its my favorite.

The most popular chocolate bar in the United Kingdom for the last 15 years has been Kit Kat.

ooo note to self

Heavier lemons produce more, and tastier, juice

fast

The fastest flying butterfly is the Monarch, which has been clocked with a speed as high as 17 miles per hour .

hmmm.

Over 80% of the brain is water ...gross.

kinda cool, still super afraid of them.

Wasps that feed on ferment occasionally get drunk and pass out

lame...lol

The first Olympic games only had one event - a foot race

oh my god how come they dont put the dots between the letters!!

The word "laser" stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission by radiation."

cute

The snow leopard protects itself from extreme cold when it sleeps by wrapping its 3-foot-long tail around its nose

i can dig blue....

According to studies, men prefer to have white bedrooms and women prefer to have blue bedrooms.

delicious none the less!

Pebbles cereal was actually named after the shape of the cereal and not the Pebbles Flintstone character

hmmmm.

Women who are romance novel readers are reported to make love 74% more often with their partners than women who do not read romance novels.

dont worry you get more!

The average lifespan of a human taste bud is ten days

reasonable traffic explanation.

In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.

so having a tin grill can fight cavities?

Stannous fluoride, which is the cavity fighter found in toothpaste is made from recycled tin

the older the more yummy.

A maple tree is usually tapped when the tree is at least 45 years old and has a diameter of 12 inches ...

i didnt even know there was a country names andorra...lol

The country of Andorra has a zero percent unemployment rate ....and just in case you wondered where it is, it  is a landlocked microstate in Southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France... :)

thats a man id vote for...

The 20th president of the United States, James Garfield, was able to write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other at the same time

awwww like the basset hound i wanna adopt!

The most popular name for a pet in the United States is Max

cute!

In a lifetime, the average house cat spends approximately 10,950 hours purring

creepy and kinda hot...

Celtic warriors sometimes fought their battles naked, their bodies dyed blue from head to toe .

that sounds more fun!

The Tibetan name for Mount Everest is Chomolungma

that seems like a lot...

A person uses approximately fifty-seven sheets of toilet paper each day

HAHAHAHA ...lame

In China, September 20 is "Love Your Teeth Day."

mind blown.

The original meaning of the word grocer was referring to a person who traded food in wholesale. These people would usually sell in large quantities, or by the "gross."

sexy men accesories.

More than $1 billion is spent each year on neck ties in the United States ...

i thought surfers were peaceful people

A surfer once sued another surfer for "stealing his wave." The case was thrown out because the court was unable to put a price on "pain and suffering" endured by the surfer watching someone else ride "his" wave ...

sounds like something that would make you itchy!

The oil that is found in poison ivy is called "urushiol."

oh god someone do it!

If all the gold sitting in the oceans and seas were mined, every person on this planet would get about 20 kilograms of gold each.

always be aware of your surrounding.

Some species of dolphin sleep with one eye open ...

eeep, way to get the juices flowing.

Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head.

awesome!

Frisbee got its name from William Russel Frisbee, who was a pie baker. He used to sell his pies in a thin tin pan, which had Frisbee written on it. When Walter Frederick Morrison thought of the idea of making saucer like disks to play catch, he visited the campus of Yale and noticed people there were using the pie pan to play catch so he therefore renamed his invention to Frisbee ..

note to self.

Lemon juice can aid in reducing the swelling caused by insect bites

oh no!

The blind cavefish is born with eyes, but they fall off as the fish grows .

and 98,000 get a divorce the next day.

Approximately 100,000 people get married in Las Vegas each year .

kinda gross, id rather be not shiny and smelly

The Romans used to clean themselves with olive oil since they did not have any soap. They would pour the oil on their bodies, and then use a strigil, which is type of blade, to scrape off any dirt along with the oil.

thats alot of dill

Dill seeds are so small that approximately 10,000 dill seeds would be required to make an ounce

it kinda looks like a pit.

Almonds are members of the peach family...

if it aint broke

Heinz first started making ketchup in 1876 and the recipe has remained the same ever since .

hahaha, for all you lonely people.

It is not possible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum, a part of the brain, warns the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself. Since your brain knows this, it ignores the resulting sensation

interesting

All dogs are the descendant of the wolf. These wolves lived in eastern Asia about 15,000 years ago

amazing!

In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.

scary

With winds of 50 miles per hour, The Statue of Liberty sways three inches and the torch sways five inches

oooo interesting

The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sportsgames (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after theMajorLeague All-Star Game.

what the, what are they feeding first class?

The average coach airline meal costs the airline $4.00. The average first class meal: $50.

yum!

Avocados have more protein than any other fruit.

thankful for plumbing.

Senegalese women spend an average of 17.5 hours a week just collecting water.

strange.

Unlike other four legged mammals, kangaroos cannot walk backwards

what the?

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite

bananas must have been pissed.

Pineapples were first called "anana", which is Caribbean for "excellent fruit."

hope to stay there on my first visit.

The largest hotel in the world is the MGM Grand, which has 5,034 rooms and is located in Las Vegas, Nevada

i want a postmarked letter from there!

The oldest working Post Office in the world is located in the village of Sanquer, located in the Scottish Lowlands. It has been operating since 1712

sooo sad

During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo

world wide yumminess!

Over $7 billion a year is spent on chocolates by consumers ...

like the rice crispies of liquid!

As an iceberg melts, it makes a fizzing sound because of the compressed air bubbles popping in the ice

yuck

The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C

wtf?

The book "Little Red Riding Hood" was banned in 1990 by two school districts in California. They did this because in the book there was a picture of a basket that had a bottle of wine in it ... IT WAS FOR GRANDMA! she needs booze too.....who was the stupid kid who ruined it for everyone else...i swear some people are strange.

snappy!

Police detectives have used snapping turtles to help them locate dead bodies ... turtles have a strong ability to smell decaying things......scary and useful!

death by bra

In November 1999, two women were killed by a lightning bolt. The underwire located in their bras acted as a electrical conductors, and when the lightning bolt hit the bra they left burn marks on their chest ...thats scary!!!

this seems unfair.

Princess Anne from the British royal family competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics...it was only riding a pony, pfft figures.

oh noes!

The majority of cats do not have any eyelashes ...

bumpy!

There are 122 pebbles per square inch on a Spalding basketball

freedom....

The only South East Asian country that has never been colonized by a Western Power is Thailand ...

goodness!

Macadamia nuts are not sold in their shells because it takes 300 pounds per square inch of pressure to break the shell ...

lame.....

Bugs Bunny was originally called "Happy Rabbit." ...clearly someone was having a very uncreative day...lol

raaaaaaandom

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had only one testicle...

:( ugh...

The average US worker toils for two hours and 47 minutes of each working day just to pay income tax. Indeed, the average American pays more in taxes than for food, clothing and shelter put together...

marketing at its best!

Coupons were introduced in 1894 when Asa Candler bought the Coca-Cola formula for $2,300 and gave people coupons that he had written out to receive a free glass of coke

such a yummy discovery!

Bananas were discovered by Alexander the Great in 327 B.C. when he conquered India..

awww

The first human heart transplant happened on December 3, 1967. Unfortunately the patient only lived for eighteen days, succumbing in the end to pneumonia

and im worried about 13...lol

In New York City there are 6,374.6 miles of streets

cute!

According to legend, tea originated in China when tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water ..

gross!

Male goats will pee on each other in order to attract mates

gross or efficient

Owls swallow their prey whole because they have no teeth. After approximately 12 hours they cough up the feathers, bones, and fur in a shape of a football pellet ....

stinky builders, but i bet they had delicious food

Egyptian pyramid builders used to eat a lot of garlic because they thought it would increase their strength...

lolol........duh.

The Kool Aid Man used to be known as "Pitcher Man" when he was first introduced in 1975

hehehehe

In the past 60 years, the groundhog has only predicted the weather correctly 28% of the time. The rushing back and forth from burrows is believed to indicate sexual activity, not shadow seeking

how awesome. muscial cows!

cows that listen to music, give more milk.......i wonder what they like to listen to? :)

interesting

A survey done by Clairol 10 years ago came up with 46% of men stating that it was okay to color their hair. Now 66% of men admit to coloring their hair ... little do they know that salt and pepper hair is kinda hot....

oh how sad......

One out of 200 women is colorblind.. who dresses you, youd need to just buy black and white essential pieces :(

omgggggg

The first recipe for a lasagna type dish was found to be from a British cookbook in the 14th century. Therefore, Italians were not the first ones to come up with the popular dish as believed ....

rip van winksnail...

A snail can sleep for 3 years...

how sad...

Approximately only 20% of Americans have a passport ... so sad. must travel MORE!

hehehehe, i like falmingos!

There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones ...

amazing!

Arthur Giblin was the inventor of the first "flushable" toilet..

i could be a great oneoeneoeneologist! however you say it!

A person who is a specialist in wine making is called an oenologist!

something innovative!

Post-It Notes, which are adhesive notes, were invented while looking for a way to improve the acrylate adhesive found in tapes

strange!..

The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements ... poor j's.

so many butterflies! :D

There are over 2,000 species of butterflies in the rainforests of South America...

i need more apples!

Researches have discovered that eating five or more apples a week is linked to better functioning of the lungs ... maybe it'll make me run faster!...lol

ooo fancy

A violin actually contains 70 separate pieces of wood ...

the first robot!

Early sewing machines were destroyed by mobs of workers who felt their jobs were threatened by automation.

i always wondered why magicians say this and what it meant

It's Hebrew. Abra  means "to create" and cadabra which means "the way I say" or "as I specify" So "abracadabra" would mean "make it occur as I have said."

a maverick!

The word "maverick" came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan, refused to brand his cattle. Eventually any unbranded calf became known as a Maverick ..

oh noes.

Dipsomania refers to an insatiable craving for alcoholic beverages ...

hmmm check those ears!

A chicken with red earlobes will produce brown eggs, and a chicken with white earlobes will produce white eggs..

:) buzzzz

In one trip, a honey bee visits about 75 flowers ...

hehehe

Another word for hiccups is "singultus."

thats so many!! :)

Walt Disney holds the record for the most Oscar nominations with sixty-four...

staircases.....

Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil ...

my least favorite berry, but interesting still

The name "cranberry" comes from German and Dutch settlers. The berry was intially called "crane berry." The reason it was called this was because when the flowers bloom, the petals of the flowers twist backwards and look very much like the head of a crane. Eventually the name was shortened down to be "cranberry."

even its tummy is lazy...

It takes a sloth up to six days to digest the food it eats ...

mmmm hamburger.

The largest hamburger cooked in the world weighed in at 6,040 pounds ...

squishy

The head of a jellyfish is called the "Bell."

aww and ive never read it :\

the first novel ever written completely on a typewriter was Tom Sawyer.

yums!

To make an espresso 42 coffee beans are needed ...

yums!

To make an espresso 42 coffee beans are needed ...

hmmm food for though during non curvy highways...

The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

silly french......love it!

Montreal is the second largest French speaking city after Paris.

thats alot of vitamins!

One-third pound stalk of broccoli contains more vitamin C than 204 apples .

thats a lot of concrete!

There is enough concrete in the Hoover Dam to pave a two lane highway from San Francisco to New York

oh gosh!

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the males head off .... he'll never know what its like...scary and sad..

a lil at a time

In a month, a fingernail grows an eighth of an inch...

this game makes me nervous!

The second best selling game of all time is Jenga. Jenga is a Swahili word, meaning "to build." and just in case you were wondering the first one is monopoly, of course!...

this makes me scared for my teeth :\

The citric acid found in lemon juice is said to be able to dissolve a pearl.

awww cute!

Lions cannot roar until they reach the age of two.

i dont know if this is awesome, or mean.

In the late 1800's, washing machines and butter churners were sometimes powered by dogs walking on treadmills.

hmm

The name for insect poop is frass...

sooo tempted to count them now!

On average, an ear of a corn has 16 rows and approximately 800 kernels

i love peeeps!

Back in 1953, it took 27 hours to make one Marshmallow Peep. Now it takes only six minutes

i cant imagine yogurt without it!

In 1946 Danon Yogurt were the first to add fruit to commercially produced yogurt in U.S ..

awww no wonder so many pups get names this.

Fido means faithful in Latin.

i woulda totally be on that team!

Tug of war was an Olympic event from 1900-1920.

hehehe fleshy bulbs.

The fleshy bulbs on each side of your nose are called the Alea (AY-lee) singular Ala (AY-luh)

i knew i loved bread for a reason.

According to Scandinavian traditions, if a boy and girl eat from the same loaf of bread, they are bound to fall in love...

and now you know.....

Sex acts like a natural antihistamine, in can clear up a stuffy nose...

i wonder if he could claim himself king..

Emilio Marco Palma was the first person born in Antarctica in 1978...

i might eat more than that :\....lol

An average American eats approximately 60 hot dogs per year

yet another reason to love AAA.

The American Automobile association was formed in 1905 for the sole purpose of warning motorists of police speed traps.

work it body work it...

Every hour one billion cells in the body must be replaced ...

oh no what if you had a saliva production problem!

Food can only be tasted if it is mixed with saliva...

now i feel guilty for not recycling. :\

Just by recycling one aluminum can, enough energy would be saved to have a TV run for three hours.

straight teeth are ALWAYS fashionable!

Braces were first invented by Pierre Fauchard in 1728. The braces were made by a flat strip of metal, which was connected to the teeth by thread.

sleepy heads

A snail can sleep for 3 years..

limelight.....

The word "limelight" that is used in theatre to refer to the performers on the stage originated because before electricity was available lime was burned in a lamp, which created a white light that was directed at the performers...

they must have a lot of love to give :)

Earthworms have 5 hearts.

thats huge!

The largest chicken egg ever laid weighed a pound and had a double yolk and shell...

dont be depressed, just eat a banana!!!

Bananas contain a natural chemical which can make a person happy. This same chemical is found in Prozac.

sadness.....or smarts?

James Buchanan was the only unmarried president of the United States... so sad. i wonder if that was also the time when the white house was messy and unfashinable...

not so secret anymore...

In 1865, the U.S. Secret Service was first established for the specific purpose to combat the counterfeiting of money...

donkey dream dashed.

More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes ... now i'll never ride one..

yet another reason to never have children...lol

The average four year-old child asks over four hundred questions a day...

and to this day i still havent tried it.

this had to be one of the most iconic commercials ever....

The name "Grey Poupon" used for mustard comes from two people: Maurice Grey and Auguste Poupon. Grey was the inventor of a machine that mass produced fine textured mustard, and Poupon was an already established maker of mustard. In 1886 the Grey-Poupon firm was formed

dumbo can put out fires!

The trunk of an elephant can hold up to two gallons of water .

no hangovers for bunnies.

A rabbit is not able to vomit ....

or hopefully more

An average person laughs about 15 times a day.

TINY SKY HAMBURGERS!

Scientists with high-speed cameras have discovered that rain drops are not tear shaped but rather look like hamburger buns.

a fair trade.

Half of a cup of figs will give you just as much calcium as half a cup of milk .

Annually a thousand people are killed by scorpions in Mexico ...
i only believe this because when i was there on vacation i saw one comin towards me and i couldnt move til my aunt squished it... scary.

a city i love so dearly... :)

In 1888, Hollywood was founded by Harvey and Daeida Wilcox, who named the city after their summer home in Chicago.

block those UV rays!

Early sunglasses served a special purpose and it wasn't to block the rays of the sun. For centuries, Chinese judges had routinely worn smoke-colored quartz lenses to conceal their eye expressions in court. It wasn't until the 20th century that modern-type sunglasses came to be. In 1929, Sam Foster, founder of the Foster Grant company sold the first pair of Foster Grant sunglasses on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ. By 1930...

delicious?

In the Middle Ages, peacocks and swans were sometimes served at Christmas dinners.. i hate reading stuff like that cause then i wanna try it to see if its delicious, but i'll never be able to... :(

i promise you all my sandals, even my cute strapy ones.

In the marriage ceremony of the Ancient Inca Indians of Peru, the couple was considered officially wed when they took off their sandals and handed them to each other ... adorable.

smart fact.

The word "umbrella" is derived from the Latin root word "umbra", which means shade or shadow.

strange.

Before 1928, yo-yos used to be called bandalores in the United States. The first YOYO introduced in the U.S. was marketed by pedro flores. a philipines immigrant who remembered the toy from his youth. ... awesome!

chocoholics paradise......

In Belgium, 172,000 tons of chocolate are produced in a year..

i thought i knew of all products ice cream related....but

Tartufo (tahr-too-foh) is an Italian ice-cream dessert. It is usually composed of two or more flavors of ice cream, often with either fruit syrup or frozen fruit — typically raspberry, strawberry or cherry — in the center. It is typically covered in a shell made of chocolate or cocoa, but cinnamon or nuts are also used.

i will find this magical tartufo and purchase it post haste!

to bean or not to bean....

peanuts are not nuts at all, in fact they are more closely related to the bean family... yum!

the system can already be after you in the womb.

A fetus develops fingerprints at eighteen weeks

slow poke

People generally read 25% slower from a computer screen compared to paper

uh oh, scary.

There are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year. havent had a big one in L.A. in a long time.

7 more years....

Once a human reaches the age of 35, he/she will start losing approximately 7,000 brain cells a day. The cells will never be replaced

:) just like the one around the corner from my apt.

In Britain, The Red Lion is the most common name for a pub.

awwwwwww. cute!

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes themlooks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

yum.

The rarest coffee in the world is Kopi Luwak, which is found in Indonesia. It costs about $300 a pound...and i bet it must be super delicious...my morning would be so amazing with this in my cup.

im on number 5.

On average, an American relocates 11 times in their life. I think i might be ahead of the game, ive relocated 5 times... :\ uh ohs, i better settle down..

rethink before you say in the blink of an eye..

A blink lasts approximately 0.3 seconds, mega fast!

ooo la la... thats a lot of walkin!

The total number of steps in the Eiffel Tower are 1665

spelling bee quiz. ready go!

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt"

it seems like a little....lol

The average person spends two weeks of their life kissing...heres to being more than average... :)

sweetness...

A one kilogram packet of sugar will have about 5 million grains of sugar.

ranunculous for me please...

In the Victorian era, red tulips were a declaration of love.... clearly they were on to something. im not to fond of roses...lol

better than bottle and paper...bottles and shoes

mind offically blown!...amazing.

sleepy time.

In their lifetime, house cats spend approximately 10,950 hours purring ...

how i feel often...lol

The phrase "Often a bridesmaid, but never a bride," actually originates from an advertisement for Listerine mouthwash from 1924 .... heheeh, even the little ad is super depressing. interestingly enough it was listerines best ad campaign launching mouthwash sales through the roof. just goes to show you, women can at times be super gullible and even more desperate... what? its true....lol

ha!

Kiwis are the only known bird to have nostrils located at the tip of their beak

super fast!

A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 600 m.p.h !

ive had dreams of swimming in a cranberry bog....

"The name "cranberry" comes from German and Dutch settlers. The berry was intially called "crane berry." The reason it was called this was because when the flowers bloom, the petals of the flowers twist backwards and look very much like the head of a crane. Eventually the name was shortened down to be "cranberry." " --greatfacts.com

now im scared to put it in my sugar cookies.....

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously

put your nose to it!

i would have thought their paws were unique...super cool!..Nose prints are used to identify dogs, much like humans use fingerprints.

so when i drink really its because i need nutrients.

Alcohol beverages have all 13 minerals necessary for human life.

behind every great man theres a greater woman.

In the 1920's, Q-Tips were invented by Leo Gerstenzang who got the idea after watching his wife clean their baby's ears with cotton stuck onto a toothpick.

so technically mrs gerstenzang invented them....just saying....lol

i'll never look at avocados the same way again...

"The word Avocado comes from a Nahuatl Indian (Aztec) word “ahuácatl” meaning testicle. It is thought that the reference is either due to the avocado’s shape or the fact that it was considered to possess aphrodisiac qualities by the Aztecs. In Spanish, “ahuácatl” became “aguacate” and eventually “avogato” and then “avocado”. In English, the fruit was first described as an “Avagato pear” because of its pear-like shape. Later it also became known as an “alligator pear” given the alligator-like appearance to the skin. Over time, the term Avocado became the common word used to describe the fruit in English." --todayifoundout.com

lolol, i know its so 5th grade to laugh, but i seriously never thought they looked like testicles until now. silly aztecs. my people are awesome!

amazing!

Bhutan issued a stamp in 1973 that looked like a record and actually would play the Bhutanese national anthem if placed on a record player ....
this is super bad ass.....love it! i want to see it and play it!

poetry, no rhymes though...

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

hmmmm but you could still write a super classy poem about something crazy with these words...

gross....

A human eyeball weighs an ounce.

thats alot less than i thought, but still makes it kinda gross....i know i know its your eyes, but still....

robots....

I like robots, at least the nice kind, like rosie from the jetsons and wall-e....but where did the actual robot name come from?

"The word robot was coined by artist Josef Čapek, the brother of famed Czechoslovakian author Karel Čapek. Karel  Čapek was, among other things, a science fiction author before there was something officially known as science fiction, in subject matter along the same vein as George Orwell. He introduced the word in a play called R.U.R.  The full title translating into English as Rossum’s Universal Robots, which debuted in January of 1921.
While writing this play, he struggled to come up with a word to name the robots, initially settling on ‘laboři’, from the Latin ‘labor’.  He discussed this with his brother, Josef, and Josef suggested ‘roboti’, which gave rise to the English ‘robot’.  ‘Roboti’ derives from the Old Church Slavanic ‘rabota’, meaning ‘servitude’, which in turn comes from ‘rabu’, meaning ‘slave’." --todayifoundout.com

easy as pie....yea if its your birthday and you live in russia

Instead of a birthday cake, many Russian children receive a birthday pie with a birthday greeting carved into the crust.
thats kind of awesome, for my birthday this year i want a pie with a lil quote on it!

staring contest fail.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men. hmmm at least our eyes are well hydrated!

theres one sittin in my fridge right now!

In 1915, John Van Wormer invented paper milk cartons after dropping a bottle of milk one morning. The bottle broke spilling the milk everywhere. That annoyance was enough for Van Wormer to come up with the idea…..talk about making your anger work for you, this is awesome. This guy was literally so pissed, that he came up with something so that it could never happen again. LOVE IT!...he pretty much revolutionized the milk industry. It took him about 10 years to come up with a patent for his cartons, but once he started making them, his factory produced about 20,000,000 cartons a day!

now you know, choose wisely.

Eating eight strawberries will provide you with more Vitamin C than an orange....

a tasty treat NOT named after a literary classic.

I needed chocolate today and bad, so since im trying very very hard to watch what i eat. yea i know lame, i set out to get one of the most satisfying candy bars with minimal calorie damage, cue the 3 musketeers...their clever maketing campaign got me to choose them and i was super satisfied.
so when i found out the original story about name of the bar i got really sad, how much more amazing would they have been if they kept all three flavors....awww they should make a nostalgia version!.

"The 3 Musketeers Bar was the third brand produced and manufactured by M&M/Mars, introduced in 1932. Originally, it had three pieces in one package, flavored chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, hence the name. Rising costs and wartime restrictions on sugar saw the phasing out of the vanilla and strawberry pieces to leave only the more popular chocolate. Costing five cents when it was introduced, it was marketed as one of the largest chocolate bars available, one that could be shared by friends." -- wikipedia

all or nothing...

The ammo belt on  B 17 was 9 yards long, so the expression go the whole 9 yards mean to use you whole ammo belt against the enemy. Cool J

proceed with caution....

mosquitos like me. this is a fact. come summer if im ever in a situation where i need to be outside for long periods of time, they will devour me. it sucks. in any case today i learned an interesting fact.
Only female mosquitoes bite humans. Male mosquitoes live on natural liquids from plants and other resources...those bitches.

feel free to insert several angry woman jokes here....

laughing cures my hiccups.

f all the wierd things your body can do, I think hiccups have to be the most annoying one. I hate them. so today i found out that there are types of hiccups and what could cause them. Now i know what to avoid.

"In medical terms, a hiccup can be called a hiccough, a synchronous diaphragmatic flutter, or singlutus. Hiccups are classified into three categories: normal, protracted or persistent, and intractable. Protracted are those hiccups that last over 48 hours, but not more than one month.  Intractable hiccups continue for more than one month. If hiccups occur for less than 48 hours, they are considered ‘normal’.

Precisely what causes this complex involuntary reflex action is still up for debate, though it is known that there are some common mediators that trigger the reflexes. Common causes are things like: eating excess amounts of food; eating spicy foods; sudden changes in stomach temperature, such as can happen when eating something hot and washing it down with an icy drink; consuming large amounts of alcohol; exhaustion; or malnutrition." - todayifoundout.com

quickness, and interesting

today i went to the natural history museum and learned that a platypus is the only mamal that lays eggs, crazy platapus!

ears!...

The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes bone which is located in the ear. crazy! i love completly random facts!

pop, pop, pop. yum!

I love popcorn, this is a fact, its one of my favorite snacks especially when it has weird flavors. In any case today i found out something awesome. My people made the first popcorn, no wonder it all makes sense...lol, i found out that popcorn, acording to super awesome archeologists, was first popped in mexico at least 80,000 years ago... pretty cool :)

books!

i need to get reading again, i used to average a book a week, now im lucky if i have tme to read one.... but today i found out that the First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer . Pretty cool.

cookin time.

“The Compleat Housewife, or Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion, written by Eliza Smith and originally published in London, England, in 1727, is considered the first cookbook ever to be published in the United States. The Compleat Housewife contained not only recipes, but also directions for painting rooms, removing mildew, and home remedies for treating ailments, such as smallpox”

Oh what i would give for a copy of this book. J

peanut butter jelly time.

The fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth is called Arachibutyrophobia ...
hehehe, i cant even say it.... perhaps its because of all the delicious peanut butter in my mouth. seriously this has to be one of the saddest fears ever.

this could cause a bit of confusion in the drag show...

"Women Don’t Have Adam’s Apples.

In fact, it’s actually not that terribly uncommon if you were to look close enough to most women’s throats, though “man sized” Adam’s Apples are somewhat rare in women. The “Adam’s Apple” is really just an enlarged larnyx which becomes big enough to be visible in your neck. For those of you who don’t know, the larnyx’s primary purpose is as a voice box. It also has an alternative purpose in aiding in the process of closing off the airways in your throat when you swallow. This is why it generally seems to disappear when you swallow, as it is being pulled upward to aid in this process. Around puberty, both men and women’s voice boxes get bigger. This in turn makes their voices deeper, with men’s larynges growing more than women’s and thus making for a deeper voice, typically."

crazy...

thank you todayifoundout.com

jewish!

last saturday we were discussing the difference between a yamaka and kippah. you know the little hat jewish men wear, gladys was saying it was the same thing and frankly i had never heard of the word kippah, but she works with a bunch of jewish kids so I believed her and she asked one of the students and he said they're the same thing. But yamaka is the Yiddish word and kippah is the Hebrew word. well i feel 10 times more enlightened, this also just made me realize i know zero jewish people...lame. I need to expand my friend horizons!..lol

thanks for the warmth lil hoodie

Its spring hmm, I didn’t realize it because as I’m running my daily route, its cold, like super cold, so I’m thankful for my lil purple hoodie, so I got curious, what’s up with hoodies, where did they come from how did they come about.

“The hooded sweatshirt was first produced in the United States starting in the 1930s. The modern clothing style was first produced by Champion in the 1930s and marketed to laborers working who endured freezing temperatures while working in upstate New York. The term hoodie entered popular usage in the 1990.
The hoodie took off in the 1970s, with several factors contributing to its success. Hip hop culture developed in New York City around this time, and the hoodie's element of instant anonymity, provided by the accessible hood, appealed to those with criminal intent. High fashion also contributed during this era, as Norma Kamali and other high-profile designers embraced and glamorized the new clothing. Most critical to the hoodie's popularity during this time was its iconic appearance in the blockbuster Rocky film.” -- wikipedia

dont pick elephants for your jumprope team.

oh elephants, I love them, so large and cuddly, sure it can trample you at a moments notice but who would be able to resist that big trunk while feeding it an apple, ummm no one, and what about dumbo, name one person who didnt cry when he went to visit his mom when she was all caged up... yea mega sobs. but did you know that elephants are the only mamal that cant jump? so sad. so if you ever need to play leap frog or jumprope, totally dont count on them...womp womp.

fiiiire starters!

work is tough right now and no one is very certain of where we'll be for the next year, so today as i was thinking of things as i ran i wondered why the term to get "fired" came along, my theory was that fire hurts and it hurts to get fired, so bam, common sense...but nope, i was wrong,

as it turns out, Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired." so unwanted folks got burned out, that kinda sucks and seems very inefficient, i would just build my house again! jokes on you fire starters, jokes on you....

a tale of two continents

Istanbul, Turkey is the only city in the world located on two continents... nw i have to travel there to stand exactly on the border and hop from one continent to the next!

ribs, not just for eating...

ever since i lost over 100 lbs, i can feel my ribs, haha i know this sounds wierd but i was so big i could not feel them on myself so now that i can i find it facinating that we have an internal structure thats so sturdy... we are magificent creatures..lol

so in any case today i found out that one out of every twenty people have an extra rib, called a cervical rib which is located close to the top of the rib cage or the neck so sometimes its called a neck rib.
crazy!

common sense, life changing!

potatoes, i love them, but i hate peeling them once boiled it takes fucking forever and i dont like peeling them before hand cause it doesnt taste the same, yes i know im picky. So today when i found this my life changed completely, and frankly yours will too... youre welcome.

icing cookies doesnt mean puttin' em in the freezer.

today falls under the category of trying something new. For someone that really likes to bake, i love taking short cuts, so whenever i have to ice cookies, i seriously just go and buy the one thats squeezable and ready to go, but today since i have an abundance of eggs and a lot of powdered sugar, i made my own royal icing and i must say i was very proud of myself, one egg white, some lemon juice and a bunch of sugar = amazing! i dont think i'll ever buy it ready made again! glad i took a chance and tried it! i got it just into piping consistancy and piped a cookie to check it, let it dry and i was amazed at how good it looked! very proud of myself!

the lil owl looked super smart in his lil glasses...

so i love tootsie pops, yea who wouldnt love something sweet with a chocolately center...i seriously remember the lil commercial with the owl that was like how many licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop. and i tried several times to count, but seriously, when youre a kid youre just happy someone had a lapse in judgement to give you candy in the first place so you devour it and fast....so today i found out that actualy scientific studies have been done in order to find out how many licks...and no, unlike the lil owl suggests, it doesnt just take 3.......

as a result of 4 studies provided by major universities in the U.S. the result was an average of 508 licks when licking both sides evenly and the Purdue student’s results of an average of 252 licks when concentrating on one side are remarkably consistent, so it would seem for an adult it takes around 250-ish licks to get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop if only licking from one side and about twice that when licking both sides evenly.

awesome!! :D so now you know, about 500!. thats a long as time, but totally worth it!

a blonde moment......

"the words “blond” and “blonde” are not wholly synonymous.  So what’s the difference between the words “blond” and “blonde”? The difference is simply in what gender the word is referring.  When referring to a woman with yellow hair, you should use the feminine spelling “blonde”.  When referring to a male with yellow hair, you should use the spelling “blond”. This then is one of the few cases of an adjective in English that uses distinct masculine and feminine forms." - todayifoundout.com

awesome...although i dont know to many blonde people in general... its cool to know theres words like this in english!

every girls bff at one time...

every girl i know who was a normal super girly, loved having barbies and yes, i was one of them, i had so many accessories  it was ridiculous, a pool a livingroom a bedroom and tons of clothes and shoes...so today i found out that barbie is in fact not the dolls real name butBarbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. awesome. it personifies my childhood bff...yea i was that lonely as a child...lol its oki! :)

i remember drinking at a super young age, well lets not even say.

today i learned that the united states has the highest drinking age of the world, along with two other countries, sri lanka and pakistan.... seriously i dont know why they dont just make it 18...everyone drinks at 18 anyway...or younger, just saying.

and just to counter balance the youngest drinking age is jamaica, armenia, and viet nam....cause they totally dont have any legal age, so toddlers with alcoholisim, youve found your home.

ikea and jesus.

i love coming home opening my mail box and seeing the most amazing lil catalog ever staring me in the face. IKEA. i love flipping through the pages and imagining myself in each and every room and wondering about what fabulous potential my apartment could have, if only i could afford it. So today when i found out that the only book in print with more copies than the bible is the ikea catalog, i could totally relate. i have 4 ikea catalogs, earmarked and circled, but 0 bibles in my home...lol

panda bears!!

Ive always wondered how animals that dont make noises communicate. like giraffes or turtles or pandas, but today i learned that Pandas don’t make a scary roaring sound like most bears. Instead they make friendly bleating and honking noises to communicate with other pandas kinda like goats do! facinating :)

just wanna hold hands.

Sea otters.

Today I learned that sea otters hold hands while sleeping so that they don’t float away from their lil pack. If that’s not the most adorable thing ever, then I don’t know what is. heres proof:

youre welcome...

Guilty by association.

pablo picasso and the mona lisa

I know we all have friends that have done odd or strange things. Jail time? Hmm not that I know of…well, okay maybe but today I found out that at some point when the Mona Lisa went missing from the Louvre in 1911 they totally arrested Pablo Picasso, yes THE Pablo Picasso because his friend Géry Piéret, accused him of doing it. His “friend” turns out was a renown arts and antiques thief, so the police automatically suspected him and Pablo because Pablo had purchased old Iberian head statues from him at some point. Anyhow, Turns out it wasn’t either of them but an employee of the museum. I’m guessing they weren’t a friend afterward, that’s just a guess…

stick em up!

Stickers

Today when I was going through some stickers and ribbons for my friends house warming party I started to wonder where the first sticker came from. Turns out there are a few theories of where the first modern day sticker came from.

“It has also been suggested that Sir Rowland Hill, in 1839, invented the modern sticker when he created and introduced an adhesive paper that became the first Postage Stamps.

Then there are those who believe that the sticker was invented in the 1880′s by European advertising gurus, who came up with the idea to help consumers identify (and ultimately purchase) products by use of colorful paper “labels.”  These colorful paper labels were stuck to various types of fruit and fruit packaging with a simple gum paste.  Apparently, there was massive competition in European orchards at this time in history.  These inventive stickers were used primarily on the sides of the fruit crates to help make their containers “stand out” from their competitors.”

So there you have it competitive fruit vendors or some guy that liked licking paper. Awesome!

blood what?

Today I found out what a blood chit is, yea a blood chit. It sounds crazy and scary and frankly I thought it was some kind of beef product….apparently it’s something that military personnel carry around with them in different languages so that just in case they get lost, they will be able to seek help from the people around them even though they don’t know the language. The blood chit usually has a message that promises the reader a reward if they feed and take the military person somewhere safe.

Pretty awesome and smart. The first letter that was like a blood chit was issued by George Washington to balloonist Jean Pierre Blanchard who was flying the states in a ballon and since no one knew where he would land, George Washington issued a reward to anyone who would help him on his letter.

and just in case you were wondering "Chit is a British English term for a small document, note or pass; it is an Anglo-Indian word dating from the late 18th century, derived from the Hindi citthi." -wikipedia

spicy spicy pepperoni!

Pizza, I have French bread, salami and cheese in my fridge so I’m totally gonna make a pizza, but today I learned something interesting, did you know you can’t get a pepperoni pizza in Italy? Yea, seriously keep on reading.

“The term pepperoni is a corruption of peperoni, the plural of peperone, the Italian word for pepper (the vegetable, not the spice). The first reference using pepperoni to refer to a sausage dates to 1919. Throughout continental Europe, peperone is a common word for various types of capsicum, including bell peppers and a small, spicy and often pickled pepper known as peperoncino or peperone piccante in Italy and peperoncini or banana peppers in the U.S. Unlike in Europe, the English word pepperoni is used as a singular uncountable noun.
To order a very similar food in Italy, one would request salamino piccante to get a spicy sausage made only of pork and beef. Usually the Italian name for a pepperoni pizza is pizza alla diavola (pizza devil-style, very similar in appearance to the pepperoni pizza).” – wikipedia

How funny, I’ve always wondered how awesome the pizza in Italy would be. Now if I ever go I’ll know how to order them!

at the pump.

I pump gas quite frequently; yea I love in California when gas costs an arm a leg and a little bit of scavenger hunting. You mean you saw gas at under 4 dollars, im on it, and you scour the city searching for this elusive pump, all the while ironically wasting more gas…in any case have you ever wondered why gas is “unleaded” and why would it ever have been leaded, isn’t it super dangerous, yea it is.

So in the early 20s some snazzy general motors scientist added Tetraethyl lead to their plain old gasoline and low it behold it was awesome, it solved all kinds of old timey car problems and pretty much just made everything run smoothly. So they figured hey why not mass produce it. So they did and workers started to drop like flies, seriously you guys its lead and super poisonous. So no one really cared until the summer of 1924 when over 45 employees became super duper sick and 5 people died. So in 1925 they held a summit and pretty much decided people dying wasn’t enough to have em stop producing it, kinda like the benefits for society outweighed a few deaths… sucks I know, but it wasn’t until 1974!, yea it took that long, for them to finally say, hey seriously you guys, no more lead, and It was completely phased out in 1995.

And there you have it, healthier happier earth friendlier gas. J

Common sence sometimes escapes me.

All sodas are referee to as soft drinks. Why? Well because they have no liquor and therefore cannot be called hard drinks like those with it.... When I read this simple fact I was in awe! Like of course! It makes sense.

if only there was an eraser for life mistakes...

Erasers

We all make mistakes, some of us more than others I know I should not have worn a dress that short, I know I should have had the 3^rd piece of chocolate cake and remember that guy from college, seriously what was I thinking and wait where was I going with this, oh yes erasers, no matter what kind of mistake you make, you always will have a use for a trusty eraser.

When I was younger and in elementary school I had a kerroppi eraser that I would use until I got down to the big googley eyes but I never wondered where they came from. Turns out that prior to the eraser people would use bread, yea white rolled up crust less bread to erase their errors. Once someone mistakenly picked up a small piece of rubber thinking it was a bread scrap and low and behold the eraser was born from a mistake, how ironic. This guy was Edward Nairne

In 1770, Edward Nairne, an English engineer, is credited with developing the first widely-marketed rubber eraser for an inventions competition. He reportedly sold natural rubber erasers for the high price of 3 shillings per half-inch cube. Incidentally, that was the first practical application of the substance in Europe, and rubbing out the pencil marks gave it its English name. which is why they’re called rubbers in other countries…insert several LOL’s here.

piggy banks!

Louise, posing stoically

Piggy banks

Oh coinstar, how many times have you saved me from unexpected money uh ohs?...well, more than I can keep track of now, but still you’re only half the battle, Louise my lil piggy bank does the rest of the work, she keeps my pennies and sometimes buttons safe and sound. But when and where did the first piggy bank come from?

“In Middle English, "pygg" referred to a type of clay used for making various household objects such as jars. People often saved money in kitchen pots and jars made of pygg, called "pygg jars". By the 18th century, the spelling of "pygg" had changed and the term "pygg jar" had evolved to "pig bank." Once the meaning had transferred from the substance to the shape, piggy banks began to be made from other substances, including glass, plaster, and plastic.”

The oldest piggy bank type thing dates from 2nd century B.C and was shaped like a little Greek temple. Those ancient Greeks were super crafty and I guess thrifty!

All and all Louise and I will continue to collect our spare change and turn it into lunch money during summers…lol…. I feed her and she feeds me. It’s a symbiotic relationship and it works!

short attention spans beware.

My attention span is short, at least when it comes to movies, I always admit that to myself, so when someone asked if I wanted to go see the re-release of titanic, I cringed, first of all, I thought it was a blah movie, secondly its long as fuck. There’s only so much cheesy Leonardo Di Caprio one can take in one sitting and this is definitely more than humanly possible. So then I wondered, what’s the longest movie ever made?

“The Cure for Insomnia, directed by John Henry Timmis IV, was officially the world's longest movie, according to Guinness World Records, as of its release in 1987. Running 5,220 minutes (87 hours, or 3 days and 15 hours) in length, the movie has no plot, instead consisting of artist L. D. Groban reading his 4,080-page poem "A Cure for Insomnia" over the course of three and a half days, spliced with occasional clips from heavy metal and pornographic videos.
It was first played in its entirety at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, from January 31 to February 3, 1987, in one continuous showing. It was never released to the public, but had it been made available on DVD, it would have been about 22 discs” – wikipedia

Of course some artsy dude would be responsible, but I’m curious, I wouldn’t mind seeing a chunk of it.

not only does it sound adorable, its useful!

Jiffy

I’ll be back in a jiffy is a common phrase I use frequently sure im not some 1930s 10 year old, and yea it sounds really juvenile but whatever I like the word, so today when I learned that a jiffy is an actual unity of time smarty mc smart smarts use, mind blown.

In physics a jiffy is the amount of time it takes light to hit a predetermined thing. So if I shined a flashlight onto my wall a jiffy is the amount of time it would take… awesome!

dream a little dream of me....

Today I learned that the percentage of people dreaming in black and white decreased significantly after the widespread use of the color TV. I find it super fascinating that before then people were dreaming in black and white…imagine, only very few times have I ever dreamt in black and white. And I woke up thinking how weird that was. Short and sweet but informative!

how can you think about animal crackers without singing the shirley temple song!

I was deciding what to have for breakfast this morning and staring at me from the top of my fridge was my lil bucket of chocolaty cat crackers. And it made me nostalgic for animal crackers in the little box with the string. So I wondered when those came around.

Turns out that in the early 19^th century they came around in barrels to the U.S. from England where they were very popular and then once in the states became popular here as well.

“Animal biscuit crackers were made and distributed under the National Biscuit Company banner. In 1902, animal crackers officially became known as "Barnum's Animals" and evoked the familiar circus theme of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Later in 1902, the now-familiar box was designed for the Christmas season with the innovative idea of attaching a string to hang from the Christmas tree. Up until that time, crackers were generally only sold in bulk (the proverbial "cracker barrel") or in large tins. These small cartons, which retailed for five cents at the time of their release, were a big hit and are still sold today.” -wikipedia

Also over the years there have been at least 45 different animals portrayed in the lil barnum box. The latest one added was a koala in 2002 to celebrate their 100 year anniversary!

i never even thought zip was an acronym.

Zip codes, you write them without even thinking about why you need it, i figured that indeed the real reason was to make mail faster to deliver hence calling it a zip code like for zippy, but in fact the Zip in zip codes stands for Zone improvement plan and they aren’t as old as you think. They started only 50 years ago to make mail a little easier to deliver and sort. In 1963 a large pr campaign used mr. zip a lil cartoon mail man to encourage everyone to use this new number. And it worked because by the late 80’s everyone was sending letters with Zip codes.

Also did you know that there are 42,000 zip codes in the us, and the white house has and empire state building j.w. Westcott a mail delivery boat have their own personal zip codes.

But while 130 countries also use this type of code for mail delivery, there are some countries that do not use them like, Peru, Botswana, and Trinidad and Tobago.

how the blind dream.

Blind dreams

Today I found out how the blind dream, I was always fascinated by this and it turns out its just what I expected. They dream in sound and reports extremely heightened senses during their dreams. Also it depends at what age they went blind that determines how their dreams are. If they went blind after the age of 5 or 7 they will usually dream like people who can see, but if they have been blind before they turned those ages, they tend to only have dreams with sound. Super fascinating!

tiny lights!

You know those little lights that appear in your eyes when you rub them to hard while tightly closed. Today I learned that are called phosphenes and they happen because you are stimulating the cells of the retina and it tricks your brain into thinking it’s seeing light. they are also caused by stong magnetic fields and certain kinds of medications. weird!

where saying you suck is an accomplishment.

Drinking straws.

Today as I sat across from my lovely boy at shakeys I played endlessly with my straw as he made me laugh with super inappropriate jokes, its okay that’s totally how we roll. But I started to think about straws and where they came from. Turns out they’re super old. The oldest straws have been found in ancient Sumerian villages which were made out of gold and probably used to drink beer since there would be a lot of sludgy stuff on the bottom of their glasses. They have also been found in old Argentinean and surrounding areas made of silver and used for drinking yerba mate tea.

The modern day straw was invented by Marvin C. Stone in 1888. While he was dinking a mint julep, he was using an old fashioned reed straw made from a reed plant, but he noticed that it gave the drink a weird flavor, instead he rolled a piece of paper on a pencil and drank it from that. Eventually he began to coat the papers with wax and that’s how the modern day straw was born

So from drunken Sumerians to drunken Americans, I’m glad liquor prompts ideas!.

sing your heart out.

Karoke means "empty orchestra" in Japanese.
i dont know what to make of this. but found it interesting none the less...
i also learned its relatively new with the first kareoke machine being invented in japan in the early 70s.

bees, likeable events, detestable insects.

When I was in 4^th grade I was in the school spelling bee, I was awesome, I studied so many word lists and my vocabulary sky rocketed, and to this day I am still so angry that I was disqualified for the word “seventeen” one of the stupid judges said I didn’t say the second e. wtf I had just spelled pedometer, you really think I wasn’t gonna know how to spell seventeen…yea, grudges, anyway why is a spelling bee called a spelling bee, here’s a quick excerpt from this site: spelling bees! which taught me why.

“While no one knows exactly where the word derives from, the “bee” in “spelling bee” simply means something to the effect of “gathering” or “get together”.  The earliest documented case of this word appearing with this meaning was in 1769, referring to a “spinning bee”, where people would gather to protest purchasing goods from Britain due to the high taxes on those items.

Other gatherings that were commonly labeled with “bee” were: apple bee, logging bee, quilting bee, barn bee, hanging bee, sewing bee, field bee, and corn husking bee, among others.  Basically, any sort of major competition or work gathering, with a specific task in mind, tended to get the “bee” label added on the end.  With many of these bees being tedious work events, it was also customary to serve refreshments and provide entertainment at the end of the task.

The first documented case of a spelling bee called such was in 1825.  However, it is likely that there were spelling bees before this date.  This was simply the first time someone seems to have written down in print that has survived to today “spelling bee”.”

Awesome!...ima have a cookie bee! Who wants to join me!

alright french, you win this snack item.

French fries.

Oh French fries I seriously always keep a bag of frozen fries in my freezer for those days when I come home from work angry and need a salty soothing snack. Yea that’s totally how I roll. Anyhoo who came up with frying up potatoes? A genius!...im sure, but was it seriously the French?

Turns out that potatoes were brought to Europe through Spanish explorer folk. They got em from Columbia and called them truffles. Oddly enough as a side note the word potato comes from the Haitian word batata which the Spanish turned into patata, which English speaking nations turned into potato…

Anyhoo they brought em and in the 17^th century the first recorded record of fries goes to Belgium. They were totally frying up a bunch of them during winter months when they couldn’t fish. In fact the French totally didn’t think potatoes were good enough to consume. They used them as hog feed cause they thought if you ate them you would get leprosy. (insert eye roll here..) but Antoine-Augustine Parmentier, some dude who was held captive during the seven years war was fed only potatoes while in captivity. So when he was freed he totally went on a mission to let the world know about the awesomeness that is potatoes. Eventually the French were like, yea these things are good, and little French fry carts started to pop up everywhere!

Its weird to know that there was a time in recent history that people where weary of food that we now count on as staples. And another random fact, Ben Franklin was one of the first Americans to have French fries. He was invited to a fancy dinner made specifically to tout the awesomeness that was the potato. When he came back he even hosted a white house dinner that included “potatoes fried in the french manner” on the menu!

wanna know more: french fries

bubble teas can kill you!

Cyanide in apples.

Oh no, today I feel like my drink/snack life has been shattered! Apples and boba contain cyanide. Yes. Deadly deadly cyanide. Well only if you eat a bunch of apple seeds and only if they don’t cook the boba properly, either way, scary and definitely good to know. “The seeds of apples, also known as “pips”, contain a sugar/cyanide compound called “amygdalin”, which turns into hydrogen cyanide when it is metabolized in your body. Hydrogen cyanide was one of the key ingredients to Zyklon B, the trade name of the pesticide used by the Nazis in their gas chambers.”… “And Tapioca is another plant that contains a cyanide precursor, namely linamarin.  If the roots aren’t processed correctly (drying, soaking, and baking them for a certain amount of time), they are extremely poisonous.”

So notes to self, totally spit out all the apple pips …heheh I like that the seeds are called pips and just avoid boba…. Or not. But its better to be safe than sorry!

want to know more: cyanide in apples

Oscars galore! Only in Hollywood!

Today I didn't learn something new, but rather did something I've always wanted to do thanks to the help of my wonderful boy. I got to set foot in the academy of arts and motion pictures headquarters in Beverly hills,you know the home of the oscars! Not only that but I got to watch a screening of a Goddard film, "breathless" which was awesome. But I got to watch it in the theater where Oscar movies are first screened to get nominated. It's a total L.A. Thing to do and I had such a great time :).... It's good to DO new things!

hair so perfect.

Hair Spray.

I’m not a huge fan of the john waters movie, or the remake. In any case, I’ve used the product. I loved it in middle school and the pictures prove it super still pulled back pony tails, how horrible. Now I don’t even buy it and can’t stand the smell. But who was the genius that made it first. Turns out it has been around since the 1920’s in small spray cans, but it wasn’t until after WWII that the aerosol can caught on. Developed in American laboratories for bug spray, soon beauty product developers realized it would be totally awesome for their hair product and the modern day hair was born.

So there you have it from bug spray innovations to keeping your hair safe from wind. Hurray!

first shopping carts now meters, oklahoma city is on a roll.

Parking meters

Today I had to park at a meter, oh bane of my existence as I so very rarely carry quarters. So in my head I thought who the fuck came up with this idea and was mad.

So today I learned about the ultimate douchebag that designed metered parking. Just another way to suck money from me, really im just mad cause I had no change. I seriously have no problem with the new card reader meters…haha

Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale designed the first working parking meter, the Black Maria, in 1935.The world's first installed parking meter was in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935. The city of Oklahoma paid these engineers to design them. I totally woulda been like “NO!”  but that’s just me. Also another curious fact is that since these worked so effectively it really didn’t have to change until the early 80s when they installed digital times rather than the little needle that pointed to the time. In the late 90s meters began taking credit cards. Thanks, I guess. Also another fun lil fact, In New York City the term meter maids was born because they only hired women to check out the meter times. It was until 1967 that they hired a male meter maid…hehehe

i hated riding in them, my chunky little legs would hurt .... :\

Shopping carts.

I very rarely use shopping carts now that I’m on my own, except when I go to target, oh target your plastic large carts are the best and I love you for it. So who was the smarty that realized the more you can carry the more you buy.

One of the first shopping carts was introduced on June 4, 1937, the invention of Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain in Oklahoma City. This in fact was exactly why he invented them forget making shopping easier he wanted people to buy more stuff. At first shopping carts where totally lame and no one wanted to use em. Guys thought they were super girly and ladies thought it was like a baby carriage and didn’t wanna deal with yet another thing to take care of while shopping. So Goldman decided to pay actors to push around his car in the store and get people to want to shop using it. Low and behold it worked. After this ploy people started to use them and they really caught on.

 The shopping cart really hasn’t changed much since its original version. European countries however use a different method to loan out their carts; they usually implement a coin mechanism that allows the user to get their coin back if they put their cart back which eliminates the theft and extra employees to round up the carts. I think that’s kinda smart, but it sucks if you show up at the market and have no change for the cart, lame. Recently target has won awards for using recycled materials to make their carts, pioneers in cart engineering.

not the best way to make money, an odd myth none the less.

Tooth fairy.

So I’ve been seeing a lot of post from parents on my facebook about their kids loosing teeth and calling on the tooth fairy. Oh tooth fairy, I once believed in you in my simple youth. My mom seriously would leave quarters and it wasn’t until I found all my baby teeth in a lil box when I was like 10 that I was like OMG!...yea I was pretty naive. Oh well... in retrospect a fairy that comes and visits when youre sleeping sounds pretty frightening now. creepy. no wonders tons of scary movies have been made with a tooth fairy as the scary ass protagonist. in any case where did this mysterious lil pixie come from?

In early Europe, it was a tradition to bury baby teeth that fell out. When a child's sixth tooth falls out, it is a custom for parents to slip a gift or money from the tooth fairy under the child's pillow, but to leave the tooth as a reward. Some parents also leave trails of glitter on the floor, representing fairy dust.
In a lot of Latin American countries, instead of a fairy there is a mouse, or ratoncito perez that comes and leaves a gift for the teeth. And even better in some parts of Ireland there is a fairy mouse, totally the best of both worlds. Most people believe that a mouse is used to represent bringing in new teeth because a mouse has permanent teeth for life and if he brings you your new teeth, chances are they are for life. Clearly he failed me because I’ve had 3 root canals... that’s what I get for believing in the tooth fairy and not a lil mouse.

The reward left varies by country, the family's economic status, amounts the child's peers report receiving and other factors. A 2011 study found that American children receive $2.60 per tooth on average. Those are some rich kids. I only got a 50 cent piece. I thought I was fancy!

nuggets of love for your belly.

Chicken nuggets

Chicken nuggets were the only thing I actually ate at school during lunch time. Seriously I would not eat at school probably until the 7^th or 8^th grade. It was always super gross to me except for the chicken nuggets and some turkey and rice thing. So the older I got the more my nugget fascination became obsession. Which fast food chain had the best ones and could I make my own fresh ones, and in a world that has slowly migrated to “chicken fingers” which are awesome as well, I at heart am still a nugget girl. So where did it come from?

“The chicken nugget was invented in the 1950s by Robert C. Baker, a food science professor at Cornell University, and published as unpatented academic work. Dr. Baker's innovations made it possible to form chicken nuggets in any shape using a meat slurry, (yea meat slurry doesn’t sound very appealing but I don’t care I love me some nuggets.) McDonald's recipe for Chicken McNuggets was created on commission from McDonald's by Tyson Foods in 1979 and the product was sold beginning in 1980.”

So there you have it a 50’s classic that took 30 years to become awesome. Great now I want some nuggets.

tea bags, ( okay feel free to insert dirty jokes here)

Tea bags

On this lovely rainy day, I was sitting having a lovely cup or jasmine fruit tea and wondered who was clever enough to stick tea into convenient little bags for me to make the perfect amount of deliciousness.

“The first tea bags were hand-sewn silk bags and tea bag patents date as early as 1903. First appearing commercially around 1904, tea bags were successfully marketed by the tea and coffee shop merchant Thomas Sullivan from New York, who shipped his tea bags around the world. The loose tea was intended to be removed from the bags by customers, but they found it easier to prepare tea with the tea enclosed in the bags. Modern tea bags are usually made of paper fiber. The heat-sealed paper fiber tea bag was invented by William Hermanson, one of the founders of Technical Papers Corporation of Boston.”

So free samples from a clever merchant changed the way we made tea. Awesome!

wanna know more: tea bag

Prancin' like a pony! Rockin that tail! :)

Hair ties, ponytail holders, scrunci, whatever you call it. Every girl knows what they are. I personally had a special srunci holder in my youngun' days. Yea, I really liked ponytails. So who came up with this ever so practical idea?

The hair tie was first invented by Mary Lasswell Smith in the mid 1920's. Mary was a clumsy woman who had very long hair. Her long hair constantly got in the way so she used a small, stretchy band to tie her hair back. Her trend caught on and became quite popular.

filling my world with color since 1984!

crayons

Crayons, I love them and I still color with them. I might be the only adult ever buying crayons for children.. oh well. So today I learned the origin of the word crayola. The word “Crayola” was originally thought up by Alice Binney. Binney, a one-time school teacher, combined the French word “craie”, meaning “chalk”, with “ola”, shortened from the French word “oléagineux”, meaning “oily”. 

Crayola crayons started being mass produced for children in 1903. Really crayons were around before but were only used to label crates in factories. Binney & Smith who produced these crayons sought a way to make them less toxic and sell them to children. Hurray for art!

for your feets!

Socks

You wear them so often you forget about them completely, I think its one of these things that you can technically go without. But then your shoes get all smelly and gross. In any case who was like I need to separate my bare foot from this outer shoe thing, my guess is someone who was really cold.

In the 8^th century BC ancient Greeks wore socks from matted animal hair for warmth.. By the 5^th century AD socks were called “puttees” and were worn by holy people to symbolize purity. By 1000 AD socks became a sign of wealth and nobility. Also did you know that when a sock has designs on the side its called a clock..

And that’s pretty much it.  In 1589 the knitting machine made making socks super fast and easy. The introduction of nylon in 1938 pretty much brings us t modern day socks, I mean its one of those that things that when you do it well you really don’t need to change it. Those Greeks were not messing around, and seriously how can you mess up a sock…so there you have it.

clever kids making my favorite snacks!

Im a little obsessed with making popsicles, I love all kinds, totally have popsicles in my freezer right now, so today I discovered the history of popsicles!

“In 1905, 11-year-old Frank Epperson left a mixture of powdered soda, water, and a stirring stick in a cup on his porch. It was a cold night, and Epperson awoke the next morning to find a frozen pop. He called it the "Epsicle."

It was a hit with his friends at school, and later with his own kids. They constantly called for "Pop's 'sicle." So in 1923, Epperson changed the name and applied for a patent. A couple of years later, Epperson sold the rights to the brand name Popsicle® to the Joe Lowe Company in New York.” – (via popsicle website)

So there you have it a forgetful kid sparked a wave of awesomeness in the United States!

things clearly named by men.

popcorn kernels.

this ones short but sweet, well actually not very sweet, more like really messed up, but funny none the less. did you know pop corn kernels that dont pop are called spinsters or old maids. Yes, insert mad blank stares at someones witty humor... hahaha, but i did laugh. oh sometimes things are better left unlearned!

i would name my gold fish carrot....

Gold fish.

While my Samuel passed away only after a day, hes still missed. I wonder how it would have been with him happily swimming in his lil container. In any case one must move on and ive been contemplating getting a gold fish. Ive always heard so many myths about them being really dumb and having a 3 second memory. Today I learned that’s totally false!.

Gold fish actually have a super awesome memory and can be trained unlike other fish, they respond to color and levers. Researchers actually discovered that a gold fish can remember stuff it learned a whole year ago if trained correctly with food. Anyone can be trained using food… J

balls......talkin 'bout sports balls.

Soccer balls

I really don’t like sports, yea I said it. I’ll go to a baseball game to cheer and eat ice cream and hot dogs and hang out, but technically I don’t follow it and if I ever did it was to seem super awesome to old boyfriends….lol, well not that that’s off my chest. I can move on to soccer balls, I did always wonder why there were two toned, like why so fancy soccer ball, you’re only gonna get kicked around anyway. So today’s fact is kinda random, but fun.

“Soccer balls were originally painted with the now classic black and white checkered look in order to make them more visible on black and white TV during the 1970 FIFA World Cup.  Naturally, people wanted to buy balls that looked like those that the professionals used on TV and thus everybody bought the black and white checkered soccer ball instead of the previous traditional solid color ball.”

and there you have it, tv makes sports history.

babies having babies, literally.

Youngest pregnant

It is common knowledge that I do not like babies, I know,im a horrible person. But today I found out that the youngest person to ever give birth was 5 years old!!! SERIOUSLY!

Her name was lina medina and she was born in Peru in 1933, she had a rare condition in which her sexual organs became fully mature by age 3 and so it was not entirely unreasonable that she become pregnant by age 5. Her mother took her to the doctor when she noticed her stomach was inflamed and it was then discovered that the 5 year old was pregnant when she was already 8 months along.

The child was raised as her brother and the identity of the father was never revealed.

Creepy!.

want to know more: youngest person to give birth.

why your face is gross, in the mornings....yes, just in the mornings :)

Eye crusties.

Eye crusties, we alllll get em, what the fuck is it, and why is it all up on you each morning.

Well it turns out that its called “gound”. “Gound is made up of a mixture of dust, blood cells, skin cells, etc. mixed with  mucus secreted by the conjunctiva, as well as an oily substance from the meibomian glands.

The meibomian glands are a type of sebaceous gland that line the rim of the eyelids with about fifty on the top and twenty five on the bottom of each eye.  They secrete an oily substance called meibum that performs a variety of functions including: helps seal your eyes in an air tight fashion when they are closed; prevents tears from spilling onto your cheeks; and helps keep tears that coat your eyes from evaporating.  It is this oily substance that is one of the primary components in gound, mixed with mucin from the conjunctiva and various foreign particles in your eye.”

When you’re awake this oily substance kinda evaporates as you blink which is why you don’t develop it during the day. Since you’re not blinking at night, obviously, it all kinda collects in the corners of your eye and dries up and bam, eye crusties.

want to know more: eye crusties