Hey Spankster that soup is making me hungry for something wholesome to eat ....not the Doritos, I'm munching on....ha
Interesting about Spock
Interesting about Spock
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Daily Curiosities/Obscure Facts
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[b]A Fun and Informative Disarray of Factoids Daily--or Semi Daily--Various Sources:
[/b] 10-13-2016 What is Scotch whiskey made from? Scotch is whisky made in Scotland, while bourbon is whiskey made in the U.S.A, generally Kentucky. Scotch is made mostly from malted barley, while bourbon is distilled from corn. If you're in England and ask for a whisky, you'll get Scotch Why are barns painted red? Hundreds of years ago, many farmers would seal their barns with linseed oil, which is an orange-colored oil derived from the seeds of the flax plant. To this oil, they would add a variety of things, most often milk and lime, but also ferrous oxide, or rust. What year did Woodstock take place? It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre (240 ha; 0.94 sq mi) dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969. Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining Ulster County. Medieval kebabs and pasties: 5 foods you (probably) didn’t know were being eaten in the Middle Ages Roast boars and flagons of wine might be what most of us conjure up when we think of medieval cookery. But contemporary sources suggest that our ancestors enjoyed a wide variety of cuisine, and were adventurous in their tastes, too. This article was first published in August 2014 Friday 28th August 2015 Submitted by: Share Tweet Plus BBC History Magazine - 5 issues for £5 Medieval banquet: saying grace before meal. From engraving after illuminated medieval Royal Manuscript (14 E 3) - Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images Here, freelance writer George Dobbs reveals five examples of commonplace courtly dishes that wouldn't look too out of place on your dinner table today. Sweet and sour Sweet and sour rabbit is one of the more curious dishes included in Maggie Black's The Medieval Cookbook. Found in a collection of 14th-century manuscripts called the Curye on Inglish, it includes sugar, red wine vinegar, currants, onions, ginger and cinnamon (along with plenty of “powdour of peper”) to produce a sticky sauce with more than a hint of the modern Chinese takeaway. The recipe probably dates as far back as the Norman Conquest, when the most surprising ingredient for Saxons would have been rabbit, only recently introduced to England from continental Europe. Pasta In the same manuscript we find instructions for pasta production, with fine flour used to “make therof thynne foyles as paper with a roller, drye it hard and seeth it in broth”. This was known as 'losyns', and a typical dish involved layering the pasta with cheese sauce to make another English favourite: lasagne. Rice dishes Rice was grown in Europe as early as the 8th century by Spanish Moors. By the 15th century it was produced across Spain and Italy, and exported to all corners of Europe in vast quantities. The brilliant recipe resource www.medievalcookery.com shows the wide variety of ways in which rice was used, including three separate medieval references to a dish called blancmager. Rather than the pudding you might expect, blancmager was actually a soft rice dish, combining chicken or fish with sugar and spices. Due to its bland nature, it was possibly served to invalids as a restorative. There were also sweet rice dishes, including rice drinks and a dish called prymerose, which combined honey, almonds, primroses and rice flour to make a thick rice pudding. Pasties Wrapping food in pastry was commonplace in medieval times. It meant that meat could be baked in stone ovens without being burnt or tarnished by soot, while also forming a rich, thick gravy. Pie crusts were elaborately decorated to show off the status of the host, and diners would often discard it to get to the filling. However, there were also pastry dishes intended to be eaten as a whole. In The Goodman of Paris, translated into English by Eileen Power, we find a recipe for cheese and mushroom pasties, and we're even given instruction on how to pick our ingredients, with “mushrooms of one night... small, red inside and closed at the top” being the most suitable. Subtleties are a famous medieval culinary feature. The term actually encompasses the notion of entertainment with food as well as elaborate savoury dishes, but it's most often used to refer to lavish constructions of almond and sugar that were served at the end of the meal. These weren't the only way to indulge a sweet tooth, however. Maggie Black describes a recipe in the Curye on Inglish that combines pine nuts with sugar, honey and breadcrumbs to give a chewy candy. And long before it was a health food, almond milk was a commonplace drink at medieval tables. So what have we learned? From just a few examples it's easy to see that, despite technological restrictions, cookery of this period wasn't necessarily unskilled or unpalatable. It's true that a cursory glance over recipe collections reveals odd dishes such as gruel and compost, which look about as appetising as their names suggest. But for every grim oddity there were many more meals that still sound mouthwatering today. In fact, many of our modern favourites may have roots in medieval kitchens. George Dobbs is a freelance writer who specialises in literature and history
10-13-2016, 07:57 AM
A Fun and Informative Disarray of Factoids Daily--or Semi Daily--Various Sources:
10-14-2016 How many miles do you have on Empty? Some popular car models can make it between 30 and 50 miles after the fuel light goes on, according to a study by Pick Analysis. The average Chevrolet Silverado will continue for about 33 miles beyond empty. Smaller cars like the Volkswagen Jetta average about 43 miles and the Toyota Corolla tops the list at 47 miles. When was Mountain Dew Invented? Mountain Dew (currently stylized as Mtn Dew in the United States) is a carbonated soft drink brand produced and owned by PepsiCo. The original formula was invented in 1940 by Tennessee beverage bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman. A revised formula was created by Bill Bridgforth in 1958. (Mountain Dew is the preferred drink of meth heads. It's loaded with sugar, I've heard is the reason. --Spank) Do fish sleep at night? Yes, fish do sleep. Some fish actually lie on the bottom at night. Some of them even produce a gooey covering as a protection against other fish who might be looking for an easy meal. In the dark many fish have a lower rate of metabolism (their body machinery slows down), and that is much like sleep. (You have to wonder if they dream, of being eaten by bigger fish, or wandering alone, unable to find their school?--Spank) The Origins Behind 5 Classic Songs Celebs Entertainment and Lifestyle Featured History Lists Popular Posted on 2016/09/13 Music can inspire us in a number of different ways. But have you ever thought about the meaning behind some of your favorite classic songs? You may know every word to a song, but do you really know what message the artist is trying to get across? (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – The Rolling Stones The classic song may be more than 50 years old, but did you know that it almost never happened? It was by chance that Keith Richards recorded the song’s classic guitar riff while he was on a booze and drug-fueled bender. When Richards woke up with a nasty hangover afterward, he didn’t even remember recording anything at all. But his cassette recorder captured the beginning of one of the most popular rock songs of all time. The great thing about Richards’ story is that the next morning the song still sounded as great as it did the night before. In a Gadda Da Vida – Iron Butterfly The strange and mysterious song that was released in 1968 was Iron Butterfly’s one and only hit. The entire song lasts for 17 minutes and it was recorded when the singer was not entirely sober, not that that’s surprising. The words “In a gadda da vida” are sung at the beginning and the end of the song. And in the middle it is mostly an instrumental track. Which is probably a good thing since the singer was either drunk, high or both during the recording. He slurred the words “In the garden of eden” and what you are hearing when you listen to the song wasn’t supposed to be recorded at all. It was just a soundcheck. The producer of the album had not arrived at the time and the band was basically fooling around in the studio while the engineer was rolling tape. At the end of the day, he decided that it sounded pretty good, whatever “in a gadda da vida” was supposed to be. The accidental hit and the true meaning behind it has sparked plenty of debate over the years and many people have speculated that it has some dark and satanic meaning to it. But it turns out it was just another case of a drunk rock star accidently making a hit single. Green Onions – Booker T and The MGs This song was recorded in 1962 and is probably one of the most popular tracks by the band. This was once again another account where the band was playing around in the studio waiting for the actual recording session to start. They were actually waiting for a rockabilly singer to come in and do a jingle. The band was in Stax Records in Memphis and the singer was running late, so they were playing around with music as they waited. Booker T had been playing the piano piece and tried it out on an organ. The engineer was rolling tape the entire time. The result is a classic song that was released as a B side single. Burning Down the House – Talking Heads The lead singer of the Talking Heads, David Byrne, was known for creating songs that had a “mumble track” and the 1984 hit “Burning Down the House” was no exception. He would mumble syllables and words, whatever fit the line of the melody. It wasn’t meant to make sense. In the case of this song however, the mumble track worked so well with the lines they decided to keep it in the song. So if you have ever wondered what they were saying while listening to the song, don’t worry, the singer doesn’t even know what he was saying. A Day in the Life – The Beatles For the most part, The Beatles were very considerate about the music they created, but the 1967 song, “A Day in the Life” was actually two songs that were put together as one. Lennon and McCartney each had half of a song and didn’t know how to finish them. They put them both together in the studio. Essentially they weren’t sure how the song was going to work out, with John’s lyrics referring to stories that were ripped from the headlines and Paul’s lyrics about his commute to school many years ago. So they had their studio assistants count out the bars and set an alarm clock to signal that it was time to transition from John to Paul. In the end, the alarm clock could not be edited out and it became the perfect lead to Paul’s line “Woke up, fell out of bed…”
10-15-2016, 05:34 AM
A Fun and Informative Disarray of Factoids Daily--or Semi Daily--Various Sources:
10-15-2016 Handshakes were originally meant to make sure that the person you were meeting wasn’t carrying a concealed weapon. The hand clasp proved that your hand was empty and shaking was meant to dislodge any weapons hiding up the sleeve. You can survive entirely on a diet of potatoes and butter, which provide all the necessary nutrients the human body needs. (During the Irish potato famine--1845-1852-- approximately one million people died when the potato crop failed, and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%.) Reading and dreaming are functions of two different sides of the brain. This is why you can’t read in a dream. In their dreams, blind people can actually see. They dream only in black and white. (I don't know about people born blind--Spank) Some Buddhism facts: A few interesting facts about Buddhism. Buddhism has its roots in India, where it began some 2,500 years ago and remains the dominant religion in the East. It is based on the teaching of Buddha. Buddhists believe that nothing is permanent and that change is always possible. Enlightenment can only be achieved through practice and by the development of morality, wisdom and meditation. Let’s explore interesting facts about Buddhism. (O.K.--Spank) Nearly 0.7% of people in India are Buddhists. Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. India known as the land of spirituality and philosophy, was the birthplace of some religions, which even exist today in the world. The most dominant religion in India today is Hinduism. About 80% of Indians are Hindus. Buddha never claimed to be god or a prophet. He was a man who taught a path of enlightenment from his experience. Buddhist doesn’t worship Buddha, but they bow to his statues to express gratitude for his teachings. Buddhism is based on the teachings of Siddharta Gautama, an Indian prince who lived around 500 BCE. Buddhist revere 28 Buddha’s including Gautama Buddha. Mahayana follower’s (the most popular form of Buddhism--Spank) aspired to Buddhahood via the Bodhisattva path, a state where one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help others to reach awakening. Homosexual relations among Buddhist samurai and clergy were actually quite common in Japan. There are three marks of existence in Buddhism: impermanence, suffering and no-self.
10-16-2016, 08:05 AM
A Fun and Informative Disarray of Factoids Daily--or Semi Daily--Various Sources:
10-16-2016 Before sleeping, 93% of your mind begins to imagine stuff you’d like to happen. (For me, that means 93% of my mind imagines I'd like to go to sleep.) Old people smell is actually caused by a chemical, 2-nonenal, that old people secrete through their skin. ("O.K., I smell 2-nonenal. Who's getting old in here? And don't blame the dog.") We sometimes forget what we needed when we enter a room because of a phenomenon called ‘event boundary’. When a person dies, they have 7 minutes of brain activity left. It’s the mind playing back the persons memories in a dream sequence. (And arguably, like dreams the play back might be a mix of actual and "made up" memories. I haven't read the critics, but I believe that is what's happening in the David Lynch--"Blue Velvet" "Eraserhead" "Elephant Man"--movie, "Mulholland Drive". That surreal plot perspective, augmented by Lynch's surreal scenes that put just another know in your brain as you watch makes this one his masterpiece for me.) GOING CLEAR (2015) Scientology has been the butt of jokes ever since its poster boy Tom Cruise bounced off Oprah’s yellow couch. But this HBO documentary makes one thing clear: you shouldn’t be laughing at Scientology. You should be disturbed by it. Over the course of two hours, director Alex Gibney paints a picture of a cult that threatens its members, drains their bank accounts, and exiles them from their families should they dare complain. Although Scientology is secretive by nature, Gibney managed to unearth tons of clips that reveal the disturbing dynamics of the community—plus all their awful ‘90s sweaters. Why it’s so creepy: Have you ever listened to someone who escaped a cult tell his or her story? It’s really upsetting, and it happens over and over again in Going Clear. Through interviews with ex-members and archival footage, Gibney makes the specter of Scientology leader David Miscavige loom large.
A Fun and Informative Disarray of Factoids Daily--or Semi Daily--Various Sources:
10-19-2016 Babies that are 4-6 months old naturally know how to swim – this instinct after that time and they need to be re-taught. (Just borrow a 3-month-old from a mom and throw them in a pool. The mom will be so surprised!--Spank) You get a song stuck in your head because your brain interprets the song as an unfinished task, especially if you remember one part ("In a Gada Da Vida Baby . . . whatever"--Spank) Columbus did not believe that he found a new world. He even died believing that he found a new passage to India. He justified his claim by proposing that Earth was pear shaped and not spherical. In Northern Ireland, police officers are distributing “scratch and sniff” cards that smell like weed in order to recruit public’s help in sniffing out the cannabis factories. (What is a "cannabis factory"?--Spank) Click on caduceus below to take a 5-question health quiz from Mental Floss
10-19-2016, 12:13 AM
ha ha , Spanky....What is a Cannabis factory?
I love reading your posts.
10-21-2016, 07:25 PM
A Fun and Informative Disarray of Factoids Daily--or Semi Daily--Various Sources:
10-21-2016 A new law was enforced by the Nepalese government in 2014 stating that climbers must bring back 8 kg or 8 lb of waste on their descent or else lose $4,000 deposit. (One kilogram = 2.2 pounds, who wrote this fact?--Spank) Obesity is contagious. When a person gains weight, then close friends are likely to gain weight too. Eating slowly can reduce obesity because the brain takes 10 minutes to know the stomach is full. (But no time at all to go for a snack.--Spank) 10 Things You May Not Know About the Pinkertons
October 26, 2015 By Evan Andrews Long before there was a Federal Bureau of Investigation, there was the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Founded in the early 1850s by Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton, the “Pinkertons” were the nation’s first and most prominent private police force. They’re best known for hunting down Old West outlaws and train robbers, but they also worked as presidential security, intelligence operatives and—most controversially—as management muscle during labor strikes. Check out 10 little-known facts about the detective agency that helped usher in the modern era of law enforcement. Its founder became a detective by accident. Allan Pinkerton, 1860. (Credit: Chicago History Museum/Getty Images) In 1842, Allan Pinkerton immigrated to the Chicago area and opened a cooperage, or barrel-making business. His detective career began just five years later, when he stumbled upon a band of counterfeiters while scrounging for lumber on an island in the Fox River. The Scotsman conducted informal surveillance on the gang, and was hailed as a local hero after he helped police make arrests. “The affair was in everybody’s mouth,” he later wrote, “and I suddenly found myself called upon from every quarter to undertake matters requiring detective skill.” Pinkerton soon won a gig as a small town sheriff. He went on to work as Chicago’s first police detective and as an agent for the U.S. Post Office. Around 1850, he opened the private investigation firm that became the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. The Pinkertons inspired the term “private eye.” The Pinkerton agency first made its name in the late-1850s for hunting down outlaws and providing private security for railroads. As the company’s profile grew, its iconic logo—a large, unblinking eye accompanied by the slogan “We Never Sleep”—gave rise to the term “private eye” as a nickname for detectives. Portrait of Scottish-born American private detective Allan Pinkerton (1819 – 1884) who founded the world’s first and most famous private security service, the Pinkerton Agency which exists to this day, late 19th Century. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Getty Images) In 1856, 23-year-old widow Kate Warne walked into Pinkerton’s Chicago office and requested a job as a detective. Allan Pinkerton was hesitant to hire a female investigator, but he gave in after Warne convinced him that she could “worm out secrets in many places to which it was impossible for male detectives to gain access.” True to her word, Warne proved to be an expert at working undercover, once busting a thief by cozying up to his wife and convincing her to reveal the location of the loot. During another case, she got a suspect to feed her crucial information by disguising herself as a fortune-teller. Pinkerton would later list Warne as one of the best investigators he ever hired. Following her death in 1868, he even had her buried in his family plot. The Pinkertons may have foiled an assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln. Shortly before Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration in March 1861, Allan Pinkerton traveled to Baltimore on a mission for a railroad company. The detective was investigating rumors that Southern sympathizers might sabotage the rail lines to Washington, D.C., but while gathering undercover intelligence, he learned that a secret cabal also planned to assassinate Lincoln—then on a whistle-stop tour—as he switched trains in Baltimore on his way to the capital. Pinkerton immediately tracked down the president-elect and informed him of the alleged plot. With the help of Kate Warne and several other agents, he then arranged for Lincoln to secretly board an overnight train and pass through Baltimore several hours ahead of his published schedule. Pinkerton operatives also cut telegraph lines to ensure the conspirators couldn’t communicate with one another, and Warne had Lincoln pose as her invalid brother to cover up his identity. The president-elect arrived safely in Washington the next morning, but his decision to skirt through Baltimore saw him lampooned and labeled a coward in the press. Meanwhile, none of the would-be assassins was ever arrested, leading some historians to conclude that the threat may have been exaggerated or even invented by Pinkerton. They spied for the Union Army during the Civil War. Allan Pinkerton and his agents at Antietam, Maryland, in October 1862. (Credit: PhotoQuest/Getty Images) Allan Pinkerton was a staunch abolitionist and Union man, and during the Civil War, he organized a secret intelligence service for General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Operating under the name E.J. Allen, Pinkerton set up spy rings behind enemy lines and infiltrated southern sympathizer groups in the North. He even had agents interview escaped slaves to glean information about the Confederacy. The operation produced reams of intelligence, but not all of it proved accurate. A famous misstep came during 1862’s Peninsula Campaign, when Pinkerton reported that the Confederate forces around Richmond were more than twice their actual size. McClellan believed the faulty intel, and despite outnumbering the rebels by a large margin, he delayed his advance and made repeated calls for reinforcements. The Pinkertons created one of the world’s earliest criminal databases. Pinkerton mug shot of bank robber Eddie Guerin. (Coundn't get Guerin's pic to take, another well known rogue shown here--Spank) One of the many ways the Pinkertons revolutionized law enforcement was with their so-called “Rogues’ Gallery,” a collection of mug shots and case histories that the agency used to research and keep track of wanted men. Along with noting suspects’ distinguishing marks and scars, agents also collected newspaper clippings and generated rap sheets detailing their previous arrests, known associates and areas of expertise. A more sophisticated criminal library wouldn’t be assembled until the early 20th century and the birth of the FBI. The Pinkertons warred with Jesse James and his gang. Jesse and Frank James, c. 1872. During the era of frontier expansion, express companies and railroads often employed the Pinkertons as Wild West bounty hunters. The agency famously infiltrated the Reno gang—perpetrators of the nation’s first train robbery—and later chased after Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch. The Pinkertons usually got their man, but in the 1870s, they spent months engaged in a fruitless hunt for the bank robbers Jesse and Frank James. One of their agents was murdered while trying to infiltrate the brothers’ Missouri-based gang, and two more died in a shootout. The hunt came to a bloody end in 1875, when the Pinkertons launched a raid on the James brothers’ mother’s house in Clay County, Missouri. Frank and Jesse were nowhere to be found—they’d been tipped off—but the Pinkertons got into an argument with their mother, Zerelda Samuel. During the standoff, a member of the detectives’ posse tossed an incendiary device through Samuel’s window, blowing part of her arm off and killing the James brothers’ 8-year-old half brother. The botched raid turned public opinion against the Pinkertons. After seeing his detectives denounced as murderers in the papers, Allan Pinkerton reluctantly called off his war against the James gang. Jesse would go on to elude the authorities for another seven years before being killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1882. They played a role in 1892’s infamous Homestead Mill Strike. * Pinkerton guards break up a strike in Buchtel, Ohio in 1884. Along with their exploits in the Wild West, the Pinkertons also had a more sinister reputation as the paramilitary wing of big business. Industrialists used them to spy on unions or act as guards and strikebreakers, and detectives clashed with workers on several occasions. During an 1892 strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, the Carnegie Steel Company paid some 300 Pinkertons to act as security at its mill in Homestead, Pennsylvania. After arriving at the plant on river barges, the agents squared off with thousands of striking workers in an all-day battle waged with guns, bricks and even dynamite. By the time the outnumbered Pinkertons finally surrendered, at least a dozen people were dead and several more wounded. The fallout from the melee crippled the steel union, but many also branded the Pinkertons as “hired thugs,” leading several states to pass laws banning the use of outside guards in labor disputes. The Pinkertons were once larger than the U.S. Army. William Pinkerton, flanked by two agents. (Credit: The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images) After Allan Pinkerton died in 1884, control of his agency fell to his two sons, Robert and William. The company continued to grow under their watch, and by the 1890s, it boasted 2,000 detectives and 30,000 reserves—more men than the standing army of the United States. Fearful that the agency could be hired as a private mercenary army, the state of Ohio later outlawed the Pinkertons altogether. The agency still exists today. Detectives from the Pinkerton Agency guard the coffin of Marilyn Monroe at her funeral in Westwood Memorial Park, in August 1962. (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images) By the early 20th century, the Pinkertons’ crime fighting duties had largely been absorbed by local police forces and agencies like the FBI. The company lived on as private security firm and guard service, however, and still operates today under the shortened name “Pinkerton.” *The Pinkertons did dog the trail of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as in the movie. Butch, Sundance, and a the mysterious gal of Sundance, "Etta", made it to Argentina, where they set up lives as normal people, which by all accounts, they intended to be. The Pinkertons spread word that the famous outlaws were there, and they were forced to flee to Bolivia, and Etta took a powder. It was there, in a small stucco house--like in the movie--that they were found, and surrounded by locals--not the army as in the movie. Bullets rained through the porous stucco when the surrounding force let go. When the scene was examined after the air cleared, it was apparent that the final shots came from Butch, one to Sundance's temple, and one to his own head in a murder/suicide--not like the movie. The story goes that because of Butch's big outlaw brain, not a person was ever killed by the "Hole in the Wall" gang, until Butch got to S.A. and killed a military who surprised him at his doorway. Spank 
10-21-2016, 08:51 PM
Good job. LOL. I don't know how Ice does it each morning. The part about "Today is..." Adding the pictures can take hours.
I see you encountered one teeny weeny problem and used an Irish trick of improv. You used the guy from Mad magazine? Good choice. But, well done. Never knew the term of art about Private Eyes originated with Pinkertons. thank you mr. spanky.  It is Well with My Soul
10-21-2016, 09:46 PM
Thanks Boss,
Yeah, I don't know either. Ice, if you're looking, you have a trick for me?--you can pm. Lots of times, like these, I have to put them in Photoshop then "re-save" the images as jpegs. Sometime, if I'm lucky, I can move the images from a site directly into a Word doc, but often it's a two or three step process. Spank |
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