Weekend Open Thread

Too bad, so sad. I’ll let you continue to ‘enjoy over’ the Fry-day FGS specimen, for I am a benevolent king!
(unlike the tool known as Joe Bidet)

Have a great weekend y’all! Get the things!!

I stand abashed … I had never thought of that. Thank you, John! Now, on to the trivia, which as you know is 100% … something or other.

Did you know …

… the longest mustache ever recorded was 14 feet long? Ram Singh Chauhan (born 1953), an artist living in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, set the record for the world’s longest mustache in 2013 when the hair on his upper lip was measured at 14 feet from end to end. (I want to ask how he carries it around, but that would be a rather personal question, wouldn’t it?)

… lima beans have a defense system? If insects are eating the leaves of the lima bean plant, it gives off a substance that attracts that defense system – parasitic wasps, which swoop in and destroy the insects eating the leaves. (Which is why people eat the beans, not the leaves.)

… a popular actor once held a rather ghoulish job? Danny DeVito (born 1944), who rose to fame in the role of Louie DePalma on the television series Taxi, once worked as a hairdresser – for corpses. (Lousy tippers, I’ll bet.)

… one of the most successful fund-raising campaigns in history was named by a comedian? Just about everyone has heard of the March of Dimes, the fundraising campaign that helped bring about the polio vaccine. But where did the name “March of Dimes” come from? That was given by radio and stage comedian Eddie Cantor (1892-1964). Cantor began the idea of having people send in dimes to the White House beginning in 1938 to assist the fund drive started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945). Cantor named the campaign after The March of Time, a popular radio show which dramatized the news events of the day. After the first call for dimes to be sent, some $300,000 in ten-cent pieces arrived at the White House. 

… about 80% of the conversation of most people is made up of either gossip or complaining? (That little, huh?)

… the collective term for a group of hippopotamuses is a “bloat”? (Somehow, that fits.)

… you may be a sufferer of trypophobia and not even know it? If you find yourself terrified of the thought of closely-packed holes, or irregular patters or clusters of small holes or bumps, then you have trypophobia. (If the only fear you have is of closely-packed holes, I want to know your secret of life!)

… American black bears aren’t always black? Sure, most of them are. But black bears also come in blonde, cinnamon, brown, white, and even silver-blue fur. “Black bear,” it seems, is simply the species name for the most common form of bear found in North America.

… your chance of having a bad dream could depend on how cold the temperature is in the room in which you’re sleeping? Scientists who study such things have determined that the colder your bedroom, the more chance you have of having a bad dream. (Probably of freezing to death.)

… a French emperor gave honors to a deceased American president? When George Washington (1732-1799) died, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) gave a personal eulogy to the deceased president, and ordered a ten-day mourning period for France in Washington’s honor. (And you thought Napoleon was a bad guy.)

… a woodpecker does something very important with its tongue when pecking? Since the tongue is so long, the bird actually keeps it wrapped around its brain to protect it from the impact of all that pecking. (The jokes just write themselves sometimes.)

Now … you know!