400 million - Pounds of cranberries that Americans eat each year.
20 - Percent of those eaten during Thanksgiving week.
206 - Approximate number of cranberries used in a 6-ounce glass of fresh cranberry juice.
Source: Health, November, 2006
Tags: Thanksgiving, cranberries, interesting trivia
90 - Percentage of people who consider their pet dog or cat to be a family member.
60 - Percentage of pets that are overweight.
45 - Percent of owners of overweight pets who say their pet is in “ideal” shape.
Source: Health, Nov. 2006.
You mean there are people who don’t think that their pets aren’t part of the family?
Of course, now I’m wondering when the t.v. shows for helping your pets lose weight are going to start on Animal Planet. I mean, you can already buy doggy treadmills — People, just walk your
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Tags: interesting trivia, pets, dog treadmill
Supernatural is so much Tags: discombobulated, Supernatural, Amazon wishlists, rain, the puppy
I’m a worry-wart. I worry about all kinds of things and I can’t turn it off. I worry about whether or not my cats hate me. I worry about whether or not my co-workers are talking about me. I worry about whether or not the world is going to blow up today or if my house is going to burn down or if my headache means I’m getting a brain tumor.
I’m in therapy. At least I’m trying to get a grip, but it turns out that there are a lot of people who worry about
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Tags: Thursday Thirteen, meme, bloghopping, risks, accidents, health, cancer, fear, interesting trivia
244 - Average percent markup between the actual cost of a hospital visit or stay and what the hospital bills for it.
680 - Average percent markup at the nation’s 100 most expensive hospitals.
9 - Percentage of people in the last year who negotiated with a hospital to get their bills lowered.
70 - Percentage of those who say it worked.
Source: Health, June, 2006.
Tags: interesting trivia, healthcare, hospital costs
My mom is one of those God-awful early-risers. You know, those people who are awake before 5 am and have had breakfast, are dressed, and have read the paper and gotten started on the day by 7 am? Those are my parents.
The battle to sleep in on Saturday mornings began the moment I turned pre-teen. Or maybe it was when Saturday morning cartoons stopped being interesting. I don’t know. Either way, I always wanted to sleep until 10am or later. My Mom thought sleeping past 7am was a crime against nature.
Even after I moved out, it was not unusual for
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Tags: sleep, health, weight loss, wellness, interesting trivia
Want to volunteer this holiday season? These organizations allow you to punch in your zip code and find an opportunity close to home:
Source: Woman’s Day, December, 2006.
Tags: Volunteer, American Red Cross, America's Second Harvest, charity
According to today’s Parade magazine, the UBS Bank calculated how long it takes an average worker around the world to earn enough to buy a Big Mac. If you live in Tokyo, apparently you can have a Big Mac soonest.
| City | Minutes |
| Tokyo | 10 |
| New York | 13 |
| London | 16 |
| Hong Kong | 17 |
| Paris | 21 |
| Moscow | 25 |
| Rome | 39 |
| Beijing | 44 |
| Manila | 81 |
| Jakarta | 86 |
Tags: Big Mac, McDonalds, world economy, interesting trivia
Protect yourself. To help prevent others from making fraudulent purchases with your credit card, instead of signing the back of your credit card, write “Ask for ID.” Cashiers are required to request to see photo ID to prove you are who belongs to the credit card.
Tags: credit card theft
40 - Percentage of employees who say they eat more unhealthy snacks at work than they do at home.
Source: Careerbuilder.com via Eating Well, December, 2006.
23- Percentage your risk of obesity increases for every two hours of tv watching per day.
Source: Fitness, March, 2006.
14 - Average number of bras a woman owns.
6 - Average number she wears regularly.
8 - Number out of every 10 women who are wearing the wrong size bra.
Source: Health, October, 2006.
Tags: bras
I moved to Maine 2 1/2 years ago, leaving my old life behind. Most people up here and most people online don’t know many of these things from the first 33 years of my life…
Tags: Thursday Thirteen, meme, bloghopping
71 - Percentage of people in a British study willing to trade their office-computer password for a candy bar
1 - Rank of Snickers bars among most popular vending-machine snacks
Source: Health, September, 2006
Tags: candy, interesting trivia
This year’s election offers the chance, after four decades of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works. That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money. It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.
Like Lincoln, our first Republican president, we intend to act “with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.” To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves.
Let’s hope that the Democrats learn from the Republicans’ mistakes.
Perhaps the solution lies in changing the geometry of the question. Instead of trying to regulate the content of ads, we use public funds (or funds from the Parties) to run a frequent public service message that corrects the inaccuracies of any recent ads - perhaps produced by the Factcheck.org folks. Since a candidate would not want to have the airwaves filled with objective criticism they would be inclined to stay as reasonable and civil as possible.
Tags: 2006 election, Republicans, Contract with America, Contress, ethics, scandal, Democrats, negative political ads, election tampering, politics, factcheck.org, DHS, TSA, passports, Hasan Elahi, FBI, mental illness, anxiety, depression
20 - Percentage of U.S. restaurant meals that were purchased from a car in 2005.
32 - Restaurant meals, per year, the average American actually consumes in the car.
24.7 - Minutes that the average American connutes to work each day.
3 - The increased risk of obesity that you incur for every 30 minutes you spend sitting in the car each day.
Source: Eating Well, October/November, 2006.
Tags: obesity, interesting trivia, eating out
52 - Percentage of Americans who can name at least two members of the cartoon Simpsons family.
28 - Percentage of Americans who can name at least two freedoms granted in the First Amendment.
21 - Percentage who believe the right to own a pet is one of them.
Source: Health, July/August, 2006.
Tags: First Amendement, The Simpsons, Freedoms, trivia
52 - Percentage of Americans living in eastern states who’d rather have Bill Cinton as their dad than George W. Bush.
28 - Percentage who would pick Bush.
45 - Percentage of Southerners who’d choose Bush over Clinton as their dad.
29 - Percentage who would want Clinton.
Source: Health, June, 2006.
Tags: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush
This Thursday Thirteen from Carmen’s Gone to Plaid blog just begs to be reposted and forwarded via email all across the Internet to everyone everyone knows before Election Day next Tuesday. There are some excellent reminders in there no matter who you’re voting for (and you should be voting for someone).
(note: my own Thursday Thirteen is a few posts down.)
Thirteen Reasons (or Not) You Should Vote for Me if I Ran for Office Tuesday is Election Day (GO VOTE!).
[…snip…]
PS: You have the right to disagree with me (isn’t America great?), but not to be mean in my comments.
- Being a Democracy isn’t easy. Take free speech. You may not like what I say, and you have the right to disagree. But I still have the right to say it. That includes questioning our leaders without being called “unpatriotic.” Questioning our leaders and speaking your mind is the most patriotic thing you can do. However, these freedoms require responsibility.
Tags: vote, Election Day, Democracy, free speech, Patriot
3 comments See also in Politics & Causes, Geekery, Blogging & Other Blogs, The World
My brain is way too scattered and full of anxiety to focus on one particular nifty topic this week. So, now you get to see the really true discombobulated, highly anxious me.
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What if the sale on the little red house doesn’t fall through and I do get it and it turns into a money pit?Tags: Thursday Thirteen, meme, bloghopping, anxiety, home buying, acid reflux, IgAN, autoimmune kidney disease, discombobulated, the puppy
The Naked Truth
& Other
Discombobulated Thoughts
of a displaced Southerner in New England -- from just daily annoyances to conspiracy theories to political views.
The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe
The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
Marley and Me by John Grogan
The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby
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