Trivia Thread!

[Muskrat]

There are two indications that you are getting old. The first is that your memory becomes unreliable. I have forgotten the other one. Office equipment has been scientifically classified ibto three main groups: things that break down, things that get lost, and things that never worked in tn the first place. My office has all three.

 

[Ent]

once returned to the river.

Oh, good, thanks..! Whatever they do, what they do is critical to the ecosystem, else they wouldn't be such a large part of it..!

It's bad enough we're killing them in some quantities just to find out what they are, how they work, and how hardy they are. Shooting them against walls to see what veloties they can withstand without perishing, submitting them to temperatures below and above their -400 to +286 (or so) tolerance level, putting them through grevious bombardments of radiation, and all sorts of other liquids and chemicals...

All so we can see 'how they can help us' as usual, rather than finding out how we can work to preserve them as we continue our human destructiveness.

Oh well.. anyway, there it is. There is no slaughterhouse more constantly occupied than the human one.

 

[Muskrat]

If you are up ro it, read The Plague Dogs, by Richard Adams. It is about experiments done on dogs, all of which , he says, have actually been conducted. It hurts to read , but it is a fantastic book.

 

[Ent]

Hhmmm... the same Richard Adams who wrote Watership Down and Shardik I see... and now I find he's written a Tales from Watership Down I've been ignorant of. (and a few others.)

Sigh... thanks for the lead. I still lament this site at times... loading up my 'reading list' all the time.

 

[Glorfindel Goldtress]

Tales from Watership Down I've been ignorant of

I have been ignorant of this as well! Been years since I last read the actual novel. There was an animated film as well I recall.

 

[Ent]

There was an animated film as well I recall.

Yes, in 2015 Stephen King put out something about Shardik... but it seems totally different than the book.
In the animated film, Shardik, while appearing like a bear, is really some kind of mechanical positronic construct. No idea what or why or all the differences, but that alone is enough to keep me off the trail to probing it further.
There is a Wikipedia entry under Shardik: The Dark Tower related to it for anyone interested.

 

[Muskrat]

Suardik is somewhat grim, not at all like Watership Down. Plague Dogs is one of my favorite books, but I have only read it once because it is so grim, a book to make you angry.

 

[Olorgando]

I hope, I really truly hope that you knew/know.......I was being facetious.

You do know Abbot & Costello's "Who's on first?" sketch?

 

[Glorfindel Goldtress]

You do know Abbot & Costello's "Who's on first?" sketch?

Naturally.

 

[Muskrat]

Bud and Lou, Monty Python, and the Three Stooges are some of my heroes.

 

[Olorgando]

Bud and Lou, Monty Python, and the Three Stooges are some of my heroes.

Marx Brothers?

 

[Muskrat]

Sure!

 

[Ent]

Shardik is somewhat grim, not at all like Watership Down. Plague Dogs is one of my favorite books

Indeed it is, though Watership Down has its darkness too. Adams deals with a good number of things in his works. A bit layered, not just a surface entertainment writer.
I suspect i'll get much more from both as I re-read them now... I was quite the youngish lad when I first read them... soon afer they came out. '72 and '74 respectively. They were among my reading while in the military. Haven't read either since...had forgotten about them in fact. Odd thing, memory.

You force my hand on Plague Dogs... I'll need to lay it in as well. It was a whole 3 years later.. '77. Its nature sounds rather in keeping with the underbelly of his earlier works.

 

[Muskrat]

I have read Watership at least 3 times, once aloud to my wife. It is one of our favorite books. The nature writing and the theme (Hazel as Frodo?) are similar. I love dogs, have a standard poodle, and this book is tough for dog lovers. The pitiless men in this book seem much worse to me than the most debased Orc. If you mean to read it, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

The world’s largest apple peel was created by Kathy Wafler Madison on October 16, 1976, in Rochester, N.Y. It was 172 feet 4 inches long. (She was 16 years old at the time, and grew up to be a sales manager for an apple tree nursery.)

 

[Muskrat]

A sperm cell shares with a lawyer the jact that each has one chance ib several thousand of becoming a real live human being.

 

[Deimos]

You do know Abbot & Costello's "Who's on first?" sketch?

OK😄...just checkin'....juneau....

 

[grendel]

Naturally.

He does nothing of the sort, he throws it to Who!

 

[Deimos]

Why the women in the British royal family seem to wear hats more than usual when compared to the rest of the general population....
It is part of royal protocol that women must wear hats to all formal royal occasions, an etiquette rule that dates back to the 1950s, when it was seen as improper for upper class and royal women to show their hair in public.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

As of 2005 there were still about 400 widows receiving military survivors benefits from the American Civil War