Weekend Open Thread

… cats were once used as weapons? In ancient times, Persian soldiers used cats in battle against the Egyptians. The Egyptians would see the cats with the Persian army and refuse to attack, for fear of hurting the felines. Cats were considered divine in Egypt. (What, you mean they aren’t?)

… a hurricane’s landfall may not happen when you think it does? Landfall for a hurricane is official when the eye of the storm – not the leading edge – crosses the coastline. (Try telling that to the folks who have to endure the leading edge of the storm.)

… flying saucers and UFOs are not the same thing? Sure, to most people, the terms are interchangeable. But they aren’t – a UFO, an unidentified flying object, is simply something you see in the sky that you can’t identify, but someone else probably could. A “flying saucer,” on the other hand, is an apparently alien vehicle from another planet (though in reality it’s usually either a misidentified aircraft or a hoax). Additional trivia note: The term “flying saucer” comes from a 1947 sighting of some kind of aerial craft by pilot Kenneth Arnold (1915-1984). Arnold himself never used the term, though he did say the disc-shaped objects he spotted were “like saucers.” (Little green men, indeed!)

… show business has always been pretty cut-throat? I’ll give you an example from TV’s “golden age.” On February 11, 1962, actor Joseph Kearns (1907-1962) suffered a stroke, from which he died six days later. At the time, Kearns was co-starring as “Mr. Wilson” on the series Dennis the Menace. With Kearns’ death, his character was replaced by his character’s brother, played by Gale Gordon (1906-1995). But that left a plot hole about the Wilsons, and the actress who played Mrs. Wilson, Sylvia Field (1901-1998), found herself out of a job after Kearns died. With her husband’s character gone, she was essentially fired and replaced by Sara Seegar (1914-1990), but no convincing in-show explanation was ever given for either of the original Wilsons’ departure from the series.

… you may know someone who engages in griffonage? In fact, I engage in griffonage. Griffonage, if you’re wondering, is having handwriting that is very difficult to read. (I once had my signature filled as a prescription. Okay, not really, but it’s almost as illegible.)

… a Mexican volcano’s nine-year eruption only caused three deaths? Parícutin, a cinder cone volcano located in the Mexican state of Michoacán west of Mexico City, underwent a nine-year eruption from 1943 to 1952. During that period, no one was killed by ash, rocks, lava, gas or hot mud. The only deaths were three caused by volcanic lightning. Parícutin just oozed quiet, slow lava flows during the eruption, slow enough to give anyone in the lava’s path ample time to get out of the way.

Credit scores… The local talk radio station in DC, WMAL, which by the way had some guy named Hack from Bethesda on this morning, frequently runs commercials for a credit restoration company. Hack thought that would make a great Christmas present for someone with two bankruptcies and multiple liens against them, but when they asked for the name, Hack said “Psul of the Ballsack…”, then they hung up and blocked Hack’s phone number.

They’ll have to get in line behind the web developer he’s owed $8000 to for almost ten years and whatever he owes to Bank of America. If he wouldn’t pay his mother back, what chance will his landlord have of getting his money.