Bob and Marcia discussed a range of topics, from unexpected facts about tigers and the USS Maine explosion, to ancient wedding customs and Indonesian movie titles. Bob shared surprising information about tigers in Texas and the history of the seventh inning stretch, while Marcia delved into the media frenzy surrounding the USS Maine explosion and the development of music and technology. Both speakers shared interesting trivia and insights, highlighting the importance of exploring unconventional topics and discoveries.
Outline
Tigers, baseball, and presidential history.
Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the country with the most tigers in the world, surprisingly revealing that it is not India but the United States, with an estimated 5000 tigers living in private hands in Texas.
- The World Wildlife Fund states that only 6% of captive tigers are in zoos, while the majority are owned by private individuals in the US, raising concerns about proper care and handling of these endangered animals.
- Marcia Smith discovers President William Howard Taft accidentally started the seventh inning stretch at a baseball game.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the USS Maine explosion in 1898, with Bob suggesting the slogan “Remember the Maine. To Hell with Spain,” and Marcia correcting him that it was actually an accident, not a Spanish attack.
- The transcript highlights the role of yellow journalism in spreading rumors and influencing public opinion during the Spanish-American War, with Bob Smith comparing it to modern-day social media.
Space travel, gravity, and music.
Marcia and Bob discuss their son’s antics in grade school, including singing a song in front of the teacher and trying to swear.
- Bob explains that on the sun, a person would weigh 2800 pounds, compared to 16 pounds on the moon.
- Marcia Smith explains the origin of the phrase “full gamut” and its connection to musical instruments, surprising Bob Smith.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the history of musical instruments, and she shares information about the oldest known flute, which is 10,000 years old.
Wedding traditions and trivia.
- Marcia and Bob discuss Handfasting, a wedding ceremony where the bride and groom’s hands are bound together, with origins dating back 7000 years before Christ.
- The couple has a year and one day to determine if they are a good pair, with the option to plan a wedding or go their separate ways if they decide to end the handfasting.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the origins of the bridal party and the use of eggs in wedding ceremonies.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the history of wedding traditions, including the role of witnesses and the dowry.
- The couple also talks about movie titles and their translations in different languages, with a focus on the largest desert in the world.
QR codes, reading habits, and mosquito repellents.
- Marcia and Bob discuss QR codes, their origins, and how they’ve become ubiquitous in modern life, from menus to art museums.
- They also explore the history of reading while in motion, from early forms like reading on trains to the widespread use of smartphones today.
- Bob and Marcia discuss how railroads and beer attract mosquitoes in the 1800s.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith questions about geography and history, including the only country without mosquitoes and the highest mountain in the world that’s not part of a mountain range.
- Marcia Smith provides quotes from George Goble and responds to Bob’s questions with humor and wit.
Bob Smith 0:00
What country has more Tigers than any country in the world? You might be surprised. Okay.
Marcia Smith 0:06
And who invented the seventh inning stretch?
Bob Smith 0:10
Somebody invented that.
Marcia Smith 0:12
Well, not exactly.
Bob Smith 0:13
Oh, okay. We’ll talk answers to those another questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and
Marcia Smith 0:20
Marsha SMITH
Bob Smith 0:37
Well, welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy and take a side road to Saturday with fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia tantalizing. Yes. So Marcia, yeah, what country has the most tigers in the world? Well, I
Marcia Smith 0:54
would think India you think India would but I’m wrong. Well, let
Bob Smith 0:57
me ask you this. Kenya, the United States Thailand, Tanzania or India? India. No, India is wrong. I told you that once.
Marcia Smith 1:06
Back you were tricking me ago. All right.
Bob Smith 1:09
This was a surprise to me. Okay. The United States, right? Yes, there are only about 4000 Tigers living in the wild. But more tigers are in the United States than anywhere else. Approximately 5000 Tigers who’s living in captivity not just in zoos though. That’s the problem. The World Wildlife Fund says only 6% of captive us tigers are in zoos most are owned by private individuals.
Marcia Smith 1:38
Can you believe that? Oh, it’s like that show. I watched Yes, Tiger king or whatever it was
Bob Smith 1:43
people get them when they’re little cubs. They think I can take care of this thing and they rose and some of them are used for entertainment and carnivals or promotional exhibits. Some are housed at rescue facilities but more are privately owned in the US and the World Wildlife Fund says most private Tiger owners aren’t properly trained to care for wild animals. So the Tigers are vulnerable. You bet they are. Where are all the US tigers? Probably
Marcia Smith 2:09
south. Alabama, Mississippi. No, not
Bob Smith 2:13
those states. Florida. No, Texas, Texas. By some estimates 5000 tigers live in Texas. Oh my god. Tigers are endangered in Asia but in Texas, their backyard pets. Texas requires owners of exotic pets to register their animals but most don’t. So the state doesn’t know where privately owned tigers are located. These animals should be in jungles and law enforcement authorities have little or no heads up when something’s going to escape. More tigers in Texas in private hands than anywhere else in the world. We
Marcia Smith 2:48
are not going to retire their
Bob Smith 2:51
sources for that were the britannica.com the World Wildlife Fund and the Houston Chronicle.
Marcia Smith 2:55
Okay. So you know what the seventh inning stretches in baseball, don’t Shabaab? Yes.
Bob Smith 3:00
Yes, I do. That is when you everybody gets up and does a stretch and they play Take Me Out to the Ballgame. And then we go back. So
Marcia Smith 3:09
my question is, Bob, what President of the United States started the seventh inning stretch by accident? Oh, really? Yeah. Could that be Warren
Bob Smith 3:19
G. Harding? No, because he was like the first guy I think to get out there and throw the ball. So what happened was somebody got up by accident stood up, and then everybody stood up. Was it Calvin Coolidge? No. Was it FDR. Now who was
Marcia Smith 3:34
it? 1910. William Howard Taft. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, he was attending a baseball game President William Howard Taft stood up to stretch his legs between the top and the bottom of the seventh inning. The crowd thought he was leaving and out of respect stood up to
Bob Smith 3:53
the king is leaving. And then he
Marcia Smith 3:55
sat down and they went off. And so they all sat down. So the stretch immediately became popular, especially because the vendors liked it because it was like one last chance call to sell off their hot dog. No kidding. Before people started drifting on. Isn’t that funny? So William Howard Taft just stands up to stretch and the whole place gets up to say goodbye. President stretches we stretch. They just thought he was leaving. They didn’t
Bob Smith 4:25
funny now that shows you what a different time that was. And we didn’t have television. So that had to spread through the crowd. The president must be leaving. Yeah, he’s standing up everybody. Everybody was looking at him. Because he was a president. He was there. Isn’t that fascinating?
Marcia Smith 4:39
Certainly a more polite time.
Bob Smith 4:41
I mean, I go to a baseball stadium. I can’t look across the field and see who’s sitting in a seat over there. Yeah, that’s true. That’s amazing. Okay, well, this goes back to about that time. Remember Marsha Paul Harvey’s the rest of the story? Of course. Well, this is the rest of the slogan out okay. One of the most famous This slogans of the 1890s was remember the main. Yeah, but that was only half of it. What was the rest?
Marcia Smith 5:07
Oh, I don’t know.
Bob Smith 5:11
Remember the main that was when that USS Maine, which is a relatively new American battleship docked in the harbor in Cuba blew up. He was supposedly there just to observe things, but the Cubans were revolting events, the Spanish colonial rule, so we sent somebody down there. What made it blow up? Well, they found out later was an accident. But at the time, everybody thought Spain did it. Spain did it. And it was a tragedy, over 260 crew members perished in the fire when the thing blew up. But the slogan that came out of that was remember the main To hell with Spain? Now I know why they only printed half of that in our history books when we were kids growing up, you know, because that would have been a great opportunity for us all to swear, right? Yeah. Remember the main To hell with Spain.
Marcia Smith 5:57
So everybody thought Spain blew it up, but they didn’t. Now
Bob Smith 6:01
they thought it was a submerged mine. And then of course, the penny press. Remember the yellow press? Yeah. Pulitzer. And William Randolph Hearst. That’s it. Hearst, they went after this with a vengeance saying we should go to war against Spain. And so sure enough, we did. And a few months later, it was over and the United States had Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines ceded to them by Spain, and Spain set Cuba free. But for the record, the investigators later determined the explosion was an accident. See,
Marcia Smith 6:30
you just listen to these people who don’t have all the cheese on their cracker.
Bob Smith 6:37
It was like the social media of the time you know, it just all these flare up rumors. Can you imagine today what they
Marcia Smith 6:42
saw my God? Yes. That was a conspiracy was this? Absolutely. They
Bob Smith 6:47
thought it was a submerged mind. Because when we went there, they said you can put your battleship over here. And this was a place where it was rarely used. So they thought, Oh, well, that was a mind blew up there. But it was there for a week or so before it happened. Okay. But what happened was they think it was a coal bunker fire and future battleships were redesigned. So they provided greater separation between ammunition storage and the power plants don’t ship alright. But remember the main To hell with Spain? Okay. I wouldn’t say it again. Because I never got to say it in history class in school.
Marcia Smith 7:20
Indeed. Well, what about our son? What was his thing all been?
Bob Smith 7:24
Well been made time to
Marcia Smith 7:26
maneuver on the Hoover Dam.
Bob Smith 7:29
That’s right. And
Marcia Smith 7:30
he’s did that in class to do that in grade school. Isn’t it trying to get so he could swear in front of the teacher got the whole class to sing the song and his teacher just rolled his eyes and bad,
Bob Smith 7:41
but he went along with it. Okay, okay. All
Marcia Smith 7:45
right, Bob, how much would 100 pound person weigh on the moon? Roughly?
Bob Smith 7:52
Okay, so I think you’re only about 25% of what you are here. So I think you’re probably would weigh 75% Less. Ah, what’s the verdict there? Mr. Smith? Yeah,
Marcia Smith 8:03
you’d weigh roughly 16 pounds. Really? On the moon, a person would weigh six times less than they do on Earth. That’s because the moon has one six the gravity of Earth. Okay. The low gravity on the moon made it easier for the astronauts to move around and even jump and play golf and whatever the heck, they all stood up there. They grabbed a bunch of moon rocks. Hey, did get the rocks. So how much do you think you’d weigh on the sun? Oh,
Bob Smith 8:29
dear. I don’t think it was anything. I think it’d be burned to a crisp before I got there.
Marcia Smith 8:33
In the unlikely event. You decided to fly to the sun. Okay, and got off the ship. And after screaming a lot. Okay. How much would you have weighed?
Bob Smith 8:44
Well, the gravity there’s probably a lot greater. So I think you’d be weigh a lot more on your son. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 8:50
16 pounds on the moon. And that same person on the sun? 2800 pounds.
Bob Smith 8:57
What happened to my diet? Suddenly, I feel so heavy.
Marcia Smith 9:02
The sun’s gravity is 28 times of the earth. Wow. There you go. Well,
Bob Smith 9:07
speaking of the sun, what on earth is hotter than the sun? There’s something hotter there’s something hotter on Earth and the Sun and it happens it happens frequently. Now lava lava
Marcia Smith 9:18
eruption. Something hot happens
Bob Smith 9:21
frequently.
Marcia Smith 9:22
Not the old geezer geyser no
Bob Smith 9:25
happens frequently. It’s an event it’s not a place kind of thing. It’s a widespread event or widespread fireworks. Well, not fireworks. I don’t know. Lightning. Oh, according to britannica.com Lightning heats the air around it to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is five times hotter than the surface of the sun. So the answer is the air the air when heated by lightning is hotter than the sun.
Marcia Smith 9:54
Wow. That’s something to noodle is something to
Bob Smith 9:57
noodle over. Speaking noodle. Do you have any food question?
Marcia Smith 10:03
I’d have to look No, never
Bob Smith 10:04
mind.
Marcia Smith 10:05
Okay. Why is the entire range of circumstances called the full gamut? You know, when I I ran the full gamut done on research of
Bob Smith 10:14
that project gamut not the gambit, but the gamut. Yeah, it’s GA I’m ut Gam ut really?
Marcia Smith 10:21
Didn’t you know that I
Bob Smith 10:21
didn’t know how to spell. You know, it’s something you hear all your life. Oh, am you t Gam mutt? Yeah,
Marcia Smith 10:27
you don’t know what it means? Oh, is
Bob Smith 10:28
it based on games or something?
Marcia Smith 10:31
You’ll be surprised. Okay. Since 1626, if you can believe it, that phrase has meant that you’ve run through the full possibilities of anything, and it goes back all hundreds of years. Wow. However, gamut literally means the entire range of recognized notes on a musical scale. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, it’s that’s a real word for all the notes on a scale.
Bob Smith 10:54
Now I should have known that being a singer. I read music. I never heard that term
Marcia Smith 10:59
before. That’s why I’m sharing it to amaze and amuse. Well, speaking
Bob Smith 11:03
of music, yeah. I’ve got a question for you. Thank you. You came first musical instruments or the wheel?
Marcia Smith 11:11
Musical instruments? Why would you say that? Because wheel was a lot harder to figure out and I think they use shells or hollowed out wooden stuff to make sounds and noises Yeah,
Bob Smith 11:24
right. Musical instruments, hands down, older, naming, naming speak about picking of bells. And that’s because numerous flutes made out of animal bones had been found in Asia and Africa, and they’ve been dated far before. The oldest known wheel. Yeah. In 2008. A five finger hole flute fashioned from the bone of a vulture was discovered in a cave near home in Western Germany in Western Germany. Yeah, it’s been dated to between 35,040 1000 years old. By comparison, the world’s oldest known wheel is only believed to be 7000 years old.
Marcia Smith 12:02
Thau cut a bomb flute make music bomb. Well, it’s
Bob Smith 12:06
got five holes. So it produces five notes with different pitches. Yeah, in fact, I’ve got proof for you Marcia, British expert wolf Haim. Using a reproduction of that flute recently played a number of tunes on his including this one.
Speaker 1 12:22
And when I first reconstructed the instrument tried to play some tunes, I came across these ones.
Unknown Speaker 12:45
Sounds a little bit like Star Spangled Banner. Okay.
Marcia Smith 12:48
Well, I thought it’d be a little more dazzling. But what
Bob Smith 12:55
isn’t it amazing that a five hole flute has all the notes necessary for that part of the Star Spangled Banner? That was fantastic. So yes, ancient bone flutes were real instruments. Okay, they’ve been found in numerous locations in Europe, Asia, including Germany, Slovenia, and China and all of them far, far older than the oldest known wheels, which only date from three to 6000 BC. So we’ve had a little music. I think it’s time for a break. Okay. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob. Mr. Shaw Smith. We’re back. Welcome to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. We do this every week for the Cedarburg, Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and it’s internet radio station. And after that, we put it on podcast platforms, and it’s heard around the world around the world, you always do that. Anyway, see, I’m too dramatic and you do a roll.
Marcia Smith 13:47
All right, Bob. Okay, you know what Handfasting is? When
Bob Smith 13:50
you make your hands stop eating.
Marcia Smith 13:52
That’s what we’re trying to do, isn’t it? That’s what we’re doing is saying hands up, get your hands out of the cookie jar. That’s exactly the only way I can and you say those coconut cookies aren’t gonna eat themselves, Marsha? That’s right. Well, no, actually, this is part of a wedding ceremony that our son participated in. Really? Yeah. Oh, yes, you were there.
Bob Smith 14:17
I never thought about cold hand. phandroid
Marcia Smith 14:19
I didn’t either. In a wedding ceremony, the bride and groom have their hands bound together. They are the ties that bind and Handfasting is often a unifying event at a wedding in old Celtic religions and so forth. It didn’t start out that way though. This practice of Handfasting. Tying your hands together dates back to 7000 years before Christ. Oh my goodness. As part of an ancient Celtic pre wedding custom. Prospective couples would enter into a hand fast ceremony with a priest who would bind their hands together with a cord or ribbon. brides and grooms who chose to hand fast or considered engage that was their engagement. And they had a year and one day to determine if they were a good pair. Oh, no kidding. If they were couples would plan a wedding? If not, they were free to go their separate ways. I tried to find out how long did they have to stay bound together? So were their hands fast. Certainly you’re going to go through the whole year bound together must
Bob Smith 15:21
have been just a short time. But that was a fascinating part of the Russian Orthodox wedding that we attended and participated in. Yeah, and when I saw that priest tighten those that cloth around Ben and Darius hands all my god it looked like it hurts so bad. He wasn’t messing around. No. So that goes back to 7000 BCE. Yeah, that’s
Marcia Smith 15:40
amazing, isn’t it? It’s I had no idea it was that ancient
Bob Smith 15:45
and then it became part of Christian and Jewish I assume. Ceremonies for years. It still is used today.
Marcia Smith 15:52
Yeah. I’ve never seen it before.
Bob Smith 15:55
Yeah, this was the first time I’d ever seen it was a surprise. Lots of
Marcia Smith 15:58
traditional things going on in that wedding. Yeah,
Bob Smith 16:01
that was pretty cool. Yeah. Okay, Marcia, a couple questions. Quick. What animal produces the largest single cells produced on Earth? The single cell? It’s a single cell. Hey, the question what animal produces the largest single cells on Earth? And we’ve talked about this animal before. It produces very large eggs. Oh, ostrich. Yes. And each one of those eggs is considered a single cell. Oh, really? Yeah. Isn’t that fascinating? Cheese by volume. ostrich eggs are the largest single cells on Earth. Ha, I found that fascinating. I never would have thought of that. That came from britannica.com.
Marcia Smith 16:40
I have another wedding question. Okay. How did the bridal party come about? The
Bob Smith 16:46
bridal party? Yeah. Talking about a bridle that’s used with a horse we’re talking about.
Marcia Smith 16:51
This is a wedding Bob. Okay. Yes. Okay. It goes back to the ancient Romans does
Bob Smith 16:56
it Okay, so there’s a reason that they had the party. Yeah, everybody was tired. It was over with.
Marcia Smith 17:01
It’s not a party. It’s the bridal party. The people older the wedding in the wedding that’s called Well,
Bob Smith 17:07
I know the best man was supposed to protect the woman with a prospective wife. And he was like the right hand guy. He was the wing man for the groom. But I don’t know about the other people. They were the bodyguards. Both of them. Yeah, bridesmaid and the best man were both bodyguards.
Marcia Smith 17:24
A lot more than just two people though the Romans required 10 male witnesses 10 Wow, to vouch for the couple, while the bride’s female companions, they would prepare her and escort her to the ceremony and they were all dressed similarily and why to prevent kidnappers and thieves from making off with the bride’s dowry or the bride herself. As for the groomsmen they were there to help the groom get ready and be a bodyguard for the bride. Wow. That
Bob Smith 17:54
she was quite surprised then wasn’t Yeah, I
Marcia Smith 17:56
guess it was the dowry was more than anything.
Bob Smith 17:59
That’s what it was. It was you get this bit of money you’re getting for taking my daughter? Yeah. Did they all get a cut? I mean, how did this work? I don’t know.
Marcia Smith 18:06
It’s a pretty strange don’t use it. Yes. So this goes back to the Roman spot. This was
Bob Smith 18:12
like a brigade of people that they were there to just be bodyguards make sure everything goes the way it is. And nobody messes with this ceremony. And now it wasn’t like the fun time it is today now,
Marcia Smith 18:22
but now they’re back up to easy 10 people on both sides. Well,
Bob Smith 18:26
I know often we go to when there were 12 people on each side. My God. It’s like wow, the big candelabra up there
Marcia Smith 18:32
I think is how much does that pre wedding dinner call? Oh my goodness, everybody. And it is amazing, isn’t it? Oh, dear. Yeah. And what? Of course we didn’t even have one. So yeah, it worked out nice. We
Bob Smith 18:44
had a after wedding dinner with our two friends who had the wedding. Yeah, they witnessed what they what they paid for their work. Bob and Dan. All right. All right. Okay, here’s one on movie titles. All right. Sometimes they have to change during translation in the 1955 era. The movie I’ll cry tomorrow when that appeared in Indonesia. Do you know what its title was changed to? I’ll cry tomorrow that was translated in Indonesia to to relieve yourself from the grief of your passions. Must have been a big marquee. Another question? What is the world’s largest desert? It gets so little precipitation. Sahara. No. Go get back. This is the largest desert? No not to go go be or whatever it is. No. I don’t know. The largest desert in the world. Tell me. It’s one of the coldest places in the world. Really? Yeah. Oh, it’s in Antarctica. And Arctica is technically the world’s largest desert. I asked you that a few weeks. Yes, you did. And I brought it back and you forgot it. Yes.
Marcia Smith 19:49
Classic. Oh, my God. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I apologize. And Bob, you know what the QR code is right? Yes, I do. What does it stand for QR Our
Bob Smith 20:00
QR quality reproduction. That’s a good guess. No quotient reading. No weary, quiet road. I don’t know what it stands for. Quick Response. Oh dear, of course. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 20:15
QR codes are those pixelated looking black and white squares. You can scan on your phone for more information about something, be it whether or advertising even art right? We use them at art museums. They become ubiquitous. You pick you up, they become they’re everywhere. Now they’re everywhere, especially after COVID-19 the pandemic and then menus all this wanted contact contactless menus and payment. That’s right, that kind of popularized. And I really hate looking up the menu with that thing. We always screw it up. Oh, wait, I didn’t order that at a cod fish on right. I don’t think so. Thank
Bob Smith 20:50
you ordered this Rorschach test. I mean, it’s yeah, it’s what it looks like.
Marcia Smith 20:54
But they’re rarely called by their full name, which is quick response. And the codes can be used to share far more than a link. If you wanted to. You could share an entire book with one code. I didn’t know that me either. The technology was first developed by a Toyota subsidiary in the mid 90s as a way to track auto parts. Well, I
Bob Smith 21:12
knew they were like pioneers in RF codes and things like that.
Marcia Smith 21:17
So I vaguely remember that people would track how many parts they had. Yeah,
Bob Smith 21:21
right. But these things then they became consumer products. But
Marcia Smith 21:25
they found a new life as a way to direct smartphone users from physical space to a digital one. They
Bob Smith 21:31
have those on TV ads, and you just take your phone up there. And by the time you get there, it’s gone.
Marcia Smith 21:38
was in it wasn’t in a Superbowl ad. Yes. And I’m looking where’s my phone? Where’s my phone?
Bob Smith 21:43
Let me get this started. Let me get this. Oh, it’s gone.
Marcia Smith 21:45
They used to require a special reader. But nowadays most smartphone cameras will read a QR code on their own, which is great because I’m always looking for the damn app. But now you just take a picture and it works.
Bob Smith 21:58
Alright, Marshall, what Transportation Innovation is the one that introduced something we all take for granted these days reading while in motion reading while you’re moving. When was the first time people started doing that? But what the heck are you talking about when people would pick up a book or a magazine and read it while they’re traveling? Oh,
Marcia Smith 22:17
like in a car? Well,
Bob Smith 22:19
it’s I’m asking you Well, what was the Transportation Innovation that introduced reading well in motion?
Marcia Smith 22:26
Well wouldn’t be a bicycle. I just sitting in the backseat of a car. I don’t know
Bob Smith 22:30
railroads? Oh, of course real. I’m sure people were able to read somewhat on ships. But you know, if you’re down below deck, it was dark there. Well, I would have been way up high. Well, depends on your on the ocean. And we’re talking the ancient days. I mean, let’s say before the 1840s. But it was a relatively smooth ride of a railroad train that permitted it and in 1850 novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne observed passengers reading newspapers, pamphlets and novels when not chattering or sleeping. And that was the first reference to that in literature.
Marcia Smith 23:03
Well, that makes sense. And of course, in planes, everybody does it now.
Bob Smith 23:08
And then railroads also accelerated reading because they they fostered it. They were selling novels and magazines and newspapers and guidebooks on the trains. Smart. So they were encouraging that it also encouraged letter writing because the railroads transported mail. So while you’re there, you could write a letter and give it to the conductor and they’d go in the mail pouch and boom, you didn’t have to go to the post office. In 1840. There were 20 million domestic letters carried by the US Postal Service, and by 1860 162 million letters that went up by eight
Marcia Smith 23:39
fold. All right, speaking of mosquitoes what?
Bob Smith 23:43
I don’t think we were talking about mosquitoes what’s the
Marcia Smith 23:45
best beverage to avoid? What beverage attracts mosquitoes? Let
Bob Smith 23:51
me see something with sugar in it or something like that.
Marcia Smith 23:54
Beer? What good old Beer
Bob Smith 23:57
Beer attracts mosquito?
Marcia Smith 23:58
Can you have a picnic without beer? Oh
Bob Smith 24:00
my god. No wonder there are mosquitoes at every picnic. That’s right.
Marcia Smith 24:03
wearing long sleeve apparel and dousing yourself and insect repellent can help but avoiding some beverage particularly beer can protect you. According to a 2010 study of mosquito biting preferences, which really
Bob Smith 24:16
they actually talked to them. Yeah, me. Me, me, me.
Marcia Smith 24:19
We like just read this study last night. skeeto
Bob Smith 24:22
Biting preferences. How do they conduct a survey like that? Come on beer
Marcia Smith 24:27
makes humans more attractive to these pests. And just a little mosquito trivia. Do you know that the mosquito can lay 3500 number of eggs?
Bob Smith 24:37
Marcia this whole thing is mosquito trivia.
Marcia Smith 24:41
3500 number of eggs is an adult female can lie Oh my God at any time. Oh Lord, when you empty that still water out of the bucket in the backyard. You could be killing 3500 potential mosquitoes
Bob Smith 24:56
or preventing 3500 Good Drink you
Marcia Smith 25:00
and your beer. Okay, last question. What is the only country Bob without mosquitoes?
Bob Smith 25:05
The only country world? It’s the only country without ants. It’s Antarctica. But it’s not a country it’s a continent, right? Is that what the question actually is? No. What’s the only continent? Okay, is it Iceland? Iceland doesn’t have mosquitoes. It doesn’t have ants either.
Marcia Smith 25:21
You’re just they just don’t have things there. This is your day, Bob. Thank
Bob Smith 25:25
you so much. All right. I have a final question. Okay. What is the highest mountain in the world that isn’t part of a mountain range. And I’ll give you choices again, in my benevolent way. Okay. Mount Hood. Uh huh. Mount Logan, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Fuji or the Mater horn.
Marcia Smith 25:46
I will say Hood. Hood is wrong.
Bob Smith 25:48
Wrong, wrong wrong. Okay, we’ve got four other choices matter horn. Wrong Porsche. What is the highest AMI dammit, okay. The highest mountain in the world that’s not part of a mountain range. It’s Africa’s tallest mountain Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro. It’s 19,340 feet above sea level. It’s the world’s largest freestanding mountain. That’s because it is a volcano. Yeah, it actually has three different cones, and they have names Mackenzie, and Shira are extinct. But Kibo, the tallest is only considered dormant so it’s possible. Kilimanjaro could erupt again sometime. So that mountain is formed of ash, lava and rock.
Marcia Smith 26:31
You ready for my quote? I
Bob Smith 26:33
sure am. Okay,
Marcia Smith 26:34
I’ll end with a quote from George
Bob Smith 26:36
Goble. All the old comedian used to be on TV when we were kids
Marcia Smith 26:41
in the 50s. George George Goble in the early 60s too. And he said, If it weren’t for electricity, we’d all be watching television by candlelight.
Bob Smith 26:57
There’s a guy who didn’t have enough cheese on his credit. Okay. All right. Oh, that’s funny. Okay, if you’d like to participate in our show, by giving us a question or a quote or some information, I might be fun to stump Marcia with. You can go to our website, the off ramp dot show, scroll all the way down to contact us and leave your information. That’s it for me. Hi, I’m Bob Smith. I’m
Marcia Smith 27:22
Marcia Smith. Join us again next time
Bob Smith 27:24
When we return with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. She’s so ready to get rid of me here on the off ramp.
The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
