The Neatest Little Paper Ever Read

OVER 4 MILLION

Readers WeeklyNationwide! ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©2007

FREE

For Ad Rates Call: 208-704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.comDistributed by TBNIMarch 31, 2011 Volume 2011- 13

Of North Idaho

TIDBITS® CELEBRATES APRIL WITH

ALL KINDS OF FOOLS

by Kathy Wolfe

A fool is defined as “somebody considered to lack good sense or judgment.” See if you agree if this description applies to these folks.

• After a voice was heard crying for help inside the wall of a Sweden hotel, firefighters broke into a chim-ney pipe only to find a 22-year-old man who had been trapped there for nine hours. After overindulg-ing at the hotel’s bar, he decided to get some air on the roof, only to fall 45 feet down the chimney. • It was the brainstorm of Maryland State Police to place mannequins in old patrol cars along the inter-state in an attempt to discourage speeding. The ac-tual result was a flood of telephone calls from people worried about possible injuries to officers who ap-peared very stiff. The department’s next move was to place signs in the car windows enlightening driv-ers that these weren’t real troopers. • Eddie Boyd made a foolish decision back in 1954 when he was listening to auditions for singers for his band. A nervous young truck driver who was earn-ing $40 a week stepped on stage and performed a couple of numbers. Eddie rejected the singer, tell-ing him to stick with his current job “because you’re never going to make it as a singer.” That truck driver was none other than Elvis Presley.

turn to page 5 for more April Fools!

FIRST COPY FREE

Tidbits HasFront Page

Space Open!

Call Before It Is Gone!

704-9972

Grab ThisSpace Today!

Call704-9972

The name of Lance Armstrong is synonymous with cycling, but it has been no easy road for this ath-lete. This week, Tidbits looks at how Armstrong conquered the course despite the odds stacked against him.

• Born to a teenage mother, Armstrong spent most of his childhood without his father, who left the family when Lance was two. Cycling was not his first passion; rather, swimming was. Joining the swim team at age 12, he swam about three hours every day. By 16, he was a professional tri-athlete and won the national sprint-course triathlon title at age 18 and again at 19. • At age 20, Armstrong changed his focus to bi-cycle racing, and the following year finished 14th in the 1992 Summer Olympics. By 1996, he was the No. 1 cyclist in the world. In October of that year, Armstrong was dealt a staggering blow. After coughing up blood, he made a trip to the doctor where he was diagnosed with stage three testicular cancer that had already spread to his lungs, abdo-men and brain. He immediately underwent surgery and began chemotherapy. He later learned that the doctor had given him a 20-percent chance of sur-vival. • A year later, Armstrong had determined he was going back to racing. The Tour de France follows a 2,200-mile (3,600 km) course that takes three weeks to complete. Each day is called a “stage,” and the times to finish each individual stage are combined to determine the overall winner. Prior to his cancer, Armstrong had won two stages in sepa-rate races, the most recent in 1995. He became ill during the 1996 Tour and had been forced to withdraw. • In 1998, Armstrong’s comeback began when he took fourth place in the Vuelta a España. The next year, he grabbed the yellow jersey at the first of his Tour de France victories. Six more victo-ries followed, making him the winner for a record-setting seven consecutive years. At the end of his 2005 triumph, Armstrong announced his retirement from racing. • In 2006, Armstrong switched competitive fields and ran the New York City Marathon, finish-ing 856th. He said, “…that was without a doubt the hardest physical thing I have ever done.” The next year he moved up in the ranks to No. 232. The Bos-ton Marathon was his choice the following year, and he finished in 2 hours, 50 minutes, 58 seconds. • In 2008, Armstrong announced that he was re-turning to professional cycling and planned to par-ticipate in 2009’s Tour de France. In his words, “…I have decided to return to professional cycling in order to raise awareness of the global cancer bur-den.” In 2004, he had launched the LIVESTRONG campaign, a fundraising effort for cancer research and awareness. Millions of people paid $1 for a yellow silicone gel wristband embossed with the LIVESTRONG slogan.• Armstrong had to settle for third place in the 2009 Tour de France. Earlier that year he was forced to withdraw from the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon race in Spain after a pileup crash of several riders, from which he sustained a broken collarbone. It was an-nounced that he would compete in the 2010 Tour de France, but it would be his last. He finished 23rd in his final Tour.

OVERCOMING THE ODDS:LANCE ARMSTRONG

PAGE 2 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com Mar. 31, 2011

Advertise in TIDBITS!

Call 704-9972

“From Dusk Till Dawn” (R) -- Without question, “From Dusk Till Dawn” is the greatest Aztec Vam-pire Stripper movie ever committed to celluloid. This 1996 grindhouse epic written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez stars George Clooney and Tarantino as the Gecko brothers, two bank-robbin’ desperados on the run who kidnap a minister (Harvey Keitel) and his two children and hold up in a Mexican strip joint. Little do the brothers suspect that star attraction Santanico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek, perform-ing an unforgettable dance with an albino python) and all the strippers and club employees are blood-thirsty vampires with a need to feed.

TV SERIES“Man vs. Wild” Season 5“H.R. Pufnstuf” Complete Series Collector’s Edition“Kathy Griffin -- My Life on the D-List” Season 4“Whitney Cummings: Money Shot”“Snapped” Complete Seasons 1 & 2“Flipping Out” Season 3“Rachel Zoe Project” Season 1 “Car 54, Where Are You” Complete First Season

TOP TEN MOVIES1. Limitless (PG-13) Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro2. Rango (PG) animated3. Battle: Los Angeles (PG-13) Aaron Eckhart, Bridget Moynahan4. The Lincoln Lawyer (R) Matthew McCo-naughey, Ryan Phillippe5. Paul (R) Simon Pegg, Nick Frost6. Red Riding Hood (PG-13) Amanda Seyfried, Shiloh Fernandez7. The Adjustment Bureau (PG-13) Matt Da-mon, Emily Blunt8. Mars Needs Moms (PG) Seth Green, Dan Fogler9. Beastly (PG-13) Vanessa Hudgens, Mary-Kate Olsen10. Hall Pass (R) Owen Wilson, Jason Sudei-kis

TOP TEN VIDEO, DVD of March 26, 2011

Top 10 Video Rentals1. Due Date (R) Robert Downing Jr.2. The Next Three Days (PG-13) Russell Crowe3. Faster (R) Dwayne Johnson4. Unstoppable (PG-13) Denzel Washington5. Jackass 3 (R) Johnny Knoxville6. Megamind (PG) animated7. Love and Other Drugs (R) Jake Gyllenhaal8. Morning Glory (PG-13) Rachel McAdams9. 127 Hours (R) James Franco10. Burlesque (PG-13) Cher

Top 10 DVD Sales1. Megamind (PG) (Dreamworks)2. Due Date (R) (Warner Bros.)3. Faster (R) (Sony)4. Burlesque (PG-13) (Sony)5. Megamind Double Pack (PG) (Dreamworks)6. Love and Other Drugs (R) (Fox)7. Unstoppable (PG-13) (Fox)8. 127 Hours (R) (Fox)9. Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 (G) (Disney)10. Life As We Know It (PG-13) (Warner Bros.)

PICKS OF THE WEEK

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I” (PG-13) -- In a shameless attempt to milk every last drop from the Harry Potter cash cow, War-ner Brothers decided to split the last installment of the Harry Potter series into two films and re-lease them eight months apart -- leaving fans of the series to endure the mostly boring first film that sets up all the actiony goodness for the finale --instead of just making one great movie.Harry, Ron and Hermoine (Daniel Radcliffe, Ru-pert Grint and Emma Watson) are on the run from Voldemort’s Death Eaters as they begin their quest to find the five horcruxes that contain the soul of the evil wizard. Sadly, most of the time is spent in a forest where there is a lot of arguing and handwringing, and not much quest-ing. “Deathly Hallows” isn’t a complete waste of time. There are a few great moments in the film (Hermoine erasing her parents’ memory of her existence is especially moving), but for the most part the film is nothing but a glacial-paced set-up for the July release of the finale that we’ve all been waiting a decade to see.

“The Incredibles” (PG) -- Pixar’s brilliant and entertaining 2004 superhero romp finally gets a Blu-ray release. Mr. Incredible and his super-powered fam-ily must hide their identities from the world. As a part of a superhero relocation program, the once-famous hero and his brood now live a dull, suburban life. But their humdrum existence comes quickly to an end when a new supervil-lain appears -- and he holds a massive grudge against Mr. Incredible. The four-disc Blu-Ray/DVD combo includes not only all the great special features from the original DVD release, but a slew of new behind-the-scenes goodies and a digital copy of the film.

Mar. 31, 2011 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com PAGE 3

¥ It was American educator Laurence J. Peter who made the following sage observation: “An econo-mist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.” Incidentally, he also came up with what’s known as the Peter Principle: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

¥ Ever wonder why it’s called the silver screen? In the early days of the cinema industry, the projection screens were embedded with real silver to enhance the reflective nature of the surface.

¥ Greyhounds have better eyesight than any other breed of dog.

¥ Worried about grocery prices going up? How’s this for a pricey egg: In 2007, a Faberge egg was sold at auction for nearly $16.5 million. Good thing the ones used in your omelets aren’t encrusted with jewels. ¥ Those who study such things say that Americans drink more carbonated beverages every year than coffee, tea, sports drinks and juice combined. ¥ A legislator in the Louisiana State House of Rep-resentatives once introduced a bill that would make it illegal to charge a bald man more than 25 cents for a haircut.

¥ The plant formally known as titan arum produces the largest cluster of flowers in the world, some-times reaching more than 10 feet in height. What’s perhaps even more notable, though, is its odor: The plant gives off a strong smell that is most often com-pared to that of a decomposing animal. Hence the plant’s more common name, the corpse flower.

***Thought for the Day: “First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing what-ever, and then we believe everything again -- and, moreover, give reasons why we believe.” -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

PAGE 4 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com Mar. 31, 2011

Space Open!

Call Before It Is Gone!

704-9972

APRIL FOOLS (continued):• When a fire erupted in a shed on a young man’s property, he quickly called 911 to alert the fire de-partment. Apparently he forgot he was illegally growing marijuana in the shed.• Three janitors at a California high school were attempting to trap a gopher on the loose in the building. After finally cornering it in the school’s utility room, they sprayed it with numerous cans of solvent designed to remove gum from floors. Who knows why, but one of the janitors lit a cigarette in the room, which ignited the solvents. The custodi-ans were blasted out of the room and 16 students were injured. Of course, the gopher escaped un-harmed. • Sweet revenge? A jilted Australian woman snuck into the wedding site of her former boyfriend dressed as a gardener, carrying a bucket of fresh cow ma-nure. It was her intention to douse the groom as he prepared to enter the church. However, he was inaccessible, surrounded by friends. She instead opted for the bride and covered the poor woman from head to toe. The culprit was chased down and later pleaded guilty to assault charges and was forced to pay restitution. Her actions did nothing to stop the wedding, however, which went ahead with the bride borrowing one of the bridesmaid’s dresses. • Move over, Orson Welles! In behavior that rivaled Welles’ Halloween “War of the Worlds” broadcast prank, on April Fools’ Day 1993, a San Diego dee-jay told listeners that the space shuttle Discovery would be landing at the city’s airport that morning at 8:30. Hundreds of foolish folks, carrying their video cameras, clogged the highways in an attempt to reach the field without considering that no space shuttle was in orbit at the time, or that the airport was too small to support the craft. The deejay’s comments? “I just light these bombs, and then I run away.”• When a Royal Canadian Mountie found a man meandering down the highway in his boxer shorts, he stopped to investigate. It seems his wife was driving, towing their trailer as he relaxed in the craft. When several bears were crossing the road, she stopped, and he stepped out of the trailer to see what was going on. As soon as the road was clear, she stepped on the gas, leaving her husband stranded in his skivvies. The police drove 70 miles before catching up with her.

Continued on page 7!

Mar. 31, 2011 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com PAGE 5

Reverse mortgagesOptimize your retirement income

Your local source for free information:

Larry Waters, Reverse Mortgage Consultant208-762-6887 Phone1-866-787-0980 Toll-free

1. Borrower must be 62 years of age or older. Call for more detailed program information. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. © 2009 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. #169502 7/10-10/10

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is the nation's leading retail originator of reverse mortgages.1 Let us put your home to work for you.

PAGE 6 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com Mar. 31, 2011

Tidbits BannersEffective and Affordable way to Advertise Your Business!

Call Now! 208-704-9972IT’S “CORNY”!

Keep your “ears” open — It’s time to learn more about corn, a crop grown on every continent of the world except Antarctica.

• When we speak of a “bushel” of corn, we are talk-ing about 56 pounds (25.4 kg). This weight is after the husks and cobs have been removed and only the shelled corn remains. There are about 1,300 kernels in one pound (454 g). During the 1930s, when farmers were harvesting by hand, their yield was about 100 bushels per day. Today, a combine accomplishes in less than seven minutes what it took the famer all day to do. The USDA tells us that in 1965, the yield per acre was about 74 bushels. Today, that figure is 154 bushels per acre. • Inside each corn plant there are two flowering parts or “inflorescences.” The male part is the tas-sel, and the silks are the female parts. Each tas-sel releases as many as five million grains of pol-len. The silks complete the fertilization process by transporting the pollen to the developing ear of corn, and each spot on the cob becomes a kernel. There is one piece of silk for each kernel. Every ear of corn has an even number of rows, anywhere from eight to about 22 rows. The average ear con-tains 800 kernels arranged in 16 rows. • Why are there ears of corn with missing kernels? It’s likely because it was a hot summer, and the silks dried out before all the cob’s sites were fertil-ized. • An average corn plant growing under optimal conditions will be about 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall by the middle of the summer. Its roots will reach an amazing 6.5 feet (2 meters) into the ground.• Ever year, one U.S. farmer will provide food for 129 people. Half of the U.S. supply comes from only four states — Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Min-nesota. About 55 percent of Iowa’s corn is exported to foreign markets. • The state of Iowa grows more corn than any other U.S. state, producing more in a year than most countries. In fact, Iowa, with an area of 56,276 square miles (145,754 sq. km), grows three times as much corn as Argentina, whose area is 1,068,296 square miles (2,766,890 sq. km). Most of Iowa’s corn won’t ever make it to the dinner ta-ble. As little as 0.04 percent grown is sweet corn, just about 4,900 acres out of a whopping 11.9 mil-lion acres. The largest portion is used for animal feed. One bushel of corn will eventually yield 5.6 pounds (2.54 kg) of beef at the store, or 13 pounds (5.9 kg) of pork, or 32 pounds (14.5 kg) of chicken. • As with all fresh produce, sweet corn tastes much better the sooner it is eaten after being picked. Af-ter just six hours at room temperature after picking, it loses up to 40 percent of its sugar content. And don’t husk it until you’re ready to eat it.• Do you know the difference between white and yellow corn? White is smaller and sweeter than yel-low.

TRIVIA

1. MATH: What is the Roman numeral for the Arabic number 400?2. PERFORMANCES: At what event would someone perform a maneuver called the ve-ronica?3. EXPLORATION: What was the sextant once used for?4. MUSIC: What does the musical term “con bravura” mean?5. LANGUAGE: In Arabic, what is the country of Morocco called?6. INVENTIONS: What common drug was in-troduced to the world by Felix Hoffmann?7. MEASUREMENTS: What is the basic unit of temperature?8. MOVIES: What did the dwarfs do for a liv-ing in Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”?9. GEOGRAPHY: Which nation has a major wine-producing region called Adelaide Hills? 10. LITERATURE: What was the pen name of writer Mary Ann Evans?

ANSWERS

1. CD2. Bullfighting3. Navigation4. With boldness5. Al-Magrib6. Aspirin7. Kelvin8. Miners9. Australia10. George Eliot

SPORTS QUIZ

1. Who threw the last Red Sox no-hitter before Hideo Nomo in 2001?2. Who holds the record for most home runs hit by a pitcher for a season?3. What was the last bowl game in which the Temple Owls football team played before 2009’s EagleBank Bowl?4. In 2010, Atlanta’s Josh Smith became the youngest player in NBA history (24) to block 1,000 shots in his career. Who had been the youngest?5. In 2010, Ottawa defenseman Sergei Gon-char became the sixth Russian to play in 1,000 NHL games. Name three of the first five to do it.6. Name the last time a non-American male won the Olympic 200-meter butterfly.7. How many majors did golfer Lee Trevino win during his PGA Tour career?

ANSWERS

1. Dave Morehead, in 1965.2. Wes Ferrell of Cleveland hit nine home runs in 1931.3. The Garden State Bowl, in 1979.4. Benoit Benjamin was 25 when he hit the 1,000-block mark in the 1989-90 season.5. Sergei Fedorov, Alex Kovalev, Slava Ko-zlov, Alexei Zhitnik and Sergei Zubov.6. Russia’s Denis Pankratov, in 1996.7. Six -- two U.S. Opens (1968, ‘71), two Brit-ish Opens (‘71, ‘72) and two PGA Champion-ships (‘74, ‘84).

The Tidbits® Paper is a Division of Tidbits Media, Inc. • Montgomery, AL 36106(800) 523-3096 • E-mail: tidbits@tidbitsmedia.com • All Rights Reserved ©2008

Information in the Tidbits® Paper is gathered from sources considered to bereliable but the ac cu ra cy of all information cannot be guaranteed.

Can’t Get Enough Tidbits?

Limited EditionBook Set

Limited Edition

T R I L O G Y

Send $24.95 (plus $5.00 S&H) by Check or Money Order to:

Tidbits Media, Inc.1430 I-85 Parkway, Suite 301

Montgomery, AL 36106(800) 523-3096

(Alabama residents add appropriate sales tax.)Reprints of Books I, II, & III.

RESERVE NOW!

WANT TO RUN YOUR OWN BUSI NESS?

If You Can Provide: Sales Experience · A Computer · Desktop Publishing Software · A Reasonable Financial In vest ment

We provide the opportunity for success!

Call 1.800.523.3096www.tidbitsweekly.com

Publish a Pa per in Your Area

FLASHBACK TRIVIA

1. Who sang the popular “Fernando,” and when?2. Where did the 1960s band Buffalo Spring-field get its name?3. In “Tell Laura I Love Her,” why does Tommy enter a drag race?4. Which singer released “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”?5. Which solo artist released “If I Could Turn Back Time”?6. Who sang “Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom),” and when?

ANSWERS

1. Swedish group ABBA, in 1975. The song was translated into other languages and hit No. 1 on the charts of at least 13 countries.2. From the side of a steamroller, made by the Buffalo-Springfield Roller Company, parked on the street outside a band member’s house in Los Angeles.3. In the 1960 hit, Tommy wants the prize money so he can buy Laura a wedding ring. As in all teen tragedy songs, he dies after his car crashes.4. Michael Jackson in 1979. On his “Off the Wall” album, the song was more than six min-utes long.5. Cher, in 1989. The song was on her 20th album, “Heart of Stone.” In the video, a scant-ily dressed Cher entertains sailors on a battle-ship in a naval shipyard.6. Perry Como, in 1956.

• Don’t try this at home! When an Ohio gentleman experienced gas line freeze in his car, he was sure that heating up gasoline on the stove would solve that problem in a hurry. It’s no surprise that the fumes ignited, and when he threw a blanket on the fire, the flames quickly spread and destroyed his kitchen. • Turn it down! A young British man had the vol-ume so high on his headphones while listening to music that he missed the crash of a Cessna 150 plane on his front lawn. He happened to look out the kitchen window and observed “dozens of peo-ple running around my garden,” as rescuers came to the aid of the plane’s two injured passengers. • It’s true. Smoking cigarettes can lead to lung can-cer. Just ask the families of two men who gained fame on billboards as the Marlboro Man. Former professional rodeo rider Wayne McLaren modeled for the ads in the mid-1970s. His pack-and-a-half-a-day habit contributed to his death from lung can-cer at age 51. David McLean, who was the Man in the 1960s, succumbed to the disease as well, and his family filed a suit against Phillip Morris, contending that McLean sometimes had had to smoke up to five packs per photo shoot as the cameraman attempted to “get the right look.”• You’re a fool if you believe that it takes two years for your stomach to digest a piece of chewing gum. It digests and is eliminated at the same rate as anything else the body ingests. And another popu-lar myth is also false — Don’t store your batteries in the freezer thinking it will prolong their life. The Duracell company states that extreme cold actu-ally reduces the performance of batteries. • Who was the dummy here? A New Jersey sher-iff’s deputy was craving a snooze while on guard duty at the Somerset County courthouse, so he propped up a disguised dummy in his place. Not surprisingly, the switch was discovered, and he was suspended for three days without pay. • After studying a year’s worth of reports of fatal accidents involving over-the-road trucks, a 1994 National Transportation Safety Board report con-cluded that too many truck drivers fall asleep at the wheel because they’re sleepy. Gee, ya think? • Officials at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport concluded that it was important to have bi-lingual signs at the facility, but they weren’t very careful about the process. One sign was to advise travelers to declare all plants, produce and meat, and to warn them that those not doing so would be fined. Up went the sign reading Violadores Seran Finados, which actually translated “Violators Will Be Deceased.”• What are the chances? In an anatomy class at the University of Alabama medical school, nine donated cadavers were lined up for dissection by the students. As one of the students prepared to begin her assignment, she discovered that one of the cadavers was her great-aunt. The school quickly made a substitution.”

APRIL FOOLS (continued)

Mar. 31, 2011 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com PAGE 7

Want to Advertise in Tidbits?

Give us a CALL!704-9972

Tidbits HasSpace Open!

Call Before It Is Gone!

704-9972

PAGE 8 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com Mar. 31, 2011

www.coinshop.com

Mar. 31, 2011 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com PAGE 9ANSW

ERS

www.coinshop.com

PAGE 10 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com Mar. 31, 2011

HERE ARE A FEW OF OUR FAVORITE LOCAL PLACES TO EAT!GRAB A BITE, AND GRAB A TIDBITS!

Mar. 31, 2011 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com PAGE 11

GIVE US A CALL AND AD YOUR BUSINESS TODAY!208-704-9972

OPEN SPACE

OPEN SPACE

OPEN SPACE

OPEN SPACE

OPEN SPACE

PAGE 12 To Advertise Call 704-9972 www.tidbitsinc.com Mar. 31, 2011

RECENTSTOPSADDED!

Post Falls

A-Z Rentals

Did You Know? All These Fine Locations Carry Tidbits!325+ STOPS!! You Can Be One Too! Call 208-704-9972