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November 30, 2015

bibliotaph


bibliotaph noun [bib-lee-uh-tahf]

1. a person who caches or hoards books.


I used to be a bibliotaph, but then I gave all of my sci-fi books to my nephews, my war-related books to my uncle and sold most of the rest at a garage sale and donated what was left over.

November 29, 2015

Chicken Train - Ozark Mountain Daredevils

Originally posted on Nov. 3, 2007 but I noticed that the video had been taken down.


November 27, 2015

Diamonds Are Forever

And a lot of the time they last longer than the marriage.

The average size of an American diamond engagement ring is 0.8 carats.



This Diamond Ring - Gary Lewis & The Playboys


oniomania



oniomania noun [oh-nee-uh-mey-nee-uh, - meyn-yuh]

1. an controllable desire to buy things.

Appropriate word for Black Friday, huh?

Happy Thanksgiving!


Thanksgiving Turkey Trivia

* It's unclear if the Pilgrims ate turkey at the first Thanksgiving. At the time, "turkey" meant any kind of fowl.
* Evidence indicates that turkeys have been around for more than 10 million years.
* Turkey eggs hatch in 28 days.
* A baby turkey is called a "poult."
* A mature turkey has about 3,500 feathers.
* More than 45 million turkeys are consumed during Thanksgiving.
* The average weight of a Thanksgiving turkey is 15 pounds.
* The typical 15-pound turkey is 70 percent white meat and 30 percent dark meat.
* A nest of turkey eggs is called a "clutch."
* The "caruncle" is the reddish, fleshy growth on the head and upper neck of a turkey. The red, fleshy growth from the base of a turkey's beak that hangs down over the neck is called the "snood."


November 26, 2015

gormandize


gormandize verb [gawr-muh n-dahyz]

1. to eat greedily or ravenously

2. unrestrained enjoyment of fine foods, wines, and the like.

giblets

giblets gib·lets [jib-lits] plural noun

the heart, liver, gizzard, and the like, of a fowl, often cooked separately.


There IS one more definition, classified as slang, but I didn't see it at Dictionary.com.  It was a LONG time ago during a football practice and after a play, one of my teammates was still on the ground after the play was over.  The coach leaned over the prostrate boy asking him where it hurt.  I wasn't close enough to hear the muffled answer, but the coach got up with a smile on his face.

"He'll be all right." he informed the rest of us. "He just got hit in the giblets."

That was a scene that came to mind at every Thanksgiving dinner after that.

Since the Word of the Day was more-or-less related to Thanksgiving, I'll just combine two posts into one.  I was going to write one about how many calories were in the average Thanksgiving dinner: from 3-4,000 and the average American will consume more than 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat on Thanksgiving Day alone, according to the Calorie Control Council. (there were other sources that cited different numbers, but I like the alliteration of that website's name) 

That would take a LOT of exercise to work off that many calories!  A nice brisk walk would be better than spending the day in a gym, so check out the Walking Calories Calculator to see how far/fast you need to walk to get rid of those excess calories, or you can use the Holiday Calorie Counter to figure both the calories in your holiday meal and the amount of exercise needed to work off the meal.

I have my Thanksgiving meal already prepared.


Pathetic, huh? One good thing is that it will be ready in a minute and a half after I pop it in the microwave; another good thing is that it's only 290 calories with 9 grams of fat. I'll work that off watching the football games on TV!

November 24, 2015

Goat's Eyes

The pupil in a goat's eye is rectangular.


November 23, 2015

The Toxic Avocado

At least they are to some animals, such as horses, cattle, goats and birds.

From the ASPCA website:

Avocado leaves, fruit, seeds and bark may contain a toxic principle known as persin. The Guatemalan variety, a common one found in stores, appears to be the most problematic. Other varieties of avocado can have different degrees of toxic potential.

November 21, 2015

Swimming in Spit

Your body produces enough saliva during your lifetime to fill two swimming pools.


November 20, 2015

Are You Joy, Love, or Peace?

You Are Love
Your happiness is giving, warm, and compassionate. You get satisfaction from personal relationships and connections.

You're the type of person who loves to be in love, and that doesn't have to necessarily mean romantic love.

You value deep friendships and knowing someone well. You consider your friends to be your family.


You take a leap and put people first in your life. It's not about how much you get but how much you give. 


 

November 19, 2015

Largest Eggs in the World

The ostrich lays the largest eggs on land, but the whale shark lays the largest eggs in the world.*

An egg from a whale shark measuring 14 inches in diameter was found in the Gulf of Mexico in 1953.


*Not counting the huge eggs the Cowboys have laid in several games this season.

November 18, 2015

How to Make Collard Greens

This looks SO good and an interesting change-of-pace to use turkey instead of pork.

November 17, 2015

Panglossian



Panglossian   adjective [pan-glos-ee-uh n, - glaw-see-, pang-]

characterized by or given to extreme optimism, especially in the face of unrelieved hardship or adversity


This would describe most of we die-hard Cowboys fans as we drink our blue Kool-Aid.

November 16, 2015

New Definition of "A-List" Celebrities

I was looking through a TV/movie website earlier and saw the series Running Wild with Bear Grylls hosted by the survival "expert" Bear Grylls (I previously wrote about him, hence the "expert" in quotation marks). I watched an episode of his earlier show, Man vs. Wild, where Grylls was accompanied by Will Ferrell and while I found it mildly amusing, I wasn't impressed. I had hoped the celebrity accompanying Grylls would at least take it a bit more seriously, if for nothing other to keep up the farce that they were ever in any real danger.

This new show's description reads: Bear Grylls, British adventurer, takes A-list celebrities on wild outdoor adventures, pushing them beyond their comfort zone.  There are a couple of people on this list I am not familiar with, but knew the rest.  I intend to watch the episodes with Kate Hudson (so cute!) and Kate Winslet (be still my beating heart) but I am not particularly enthused about watching any of the rest...I might or I might not. 

That said, it's the description I have some problems with;  while some of the celebs are definitely on the "A-List", I am pretty sure some others aren't, one in particular.  I've given a hint on the screenshot below. 

(Click for larger view)


I don't have anything against Tom Arnold;  he was really good in True Lies, but he's not someone I care to see much of in anything. He's "B-List" at best.

November 13, 2015

Lethal Buzz

A lethal dose of caffeine is about 10 grams or a hundred cups of coffee consumed within 4 hours.


November 12, 2015

QWERTY Trivia

F-G-H and J-K-L are the only three consecutive letter sets on a QWERTY style keyboard and they are right next to each other.


November 11, 2015

Lots of Licks

It takes somewhere between 144 and 411 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie PopTM

For your musical enjoyment, a topical video:


Slinky Cat

November 10, 2015

Not The Last, But The First

The drinking straw was developed by the Egyptians in order to taste beer without removing the fermenting ingredients that floated on top of the container.  The oldest straw ever found was in a Sumerian tomb and was a tube made of gold and inlaid with the precious stone lapis lazuli.

The modern paper straw was invented by Marvin C. Stone in 1888 because the rye grass straw he was using to drink his mint julep was dissolving into the drink and altering the taste.



November 7, 2015

Hairs to You

The average person has 100,000 hairs on his/her head.  Each hair grows about 5 inches every year.

This is one time I'm not proud of at least being average. -sigh-


November 6, 2015

Us and Them - Pink Floyd

I love saxophone music, so when I saw today's Google doodle celebrating the birthday of Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone, it made me think about my favorite songs which use that instrument. Maybe it's my advancing age and failing memory, but I couldn't think of any. Thank goodness my senility hasn't prevented me from remembering how to use Google, so I did a quick search and was reminded of this Pink Floyd tune with some great sax solos.

November 4, 2015

20 Questions Squared

A 4-year-old child asks an average of 437 questions a day.


pics on Sodahead


I don't ask that many per day, but I do wonder about a good number of things each day and thanks to the Internet, I can find my own answers. The only thing I don't ask that children do is "Why?"...because as an adult (technically), I know there's often no answer at all to that particular question.

November 2, 2015

Let The Mystery Be - Iris DeMent

I've been watching "The Leftovers" and really enjoying it, but am behind a few episodes and a couple of weeks ago while reading a review of the 2nd season, saw a comment that stated they didn't like the new theme song.  I finally got around to watching the first couple of episodes of the new season and immediately knew who the singer was.   Here's the new opening theme, followed by the full version of the song:






I like it just fine (love Iris DeMent!), but the theme to the first season is hauntingly beautiful and still used in parts of these newest episodes. I plan on doing a review of "The Leftovers", but will wait until I catch up on the couple of episodes I've not yet seen.

November 1, 2015

Full of It

The longest known record for constipation is 102 days.