The truth is sometimes strange and at other times ridiculous. These factoids are a little of both. They’re good for making a few bucks at bar bets on trivia night.
The term ” soap opera” comes from the fact that shows used to work advertisements for soap powder into the plot lines.
A champagne cork flying out of a bottle can travel as fast as 100 miles per hour.
People who fear the number 666 suffer from hexakaosioihexekontahexaphobia.
On November 21, 1980, 83 million Americans tuned in to watch the finale of the Dallas cliffhanger “Who Shot J.R.?” A few weeks earlier, 85.1 million Americans voted in the Reagan-Carter presidential election.
During a 60-year life span, an average tree will produce nearly 2 tons of leaves to be raked.
Dancing the tango was considered a sin in Paris during the early 1900s.
Those roped off areas where boxing matches take place actually used to be round, hence the term “boxing ring”.
Pope John XXI (1276-01277) had been in office less than a year before the ceiling on a new wing of his palace collapsed on him while he slept. He died six days later.
Nearly 4% of American women claim that they never wear underwear.
The Pentagon goes through more than 600 rolls of toilet paper every day.
TOO WEIRD TO BELIEVE? . . . WELL, BELIVE IT ANYWAY
As I’ve stated many times in the past, I’ve always had a fascination with graveyards and cemeteries. With that thought in mind, here are a few of my favorite humorous epithets. It’s good to have a sense of humor even after death.
Over the years and after many mergers the Mainstream Media has become an arm of the corporations that seem to have their fingers into everything. It’s become painfully clear that many media types have become TV stars in their own right. You would think that those under public scrutiny would be more careful than most about the articles and headlines they post or print. I guess that folks who control what we see and read could at times be less than careful. To prove my point read these wonderfully lame and stupid headlines that made their way through writers and editors to amuse and annoy the rest of us.
Include Your Children When Baking Cookies
Drunks Get Nine Months in Violin Case
Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say
Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
War Dims Hope for Peace
New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
Smokers Are Productive, But Death Cuts Efficiency
Whatever Their Motives, Moms Who Kill Kids Still Shock Us
Lawyer Says Client Is Not That Guilty
This kind of carelessness is unbelievable. Lots of people are being paid lots of money to create these ridiculous headlines. Hopefully going forward the newspapers and websites will at least make some effort to stop the madness.
Did you know that the nationality of Warner Oland, the actor who appeared as Charlie Chan, was Swedish.
Humphrey Bogart’s urn contains his ashes and a small gold whistle. The whistle was a gift from Lauren Bacall engraved with “If you need anything, just whistle.”
Did you know that William Claude Dunkenfield was the real name of comedian W. C. Fields.
Singer Bob Dylan appeared as a character named Alias in the 1973 Sam Peckinpah film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Actress Joan Collins pose semi-nude in a 1983 issue of Playboy at the age of 50. The issue sold out.
Actor Hal Holbrook played the Watergate cover-up informant Deep Throat in the 1976 film All the Presidents Men.
Elizabeth Taylor published a book at the age of 14 in 1946. It was a story about her childhood pet chipmunk named Nibbles.
Arnold Schwarzenegger made his screen debut in a 1970 Italian TV film called Hercules in New York. His name in the credits was Arnold Strong.
The real first name for actor Chevy Chase is Cornelius.
In the 1968 Otto Preminger film Skidoo, Groucho Marx starred as God.
Under the Motion Picture Censorship Code in effect from 1934 to 1968, a kiss had to last more than 30 seconds to be judged “indecent”.
I realize that most people have no real use for statistics and suspect they can be manipulated easily by politicians and others to suit whatever point they’re trying to make. I believe that as well but nonetheless I’m about to supply you with a few statistics and facts you may never have heard before. Here they are.
The number of atoms in a pound of iron is nearly 5 trillion trillion: 4,891, 500, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000.
Manhattan Island from end to end is less than 1,000,000 inches long.
Three pairs of common English rabbits were let loose in Australia, in the middle of the 19th century. Within a decade, the six rabbits multiplied into millions, menacing the country’s agriculture.
Coffee is the world’s second largest item of international commerce. Petroleum is first.
The abacus was used in the West in medieval times, and then forgotten. Interest in the accounting tool was revived when the abacus was brought to France by Lieut. Jean Victor Poncelet, when he was freed by the Russians after the Napoleons fall.
Drilling an oil well 5 miles deep require drilling night and day, seven days a week, for as long as 500 days.
In terms of the resources he will use in his lifetime and the pollution he will cause. One citizen of the United States is the equivalent of about 80 citizens of India.
During the next minute, 100 people will die in 240 will be born. The world’s population increases by 140 people per minute.
There are 2,500,000 rivets in the Eiffel Tower.
There are 11.5 psychiatrists per 100,000 population in the United States. In the nation’s capital, however, there are 56.1 per 100,000.
There you have. More totally useless information for you to clog your brain with. The more I find the more I continue to find.
Today is my favorite kind of day. I spent yesterday shopping for ingredients and today making thirteen quarts of super-hot chunky black bean and roasted corn salsa. It’s a lot of work but worth every minute of labor. My better-half was born and raised in south Texas and insists salsa should be nice and smooth and hot. I prefer my salsa to be chunky and OMG hot so I jacked up the heat a little because good salsa should always make your head sweat. Enough about my salsa. Let’s talk about some scary food facts since I’m in the mood.
While the results of water contamination tests are made public, manufacturers of bottled water do not divulge their test results.
Almost 99% of imported food is never inspected by the FDA or the USDA, the two agencies responsible for protecting Americans from tainted products.
One in five office coffee mugs contains fecal bacteria and E. coli, which can cause diarrhea, food poisoning, and infections.
Vegetarians beware: many low-fat and nonfat yogurts and sweets contain gelatin, which is made from animal tendons, ligaments, and bones.
Even when grapes are harvested by hand, some insects wind up in the picker’s baskets. Workers simply don’t have time to inspect every grape individually as they work.
Long a staple of the American diet and US economy, corn is a high-carbohydrate, high-glycemic food that fattens up cattle and does the same to humans who consume it in excess.
Beef cattle evolved to survive on grass but are regularly fed corn, which has disastrous effects on their digestive systems, requiring a constant regimen of antibiotics to keep them healthy.
Peanut allergies afflict an estimated 4 million Americans and can be life-threatening. Almost half of annual emergency room visits and two thirds of deaths due to anaphylaxis are the result of peanut allergies.
Independent studies show that bell peppers, celery, kale, carrots, lettuce, and potatoes are the vegetables most likely to expose consumers to pesticides, despite being rinsed and peeled.
A diet high in processed meats like sausage, hot dogs, and luncheon meats increase the risk of pancreatic cancer. Chemical reactions that occur during the preparation of these meets yields carcinogens.
I’ve been a lover of history for most of my life, especially American history. That love motivates me to look for unusual or little-known historical facts. It seems the more I find the more there seem to be. Here’s a small collection for all of you history lovers out there.
The oldest seat of government in the United States can be found not in Massachusetts but in Santa Fe, New Mexico, whose governor’s palace was built in 1610, 10 years before the Mayflower landed in the New World.
The person who led the Indians in the battle of Little Big Horn was not Sitting Bull who stayed in the hills making medicine, but Crazy Horse.
There were ten 19th century American presidents who had been generals: Jackson, W.H. Harrison, Taylor, Pierce, A. Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, and B. Harrison.
The longest war fought by the United States was the 46-year campaign against the Apache nation, which ended in 1886 with Geronimo’s surrender in New Mexico.
Lizzie Borden’s verdict was not guilty.
Lizzie Borden
The Pentagon was built with about twice as many bathrooms as would have been expected for a building of its size to comply with Virginia’s then legal code; Virginia law at the time required racial segregation of public buildings.
President Andrew Jackson was called Old Hickory because of his walking stick.
Paul Revere did not shout, “The British are coming”; he shouted, “The regulars are out.” The regulars were British infantry soldiers.
Although many people think that all of the states ratified the Prohibition Amendment, two states (Rhode Island and Connecticut) rejected it.
President Lincoln’s first choice to lead the Union was not General Grant but Robert E. Lee who rejected the offer because of his loyalty to Virginia.
I think many people have at least one phobia they must deal with. I’m claustrophobic and have been my entire life. Crowded stores and closed in spaces will make me more than a little crazy. That includes flying around the country in an enclosed metal tube on any airline. One of the more common phobias is coulrophobia which is a fear of clowns. I don’t fear them, but they sure make me a little uncomfortable. Today’s post includes many facts about that phobia and clowns in general. Read on all you clown haters.
In a British survey of phobias, coulrophobia placed third, outranking common fears such as flying and heights.
Experts attribute coulrophobia to the heavy makeup and exaggerated features of clowns, which can frighten young children.
Others attribute coulrophobia to the prevalence of evil clowns in popular media, such as the child murdering Pennywise in Stephen King’s “It” and a clown doll that attacks a boy in Poltergeist.
One of the worst serial killers in US history, John Wayne Gacy, entertained kids dressed as a clown.
At one point some health activists wanted McDonald’s to drop Ronald McDonald as a mascot because he markets unhealthy food to children.
Paul Kelly, son of famous clown Emmett Kelly Junior, was arrested in 1978 for the murders of two of his homosexual lovers. Kelly admitted to the slayings but listed his clown alter ego Willy as an accomplice.
Famous celebrities who are known to fear clowns include Johnny Depp, Daniel Radcliffe, Billy Bob Thornton, and Sean Combs.
Many experts point to obscure facial features as the most frightening aspect of clowns and relate this to masked or disfigured movie killers like Michael Myers in Halloween, Jason in the Friday the 13th movies and Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street.
Coulrophobic Sean Combs has been known to include a “no clowns” clause in contracts even at the risk of being banned from his own shows.
Coulrophobia can be treated with exposure therapy, which presents patients with photos and dolls of clowns to help them slowly work through their fears.
There you have it folks. Fear of clowns is more common than you thought. My biggest fear is that I walk into a small and confining space and then find a clown in there . . . run for your effing life.
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