Catching up from a few weekend stories.
What’s with sports lately. It seems to be blowing up! NBA finals went to 7 games, huge artings for ABC..we seem to actually be interested in the World Cup..Soccer…of Football to the rest of the world. And then - the longest tennis match ever!!!!
John Isner and Nicolas Mahut began their first-round match at Wimbledon on Tuesday. Before a winner was declared on Thursday, they had played five sets and 183 games! The last 138 games were in the final set. By then, millions of people around the world were watching the two relatively-unknown tennis players. The previous longest match in Grand Slam tennis was a mere six hours and 33 minutes. The Isner-Mahut matchup broke that record, as they played a total of eight hours and eleven minutes over three days. Isner won the match, 70-68, and will advance to the second round at Wimbledon. Is he even gonna be worth anything?? I know he’s a great athlete..but come on!
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Scientific Reasons to believe in Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies.
Crazy..but it’s science!
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10 Famous Ducks..can you name more than Donald and Daffy??
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A company in Hong Kong is now selling the first fully-functional Light Saber. But they’re NOT toys to play with at a “Star Wars” convention. These light sabers are REAL WEAPONS.
–The company is called Wicked Lasers, and their light saber is called the Spyder 3 Pro Arctic. The laser beam that shoots out isn’t thick like in “Star Wars”, but it’s just as DANGEROUS. Here are some of the warnings they give on their website:
–The laser can BLIND someone by burning their retinas.
–If it makes contact with skin, it can FRY it.
–And, lasers this powerful may cause CANCER if you’re exposed to them too much.
–But, if you’re still on board, these things sell for $197.97, plus about $30 for shipping to the U.S.
See them here.
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American automakers have beaten foreign brands for in the first time in a J.D. Power and Associates annual quality survey that dates back 24 years. The industry research group said that owners of vehicles from U.S. automakers reported fewer problems on average during the first 90 days of ownership than those built by foreign companies. Porsche was the top scorer, followed by Acura and Mercedes-Benz in second and third. The study ranks vehicles according to the number of problems reported per 100 vehicles. U.S. manufacturers scored an average of 108 problems, with foreign companies having an average of 109 problems.
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Normally when we do a story about New Jersey, it’s a GOLDEN opportunity to make a tired joke about how the people there live in such a dirty, dirty place. But we’re not going to do that today.
–Because it turns out the people who are the most down on New Jersey are . . . the people who live there.
–According to a new poll by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, only 2% of New Jersey residents, or one out of FIFTY, are “very satisfied” with their life there.
–75% are dissatisfied, which is an all-time high. The rest of the people fall somewhere in the middle.
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A man in Washington State broke into a bank to take a nap. The 21-year-old was caught on surveillance video breaking into the bank’s basement at 3 A.M. and leaving in the morning. Police say he was intoxicated and has no idea why he chose the bank as a napping place. When officers caught up with him, he was arrested for second-degree burglary and malicious mischief.
Desperately trying to shed the pounds? You are far more likely to success if you diet and exercise with a friend. The average female will shed more than 10 pounds when she has girlfriends who are willing to eat healthily and train with her. But a fifth of those who choose to go it alone don’t drop a single pound. Seven out of ten women said exercise was less of a chore when they did it with friends. The study of 3,000 women also revealed 61 percent find it almost impossible to summon up the energy to exercise alone. However the same proportion enjoy going for a jog or taking a swim with a friend - and admit they push themselves harder if they have company.
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The 39,000-plus—President Bush included—who packed Nationals Park last Sunday night experienced a new, beautiful stadium and the same, ugly result. Oh, Ryan Zimmerman and the Washington Nationals christened their new digs with a dramatic 3-2 win, but Teddy Roosevelt remained 0-for-ever in the mid-game Presidents Race. Here’s a closer look at Teddy’s struggles and some of the other popular (non-pennant) races at baseball stadiums across the country. See them race here.
Milwaukee’s racing sausages
Pittsburg has the great pierogie race
racing eyeballs at a minor leage team in new jersey
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It’s almost summer time..and tomatoes will be pleantiful soon…are they a fruit or a vegatable??
Actually, according to the Supreme Court, tomatoes are vegetables.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/page/3
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June 5 is Festival Of Popular Delusions Day
June 6 is Teacher’s Day and National Applesauce Cake Day
Many say their brain doesn’t start working properly in the morning until they have had a cup of coffee. But the stimulating effect for which caffeine is famous may be an illusion, say researchers. Those who drink a lot of coffee may feel more alert after their first cup of the day — but this is probably because it reverses the fatiguing effects of overnight caffeine withdrawal. Their study suggests coffee drinkers may actually be better off without their habitual morning mug as it raises the risk of anxiety and high blood pressure.
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A proposed law now being considered by California lawmakers would crack down on the paparazzi, making it illegal from them to loiter outside a celebrity’s home or workplace. The California Assembly passed the bill yesterday (June 3rd), which would make it a crime for anyone to engage in surveillance to get a photo, image or recording of a celebrity, and it heads next to the Senate. Democratic Assemblywoman Karen Bass said her bill would provide a deterrent to keep, quote, “out-of-control paparazzi from violating a person’s right to privacy.”
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There’s a grocery chain in the southeastern United States called Bloom and they recently started selling a new type of beef in its stores, and they wanted to let people know about it. So they put up a new billboard on Interstate-77 about 30 miles north of Charlotte, North Carolina, advertising the meat.
–It shows a big, juicy piece of steak on the end of a fork. But it’s not what the billboard LOOKS like that makes it unique. It’s that the billboard emits the SMELL of steak. Seriously.
–There’s actually a box mounted on the side of the billboard that blows the scent of smoky barbeque and black pepper about 30 to 50 yards down onto the highway.
–It’s the work of a company called ScentAir Technologies. According to a company spokesman, quote, “Scent is the sense closest linked to memory and emotion. To add it to what you see and hear completes this multi-sense experience.” (???)
–The billboard will continue to smell like steak for the next two weeks, and the odor will be the strongest during rush-hour traffic in the morning and late afternoon.
http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12583440
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An average-sized man is just as appealing as a bulked-up Adonis, according to Australian research that examined viewers’ responses to different male body types in advertisements. Men and women had rated images of slender or slightly chubby masculinity at least as highly as those with well-defined six-packs, said the study leader, Phillippa Diedrichs, suggesting successful ad campaigns did not have to portray only rock hard biceps and rippling abs. Neither sex responded more positively to the musclebound bodies, and the males even found ads that showed just the item - with no accompanying model - more effective than those posed by classic hunks.
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Playing in the dirt can make your kid smarter. After conducting a series of experiments, researchers have found exposure to specific bacteria in the environment could increase learning behavior, ScienceDaily.com reported. “We found that mice that were fed live M. vaccae navigated the maze twice as fast and with less demonstrated anxiety behaviors as control mice,” Dorothy Matthews of The Sage Colleges said. “It is interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time in the outdoors where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks.”
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Cats, dogs, parrots and even fish are right or left-handed, scientists have revealed. The discovery was made by psychologists from Queen’s University Belfast, who as part of their research played with 42 pet cats for weeks on end. They found that females are ‘right-handed’ while males favor the left. Dogs are the same - until they are spayed or neutered, when the difference disappears, suggesting hormones play a role in left or right-handedness. The scientists also reported that parrots will pick up objects with their ‘dominant’ foot, toads are mostly right-handed and fish will have a preference to left or right when they dodge a predator — and even humpback whales prefer the right side of their jaws when feeding. And dogs wag their tails to the right when relaxed and to the left when agitated.
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A study found commuting to work, a day at the office and then an evening in front of the television means millions of adults spend hardly any time on their feet. It emerged the typical working adult spends four hours and 17 minutes at their desk and a further two hours and 27 minutes parked in front of the TV. Once home they will sit down again to use a laptop or home computer for another two hours and 25 minutes. The statistics also showed the average person exercises just twice a week for 25 minutes a time.
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Since World War I, poppies have been a symbol of remembrance at Memorial Day (May 31). The red poppy was used to symbolize the blood of those who died in service to their countries.
The idea started in 1918 when American Moina Michael read the poem “In Flanders Fields,” written by Canadian John McCrae in 1915 during World War I. She began wearing poppies and selling them to others, using the proceeds to help veterans.
After World War I, veterans sold artificial red poppies to help raise money for French and Belgian war orphans. Today, donations to veterans’ groups are often marked with a token paper red poppy.
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