Jul 18, 2014

Fifteen More Coffee Facts

Coffee is the second largest traded commodity in the world (oil is the largest).

  1. There are two types of oils in coffee, good oils and bad oils. The good oils are good for your body and your health, the bad oils may give you ulcers and stomach problems. To avoid the bad oils in coffee use paper filters to minimize the effects.
  2. Mocha Java Coffee has no chocolate in the Mocha or Java bean. Mocha is the name of the port in Yemen, where all African coffee beans are traded and transported. Java is the name of an island in Indonesia where the Java bean originates. Both coffees are dark bean and provide a bold coffee, when you mix the two together you get Mocha Java coffee.
  3. Coffee starts out as a yellow berry, ripens into a red berry, and is then harvested by hand. Through water soaking process the red berry is de-shelled and leaves the green coffee bean. This bean then dries in the sun for 3-5 days before bagging.
  4. In Africa, coffee beans are soaked in water mixed with spices and served as candy to chew.
  5. Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world and the US is the largest coffee consuming country in the world.
  6. There are 65 countries in the world that grow coffee and they are all located along the equator.
  7. Black coffee with no additives contains no calories.
  8. There are two types of coffee plants, Arabica and Robusta.
  9. Espresso Coffee has one third of the caffeine content of a cup of regular coffee.
  10. James Mason invented the coffee percolator on December 26, 1865.
  11. Instant coffee was invented in 1901 by a Japanese American chemist, Satori Kato. In 1906 English chemist, George Constant Washington claimed he invented instant coffee.
  12. Melitta Bentz a housewife from Dresden, Germany, invented the first coffee filter in 1908.
  13. It takes five years for a coffee tree to reach full maturity, coffee trees can live up to 100 years and the average yield from one tree equals about one pound of roasted coffee.
  14. A regular 6oz cup of coffee contains about 150 milligrams of caffeine.
  15. Robusta coffee beans have twice as much caffeine as Arabica beans, but are of less quality.

Reheat Crunchy Fried Foods

Few foods are as good the next day when you reheat them, especially fried foods. If you want to get your french fries or fried chicken crispy again after they spent a night in the refrigerator, wrap them in aluminum foil and stick them in the broiler. The top-down heat on oil-soaked food makes these leftovers become crunchy again.

Sports Wave Origin

The wave, also generally known as the 'Mexican wave' outside of the US, was the brain-child of the longest continuously active professional cheerleader, Krazy George Henderson. It made its national debut on October 15, 1981 in a playoff game between the Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees, which the Yankees won 4-0.

Krazy George’s claim is easily verified by the Major League Baseball archives. As the wave was something not seen before, with nearly all 47,000 in attendance participating, players and the announcers were amazed. Video of this first documented wave, including Krazy George leading it, made it onto the Oakland A’s highlight video for the season.

Of this first documented wave, Krazy George states, “I started with three sections and it went about five or six sections down. I did it again and it went 11 and then all the way around. Joe Garigiola was in the broadcast booth yelling at his cameramen to get that thing. Of course, no one knew what it was.”



It is generally called the 'Mexican wave' outside of the United States due to the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, where the rest of the world was first introduced to the wave. Krazy George invented the move, but not 'the wave', or the 'Mexican wave' name.

Free Smile Friday


Summer Joy

Jul 11, 2014

Happy Friday

Some people forget their smile is always right under their nose.

The best way to hide wrinkles is to smile, especially while enjoying a Happy Friday!

Sports Drinks

A study found that sports drinks work because they activate the pleasure center of your brain. You don't even have to drink them, just swishing some around in your mouth and spitting it out has the same effect.

The carbohydrates in the drink stimulate receptors in your mouth that then send your brain messages that things are all great. Your brain then becomes more active in the pleasure center, allowing you to enjoy feeling the burn longer than someone without a sugary drink.

Smiles Work

NYU students smiled, on average a little over once a minute when they were with a smiling confederate and averaged only a third of a smile per minute when they were with a confederate who did not smile.

We judge people and objects to be more pleasant when we are smiling in comparison to when we are frowning, so if you want your interviewer to think positively about you, try smiling.

Benjamin Franklin Pseudonyms

Franklin was prolific, regardless of which name he used.

Richard Saunders - He used this name for his Poor Richard’s Almanac, which ran annually from 1732 to 1758. The Richard character brought humor to what was otherwise a serious resource in the almanac. During the years of publication the unnecessary character gradually disappeared.

Silence Dogood - When Benjamin was 16-years-old, he wanted to write for his brother James’ newspaper, The New England Courant, but James would not allow it. Ben contributed to the paper as a middle-aged widow named Silence Dogood whose witty and satirical letters covered a range of topics from courtship to education. Fifteen Dogood letters were published, resulting in the amusement of Courant readers and several marriage proposals for the pretend widow, Mrs. Dogood.

Anthony Afterwit - Mr. Afterwit, a gentleman, wrote humorous letters about married life that appeared in Franklin’s own Pennsylvania Gazette.

Polly Baker - Polly Baker was a pseudonym Franklin used to examine colonial society’s unequal treatment of women. She was pretend punished by society for having children out of wedlock while the fathers of the children went unpunished.

Alice Addertongue - Alice is another middle-aged widow who wrote a gossip column for Franklin’s Gazette in the form of scandalous stories about prominent members of society.

Caelia Shortface and Martha Careful - These pseudonyms were used by Franklin to settle a personal dispute. They wrote letters mocking Franklin’s former employer, Samuel Keimer, who had stolen some of Franklin’s publishing ideas. Shortface and Careful’s letters were published in The American Weekly Mercury, a publication by a Keimer rival.

Busy Body - Also published in The American Weekly Mercury, Miss Body’s letters were gossip stories about local businessmen.

Benevolous. Benevolous - He wrote letters to British newspapers while Franklin was in London. The primary focus of the letters was to correct negative statements made about Americans in the British press.

Negotiating Technique

From a recent study, people who sat in hard chairs were more likely to maintain a hard line in negotiations and were less receptive to their partner's way of thinking.

In a series of studies, scientists found that they could easily manipulate people's feelings and perceptions based on nothing more than what the subjects were touching. Holding heavier objects, for instance, made men think more seriously about things, which in turn made them more likely to donate money to charity if asked. Men holding lighter objects were less likely to donate to charitable causes. People handling rough objects were more likely to see neutral social situations in a bad light, saying that other people were obviously in a bad mood.