Spatter

Friday Facts

I'm not sure if this fact is still current.  To tell you the truth, I've not paid attention lately.  But I thought I'd pass this information on just in case it is. 

The next time you go to buy bread, notice the tie bands used to wrap them.  Bread is delivered to stores five days a week...Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Each day has a different colored twist tie.

Monday is blue

Tuesday is green

Thursday is red

Friday is white

Saturday is yellow

So if today is Thursday, you'd want to look for a load with a red twist tie to ensure it being the freshest on the shelf vs a white one, which would mean the loaf is nearly a week old.  Check it out...

Friday Fact: Geographical Trivia

These geography tidbits just came my way and I thought I'd pass them along in a Friday Fact:

• More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in Alaska.

• The Amazon rain forest produces more than twenty percent of the world's oxygen supply.

• The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean.

• Antarctica is the only land on our planet not owned by any country.

• Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica and this ice represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world. And yet, Antarctica is the driest place on the planet...with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.

• Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.

• The term "Big Apple" was coined by touring jazz musicians of the 1930s who used the slang expression 'apple' for any town or city. Thus...to play New York City is to play the big time...The Big Apple.

• There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin , Ireland ; more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy ; and more Jews in New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel.

• There are no natural lakes in Ohio.  Every one is man made.

• The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133 B.C.

• There is a city called Rome on every continent.

• Chances that a road is unpaved in the U.S. is one percent...in Canada, seventy-five percent.

• The interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. The straight sections are usable as air strips in times of war or other emergencies.
  

Friday Fact - Flamingo Gardens

Flamingo Gardens is a south Florida landmark that's been around seemingly forever...it was one of THE places my family would always take our out of town guests when they visited...to buy fruit and see the peacocks, alligators, and of course flamingos. 

A week or so ago, I decided to go see it again...the first time since I was a child.  Boy, how it had changed!  Here's its history from then to now:

Flamingo Gardens didn't start out as a garden at all...why...it didn't even have flamingos.  It was originally just an orange grove. 

In the mid 1920s, a guy named Floyd Wray and his wife moved to Hollywood, Florida, joined up with a land developer, and sold hundreds of acres of land.  But then came the hurricane of 1926.  The land boom ended and jobs became scarce.  It was then that Wray recognized the shortage of oranges during the summer months and their high prices during the winter when there were plenty. He decided to buy 320 acres of Everglades land, and in 1927, Flamingo Groves was incorporated.  A month later, the first tree was planted. 

The idea of citrus condominiums was adapted...Wray offered out five acre parcels with a five year contract to plant, grow, and harvest the citrus on them.  After five years, buyers had the option of reselling their parcels at a previously set price or receiving pro-rata shares of Flamingo profits.  Pretty clever, don't you think!  As part of this grand scheme, Wray built a citrus plant, packing houses and retail outlets so as to sell and ship the fruit. 

In 1928 Wray created a botanical showcase on the grounds.  By 1930, the gardens started to receive foreign plants and seeds from the federal government for test planting in a subtropical climate.  Wray's goal:  to collect and showcase rare tropical fruit, flowering trees, and shrubs and the beauty of south Florida to visitors.  It was a good move since most of the orange trees were wiped out in a 1947 hurricane.

And that's about how it stood for years to come: a fruit shipper with a few pretty plants to look at.  In the mid 1960s,  some snakes and alligator wrestling was added.  That's my childhood memory of the place: fruit, pretty plants, peacocks, and alligators.
 
Sometime in the 1990s Flamingo Gardens grew to include a Bird of Prey Center and a free-flight aviary. It then became designated as a wildlife sanctuary, providing permanent refuge for injured and threatened wildlife. 

And that's a Friday Fact!

Friday Fact - Fulgencio Batista

Not too long ago I watched The Lost City, a movie about a family and the city of Havana at the time when guerrillas ousted Fulgencio Batista from power as the President of Cuba.  As historical dramas tend to do, it got me to wondering about what the times they depicted were like to live through...and too...looking back at history with the benefit of hindsight.   It also got me to thinking about how many times our country has supported a dictator for pragmatic reasons. 

So who was this tyrant Batista?  It's a bit of a lengthy Friday Fact, but take a minute or two...and while you do, try to not only learn the history of what happened, but the understanding of how and why things happen.  Maybe, just maybe we can learn from it.  Certainly though, we can appreciate what we just experienced here in America: a peaceful transition of power.

Born in 1901 to parents who were actively involved in Cuba's fight for independence from Spain, Batista joined the Cuban army in 1921,  became the union leader of Cuba's soldiers, and in 1933, led the Sergeant's Revolt that replaced the corrupt provisional government led by President Machado.  Did I say  revolt?  Let me back up a minute...

After freeing itself from the clutches of Spain during the Spanish-American War, Cuba  found itself facing another foe of sorts:  the United States.  You see, The United States had gotten involved in Cuban politics during the war and saw Cuba as part of its Manifest Destiny.  Before you know it we issued a set of articles and guidelines known as the Platt Amendment...which, by the way, stipulated some things that were completely inconsistent with the principles of our own constitution.  In a nutshell, it damaged the concept of Cuba being a sovereign nation by stating that the government of Cuba consented that the United States could exercise its right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence and for the maintenance of a government it likes. I'm paraphrasing, of course.

In short, Cuba had become a haven for the United States.  Vast tracks of land were gobbled up by U.S. investors...in fact...United States' interests came to control about three quarters of the Cuban sugar industry.  Downtown Havana became a high rise outpost of America, and its luxury hotels housed gambling casinos run by the Mafia.

A guy named Gerardo Machado y Morales got into power  in 1925 and by 1931 he began to suspend constitutional guarantees.  The United States did not object.  I guess we had our own little problem called the Great Depression to keep us busy.  Besides, did we really care?  Anyway, Morales had done some good, but in the end, he was just another dictator...and as dictator's are apt to do...he decided to hold onto power instead of stepping down.  There were objections and uprisings, but they failed until Batista and his Sergeant's Revolt.  Now we're back at the beginning..

Since the revolt was a fait accompli, the United States approved.  Batista became Army Chief of Staff and effectively controlled the presidency.  The evil dictator had been dethroned.  But what's this?  In the years to come Batista conducted himself in much the same way.  People objected, but he violently suppressed  attempts to defeat his control.  Interesting isn't it how one problem is replaced by another.

Batista's chance to officially sit in the president's chair came in 1940.  Supported by a coalition of political parties which included the old Cuban Communist Party, he defeated his rival in the first presidential election under the new Cuban Constitution.

During his presidency, trade relations with the United States increased.  Batista was well liked by the United States, who had feared the previous president's socialistic reforms.  We saw Batista as a stabilizing force for American interests. Cuba furthered its favored status when it entered World War II on the side of the Allies in December 1941. 

But then, what do you know...Batista was peacefully defeated for re-election in 1945 by an old rival Grau.  Remarkable actually, considering his brutally violent tactics.

Batista took off for Daytona Beach, Florida and lived there until he ran for and won a seat in the Cuban Senate in 1948.  Four years later in 1952, he ran for president but when it became apparent that he wasn't going to win, he solved that problem by staging a coup.  Simple.  Batista once again held power as "provisional president" for the next two years.  Batista was quick to declare that although he claimed complete loyalty to Cuba's constitution of 1940, he felt the need to suspend its constitutional guarantees...including the right to strike. 

Just a year later, a small group of revolutionaries led by a young attorney from a rich  family named Fidel Castro, tried to oust Batista.  Here's a picture of Castro in high school:

The coup was easily crushed.  Many who led the revolt died, but Fidel Castro escaped death and was one of many who were jailed instead. 

Popular unrest and acts of civil disobedience increased.  Washington DC was getting nervous.  In order to calm them, Batista held an election in 1954.  The only problem was he was the only legal candidate.  Obviously, he won.  More civil unrest followed.

In 1955, Batista expectantly released Castro and the remaining survivors of the 1953 coup.  He was trying to calm down his critics.  It didn't.  Demonstrations became frequent and Batista, in turn, used more and more violence to deal with them.   People were getting beaten, imprisoned, and killed.  It was getting very ugly.  Instead of losing his grip, Batista suspended more constitutional guarantees and established tighter censorship of the media.  His military police brutally patrolled the streets for anyone who was even remotely suspected of insurrection.  Even the University of Havana was closed for its continued opposition to Batista.  The situation got worse and worse.  Confident in his ability to defeat any coup,  Batista refused to consider a proposal calling for elections.  Conditions were ripe for revolution.  Many tried, many failed.  But since some of the coups came from within the army, Batista was forced to break the backbone of the Cuban armed forces.  Top commanders were sentenced to prison and the military academies were closed.  This later contributed greatly to Castro's success.  You see, without officers, the army could not sustain a fight against him. 

Castro had fled to Mexico right after his release from prison...he rightly didn't trust that Batista wouldn't conveniently have him killed.  It was that he met Ernesto "Che" Guevara and there that he organized the 26th of July Movement with the goal of overthrowing Batista.  Sounds like a good idea, no?  They all returned to Cuba in 1956 and their armed conflict began.

Most of Castro's men were killed or taken prisoner even as they landed in Santiago.  Castro managed to escape to the mountains with a handful of comrades.  ded by urban and rural opposition, he then began a guerrilla campaign against the regime.  The rebel army grew more and more effective and the country was soon driven into chaos.  Ultimately, Batista was forced to flee the country.   In 1959 he held a nice little photo op at the airport and said so long.  He had arranged for his family and some close friends to get to the United States, but the rest of his supporters?  Sorry Charlie.

Castro took control.  He moved to consolidate his power by...surprise, surprise...brutally marginalizing other resistance groups and figures and imprisoning and executing opponents.  The names had changed but the story remained the same.  Like I said above, interesting isn't it how one problem is replaced by another.

And that's a long Friday Fact!

Friday Fact - Horns & Antlers

The terms "horns" and "antlers" are often used interchangeably, but in reality, they refer to quite different things. 

Antlers are a pair of bony, branched structures that protrude from the frontals of the skull of male animals.

Their growth cycle is regulated by  testosterone and the pituitary hormone.  Secretions from the pituitary initiate growth in April or May.  As they grow, the antlers are covered with skin and soft hair called velvet that's filled with blood vessels and nerves. As antlers near the end of their growing process, spongy bone in the outer edges is replaced by compact bone.  Then their centers fill with coarse, spongy, bone and marrow spaces.  Eventually, the velvet dies and is removed in part by the animals rubbing and thrashing their antlers against vegetation.  The antlers get stained during this action and this is what gives them the brown, polished, wooden look.  In winter, pituitary antler growth hormone stimulation decreases, and as a result, the antlers lose calcium and weaken at the point of connection between the head and the antler.  Eventually, the antlers are shed.  The males are then without antlers for a few months in late winter until the cycle begins again.

Horns, on the other hand, are not shed annually.  They occur in Bovidae males, and here's something I never knew...females often have horns too. 

Horns are also paired and also protrude from the frontals, but they are permanent . They're made up of a bony core and a keritanized sheath that vary in shape and size.  But unlike antlers, they are never branched. 

The growth of horns is completely different from that of antlers.  Neither the sheath nor the core are ever shed, and in many species, they never stop growing.  Horns begin as small bony growths under the skin, over the skull, in the subcutaneous tissue.  They are not attached to the skull.  Instead, they have their own centers of ossification and fuse secondarily to the skull bones. 

And that's a Friday Fact!



Much of the above information was gotten from Animal Diversity Web

Friday Fact - Beverage Can Pull Tabs

Remember when beverage cans were made of steel and tin instead of aluminum?  They had no pull tabs...you needed a can opener to punch two triangular holes in the lid: a bigger one to drink or pour out of and a smaller one to let in air.  I, for one, remember these well.  Eventually, aluminum replaced these, but the first aluminum cans were no different.  You still needed a can opener to get them open.

You needed one until 1963.  That was when the pull tab was invented.  You know, those little things you used to cut your foot on at the beach...the things you would collect and bring to a recycling plant for money...the things you'd make necklaces out of...

In 1963 its inventor,  Ermal Cleon Fraze, licensed his invention to Alcoa and the Pittsburgh Brewing Company. 

The first drink to be in a pull tab can was Iron City Beer made by the Pittsburgh Brewing Company and the first soft drinks to use them were R.C. Cola and Diet-Rite Cola, both made by the Royal Crown Cola Company in 1964. 

Beverage cans used the pull tabs until 1975.  That's when Daniel F. Cudzik of Reynolds Metals in Richmond, Virginia invented the "stay tab"...also called colon tabs...but I don't know why.  I do know why he invented them though:  partly to prevent the injuries caused by the removable tabs, but also in response to the public mood for stopping litter.

By the 1980s stay tabs almost completely replaced pull tabs in most parts of the world. But pull tabs are still common in some places like China and the Middle East.

And that's a Friday Fact!

 

Friday Fact - The Dust Bowl

Dust Bowl...that's the name given to areas of the U.S. prairie states that suffered ecological devastation in the 1930s. Though Tropical Fay has helped some, I've been wondering if we another one is possible.  Well, of course it would be possible.  I guess I mean I was wondering if having a drought in and of itself would recreate it. 

It seems that  the problem of the Dust Bowl actually began during World War I, when the high price of wheat and the needs of Allied troops encouraged farmers to grow more wheat by plowing and seeding areas in prairie states, such as Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, which were formerly used only for grazing.  To do this they plowed under the grass that normally kept the soil in place and trapped the moisture even during periods of drought.  Then after years of adequate yields, livestock were returned to graze these areas and their hooves pulverized the unprotected soil. 

In 1931 severe drought hit the midwestern and southern plains and the 'black blizzards" begin. Dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed land begins to blow. 

In 1932 The number of dust storms increases. Fourteen are reported that year; in 1933 the number of storms grows to 38.

In 1934 strong winds blew the soil into huge clouds called “dusters” or “black blizzards,” and in the succeeding years, from December to May, the dust storms recurred.   One storm was so severe that it caused 356 houses to be torn down.  On April 14, 1935, known as "Black Sunday", twenty of the worst "Black Blizzards" occurred throughout the Dust Bowl area, causing extensive damage and turning the day to night. Witnesses reported that they could not see five feet in front of them at certain points. The dust storms were so bad that often roosters thought that it was night instead of day and went to sleep during them.  At times the black clouds reached all the way to New York and Washington, D.C.  In fact, much of the soil ended up deposited in the Atlantic Ocean.

The timing couldn't have been worse...it began just as the economic impact of the Great Depression were intensifying.  More than 500,000 people were left homeless.  The uprooting, poverty, and human suffering caused during this period is notably portrayed in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

During President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first 100 days in 1933, governmental programs designed to restore the ecological balance of the nation were implemented.  The U.S. Government formed the Soil Erosion Service in 1933 (reorganized and renamed the Soil Conservation Service in 1935), which is now the Natural Resources Conservation Service.  Then in 1937 Roosevelt addresses the nation in his second inaugural address, stating, "I see one-third of the nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished . . . the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."   That same year, FDR's Shelterbelt Project begins. The project called for large-scale planting of trees across the Great Plains, stretching in a 100-mile wide zone from Canada to northern Texas, to protect the land from erosion. Native trees, such as red cedar and green ash, were planted along fence rows separating properties, and farmers were paid to plant and cultivate them. The project was estimated to cost 75 million dollars over a period of 12 years. When disputes arose over funding sources (the project was considered to be a long-term strategy, and therefore ineligible for emergency relief funds), FDR transferred the program to the WPA.  I wonder what Bush would have done...

The Dust Bowl lasted about a decade.  In the fall of 1939, rain finally comes. During the next few years, with the coming of World War II, the country is pulled out of the Depression and the plains once again become golden with wheat. 

And that's a Friday Fact!

Friday Fact - The Paper Clip

The paper clip: It’s just a thin piece of steel wire bent into a double-oval shape, but over the past century, no one has invented a better method of holding loose sheets of paper together.

For centuries, straight pins, string and other materials were used as fasteners, but they punctured or damaged the papers. While the paper clip seems like such an obvious solution, its success had to wait for the invention of steel wire, which was "elastic" enough to be stretched, bent and twisted.

The first paper clip was invented in 1867 by Samuel Fay.  The patent  was issued on April 23rd for a Ticket Fastener.  Fay specified in the description that in addition to attaching tickets to garments it could be used to hold papers together.  Fay's design along with the 50 other designs patented prior to 1899 are not even close to the modern design we know today.

A patent for the paper clip as we know it was issued November 9th 1899 to William D. Middlebrook of Waterbury, Connecticut.  Middlebrook invented not just the paper clip but he also invented a machine to produce the paper clip.

Cushman and Denison, a manufacturing company already in the paper clip and office supply business, purchased the Middlebrook patent in 1899.  That same year Cushman and Denison also trademarked the name "GEM" for their new paper clip.  The design was perfected further by rounding the sharp points of the wire so the wouldn't catch, scratch or tear the papers. 

By 1907, the Gem brand rose to prominence as the perfect paper clip that "will hold securely your letters, documents, or memoranda without perforation or mutilation until you wish to release them. "  Since then, literally zillions of paper clips have been sold.

Interesting trivia side bar:

The inventor who is named the most often as the inventor of the paper clip is a Norweigan named Johan Vaaler.  He first patented his paper clip design in Germany in 1899 because Norway had no patent law at the time.  He then received an American patent  in 1901.  Vaaler's American patent drawing shows several kinds of paper clips, from square to triangular to one that looks a lot like the elliptical ones in wide use today.  But the wire does not form the familiar loop within a loop. 

Despite Vaaler not doing anything with his invention, Norwegians have proudly embraced their countryman as the true inventor.  In fact, during the Nazi occupation of Noway in World War II, Norwegians made the paper clip a symbol of national unity.  Prohibited from wearing buttons imprinted with the Norwegian king's initials, they fastened paper clips to their lapels in a show of solidarity and opposition to the occupation.  Evidently it annoyed the Germans because wearing a paper clip was often reason enough for arrest.

The post-war years saw a wide-spread consolidation of the paper clip as a national symbol in Norway.  Authors of books and articles on the history of Norwegian technology eagerly seized it to make a thin story more substantial.  They chose to overlook the fact that Vaaler's clip was not the same as the fully developed Gem-type clip and in 1989 a giant paper clip, almost 7 meters high, was erected on the campus of a commercial college near Oslo in honour of Vaaler.  The irony is that this monument shows a Gem-type clip, not the style patented by Vaaler.

And that's a Friday Fact!

 

The facts in this post were taken from the website :ideafinder.com

Friday Fact - Frisbees

Frisbees are a common sight at 4th of July cookouts.  Here's their story:

A baker named William Russel Frisbie, of Warren, Connecticut and later, of Bridgeport, came up with a clever marketing idea back in the 1870s.  He put the family name in relief on the bottom of the tin pans used for his company's homemade pies.  That way, when people finished eating the pie, they'd get a reminder of who made it. 

It wasn't long before the empty pie pans captured the imagination of bored Yale students. They began sailing the empty pie tins through the air and catching them as a fun way to pass time.  Not surprisingly, they referred to the flying saucers as “Frisbies” and the game of tossing them was called “Frisbie-ing”. A new craze was born.

Fast forward to 1948.  A Los Angeles building inspector and flying saucer enthusiast named Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni came up with an idea to cash in on the growing popularity of UFOs.  They invented a metal disc that could fly through the air. It was called a Pluto Platter. and  they began to sell them for $1 through outlets like Woolworth and Disneyland.  Unfortunately, sales didn't pan out as they had hoped (pun intended).

They decided to share their invention with a company named Wham-O...the makers of other classics like the Hula-Hoop, the Super Ball, and the Water Wiggle...and that made all the difference.  Wham-O changed the disc's name to Flyin' Saucers" and, thanks to their marketing capabilities, the sales of the discs started to take off (yes, another shameless pun)...especially after they started making them out of lightweight plastic instead of tin.

Now, this was all unbeknownce to the students at Yale who were still sailing the empty pie pans through the air. When the president, Richard Knerr, of Wham-O Company saw them he distributed the plastic Flying Saucers to the students. They loved it.

Knerr...being the businessman that he was...decided to change the name of his disc to "Frisbie"...but spelled it "Frisbee" to avoid legal problems. It was a match made in heaven. The popularity of playing with Frisbees soared. Soon, casual games on campus lawns and beaches were a common sight and Frisbee-ing became a favorite pastime.  Why, even dogs got to loving it. 

But then, something even more remarkable happened. In the 1960s, Frisbee-ing transformed from a past time into a sport...or should I say sports. In 1964 it became a professional sport, complete with a professional model of the Frisbee.  Then in  1967,  Maplewood, New Jersey high school students invented Ultimate Frisbee, a sport that's a cross between football, soccer, and basketball.  The Frisbee used for it is larger and weighs slightly more than a regular Frisbee.  Ultimate Frisbee programs are now found in 42 countries. 

Ten years later another variation of Frisbeeing was born: disc golf.  Los Angeles, California was the first location to have a disc golf course., but now, the number of  courses is numbered at about 500 and it's turned into a big business...complete with tournaments and rankings.

And that's a Friday Fact!



Post Note
Mattel, Inc. purchased Wham-O in 1994 along with the rights to the Frisbee. But other companies are now also producing versions of Frisbees.

Friday Fact - Shakespeare Speak

Did you know that Shakespeare contributed more phrases to the English language than the Bible or any other work...and many more than any other individual? 

Here is a list of most of them as compiled by The Phrase Finder.  If you click on the link of a phrase it'll take you to a page explaining its origin.

A dish fit for the gods
A fool's paradise
A foregone conclusion
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse
A plague on both your houses
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
A sea change
A sorry sight
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio
All corners of the world
All one to me
All that glitters is not gold / All that glisters is not gold
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players
All's well that ends well
And thereby hangs a tale
As cold as any stone
As dead as a doornail
As good luck would have it
As merry as the day is long
As pure as the driven snow
At one fell swoop
Bag and baggage
Beware the ides of March
Brevity is the soul of wit
But, for my own part, it was Greek to me
Come the three corners of the world in arms
Come what come may
Comparisons are odorous
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war
Discretion is the better part of valour
Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble
Eaten out of house and home
Et tu, Brute
Even at the turning of the tide
Exceedingly well read
Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog
Fair play
Fancy free
Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man
For ever and a day
Frailty, thy name is woman
Foul play
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
Good men and true
Good riddance
Green eyed monster
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings
He will give the Devil his due
Heart's content
High time
His beard was as white as snow
Hoist by your own petard
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child
I bear a charmed life
I have not slept one wink
I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
If music be the food of love, play on
In a pickle
In my mind's eye, Horatio
In stitches
In the twinkling of an eye
Is this a dagger which I see before me?
It beggar'd all description
It is meat and drink to me
Lay it on with a trowel
Lie low
Like the Dickens
Love is blind
Make your hair stand on end
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water
Milk of human kindness
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows
More fool you
More honoured in the breach than in the observance
Much Ado about Nothing
Mum's the word
My salad days
Neither a borrower nor a lender be  (I actually thought Ben Franklin coined this one)
No more cakes and ale?
Now is the winter of our discontent
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo
Off with his head
Oh, that way madness lies
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
Out of the jaws of death
Pound of flesh
Primrose path
Rhyme nor reason
Salad days
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything
Screw your courage to the sticking place
Send him packing
Set your teeth on edge
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Short shrift
Shuffle off this mortal coil
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
Star crossed lovers
Stiffen the sinews
Stony hearted
Such stuff as dreams are made on
The course of true love never did run smooth
The crack of doom
The Devil incarnate
The game is afoot
The game is up
The quality of mercy is not strained
The Queen's English
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on
There's method in my madness
Thereby hangs a tale
This is the short and the long of it
This is very midsummer madness
This precious stone set in the silver sea, this sceptered isle
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it
Thus far into the bowels of the land
To be or not to be, that is the question
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub
Too much of a good thing
Truth will out
Under the greenwood tree
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown
Vanish into thin air
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
We have seen better days
Wear your heart on your sleeve
What a piece of work is man
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions
Where the bee sucks, there suck I
While you live, tell truth and shame the Devil!
Who wooed in haste, and means to wed at leisure
Wild goose chase
Woe is me

And that's a Friday Fact!