Educate Yourself!

Dear Reader,

I have decided to make this entry an entirely educational post, so I hope you enjoy what you are about to learn because I enjoyed reading and finding the articles in the TORONTO STAR, Sunday, February 24, 2008 edition.

10 Things I Learned This week


1. North American fire stations employed Dalmatians to keep horses company, alert them to an alarm, and clear the way for teams pulling fire engines out on calls.

2. On July 28, 1907, an inferno destroyed Coney Island’s Steeplechase amusement park. The next day, owner George C. Tilyou posted a sign that read in part: “On this site will be erected shortly a bigger, better Steeplechase Park. Admissions to the burning ruins, 10 cents.”


3. From the 1850’s, the fire alarm boxes located at street corners enabled the public to rouse firefighters without running across town. Toronto retired the last of its street fire-alarm boxes in the late 1970s.


4. Ancient Rome had 7,000 paid firefighters. Though they had neither water pumps nor hoses, they did hold the power to punish violators of firecodes.


5. Forty-four per cent of cigarettes in the U.S. “are smoked by people with diagnosed mental
disorders, including schizophrenics and alcoholics.

6. Space smells metallic. Don Pettit , an International Space Station science officer: “It reminded me of my college summers where I laboured for many hours with an arc-welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant, sweet smelling welding fumes.”


7. The U.S. five-dollar bill will get a splash of yellow and purple next month after it was discovered that counterfeiters “could bleach the bills and remake them as $100s.”


8. Sperm Whales take “cat naps”. Video footage from a new study show them “eerily floating vertically in motionless manner.” The whales spend just 7.1 per cent of their time sleeping.


9.Rank of Oscar among baby names: No. 118. Of Tony: 329. Of Genie: not ranked. It last appeared in the top 1,000 in the 1890s, when it was No. 958.


10. Feb. 29 is Leap Year Day. It is also the fifth Friday of February. The last time February had five Fridays was 1980.

*Here’s my two cents on the above noted facts. I didn’t know about most of them and found them fascinating, hence I am sharing them with you dear reader. The one thing that was brought up about the paid Roman firefighters was yes they were able to punish for unwanted fires but then doesn’t that make them firefighters in the literal sense and policemen in a realistic sense? Number 5 refers to the smoking amongst people with mental disorders and I find that a very real number because people with mental disorders usually have addictive behaviours and therefore they take up activities such as drinking and smoking (note that I am not including all people with mental disorders, I am just stating that I believe the fact). Another point brought up was with Number 6, space smelling metallic. How would anyone really know what space smells like since they are encapsulated in a space station and they NEVER are exposed to the space air. Even when astronauts go on their space walks they are in a spacesuit so how can they smell? Personally I didn’t care about Number 9 and was not going to put it in because I think it is worded terribly, not sure about you but I don’t really care how many people are named Oscar, Tony or Genie, even though that was Barbara Eden’s characters’ name on the hit television show I Dream of Genie.*





THE WEEK’S BEST INVENTED WORDS

SRING BROKE, n.: the financial condition that follows the spring break.

TOOTHPUSS, n.: the toothpaste that oozes out of the end of the tube when it’s not recapped.

LANDSPAM, n.: “spam delivered the old-fashioned way: on paper and via your local postal worker.” Also known as junk mail.

JOY-TO-STUFF RATIO, n.: “the time a person has to enjoy life versus the time a person spends accumulating material goods.”

SH*TUATION, n.: a troublesome situation that causes one to use profanity.

DRAMASTIC, adj.: an act both dramatic and drastic, eg. Cutting up one’s credit cards.

PEPPERLONELY, n.: “the piece of pepperoni left on the cardboard when you pick a piece of pizza.”

FUZZWORD, n.: “a buzzword that has no precise meaning>”

*My favourites by far are SHITUATION, PEPPERLONELY, AND FUZZWORD. The people that generate these words either have too much time on their hands or are just dying to get into the dictionary with their contribution. Kudos to the creators though, these words could one day be so much a part of the English language that their frequencies of use would be tremendous!!!*

CRAB FEAST
A new world invasion of a different sort is on the cards if the teeming waters around Antarctica continue warming, researchers caution.
It turns out that cold water is the chief reason voracious crabs haven’t eaten their way south to the frozen continent’s smorgasbord of giant sea spiders, pillbugs, and brittlestars.
Cold water interferes with crabs’ ability to flush toxic magnesium from their bodies. Initially they simply stagger about in a drunken stupor.
However, if the water gets too cold, the crabs pass out and die.
In the past half-century, however, waters off the western Antarctic Peninsula have warmed about 1 degree C, which is above average for oceans worldwide.
Already king crabs are gathering nearby for the first time in deeper slightly warmer waters.
It the warming trend continues scientists fear the crabs will be able to ravage that smorgasbord within the century.

*MY OPINION- you have your crabs that have been into the sauce and are enjoying life, you have your crabs that have been into the sauce and have died from ‘alcohol poisoning”, you have your crabs on ice, or partially pre-warmed and then the king crabs who are totally out of the mix because they are eating the buffet not being apart of it!!!*

CUE THE SOUNDTRACK
Think you know about the great white shark because you saw Jaws? Bet you didn’t’ know that marine biologists have identified a white shark ‘café’ along the annual migration route of these fear-inspiring creatures.
Why a café? The researchers suspect the great whites return to this deep ocean spot 2,500 kilometres west of Baja, Calif., every year to size up potential mates, as well as to eat.
The sexual proclivities of the sharks were revealed by the Tagging of Pacific Predators program (topp.org), which over the past eight years has attached satellite tags to more than 2,000 animals.
In addition to 150 great whites tagged off the coast of central California, TOPP has also tracked the movements of two dozen other species, including elephant seals, leatherback turtles, squid, albatross, and sooty shearwaters, which were revealed as nature’s surprise migration champions, flying 65,000 kilometres every year.
Sharks also have a migration surprise: Both great whites and hammerheads appear to follow “superhighway” routes between established gathering places- like the café.

*MY OPINION- Everyone has watched Jaws I’m sure and if you haven’t then listen carefully, GO RENT THE MOVIE AND WATCH IT. I loved Jaws and sure when I was younger I thought all sharks were like that, bigger then the boats trying to catch them and then they come to the demise of being blown apart raining fish bait down upon the area. No really I have done my research on sharks, so I found this article very interesting. I like how the sharks have like a club but they call it café in the article, where they go meet chicks (female sharks) and then take them out to dinner. What a nice way to meet people. Sounds like the same ‘meat market’ us single people subject ourselves too. Another thing I really like is that TOPP is giving every animal it’s own piece of bling, well tracking monitors. So now they can go to the club, show off their bling, have a bite to eat, and take the chick home!!!! Sounds like a good deal if you ask me, cause they don’t have to drop a $1,000 or more for their bling!!!!*

Dear Reader, the educational session has come to an end. I hope you enjoyed it!!! Over and out from ‘educator’ Sarah!