Potpourri

 Considering all that’s going on in the world, sometimes it’s wise to lighten things up a bit…

~ Passwords ~

How many online accounts do you have?  You know the answer, right?   Well, even if you don’t it’s likely you have more than a few, which means you also have numerous passwords.  We may think our passwords are strong and therefore safe, but the truth is that we tend to create passwords based on familiar things, like names, birthday dates, or locations, which is not a good thing.  And the following are probably the worst passwords an individual can choose.

• Password – Although this is obviously a very easy password to hack, there are many people still using it.
• Pet and family names – Hackers always try to find out this kind of personal information when trying to hack into someone’s accounts.
• Qwerty – do you really want to use the most popular letter combo for your password?
• Significant dates – While easy to remember it’s just not worth it, because this kind of personal information can be easily obtained by hackers.
• Common phrases – Hackers always try them when hacking accounts.
• Sequential number combinations – In the movie Spaceballs the combination to open the air-shield’s gate is 1-2-3-4-5; President Skroob was surprised to find that he used the same combination for his luggage, ‘nuff said?

 ~ The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World ~

1. The Great Pyramid of Giza – in 2600 B.C.E, Egyptian pharaoh Khufu built the Great Pyramid at Giza and when completed it stood 481 feet tall. It is the only one of the seven ancient wonders still in existence.
2. The Lighthouse of Alexandria -Built around 280 B.C., the Lighthouse of Alexandria stood about 400 feet tall, guarding this ancient Egyptian port city. For centuries, it was considered the tallest building in the world.
3. The Colossus of Rhodes – This bronze and iron statue of the sun god Helios was built in the Greek city of Rhodes in 280 B.C. as a war monument and destroyed by an earthquake in 226 B.C.  The statue was nearly 100 feet tall, about the same height as the Statue of Liberty.
4. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus – Located in the present-day city of Bodrum in southwestern Turkey, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was built around 350 B.C and was designed for a Persian ruler and his wife. The structure was destroyed by a series of earthquakes between the 12th and 15th centuries.
5. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus – The Temple of Artemis was located near present-day Selcuk in western Turkey. Historians can’t pinpoint when the temple was first built but they do know it was destroyed by flooding in the 7th century B.C.  A second temple stood from about 550 B.C. to 356 B.C., when it was burned to the ground.  Its replacement, built shortly thereafter, was destroyed by 268 A.D. by invading Goths
6. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia – Built sometime around 435 B.C. by the sculptor Phidias, this statue of gold, ivory, and wood stood over 40 feet tall and depicted the Greek god Zeus seated on a cedar throne.
7. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon – Not much is known of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, said to have been in present-day Iraq. They may have been built around 600 to 700 B.C.  However, archaeologists have found no substantial evidence to confirm the gardens ever existed.

~ Collective Nouns ~

Humans’ instinctively want to categorize and compartmentalize identifiers in their brain.  And one interesting use of collective nouns is to describe animal groups.  On land, a coterie of prairie dogs may pop up on an unsuspecting nest of rabbits or a gaze of raccoons or even a scurry of squirrels.  Meanwhile, in the dessert we have rhumbas of rattlesnakes and on the savannah, there are crashes of rhinoceroses and journeys of giraffes.

Here are a few more: Zebras hang out in dazzles, lions in prides, leopards in leaps (although rarely), cheetahs in coalitions, hippos in pods, and lest we forget, we very appropriately call a group of baboons a ‘congress.’

~  Country Wisdom ~

• Life is simpler when you plow around the stump
• It doesn’t take very big person to carry a grudge
• You cannot unsay a cruel word
• Every path has a few puddles allow the way
• When you wallow with pigs expect to get dirty
• The best sermons are lived not preached
• Don’t interfere with something that’s not bothering you
• Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a Raindance
• Good judgment comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgment

Quote of the day: “Vegetarian is an old Indian word meaning lousy hunter.”—Andy Rooney