Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for October 21, 2022

Since I’m cleaning out my Truth Files (It’s out there, Scully!) I’ll put this one out there, so to speak. This will be of especial interest to anyone who’s ever had to put up with a clueless editor, which at one time I was convinced was a single word…

Years ago I was a stringer for a local newspaper. I would write my article, mail it in, and about a week later I’d either get a check or a rejection slip. On one occasion, though, I received a phone call in just two days’ time from the paper’s editor. He was rather angry.

“We do NOT print racist slurs in THIS newspaper, Bud!” he snarled at me.

“Um, WHAT racist slur?” I asked, totally confused.

“Don’t play innocent with ME, fellah! You called someone a Tacoman. He could sue us if he read that!”

The light finally came on, and I realized the editor must be a recent transplant to the Northwest. “Sir,” I explained, “The man I was writing about lives in Tacoma. I didn’t call him a Taco Man; I called him a ta-COE-man.”

The editor “let me off the hook” (this time) but said he’d keep an eye on me.

How many times has Kenny died?

O.P. can’t get a break, can he?

Well, duh — if someone lives to be 85, thirty minutes per day adds up to more than two years.

Who makes up these stupid “averages” and how would they know?

Does reading the internet count?

Yes, diamonds are forever! There are some gas giants in the solar system where it is raining diamonds down in lower, high-pressure gas layers.

Does that include the years when they were just chunks of coal?

And how long, on average would readers of GO comics live? I wonder.

Kid looks like he’s fallen asleep. Guess you live longer because of the excess sleep you endure. ZZZZZZZ

how do you tell the age of a diamond? do you count the rings?

Optimus Prime has nothing on Kenny from South Park.

I read silly cartoons for about 30 minutes each day. Does that count?

But who can resist the Optimus Prime rib?

Don’t tell her but the diamond I gave her is three weeks old. ~ Oiving Schwartz, saving for a Studebaker

Take care, may prolific gamer Sean “I’ve Got All The Sigils And Now All Three Endings Await Me” Talosord be with you, and gesundheit.

The thing about reading books just may be one of those association correlations. People that read a lot may tend to be better educated. People that are better educated tend to be more well off in life. People that are more well off in life tend to have better health care than those who are not so well off.

“More than 25 times” ? 25 isn’t that big of a number. How is it they don’t have the exact value?

Well, no wonder he died. He was wearing a red shirt.

Hmmm…if a diamond or any other physical matter in an open system can be billions of years old, then how old is the water we drink and the air we breathe after each cycle in the same open system?

Those darned Decepticons!

So Optimus Prime is the Kenny of the Transformers…

The reading this is definitely correlation, not causation. If you have time to read 30 minutes a day, you’re probably wealthier and less stressed than people who don’t. That leads to a longer life.

There is supposed to be a planet made of diamond. I wonder how old it is?

While we’re on the topic of Diamonds, I have had a question regarding human made diamonds, specifically a marketing pitch from several years ago that a company could make a diamond from the cremated remains of a human. It seems a bit “off”, as what remains after a cremation is calcium from the bones, and diamonds are simply a form of pure carbon. So, in the absence of alchemy, how do you convert calcium to carbon?

Just wondering. It’s past midnight now, and the only ones remaining on this page are pumpkins and disenchanted mice.

“…disenchanted mice”: clever!

Optimus Prime has nothing on Wile E. Coyote