Uselessly A-Z

Holy crow!

2010-10-28T21:57:00.000-07:00

So I've learned a couple of things outside of the encyclopedia set. #1 I'm doing an information overload per post, so I'm going to pick one (1) person, one (1) place, one (1) animal, and one (1) other random thing per post from the previous nights reading. The other part I learned...I'm going to be at this a HELL of a lot longer than 2 years. 2 nights of reading and I'm only on page 10....out of 22000. You do the math. I may add a couple other useless facts if they made me laugh as well :-)

Person: There was an overload of people last night (maybe that's what knocked me out), most of them very well known (i.e. Mahmoud Abbas, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Abdullah and God's favored son of Adam and Eve...Abel). So I chose Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott instead. Other than having WAY too many names was a Canadian politician and lawyer who hated politics. The only reason he was a politician was the he felt he could do the greatest good for the people by being in politics, ironically his career was plagued with scandal. He peaked as Prime minister of Canada, however, this proved to be too much for him so he only served one year, then passed away the following year. They say politics will kill you, but I didn't know they were literal about it.

Place: Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland is the US Army's testing ground for it's toys. Established in 1917 it is still considered one of the top test and research facilities in the world. No wonder the Army has the best toys.

Animal: Not a single one. Sucks to be you if you were expecting something here, sorry.

Thing: Abandonment used to be a leading cause for divorce in the US until the mid 1900's when no-fault divorce became legalized. At this point, all it took was one person to fill out the paper work for a divorce causing other forms of blame to go on the rise. Speaking of which, as sexy as sex (the lack thereof and/or extracurricular) is for grounds of divorce, money is the #1 cause.

Randomness: I read about a lot of people named Abbott, however, the word Abbot comes from the Aramaic word Abba, which means father. It's a title for a religious superior, usually of a monastery from early religious orders (like 300 A.D.).

OK, so that's my brain dump for the night, time to hit the book again. And for the record, I'm not sure how I plan on pulling this off on Halloween (but I plan on pulling it off somehow).

Aardvarks and more

2010-10-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

So, I promised that I'd share more useless facts and here they are.

Aachen, Germany was the capital of the Charlemagne Empire and was established shortly after the birth of Jesus.

Aardvark molars never stop growing and don't have any enamel, they instead have a softer tooth cover called cementum (no joke). This comes in handy when all you eat are ants and termites.

Aardwolf much like the aardvark (no relation other than they are quadruped mammals), has a super sticky tongue, but unlike the aardvark it's broad and flat. It is also used to lap up ants and termites (and yet its closest relative is the hyena).

Aard means Earth. So Aardvark translates to Earth Pig and Aardwolf translates to Earth Dog (seriously, no relation).

Aaron, the brother of Moses, in some religious circles played as an important role as Moses did in the Exodus, but is mostly relegated to the status of a footnote these days (just don't tell the Aaronite priesthood).

Hank Aaron still holds the RBI record at 2,297, but the useless fact is that he both started and ended his career in Milwaukee. He started with the Milwaukee Braves (who later moved to Atlanta) and then was traded to the up-start Milwaukee Brewers.

AARP is the largest private non-profit organization in the world. That said, don't piss off the retired community because they probably could pull off a heist South Park style.

An Abacus can be used to do square roots and cube roots with ease. And to think this would have been more useful for learning how to solve these things on my own than my calculator was while in Algebra. We were collectively robbed!

Abalone is a plant eating mollusk that can get to a foot long. Speaking of feet, the abalone foot is a very popular food item along the US West Coast and in Japan...we call it Abalone steak (what did you expect? Silver partish glickbone?) And no, it doesn't taste like bologna.

That's it for today, going to do more reading after this and you'll get your update tomorrow.

And so the journey begins...

2010-10-26T23:43:00.000-07:00

It's almost a year late, but I finally have life under control enough now to begin. I got my library card today and have volume 1 of 22 of the 2009 World Book Encyclopedia. After doing some math, I'd have to read roughly 60 pages a day to complete this journey by this time next year (roughly 22000 pages). Let's be realistic, I'll probably get about half that a day so this looks to be a 2-3 year project. But who knows, miracles happen right?

I've already read a few pages and I realize that there is no way I'm going to be able to share ONLY one fact a day. I've already read about the letter A, Aachen Germany, the aardvark, the aardwolf, Alvar Aalto, Moses' brother Aaron and Hank Aaron and I'm only on page 3. My plan is to read at night and put up a blog post the following night before I go read again. This way only the stuff that sticks is the stuff that gets shared, and with how my mind works, they will probably be the most useless facts available.

However, since you've already read this much, here's a tidbit for you. The letter A originally was used by the Egyptians and was drawn using a hieroglyph of an ox head. The name that was given to it by the Semites was aleph or Ox in 1500 BC.

Will I add more about Aachen? Aardvark? Aardwolf? The rest? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

WTH man?

2010-04-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

OK, so I said I was going to start on 1/1/2010 and I didn't. What can I say? I got sick for a bit there. Then it spread through the house, then came job interview (and a job) along with school (mine, the kids and the little lady) and I just got BUSY. OK, so I plan on going to the library by Monday at the latest and getting the ball rolling. The one time I got there I did find that they have an encyclopedia set available for check out (cha-ching!) but I didn't have what I needed to get a library card (I guess a drivers license with my current address just isn't enough these days). Any way...I will get my card, but I probably won't start posting until later. I do have a wedding in May and a honeymoon in July and I'm sure as heck NOT going to be bringing an encyclopedia to Mexico with me for a blog when I'll have better things to do :-)

Nothing beats public...

2009-12-26T22:47:00.000-08:00

I've decided that on Monday, I will get my library card and start reading an encyclopedia set from the comfort of my own home. Having a library a block away just makes it too perfect an option. Day one of facts will be January 1, 2010...seems like a good day to start something new...for some reason :-)

Checking my options

2009-12-16T17:55:00.000-08:00

So far I've kicked around the idea of borrowing volumes from my parents Encyclopedia...but a 3 hour drive to pick up a book seems a bit extreme. I've also kicked around the idea of installing my Encyclopedia Britannica from 1999, it's just a single CD and I'm sure it's pretty packed, but does it really compare with depth of information versus my parents set of books? Now I'm weighing just checking out the books one at a time from the local library (which is about a block away from my house) or buying a newer version of one of the electronic Encyclopedias out there (DVD style). Anyone have any suggestions?

Coming soon...

2009-12-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

I plan on getting my hands on a decent encyclopedia (set) and reading it in it's entirety. As I read it, I plan on sharing one useless fact I've learned each and every single day until I complete my task. This may not be the end-all be-all of useless facts, but it'll be one hell of a collection.