Jokes and Trivia for August 12, 2011

The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams. – Oprah Winfrey

FOR TODAY – AUGUST 12th – FRIDAY

224th day of 2011 with 141 to follow.

Holidays for Today:

*Julienne Fries Day

*Middle Child’s Day

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The Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend, and the International Space Station is joining the show. Sky watchers in many US towns and cities are favored with ISS flybys on August 12-13 just when Perseid meteor activity is expected to crest under full moonlight. FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/09aug_perseids2011/

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TODAY IN BIRTHDAYS:

1686 John Balguy, Sheffiel, South Yorkshire, England, philosopher (A letter to a Deist concerning the Beauty and Excellency of Moral Virtue)
1696 Maurice Greene, London, German, English composer (the anthem Hearken Unto Me, Ye Holy Children, the oratorio The Song of Deborah and Barak)
1856 ”Diamond Jim” Brady, NYC, New York, financier / philanthropist
1859 Katharine Lee Bates, Fairmouth, Massachusetts, poet (words for America The Beautiful, popularized Mrs. Santa Claus)
1876 Mary Roberts Rinehart, Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, author (American Agathie Christie, “the butler did it”, created costumed supercriminal, The Bat)
1881 Cecil B. DeMille, Ashfield, Massachusetts, film director (The 10 Commandments, Cleopatra, The Greatest Show On Earth)
1885 Jean Cabannes, Massalia , France, physicist, discovered that gases diffusing monochromatic light could also change their wavelength
1887 Erwin Schrödinger, Erdberg, Vienna, Austria-Hungary, Austrian physicist (Schrödinger-Newton equations, Schrödinger field, Rayleigh-Schrödinger perturbation)
1889 Zerna Sharp, Hillisburg, Indiana, writer and educator (Dick and Jane books)
1910 Jane Wyatt, Mahwah, New Jersey, actress (Father Knows Best/ Spock’s mother on Star Trek)
1919 Vikram Sarabhai, Ahmedabad, India, physicist (father of the Indian space program)
1925 Norris McWhirter, Winchmore Hill, London, England, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records
1925 Ross McWhirter, Winchmore Hill, London, England, twin of Norris and Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records
1927 Porter Wagoner, West Plains, Missouri, country singer w/flashy suits
1929 Buck Owens, Sherman, Texas, country singer (Buckeroos)
1939 George Hamilton, Memphis, Tennessee, actor (Where The Boys Are, Love At First Bite, Godfather III, Dancing w/the Stars)
1975 Casey Affleck, Falmouth, Massachussetts, actor (Good Will Hunting, Ocean’s 11, The Assasination of Jesse James)
1980 Maggie Lawson, Louisville, Kentucky, actress (Nancy Drew, Model Behavior)
1984 Marian Rivera, Madrid, Spain, actress (You to Me Are Everything)
1988 Justin Gaston, Pineville, Louisiana, actor, model, and singer (Glee)
1993 Imani Hakim, Cleveland, Ohio, actress (Everybody Hates Chris)

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Nothing happens without risk. – Anne Packard

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HAPPENED THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

30 BC Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide allegedly by means of an asp bite.
1833 Chicago is founded.
1851 Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
1883 The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.
1898 Armistice ends the Spanish-American War.
1953 Nuclear weapons testing: the Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.
1960 Echo I, the first communications satellite, launched.
1964 South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country’s racist policies.
1977 The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
1977 Start of Sri Lankan riots of 1977, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamil people this riot started less than a month after the United National Party came to power, over 300 Tamils are killed.
1978 Japan and the People’s Republic of China sign the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China.
1980 Signature of the Montevideo Treaty establishing the Latin American Integration Association.
1981 The IBM Personal Computer is released.
1982 Mexico announces it is unable to pay its enormous external debt, marking the beginning of a debt crisis that spreads to all of Latin America and the Third World.
1994 Major League Baseball players go on strike. The work stoppage forces the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
2000 The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.
2007 Bulk carrier M/V New Flame collides with oil tanker Torm Gertrud at the southernmost tip of Gibraltar, ending up partially submerged.

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Instructions for those with teenage daughters or daughters who think they are teenagers or who will eventually be teenagers.Congratulations! You are now the proud new owner of a teenage daughter.
Please read this manual carefully, as it describes the maintenance of your new daughter, and answers important questions about your warranty (which does NOT include the right to return the product to the factory for a full refund.)

IF YOU FEEL YOU HAVE RECEIVED YOUR TEENAGER IN ERROR:
To determine whether you were supposed to receive a teenager girl, please examine your new daughter carefully. Does she:
(a) look very similar to your original daughter, only with more makeup and less clothing?
(b) refuse to acknowledge your existence on the planet Earth (except when requesting money)?
(c) Sleep in a burrow of dirty laundry?
If any of these are true, you have received the correct item. Nice try, though.

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A man goes skydiving for the first time. After listening to the instructor for what seems like days, he is ready to go. Excited, he jumps out of the airplane. After a bit, he pulls the ripcord. Nothing happens.

He tries again. Still nothing.

He starts to panic, but remembers his back-up chute. He pulls that cord. Nothing happens. He frantically begins pulling both cords, but to no avail.

Suddenly, he looks down and he can’t believe his eyes. Another man is in the air with him, but this guy is going *up*!

Just as the other guy passes by, the skydiver — by this time scared out of his wits — yells, “Hey, do you know anything about skydiving?”

The other guy yells back, “No! Do you know anything about gas stoves?”

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ONE-LINERS : SIGNS YOU”RE NO LONGER A KID

Your back goes out more than you do.

You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.

You buy a GPS for the dash of your car.

You are proud of your lawn mower.

Your best friend is dating someone half their age… and isn’t breaking any laws.

You sing along with the elevator music.

You would rather go to work than stay home sick.

You constantly talk about the price of gasoline.

You enjoy hearing about other people’s operations.

You consider coffee one of the most important things in life.

You make an appointment to see the dentist.

You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.

Neighbors borrow your tools.

People call at 9 p.m. and ask, “Did I wake you?”

You answer a question with, “Because I said so!”

You send money to PBS.

The end of your tie doesn’t come anywhere near the top of your pants.

You wear black socks with sandals.

You know what the word “equity” means.

You can’t remember the last time you laid on the floor to watch television.

You talk about “good grass” and you’re referring to someone’s lawn.

You get into a heated argument about pension plans.

You got cable for the weather channel.

You have a party and the neighbors don’t even realize it.

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One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small boy into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, “Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?”

The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. “I can’t, dear,” she said. “I have to sleep in Daddy’s room.”

A long silence was broken at last by his shaky little voice: “The big sissy.”

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pic of the day: Giraffe

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A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, “What’s with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!”

The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such ineptitude!

“The pastor said, “Hey, here comes the greenskeeper. Let’s have a word with him.”

[dramatic pause]

“Hi George. Say, what’s with that group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?”

The greenskeeper replied, “Oh, yes, that’s a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime.”

The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.”

The doctor said, “Good idea. And I’m going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there’s anything he can do for them.”

The engineer said, “Why can’t these guys play at night?”

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A farmer lived on a quiet rural highway. But, as time went by, the traffic slowly built up at an alarming rate. The traffic was so heavy and so fast that his chickens were being run over at a rate of three to six a day. So one day he called the sheriff’s office and said, “You’ve got to do something about all of these people driving so fast and killing all of my chickens.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked the sheriff.

“I don’t care, just do something about those drivers.” So the next day he had the county go out and put up a sign that said:

SLOW: SCHOOL CROSSING.

Three days later the farmer called the sheriff and said, “You’ve got to do something about these drivers. The ‘school crossing’ sign seems to make them go faster.” So, again, the sheriff sends out the county and they put up a new sign:

SLOW: CHILDREN AT PLAY.

And that really sped them up. So the farmer called and called and called everyday for three weeks. Finally, he asked the sheriff, “Your signs are doing no good. Is it all right for me to put up my own sign?”

The sheriff told him, “Okay, put up your own sign.” He was going to let the farmer do just about anything in order to have him stop calling. Well, the sheriff got no more calls from the farmer.

Three weeks after the farmers last call, the sheriff decided to call him. “How’s the problem with those drivers. Did you put up your sign?”

“Oh, yeah. And not one chicken has been killed since then. I’ve got to go. I’m very busy.” And he hung up the phone. The sheriff though to himself, “I’d better go to that farmer’s house and look at that sign… There might be something there that WE could use to slow down drivers…”

So the sheriff drove out to the farmer’s house, and he saw the sign. It was a whole sheet of plywood. And written in large yellow letters were the words:

SLOW: NUDIST COLONY.

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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!

An elephant was drinking out of a river one day, when he spotted a turtle asleep on a log. So, he ambled on over and kicked it clear across the river.

“What did you do that for?” Asked a passing giraffe.

“Because I recognized it as the same turtle that took a nip out of my trunk 53 years ago.”

“Wow, what a memory” commented the giraffe.

“Yes,” said the elephant, “turtle recall”.

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A small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness to the stand in a trial – a grandmotherly, elderly woman. He approached her and asked, ”Mrs. Jones, do you know me?” She responded, ”Why, yes, I do know you Mr. Williams. I’ve known you since you were a young boy. And frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a rising big shot when you haven’t the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.”

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do he pointed across the room and asked, ”Mrs. Williams, do you know the defense attorney?” She again replied, ”Why, yes I do. I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. I used to baby-sit him for his parents. And he, too, has been a real disappointment to me. He’s lazy, bigoted, he has a drinking problem. The man can’t build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the shoddiest in the entire state. Yes, I know him.”

At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both counselors to the bench. In a very quiet voice, he said with menace, ”If either of you asks her if she knows me, you’ll be jailed for contempt!”

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The little boy had swallowed a coin and it got stuck in his throat. He started to turn blue and his mother ran out in the street yelling for help.

A policeman tried but couldn’t dislodge the coin.

A nurse just happened to be passing by. He tried his best but the coin stayed put.

Finally a man passing by took the boy by his shoulders and hit him with a few strong strokes on the back. The coin came out and
the boy started breathing again, none the worse for wear.

The boy’s mother started, “I don’t know how to thank you, Doctor …”

“Oh, I’m not a doctor.”

“You’re not?!?”

“No, I’m from the IRS.”

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TODAY IN TRIVIA: POTATO

~The potato is one vegetable that is plentiful right through the year. Many are bound on eating this delicious and nutritious food.

~White potato a.k.a IRISH is native to the mountains of tropical America from Chile to Mexico, and was widely cultivated in South America at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

~The Spaniards introduced the potato into Europe early in the sixteenth century, and it was Sir Walter Raleigh who showed England how to eat the potato with beef gravy.

~The potato is has high amount vitamin C content. This is the cheapest source of ascorbic acid!

~It is best to eat potatoes in as raw a form as possible. However, raw, cut potatoes should be eaten as soon as they are cut, as their oxidation is very rapid.

~Eat the potato peeling rather than throwing it! WHY? Because it is rich in mineral elements. At least 60 percent of the potassium contained in the potato lies so close to the skin that it cannot be saved if the potato is peeled.

~ Juice of potato is a good treatment for burns, bruises, sprains, skin problems, ulcers, effect of narcotics, cancer of prostrate and uterus and formation of cysts or tumors.

Now that you know how beneficial potatoes are, you can always enjoy potato chips and French-fries while watching TV. You will never become a couch-potato if you eat it within limits.

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LIFE LESSON: Life’s not about sitting at home in front of the TV waiting for your life to begin. Get out there and take some chances. – Queen Latifah (Star Magazine)

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QUIP OF THE DAY: Speak when you’re angry, and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret. – Lawrence J. Peter

THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!

THE LAST WORD: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle