The Complete Idiot's Guide to...’s Comments (group member since May 25, 2012)

The Complete Idiot's Guide to...’s comments from the The Complete Idiot's Guides group.

Karyn Gerhard is a senior editor at Alpha Books. "Adventures of an Information Addict" is a blog that documents her explorations into of all the dusty corners of human culture that no one has bothered to clean in years.

Check out her latest post on commencement speeches: http://idiotsguides.com/static/blog/t...

Learning to trust your instincts may be the key to a successful career, healthy relationships, and overall happiness. In Lynn A. Robinson's Quick Guide, "Ten Steps to Boost Your Psychic Intuition," you can begin to hone the skills you need to make these positive changes. Read the guide on our website: http://idiotsguides.com/static/quickg...

Columnist, Vera White, just highlighted a Pecan Trout recipe from Lucy Beale's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Low-Carb Meals in her blog! She'll be featuring more of the book in her Saturday column. But, why wait?

You can take a sneak peek of the marvelous goodies in Lucy's book by trying out this healthy trout! Let us know what you think: http://dnews.com/blogs/food/article_2...

The song “Yesterday” by the Beatles holds the Guinness Record for being the most-covered song (recordings done by other artists) in the world. The most recent estimate is that there are approximately 4,000 recordings of the tune. But would it have been as popular if it went by what the Beatles originally called it—“Scrambled Eggs”?

It took Paul McCartney nearly a year to finish the lyrics for “Yesterday.” He even had a piano put on the set of the film Help, just so he could work on the song, which tried just about everyone’s patience. (George Harrison was quoted as saying, “Blimey, he’s always talking about that song. You’d think he was Beethoven or somebody!”)

Finally it was down to the title. While McCartney struggled to find just the right words, he and John Lennon came up with a placeholder: Scrambled Eggs. (The whole first line was “Scrambled eggs/oh my baby how I love your legs.”) John Lennon remembered it this way:

"The song was around for months and months before we finally completed it. Every time we got together to write songs for a recording session, this one would come up. We almost had it finished. Paul wrote nearly all of it, but we just couldn’t find the right title. We called it “Scrambled Eggs” and it became a joke between us. We made up our minds that only a one-word title would suit, we just couldn’t find the right one. Then one morning Paul woke up and the song and the title were both there, completed. I was sorry in a way, we’d had so many laughs about it."

McCartney wrote the final lyric in the back seat of a car on his way to a vacation house in Portugal.


For more interesting trivia, check out our website at http://www.idiotsguides.com/static/di...

Do you have a fantastic recipe, a great shortcut for a difficult job, or timeless advice that you’d like to share? Now you can become part of our community of experts by contributing your own articles with instructions, tips, and/or advice on any subject. Submitting an article couldn’t be easier.

Just follow this link to learn more on how to submit your work: http://www.idiotsguides.com/static/ht...

Here are some more tips to help you create the perfect seating chart for your wedding reception!

http://idiotsguides.com/static/quickg...

We're giving out goodies for Father's Day! Enter to win a $100 Gift Card to Home Depot and 5 Complete Idiot's Guides for Dad by joining us on Facebook (https://apps.odylfarm.com/idiotsguide...) . Become a fan and fill out the entry form! Giveaway ends on June 14th.

God Save the Queen! In celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, here's an interesting fact about her -- the second person in the UK's history to reign for sixty years: http://idiotsguides.com/static/didyou...

Facebook's new interface may take some getting use to, especially as you connect your GoodReads account to your Facebook profile. If you're interested in learning how to effectively set up your timeline and use it to its fullest, check out this quick guide: http://idiotsguides.com/static/quickg...

Forty miles north of Boston, in Salem, New Hampshire, is a place that has been baffling people for years. Named America’s Stonehenge, the site is a maze of man-made chambers, walls, and ceremonial spaces, marked with ancient Ogham, Phoenician and Iberian Punic scripts; it is believed to be 4,000 years old, which would make it the oldest man-made site in the United States. It also boasts a set of stones that have been found to be in a perfect formation of the astrological calendar, and can still be used to determine solar and lunar events during the year. Among the more unusual pieces at the site is a horizontal granite slab weighing nearly five tons with grooves cut into it; the piece has been called the Sacrificial Table, as it was originally believed that the grooves were for channeling blood from sacrifices made during ancient rites (though some historians now believe it was used by 18th-century farmers to leach lye from ashes). Investigators have also found high, pointed stones along the walls that seem to follow the alignment of the stones at England’s Stonehenge, though there is no cultural correlation between the two sites.

The origins and uses of the site are indeed still a mystery. Because of the astrological positions of the stones, some believe it was built by the Druids; William Goodwin, who purchased the land in 1937 (and who gave it the name Mystery Hill), was convinced that the site was a religious center used by Irish monks called the Culdees, who lived there long before Christopher Columbus showed up. Others claim that the site has Pre-Columbian origins. Still others believe it is simply the ruins of an old farm.

Despite years of investigation, there is no clear answer. Still, people come from around the world to see this popular tourist attraction, and to try to figure out the mystery of America’s Stonehenge.

For more interesting facts, visit our website:
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Looking for a new home? Perhaps you're interested in selling? The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/rea...) highlights the city of Verona, N.J. and our author Katie Severance. If you like what she has to say, then we recommend her book for further reading:

Vancouver Gadgets wrote a great piece about our social marketing titles: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Facebook Marketing, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Twitter Marketing and The Complete Idiot's Guide to LinkedIN.

The article gives an overview of the basics for marketing in all three networks as well as an understanding of what you can get out of the books. Check it out here: http://vancouvergadgets.ca/2012/05/ho...

Let us know what you think!

We're glad to hear that you're enjoying the book and that it's introduced you to a list of fun and diverse titles! Keep enjoying it :)

Trisha wrote: "I love it! It's a book full of a great mix of suggestions! I love that it is separated by genre and I just pick one book from each chapter.

I've read so many books that I never would have picked ..."

Hi Trisha, thanks for joining the discussion! How are you liking The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List?

Trisha wrote: "Hello!
I am in the midst of completing "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading list".
But, I've ready many of the complete idiot books! When trying something new, I love seeking them ou..."

Did you know that Thyroid Disease is more common that Diabetes? Learn more about Thyroid Disease awareness in this article from Shape Magazine (http://www.shape.com/celebrities/inte...) , which highlights Baywatch's Gena Lee Nolan' story and one of our esteemed authors, Dr. Alan Christianson.

On the evening of May 16, 1929, 270 members of the movie industry gathered in ballroom of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for a private dinner. They had each paid five dollars to attend the event, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. The dinner, a glitzy affair emceed by movie superstar (and then-President of AMPAS) Douglas Fairbanks, was held to honor the films made in 1927 and 1928.

It was the first Academy Awards ceremony.

This first Oscar ceremony barely resembles the lavish spectacles we know today. In fact, this first Oscar event wasn’t even broadcast on radio, and the entire ceremony took a grand total of only fifteen minutes. There also were no surprises about who was going to take home the Oscars—the winners had been notified by telegram three months earlier.

Some other interesting facts about the first Academy Awards:

Actors and actresses were nominated for more than one movie in a category. Janet Gaynor won the first Best Actress awards for three movies: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Street Angel, and Seventh Heaven. Emil Jannings won Best Actor awards for The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. This is the only time in the history of the awards that this happened.

This was also the only year that two movies won for Best Picture. Best Pictures were split into two awards, one for Unique and Artistic Production, and one for Outstanding Picture. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans won for the former; Wings won for the latter. After this year those two categories would be combined into Best Picture.

Louis B. Mayer, the head of M-G-M, created the awards not to honor people, but to get them to work harder. He said of the awards: “I found that the best way to handle [filmmakers] was to hang medals all over them … If I got them cups and awards they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Award was created.”


Find more interesting facts on our website:
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Dolphins have a strange way of resting—they sleep with one eye open. Dolphins are conscious breathers, meaning that they have to stay awake to breathe; if they went into an unconscious or total sleep state, they would drown. So not only do they sleep with one eye open, only half of their brain goes to sleep at any one time. It’s a strange sight to see—a dolphin will float to the surface of the water, flip on one side and and go to sleep, keeping the eye that is under water open. Then throughout their sleep they alternate sides, flipping over and opening the other eye. Not only does having an eye open and half their brain awake keep them from drowning, it also allows them to constantly watch out for predators.

Find more interesting facts on our website:
http://www.idiotsguides.com/static/di...

Sweden once had two Leaps Days in one year.

As we all know, Leap Year extends the calendar by one day in order to have it stay coordinated with the seasonal year. By 1582, by decree of Pope Gregory XIII, all Catholic countries had switched over to the Gregorian calendar, which uses February 29 to stretch out the Leap Year.

All countries, that is, except Sweden.

By 1700, the Swedish Empire (which included Finland at the time) had yet to start using the Gregorian calendar. That year they finally decided to jump on the bandwagon, but how were they going to catch up with the rest of the world, who had been using the calendar for nearly 130 years? Their decision was to omit leap days for the next 40 years as a way to synchronize with the rest of Gregorian world. They did skip over the leap day for 1700; but, when the Great Northern War began later that year, they got distracted and forgot to omit the Leap Days in 1704 and 1708. In order to avoid more mistakes, the Empire reinstated the Julian calendar in 1712. However, for the restoration to actually work, they had to add an extra day—the one they had skipped in 1700—making 1712 the only year in recorded history to have a February 30th.

It wasn’t until 1753 that the Swedish Empire finally changed back to the Gregorian calendar. They did so by removing 11 calendar days from the year.

Find more interesting facts on our website:
http://www.idiotsguides.com/static/di...

'Tis the season to be wed! If you're looking for some tips to help you finalize the big day, then you'll find them in The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Perfect Wedding Illustrated, 5thEdition!

You'll also find an introduction to Planning Your Wedding Reception on our website: http://idiotsguides.com/static/quickg...

What's summer without some grilling? As you finish prepping for Memorial Day, Don Mauer's book is a great way to get the most out of that awesome grill of yours. Check out this Quick Guide for Great Grilling Desserts (http://idiotsguides.com/static/quickg...) to get a taste of the delicious treats found in this book. Let us know what you think!