Trivialities
Average Life Span
Sunday was a bad day to be a really old person in the United States. Two of the oldest people in the world died within hours of each other, one a 114-year-old woman in New Hampshire and the other a spry 113-year-old woman from Detroit. The rest of the intriguing story can be found here.
While [...]
RickRolled for internet newbies
I’ve been waiting a long time for this Dinner Topic, and finally I have a reason to include it. The original video used to “RickRoll” people for years has been taken off of YouTube for the old standby of “terms of use violation.” There are still plenty of videos floating around the internet for which to [...]
Red herring and idioms
The new Martin Scorsese movie, Shutter Island, debuted yesterday to mixed reviews. The New York Times review suggested the movie was a little too heavy on the red herrings.1 “Red herrings” is a phrase you hear all the time but may have never understood the meaning without some context.
Red herring is an idiom and describes [...]
Gold Medal has little gold metal
Now that we are knee deep in Olympics coverage and gold is trading at or near all-time highs, I’m sure you’ve had that moment where you thought to yourself, “hey, are those REAL gold medals?!” Not exactly, although the medals were made out of the metals that you would have assumed back in 1912.1
Nowadays, that [...]
Heinz unveils new ketchup (catsup?) packets
The Super Bowl is coming up Sunday and don’t worry, Dinner Topics will give you a quick primer with some interesting tidbits later this weekend. For now, though, there are more pressing matters that you need to know before your night on the town later: Heinz ketchup has introduced a revolutionary new package!
This may seem trivial, [...]
Pringles are crisps, not chips
Unless you’re un-American, you love Pringles: those uniformly yet oddly shaped potato chips that come in a long canister and taste like a salty heaven. Strangely, though, they’re technically not potato chips, they’re “potato crisps.” Why the slight change in designation?
First of all, you really didn’t think that only the Pringles company was able to [...]
Palindromes
Dinner Topics took a little New Year’s break to recharge the creative batteries, but we are back are ready to keep you informed on what you need to know. One topic I missed but can’t let pass us up is palindromes.
Depending on how you write the date, last Saturday was considered to have a palindrome [...]
Full (Blue) Moon Fever
We’ve all heard the phrase “once in a blue moon,” but many of us don’t know the exact definition of a blue moon. Today, a blue moon is considered to be the second full moon in a single month. As you may expect, the moon will NOT look blue, which is where the history of the [...]
