Monday, January 29, 2007

Useless Facts

Some useless facts I found on the Internet today.

READER ADVISORY: SOME OF THESE ARE DISGUSTING!

  • You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.
  • The average human eats 8 spiders in his or her lifetime while sleeping.
  • Each year, donkeys kill more people than car crashes do.
  • Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color.
  • In the USA, a pound of potato chips costs 200x more than a pound of potatoes.
  • A raisin dropped in a glass of champagne will bounce up and down continually.
  • You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching TV.
  • Cat’s urine glows under a black light.
  • Ohio is listed as the 17th state in the USA, but it is technically # 47. Congress didn’t get around to voting on its admission to the union until August 7, 1953.
  • The housefly hums in the middle octave in the key of F.
  • Grapes explode when heated in a microwave oven.
  • In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
  • A donkey will sink in quicksand, but a mule won’t.
  • There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
  • Dentists recommend that toothbrushes be kept at least 6 feet away from the toilet to avoid contact with airborne particles resulting from flushes.
  • Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
  • Turtles can breathe through their butts.
  • Your fingernails have the same ingredients as fly poop.

7 comments:

Christian said...

Very interesting...it is kind of ironic about Walt Disney being afraid of mice. His empire all started with a mouse.

Dave said...

More than who who would fund it is who would take the time to conduct the spider study? The latter could be the same people who spent $75,000 on a study to determine why children of their bikes (conclusion...they loose their balance)....Congress.

Joanne said...

Hey, that explains the bit of weight gain the past couple of years, I'm not sleeping to well and therefore watching more TV at night!......

Erik said...

So get rich and…

Produce birthday cards;
Produce spider protection mouth cloths;
Start a “Donkey-defence-training course school” (sell it as an ancient Eastern fight sport);
(There are already blue anti-mosquito-lamps so you won’t get rich by inventing and producing it);
Sell potato chips in packages of 1 pound, together with a diet-course booklet “for free”;
Let Oprah drink champagne in her show with the raisin in the glass: it will be a trend; then buy vineyards to produce raisins and champagne-grapes;
Buy a hotel chain and sell sleeping arrangements for dieting people;
Keep the cat’s urine characteristic secret and sell it to the army, after first having invented “black light” and built cat-farms.
Keep admission procedures for being a U.S. State out of Congress (the U.S.A. will get richer and so will you) – let Bill Gates sell the membership to countries in the world, and the world will get richer, and so will you;
Compose a “Concert for houseflies” and let it perform in a jar provided with a microphone, sponsored by the Bank of England, in Carnegie Hall;
Invent a grape-heater so that they don’t need to be heated in microwaves anymore
When advertising the vacancy “Speaker of the House” make clear that the jobholder isn’t allowed to speak. Send this advice to British Government, you will be rewarded because it will raise the job satisfaction of the speaker if he knows what is expected from him;
Start a business in a beach area where quicksand is a problem; rent mules and quicksand-shoes for donkeys;
Put numbers in the dimples and only need one ball at lotteries, which saves a lot; make this one ball expensive and sell it to lotteries;
Sell toothbrushes that are shaped similar as toiletbrushes (mini-toiletbrushes), in one package with a laser-distance measurer, so people are constantly reminded of the danger and can easily avoid it.
Walt Disney made already a lot of money out of his fear: see what fears you have and how to make money out of it;
Write a bestseller about this and other typical animal features (e.g. why the female praying mantis during mating starts consuming her lover at his head and how he keeps on mating after having lost his head – which is the origin of the saying “loosing ones head” after falling in love, etc.
Collect house-to-house fingernail dirt to make manure out of it, at first you have very little but after a while people don’t cut or brush their nails anymore so your stock an sales will grow, and so your profit will.

Barbara said...

LOL! I like all of Erik's ideas.

Erik said...

Evie and Barbara,
I have been worrying if my nonsense would be appreciated and not considered as an intrusion in your family privacy, so I am glad that Barbara appreciated it (I think her children will do so even more - if they are allowed to read it, my son of nine is allowed to read these things only when his mother isn't at home :-). I promise to post as little as possible of these things, but on my own blog I feel free (see poem/song by Van Oekel, see his video on YouTube, just go there and search "van oekel", click on the second video)- many people find this awful, but I like it.

Evie said...

Erik - As you've noted, many of our family members use their blogs to share family news and keep in touch with each other. Right now, we're spread across the USA, Canada and Korea. In the past we've been spread across Canada, the USA and the Caribbean. Some of our family members also have spent time in Europe and Africa. Blogging is a fun way to keep connected.

Having said that, I don't want you to get the idea that our blogs are for family members only. One of the wonderful things about blogging is the opportunity it provides for connecting with people around the world. Your visits and participation are welcome and greatly appreciated. Please feel free to drop by and leave your comments any time.