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Here are a few strange facts you may or may not have known.

• The brain is the cleanest organ in the body, dead cells, or the brain’s waste is consumed by special glial cells.
• As we age, so does the brain. It is firm when young and gets squishy as we age.
• Most people think of the brain as gray, but its actual color ranges from blue, light brown, pink and even in some cases, green.
• You can, in some cases, lose a whole hemisphere of the brain and the remaining hemisphere will rearrange itself to take over the duties of the missing half.
• Your brain uses 15 percent of the body’s blood supply and 20 percent of all nutrients at any given moment.
• If you stretched out your cerebral cortex, it would cover a surface area the equivalent of two large pizzas.
• There has been at least one documented case of a person with three fully functional brains located inside her skull.

Image via Wikipedia

We all know Halloween is celebrated at the end of October, but what other interesting facts do you know about the Fall Month that begins to usher in the change of seasons? Sure some people also realize Columbus Day is in October and many cities across America hold big celebrations and parades.

But what trivial, yet interesting facts do you know about October?

DO you know some of the folk lore saying about October? For example:

“Rain in October
Means wind in December”…..

“If the October moon comes without frost,
expect no frost till the moon of November”.

Here are some really weird facts concerning the month of October —

•  October is the tenth month in the Gregorian calendar. It received its name from the Latin numeral “octo” meaning “eight”, because in the first Roman calendar it was the eighth month.
• Did you realize Dayight Savings Time ends every year at 2:00 A.M. local time on the last Sunday of October?
• The German Oktoberfest celebration (now held around the world) originally began on October 17, 1810, the wedding day of King Ludwig I.
• In merry old England during olden times the month of October was once named “Winmonth”, which meant wine month. It has also been called ‘Teo-monath’ (Tenth month) and ‘Winter-fylleth’ (Winter full moon) in the Old Saxon traditions.
• Did you know Canada celebrates their Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October?
• The Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church celebrates St. Francis Feast Day on October 4th.
• On October 18th, 1867, Alaska became an American territory.
• The founder of the Girl Scouts of America, Juliette Gordon Lowe was born on Halloween day – October 31st, 1860.

October is:

• October is Adopt-A-Shelter Dog Month, Children’s Health Month,
• Class Reunion Month, Frugal Fun Month, National Crime Prevention Month, Family Health Month, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, National Positive Attitude Month, National Cookie Month, National Seafood Month – National Dessert & Cookie Month – National Popcorn & Popcorn Poppin’ Month – National Pretzel Month – National Pork Month – National Stamp Collecting Month and National Chili Month.
• In October 1903, the first game of the first baseball World Series was played between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Pilgrims. Cy Young was the first losing pitcher, in a world Series Baseball Game, but Boston did win the series.
• In October 1962: Johnny Carson became host of “The Tonight Show”.
• On October 1st, 1968: the now cult horror movie “Night of the Living Dead” had its world premiere in Pittsburgh, Pa.
• On October 1st, 1971, Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida.
• More American Presidents were born in the month of October than any other month (6). They are:
•  1735 – John Adams …1822 – Rutherford B. Hayes…1829 – Chester Arthur, 5th, 1829…Theodore Roosevelt, 27th, 1858… 1890 – Dwight Eisenhower – … 1924 – Jimmy Carter.
• Both John Lennon (famous Beatles member) and Bill Gates (Microsoft) were born in October.
• The Moon in the month of October is called  “A Hunter’s Moon”.
• National Magic Week is celebrated from – October 25 to October 31.
• Are you ready to celebrate Mule Day on October 26?

• In October 1683, a huge amount of toads fell at Acle, a village in Norfolk, England. The villagers fearing witchcraft was at work, swept them into piles and burned them.
• October is National Domestic Violence Month.
• The first Model T Ford was introduced by Henry Ford, on October 1, 1908.
• On the 13th of October, 1884, Greenwich Mean Time began.
• On 14th October, 1926, Winnie-the-Pooh was first published: Written by A.A. Milne.
• On 14th, October 1979, Sony invents the first Walkman, over 3 billion sold in the first 20 years.
• Did you know that on 25th October, St Crispin’s Day, Patron Saint of Shoemakers, is celebrated?

Enough…..enough information for now!!! There is plenty more.

Riddle Five: What looks exactly like a monkey but isn’t a monkey?

Riddle Four: The monkey and the rabbit were having an argument. The rabbit made a bet saying he knows a place where he can sit but the monkey cannot. The monkey agreed to the bet. The rabbit won. What place could the rabbit sit but the monkey could not?

Riddle Three: If one monkey can eat one banana in one minute, how many minutes would it take 100 monkeys to eat 100 bananas?

Riddle Two: You are in a room together with 3 primates: a monkey, a chimp, and an ape. The monkey only knows how to write, the chimp only knows how to talk, and the ape only knows how to solve math problems. Which primate in the room is the smartest?

Riddle One: A monkey walking in the forest falls down a deep hole. The hole is 30 feet deep. Everyday, the monkey jumps up 3 feet and slides down 2 feet. How many days would it take for the monkey to escape the hole? (There is no “trick” answer to this, it can be solved naturally)

Answers:

5: A photo of a monkey

4: The rabbit can sit on the monkey’s back but the monkey can’t sit on his back.

3: One minute

2: You, the human, are the smartest primate in the room

1: It would take 28 days. On the 28th day, once the monkey jumps up 3 feet it could already escape the hole.

Natives of Mongolia and some scientists believe it to live in the Gobi Desert while preferring to burrow and sleep in the sand. However it will come out after the rain when the soil is still soft and moist. Although food supply and living conditions make their existence unlikely.

Some will glance at the puzzle and not ‘waste time’ trying to figure it out. Some will read the clues and give up because answers aren’t jumping at them. Some may give it a few reads, but because they don’t know the process, move on. Some already know the process for doing such a puzzle and solve it.

And a few, who have never have seen such a puzzle before, will sit down and develop a protocol for solving, maybe hitting upon the ‘usual’  method or creating their own.

Those in the last category are about to embark upon an intellectual journey.

Learning the process is more important than simply solving the puzzle. Once a mind is exposed to logic, to how one uses logic, pathways open and other problems of deduction become easy.

Most are not interested in the process. They want to get from A to B and consider any impediment frustration. These people lock themselves into the ignorance quick fix. They don’t want to know the details, they don’t want to experience the journey.

If you are willing to try, this is Einstein’s puzzle, and it can be solved with the information given.

Facts

1. There are 5 houses (along the street) in 5 different colors: blue, green, red, white and yellow.
2. In each house lives a person of a different nationality: Brit, Dane, German, Norwegian and Swede.
3. These 5 owners drink a certain beverage: beer, coffee, milk, tea and water, smoke a certain brand of cigar: Blue Master, Dunhill, Pall Mall, Prince and blend,and keep a certain pet: cat, bird, dog, fish and horse.
4. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage.

Clues

1. The Brit lives in a red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the left of the white house (next to it).
5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes blend lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes blend has a neighbor who drinks water.

Give the puzzle a try.

source

Image via Wikipedia

Michael Jackson was one of the most famous entertainers that ever lived.  People know many things about him, but there are also some little known facts about him.

I wanted to do a special tribute for Michael in honor of his upcoming birthday (August 29th) and I wanted to give you some positive facts about Michael. We’ve all seen more than we need to of negative articles and I wanted to do a positive one. Michael was my favorite singer and I will NEVER write anything negative about him.  I still miss him everyday!  With that said, here is the trivia about Michael Jackson. 

TRIVIA:

Michael Jackson wanted to become a singer because his mom used to sing to him as a child.  He believed he got his talent from his mother Katherine and God.

When Michael and his brothers were signed to Motown as the Jackson 5, he and his brother Marlon lived with Diana Ross until their father Joseph bought their house in Los Angeles.  I always thought it was just Michael that lived with Diana.  I didn’t realize that Marlon lived with her too.

Michael and his siblings used to dance around the house in their socks when they were kids.  I think that is cute that they were able to do that together.

Despite how great a dancer Michael was, he never had a formal training.  He was naturally able to dance.  It took Michael a short period of time to learn the dance steps he performed in his video “Thriller”. 

Speaking of Michael’s dancing, he learned the moonwalk from breakdancer Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers from the 80s movies Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2:  Electric Boogaloo.  Michael learned the dances he performed on the Motown 25th Anniversary Special in less than a year.

Did you know that Michael used to love to read?  I have that in common with Michael because I love to read too. He and his mother used to go to bookstores all of the time and pick up books to read.

Michael wasn’t the first artist to write “We Are The World”.  Quincy Jones wanted Stevie Wonder to write the song, but Stevie ended up not doing the song.  Michael was Quincy’s second choice to write it. That was a good decision because the song is one of the biggest singles of all time.

Have you heard that Michael was the closest to his sister Janet Jackson?  When he was growing up, he was closest to his brother Marlon.  When they got older, Michael was closest to Janet.  I think that might be because she didn’t need anything from him the way his other siblings did. They had things in common since they were both successful.

Michael thought that Janet was a fierce performer. He knew that they had similar styles, but he really enjoyed her work.

Speaking of Janet, Michael wanted to do another track with her before they did “Scream”.  She turned him down because she didn’t want people to think that she was riding on his coattails.  She did do backing vocals for him on his “Thriller” cd.  She sings in “P.Y.T.”

If you can believe it, Michael considered his cd “Bad” a flop.  It didn’t sell as many copies as “Thriller” which is why he considered the cd a flop.  It wasn’t a flop by any means.  The cd sold over 25 million copies in the United States alone.  Singers can’t sell that many cds now.  He was only competing against himself for record sales.

Michael’s cd “Dangerous” was his second highest selling cd.

Michael considered “Childhood” his most honest song.  I’m not surprised since he was robbed of a childhood thanks to Joe Jackson.

In case you didn’t hear, “Billie Jean” was allegedly written about Paula Abdul’s relationship with his older brother Jackie.  There were reports that Paula and Jackie were having an affair and she was pregnant.  Jackie was married to his first wife at the time that he was allegedly having an affair with Paula.  In related trivia: Michael wrote “Billie Jean” in five minutes. He also wrote the song in his car while he was traveling with his brother Marlon.

Paul McCartney wrote “Girlfriend” from the “Off The Wall” cd specifically for Michael.  They went on to do two other songs together.  I knew that they did “The Girl is Mine” and “Say, Say, Say”, but I didn’t know he wrote “Girlfriend”.

In the movie The Wiz, Michael was originally only supposed to sing in one song, but another song was added in for him to sing.

That’s all the trivia I have for now.