Monday, June 14, 2010

TRIVIAL

As much as I love what I do, I don't always like to talk theology or church concepts or tell you what exciting ministry things are going on. Since it's "A Day in the Life," sometimes it's just about the quirkiness of ME.

I used to read the World Almanac front to back ... every year. That's right. My mom bought me one for Christmas one year and I read every page. Every page. That's 700 pages of nothing but world and national facts and trivia. That's why, still today, I can tell you the order of when every state came into the union, the size of every state (in order), the population of every state (in order), the alphabetized list of all 50 states, not to mention an array of other meaningless facts.

Since then -- some 40 years ago, my mom is still buying me the World Almanac every Christmas. I don't read every page anymore, but I still peruse it in some detail. I don't why; it's just what I do.

In honor of that, and since I'm kind of feeling 'trivial' today, here's some things I have learned from reading one of my favorite books: The World Almanac.

In 1996, 315 entries in Webster's Dictionary were misspelled, including the word 'mispelled.'

The Guinness Book of World Records holds the honor of being the book most often stolen from the Public Library.

If you drop a raisin in a glass of fresh champagne, it will continuously bounce up and down from the bottom of the glass to the top.

The 'dot' over the letter "i" is called a 'tittle.' (This term is used in the Bible.)

McDonald's gets 40% of its profits from the sales of Happy Meals.

The country of Finland banned Donald Duck comic books because he doesn't wear pants (and you thought this list was going to be completely useless).

Upper and Lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because when original letters had to be set, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on TOP of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.

During World War II when metal was scarce, the Academy Award Oscars were made of wood.

The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan." There was never a recorded Wendy before that.

Las Vegas gambling casino have no clocks in them (go figure).

There are no words in the Dictionary that rhyme with 'purple,' 'orange,' or 'silver.'

It took Leonardo da Vinci ten years just to paint Mona Lisa's lips.

A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it go instantly mad and sting itself to death.

Celery actually has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.


And be blessed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lol...some interesting facts! Yes, you are quirky, but so am I...lol. Takes one to know one! Honestly, I think most everyone is in some way, shape or form. I'm not picking on you...lol. At least not this time! :)

Unknown said...

I don't know if I'd have time now to read the Almanac - but found the facts you listed very interesting and perhaps could be very helpful - don't carry alcohol around in my pocket but could be good to know what I can do to keep a scorpion from stinging me! Also think these are good discussion starters for conversations with people who it might be hard to keep a discussion going AND...there are many restaurants that have team trivia now. Enjoyed your posting, PK

Danielle said...

Ya know, it's funny because both Jeffrey and I love stuff like this! We have a Ripley's book in the car at all times and almost every person who sits in the back seat, picks it up and reads it.