Tag Archives: Telephone

Jul24

A Salute to Canada

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The name Canada derives from an Iroquoian word for “village” kanata, that French explorers heard used to refer to the area near present day Quebec City.

Canada contains 3,855,103 square miles.

Canada has the longest coastline of any country in the world at 151,600 miles.

Canada’s national animal is the beaver.

Canadians consume more Kraft Macaroni & Cheese per capita than any other nationality on Earth.

On July 1, 1867 the British North Americas Act created the Dominion of Canada as a federation of four provinces.  This event is known as the confederation of Canada.  The anniversary of this date was called Dominion Day until 1982.  On October 27, 1982, the name was changed from dominion Day to Canada Day.  July 1st is the 182nd day of the year, and there are 183 days left until the end of the year, making it close to the halfway point of the year.  The Canadian Government does not count Sunday as Canada Day under the federal Holidays Act, if the first of July falls on a Sunday then July 2nd is the statutory holiday instead. 

On July 1st, 1923, the Canadian Government enacted the Chinese Immigration Act, stopping all immigration from China.  Chinese-Canadians began to refer to July 1st as Humiliation Day and refused to participate in Dominion Day celebrations, until the act was repealed in 1947.

In Quebec many people spend Canada Day moving their possessions from one house to another.  This is because in the Province of Quebec, may home leases start on July 1 and last for exactly one year.  Hence, many people in Quebec spend Canada Day moving and therefore in this province Canada Day is also known as Moving Day.

Famous Canadians born on Canada Day are: Estee Lauder, Jamie Farr, Dan Ackroyd and Pamela Anderson

Since the 1950’s the cross-border cousin cities  of Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario have celebrated Canada Day and the United States’ Independence Day with the International Freedom Festival.  A massive fireworks display is held each year, with fireworks exploding over the Detroit River, the strait that separates the two cities by less than one mile.

On Canada’s Centennial in 1967, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II attended the celebrations on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Here are some Great Canadian Inventions:

Crispy Crunch

Baseball – First Game June 4, 1938 in Ingersoll Ontario

Lacrosse

Hockey

Basketball – invented by James Naismith

Apple Pie

Standard Time was invented by Canadian, Sanford Fleming

Velcro invented by Georges de Mestral in 1959

Zippers by Gideon Sundback

Insulin in 1920 by Dr. Frederick Banting

yes and last but not least……………….Superman

Hope you enjoyed these quirky insights into Canada

Jul14

Useless Information

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Thought it might be fun to review these facts, useless as they may be….

……you never know when you might be on Jeopardy and need to know……

Adults spend an average of 16 times as many hours selecting clothes (145.6 hours a year)

as they do on planning their retirement

Per capita, it is safer to live in New York City than it is to live in Pine Bluff, Arkansas

In 1996, Americans bought only 12 inches of dental floss per capita

In 1915, the average annual family income in the United States was $687 a year

In 1990 there were about 15,000 vacuum cleaner related accidents in the United States

Over 15 billion prizes have been given away in Cracker Jacks boxes

There are more telephones than people in Washington D.C.

Chocolate Manufacturers use 40 percent of the world’s almonds

More than a third of all adults hit their alarm clock’s “snooze” button each morning,

an average of three times before they get up. 

Spaghetti is the favorite pasta shape, with 38 percent favoring it over other pasta shapes.

According to a major hotel chain, approximately the same numbers of men and women are locked out of their rooms. 

32 percent are less than fully dressed.

Nearly 87 percent of the 103 people polled in 1977 were unable to identify correctly an unlabeled copy of

the Declaration of Independence.

Cold pizza is fairly popular.  A survey found 15 percent actually prefer pizza this way.

By the end of the U.S. Civil War, 33 percent of all U.S. paper currency in circulation was counterfeit.

According to one U.S. study, about 25 percent of all adolescent and adult males never use deodorant.

Most humans can guess someone’s sex with 95 percent accuracy just by smelling their breath.

In 1995, each American used an annual average of 731 pounds of paper,

more than double the amount used in the 1980s. 

Contrary to predictions that computers would displace paper, consumption is growing.

 

Jul5

Things That Will Dissappear in the Next 50 Years

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Technology and Scientific Knowledge are moving faster than our Legal Systems or Value Systems can adapt.  The increase in conflict and strife on this planet is, in part, due to this.  Would that we could adapt our Legal and Value Systems to the new knowledge peace would be ever so much closer. 

Anxiety and stress of the old guard over the new ideas and knowledge reminds one of the time when Galileo Galilei was tried by the Inquisition headed by Pope Urban VIII and forced to recant his new knowledge and live out his life under house arrest.

Those things disappearing before our very eyes are:

THE POST OFFICE

Email, Fed Ex and UPS have all but replaced the Post Office. Just take a look at what you receive in the actual mail each day and then think back several years. Gone are the days of waiting for the Post Man to deliver some special news……now we can Facebook, Tweet, Email and Text all that news within seconds……..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE NEWSPAPER

The younger generation simply does not read the newspaper.  They certainly do not subscribe to a daily delivered print edition.  Soon news will all be delivered on line…….for a fee.  Newspaper and magazine publishers have formed an alliance that has been meeting with Apple, Amazon and major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

 

 

THE CHECK

Britain already has plans to do away with the check by 2018.  Plastic Cards and on-line transaction will save the financial system billions of dollars the check processing costs.  This goes hand-in-hand with the disappearance of the Post Office.  If you did not receive bills by mail or pay them by mail, there would no longer be a need for the post office.

THE BOOK

I must confess that this one pains me the most.  I love books, especially used ones that have passed through the hands of many readers.  There is nothing that brings me more joy that to read on old cookbook and find notes by those who have prepared the recipe before me and added their own notations.  It is apparent that the book is going fast.  Whenever I travel, I am usually the only person who is reading from paper. 

My dear blogger friend The Coastal Crone has written a beautiful tribute to the book and I invite you to go and read it ………and weep as I have.  Click Here for Her Marvelous Story 

THE LAND LINE TELEPHONE

 The land line telephone really has no purpose anymore.  I can remember when I was young and we had the marvelous party line.  Our ring was “two short and one long”   I still have the marvelous work and wonder of the crank phone that was installed in our  farm-house that is now oer 100 years old.  Were times simpler then? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MUSIC

The Music Industry is dying a slow death.  Over 40% of music purchased today is “catalogue items”meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with.  The music industry is full of greed and corruption.  Record labels and radio conglomerates are self-destructing because innovative new music is not being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it.

Click HERE to watch a video documentary “Before the Music Dies”


 

TELEVISION

Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds.  Revenues to networks are down dramatically.  People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers.  Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE “THINGS” THAT YOU OWN

Apple, Microsoft and Google are all finishing up their latest “Cloud Services”  That means that when you turn on your computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system.  Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies and documents.  In the future these items will reside in “the cloud.”  If you save something, it will be saved to the CLOUD.  The good news is that you will be able to access any of your “stuff” from any handheld device; however, will  you actually own it?  Nostalgia will be remembering those days when you ran to the closet to pull out the photo album, grab a book from the shelf or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I, for one, would like to go back to Kansas again……….