And Frogs Throw Up Their Stomachs

It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of its mouth. Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all the stomach contents and then swallows the stomach back down.


Apparently a wide and soft esophagus -- think the tube down which foods go when you're eating -- makes this possible. And I haven't even finished the book yet! There is no such thing as useless information if you're the right person, and in The Book of Useless Information as written and assembled by Noel Botham & The Useless Information Society (ISBN 9780399532696) I recognize quite a bit of it. And I'll be sure to share some in between paragraphs.


In 290 B.C.E., Aristarchus was the first Greek astronomer to suggest that the sun was the center of the solar system.


So he beat out Nicolaus Copernicus who's commemorated today by the Lutheran Church by nearly eighteen centuries for proposing that the sun and not the earth was at the center of the solar system! The heliocentric view of the solar system, if you will. (People remember Galileo for this, but he didn't flourish for another century.) And Copernicus gets commemorated for other reasons than astronomy -- he was also a physician -- but for more details about that, please look it up.


During the time that the atomic bomb was being hatched by the United States in Alamogordo, New Mexico, applicants for routine jobs like janitors were disqualified if they could read. Illiteracy was a job requirement. The reason: the authorities did not want their rubbish or other papers read.


I know some people who could apply for those jobs. But they're not me, and I'm not sure I could fake being unable to read and write, I'd get caught. Fortunately the jobs I'm applying for now -- in fact, I interviewed for job #1 this morning and job #2 I applied for will be tomorrow! -- reading and writing is quite useful. In fact, in the words of my interviewer today: "I hire adults." So it won't be constant supervision, and for an interview it was fun! Though I always welcome prayer for favor.


The expression "getting someone's goat" is based on the custom of keeping a goat in the stable with a racehorse as the horse's companion. The goat becomes a settling influence for the Thoroughbred. If you owned a competing horse and were not above some dirty business, you could steal your rival's goat (it's been done) to upset the other horse and make it run a poor race.


The abridged version of Sunday afternoon through now (more or less): for perfect attendance in Sunday School the kids got Dairy Queen gift cards and that was lunch for the four of us, then we were home and watched Agent F.O.X. an animated film about a fox infiltrating Carrot Town populated by rabbits and he is mistaken for a distant cousin of them. All part of a supposed diabolical plan to find a talisman and either translated from Chinese or made in China and voiced in English. 


The face of a penny can hold thirty drops of water.


Do not ask me how that was determined! (The face of the penny stat or the movie, but I digress.) Truth be known, Leonhard Euler (say "Leonard Oiler") who's also commemorated today could probably tell you. Even though he doesn't have the name recognition that Copernicus does, he's the Shakespeare of mathematicians for his vast body of work as well as a devout Christian and apologist -- which doesn't mean he's sorry to be a Christian, but that he can and will defend the faith


Against all comers, as I need to.


David