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Girl's Best Friend
2007-08-21 16:50:00
The word "carat" originated from the "carob tree". Because seeds from the fruit of the carob tree have a uniform weight of about-one fifth of a gram, they were used to measure diamonds. On average, there are about 120 million carats of diamond being mined worldwide annually. This figure totals about 24 tons, which could fit snugly inside the back of a single 18-wheel truck. Only about 50% of these mined diamonds end up as jewelry, however, with the rest serving industrial uses such as drill bits for deep-earth exploration. Uncut, these diamonds has the value of about $7 billion. In finished jewelry, however, that value rises up to $58 billion.The largest rough diamond ever found on earth has 3,106 carats. Called the "Cullinan", the rock was discovered on Jan 26, 1905 in the Premier mine of South Africa. It was cut into nine major diamonds and hundreds of smaller ones, including the Great Star of Africa - the largest cut diamond in existence at 530.2 carats, now in the royal scepter...
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All Shook Up
2007-08-13 14:06:00
This coming August 16 is the 30th death anniversary of Elvis Presley, and so it is only fitting that I would post some odds & ends about the "King".At around 2:30 in the morning on Aug 16, 1977, Elvis was found sprawled on the bathroom floor, his pajamas below his knees, by then girlfriend Ginger Alder. He had had a heart attack while on the toilet, reading a book entitled "The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus". Doctors found 10 drugs in Elvis's system, including morphine, phenobarbital, methaqualone, Valium, Carbrital and Demerol, but no cause of death was ever established.Elvis was actually buried twice - he was originally laid to rest in Memphis's Forest Hill Cemetery on Aug 18, 1977, entombed in a large mausoleum. In the early morning hours of Aug 29, three men were arrested for trying to steal Elvis's body. As a result, Presley's father had his body disinterred and reburied on the ground of Graceland on Oct 2, 1977.Even so, a survey made in 2002 showed that 7% of Ame...
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A Rewarding Post
2007-08-02 17:06:00
Just a couple of weeks ago, the U.S. have doubled the reward to Osama Bin Laden's capture, or to any information that may lead to his capture, to $50 million, making it the largest reward ever offered for a fugitive. In announcing the original reward in 2003, which was then $25 million, President Bush said, "There's an old poster out West, as I recall that said: 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' All I want, and America wants is him brought to justice."Actually, current U.S. law limits federal rewards to $25 million except when personally authorized by the Secretary of State "if he [or she] determines that offer or payment of an award of a larger amount is necessary to combat terrorism or defend the Nation against terrorist attacks."That is really a large sum of money, one that may even turn Osama's close ally against him. Who knows, maybe Bin Laden can even turn himself in and claim that reward himself. While, you may think that is funny, it actually happened before. On March 1995, Gera...
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Tomato: Fruit or Vegetable?
2007-07-27 13:25:00
Today, we are going to have a veggie quiz. The first question is the post title itself - Are tomatoes fruits or vegetable?If you answered fruit, you are absolutely correct. If you answered vegetable, you are correct too... well, sort of.The word "fruit" means the fleshy meat growing from the ripened ovary of a plant, and contains the seeds. So, by definition, tomatoes are fruits. The same goes with cucumbers, eggplants, peppers, string beans - all of which are widely mistaken as vegetables. However, for Americans, the tomato was, in fact, declared as a vegetable. In the 1893 case Nix v. Hedden, tomato importers sought to challenge a 10% tax imposed on tomatoes by claiming that tomatoes were a fruit (which was not subject to tax) rather than a vegetable. Though the U.S. Supreme Court found that the tomato was technically a fruit, since Americans ate it with the main meal rather than dessert, it could be taxed as a vegetable.Ok, here's another veggie question for you: If Bugs Bunny w...
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You Got Mail
2007-07-19 14:02:00
Despite the popularity of email, postal mail service is still widely used worldwide. In fact, according to CNN in 2004, there were 425 billion pieces of mail sent annually around the world. India has the world's largest postal system, with 154,000 post offices and 60,000 postment delivering 53 million pieces of mail each day. China is second with 57,000 post offices. The U.S., by comparison, has only 38,000 post offices.Before stamps were introduced in America, mailing a letter cost about 25 cents during that time when the average salary was $1 a day. In 1847, the post office introduced a 5 cents stamp featuring Benjamin Franklin, which could be used for letters mailed 300 miles and a 10 cents stamp with George Washington, which could get your letter across the U.S. Once stamps allowed postage to be paid beforehand, street corner mailboxes became possible and at a suggestion of a novelist and postal employee named Anthony Trollope, the first four were installed on the isle of Jers...
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Sneaking Sneakers
2007-07-11 14:10:00
Sneakers have become a multi-million industry worldwide. In 2004 alone, Americans spent $16 billion on sneakers, 28% of which is for sneakers made for running, while 23% is for basketball. Somehow, it has become a status symbol and a fashion statement.The word "sneaker" comes from the shoe's rubber sole, which allows wearers to "sneak" around noiselessly. In 1862, a book titled "Female Life In Prison" said that prisoners referred to the rubber-soled shoes worn by a correction officer as "sneaks." Several years later, the use of "sneaks" to refer to rubber-soled shoes gained wide acceptance and in 1873 store ads started referring to these shoes by the name "sneaker".The best selling sneaker of all time is the Converse All Stars. Introduced in 1917, the All Star was the first sneaker designed for basketball and an estimated 580 million pairs of the sneaker have been sold to date.Nike, the current sneaker company giant, started in 1964 by Phil Knight, a former University of Oregon run...
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Catblogging
2007-07-03 16:22:00
A lot of bloggers, when faced with the dilemma of having no idea what to blog about, often come out with the following:Write about the food they ate last night,Write about their cat,Post a photo of the food they ate last night, orPost a photo of their catWell, this week I have no clue what to write on this blog, so I think, I will choose option 2 above. Although that may be a problem because I have no pet cat. So, I think, I will just write about cats.Do you know that cats outnumber both dogs and children in the US? In 2001, there are estimated 77.7 million cats in the US. Despite this, 73% of Americans still believe that dogs are the "better" pet, and even among cat owners, 35% rate dogs as better.A cat has a life expectancy of 15 years. A cat will spend 62% of that lifetime sleeping, and 12% grooming. That leaves 26% for the other activities which may include eating, purring, rubbing on your legs, chasing birds, being chased by dogs, posing for photographs, and of course, coughing...
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Close Encounters
2007-06-24 16:06:00
In a survey done by Life Magazine in 2000, it was found out that 30% of Americans believed that aliens have visited the earth, 7% said they or someone they know has seen one, and 21% say that they would board an alien spacecraft if invited. New Mexico is the state with the most UFO sightings, followed by Wisconsin, where on a lonely stretch of road outside a town called Dundee, sightings are so common that there is a tavern named Benson's highway and UFO bar.So, do UFO's really exists?As of 2001, there are actually 56 reported cases of near misses between airplanes and UFO's. Here are some of incidents that are recorded by the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP):In 1981, Capt. Phil Schultz was piloting a TWA flight over Lake Michigan when a large silver object descended directly toward his airplane, avoiding it only by making a high speed turn at the last second.In 1995, an Aerolineas Argentinas flight was approached by a luminous object as it tried...
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Harry Potter and Other Books
2007-06-17 15:10:00
The 5th installment in the Harry Potter series "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" will be on theaters worldwide July 11, and a lot of movie fans are already excited to see it on the big screen. This book by J.K. Rowling is the fastest-selling book of all time, selling 5 million copies in the U.S. and another 1 million copies in the U.K. within the first 24 hours it was released. The book went on sale June 21, 2003 at 12:01 a.m. and Barnes and Noble sold the book at a rate of more than 80 copies per second. By midnight of June 22, 1 in every 60 americans had bought a copy of the book.A true Harry Potter fan, 16-year old Emerson Spartz flew from Chicago to London on June 21, 2003 for the sole purpose of buying a copy of the same book, putting him in the world record as having to made the longest distance ever traveled to buy a book (3,950 miles). As Spartz told the Los Angeles Times, "I want to feel the weight of that book". Spartz is also the founder of the Harry Potter fans...
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Strange Deaths
2004-04-13 18:49:00
Convinced she would inherit her mother's stomach cancer, Tina Christopherson of Florida drank up to four gallons of water a day. Over time, her kidneys weakened to such an extent that fluid began draining into her lungs, and she died of internal drowning.The insomnia of a middle-aged Italian industrialist made his sleep for only one hour a night and caused him to perform military salutes during vivid dreams. It also caused impotence, amnesia and an incurable lung infection. It killed him with in a year.The defence in an Irish murder trial hung on whether the accused, Thomas McGann, could draw a gun from his pocket without shooting himself. Demonstrating in court, his lawyer shot his own foot, and died 12 hours later. McGann, however, was acquitted.During World War II, the British invented a 'sticky bomb' which would adhere to tanks. Unfortunately, it also struck to the thrower's hand, leaving him a five-second delay to extricate himself before it went off. After a number of prem...
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