Just to bring down the mood; you know the Smothers Brothers? Their dad died in Japanese captivity.
You might find this book interesting.
Thanks…we recently sold a bunch of books, CDs, and DVDs to free up space in the house (and we got very little for them). Now I strive to avoid buying books—putting them on the tablet wouldn’t take up room, however. Then it dawned on me: it looks like my public library has it in stock. I’ll give it a look!
Paradise Cove, where Jim Rockford lived in his trailer, is also where the cover photo for the Beach Boys’ Surfin’ Safari album was shot.
ISTR once on Letterman that the Oak Ridge Boys sang “Amazing Grace” to the tune of HOTRS.
I learned that, a few years ago, the Huntsman men’s fashion tailoring shop in London once bought and processed the finest bale of sheep’s wool that ever existed. It was 11.9 micron wool, far finer than average, and Huntsman processed it into what it called “Opus fabric.” The wool fabric was in intense customer demand and today only a few yards of it remain.
Which government agency is this? It has a lot of functions…so many, in fact, that they created a drinking game. Someone will state a function and the employee has to guess whether their agency does it or not. If you get it wrong, you have to chug.
The USDA. Actually I read it in his book “The Fifth Risk.” Here’s a link from an NPR interview.
Michael Lewis: Many Trump Appointees Are Uninterested In The Agencies They Head Up : NPR
You might find this version interesting.
I don’t think you’ll necessarily like it. But it always cheers me up.
j
Hmm, inrteresting.
I didn’t hear Bob Dylan’s version until the 1980s. He includes verses that the Animals didn’t.
That seemed to confirm for me that it was about a brothel, a girl who couldn’t escape the life.
By the way, I’m a little surprised nobody said “It’s still there.” But actually, some enterprising individual(s) decided to use the name for a B&B.
My first exposure to “House of the Rising Sun” was junior high band in the mid 1970s.
And my interesting random fact of the day: The most common 3rd language in the United States, tabulated by state, is German.
You’ll have to explain exactly what that statement means, because it’s not at all obvious. As a primary language spoken at home, German ranks 10th in the U.S., so…
Does “most common 3rd language” only consider people who speak at least 3 languages, and ask them their 3rd most fluent language? If so, that’s a pretty convoluted statistic. And I’m still struggling to believe that German wins.
What does “tabulated by state” mean? Is that like Senators, where each state counts equally and the size of population is ignored?
Tubas are on my mind of course.
Warren G Harding could play the sousaphone and jammed with one at his inauguration.
Alan Copeland did Norwegian Wood set to the Mission Impossible theme.
I always though saying that someone “died laughing” was just a figure of speech, but in a trip down the Wikipedia rabbit hole starting with Monty Python’s “Funniest Joke in the World” sketch, I learned that there have been actual documented cases of people dying from laughter. Although in most cases it sounds like the person had some other underlying condition, such as a heart problem, that was exacerbated by excessive laughter.
I just found out that Tim Hortons was started by and named after a hockey player. That is so Canadian.
Of course, now that I think about it, that gives an interesting twist to having the donut holes named “Timbits”
In Yankee Stadium (both old and new) there are plaques of two ex-Cardinals in Monument Park. Neither of which ever played for the Yankees.
Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. They both celebrated mass at Yankee Stadium. There is a third plaque for Roger Maris, who did play for the St Louis Cardinals after playing for the Yankees.
November 2, 2000 was the last date that all humans were on the planet. Since that day, the International Space Station has had at least one occupant.
There is a place on Earth that is so isolated that the closest human could be on the ISS.
After all, they are only around 261 miles altitude.
Two Leave it to Beaver episodes are aired every morning. I record them and then watch them in the evening. It is such a great show. My husband and I were watching it one night and he asked - I wonder why we never heard much from Hugh Beaumont after this show? So I looked up Hugh and was blown away! He ran a Christmas tree farm here in Minnesota (about 75 miles from where I live) in the 60s and early 70s! He bought and lived on an island on a lake in that area also. Who knew!? 
“November 2, 2000 was the last date that all humans were on the planet. Since that day, the International Space Station has had at least one occupant.”
There would have been several thousand above the ground in airplanes; maybe a few in hot-air balloons, and others in various other assorted lighter-than-air craft. Not to mention people jumping into the air from the ground
Can you define “on the planet”? Is it where the pull of gravity is above a certain level?.