Odds & Ends ( etc )

I hope that this thread will come to contain a very wide collection of items including trivia. Stuff from the news for example, including serious or funny items ( within the rules of this Site of course ).

An item from the lighter side; which order do you eat your Smarties in ? Those of us that have been around for a while may remember this line from a song: " Tell me when I ask, when you eat your Smarties do you eat the RED ones last ???  

Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, sent a message to the Spartans who would not submit to him. He threatened them that "If once he came into the land of the Spartans, he would burn down their cities and farmlands alike and enslave every last one of them."

The Spartans sent a reply. "If."

Philip and Alexander who conquered everything between Istanbul and India, left them alone.

EDIT: I haven't had smarties in a long time but I know that from a young age it was very important and a subject of much debate as to the proper way to eat them.

Thanks for the post Ivandh, you are the first to visit my new thread. Among the Ancient Empires I would say that the Romans are my favouite I guess. We do owe a lot to the Greeks tho of course, for one thing the city-state of Athens ( among others ) developed the idea of Democracy. 

Well I guess that we can squeeze the odd question in here about Chess ( needs to be very odd tho  lol ). There is one question that seems to confuse very very average woodpushers like myself. I have recently seen a couple of threads like this: " Why don't players resign ? " and also " Why do players resign too Early ? ". So inquiring minds want to know: should we resign too early or too late ??? ( let's make up our mind people  lol ).    

Well I nearly forgot an important event here today. Happy Saint Patrick's Day to One and All !!!

This reminds me of an interesting fact I learned about Guinness. They somehow dissolve nitrogen into the beer, which is very hard to do in the first place, but because it is so hard to do this the nitrogen does not leak through bubbles like CO2 does. That is why Guinness has such a stable head.

Thanks for the good info Ivandh. I'm not sure if they ship Guinness over here to Canada or not. I'll have to keep an eye out here in the local liquor stores.

Well for those who are fellow history buffs and for those who are fans of the plays of Shakespeare (  the one about poor old Julius ) I have an important message: Beware The Ides Of March --- Beware !!!   

Meanwhile in other news the search for Amelia Erhart has resumed. I remember reading a couple of years ago that some possible evidence of her disappearance had been found. If memory serves some aircraft wreckage and also some clothes had been found on a very small Atoll in the South Pacific. Perhaps now at long last this mystery can be solved. 

I like his historical plays, not so much the fictional ones. Richard III is very good, but Henry V is probably my favorite.

The actual Henry V was hit in the face with an arrow while fighting a Welsh rebellion, and he is always shown with half of his face hidden or facing away from the viewer.

Thanks for the info Ivandh, you are definitely a man of letters. In my case I would say that " Julius Caesar " is my favourite. I also quite like " Much Ado About Nothing " and " The Merchant Of Venice ". Certainly " Henry V " is also rather good and " Richard III " can teach us a lot about the lust for power . In " King Lear " I feel sorry for the old King but I've come to like that play as well. Old William could certainly write the plays  lol.   

In the realm of sad news it seems that we have lost a important inventor. I've forgotten the man's name but it seems that the creator of the Bagel has passed away ( can you imagine the amount of Dough that he went thru during his life ??? ).     

An odd news item today: a cat named Tommaso has inherited $13 million Dollars from the widow of a Italian tycoon. This sort of thing has happened before of course, just seemed to me to be kind of a sad situation. 

Richard III * * 1/2

Way too long (177 pages!) and with too many extraneous scenes. Too many characters too--also the thing of having characters trade single lines was overused (along with all the word play)--it was like a song duet in hell. Richard doesn't really change much throughout--he's pretty much a cardboard character; and frequently the whole thing was just like reading a list of names. Bombastic and overblown--particularly ridiculous was the ghosts coming to Richard in the end. And like the Duchess of York said: "Why should calamity be full of words?" Still, the scene with the two murderers discussing their soon-to-be deed was good; and I liked: "Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks/Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast/Ready, with every nod, to tumble down/Into the fatal bowels of the deep." One of the early ones--and basically a pulp extravaganza; you can see why the Shakescene guy said what he did.

I was referring to the movie. The one with tanks and explosions.

The Bard didn't know when to put a cork in it. It was as if he just wrote a whole bunch and eventually came up with... oh wait, those were the monkeys that did that.

Thanks for the new posts. Well I must say that I'm impressed, here I've started off a little thread on odds and ends but the next thing you know we have a chat going about Mr.Shakespeare. Julius Caesar was the first play that we took in High School and it is still my favourite but I did not care for the film version with Charlton Heston. As for the play that I would put in 2cnd place on my list, well things get a bit crowded. Recently there was a terrific film version of " The Merchant Of Venice " with Al Paciono in the lead and backed by a great Cast. Also several years ago there was a very nice version of " Much Ado About Nothing " produced for the A & E Network. Kenneth Branaugh ( spelling ??? ) was the lead there with his then wife Emma Thompson. Of course Kenneth Branaugh also did a great job in " Henry V " as well and there I prefer his version. The happy ending in " King Lear " nominates that play for a possible 3rd spot. Mind you I have not read all of William's plays by any means but these are my favourites.    

Time for a funny item from the world of politics on late night TV. Jay Leno had a item oh his show the other night about " Da Big Bus Up In Alberta ". We have just started a election cycle up here for Provincial Premier ( like voting for a State Governor in the USA ). The major parties like to lease as bus to travel around Alberta and talk to voters. Where Jay Leno came in is because one of these buses had a funny paint job so a photo was shown on Jay's show which got a good laugh. And who said that politics can't be fun ? ( or pehaps even funny  lol ).   

"Would that he had blotted out a thousand lines..."

Thanks for the recent posts. An item of interest for today comes from the World of Sports. Magic Johnson and his group of investors are paying $ 2 Billion Dollars for the LA Dodgers baseball team. Of course we did have the case a few years back where Michael Jordan tried to play on a major league team ( I think it was the Chicago White Sox ). However this seems like a better plan, just buy the team and then oversee the entire operation.