Learn Something Random Every Day Thoughts

[testuser2]

They used to eat Punxsutawney Phil

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/02/512670565 ... he-shadows

My grandfather belonged to Grundsow lodge #12. The PA dutch have mini-celebrations all over the place He never said anything about eating groundhog at his lodge, but they had it a few times at home when he was growing up. He said it was greasy.

[DaveInSeattle]

[wlu_lax6]

The US National team has not started a goalie with a full head of hair in a world cup qualifier since 2000.

[Ryan]

Oh! Cool.

[Shirley]

I hate when you get one of those batches of grapes that all break off with a little piece of stem on each grape.

[Sabo]

The longest word in the Albanian language is thought to be Kundërzhurmëkrijuesabërësave, which is 27 letters long, and means "Against noise maker makers".

The longest word in German that is not created artificially as a longest-word record seems to be Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz at 63 letters. The word means "law delegating beef label monitoring" but as of 2013, it was removed from the books because European Union regulations have changed and that particular law became obsolete, leading to news reports that Germany "had lost its longest word".

Source.

[Steve of phpBB]

The longest word in the Albanian language is thought to be Kundërzhurmëkrijuesabërësave, which is 27 letters long, and means "Against noise maker makers".

The longest word in German that is not created artificially as a longest-word record seems to be Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz at 63 letters. The word means "law delegating beef label monitoring" but as of 2013, it was removed from the books because European Union regulations have changed and that particular law became obsolete, leading to news reports that Germany "had lost its longest word".

Source.

I think I always liked German because instead of diagramming sentences, you got to diagram the compound words.

(Did I mention I am a complete nerd who really got into diagramming sentences?)

[Shirley]

[sancarlos]

I need to show that post to my daughter, Elway.

[Ryan]

A brother named Turpin Tripucka or it didn't happen

[Giff]

A brother named Turpin Tripucka or it didn't happen

Floppy McNutpunch

[Pruitt]

my wife worked with a guy named Joe Carter.

I'll bet he hasn't paid for a beer in Toronto in a long, long time.

[DC47]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/spor ... tions.html

[brian]

Lake Mead is the deadliest national park in the United States. Yay!?

[Giff]

Lake Mead is the deadliest national park in the United States. Yay!?

15 already this year??

[brian]

That seems high to me for sure. But there is usually quite a few drownings and suicides in the park.

[rass]

Lake Mead is the deadliest national park in the United States. Yay!?

Well....

[brian]

Not all heroes wear capes.

[P.D.X.]

If you're going to name your musical act after a LOTR character, you gotta dig kinda deep. Gimli and Saruman both look available though (or at least those bands/artists aren't on Spotify.) (Got there because I was damn sure that there was going to be a band called Nazgul.)

[Pruitt]

Not all heroes wear capes.

What a great passage...

He retired in 1992, the year after his wife of 42 years, Esther, died. He had one daughter, Stephanie, a former ballerina, who also passed about five years ago. He lives alone. No one has suggested Mr. Phil move to a home for senior citizens. If they did, they’d be met with a blunt, “Not interested. Memories is my home.”

[sancarlos]

He kind of reminds me of my late grandfather. He died two years ago at 101 1/2. When I went up to his small Saskatchewan town for his 100th birthday party, he still lived alone in his own house, smoked cigarettes, drank an occasional beer, and walked everywhere. The whole town was invited to his party and half of them came. The nicest thing was that after being a gruff, quiet, distant man for the first 85% of his life, he finally saw a light and became a much nicer guy. My daughter loved him and never knew the old side of him.

[Jerloma]

What were those apples that the Swamp had a huge boner for?

[Pruitt]

Wasn't it honeycrisp?

[Jerloma]

I think so. Thanks.

[Shirley]

Wasn't it honeycrisp?

I literally just threw away a core of a honeycrisp as I opened this thread. Great apples.

[sancarlos]

[Shirley]

Gary Trent - The Shaq of the MAC - committed to Ohio U without ever meeting coach Larry Hunter or visiting the campus. He just wanted out of his home life.

“So I was going through something at home with my aunt one night, she was getting high. She used to always take my probate check and food stamps, and smoke them up, and get high and stuff,” Trent Sr. said. “So we were arguing one night and I was crying, and coach Hunter called me. I had never met him. Never talked to him. I get on the phone with coach, and I said, ‘Coach, are you Division I?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Do y’all play schools like Ohio State and Michigan?’ He said yes. I said, ‘Can y’all play in that tournament [NCAA]?’ I didn’t know what it was called. I said, ‘You know that tournament that everybody plays in at the end of the season?’ He said, ‘Gary, we can win a national title if we get the right players.’

“I said, ‘Y’all play on TV?’ He said, ‘If we get to the tournament.’ I said, ‘I’ll come to OU.’ Right there on the phone. Never even met the man. I didn’t know where the campus was or nothing.”

This is a great read about Trent and his son, a five-star recruit heading to Duke next year - https://theundefeated.com/features/duke ... -trent-sr/

[Sabo]

Somehow I missed your post, Shirley. I was at OU when Trent was there, and to say he was dominant is an understatement. That was a damn good team ... was a shame they lost to Indiana in the first round of the tournament. Also, the MAC title game was the first time I ever saw OU on a national TV broadcast. It was on some obscure sports channel called espn2 that only a couple of bars in town got. Needless to say those bars were packed that Saturday.

That team also produced a couple of notable coaches. Geno Ford (the point guard) was the head coach at Kent State and Bradley, and Jeff Boals (starting power forward) was a long-time assistant under Thad Matta at Ohio State before going to Stony Brook this past season. Ford is an assistant coach under Boals now. Most OU alums assumed Boals would get the OU job after Jim Christian fucked off to Boston College, but they hired Saul Philips instead.

[Sabo]

Beverly Cleary, who wrote "Ramona the Pest" and other children's books that centered around a young girl named Ramona Quimby, is still alive. She's 101. I read a lot of her books when I was in elementary school.

http://www.opb.org/artsandlife/series/beverlycleary/

[mister d]

Ramona and her Can't Die Grandma

[wlu_lax6]

Boxers do not like to have makeup done for on camera stuff. Doing some video stuff for work and they had a makeup artist (lot of forehead these days on wlu_lax6). Anyway last week she was at the National Harbor for HBO's coverage of the fights at MGM. She had me chuckling with her impression of the Russians in her chair.

[Rush2112]

Let me say that National Harbor sucks. 5$ for a small coffee? A 4 pack of (ok) beer 18$? Hard to get to without a car, everything is overpriced. The conference area had two conferences going on and they had them in two crossing hallways so it was crowded as F. "Conference" rate for the hotel was still 300%. Meh.

[wlu_lax6]

Let me say that National Harbor sucks. 5$ for a small coffee? A 4 pack of (ok) beer 18$? Hard to get to without a car, everything is overpriced. The conference area had two conferences going on and they had them in two crossing hallways so it was crowded as F. "Conference" rate for the hotel was still 300%. Meh.

Agree 100%. The restaurants are not that good (even when they are the same name as decent places in the city). I once had to meet someone there and did the Metro to bus to Gaylord. Not the safest metro stop to be waiting for the bus either. While DCA is kinda close it is not a cheap cab ride to the harbor either....

Just curious was this at the Gaylord? They have some lower priced hotels right there. However, I have not been over to the area since they opened up the MGM Grand. Apparently the casino has been packed and impacted the other drive-able casino (Maryland Live). Most people would not consider the Gaylord walkable to the casino but have to believe they are running a shuttle.

On the plus side, it is a very pleasant place for a 5k road race on an early Sunday morning

[Rush2112]

Yup, the Gaylord. Conference was there and last time I stayed at a non-conference hotel it was a total pain in the ass. At least I wasn't paying, but I'd like to have more than a couple beers on the old per diem.

Ate at the in-house sports bar a couple times and then the brewery another night.

We stayed in Union Sq for a few nights, an Uber was about 20$ so not that bad, but no other easy way of getting out there. Wife and kid did get a free cone at the Ben & Jerry's and the Ferris Wheel was sort of cool (I'm not a fan of heights, especially when enclosed in a plastic box.)

[The Sybian]

Let me say that National Harbor sucks. 5$ for a small coffee? A 4 pack of (ok) beer 18$? Hard to get to without a car, everything is overpriced. The conference area had two conferences going on and they had them in two crossing hallways so it was crowded as F. "Conference" rate for the hotel was still 300%. Meh.

Agree 100%. The restaurants are not that good (even when they are the same name as decent places in the city). I once had to meet someone there and did the Metro to bus to Gaylord. Not the safest metro stop to be waiting for the bus either. While DCA is kinda close it is not a cheap cab ride to the harbor either....

Just curious was this at the Gaylord? They have some lower priced hotels right there. However, I have not been over to the area since they opened up the MGM Grand. Apparently the casino has been packed and impacted the other drive-able casino (Maryland Live). Most people would not consider the Gaylord walkable to the casino but have to believe they are running a shuttle.

On the plus side, it is a very pleasant place for a 5k road race on an early Sunday morning

My buddy is the Executive Chef at the MGM. I think he brought in and oversees all of the restaurants, but I'm not really sure. I just see his wife posting clips of all of his media appearances. Really crazy to see, since I've known him since I was 18. He brought in restaurants by Jose Andres, the Voltagio brothers, Marcus Samuelsson and a bunch of others, so I'm going to say the restaurants improved.

[Jerloma]

Upon doing further research about the rigor mortis issue with Snow White, I learned that the poison apple did not actually kill Snow White but placed a "Death Sleep" curse on her. The Queen's intention was for the dwarfs to assume she was dead and bury her alive.

Also, just learned that the plural of dwarf is not dwarves.

[Sabo]

Pierre McGuire's first name is Regis, according to Wikipedia.

[sancarlos]

Pierre McGuire's first name is Regis, according to Wikipedia.

I thought it was "Fucking". As in, "another inane comment by Fucking Pierre McGuire."

[Pruitt]

Upon doing further research about the rigor mortis issue with Snow White, I learned that the poison apple did not actually kill Snow White but placed a "Death Sleep" curse on her. The Queen's intention was for the dwarfs to assume she was dead and bury her alive.

Also, just learned that the plural of dwarf is not dwarves.

I reread the story - not because I doubted you, but because whenever you read a Grimm tale, there are levels of perversity and horror that are always shocking. But I couldn't find a reference to the burying alive...
The Queen tries to kill her four times. Once with the Huntsman, once by tieing her too tightly into a bodice, once with a poisoned comb, and once with the apple.

She barely had a bite in her mouth when she fell to the ground dead.

The queen looked at her with a gruesome stare, laughed loudly, and said, "White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony wood! This time the dwarfs cannot awaken you."

Back at home she asked her mirror:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who in this land is fairest of all?
It finally answered:

You, my queen, are fairest of all.
Then her envious heart was at rest, as well as an envious heart can be at rest.

The dwarfs decide she is too beautiful to bury in the ground. So they make a glass coffin and put her on display. The Prince rides by and demands to be given the coffin - even though she is officially dead and he has no reason to believe otherwise! She only comes back to life because one of the Prince's servants jostles the coffin, dislodging the piece of apple in her throat. (Although apparently in the first edition of the published story, the apple came loose when the Prince's servant - angry at having to carry the glass coffin - smacked the dead princess' face. Nice.)

And of course, there's the touching final sentence where the Queen gets a Grimm finale:

Then they put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead.

Man, 19th century Germany sounds like a fun place.

Another sweet tale...
The Jew In The Thorns

[Sabo]

Pierre McGuire's first name is Regis, according to Wikipedia.

I thought it was "Fucking". As in, "another inane comment by Fucking Pierre McGuire."

As much as I dislike the nonstop talking of Fucking Regis Pierre McGuire, I'd rather listen to him than Mike Milbury or Jeremy Roenick.