Fun Friday Fact - hope you respond weekly to give us all a smile

[Heather Shay]

Yes indeed @April-Showers and usually it's for a car you no longer own.

[Vidanjali]

2 hours ago, Jackie C. said:

 

I think it's just proof that some psychologists are raging dick-heads.

 

Hugs!

 

Oh geez! ??

[miz miranda]

@Jackie C.It is not recognized by the APA, so perhaps it was meant tongue in check (pun intended).

 

@Vidanjali

 

Here's how to pronounce it

 

[Heather Nicole]

Mathematically speaking, people who are completely totally average are, in fact, exceedingly rare.

[Ivy]

Figures 

[MelanieTamara]

On 7/16/2021 at 9:00 AM, Shay said:

The origin of the word “sinister” reflects a historical bias against left-handed people. It comes from the Latin word for “left,”

 

Leftys get no respect, except in baseball. Since banning is the in thing nowadays, I say ban all lefty's and send them to England. They'll be comfortable there, they drive on the left hand side of the road. They also run life saving message boards there too so that is good fun as well..

[Beatriz]

On 7/16/2021 at 3:22 PM, Vidanjali said:

 

Is that something like some epic immersion therapy? If you can bring yourself to speak the name of your phobia you will have conquered it? ?

Totally! It brought to my mind a Gary Larson cartoon from back in the day.

 

I got it:

[Heather Shay]

@Beatriz lololol

[Vidanjali]

On 7/18/2021 at 5:57 AM, Beatriz said:

Totally! It brought to my mind a Gary Larson cartoon from back in the day.

 

I got it:

 

Didn't Bette Midler have a song about this? "?Duck is watching us, duck is watching us, duck is watching us from a distance?" 

[Heather Shay]

Being the opening celemonies occurred today here is an interesting Olympics fact...........

 

The first official Olympic mascot was Waldi, the dachshund, at the 1972 Games in Munich.

[miz miranda]

Keeping the Olympic theme:

 

 

Tug of war, Live Pigeon Shooting, Club Swinging, Croquet & Roque, One-Handed Weight Lifting, Rope Climbing, Motorboating and Plunge for Distance Swimming Race have been Olympic events.

[Vidanjali]

Segueing to an international theme, the Finnish language has ONLY gender-neutral pronouns and completely lacks grammatical gender. The third person singular pronoun "hän" can refer to any gender. 

[MelanieTamara]

14 hours ago, Shay said:

Being the opening celemonies occurred today here is an interesting Olympics fact...........

 

The first official Olympic mascot was Waldi, the dachshund, at the 1972 Games in Munich.

 

Maybe this year's mascot can be a Fauci?. Now, now now. Don't hate on me. Fauci does sound like a dog breed when you keep saying it over, over and over again.

[Heather Shay]

 

 

Crying makes you feel happier.

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They don't call it a "good cry" for nothing. Studies suggest that crying stimulates the production of endorphins, our body's natural painkiller, and feel-good hormones, like oxytocin. In short, crying more will ultimately lead to smiling more.

 

[Heather Shay]

and now a couple for the Olympics:

 

 

At least one of the colors of the Olympic flag appears on all the national flags.

Shutterstock

Fresh aristocrat Baron de Coubertin designed the Olympic flag in the early 1900s, and he was very intentional with his creation. At least one of the colors on the Olympic flag appears on the flags of every nation that competed in the games at the time (but only if you count the white background of the flag itself). "A white background, with five interlaced rings in the center: blue, yellow, black, green, and red … is symbolic," Coubertin said in 1931. "It represents the five inhabited continents of the world, united by Olympism, while the six colors are those that appear on all the national flags of the world at the present time."

 

The Russians arrived 12 days late to the 1908 Olympics because they were using the wrong calendar.

Shutterstock

Over 2,000 years ago, Julius Caesar promoted the use of the Julian calendar, a 365-day calendar that didn't account for leap years. Eventually, the calendar fell out of sync with the seasonal equinoxes, and holidays—like Easter—didn't land where they should. Finally, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII mandated that Catholic nations switch to a new Gregorian calendar that solved the problem.

But for many countries, including Russia, the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian took centuries. As a result, in 1908, the Russians missed the first 12 days of the Olympics, which was hosted in London, because they were still using the Julian calendar. The country finally changed over in 1918 after the Bolsheviks took control. Fun bonus fact: Greece, the country where the Olympics were born, was the last nation to make the switch in 1923.

 

 

[miz miranda]

Here's one for Shark Week

 

Vending machines have killed more people in America than sharks.

[Astrid]

2 hours ago, miz miranda said:

Here's one for Shark Week

 

Vending machines have killed more people in America than sharks.

 

Hehehe.  Now, if we could only dig deeper into this.  Did the deaths result from the vending machines toppling onto irate customers who were trying to shake their product loose because it was stuck on those spiral rings??  Or did they result from malnutrition from the customers eating waaaaaaaay too much processed food with two-year shelf life??

 

Inquiring minds want to know! ?

 

Astrid

[Heather Shay]

 

Eddy Alvarez, an infielder on the United States' baseball team, will become just the third American ever, and sixth athlete ever, to medal at both the Winter and Summer Olympics. 

Alvarez clinched a summer medal when Team USA defeated South Korea in the Olympic baseball semifinals on Thursday night. The American baseball team will face off against Japan this weekend in the gold medal game. 

 

Athletes with Winter and Summer Medals

In Sochi 2014, Lauryn Williams won the silver medal in the two-woman bobsleigh event to become only the fifth athlete ever to have won medals in both the Winter and Summer Olympics. This is the list:

 

* Eddie Eagan, USA (2/0/0)

SUMMER: Light Heavyweight Boxing gold (1920)
WINTER: Four-man Bobsled gold (1932)

Eddie Eagan became the first person to win a medal in the Winter Olympics and in the Summer Olympics in different events. He is the only Summer and Winter medalist to win Gold medals in different events.

 

* Jacob Tullin Thams, NOR (1/1/0)

WINTER: Ski Jumping gold (1924)
SUMMER: 8-meter Yachting silver (1936)

 

* Christa Luding-Rothenburger, GDR (2/2/1)

WINTER: Speed Skating gold at 500 meters (1984) and gold 1000 m (1988), silver at 500 m (1988) and bronze at 500 m (1992)
SUMMER: Match Sprint Cycling silver (1988)

She is the only athlete to ever win medals in both Winter and Summer Games in the same year.

 

* Clara Hughes, CAN (1/1/4)

SUMMER: Individual Road Race Cycling bronze (1996), and Individual Time Trial Cycling bronze (1996)
WINTER: Speed Skating gold at 5000 meters (2006), silver at Team Event (2006), bronze at 5000 m (2002) and bronze at 5000 m (2010)

Clara Hughes is the first person to win multiple medals in both Summer and Winter Games and holds the highest number of medals of any olympian to win medals in both the Summer and Winter Games.

 

* Lauryn Williams, USA (1/2/0)

SUMMER: Athletics 4x100 m Relay gold (2012), and 100 m silver (2004)
WINTER: Two-woman Bobsleigh silver (2014)

 

 

[Heather Shay]

And for a fun fact:

 

 

 

There is a technical name for the "fear of long words."

Shutterstock

It's called "hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia."

 

[MelanieTamara]

3 hours ago, Shay said:

Eddy Alvarez, an infielder on the United States' baseball team, will become just the third American ever, and sixth athlete ever, to medal at both the Winter and Summer Olympics. 

 

I thought for sure there would be more baseball players who swung both ways. Hmmm.

[Heather Shay]

@MelanieTamara sly.... very sly.... LOL

[miz miranda]

These are actual US patents:

 

 

In-the-Car Coffee Maker

(U.S. Pat. No. 5,233,914)

This one’s for the parents. Pep up the carpool drive with a cup of joe brewed right in your vehicle, “without taking attention from the road.” The cup comes with a splash guard for safe highway guzzling. This was patented in 1993, before there was a drive-through Starbucks on every corner. 

 

 

Flaming Trumpet

(U.S. Pat. No. 4,24

 

 

 

[Ivy]

Well…   Okay.

[Heather Nicole]

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Flaming trumpet idea is...sooo...cool!!!

[MelanieTamara]

1 hour ago, Heather Nicole said:

Flaming trumpet idea is...sooo...cool!!!

 

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