Odd Question of the Day:

Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

Phobia of the Day:

Barophobia – the fear of gravity

Note:

Hey, we are at 365 post, that's one for every day of the year. So if you just happened on this site by clicking "next blog" on some other blog or by a random search, come on back again with 365 post you'll have to find something you like. And remember we've only been at this since the end of October, so it's more then one blog a day!

An Actual Report of a Book – Sex Begins in the Kitchen

Sex Begins in the Kitchen By: Dr. Kevin Leman
Non-fiction, relationships 156 pages copyright 1978


First, if you ever heard of the author before you know that this is not a how to book on doing it on the counters. Although the author is pro-kitchen sex and does include some basics on general sexual information on men and women this book was written by a Christian psychologist on how to have a good marriage. Which he feels includes having great sex by being emotionally connected with your spouse through out the day and treating each other with respect and love as an equal. Although this book included a lot of information already included in other of his books on things like personalities and interactions between people, I would recommend this book, if only because I love it when Christian writers “take back sex” by talking about how sex for a married couple is meant to be an awesome (in the traditional sense of the word) experience of connecting and enjoying their bodies, minds and souls. (Or at least the first and last of the three as the mind tends to shut down if one is really really enjoying the other aspects.) Also on a silly side it has a whole long paragraph on different silly names for the penis. (Which then goes back to being serious talking about peoples’ lack of useful sex education and societies demeaning of women with its views of sex, but still it was a refreshing laugh in a serious book.) Thought, on the subject of why boys are taught silly names for the penis, and girls aren’t really taught what to call the vagina, as a father of multiple kids, I feel he should have at least noted an important reason kids are not taught these words when young, that being if you teach a 2-3 year old anything, they will repeat it, and if possible at the top of their lungs in the most inapropate time.

Odd Question of the Day:

Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?

Phobia of the Day:

Bolshephobia – the fear of Bolsheviks

An Actual Report of a Book – Murder with Mirrors

Murder with Mirrors By: Agatha Christie
Fiction, mystery 207 pages

This is one of the Ms. Marple mysteries and involves childhood friends of Ms. Marple and does not take place in St. Mary Mead (the fictional murder capital of England.) It is an interesting read and although it was easy to guess how the murder took place it was still hard to guess all of the details involved. I would not place it as one of the best books by Agatha Christie, but as one that is not as popular I didn’t remember what happened in it like other books of hers that I haven’t read in a decade. (And no the person was not actually killed with a mirror.)

Odd Question of the Day:

Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up like every two hours?

Phobia of the Day:

Automysophobia - the fear of being dirty

Odd Question of the Day:

If Guinness made a light beer would it be a skinny stout?

Phobia of the Day:

Autodysomophobia - the fear of anything that looks like a sentient being but isn’t i.e. dolls, wax sculptures, ventriloquists’ dummies

An Actual Report of a Book – The Birth of Science

The Birth of Science: Ancient Times to 1699 By: Spangenburn & Moser
Non-Fiction, science, history 216 pages, 7th grade reading level copyright 2004

This book is the first in a series of books on the history of science. It included many stories on the major scientist during this time frame. It has interesting information that you don’t usually learn about in school. It attempts to explain the things in society that affected the lives of the scientist, but it glosses over to much to be useful for some one that did not already know about the other events of the times.

Odd Question of the Day:

What disease did cured ham actually have?

Odd Question of the Day:

What disease did cured ham actually have?

Phobia of the Day:

Auorophobia - the fear of the Northern lights

An Actual Report of a Book – Designer Knockoff

Designer Knockoff: A Crime of Fashion Mystery, By: Ellen Byerrum
Fiction-mystery, 325 pages copyright 2004

From the title alone you have most likely guessed that this is a book written mainly for women, and you would be right, it is a bit of a chick lit book; however, it has a lot more murder then most. The main character is Lacey Smithsonian a fashion writer for a D.C. paper. (Note: there is no fashion in D.C. all politicians dress the same.) Because of this lack of work she is busy working on two murder mysteries that are some what related to fashion, as a designer is closely connected to both women, even thought the women are separated by 60 years of time. Also she only has old letters from a dead aunt to help her with the one woman, who officially only disappeared as no body was ever found. And of course being a fashion writer the help that she gets is a bit odd to. There is her leather clad hairdresser, an ex-employee of a store owned by the designer, her dead aunt’s belongings, and the nephew of the designer who she isn’t sure if she can trust. All and all this was a fun book to read with a few twist and turns in the plotline that I was not expecting.

Odd Question of the Day:

Why does a round pizza come in a square box?

Phobia of the Day:

Aurophobia - the fear of the element Au (or if you forgot your chemistry gold.)

Odd Question of the Day:

Why do you have to "put your two cents in".. but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?

Phobia of the Day:

Aulophobia - the fear of flutes

Odd Question of the Day:

OK, so we all get the emails with all the odd and silly questions in it. But you get 20 different questions at once, not giving you time to ponder each question individually. So we thought we would go and give you one a day to have something to talk about over the water cooler now that the main TV shows for the year are winding down and the summer shows haven’t started up yet.

So here is today's question:
How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

Phobia of the Day:

Atychiphobia - the fear of failure

Phobia of the Day:

Athazagoraphobia - the fear of being forgotten

Phobia of the Day:

Atelophobia - the fear of imperfection

Phobia of the Day:

Astraphobia - the fear of stars

Phobia of the Day:

Arrhenphobia - the fear of men

Phobia of the Day:

Anuptaphobia - the fear of staying single

Important events of May 17th

Besides my birthday here are some other important events that happened today.

1673 Marquette and Joliet start exploring the Mississippi river
1775 America bans trade with Canada
1792 the NYSE is formed
1875 1st Kentucky Derby
1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision handed down
1973 Watergate hearings begin


Births
1682 Bartholomew Roberts aka the pirate Black Bart
1866 Erik Satie – composer
1868 Horace Elgin Dodge – founder of Dodge company
1897 Odd Hassel – Nobel Prize winner
1903 Cool Papa Bell – baseball player
1936 Dennis Hopper – actor
1939 Gary Paulsen – writer
1956 Sugar Ray Leonard – boxer
1958 Paul Di’Anno- from Iron Maiden
1961 Enya – singer
1962 Craig Ferguson- comedian
1963 Page McConnell from Phish
1965 Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails
1970 Jordan Knight from New Kids in the Block
1974 Andrea Corr from The Corrs
1974 Sendhil Ramamurthy – actor

Deaths
1336 Emperor Go-Fushimi
1510 Sandro Botticelli- painter
1643 Giovanni Picchi – composer
1727 Catherine I of Russia
1829 John Jay- Chief Justice of USA
1875 John C. Breckinirdge – VP of USA
1886 John Deere – man who liked green
1992 Lawrence Welk – man who like tiny bubbles
1996 Scott Brayton – race car driver
2004 Tony Randall – actor

So, as you can see, not much happened today, so you should have no reason not to spend the day celebrating my birthday. J

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

Phobia of the Day:

Arachibutyrophobia - the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth

YAH!!

We have final gotten 1,000 hits on this blog!!!!! YAH!!!! Thanks to everyone that was a part of that number.

Phobia of the Day:

Anthrophobia - the fear of flowers

Reminder:

It's time to do your last minute shopping for the editor's birthday. :P

Phobia of the Day:

Anglophpbia - the fear of England or English things

Phobia of the Day:

Amnesiphobia - the fear of amnesia

Happy Mother's Day!!

Phobia of the Day:

Amaxophobia - the fear of car rides

An Actual Report of a Book – Queen of Fashion

Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution
By: Caroline Weber
Non-Fiction, history 292 pages copyright 2006

This book is a biography of Queen Marie Antoinette filtered threw the lens of her fashion. It shows how what she wore affected or didn’t affect what happened in her life. It is a very interesting book on the subject and is well researched (80 pages of notes at the end!) Also it shows how Marie Antoinette’s fashion choices helped cause the revolution that ended her life. It also has many unusual facts in it; such as at that time in France lesbianism was known as the German vice and calling some one sans-culottes is an insult because it is calling them a poor peasant person who doesn’t dress properly. We would recommend this book to anyone interested in fashion, history, French culture or women’s studies.

Phobia of the Day:

Ambulophobia - the fear of walking

An Actual Report of a Book – Cooking the Hungarian Way

Cooking the Hungarian Way by: Magdolna Hargittai
Non-fiction, Cooking 69 pages copyright 2003

First, this is not the book I lost my bookmark in. I do have the ability to find a page in a book with fewer than 100 pages. That being said, this book had way too few recipes in it. There are only 23 ones and 5 of them are fillings/sauces that go into other recipes. It does at least contain some of the more well knows recipes in it and it has a lot of information about the county as well. But as a whole it was disappointing.

Phobia of the Day:

Alliumphobia - the fear of garlic

Book Reviews

If you watched the Colbert Report yesterday you learned that newspapers everywhere are leaving out the book reviews. (Also Jane Fonda enjoys licking people.) Now the second thing knocked most all of the rest of the show out of everyone’s mind, but still America needs book reviews, with out which we will all have to randomly pick out books based on how many people are buying it on Amazon. Which is why we are Weird News B.N.I. will be reviewing more books now, and even more random books to counter the lack of reviews by the “professionals”. That being said our 2 year old is quite fussy today and removed the bookmark from the book I’m reading. And so I have no idea where I’m at in it.

Phobia of the Day:

Alektorophobia – the fear of chickens

Phobia of the Day:

Ailurophobia - the fear of cats

Phobia of the Day:

Agyrophobia - the fear of crossing the street or the street itself

Phobia of the Day:

Aeroacraphobia - the fear of high open spaces

Happy Cino de Mayo!!!!

(Remember it is about Mexico defeating France and not drinking tequila.)

Phobia of the Day:

Achluophobia - the fear of darkness

Note:

As no one has written us with an opinion on changing our format. We have decided to change it. As we have heard some interests in a phobia of the day we will start with that.

Phobia of the Day:

Ablutophobia- the fear of bathing

Question of the Day:

Answer to Yesterday’s Question:Yellow

Question of the Day:

Xanthophobia is the fear of this color.

Bonus Question: We at Weird News B.N.I. have been creating a question of the day almost every day for 5 months now, and we want your thoughts on it. Would you like the question of the day to continue or would you like to see other things of the day, like words, phobias, holidays, facts etc? Please let us know by sending in your comments.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: the fear of mother-in-laws (or at least your’s).

Question of the Day:

What is Pentheraphobia?

Bonus Question: We at Weird News B.N.I. have been creating a question of the day almost every day for 5 months now, and we want your thoughts on it. Would you like the question of the day to continue or would you like to see other things of the day, like words, phobias, holidays, facts etc? Please let us know by sending in your comments.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Someone summoned for jury duty.

Question of the Day:

What’s a venireman?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: President, as it was the day George Washington took the oath of office.