i've been busy
well, i suppose it's time to break the silence. I have been extremely busy at work so let me get right to it.

I have always been a big fan of useless facts. For some reason, whenever I hear an odd or interesting random fact, it sticks with me. It is very helpful for group settings and small talk if you know interesting little tidbits about obscure things. It can make you seem somewhat smart...or at least randomly and uselessly interesting.

The other day I visited a website that collapsed my useless fact world. This website is devoted to dispelling ledgends, urban myths, and useless facts. The sight also says which of any of said ledgends, myths, and facts are actually true or at least partly true. This disrupted my whole worldview. I found that a good deal of my useless facts were really useless, but not even facts. However, now knowing that they are indeed false gives me a new list of useless facts. All this to say that I am addicted to this website and am soaking up all the useless, random, facts and stories that I can get my hands on. Here is a list of things that you probably thought was true, or heard was a fact. Some of these shocked me, because I have proudly brought them up in conversations many times. All of these are FALSE statements.

-you should not throw rice at weddings because a bird could eat the rice and then die b/c it cannot digest is properly.
-if you feed a seagull an Alka-Seltzer pill, it will die/explode
-domestic turkeys are so dumb that if they are left out in the rain, they will look up to see what is falling from the sky and drown themselves in the rain water (I've actually used this in a sermon).
-possums hang in trees by their tails.
-daddy long legs are the most poisonous spider known to man
-elephants are afraid of mice
-a duck's quack doesn't echo
-human handling of baby birds will cause the mother bird to reject and abandon the nest
-if you multiply a dog's age by seven, it will equal the dog's age in human years
-John Hancock once said, "There, King George will be able to read that!" (or any variation of this quote)
-the 'F' word, and the 'S' word is derived from an older acronym.
-"Ring Around the Rosie" is in reference to the Black Plague
-if a prisoner is executed and the execution fails, the prisoner is allowed to go free
-if you shave or pluck body hair, it will grow back darker and thicker.

This list is only a small portion of what is available on the website. Each entry has an explanation and proof of it being real or false. This, honestly, is one of the most interesting websites that I've every come across. Check it out and you'll be amazed at what it true, and even more amazed at what is all just make believe. A word of caution, some of the site is a little crude, but you should be able to navigate around any questionable material.

www.snopes.com