“Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there’s no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.” –
~Laini Taylor~
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Mind-Blowing Facts You’ll Think Are Made Up (But Aren’t)The city of London only has a population of 9,000
London may be one of the largest metropolises in the world but when it comes to actual people, only 9,000 reside in the City of London. The city is a small area surrounded by the Greater London region—which has 8.1 million people.
A parrot ruined a presidential funeral
Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was very fond of his pet parrot and apparently spent a lot of time talking to the bird—as became evident when the president died. The parrot was present in the home where Jackson died and as the funeral commenced began cursing in such colorful language that it had to be removed from the house. So in a way, Jackson really did get the last word.
There are more trees on Earth than stars in the galaxy
There are about 3 trillion trees on Earth but only 300 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. Space is big but relatively empty, it turns out.
Polar Bears aren’t white, they’re just glowing
Polar bears may be known as being so white they can hide in snow but the truth is they aren’t white at all. Their skin is black and the hairs in their fur are hollow and clear. So why do they look white? Light hits their fur and is trapped inside the hollow part of the hair, causing a reaction called luminescence. In addition, salt particles stick to the bears’ fur and act as light-scattering particles.
You can hear rhubarb growing
Rhubarb doesn’t get a lot of love (unless it’s in a pie) but the stalky plant does have an amazing talent: It grows so fast you can actually hear it.
Yoda and Miss Piggy were voiced by the same person
The crotchety green guru and the pink porcine diva were both voiced, at times, by Frank Oz, a multi-talented actor, puppeteer, director, and producer.
There is an “internal deodorant” that makes it so your gas and poop don’t stink
Devrom, the brand name for bismuth subgallate, can be used as an “internal deodorant” that makes your flatulence and bowel movements completely odor-free. It may discolor your tongue and stool, leading to some surprising bathroom (and third date?) moments, so definitely talk to a doctor before trying it.
The Las Vegas Strip isn’t in Las Vegas
The Las Vegas Strip is probably the most famous thing about Nevada and the top reason tourists come to Las Vegas. But the strip is misnamed—it’s actually in the unincorporated city of Paradise. Las Vegas’ founders ordered all casinos be built outside city limits to avoid sullying their reputation. In an ironic twist, now that’s all anyone knows the city for.
You can rent out an entire country
Country clubs and hotel ballrooms are so passe—if you really want to throw a party everyone will remember, try renting out an entire country for the night. For just $70,000 you can rent Lichtenstein for an evening. If that seems excessive, you can always just rent one of the six Austrian villages, three German towns, or one Swiss ski-resort village.
Alaska is both the western- and easternmost state in the United States
Thanks to it’s proximity to the north pole and incredibly large land mass (it’s twice as big as Texas!), Alaska is both the state farthest to the west and to the east in the United States.
Shaking ketchup makes it 1,000 times thinner
There’s a good scientific reason for shaking your ketchup before you pour it on your fries: The more you shake it, the thinner the consistency gets. Why? Spherical tomato particles form into thinner ellipses when shaken, making your ketchup 1,000 times runnier.
There are no lakes in Maryland
Talk about a dubious honor—Maryland is the only state in the United States that has no natural lakes within its borders. The bodies of water Maryland now has have all been the result of damming rivers, so they are reservoirs.
One tiger killed more people than 30 years of all bears, spiders, and snakes combined
Bears kill an average of two people a year, spiders are responsible for six deaths per year, and snake bites account for five deaths each year in the United States. Add those all together for the past 30 years and you still don’t come close to the total deaths caused by the Champawat tiger, who killed 435 people in Nepal and India.
Sesame seeds were once worth more than gold
The people of the Middle Ages prized sesame seeds so highly that they cost more than their weight in gold. They’re highly nutritious and tasty but many civilizations thought they also held magical or spiritual properties, bestowing luck and fortune. Now you’ll never pick them off your hamburger bun again, right?
The largest desert in the world is covered in snow
Think the famed Sahara desert is big? At 3.5 million square miles, it’s definitely a monster, but it doesn’t even compare to the Antarctic Polar Desert. It covers the continent of Antarctica and has a size of about 5.5 million square miles. Surprised? The definition of a desert is simply a place that receives less than ten inches of precipitation per year—it doesn’t have to be hot!
After a kidney transplant, you actually have three kidneys
Over 31 million people in the United States suffer from chronic kidney disease and it’s the ninth leading cause of death, making kidney transplants relatively common. But did you know that most of the time the surgeon doesn’t remove the diseased kidney? The doctor normally leaves the old kidney in place and puts the donor kidney in the lower belly on the front side of the body. For more mind-blowing facts check out these
A witness to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was interviewed on TV
Samuel J. Seymour was just five years old when he attended a play at Ford’s Theater on that fateful evening of April 14, 1865. He was seated in the balcony directly across from the president and says he heard the shot, saw Lincoln slumped over, and watched John Wilkes Booth jump on to the stage before fleeing. On February 9, 1956, two months before his death, Seymour recounted the story on the CBS TV show I’ve Got a Secret. History is more recent than you think!
The longest work of English literature ever written by one person is a Super Mario Bros. fan fiction
Forget War and Peace. If you’re looking for a nice, long read, you’ll want The Subspace Emissary’s Worlds Conquest. This piece of fan fiction, based on the Nintendo video game Super Smash Bros., is 4,102,328 words long—more than seven times the length of Tolstoy’s masterpiece—as of April 2019. We added the date because it’s still a “work in progress” and may get longer!
The fastest object ever made by man was a manhole cover
When it comes to sheer speed, race cars, fighter jets, and space rockets have nothing on a round, flat hunk of metal normally found covering a sewer. It wasn’t made to be a speedster but when an underground nuclear bomb test launched the four-inch thick steel disk at an estimated 125,000 miles per hour or 5 times the Earth’s escape velocity, it became the winner. In contrast, the New Horizons spacecraft maxed out at 36,373 mph.
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And we're off.
Good morning/Happy New Year everyone.
As we kick off a new year, a very sunny day here fills my heart with optimism and joy and hope.......and I HOPE it's the same for each of you.
We can't forget the 352,000 Americans we lost last year linked to covid, or the others lost for other reasons, but we can certainly put everything else behind us and hope for a brighter new year.
I really do hope that whatever your circumstance, you're able to do this, and send prayers and positive thoughts out for those unable to do this completely.
Have a great day/week everyone.
joe
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witter
I have not heard of Ready Player One. Hope your Monday was a good one! 
Happy Birthday to your baby boy! 
