Trivia Bits 23 May

 

After six months at the off-Broadway New York Shakespeare Festival Theatre, Hair (poster pictured) opened at the Biltmore Theatre in New York, in 1968 and became the first rock-musical to play on the Great White Way.

The Khreschatyk is the main street of Ukrainian capital Kiev on which the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution and other historical events mainly took place.

In the 2006 movie The Queen, a stag, which was later shot by a tourist, was discovered on the heath by the Queen played by Helen Mirren.

An armed clash between goldminers and a combined police and military force at the Eureka Stockade, Ballarat, Victoria (1854) cost the lives of 30 miners and five soldiers, with many others wounded

John Grisham’s 2014 legal fiction novel is called Gray Mountain set in Appalachia after the Great Recession follows third-year associate Samantha Kofer after the Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers when she becomes a legal clinic intern in Virginia's coal mining country.

Australian professional racing cyclist and winner of the 2011 Tour de France Cadel Evans was born in Katherine, Northern Territory spending his early childhood in the small Aboriginal community of Barunga, 80 km east of Katherine.

In Cricket, LBW stands for leg before wicket when the umpire may rule a batsman out lbw if the ball would have struck the wicket but was intercepted by any part of the batsman's body except the hand holding his bat.

Wasabi is traditionally used as an accompaniment in Japanese cuisine and is a plant, member of the Brassicaceae family, which includes cabbages, horseradish, and mustard.

Huchoun was one of the earliest Scottish poets and wrote a number of important alliterative verse romances in the early 14th century.

American singer-songwriter, record producer and musician Bruno Mars released his second studio album Unorthodox Jukebox on December 7, 2012.

Quotables 23 May

 

Trivia Bits 22 May

 

American musician, Larry Adler (pictured) who was widely acknowledged as one of the world's most skilled harmonica players was black balled during the McCarthy era and later wrote his autobiography It Ain't Necessarily So in 1985.

Although it was a hoax gone awry, scientists originally believed Drake's Plate of Brass to be genuine, based on initial metallurgical studies with the Plate of Brass purported to be the brass plaque that Francis Drake posted upon landing in Northern California in 1579

The hardest grade of pencil is 9H a very hard, light-marking pencil whilst the very soft, black-marking pencil is graded as 9B.

A papal envoy who carries insignia or presents of honour to newly appointed cardinals or civil dignitaries are called Apostolic ablegates and are of higher rank than those designated pontifical.

Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania Sydney Orr, after falsifying his academic record in his application, the University dismissed him in 1955 for sexual relations with an undergraduate student which was denied but appeals to the Tasmanian Supreme Court and the High Court of Australia were unsuccessful.

Sculpted in 1984, the largest statue of a mosquito is a roadside attraction in Komarno, Manitoba, the Mosquito Capital of Canada, is made of steel and has a wingspan of 15 feet also a weathervane, swivelling in the wind.

16th Century Italian scholar Antonio Bosio, the first systematic explorer of the Catacombs of Rome was known as the Columbus of subterranean Rome.

A 1942 American period drama, The Magnificent Ambersons was directed by Orson Welles after Citizen Kane, was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and starred Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins, with Welles providing the narration.

Released in 2014, The Silver Moon: Reflections on Life, Death and Writing is the memoir of Australian best-selling author Bryce Courtney.

The capital of Portugal was moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at that time a colony of Portugal, from 1807 until 1821 while Portugal was fighting France in the Napoleonic Wars.

Quotables 22 May

 

Trivia Bits 21 May

 

A monk and cellar master at the Benedictine abbey in Hautvillers, Dom Perignon (pictured)was the Benedictine monk who legend has invented Champagne in the early 18th century.

In 1926, when a Los Angeles restaurant owner Bob Cobb was looking for a way to use up leftovers, he threw together some avocado, celery, tomato, chives, watercress, hard-boiled eggs, chicken, bacon, and Roquefort cheese, and named it after himself: Cobb salad.

Harry Potter character Lord Voldemort had a snake called Nagini who is introduced in Goblet of Fire and she is a safeguard to Voldemort's immortality.

Fought between 22 and 31 January 1945, as part of the Burma Campaign, The Battle of Hill 170 was fought during World War 2 between the British 3rd Commando Brigade and the Japanese 54th Division.

The 2014 animated feature film based on the characters of Mister Peabody and Sherman Mr Peabody featured Patty Peterson and her daughter Penny voiced by Leslie Mann as Patty and Ariel Winter voiced Penny.

Australia was the 3rd country, after the US and Russia, to launch a satellite into orbit for the British, using a 'Blue Streak' rocket, on 28 Oct 1971

The Great Hall of Palais des Papes (Pope’s Palace) in Avignon, France was in the 14th Century the seat of the papacy with six papal conclaves held in the Palais, leading to the elections of Benedict XII in 1334, Clement VI in 1342, Innocent VI in 1352, Urban V in 1362, Gregory XI in 1370 and Antipope Benedict XIII in 1394.

British archaeologist J. Desmond Clark discovered in 1953 a site at Zambia's Kalambo Falls containing artifacts from over 250,000 years of human culture.

Lighthouse Hill on Staten Island got its name from the Staten Island Lighthouse, built in 1912, which towers 141 feet (43 metres) above the Lower New York Bay and can be seen as far as 18 miles (29 km) away.

The Lockerbie air disaster involved a Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt Airport to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport that was destroyed by a terrorist bomb on Wednesday, 21 December 1988, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew on board with large sections of the aircraft crashing onto residential areas of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 11 more people on the ground.

Quotables 21 May

 

Trivia Bits 20 May

 

The Caribbean Club (pictured) in Key Largo, Florida was built by former millionaire promoter Carl Graham Fisher as "a poor man's retreat" and became famous as a filming site for the 1947 film Key Largo starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

The Delphic Hymns, addressed to Apollo and written in stone between 138 and 128 BC in Ancient Greece, are the earliest surviving unambiguous notated music in the western world.

The last member of the famous Bonaparte family, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, died in 1945, of injuries sustained from tripping over his dog's leash.

Before R. L. Stevenson became a successful novelist with Treasure Island in 1883, he was a struggling author of travel narratives who published An Inland Voyage (1878), Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879) and Silverado Squatters (1883).

The headquarters of automotive manufacturer Toyota are in Toyota, Aichi, Japan and was started in 1933 as a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works devoted to the production of automobiles under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda.

Between 1830 and 1914 world trade was dominated by the industrialized nations of Europe and the United States.

The Metropolitan Golf Club Melbourne hosted the 2014 Australian Masters men’s golf tournament won by Australian professional golfer Nick Cullen.

The continent of Antarctica is the only one that does not have spiders.

There are six stars on the Australian flag which was adopted in 1908 and is a Blue Ensign defaced with the Commonwealth Star, also known as the Federation Star, in the lower hoist quarter and the five stars of the Southern Cross in the fly half.

The épée is the modern derivative of the dueling sword, the small sword used in sport fencing with Épée being French for sword.

Quotables 20 May

 

Trivia Bits 19 May

 

Queen Victoria (pictured), great great grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II, was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death and from 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India.

The Indian Meteorological Department was set up as a result of a tropical cyclone that hit Calcutta in 1864 and the subsequent famines in 1866 and 1871 due to failing monsoons.

An ornithologist studies birds with the word ornithology derives from the ancient Greek ὄρνις ornis bird and λόγος logos rationale or explanation.

Midway Atoll is approximately midway between Asia and North America in the North Pacific Ocean and is a critical habitat in the central Pacific Ocean with a number of native species rely on the island which is now home to 67–70% of the world's Laysan Albatross population, and 34–39% of the global Black-footed Albatross.

Gilbert Mabbot was a pioneering journalist during the English Civil War who also served as an official licenser of the press from 1647 to 1649.

Julia Shumway, played by Rachelle Lefevre, and Joe McAlister, played by Colin Ford, are two of the main characters in the 2013 American science-fiction drama TV series Under the Dome.

The primary reservoir for water supply for the Australian city of Sydney, New South Wales, Lake Burragorang was created when the Warragamba Dam, a concrete gravity dam, was built and opened on 14th October 1960.

A thalassophile is someone who inhabits the sea or its shore and fond of the sea.

Sauerkraut is one of the most well-known instances of traditional fermented moist cabbage side dishes and is believed to have been introduced to Europe in its present form 1,000 years later by Genghis Khan after invading China.

There are 10 decilitres in one litre.

Written around 1940, Agatha Christie’s last novel published was "Murder from the Past" which she specified in her will that it was not to be published until after her death which was in 1976.

Quotables 19 May

 

Trivia Bits 18 May

 

 

In the animated television series The Flintstones, Pebbles Flintstone’s (pictured) hair was coloured red with Pebbles being most famous in her infant form but has also appeared at various other ages.

Immediately preceding the Tudor era in English history was the Plantagenet based on a French family originating from Anjou that held the English throne from 1154 to 1485, starting with the accession of Henry II and ending with the death of Richard III with some historians identifying four distinct royal houses of Anjou, Plantagenet, Lancaster, and York.

Sidney Reilly, the secret agent widely believed to be the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s legendary character James Bond, was found in the British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920 collection which indicated that Reilly’s Military Cross was issued for service in the Royal Flying Corps.

Ornithophobia is a type of specific phobia, an abnormal, irrational fear of birds similar to  Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds, or Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven portray birds in negative light or as killing machines.

The UK National Industrial Relations Court was controversial throughout its short life from 1971 to 1974, and was abolished soon after the Labour government of Harold Wilson came to power.

The Carpetbag steak is popular in Australia, but possibly originating in the U.S. in the 19th century and it is a Filet Mignon slit in the middle, stuffed with oysters and then broiled rare.

Playing Walt Disney in the 2013 American-Australian-British biographical comedy-drama film Saving Mr Banks is American actor, producer, writer, and director Tom Hanks.

In 1996 and 1997, aviator and sailor Sir Francis Chichester become the first person to sail single-handed around the world by the clipper route, and the fastest circumnavigator, in nine months and one day overall on the yacht Gipsy Moth IV

In the 2006 Australian-American computer-animated musical family film Happy Feet, the name of Memphis and Norma Jean’s son is Mumble who is unable to sing but can tap dance.

Tradition credits King Gebra Maskal Lalibela of Ethiopia during the 13th Century with carving the monolithic churches of Lalibela from stone with his own hands, helped only by angels.

Quotables 18 May

 

Trivia Bits 17 May

 

Conceived as a real estate ad originally reading Hollywoodland (pictured), the Hollywood sign was first erected in 1923 and stands 50 feet tall, stretches 450 feet across, weighs 450,000 pounds.

The name Adullamites was given to a group of Liberal rebels in the House of Commons in 1866 who were opposed to Reform Bill, a piece of British legislation that enfranchised part of the urban male working class in England and Wales for the first time; the term comes from a speech by the Liberal politician John Bright (1811–89), saying that their leader Robert Lowe had ‘retired into what may be called his political Cave of Adullam.’

Almonds are used to make the traditional Italian cantucci biscuits also known as biscotti and are oblong-shaped almond biscuits, made dry and crunchy through cutting the loaf of dough while still hot and fresh from baking in the oven.

In popular music the Heart Break Hotel is at the end of lonely street written by Tommy Durden and Mae Boren Axton and recorded by American rock and roll musician Elvis Presley and released as a single on January 27, 1956.

The first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Adelaide, South Australia in 1977.

Administered by the New South Wales Rugby League, The S. G. Ball Cup is a junior rugby league football competition played in New South Wales, played between teams made up of players aged under 18.

Damascus, Syria, was flourishing a couple of thousand years before Rome was founded in 753 BC, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence.

Agriculture is the practice of farming, including the cultivation of the soil for raising crops and the raising of domesticated animals with the areas for managing agricultural production varying from smallholdings and individually owned farms to corporate-run farms and collective farms run by entire communities or by the government.

The Mediterranean island of Majorca and is the largest island in the Balearic Islands archipelago, in Spain.

French communist political activist Willi Münzenberg (1889–1940) was known as "The Red Millionaire" because he combined high living with communist propaganda.

Actual Funny Lines From Resumes

 

Resumes are the bane of all job seekers. To have enough pertinent information to catch the eye of the a future employer and yet not to have too much that is irrelevant and seen as padding.

A mis-used word, a typo and not writing what is meant can lead to many a laugh from the employer and when collated into an email can give us all laugh.

Let’s hope that those whose resumes are represented went back,  had a look at what they had said and changed, amended or even re-wrote their first attempt. Maybe even hire a professional to re-work their resumes.

To all resume writers laugh and learn.

I am very detail-oriented.

My intensity and focus are at inordinately high levels, and my ability to complete projects on time is unspeakable.

Thank you for your consideration. Hope to hear from you shorty!

Enclosed is a ruff draft of my resume.

I am sicking and entry-level position.

It's best for employers that I not work with people.

Here are my qualifications for you to overlook.

I am a quick leaner, dependable, and motivated.

If this resume doesn't blow your hat off, then please return it in the enclosed envelope.

My fortune cookie said, "Your next interview will result in a job." And I like your company in particular.

You hold in your hands the resume of a truly outstanding candidate!

I saw your ad on the information highway, and I came to a screeching halt.

Insufficient writing skills, thought processes have slowed down some. If I am not one of the best, I will look for another opportunity.

Please disregard the attached resume-it is terribly out of date.

Seek challenges that test my mind and body, since the two are usually inseparable.

Reason for leaving last job: The owner gave new meaning to the word paranoia. I prefer to elaborate privately.

Previous experience: Self-employed--a fiasco.

Exposure to German for two years, but many words are inappropriate for business.

My experience in horticulture is well-rooted.

Experience: Watered, groomed, and fed the family dog for years.

I am a rabid typist.

Education: College, August 1880 - May 1984.

I have a bachelorette degree in computers.

Excellent memory; strong math aptitude; excellent memory; effective management skills; and very good at math.

Graduated in the top 66% of my class.

Accomplishments: Completed 11 years of high school.

Strengths: Ability to meet deadlines while maintaining composer.

Special skills: Experienced with numerous office machines and can make great lattes.

I worked as a Corporate Lesion.

Special Skills: Speak English.

Served as assistant sore manager.

Reason for leaving last job: Pushed aside so the vice president's girlfriend could steal my job.

Married, eight children. Prefer frequent travel.

Education: B.A. In Loberal Arts.

Objective: To have my skills and ethics challenged on a daily basis

Source unknown: received by email

Quotables 17 May