Interesting and/or funny, but useless, info thread.....

[mike55]

...slow day today....

I received one of those long chain emails that had some interesting facts that really serve no purpose. Below are just a few. Any others??????

1) The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.

2) The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law,which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

3) Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

4) Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.

5) An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

6) On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day.

7) Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.

[dhoward]

There are, on average, 259 raisins in a box of Raisin Bran and 388 in a box of Premium Raisin Bran.

Giraffe's tongues are 22 inches long and black with pink dots.

The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.

[masraum]

The coke thing, don't think that's right.
http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/green.asp

7up inventor albino? that seems unlikely as well
http://www.snopes.com/business/names/7up.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb

Origin of the phrase

The earliest citation comes from Sir William Hope’s The Compleat Fencing-Master, second edition, 1692, page 157: "What he doth, he doth by rule of thumb, and not by art."[1][2] The term is thought to originate with wood workers who used the length of their thumbs rather than rulers for measuring things, cementing its modern use as an imprecise yet reliable and convenient standard.[3]
Caricature condemning Buller: Judge Thumb - Patent Sticks for Family Correction - Warranted Lawful!

It is often claimed that the term originally referred to a law that limited the maximum thickness of a stick with which it was permissible for a man to beat his wife, but this has been discredited.[1][3] Although British common law before the reign of Charles II permitted a man to give his wife "moderate correction", no 'rule of thumb' (whether called by this name or not) has ever been the law in England.[4][5] Nonetheless, belief in the existence of such a law can be traced as far back as 1782, the year James Gillray published his satirical cartoon Judge Thumb.

I didn't look up any of the others. I also like to receive that sort of stuff, it's a shame that most of it is probably bunk.

[dhoward]

Party pooper.

[masraum]

Hahah, yeah, sometimes

[Schumi]

Tried to look up the one on blinking. I'm saying no in general to that one just because I think I would have noticed that women were blinking twice as much as men. Think about how obvious that would be. But man theres lots of BS info on the internet. One site claimed that you blink 15,000 times a day. Total BS. That's once every 5.7 seconds, and that would be if you were awake 24 hours. That's not right. Just sitting here I estimate that I blink about once every 30 seconds...

Out of all those 'facts' The only one I would consider possible would be #5.

[masraum]

#6 too. that wouldn't surprise me much. Especially depending upon the "where". US, maybe, Europe, maybe, globally, sure, why not.

[Heel n Toe]

- The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters
- A “face-off” in hockey was originally called a “puck-off”
- Snails breathe through their feet
- Nolan Ryan once threw a fastball so hard that it killed the catcher and the umpire
- If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, chances are it’s a duck. However, it could also be a platypus.
- The average American adult weighs 260 pounds
- Stay tuned to CBS Radio 880 for traffic and weather on the 8s.
- 7 out of 10 people believe positive thinking can extend a person’s life. The other 3 people are dead
- In 1958 at the height of its popularity, Wham-O produced 20 Hula Hoops a day
- Starting this fall, flu shots will be available in regular or spicy Cajun
- After taking Ambien, Stephen King wrote a 950-page book in his sleep
- Don Knotts died while taunting patrons in a biker bar
- The leading cause of head injuries in Australia is boomerangs.
- At the height of “Happy Days” mania, nearly half of all newborns in the United States were named Potsie
- Two original members of Three Dog Night died after eating tainted pet food
- Pat Sajak often tries to get a table in crowded restaurants by claiming to be Alex Trebek
- Actress Sigourney Weaver once survived a week in the wilderness eating only plants, insects, and turtles
- The downgrading of Pluto went so well, astronomers are now thinking of getting rid of Saturn
- Richard Simmons has had sex with more than a thousand women
- If the earth were put on a scale, scientists would be puzzled by the presence of that scale
- Feng Shui is bulS#!+

[Steve Viegas]

A giraffe toungue is approximately one inch long for every foot high he stands (generally born at 6' and grow to about 18'-20').

[Heel n Toe]

-The average North American will eat 35,000 cookies during his or her lifetime
-There are 239 ways to make change of a dollar
-A snail can sleep for three years
-Rhode Island is the only state without an active volcano
-The most frequently asked question of Americans traveling in foreign countries is, “Do you own an electric skillet?”
-Andy Rooney started his career by whining on vaudeville
-Because of an FDA technicality, school cafeterias are allowed to serve candy corn as a vegetable
-The Marlon Brando role in “The Godfather” was originally offered to Andy Griffith
-After years of research, baseball historians have concluded that no Major League team has ever had a first baseman named “Who.”
-Thousands of Americans choke to death on tree bark every year
-Thomas Edison’s most profitable patent was for wind-up chattering teeth
-The most downloaded song on I-Tunes is “Wildfire” by Michael Martin Murphey
-According to the Unites States Treasury, there are four 15-dollar bills in circulation
-Sweater vests came about in the 1920s during a severe sleeve shortage
-65% of car accidents occur within five miles of an Arby’s
-J. Edgar Hoover once wiretapped himself to find out if he was gay
-Until 1968, people dreamed in black and white
-The molecular composition of a rain slicker is nearly identical to that of Velveeta
-When making an arrest, the San Diego police have to read a suspect his rights, and the surf report
-Arnold Schwarzenegger was 23 years old before he could spell his last name
- Rain contains Vitamin B12
- Almonds are a member of the peach family
- The sun shrinks five feet every hour

[Heel n Toe]

- Dwight Eisenhower removed his own tonsils with a Swiss army knife
- After administering anesthesia, 65% of dentists admit to putting party hats on patients
- Neil Armstrong says the most thrilling experience of his life was the Log Flume at Six Flags
- Despite their bickering, friends believe that Donald Trump and Rosie will ultimately end up together
- Two of Gladys Knight’s Pips are now high-ranking Taliban officials
- In addition to his various Scientology works, L. Ron Hubbard also published an anthology of Polish jokes
- Dick Van Dyke and Dick Van Patten have agreed to be judges on a new reality show called, “America’s Next Top Dick Van”
- To advertise its quick-rising breadsticks, Pillsbury briefly made its doughboy anatomically correct
- Expect construction delays all weekend on northbound lanes of the Taconic State Parkway
- The Wright Brothers’ unsuccessful first airplane was pulled by horses
- Some biblical scholars believe that during the summer, Jesus turned water into Sangria
- Michelangelo took four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but the first three of those he was just scraping
- Is your exterminator poisoning vermin or Grandpa? John Stossel has some answers that may surprise you.
- Unlike the CIA and FBI, the makers of Cheese Nips and Cheez-Its constantly exchange information
- The most common street name in the United States is 24th Street
- The second most frequently spoken word in the English language is “geyser”
- Ronald Reagan is the only president to have lip-synched the oath of office
- In addition to radioactivity, new Geiger counters can detect cold cuts that have gone bad
- If you go to a family reunion looking to meet women, you might be a redneck
- Mike Wallace has suspended for two weeks by CBS in 1987 when he asked Margaret Thatcher to take off her top

[Heel n Toe]

- An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain
- The electric chair was invented by a dentist
- A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge; a dime has 118
- Warren Buffet made his billions betting on Jai Alai
- Winston Churchill’s British accent was fake
- The ice cream cone was originally designed to hold scoops of mashed potatoes
- When the first Crayola Crayons were introduced in 1903, the only colors were brown and dark brown
- In the first modern Olympics in 1896, the Gold Medal-winning high jump was two feet, eight inches
- In order to check for hidden items, airport screeners are allowed to try on passenger’s pants
- On the moon, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would only weigh 31 pounds.
- In late 2001, the kindly old man from the ‘Pepperidge Farm’ commercials was captured in Afghanistan and is now in Gitmo.
- Despite the old saying about prostitution, historians believe the world’s oldest profession is landscaper
- Former White House cleaning lady Mildred Herman is the only woman to have had sex with both John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton
- “Match Game” host Gene Rayburn’s headstone reads ‘Loving Father, Friend, and Blank.”
- Thirteen years after ‘Cheers’ went off the air, cast member John Ratzenberger continues to act out new episodes in his garage.
- “Canada” is an Iroquois word meaning ‘Place where Canadians live”
- Every four years, Cinco de Mayo falls on May 6th.
- 71% of paramedics admit to having shocked someone with a defibrillator for fun
- In addition to wooden shoes, the Netherlands is also famous for their wooden socks
- The most popular combination lock combination is Jame Farr’s birthday, 7-1-34
- When the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein was watching ‘The Rockford Files’
- While the sun is hot, it’s nowhere near as hot as people would have you believe

[Z-man]

Here's my contribution of useless facts:

* Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

* 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

* Q: What is the only food that doesn't spoil? A: Honey

* In English, stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

* In English, TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

* In English, the name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.

* It is impossible to lick your elbow.

* You cannot kill yourself by holding your breath (Except underwater, of course)

* Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

* No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

Some questions to ponder:
Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?

Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?

Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?

Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?

If you can't drink and drive, why do you need a driver's license to buy
liquor, and why do bars have parking lots?

When it rains, why don't sheep shrink?

If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the
doors?

If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a
height, what would happen?

If you're in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn
on the headlights?

Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM?

Why is there an expiration date on SOUR cream?

Shouldn't there be a shorter word for "monosyllabic"?

Why isn't "palindrome" spelled the same way backwards?

What is another word for "thesaurus"?

Why is the word "abbreviate" so long?

Why doesn't "onomatopoeia" sound like what it is?

Why isn't "phonetic" spelled the way it sounds?

Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Why is it when two planes almost hit each other it is called a "near miss"? Shouldn't it be called a "near hit"?

If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?

Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It's just stale bread to begin with.

If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?

Are people more violently opposed to fur rather than leather because it's much easier to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs?

-Z-man.

PS: Bet your coworker thought you were pretty strange when you were trying to lick your elbow!

[red-beard]

I dislocated my shoulder, but I did it!

owwwww