Insanely Useless Facts #3

It has been ages again since I posted, so here I go with another post about insanely useless facts. By the way a big congratulations to the page for attracting '100' hits ( eventually ) after I placed a neat little tracker on the page. Without further ado I bring to you more useless but interesting facts.

1. The Chinese are credited with the invention of the first toothbrushes. Initially the bristles were made up of Hog ( pig ) bristles but were eventually replaced by nylon. Sales would have definitely taken a huge blow if it were continued with the current H1N1 scare floating around.
2. A 'face-off' in hockey was originally called as 'puck-off'. I am pretty sure that commentators would have made genuine mistakes replacing 'p' with 'f'. I am sure I would have. ;-)
3. A 'jiffy' as we all say and take an eternity for daily chores and work, is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
4. A 100 pound ( ~45 kg ) person on Earth would weigh 38 pounds ( ~17 kg ) on Mars.
5. A blue whale's aorta ( the main blood vessel ) is large enough for a human to crawl through. Thats really really big.
6. A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate. I wish we get that here. Would save us a lot of trouble in washing utensils everyday!!!!
7. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
8. Austria was the first ever country to use post-cards.
9. Bats always turn left while exiting from a cave.
10. Last but not the least for this particular post, Baskin Robins once made ketchup ice-creams. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!

So far......

Here is where I again come out of the self imposed hiatus and solemnly pledge that I will continue to blog more often than not. I expect that I will be posting many more such topics which starts of quite similar to this one.

Its that period of the semester where I get really busy. Busy in watching all sorts of unwanted series, busy in sleeping, busy in somehow managing to kill time. Well thats how a Masters degree is supposed to be I believe. Whats the fun in completing a Masters while not having fun and killing time unnecessarily. Pretty sure many will beg to differ. Right now I am feeling quite happy. Was woken up today by a call from a very good friend/senior/sister of mine who had cleared her comprehensive exam. The relief ( from having finally completed Masters ) was very prominent in her voice, which made me realize how very close I am in finishing my degree. Another 6-7 more months and I'll be done. Finally the end of the so clearly 'Rosy' picture portrayed, of a MS degree will begin.

On the flip side of all this, there is a very frustratingly funny and irritating incident that happened a couple of days back. It was my cooking turn, which I am pretty sure that most of us dread 95% of the time. Cooking as such may not be that bad, but the cleaning that follows after the cooking is a real pain in all the wrong places possible. Well, as I always do, I digress. Getting back to the incident, I had prepared this wonderful (hypothetical cause none of us got to taste it) rasam ( something similar to a stew ) using Lima beans I guess. Not too sure as to what the beans was though. So taking all the efforts I had brewed this particular stew. Just as I was about to finish I saw a freaking roach taking a happy and pleasurable swim in it. That just ensured that all my enthusiasm (which is usually quite low while cooking) or whatever little was left of it, went crashing down. Nevertheless I managed to somehow brew another pot of stew, this time totally different from the previous one. All this happened within a space of minutes. And Lo Behold!!!! There is another freakingly disgusting roach taking a swim in this stew also. Unfortunately there was nothing that night to go with the rice that was cooked. There was absolutely no way that I could cook another side dish, that same night.

As frustrating and irritating it was at that point of time, me and my roomies did manage to see the funny side of it later on. One of the plausible explanation given by one of them was that, probably the 2 roaches were a couple grieving the loss of their kid. Could be possible as the amount of roaches that we kill per day is quite staggering. It might be that the couple wanted to dive into the stew together spoiling one dish. But then realized that spoiling two would be better than one, hence the consequence.

I know sounds quite dumb when I actually put it into words, but the whole incident was really funny. As stupid as the incident and as a result this post might seem, it sure got to my nerves and finally became a thing worth laughing at.

Insanely Useless facts #2

Alright here is the sequel to the earlier post, and this time I have managed to collect quite a few of them. So here goes some useless stuff!!!!!!!!!

1. 'Insomnia Cafe' does that name ring a bell?? Naah I bet none of us would remember a thing like that. But believe it or not that was one alternate title that was considered for the hit television series 'Friends'!!!!
2. It takes about 50 hours for a snake to digest one frog. That is a shade more than two full days. Would solve quite a lot of problems had we taken so long to digest our food!!!!!!
3. The United States of America shreds about 7000 tons of used currency every year. That is a lot of money!!!!
4. The bite of a leech is painless due to its own anesthetic. It will gorge itself up to five times its body weight and then just fall off its victim. Believe it or not the medical uses of leeches dates back as far as 2500 years. Their saliva contains a property that acts as an anticoagulant for human blood. Very caring I must say. Bite --> Apply anesthetic --> medicate --> fall off. Cheap treatment!!!!!!
5. It is quite well known that female mosquitoes are the ones that draw blood and spread disease. In case you have something against them do not bother cursing them. It seems they are deaf!!
6. Even if the stomach, the spleen, 80 percent of the intestines, one kidney, one lung, and virtually every organ from the pelvic and groin area are removed, the human body can still survive. And even if 80 percent of your liver were removed, the remaining part would continue to function. Within a few months, the liver would have reconstituted itself to its original size.
7. Finally the most useless of all facts for this post-- The wiring in my brains are fried. Any electricians out there?????

The world never ceases to wonder me!!!

This has been a pretty dry season for Bollywood. Apart from Kaminey not many movies have made their mark at the box office so naturally there has been a dearth in the number of hindi movies that I have been watching. That did not stop me from watching a really lame and bull crap of a movie titled 'Jai Veeru - Friends Forever' or what ever the lame ass tagline was. This movie is about 2 friends and blah blah blah....oh let me cut the crap and come straight to the point.

There is this particular scene where in one of the guys aims a gun at the other. There is a freak accident and he fires at the other guy. The events that followed were not at all expected. The other hero gets shot in the forehead. I would say on the very top of the forehead. Who in their right state of mind would dream of a hero being shot in the forehead just about 50 minutes into the movie and that too in Bollywood. What followed though was totally expected. This guy makes a miraculous recovery and in within 6 months time resumes duty as a police officer. Yippiee go Bollywood!!! Go Hero!!!!! Who the hell gives a damn about science and modern day technology and facts?????

This actually prompted me to dig into such things and I came up with the fact that 92% of the bullet injuries to the head leads to mortality. This guy was really really lucky to be in the 8% basket. Fine its a movie and people get to use their luck and imagination as they want. No more comments about it. But the most unusual and startling thing that I discovered was that a woman in America somewhere in Mississippi I believe survived a head shot from a .38 caliber handgun. For those of you who do not know what that means its the gun which is very similar to the ones used in our Bollywood movies, especially the ones with the 6 cylindrical slots. Ok now you got the picture!!!!!

An assistant professor of Surgery after examing her stated that there is a space in the brain it seems through which a missile could pass without causing any damage!!!!!!! So that means the 8 out of every hundred person could survive a headshot. But then again the possibility is very less it seems for the missile to pass through that space. Aaaahhh the wonders of nature or should I say the miracles of doctors nowadays.

Well I forgot to mention the funny part of this story. Firstly the woman actually got shot and then made tea for herself and even offered the police officers who came to her place. And the best part is that this lady is American and residing in US and this information was pulled out from a UK newspaper. Its a crazy world out there I tell you!!!! As proof you can go ahead and check out this link for the real story.

P.S--> I had to come back and add this. It was truly one of the most lamest movies I have ever seen. Its a good thing though, that I paid for it with a few hours of my sleep and nothing else, which I am sure a few people are gonna disagree to. And NO it definitely not remotely close to Jai and Veeru from Sholay. Just the names of a few evergreen characters is not enough to attract crowds to the theaters I guess!!!

Insanely Useless facts #1

Yes yes yes I am planning to make this into a series. Will not bother with the sources, but will keep this coming as and when I can. And for people who know about these facts please "go take a hike" ( thats exactly how my sister would word it !!!! )

• Mr P.J.Tierney, father of the modern diner, died of indigestion in 1917. Believe it or not he died after eating in a diner. Thats what I would call a killer idea. Poor guy though!!!
• A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass. Now who in their right state of mind would go hunting for a glass and a solid steel ball to test that out???
• Candlepin bowling uses 10 small pins and 3 balls and is played primarily in the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The ball is 5 inches in diameter, made out of rubber and has no holes in them. Anybody up for a game?? , then meet me in Connecticut or Rhode Island in 3 years time!!!!
• Till date man has invented and classified about 50 million chemical compounds and elements. Talk about over working!!!!
• And last but not the very least, a bad breath is likely to induce a bat to bite someone. Yes thats right a giant mammoth bat will bite if you do not brush your teeth. This could be a much better plot for a toothpaste add though compared to the ones that come up now!!!!

Thats if for this time folks!!!!!!!!

With or Without you

The silence grows day by day

As life is thrown in a disarray

I still continue to wait...

With or without you

The deeds of past is catching on

Some coming undone from aeons

Life is still crawling on

With or without you

Fighting the storm raging by

Unable to say the last goodbye

Time still stops by

With or without you

Sleight of hand, the twist of fate

On a bed of nails she is made to wait

And the wait goes on

With or without you

Hands are tied and bodies bruised

Reasons are low to be enthused

Still you give yourself away

With or without you

Nothing to win

Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away

With or without you

With or without you

With or without you

I cant live

With or without you!!!!!

Inspired by "With or Without you" by U2

"I put int a few lines from the song without any

changes as they were just too beautiful to edit"

A Marvellous Disney World

Comics has always been a part of everybody's lives. Be it the silly antics of Mickey Mouse and Donald Ducks or the really funny fights of Tom and Jerry. There would have been atleast 8 out of 10 people who would have heard about the likes of Spiderman, Superman etc etc. I have been no different. I have been reading comics right from the time I could probably read I guess. Starting from the Amar Chitra Kathas and graduating to the Marvel and DC world. I would even spend hours watching cartoons of the likes of Scrooge McDuck and Talespin.

For those who have no clue about the desi versions of comics, there are dozens of them ranging from Chacha Chowdhary ( The guy whose brain works faster than a computer ) and many more super hero comics. To be more precise there are comics in India under the title Raj comics that present the super heroes of India. Nagaraj ( similar to spiderman, but as the name goes he has everything to do with snakes rather than spiders ), Super commando Dhruv ( the Indian comic book version of James Bond, with the high flying gadgetry ), Doga ( I really do not think that there is an eq uivalent in the western world to him...he is more like the Dog guy who is all chummy with all kinds of dogs..sounds weird but so is the series ), Parmanu ( very much the same as Captain Atom from DC comics ) are some of the Indian heroes to name a few. Comics in India took a real big leap when the series Pavitr Prabhakar was launched by Gotham Entertainment in collaboration with Marvel. It was the Indian version of Peter Parker aka Spiderman. There were many parallels in the comic book series right from the names to the powers of the the hero. The effort to make him look typically desi made the publishers dress him up in a dhoti as well, which came out pretty well. Sadly there were not many issues printed and as far as I have known the project has been shelved ( I could be wrong here).

Wondering why I am talking so much about comics??

Thats because of the hype generated by Disney having taken over Marvel Entertainment Inc. for a cool 4 billion dollars. The flip side of it would be to see heroes like the Hulk, Spiderman, Ironman, Fantastic Four etc with characters like, Tarzan, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Aladdin etc, under the same banner. I am guessing that Marvel entertainment would be a separate division under the Disney banner. Other wise it would be really lame to see mashups like Iron Duck, Spider Mouse or the Fantastic Four comprising of Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Minnie. Does sound very lame when you actually come to think of it.

On an ending note, I would particularly like to mention about The 99. Published and distributed by Tashkeel comics which is of Kuwaiti origins, from 2006. The entire series is based on the 99 different names of Allah. Who ever said that comics was child's play. Neither creating them is easy nor keeping track of them is easy. Going now to read the first version of The 99.

P.S- I have not mentioned a word about the DC universe which holds characters like Superman, Batman and the Justice League. I would rather not start about my favourite characters else the post will become never ending. Hats off to people like Stan Lee ( Spiderman, Hulk, etc ) Bob Kane ( Batman ) Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster ( Superman ) for having created such comic book legends.

I guess this much of comic gyaan should do for the time being!!!!!!!!!!!!