombproof Your Horse" and "Living With Crazy Buttocks." Maybe I should have submitted my original book series, 'Terrible Tommy's Titillating Tidbits of Turpitude and Trivia.'
New From KFC
It's "Double Down" bacon and cheese sandwiched between two pieces of fried chicken. Even KFC is getting in on the bacon phenomenon. Even calorie conscious Subway has a double bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich.
Apr 2, 2010
White House Easter Egg Roll
The White House announced that the theme of this year’s highly anticipated Easter event is “Ready, Set, Go!” with a goal of promoting health and wellness.
The roll will take place Monday, April 5, one day after Easter Sunday, on the South Lawn of the White House. According to a statement, there will be live music, sports, cooking stations where children can learn how to make healthy food, storytelling and egg-rolling.
The roll will take place Monday, April 5, one day after Easter Sunday, on the South Lawn of the White House. According to a statement, there will be live music, sports, cooking stations where children can learn how to make healthy food, storytelling and egg-rolling.
George Washington's Teeth
He did not have wooden teeth as commonly believed. According to a study of Washington's four known dentures performed by a forensic anthropologist from the University of Pittsburgh in collaboration with the National Museum of Dentistry, the dentures were made of gold, hippopotamus ivory, lead, human and animal teeth, including horse and donkey teeth. Oh, and he didn't really cut down that cherry tree.
Washing the White Lions
In the middle ages lions really were kept in the Tower of London. By Victoria's reign in 1837 all the lions had been moved to safer accommodation in Regents Park. In 1860 April Fool's day fell on a Sunday, so a prankster had an idea to invite 'all and sundry' to the Tower of London to see the annual washing of the white lions.
The invitation said: Admit the bearer and friend to view the annual ceremony of 'Washing the white lions' on Sunday, April 1st, 1860. Thousands of people turned up and waited, until one-by-one, it dawned on them that they had been hoaxed.
The invitation said: Admit the bearer and friend to view the annual ceremony of 'Washing the white lions' on Sunday, April 1st, 1860. Thousands of people turned up and waited, until one-by-one, it dawned on them that they had been hoaxed.
Apr 1, 2010
Color TV Hoax
Another April Fool's Day joke was played in 1962 when there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception. All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen. Stensson proceeded to demonstrate the process. Thousands of people were taken in. Regular color broadcasts only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.
Mar 30, 2010
Kellog's Corn Flakes
The company began with the serendipitous discovery of toasted flakes which later were developed into Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. This event set in motion a century of innovation for Kellogg. In the late 1800s at the Battle Creek Sanatorium, a combination hospital and health spa for the elite and famous. 
W.K. Kellogg, business manager, and his brother, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, chief physician, were in the process of cooking some wheat for a type of granola when they were called away. When they returned, the wheat had become stale. They decided to force the tempered grain through the rollers anyway, and surprisingly, the grain did not come out in long sheets of dough. Instead each wheat berry was flattened and came out as a thin flake. This led to the formation of the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906, which eventually became Kellogg Company – changing the form of breakfast forever. One of the items on the "Battle Creek Diet" was lima bean paste on toast, Yuck!
W.K. Kellogg, business manager, and his brother, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, chief physician, were in the process of cooking some wheat for a type of granola when they were called away. When they returned, the wheat had become stale. They decided to force the tempered grain through the rollers anyway, and surprisingly, the grain did not come out in long sheets of dough. Instead each wheat berry was flattened and came out as a thin flake. This led to the formation of the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906, which eventually became Kellogg Company – changing the form of breakfast forever. One of the items on the "Battle Creek Diet" was lima bean paste on toast, Yuck!
Aspen to the Rescue
The rising level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is making some trees grow by 50% is a finding of a new study of natural stands of quaking aspen, one of North America's most important and widespread deciduous trees. The study, by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota at Morris (UMM) and published Dec. 4, 2009 in the journal Global Change Biology, shows that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide during the past 50 years have boosted aspen growth rates by an astonishing 50 percent.
The findings are important as the world's forests, which cover about 30 percent of the Earth's land surface, play an important role in regulating climate and sequestering greenhouses gases. The forests of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, act as sinks for carbon dioxide, helping to offset increased levels of carbon dioxide.
Aspen is a dominant tree in mountainous and northern forested regions of North America, including 42 million acres of Canadian forest and up to 6.5 million acres in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
"We can't forecast ecological change. It's a complicated business," explains Waller, a UW-Madison professor of botany. Carbon dioxide is food for plants, which extract it from the air and through photosynthesis convert it to sugar, plant food. Seems to me nature is healing itself. Hmmm, wonder if that news is in the Global expletive findings?
The findings are important as the world's forests, which cover about 30 percent of the Earth's land surface, play an important role in regulating climate and sequestering greenhouses gases. The forests of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, act as sinks for carbon dioxide, helping to offset increased levels of carbon dioxide.
Aspen is a dominant tree in mountainous and northern forested regions of North America, including 42 million acres of Canadian forest and up to 6.5 million acres in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
"We can't forecast ecological change. It's a complicated business," explains Waller, a UW-Madison professor of botany. Carbon dioxide is food for plants, which extract it from the air and through photosynthesis convert it to sugar, plant food. Seems to me nature is healing itself. Hmmm, wonder if that news is in the Global expletive findings?
Fighting Allini
When French explorers first journeyed down from Canada to the upper Mississippi Valley in the early Seventeenth Century, they found the region inhabited by a vigorous Algonquin nation who called themselves "Hileni" or "Illiniwek," which means "men." The French explorers interpreted it as "Illinois." The University of Illinois was established in the year 1867 and began fielding athletic teams named the Fighting Illini or fighting men.
Bring Home the Bacon
To earn money, especially money for one's family; to be successful, especially financially successful.
The origin of the phrase 'bring home the bacon' is sometimes suggested to be the story of the Dunmow Flitch. This tradition, which still continues every four years in Great Dunmow, Essex, is based on the story of a local couple who, in 1104, impressed the Prior of Little Dunmow with their marital devotion to the point that he award them a flitch (a side) of bacon. The continuing ritual of couples showing their devotion and winning the prize, to considerable acclimation by the local populace, is old and well authenticated. Geoffrey Chaucer mentions it in The Wife of Bath's Tale and Prologue, from 1395:
But never for us the flitch of bacon though,
That some may win in Essex at Dunmow.
The derivation of the phrase is also muddled by association with other bacon expressions, as save one's bacon, chew the fat etc. In reality, the link between them is limited to the fact that bacon has been a slang term for one's body, and by extension one's livelihood or income, since the 17th century.
The origin of the phrase 'bring home the bacon' is sometimes suggested to be the story of the Dunmow Flitch. This tradition, which still continues every four years in Great Dunmow, Essex, is based on the story of a local couple who, in 1104, impressed the Prior of Little Dunmow with their marital devotion to the point that he award them a flitch (a side) of bacon. The continuing ritual of couples showing their devotion and winning the prize, to considerable acclimation by the local populace, is old and well authenticated. Geoffrey Chaucer mentions it in The Wife of Bath's Tale and Prologue, from 1395:
But never for us the flitch of bacon though,
That some may win in Essex at Dunmow.
The derivation of the phrase is also muddled by association with other bacon expressions, as save one's bacon, chew the fat etc. In reality, the link between them is limited to the fact that bacon has been a slang term for one's body, and by extension one's livelihood or income, since the 17th century.
Bayer Heroin
Did you know Bayer (a dye factory at the time), of Bayer aspirin fame in Germany invented (with help) heroin as well as aspirin. It had both trademarked before 1900. Heroin was marketed as a cough suppressant and cure for TB and asthma. Aspirin was marketed for Rheumatism.
Early heroin users supported their habits by collecting and selling scrap metal, hence the name 'junkie'. Ninety five percent of the legal medical heroin today is used in Britain.
Ice Cream
Soon it will be time to sit around the pool and bring out the ice cream. The origins of ice cream can be traced back to at least the 4th century B.C. Early references include the Roman emperor Nero, A.D. 37-68,, who ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings, and King Tang, A.D. 618-97, of Shang, China who had a method of creating ice and milk concoctions. Over time, recipes for ices, sherbets, and milk ices evolved and served in the fashionable Italian and French royal courts.
After the dessert was imported to the United States, it was served by several famous Americans, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The first ice cream parlor in America opened in New York City in 1776.
American colonists were the first to use the term "ice cream". The name came from the phrase "iced cream". The edible ice cream cone made its American debut at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
After the dessert was imported to the United States, it was served by several famous Americans, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The first ice cream parlor in America opened in New York City in 1776.
American colonists were the first to use the term "ice cream". The name came from the phrase "iced cream". The edible ice cream cone made its American debut at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
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