UNITED STATES ODDITIES
Did you know that there was once a ‘Democratic / Republican combined party? I didn’t either, but here are the facts.
Until 1796, there was a state in the U.S. known as ‘Franklin’, today, it is known as ‘Tennessee”.
It is against the law to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas
One in every four Americans has appeared on television.
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
There are more plastic pink flamingos in the U.S. than real ones.
The average American drinks around 600-700 soda pops a year, there is no soda in soda pop. Scientists are still trying to determine the beer consumption factor however.
Every second of everyday, Americans collectively eat 100 pounds of chocolate.
ANIMAL ANTICS
There wasn’t a single pony in the pony express of the old west, just horses.
Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they cannot find any food.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
Slugs have four noses, mucus is their propellant and lubricant for their gastropod like muscles.
Honeybees have microscopic hair on their eyes, which helps them to see the world in context with their cornea shape.
Cats can smell with their ears. The hairs in a cats ears have olfactory sensors in them. A cats whiskers are the same width as its body, and if a cat is trying to get away from something, they use their whiskers to determine if they can get into a small hole away from their pursuer.
A giraffe can clean its own ears with its 21 inch tongue.
Dogs and Cats consume over 11 billion dollars worth of food per year.
A ducks quack doesn’t produce an echo, and it is not known why.
It is estimated that millions of trees are accidentally planted by squirrels who bury nuts and forgot where they buried them, thus a new tree is born.
THAR’S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS!
A lump of gold the size of a match box can be flattened out to cover a space the size of a tennis court.
It is estimated that there is enough gold on this earth, that if it were smelted correctly, the earth could be covered completely in it three feet deep.
It is also estimated that over the centuries, enough gold dental fillings in people’s mouths have been buried with them, to equal over five Fort Knox’s holdings of gold bullion.
Until the nineteenth century, sold blocks of tea were used as currency instead of paper money, or gold in Siberia.
Gold was used to print circuit boards when the microprocessor revolution first started because of its malleability, and conductivity.
MORE MUSIC MAYHEM
The United States has more bagpipe bands than Scotland does.
In the past, certain reeds used in woodwind instruments, when a players saliva mixed with the them, produced a mild neurotoxin and caused the musician’s to become dizzy and disoriented. Plastic reeds are more common in use nowadays, but not always.
Playing the drums can actually reverse carpal-tunnel syndrome in some cases.
A French horn if unwound would become 18 feet long.
The instruments of band members in armies of the past, were manufactured to double as weapons, so the musician’s could either play their war songs, or defend themselves in a heated battle.
During the Civil war, ink was so scarce that composers would write their music onto paper using blackberry juice. This is an example from Oregon’s Aurora colony.
MORE FART LORE
If you were to fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas would be produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
A fart actually has shapes and sizes, and they are just as varied as snowflake shapes and sizes. Monster farts are not a myth.
When you fart, your stomach and intestinal muscles contract just as if you were lifting 100 pounds over your head.
Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before a spaceflight, because passing gas damages their spacesuits.
ODDS BODKINS
Peanuts are one of the ingredients used in modern day dynamite making.
Two thirds of the worlds eggplants are grown in New Jersey.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.
More than 50% of the worlds population have never made, or received a phone call, probably less than 50%, now that cell phones are out there.
The microwave was invented when a researcher accidentally walked by an exposed radar tube and a chocolate bar in his hand melted.
The Bible has been translated into the Klingon language from Star Trek.
If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will alternately rise to the top, and sink to the bottom of the glass.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
Armored knights of the past would raise the visors of their suits of armor to their king as they rode on past, this tradition is carried on today as the military salute.
Month’s that begin on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13th.
When you pick up the telephone and hear the buzz, it is in the key of ‘F’, and ninety percent of car horns are in the key of ‘F’. It has been determined that the key of ‘F’ is the biggest attention getter in the human range of hearing.
89% of water weight is made up of oxygen.
HALLOWEEN HIJINKS
Halloween, and related celebrations, bring in over 7 billion dollars worth of income to retailers worldwide.
300,000 tons of Halloween candy is sold every year.
The celebration of Halloween is an old Celtic tradition of giving treats to the demons and ghosts that show up at your door on that scary night, to keep them from doing mischief to you and your property. I wonder if it would work on all of those religious nuts that knock on your door and try to convert you to their religion.
Read all about the origin of the Jack O’ Lantern, and Stringy Jack.
THE END, sort of :
Each one of these assorted conglomerations of tidbits are from many different sources. Books, radio, television, word of mouth, alcoholics,and flat out liars. It is up to you, the reader to believe, or dismiss them as junk, or just enjoy. I make no claim as to their origin, authorship or validity, just passing them on for all to examine.
Stay Tuned for another group of prose with related tales of eccentricness .. Ha, I made up a new word, maybe.
Have Fun!
KIP
I was expecting to be bored... oddly, I wasn't. (Nice photo of KIPPAGE Versus Tree.)
ReplyDeleteThe first two facts I've known for decades.
Franklinia alatamaha (the Rare Franklinia, a Tea family bush and the only member of the Theaceae in the East US - pretty much) was named after the Franklinia region (what is now East Tennessee and North Georgia).
(Associated factoid: when the South voted on secession c. 1860, by district, all the upland counties - the whole Appalachian region pretty much - voted against it, and the lowland regions voted for it. If the state of Franklin had still existed, the South would have had a non-slavery or Union state right in the middle of it.
As it is, the whole Appalachian South was dragged into the Civil War. This is one of the least publicized acts of gerrymandering ever, and a great triumph of that technique.
West Virginia, being all highland, went to the North. In fact I think that's how it became a separate state... seceding from Secession. *yuk*)
A duck's quack doesn't produce an echo, because they never quack when next to a wall. :) They frequent anechoic environments... have you ever heard the echo of a Heron's squawk? same reason.
I saw several integrated circuit 'chips' c. 1975, that had gold-plated pins. They save that for Intel processor (CPU) chips nowadays.
...and I have a theory as to where the myth of the Hydra of the swamps of Lerna came from or what prompted it... but I'd have to explain that in full :] It's from the story of one of the Labors of Hercules... and no, that's not from a Steve Reeves movie. :P
(I don't think the Lernaean Hydra was ever portrayed in any Herc movie, BTW. Correct me if I'm wrong.)
So, UpSky, explain it in full to us.
ReplyDeleteThis is kip, can't figure out how to post with my google account, so I'm doing it on anonymous. UpSky, a duck's quack does not produce an echo even if it is against a wall, or reflective surface. Look it up on google, or try it yourself with a duck.
ReplyDeleteUpSky,Kip again, I meant, get a duck, and put it where an echo could be heard from some reflective surface, and wait for the duck to quack, you won't hear an echo. I saw this demonstrated at the Seattle science center in 1968.
ReplyDeleteOne of the best sites on the web to discover is snopes.com
ReplyDeleteYou can spend hours there combing through the many categories of urban legends discovering which are real, which are fake, and, if fake, where they originated from and how they were proved bogus.
The more you read the better you get at spotting an urban legend.
For the skinny on the ducks quack echo see:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/duckecho.asp
Thanks so, so much, for the info on ducks, guys. They're one of my favorite birds... in the wild.
ReplyDeleteI don't have access to any domestic ducks, KIP (they're kind of rare in the Washington D.C. area), so I can't try... anything (your explaining that phrase in full gave me a good tickly laugh, thanks!) with a duck. The wild ones I get along with fine, but they're never next to a real echoey wall when they're in a noisy mood.
Ever hear eight wild ducks all getting together for an enthusiastic quacking session? it's the original 'din that would sour milk' sort of racket.
As for the Lernaean Hydra - the monster that lurked in swamps and had nine serpent's heads on snake's necks, a body of no particular shape, and many feet... that has an odd resemblance to a family ground of young geese, alarmed by some fear, racing toward water again.
They bunch together and raise their heads on their long necks... so they look like a creature with one body and many heads on snaky necks - and many feet. (And their heads look in various directions, outward mostly, so they have very one-creature-keeping-watch-all-around look to them.)
Okay, thanks guys for all of your info. Like I say in the coda of the prose, I make no claim to any of these vignettes' validity, only repeating them for fun. Also to post something on this blog that Jazz so graciously put it up for us to post things on.
ReplyDeleteKIP
And, in the End
ReplyDeleteThe Facts you take
Are equal to the Factoids
You make...