NCAA Tournament Preview

Everything you need to know about the NCAA Tournament. We give you the coaches, lineups and stats for all 64 teams still in the tourney, as well as my predictions for all the games. Plus we list the can’t miss games for the first round and the top potential match ups down the road. Don’t miss it!!!!

Credit: 411Mania

The History of St. Patricks Day

St. Patrick was a Christian missionary credited with the conversion of Ireland from paganism. He lived from the late 4th century A.D. to the mid 5th century A.D., so long ago that it’s difficult to separate fact from legend.

St. Patrick was born in either Scotland or Wales, the son of Roman parents living in Britain. When he was about fifteen or sixteen, he was captured and enslaved by an Irish chieftain during a raiding party across the sea. He spent several years enslaved in Ireland, herding and tending sheep and swine. It was during his captivity that St. Patrick dedicated his life to God. Legend has it that St. Patrick escaped captivity and Ireland after a dream in which God instructed him to journey to the Irish coast where he found a ship that returned him to his family.

Blast From The Past: Lucky Charms

The cereal was created in 1963 by a team headed up by the manufacturing vice-president of General Mills, John Holahan. The team was to use the available manufacturing capacity from either of General Mills’ two principal cereal products — Wheaties or Cheerios — and do something unique to them. Lucky Charms were first invented by mixing Cheerios with bits of Kraft Circus Peanuts.

An advertising company employed by General Mills suggested marketing the new cereal around the idea of charm bracelets. Thus the charms of Lucky Charms were born. The mascot, Lucky the Leprechaun, was also born in 1963, a cartoon character whose voice was supplied by Arthur Anderson until 1992.

Did You Know? St. Patrick’s Day

The first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place not in Ireland, but in the United States. Boston in 1737.

Legend has it, if you kiss the Blarney Stone, it is believed you will be given the “Gift of the Gab.”

There are 34 million U.S. residents who claim Irish ancestry. This number is almost nine times the population of Ireland itself (3.9 million). Irish is the nation’s second most frequently reported ancestry after German.

St. Patrick himself was not Irish, but English.

Irish Joke

Two Irishmen, Patrick Murphy and Shawn O’Brian grew up together and were lifelong friends. But alas, Patrick developed cancer, and was dying. While on his deathbed, Patrick called to his buddy, Shawn, “O’Brian, come ‘ere. I ‘ave a request for ye.” Shawn walked to his friend’s bedside and kneels.

“Shawny ole boy, we’ve been friends all our lives, and now I’m leaving ‘ere. I ‘ave one last request fir ye to do.”

O’Brian burst into tears, “Anything Patrick, anything ye wish. It’s done.”

“Well, under me bed is a box containing a bottle of the finest whiskey in all of Ireland.  Bottled the year I was born it was. After I die, and they plant me in the ground, I want you to pour that fine whiskey over me grave so it might soak into me bones and I’ll be able to enjoy it for all eternity.”

O’Brian was overcome by the beauty and in the true Irish spirit of his friend’s request, he asked, “Aye, tis a fine thing you ask of me, and I will pour the whiskey. But, might I strain it through me kidneys first?”

———————————————————————————————————————-

Unsolved Mysteries: Leprechauns

Irish fairies fall into two main groups: sociable and solitary. Perhaps the best known of the solitary fairies are the leprechauns. Leprechauns have the distinction of being the most solitary of the solitaries, avoiding contact with humans, other fairies, and even other leprechauns.

Although the leprechaun has been described as Ireland’s national fairy, this name was originally only used in the north Leinster area. Variants include lurachmain, lurican, lurgadhan. The ancient origins of what we know today as the leprechaun was a Euro-Cletic god named Lugh (pronouced “Luck”). Lugh was as important a god to the ancient Euro-Celtic religion as Jesus is to our own Christianity. Lugh was the great Sun God of the Irish and Eauro-Celts, patron of Arts and Crafts, leader of the Tuatha dé Danaan. Many Europena cities were named for Lugh such as London, Léon, Loudan, Lyons and others.

Cartoon Memories: Speed Buggy

Add Hanna-Barbera’s Speed Buggy to the loveable-animated-cars-who-talk list. Employing a Love Bug meets Scooby Doo concept, Speed Buggy featured three wacky teenagers whose means of transportation was a remote-controlled, rust-colored dune buggy named Speed Buggy. Speed Buggy had two eyes for headlights, a mouth for a grill, and a heart of chrome.

Cartoon Memories: The Smurfs

Proving that we indeed are a one-world community, NBC president Fred Silverman bought the rights to the Flemish created characters known as the Smurfs and turned them into one of the most successful and smurfiest cartoons ever to hit the air. Created by cartoonist Peyo Culliford in 1957, the Smurfs(called Schtroumpfs in their homeland) had already become popular as American toys when Silverman got the idea of turning the little blue guys into a bunch of big green.

Blast From The Past: Shrinky Dinks

Gather ye round, gather ye round! Shoulder yourself in amongst the crowd that’s growing around the oven and take a gander through that glass…magic baked goods are transforming before your very eyes! Were not talking about Toll House cookies or souffls either. Were talking Shrinky Dinks. No, you cant eat themtheyre plastic. But you wouldnt want totheyre also art.

Shrinky Dinks entered the toy and craft scene in 1973. Inside the boxes were sheets of plasticthey came with either outlined drawings that you could color in yourself, or blank pages, upon which practically any tracing, drawing or rubber stamp picture could be imposed. After the artwork was colored in, you cut them out, laid them out on a cookie sheet (or looked over mom’s shoulder as she did), and then slid them into an oven or toaster oven for a few minutes. The plastic sheets shrunk to nearly a third of their original size, and became many times thicker. When you plucked the cut-outs from the oven, they had become hardened little masterpiecestheir colors were brighter and more intense, and get this, if you accidentally colored outside of the lines when your creation was in its plastic sheet stage, your mistakes were miraculously baked away!

How Monopoly Saved American Lives

During World War II, the British secret service hatched a master plan to smuggle escape gear to captured Allied soldiers inside Germany. Their secret weapon? Monopoly boxes. The original notion was simple enough: Find a way to sneak useful items into prison camps in an unassuming form. But the idea to use Monopoly came from a series of happy coincidences, all of which started with maps.

Did You Know? Useless Knowledge

The @ sign was very close to being eliminated from the standard keyboard until 1971, when Ray Tomlinson wrote it into the code used to send the first email.

All dogs are the same species, meaning that (notwithstanding the obvious physical challenge) a Chihuahua and a St. Bernard could procreate.

Designed by the British company Raytheon, the first microwave had a price tag of over $1,000.

Once planted, peach seeds can grow nectarine trees (and vice versa).

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Movie Trailer

In 1957, Indiana Jones is thrust back in action, venturing into the jungles of South America in a race against Soviet agents to find the mystical Crystal Skull.

When last we saw Indy, he was riding off into the sunset in 1989’s The Last Crusade, set in 1938 near the start of World War II. The new movie, due this spring, is set at the height of the Cold War in 1957, so the character has aged in real time — 19 years.

“He’s teaching and having kind of a quiet life,” the producer says. Once the archaeologist is thrust back into danger, the signature Indiana Jones red line tracing across the map will take him to New Mexico, Connecticut, Mexico City and the jungles of Peru.

Chuck Norris Facts, Part 1

- Chuck Norris once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills, they made him blink.
- Chuck Norris don’t believe in Germany.
- Chuck Norris can taste lies.
- Chuck Norris was in a knife fight once, the knife lost.
- Godzilla was a documentary about Chuck Norris’ first visit to Japan.
- Chuck Norris’ penis has a Hemi
- Chuck Norris can touch MC Hammer.
- Chuck Norris once ate an entire cake before his friends could tell him there was a stripper in it.

Riddle: The Boat

Four men were in a boat on the lake. 
The boat turns over and all four men sink to the bottom of the lake,
yet not a single man got wet,
why?

Leave your answer in the comments section below!

Optical Illusion: Blue Box

Is the blue side in the front or back of the cube?