Saturday, April 21, 2007

Stand By

"Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education."

-Unknown

I have had a certain tune stuck in my head for about 20 years or so. Not the whole tune mind you, just one line from the chorus of the song. "I get scared inside, when you stand by." I could remember a part of the tune, but I couldn't quite remember the whole song. YIKES! Over the years, whenever something would jar my memory just a certain way, I would think of that song. I remember it was played on TOP 40 radio stations, which is what the radio, in the office where I worked at the time, was set to. Every hour, for my 8 1/2 hour work days, that song would play twice.

This went on for about a month or so, and then I never remember hearing the song played again... not in the last 20 years. It was annoyingly haunting at the time, and on occasion since then, so I kind of wondered about it through the years. Every time I asked friends, and co-workers if they remembered the song, they would look at me like I had 9 heads. Had I hallucinated it? Did it ever really exist? Well, just a few minutes ago, I decided to give Google one last chance, and put the lyrics, as best as I could remember them, into the search bar, and EUREKA! I found out not just the name of the artist, Roman Holliday, but the lyrics as well! You can view them here, if you so desire.

Don't you just love trivia, especially trivia that haunts you? Deep curisoities like, where the eyes are on a slug, or where Millie Vanilli is today? LOL. I don't know, I guess I am just a big fan of games like Trivial Pursuit, but I like looking up useless facts on the Internet. Shrug. It's probably some kind of 21st century sickness, but I love learning new, offbeat things. :) Like the following...

1. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charles Chaplin look alike contest.

2. The Guinness Book of Records, holds the record, for being the most often stolen from public libraries.

3. The hundred billionth crayon made by Crayola was Periwinkle Blue.

4. Howdy Doody has exactly 48 freckles on his face.

5. The starfish is one of the only animals that can turn it's stomach inside out.

6. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why?

7. Ralph Kramden made $62.00 per week.

8. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

9. A housefly hums in the middle octave, key of F.

10. A cat's urine glows under a black light.

11. Dolphins sleep with one eye open.

12. The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.

13. A cockroach can live 8 days without it's head, before it starves to death.

14. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.

15. A woodpeckers tongue is long enough to wrap it around his head 2 times.

There, see, I learned 15 new things today. I am 15 new facts smarter. My brain now hurts, or is it my brain hurts now? Hmmmmmmm... Maybe someday I will try out for a game show, like Who Wants To be A Millionaire? If I did, would you be my phone a friend? And if so, what would your expert category be? Come on, tell me, you know you want to! And oh by the way, the name of the song that haunted me was, "Stand By." :)

-OndineMonet

5 comments:

sunflowerkat said...

I think I could have done without that chocolate bar fact. Or maybe you just did me a favor...chocolate is not sounding all that apealing right now.

:)

DesLily said...

you wouldn't want me for a phone a friend! lol.. I have a lousy memory and I am crummy at trivia.. sigh...

Suzanne R said...

Yeah, I'd have to bow out of your list of candidates for phone-a-friend, too. As I'm getting older, my memory is getting worser. ;-)

Laura said...

my kids seriously want me to try out for wwtbam. it is on while i am dressing for work and they get a kick out of me becoming so annoyed with folks who don't know the answers to such simple questions!
ugh!
i will be your phone a friend for anything health/science related (natch), entertainment and history.
will you be mine too?

Karen Funk Blocher said...

This is one of the ones I at least skimmed before, but this time it provokes a thought in me besides "Third place?" and "Ooh, so many smilies!" I saw a Nova episode once about memory. One point they made is that if you keep learning new and different things, it keeps the brain functioning better and longer. But it has to be completely new stuff, different skills, like a new hobby. So learning stuff is vital!