Update: Jupiter has [del]315[/del] 306 [del]moons[/del] natural satellites; Saturn has [del]287[/del] 291; 3 were pulverized, leaving 2 MIA. 6 others were an even swap.
And Flarngg the Unwashed from Betelgeuse !V bet heavily that the former S/2012 S 92 would survive the transfer, and not be pulverized. He/she lost.
Partially accurate. It was actually based on “Sadie of Nassau County”, who provided carved ice swans for Leonard’s of Great Neck for over 45 years. Her great-great grandmother was Sophia, Queen of Sweden.
Fact: Antonio Stradivari got his start as a butcher. He was known as “The Hack of Cremona” before switching over to woodworking.
This is the same guy whose father was a reknowned bootmaker known as the Finnish Last.
Oh, if you’d been raised in Tennessee, you’d know. Listen hard to the words of Rocky Top and you might understand too.
Dr. Harold G. White, of NASA, actually perfected the “warp drive,” three years ago, but is reluctant to “field test” it for a number of reasons, the main one being his apprehension of another “warp technology” race of extra-terrestrials–a la the Vulcans of Star Trek–dropping by and mouthing off to us Earthers.
I have been operated on to excise the “squamous cell carcinoma” that I had on my leg. It is the wimpiest cancer you can have. If I had not had it treated, it probably wouldn’t have killed me. If I had menaced it with my Swiss Army knife, it probably would have dropped off and shriveled up on the floor in terror.
The worst part about having “squamous cell carcinoma” is that after the doctors are done, they tell you that they have successfully cut it all out and they tell you that there is no Chemo for that cancer. So they tell you that you need to go home and shave your head.
Van Halen’s 5150, their first album with Sammy Hagar, is so named as a tribute to the 5,149 other singers who auditioned after David Lee Roth quit the band. Ironically, Sammy was the 8th singer to audition, as well as singer #16, #137, #543, #1697, #2112, #4814, #4815, #4930, #5089, #5097, #5099, #5100, #5135, #5138, #5142, #5147, #5148, and #5150, at which point the rest of Van Halen threw up their hands and said, “Well if he really wants it this bad, we might as well take him!”
When Theodor Geisel wrote “Dr. Seuss’s ABC” in 1963, “Z” was originally to be a creature called the “Zuiderzee,” taken from the body of water in the Netherlands. The first printing run had to be recalled when Holland threatened to sue the publisher. The creature was subsequently re-named the “Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz,” (as you can plainly see).
Benjamin Franklin wrote in his almanac about experiments with recording sound by attaching a wooden needle to a drum head and using it to make a groove in a clay disk spinning on a potters wheel and then firing the disk in a kiln. He explained that he abandoned the effort due to his inability to play back anything audible. The writings have always been believed to be tongue in cheek silliness not unlike much of his writing.
Recently, a grad student familiar with the writings noticed what had always been believed to be a decorative ceramic disk created by Franklin on display in a Philadelphia university.
On a whim, he used a laser to measure the irregularities in the spiral groove on the plate and fed the results into audio software.
He was amazed to hear a muffled voice that identified itself as Thomas Jefferson reading what is apparently an early version of The Declaration of Independence. He interrupts himself in the middle to shout “keep it down in there”!
There were also faint background noises that, after digital separation and enhancement, were determined to be a male voice and at least two distinct female voices. The voices are too faint to understand except at one point where the male shouts what sounds like “suck my Poor Richard!”
-Golf clap-
Out of 123 plays known to have been written by the Greek playwright Sophocles, only 7 are generally believed to have survived. However this discounts 47 works which although supposedly written by Sophocles, are rejected as authentic by scholars because of their pornography and scatalogical humor.
During the American Guild of Variety Artists month-long strike in 1967, nine of the NYC Rockettes used the idle time to tour with their Yamaha biker club, the Hi-Kicksters. They appeared as a stunt team at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, riding matching Yamaha YDS3Cs. The highlight of their routine was a spectacular high kick performed in syncopation and held as they passed the stands at 65 mph.
In a 1972 article promoting the Yamaha motorcycle, the writer recalled the visual delight of that stunt. He said it was the highlight of the 1967 Sturgis Rally, still recalled fondly by male spectators lucky enough to have been present. His descriptive phrase of this event is said to be the origination of the term “crotch rocket”. Embarrassed by the renewed notoriety of their sole public performance, the Hi-Kicksters disbanded shortly after the article was published.
Pornography now constitutes 90 percent of the Internet’s bandwidth, and in fact has been leaking over into other media, so that even programming that is not considered sexual in nature at all, such as CNN news reports, children’s cartoon shows, and hunting shows, contain significant amounts of porn. Scientists predict that if the porn leakage is not stopped, by 2030, EVERYTHING will be porn. Some scientists also point out that the fact that this date roughly coincides with the predicted advent of the Technological Singularity means that when we get our first sentient AI, it will have a dirty mind.
John Edward has successfully communicated with the spirit of Carl Sagan, who says he is now in Hell for failing to admit that the Earth was, in fact, created in 6 days, and is at the center of the solar system.
Teddy Roosevelt’s true passion in life was vegetable growing, and much of the White House lawn was given over to this endeavor when he was president.
However, this was kept from the public, abetted by a compliant media, because it did not conform to the macho image he liked to project.
Contrary to popular belief, chocolate is completely harmless to dogs, and is actually an excellent natural treatment for heartworm.
Comedian Louis C.K.'s first profession was as a seventh-grade Biology teacher in Boston. In a lecture during his second semester he inadvertently used the word theorem instead of serum.
This caused an immediate and unexpected backlash from parents who accused him of ridiculing students with speech impediments. A petition of 784 signatures forced the School Board to terminate his contract, ending his teaching career.
It’s not accepted by all scholars but many historians believe that karate-type martial arts were originally developed in Europe and brought to the Far East by Marco Polo.
The art died out in Europe due to opposition from the Church and other parts of the Upper Classes, who wanted to limit fighting skills to those who could afford expensive equipment.
Many hundreds of years ago, a precursor to what we now think of as the 6-string, acoustic guitar was an archery weapon–the Guerretaar, from the French word for “war”. Each “bow” was an elongated soundbox, much thinner than the contemporary instrument; when gripped, two soundholes faced left and right, the bow-shaft above the grip was fretted. In a six-man team (the standard complement at the time), each archer had a differently tuned string–the six corresponded to the “open” tuning of today’s guitars. Thicker (lower pitched) strings would launch an arrow a few dozen to roughly 300 feet, the thinner (higher pitched) strings would make an arrow sail from 350 to roughly 1000 feet. The archer with the best eyesight not only had the highest pitched weapon, but was “The Caller;” able to size up enemy positions on the field, he would “call” (for example) 3rd position, G minor and each man would nock his arrow at the appropriate fret and let fly, producing the selected chord (this had the advantage of confusing the enemy, who were not expecting music in the middle of skirmish). The soundholes would also alert the men to a fallen archer, as the chord would be missing an interval. Not only was this arrangement extremely deadly, it was lovely to listen to, as well.