Tidbits of Fun and Fascinating Facts

[Curious3141]

Fun facts: Simon Wells, the great-grandson of HG Wells, directed the 2002 remake of the Hollywood classic and novel: The Time Machine.
http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hp&cf=prev&id=1808406278&intl=us

That was a terrible, terrible movie. An insult to the book.

 

[Andre]

The third answer is hushion, a rather unusual Scots dialect word for a footless stocking (a sort of leg-warmer).

The fourth is a Scots word, fushion, meaning `spirit, energy, gumption' or (in referring to food) `wholesomeness'.

However neither word is in standard use outside Scotland.

The complete Oxford English Dictionary also lists the word parishion meaning the same as `parishioner' (a member or inhabitant of a parish). However, this word died out in the 16th century without ever settling into a consistent spelling.

Google is magic

 

[Andre]

World record longest palindrome

 

[BobG]

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

That's intentional. Originally, the keyboard was more or less alphabetical from left to right.

Unfortunately, a lot of people started to memorize the keyboard and began to learn how to type real fast -- so fast that the keys would jam on the old mechanical typewriters.

Not only did typewriter manufacturers continously try to design typewriters with faster action, they also started devoting time to designing keyboard layouts that would slow down the growing number of touch typists.

If the keys jam, it's a design deficiency. If the typist can't type very fast, it's due to a lack of proficiency that the typist can't very well complain about.

The Dvorak keyboard layout is a lot more efficient (all the fastest typing speeds have been accomplished on Dvorak keyboards). It's just changing over from the current keyboard layout to a more efficient one is about as difficult as changing over from the English to the Metric system.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

It's also impossible to touch the outside of your elbow with your tongue -- kind of an unfortunate physical limitation when you've accidentally set your elbow down in spilled salt.

 

[Smurf]

I knew a girl who could do that, she had a really long tongue and slightly shorter arms.

 

[tribdog]

I knew a girl who could do that, she had a really long tongue and slightly shorter arms.

and she ate ants.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Fun facts from the farm

Reading Will Rogers made me think of some funny things that I've learned while living on a farm. Since I grew up in LA, this was all news to me.

Cats and skunks make good buddies, as do goats and horses.

You can stand right next to a wild skunk and be completely ignored

Some horses can tell when a woman is on her period, and they respond in kind.

There was a horse behind our place that was in love with Tsu and he reeeeeeeeeeeeally showed it! He was also jealous of me. He wouldn't have anything to do with me so I tried giving him an apple. He took the apple, chewed it up, and spit it right in my face.

Most guys only pee on an electric fence once. This happens sometime around age 17 and while stinking drunk.

not so fun: Tractors will easily flip over backwards. Never pull a tree stump with a tractor. A friend of ours was killed this way.

Teenage girls make better combine operators than teenage boys. If you put two girls in field you have a team. If you put two boys in a field you have race.

Cow people hate cows, sheep people hate sheep, and mink people are scary.

Never try to catch an Ostrich. They'll kick the crap out of you. They guy who told me this had just returned from a week off from work due to injuries received from his ostriches..

Goats poop while running.

Dogs run behind goats to eat the M+Ms...
In fact there are so many disgusting things that I could say about poop...lets just say the we seem to be the only animals who don't have a taste for it.

You neuter sheep with little green rubber bands. Stretch, slide over testicles, snap into place. The little devils turn black and fall off after a week of so. The sheep do a funny dance after the application.

I took our young billy, Spud, to the vet to be neutered - a farm vet. The doc told me to hold the goat, he then picked up a pair of scissors and cut the little buggers right off. The goat went into orbit and I went to my knees.

I have been told by at least a dozen people that the local HS Ag teacher demonstrates to each year's senior class how to neuter a sheep with your teeth.

It is a favorite trick of sheep people, while birthing lambs, to sling the afterbirth at the city folks.

There's a thing called a nutria that looks like a dog-sized chipmunk. I was standing ten feet from this thing and had no idea what I was looking at or confronted by.

Never make a momma cow mad.

Bulls are so big that when they lay down, a 90 LB dog can walk right on top of them and be ignored.

There are people who play Christmas music on chainsaws

If you have three women from the town up yonder, you've got nearly a full set of teeth.

 

[tribdog]

Most guys only pee on an electric fence once. This happens sometime around age 17 and while stinking drunk.

Mythbusters just did an episode where they said you couldn't die by peeing on the third rail. they said urine wouldn't stay in a continuous stream for the current to follow. I was throwing things at the tv because they were so wrong.
Believe it or not I've peed on an electric fence and there is no humor in the memory, curled my pubic hair. Worst part was I couldn't stop peeing, had to use the Vulcan death grip and spin my entire body around. I suppose this episode is responsible for my electroejaculator response.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The Great White shark has up to 3000 teeth.

Mediocre White sharks have fewer.

 

[JamesU]

-one 13 year old on PF named yomamma actually bothered to read this whole thing

 

[Ivan Seeking]

-one 13 year old on PF named yomamma actually bothered to read this whole thing

13?!? We really need to pick on you more.

 

[Danger]

In 1917, an Ohio censor tried to ban 'Treasure Island' because he thought that it would encourage kids to become pirates. (Gale...?)

 

[DaveC426913]

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

This is completely untrue.

(As anyone with a goldfish and a tin of goldfish flakes knows perfectly well.)

(And if that doesn't convince you, it was busted on Mythbusters.)