I recently received a ’send-this-10-ppl-you-know’ type email the other day, which I actually thought was mildly interesting, but wasn’t sure if any of it was true. So I thought I would throw it out there to see if any of the academics out there had tried this before:

1. Take bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.
2. Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating; peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.
3. Add a tespoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.
4. Add garlic immediatly to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic, and at the end of the recipe if you want a stronger taste of garlic.
5. Place a dryer sheet in your pocket to keep the mosquitos away.

Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.

This year is the earliest any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day. The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).

The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!

As an Orthoptist, I’m always asked, “What DOES 20/20 vision mean?”, so today I decided to make this post a quick lesson about visual acuity. Visual acuity is the quantitive measure of one’s ability to reliably distinguish objects (black objects on a white background) separated by an angle of 1 arc minute. This is traditionally measured at 20 feet (or 6 meters). In a clinical setting the norm is taken as 20/20 (or 6/6 if you’re using metric), meaning that if you have developed good vision, at a distance of 20 feet the smallest object you are able to see will subtend an angle of 1 arc minute on your retina.

“So what does it mean when my doctor says I am currently seeing 20/50?” Well, this means that what you are currently seeing at 20ft, a normal person will see at 50ft. Likewise, if you see 20/80, you are seeing at 20ft what a normal person should see at 80ft. Now if you are one of the lucky few that has 20/15 vision (i.e. the denominator is smaller than 20 thereby creating a ratio of greater than 1:1), this means that you can see at 20ft what a normal person needs to be at 15ft to see.

And this concludes our visual acuity lesson for the day!

Tulips are so pretty and colourful. They are my favourite flowers second to the gerber daisy. Sadly though (or maybe just in my house), the petals always start to wilt by the 2nd day. My friend at work recently told me that by pricking the base of a tulip flower with a tiny sewing needle, the petals will stay up and perky for longer. Give it a try next time you have tulips - let me know if it works!

“Mr Maugham, I have two words left to say to you, and the second one is ‘off’ ”

– Tallulah Bankhead to Somerset Maugham ( after been turned down for one of his plays)

Chad’s company has taken on the nobel task of becoming a ‘green’ company! He sent me this interesting math tidbit / email yesterday which reads as follows:

“As we discussed in the meeting yesterday, making an effort to shut things off in the night doesn’t have much of an economic incentive — it saves us about $10 per day on power costs.

The motivation to do this needs to come from something besides money — a desire to reduce the harmful side effects of power consumption…

According to an EnergyStar website (U.S. Government)
* Generating power results in about 1.55 pounds CO2 emissions per kWh
* The average car generates 11,560 pounds CO2 per year
According to a website about Colorado Trees:
* A healthy tree stores about 13 pounds of carbon annually

From my calculations, putting everyone’s computers on standby each night would cut our power usage by about 190 kWh per day.

This means
* Our company could prevent roughly 300 lbs of CO2 from entering the atmosphere, or 110,000 lbs per year.
* saving 110,000 lbs of carbon per year is equivalent to taking about 10 cars off the road, or planting 8,000 trees.

Another way of looking at it:
* Turning our computers on Standby at night would save enough electricity to power 8 households.”

Ahh…the power of one…

SO - any kid who ever came home from school and watched afternoon cartoons will feel quite nostalgic about the following site:

http://www.cracked.com/index.php?name=News&sid=1970

There are videos from He-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to my personal favourite, Animaniacs. Be sure to check out the Gummi Bears for old time’s sake, and the lesser known Pro-Stars cartoon, featuring Gretzsky, Jordan and Bo.

BTW - Chad has not stopped singing the Transformers theme song since he saw the site

What funky 1975 song was inspired by the writer driving home from the studio over the expansion cracks of a bridge?

* hint * The band name originates from their last name and the fact that they were siblings

   Play song

Did you know that Blood Diamond Star, Djimon Hounsou, started out in little roles such as Janet Jackson’s Love Will Never Do Without You video. He finally makes a full appearance 3 minutes in.

Or how about Eva Mendez, who made an appearance in Will Smith’s Miami Video, and actually starred right along side him many years later in Hitch.

Madge herself has also actually been famous for jump starting the careers of ER’s Goran Visnjic :

As well as Borat’s Sacha Baron Cohen who was just hitting it big as Ali G. in the UK.

And this concludes our session of “Did you Know…?”