How to be a Successful Evil Overlord
by Peter Anspach
Being an Evil Overlord seems to be a good career choice. It pays well, there are all sorts of perks and you can set your own hours. However every Evil Overlord I've read about in books or seen in movies invariably gets overthrown and destroyed in the end. I've noticed that no matter whether they are barbarian lords, deranged wizards, mad scientists, or alien invaders, they always seem to make the same basic mistakes every single time. With that in mind, allow me to present...
The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear Plexiglas visors, not face concealing ones.
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell in my dungeon.
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragon of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies predicament before killing them.
7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought, I'll shoot him and then say "No."
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled, "Danger: Don Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will clearly not be labelled as such.
10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum - a small hotel room well outside my border will work just as well.
11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least several round of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
15. I will never employ any device with a digital count-down. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable. I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
16. I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."
17. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would prove a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.
20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
21. I will hire a fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legion of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman foot soldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.
24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strength and weaknesses. Even though this takes some fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
25. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible spot.
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive which is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bed chamber.
27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.
29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcements and/or romantic sub-plot for the hero or his side-kick.
32. I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.
33. I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
36. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
37. If my trusted lieutenant tell me my Legion of Terror is losing a battle, I will believe him.. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant.
38. If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
39. If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.
40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable super-weapon, I will use it early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
41. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all of those pesky time travel devices.
42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys that happens to follow him around.
43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.
44. I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.
45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him and say "And here is the price for failure." then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
46. If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.
47. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.
49. If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all of my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.
50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.
51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions of the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people oriented position.
52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.
54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
55. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legion of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.
56. My Legion of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owners manual.
58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: This also applies to passwords.
61. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?" I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
62. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of this nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
64. I will see a compentant psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be disadvantageous.
65. If I must have a computer system with publicly available terminals, the maps they display will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
66. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints and then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
68. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again.
69. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
70. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
71. If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.
72. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon, instead of using my unstoppable super weapon on them.
73. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.
74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.
75. I will instruct my Legion of Terror to attack the heroes en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
77. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutenant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.
78. I will not tell my Legion of Terror "And he must be taken alive-" the command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonable practical."
79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited edition commemorative coins.
80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
82. I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerously unbalanced structure.
83. If I'm eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.
84. I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 stones of power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more alone the lines of "Push the button/"
86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to do the task again.
89. After I capture the hero's super weapon, I will not disband legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.
90. I will not design my main control room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
92. If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead, I will say that his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)
93. If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and the underling who failed or betrayed me, I will die first.
94. When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
95. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cell mate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening the cell for a look.
96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
97. My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unraveled.
98. If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However, if circumstances have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each other' lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.
99. Any data files of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb.
100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free, unlimited internet access.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
HD-DVD Keys
Thought I should join in.
Old:09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
New:45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Old:09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
New:45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Pirate Laws
#1 A pirate does not ask for directions. He relies only on his gut feeling, a compass, or a treasure map.
#2 Parrots are the preferred pirate companion. Monkeys are an acceptable substitute, unless they fling their feces at people. Then they are an awesome substitute.
#3 When fishing, a pirate uses either a sword, a knife, or his bare hands. Use of a hook is only acceptable in the event the pirate is missing a hand.
#4 Pirates shall always wear boots, except in the case of a peg leg. Then one boot is acceptable. Flip-flops are right out.
#5 Pirates do not cry, except in the case of the loss of a shipload of rum.
#6 When describing the size of a treasure, a pirate is required to exaggerate by at least 130%. Flowers are not treasure under any circumstances, unless said flowers are made out of gold.
#7 A pirate shall never wear lipstick, nail polish, or capri pants. Actually, that kinda goes without saying.
#8 No pirate shall discuss his feelings, unless his feelings include gutting a man from stem to stern and spilling his entrails.
#9 A pirate should always remove his hat in the presence of a bartender.
#10 During a swordfight, swordfighting insults are required. In the event both participants are still alive at the end of the fight, the participant with the superior insults shall be declared the victor.
#11 No pirate shall ever wear a "fanny pack".
#12 All foods prepared by a pirate must include rum, grog, or beer. Boone's and other "Wench Punch" is prohibited.
#13 A pirate may never compliment another pirate on the softness of his hands.
#14 No pirate shall wear a bracelet or a necklace, unless it is the tooth or tusk of an animal he killed. If in the presence of cannibals, a necklace is acceptable camouflage, but only if said necklace is made of human toes.
#15 Pirate Law: Dousing oneself in beer is a perfectly acceptable replacement for a shower.
#16 No pirate shall drink Grog out of a glass. Grog is only to be consumed either straight from the barrel, or from a mug heavy enough to to kill a man.
#17 Three-cornered hats, headbands and bandanas are the only acceptable headwear for pirates. Fedoras, bowler derbies, baseball caps, mickey ears, top hats, sombreros, or anything with lace and flowers will be removed from the vessel-- head included. A grace period of one minute is allowed for hats looted from a tailory.
#18 A pirate shall never wrap presents. The only thing a pirate gives is a bludgerin'.
#19 Pirate Law: A pirate does not use the word "Fabulous". Ever.
#20 No pirate shall attend a movie with less than an Arrrr rating.
#21 Only a pirate is capable of killing another pirate. If you are not a pirate (let's say a ninja) and wish to challenge a pirate, they have a word for that. Corpse.
#22 Pirate Law: "ARRRRRRRRRRR..." is a perfectly acceptable answer to any question.
#23 A pirate does not "go shopping". Unless by "shopping", you mean "killing".
#24 Peglegs must be made of timber or some other suitable wood. Plastic, ceramic, porcelain, or metal peglegs are utterly unnacceptable, simply because it complicates the use of the phrase "shiver me timbers".
#25 Real pirates have chest hair. If you cannot grow chest hair, you may be a cabin boy.
#26 Under no circumstances is a comb-over an acceptable pirate hairdo.
#27 No pirate may ever change his shirt because it is "wrinkled". A pirate may only change his shirt if it is completely soaked in blood.
#28 When drinking, Pirates may sing. "Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest" is preferred. Kelly Clarkson songs are not allowed.
#29 No pirate shall ever drive a minivan, unless he drives the minivan into a tavern, for the purposes of looting barrels of rum from said tavern. Upon completion of this task, the minivan is to be burned. No exceptions.
#30 No matter how hard it is raining, two pirates may never share an umbrella. Pirates do not fear rain.
#31 If circumstances demand a career change, a move into real estate brokerage or tax collection shall be considered a lateral move and said individual may keep their pirate status.
#32 A pirate does not snuggle with an animal, unless he is trying to snap its neck. But I guess that wouldn't really be "snuggling".
#33 A pirate may never wear another man's clothing, unless he first kills that man.
#34 Two pirates must never share a bed or a hammock. It is perfectly acceptable for one pirate to sleep on the floor, or on a pile of treasure.
#35 Pirates do not wear eyeglasses or bifocals unless they are looking at a treasure map, and even then they are allowed only a monacle. Any comments about "Mr. Peanut" while wearing the monacle are prohibited.
#36 When setting out on a voyage, a pirate does not pack a suitcase. He is only to bring what he can carry under his arms, or what his wench can carry on her back.
#37 A pirate does not mow the lawn. Lawns are for landlubbers.
#38 Lifting or removing one's eyepatch is extremely impolite but is not considered an insult. It's just kinda gross. Likewise, one should never remove another pirate's eyepatch, except with a sword to the face.
#39 Pirates never use the words "fresh" or "feelings," and certainly not together (as in "I have that not-so-fresh feeling").
#40 A pirate must never visit a tanning salon. If he is not already tan enough from searching for treasure, he hasn't been searching hard enough.
#41 While creativity is encouraged during any barfight or battle at sea, pirates may only use the following types of sword; falchions, scimitars, rapiers, and particularly long knives. Katanas or any other Ninja sword are strictly forbidden, unless the Pirate rips off a Ninja's arm and hurls the arm, and attached Katana, as a projectile.
#42 No pirate shall ever sit on a toilet seat, for any reason.
#43 Kidnapping is an acceptable substitute for killing, but only if it is for the purpose of plank walking at a later time.
#44 When swimming, pirates do not dive. They cannonball.
#45 Cannoneers aboard a pirate vessel are not allowed to use hearing protection of any sort. No matter what the OSHA regulations say, if ye can't stand bleedin' from the ears, you have no business being a Pirate.
#46 A pirate will never wear a patch that is any other color than black; unless it's halloween. then they can wear a patch with an eyeball painted on the outside. Polka dots are not permitted under any circumstances.
#47 Female pirates are allowed some exception to rules concerning hygiene and garmentry, but must make up for it by using twice as much profanity.
#48 Hooks are the only acceptable hand substitute. However, they may not have secondary attachments such as screwdrivers, bottle openers, corkscrews, or nail files. These are Pirates we're talking about, not Inspector Gadget.
#49 A pirate's diet consists mainly of meat. If at sea, and meat is not available, shoe leather is an acceptable replacement.
#50 Pirate Law: You can't spell pirate, without "irate". There's a reason for that, so don't even try.
#51 No pirate will ever, ever raise his pinky when drinking any sort of beverage.
#52 Pirate Law: When choosing clothing, even if it looks dirty, or smells dirty, it is clean.
#53 A pirate may ride in a rowboat, if traveling to or from his ship. Use of a Kayak is only permitted if used for cannon target practice.
#54 When drinking rum, the only thing a pirate adds to the rum is more rum.
#55 The official Pirate religion is Pastafarianism.
#56 No pirate shall ever play wiffle ball.
#57 Under no circumstances does a pirate speak with a Ninja, unless he first decapitates that Ninja and uses his head like a sock puppet.
#58 When at the office, answering the telephone with "Arrrrrrr" is perfectly acceptable for pirates. Other acceptable choices are "Avast!", and "Ahoy Matey!"
#59 A Pirate does not read poetry, unless said poetry is scrawled on the wall of a bathroom.
#60 All women are to be referred to as wenches, with the exception of female Pirates, who can be referred to as "lass".
#61 Pirates do not clean up, except when gold falls out of a treasure chest.
#62 Spilling rum is not acceptable, except in the act of "pouring some out for dead mateys".
#63 A pirate may tell any tale of swashbuckling without being called on the details, as long as at least 51% of the story is true.
#64 A pirate may never shave below the neck. Shaving above the neck is allowed, but only if the pirate shaves his entire head. In the presence of cannibals, a mohawk is acceptable.
#65 No pirate may do the arm movements for "YMCA", or engage in country-western line-dancing.
#66 Pirates do not say "please" or "thank you". The phrase "Arrr, I'll probably kill you tomorrow" is an acceptable alternative for "Thank you".
#67 Should the ship's bow have a carving of a naked wench, mermaid, or something of the like, crew members should not touch it. Feeling up a wooden statue is unbecoming of a pirate.
#68 Pirates do not "IM". The only instant message allowed is a sword through the chest.
#69 Dental Hygiene for Pirates is not a priority. Should there be occasion, however, strong rum or salt water can be used as mouthwash. Anything "minty fresh" is strictly forbidden.
#70 Pirates never, ever obey laws. Period. Ironic, I realize.
#2 Parrots are the preferred pirate companion. Monkeys are an acceptable substitute, unless they fling their feces at people. Then they are an awesome substitute.
#3 When fishing, a pirate uses either a sword, a knife, or his bare hands. Use of a hook is only acceptable in the event the pirate is missing a hand.
#4 Pirates shall always wear boots, except in the case of a peg leg. Then one boot is acceptable. Flip-flops are right out.
#5 Pirates do not cry, except in the case of the loss of a shipload of rum.
#6 When describing the size of a treasure, a pirate is required to exaggerate by at least 130%. Flowers are not treasure under any circumstances, unless said flowers are made out of gold.
#7 A pirate shall never wear lipstick, nail polish, or capri pants. Actually, that kinda goes without saying.
#8 No pirate shall discuss his feelings, unless his feelings include gutting a man from stem to stern and spilling his entrails.
#9 A pirate should always remove his hat in the presence of a bartender.
#10 During a swordfight, swordfighting insults are required. In the event both participants are still alive at the end of the fight, the participant with the superior insults shall be declared the victor.
#11 No pirate shall ever wear a "fanny pack".
#12 All foods prepared by a pirate must include rum, grog, or beer. Boone's and other "Wench Punch" is prohibited.
#13 A pirate may never compliment another pirate on the softness of his hands.
#14 No pirate shall wear a bracelet or a necklace, unless it is the tooth or tusk of an animal he killed. If in the presence of cannibals, a necklace is acceptable camouflage, but only if said necklace is made of human toes.
#15 Pirate Law: Dousing oneself in beer is a perfectly acceptable replacement for a shower.
#16 No pirate shall drink Grog out of a glass. Grog is only to be consumed either straight from the barrel, or from a mug heavy enough to to kill a man.
#17 Three-cornered hats, headbands and bandanas are the only acceptable headwear for pirates. Fedoras, bowler derbies, baseball caps, mickey ears, top hats, sombreros, or anything with lace and flowers will be removed from the vessel-- head included. A grace period of one minute is allowed for hats looted from a tailory.
#18 A pirate shall never wrap presents. The only thing a pirate gives is a bludgerin'.
#19 Pirate Law: A pirate does not use the word "Fabulous". Ever.
#20 No pirate shall attend a movie with less than an Arrrr rating.
#21 Only a pirate is capable of killing another pirate. If you are not a pirate (let's say a ninja) and wish to challenge a pirate, they have a word for that. Corpse.
#22 Pirate Law: "ARRRRRRRRRRR..." is a perfectly acceptable answer to any question.
#23 A pirate does not "go shopping". Unless by "shopping", you mean "killing".
#24 Peglegs must be made of timber or some other suitable wood. Plastic, ceramic, porcelain, or metal peglegs are utterly unnacceptable, simply because it complicates the use of the phrase "shiver me timbers".
#25 Real pirates have chest hair. If you cannot grow chest hair, you may be a cabin boy.
#26 Under no circumstances is a comb-over an acceptable pirate hairdo.
#27 No pirate may ever change his shirt because it is "wrinkled". A pirate may only change his shirt if it is completely soaked in blood.
#28 When drinking, Pirates may sing. "Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest" is preferred. Kelly Clarkson songs are not allowed.
#29 No pirate shall ever drive a minivan, unless he drives the minivan into a tavern, for the purposes of looting barrels of rum from said tavern. Upon completion of this task, the minivan is to be burned. No exceptions.
#30 No matter how hard it is raining, two pirates may never share an umbrella. Pirates do not fear rain.
#31 If circumstances demand a career change, a move into real estate brokerage or tax collection shall be considered a lateral move and said individual may keep their pirate status.
#32 A pirate does not snuggle with an animal, unless he is trying to snap its neck. But I guess that wouldn't really be "snuggling".
#33 A pirate may never wear another man's clothing, unless he first kills that man.
#34 Two pirates must never share a bed or a hammock. It is perfectly acceptable for one pirate to sleep on the floor, or on a pile of treasure.
#35 Pirates do not wear eyeglasses or bifocals unless they are looking at a treasure map, and even then they are allowed only a monacle. Any comments about "Mr. Peanut" while wearing the monacle are prohibited.
#36 When setting out on a voyage, a pirate does not pack a suitcase. He is only to bring what he can carry under his arms, or what his wench can carry on her back.
#37 A pirate does not mow the lawn. Lawns are for landlubbers.
#38 Lifting or removing one's eyepatch is extremely impolite but is not considered an insult. It's just kinda gross. Likewise, one should never remove another pirate's eyepatch, except with a sword to the face.
#39 Pirates never use the words "fresh" or "feelings," and certainly not together (as in "I have that not-so-fresh feeling").
#40 A pirate must never visit a tanning salon. If he is not already tan enough from searching for treasure, he hasn't been searching hard enough.
#41 While creativity is encouraged during any barfight or battle at sea, pirates may only use the following types of sword; falchions, scimitars, rapiers, and particularly long knives. Katanas or any other Ninja sword are strictly forbidden, unless the Pirate rips off a Ninja's arm and hurls the arm, and attached Katana, as a projectile.
#42 No pirate shall ever sit on a toilet seat, for any reason.
#43 Kidnapping is an acceptable substitute for killing, but only if it is for the purpose of plank walking at a later time.
#44 When swimming, pirates do not dive. They cannonball.
#45 Cannoneers aboard a pirate vessel are not allowed to use hearing protection of any sort. No matter what the OSHA regulations say, if ye can't stand bleedin' from the ears, you have no business being a Pirate.
#46 A pirate will never wear a patch that is any other color than black; unless it's halloween. then they can wear a patch with an eyeball painted on the outside. Polka dots are not permitted under any circumstances.
#47 Female pirates are allowed some exception to rules concerning hygiene and garmentry, but must make up for it by using twice as much profanity.
#48 Hooks are the only acceptable hand substitute. However, they may not have secondary attachments such as screwdrivers, bottle openers, corkscrews, or nail files. These are Pirates we're talking about, not Inspector Gadget.
#49 A pirate's diet consists mainly of meat. If at sea, and meat is not available, shoe leather is an acceptable replacement.
#50 Pirate Law: You can't spell pirate, without "irate". There's a reason for that, so don't even try.
#51 No pirate will ever, ever raise his pinky when drinking any sort of beverage.
#52 Pirate Law: When choosing clothing, even if it looks dirty, or smells dirty, it is clean.
#53 A pirate may ride in a rowboat, if traveling to or from his ship. Use of a Kayak is only permitted if used for cannon target practice.
#54 When drinking rum, the only thing a pirate adds to the rum is more rum.
#55 The official Pirate religion is Pastafarianism.
#56 No pirate shall ever play wiffle ball.
#57 Under no circumstances does a pirate speak with a Ninja, unless he first decapitates that Ninja and uses his head like a sock puppet.
#58 When at the office, answering the telephone with "Arrrrrrr" is perfectly acceptable for pirates. Other acceptable choices are "Avast!", and "Ahoy Matey!"
#59 A Pirate does not read poetry, unless said poetry is scrawled on the wall of a bathroom.
#60 All women are to be referred to as wenches, with the exception of female Pirates, who can be referred to as "lass".
#61 Pirates do not clean up, except when gold falls out of a treasure chest.
#62 Spilling rum is not acceptable, except in the act of "pouring some out for dead mateys".
#63 A pirate may tell any tale of swashbuckling without being called on the details, as long as at least 51% of the story is true.
#64 A pirate may never shave below the neck. Shaving above the neck is allowed, but only if the pirate shaves his entire head. In the presence of cannibals, a mohawk is acceptable.
#65 No pirate may do the arm movements for "YMCA", or engage in country-western line-dancing.
#66 Pirates do not say "please" or "thank you". The phrase "Arrr, I'll probably kill you tomorrow" is an acceptable alternative for "Thank you".
#67 Should the ship's bow have a carving of a naked wench, mermaid, or something of the like, crew members should not touch it. Feeling up a wooden statue is unbecoming of a pirate.
#68 Pirates do not "IM". The only instant message allowed is a sword through the chest.
#69 Dental Hygiene for Pirates is not a priority. Should there be occasion, however, strong rum or salt water can be used as mouthwash. Anything "minty fresh" is strictly forbidden.
#70 Pirates never, ever obey laws. Period. Ironic, I realize.
Shitload of Facts
In 21 states, Wal-Mart is the single largest employer.
One of Hewlett Packard's first ideas was an automatic urinal flusher.
As you age, your eye color gets lighter.
There are more cars in Southern California than there are cows in India.
The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows.
The province of Alberta, Canada is completely free of rats.
Illinois has the most personalized license plates of any state.
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.
There are 206 bones in the adult human body, but 300 in children (some of the bones fuse together as a child grows).
Fleas can jump 130 times higher than their own height. In human terms this is equal to a 6 foot person jumping 780 feet into the air.
Snakes are true carnivores as they eat nothing but other animals. They do not eat any type of plant material.
There are no venomous snakes in Maine.
The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.
The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times a year.
It takes approximately 12 hours for food to entirely digest.
Erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result, the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years.
The longest living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
North Dakota has never had an earthquake.
Alexander Graham Bell (who invented the telephone) also set a world water-speed record of over seventy miles an hour at the age of 72.
There is enough fuel in a full tank of a jumbo jet to drive an average car four times around the world.
Hawaii is moving toward Japan 4 inches every year.
Chimps are the only animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror.
The leg bones of a bat are so thin that no bat can walk.
There are more living organisms on the skin of a single human being than there are human beings on the surface of the earth.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot.
If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
Almonds are members of the peach family.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
One person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Animal Kingdom".
The dot that appears over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job (in case their pants split).
The Spanish word esposa means "wife." The plural, esposas, means "wives," but also "handcuffs."
If all Americans used one third less ice in their drinks the United States would become a net exporter instead of an importer of energy.
If the Nile River were stretched across the United States, it would run nearly from New York to Los Angeles.
San Francisco cable cars are the only National Monuments that move.
The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. Its concrete will not be fully cured for another 500 years.
Abraham Lincoln's dog, Fido, was assassinated too.
All of David Letterman's suits are custom made - there are no creases in his suit trousers.
Cranberry Jell-O is the only flavor that contains real fruit flavoring.
Fewer than half of the 16,200 major league baseball players have ever hit a home run.
In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first.
Richard Versalle, a tenor performing at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, suffered a heart attack and fell 10 feet from a ladder to the stage just after singing the line "You can only live so long."
If the entire population of earth was reduced to exactly 100 people, 51% would be female, 49% male; 50% of the world's currency would be held by 6 people, one person would be nearly dead, one nearly born.
In 1920, Babe Ruth out-homered every American League team.
Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores.
Toxic house plants poison more children than household chemicals.
The original name of Bank of America was Bank of Italy.
The ant, when intoxicated, will always fall over to its right side.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles has issued six driver's licenses to six different people named Jesus Christ.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
People in China and Japan die disproportionately on the 4th of each month because the words death and four sound alike, and they are represented by the same symbol.
Chicago is closer to Moscow than it is to Rio de Janeiro.
Dogs have two sets of teeth, just like humans. They first have 30 "puppy" teeth, then 42 adult teeth.
In 1950, President Harry Truman threw out the first ball twice at the opening day Washington DC baseball game; once right handed and once left handed.
A Swiss ski resort announced it would combat global warming by wrapping its mountain glaciers in aluminum foil to keep them from melting.
The chameleon has a tongue that is one and a half times the length of his body.
Beethoven dipped his head in cold water before he composed.
There once was a town named "6" in West Virginia.
Ten years ago, only 500 people in China could ski. This year, an estimated 5,000,000 Chinese will visit ski resorts.
In 1920, Babe Ruth broke the single season home run record, with 29. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 30 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 40 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 50 home runs.
A Nigerian woman was caught entering the UK with 104 kg of snails in her baggage.
Profanity is typically cut from in-flight movies to make them suitable for general audiences. Fox Searchlight Pictures has substituted "Ashcroft" for "A**hole" in the movie Sideways when dubbed for Aerolineas Argentinas flights.
Author Hunter S. Thompson, who committed suicide recently, wanted to be cremated and his ashes to be shot out of a cannon on his ranch.
Sports Illustrated magazine allows subscribers to opt out of receiving the famous swimsuit issue each year. Fewer than 1% choose this option.
There is a company that will (for $14,000) take your ashes, compress them into a synthetic diamond to be set in jewelry for a loved one.
The RIAA sued an 83 year old woman for downloading music illegally, even though a copy of her death certificate was sent to the RIAA a week before it filed the suit.
Two 1903 paintings recently sold at auction for $590,000 - the paintings were in the famous "Dogs Playing Poker" series.
Russian scientists have developed a new drug that prolongs drunkenness and enhances intoxication.
Romanian firefighters could not get their trucks close enough to a burning building, so they put out the fire by throwing snowballs at it.
A perfect SAT score is 1600 combined. Bill Gates scored 1590 on his SAT. Paul Allen, Bill's partner in Microsoft, scored a perfect 1600. Bill Cosby scored less than 500 combined.
Motorists traveling outside Salem, Oregon saw one of the "litter cleanup" signs crediting the American Nazi party. Marion County officials had no choice but to let that group into the adopt-a-road program. The $500 per sign was picked up by Oregon taxpayers. The Ku Klux Klan is also involved in the adopt-a-road program in the state of Arkansas.
Spam filters that catch the word "cialis" will not allow many work-related e-mails through because that word is embedded inside the word "specialist".
McDonald's restaurants will buy 54,000,000 pounds of fresh apples this year. Two years ago, McDonald's purchased 0 pounds of apples. This is attributed to the shift to more healthy menu options (the Apple Pie, which has been at McDonald's for years uses processed Apple Pie Filling).
The biggest dog on record was an Old English Mastiff that weighed 343 pounds. He was 8 feet, 3 inches from nose to tail.
Mailmen in Russia now carry revolvers after a recent decision by the government.
All of Queen Anne's 17 children died before she did.
There are over 87,000 Americans on waiting lists for organ transplants.
American made parts account for only 1% of the Chrysler Crossfire. 96% of the Ford F-150 Heritage Truck is American.
A Dutch court ruled that a bank robber could deduct the 2,000 Euros he paid for his pistol from the 6,600 Euros he has to return to the bank he robbed.
Only 6% of the autographs in circulation from members of the Beatles are estimated to be real.
The time spent deleting SPAM costs United States businesses $21.6 billion annually.
60.7 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2004 presidential election, the highest percentage in 36 years. However, more than 78 million did not vote. This means President Bush won re-election by receiving votes from less than 31% of all eligible voters in the United States.
John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, loved to skinny dip in the Potomac River.
La Paz, Bolivia has an average annual temperature below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. However, it has never recorded a zero-degree temperature. Same for Stanley, Falkland Islands and Punta Arenas, Chile.
41% of Chinese people eat at least once a week at a fast food restaurant. 35% of Americans do.
A Wisconsin forklift operator for a Miller beer distributor was fired when a picture was published in a newspaper showing him drinking a Bud Light.
G-rated family films earn more money than any other rating. Yet only 3% of Hollywood's output is G-rated.
Richard Hatch, winner of the first "Survivor" reality series, has been charged with tax evasion for failing to report his $1,000,000 prize.
The entire fleet of Unicoi County Tennessee's salt trucks was rendered out of commission in one accident. All three trucks were badly damaged when one of them began skidding down a road, causing a chain reaction accident. Officials blamed road conditions.
More people study English in China than speak it in the United States of America (300 million).
Fast food provider Hardee's has recently introduced the Monster Thickburger. It has 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat.
More than 2,500 left-handed people are killed each year from using products that are made for right-handed people.
For every person on earth, there are an estimated 200 million insects.
There are 2,000,000 millionaires in the United States.
1.5 million Americans are charged with drunk driving each year.
A Georgia company will mix your loved one's ashes with cement and drop it into the ocean to form an artificial reef.
The Washington Times newspaper is owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
The busiest shopping hour of the holiday season is between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm on Christmas Eve.
In 2002, women earned 742,000 bachelor's degrees. Men earned only 550,000 during the same year. The difference is growing so large that many colleges now practice (quietly) affirmative action for male applicants.
Most of the deck chairs on the Queen Mary 2 have had to be replaced because overweight Americans were breaking them.
Actor Bill Murray doesn't have a publicist or an agent.
The day after President George W. Bush was reelected, Canada's main immigration website had 115,000 visitors. Before Bush's re-election, this site averaged about 20,000 visitors each day.
Only 30% of stolen artwork worth more than $1,000,000 each is recovered.
The typical American child receives 70 new toys a year, most of them during the holiday season.
90% of Canada's 31,000,000 citizens live within 100 miles of the U.S. border.
Costco is the largest wine retailer in the United States. Annual wine sales are about $700 million.
The worst air polluter in the entire state of Washington is Mount St. Helens.
There are less than 100 surviving American World War I veterans.
Actor Bruce Willis has filed a lawsuit against the movie studio that produced his film "Tears of the Sun", alleging he was struck in the forehead by a fake bullet. Since 2002 (when the movie was in production), the lawsuit claims he has endured "extreme mental, physical, and emotional pain and suffering".
A ten year old mattress weighs double what it did when it was new, because of the -ahem- debris which is absorbed through the years. That debris includes dust mites (their droppings and their decaying bodies), mold, millions of dead skin cells, dandruff, animal and human hair, secretions, excretions, lint, pollen, dust, soil, sand and a lot of perspiration, of which the average person loses a quart per day. Good night!
About 20% of gift cards never are redeemed at the full value of the card.
John Kerry's hometown newspaper, the Lowell Sun, endorsed George W. Bush for president in 2004. Bush's hometown newspaper, the Lone Star Iconoclast, endorsed John Kerry for president in 2004.
Only 939 of the 1,400,000 high school seniors who took the SAT in 2004 got a perfect score of 1600. Two of them are twin brothers Dillon and Jesse Smith from Long Island, NY.
Billboard magazine has recently launched a top 20 chart of cell phone ringtones.
The US Army is handing out $2,500 to Fallujah residents whose property was destroyed by US planes and artillery.
George W. Bush, who presents himself as a man of faith, rarely goes to church. Yet he received votes from nearly two out of three voters who attend church at least once a week.
In 2015, it is estimated that half the federal budget will be spent on programs for the elderly.
A private elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia, accidentally served margaritas to its schoolchildren, thinking it was limeade.
The Chicago Cubs are suing former Hartford Courant newspaper carrier Mark Guthrie to get back $301,000 in pay that was intended to go to a Cubs pitcher with the same name. The Tribune Company owns both the Hartford Courant and the Chicago Cubs.
In February 2004, a Disney World employee was killed when he fell from a parade float and was trapped between two float sections. OSHA termed this a serious workplace violation, but Disney was fined only $6,300.
Even today, 90% of the continental United States is still open space or farmland.
The second Saturday in September is usually a popular time for weddings. Not in 2004, as most couples did not want their anniversaries on September 11.
Mel Gibson has personally earned almost $400,000,000 from his movie "The Passion of the Christ".
Austin High School in Texas has removed candy from its vending machines. Now some enterprising students are earning $200 per week dealing in black market candy.
In 2004, Virgin Atlantic Airlines introduced a double bed for first class passengers who fly together.
The world's largest book, "Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey" is in a Chicago public library. The book measures 5 feet tall by 7 feet wide when open. It weighs 133 pounds.
If the recent U.S. election was held in Canada, John Kerry would have beaten George Bush in a landslide - 64% to 19%.
Oprah Winfrey and Elvis Presley are distant cousins.
55% of Americans claim they would continue working even if they received a $10,000,000 lottery prize.
The company that manufactures the greatest number of women's dresses each year is Mattel. Barbie's got to wear something.
All radios in North Korea have been rigged so listeners can only receive a North Korean government station. The United States recently announced plans to smuggle $2,000,000 worth of small radios into the country so North Koreans can get a taste of (what their government calls) "rotten imperialist reactionary culture".
La Paz, Bolivia is the world's most fireproof city. At 12,000 feet about sea level, the amount of oxygen in the air barely supports a flame.
The estates of 22 dead celebrities earned over $5 million in 2004. These celebrities include Elvis Presley, Dr. Seuss, Charles Schulz, J.R.R. Tolkien and John Lennon.
George Washington spent about 7% of his annual salary on liquor.
Each year, more people are killed by teddy bears than by grizzly bears.
If you disassembled the Great Pyramid of Cheops, you would get enough stones to encircle the earth with a brick wall twenty inches high.
Nearly one third of New York City public school teachers send their own children to private schools.
The New York City Police Department has a $3.3 billion annual budget, larger than all but 19 of the world's armies.
CBS's fine for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in the 2004 Super Bowl show was $550,000. This could be paid with only 7.5 seconds of commercial time during the same Super Bowl telecast.
In September 2004, a Minnesota state trooper issued a speeding ticket to a motorcyclist who was clocked at 205 mph.
Al Gore's roommate in college (Harvard, class of 1969) was Tommy Lee Jones.
In her later years, Florence Nightingale kept a pet owl in her pocket.
The New York Jets were unable to find hotel rooms for a game in Indianapolis recently because they had all been booked up by people attending Gencon, a gaming convention.
China is the world's largest market for BMW's top of the line 760Li. This car sells for $200,000 in China - more than almost all people in China make in a lifetime.
A chef's hat is shaped the way it is for a reason: its shape allows air to circulate around the scalp, keeping the head cool in a hot kitchen.
Life expectancy for Russian men has actually gone down over the past 40 years. A Russian male born today can expect to live an average 58 years.
Each year, sixteen million gallons of oil run off pavement into streams, rivers and eventually oceans in the United States. This is more oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
An employee of the Alabama Department of Transportation installed spyware on his boss's computer and proved that the boss spent 10% of his time working (20% of time checking stocks and 70% of the time playing solitaire). The employee was fired, the boss kept his job.
In 1985, the most popular waist size for men's pants was 32. In 2003, it's 36.
Solid structures (parking lots, roads, buildings) in the United States cover an area the size of Ohio.
A Brussels Airlines flight to Vienna was aborted because the pilot was attacked in the cockpit. The attacker was a passenger's cat, who got out of its travel bag.
Physicists have already performed a simple type of teleportation, transferring the quantum characteristics of one atom onto another atom at a different location.
At General Motors, the cost of health care for employees now exceeds the cost of steel.
There is a regulation size half-court where employees can play basketball inside the Matterhorn at Disneyland.
One of pitcher Nolan Ryan's jockstraps recently sold at auction for $25,000.
Television stations hung banners at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, including Al-Jazeera, until it was noticed and taken down.
A woman was chewing what was left of her chocolate bar when she entered a Metro station in Washington DC. She was arrested and handcuffed; eating is prohibited in Metro stations.
The New York City subway system, in an effort to raise revenue, is considering selling sponsorships of individual stations to corporations. Riders could soon be getting off at Nike Grand Central Station or Sony Times Square.
The Nike swoosh was designed by a Portland State University student, and purchased by Nike for $35.
Gerald Ford once worked as a cover model for Cosmopolitan magazine.
Gillette spent $1,000,000 to place razor samples in the welcome bags handed out at the Democratic National Convention, only to have them confiscated as they were considered a threat. This caused huge delays at all security checkpoints.
Quebec City, Canada, has about as much street crime as Disney World.
Jim Carrey voted in 2004 at the Beverly Hills City Hall. He had an assistant wait in line for him, however.
As part of a charity event, 500 cats were spayed and neutered in the cafeteria of an elementary school. School was cancelled for days and $10,000 was spent on cleaning and sterilizing the room.
The United States has five percent of the world's population, but twenty-five percent of the world's prison population.
Seven percent of Americans claim they never bathe at all.
The largest McDonald's is in Beijing, China - measuring 28,000 square feet. It has twenty nine cash registers.
A house in Baghdad worth $15,000 before the Iraq war now sells for $120,000 to $150,000.
There are between 5,000 and 7,000 tigers kept as pets in the United States.
The fertility rate in states that voted for George Bush is 12% higher than states that favored John Kerry.
The chicken is one of the few things that man eats before it's born and after it's dead.
The number of US college students studying Latin is three times the number studying Arabic.
In 2004, one in six girls in the United States enter puberty at age 8. A hundred years ago, only one in a hundred entered puberty that early.
If you hook Jell-O up to an EEG, it registers movements almost identical to a human adult's brain waves.
Some dogs can predict when a child will have an epileptic seizure, and even protect the child from injury. They're not trained to do this, they simply learn to respond after observing at least one attack.
32 out of 33 samples of well-known brands of milk purchased in Los Angeles and Orange counties in California had trace amounts of perchlorate. Perchlorate is the explosive component in rocket fuel.
The remains of 125 people will be launched into space where they will orbit the Earth for centuries.
The leading cause of on-the-job deaths in workplaces in America is homicide.
So far, Congress has authorized $152,600,000,000 for the Iraq war. This is enough to build over 17,500 elementary schools.
Americans take an average of just ten days per year vacation. In France, the law guarantees everyone five weeks of vacation, and most full-time workers get two full months vacation.
The IRS admits that one in five people who call their help line get the wrong answer to their question.
20% of Americans think that the sun orbits around the Earth.
Van Halen singer David Lee Roth trained to be an EMT in New York City, and planned to be certified by November 2004.
The thong accounts for 25% of the United States women's underwear market.
On average, 40% of all hotel rooms in the United States remain empty every night.
When you hear a bullwhip snap, it's because the tip is traveling faster than the speed of sound.
There is a new television show on a British cable called "Watching Paint Dry". Viewers watch in real-time. Gloss, semi-gloss, matte, satin, you name it. Then viewers vote out their least favorite.
The largest ocean liners pay a $250,000 toll for each trip through the Panama Canal. The canal generates fully one-third of Panama's entire economy.
French author Michel Thaler published a 233 page novel which has no verbs.
The spring thaw finally allows cemeteries in Alaska to start digging graves for those who died during the winter.
When Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen turn 18 in mid-2004, they will take official control of a company worth more than the gross national product of Mongolia. Their earnings in 2003 topped $1 billion.
Orthodox rabbis warned that New York City drinking water might not be kosher; it contains harmless micro-organisms that are technically shellfish.
David Bowie thinks he is being stalked by someone who is dressed like a giant pink rabbit. Bowie has noticed the fan at several recent concerts, but he became alarmed when he got on a plane and the bunny was on board.
A party boat filled with 60 men and women capsized in Texas after all the passengers rushed to one side as the boat passed a nude beach.
In 1997, a woman in Bradenton, Florida lost her cat. In 2004, she got a call from the local animal shelter. The cat turned up wandering the streets in San Francisco, California. The cat's identity was proven with a microchip that had been implanted prior to 1997.
Almost 20% of the billions of dollars American taxpayers are spending to rebuild Iraq are lost to theft, kickbacks and corruption.
The treasury department has more than twenty people assigned to catching people who violate the trade and tourism embargo with Cuba. In contrast, it has only four employees assigned to track the assets of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
There are 40,000 New York City cab drivers, who collectively drive more than a million miles each day.
An estimated 800,000 senior citizens voluntarily give up their driving privileges each year. The average age at which they surrender the wheel is 85.
More than 8,100 US troops are still listed as missing in action from the Korean war.
3,400,000 Americans are considered "Extreme Commuters". These people commute over 90 minutes round trip every day to work.
82% of Americans made a purchase at Wal-Mart in 2002.
Oslo, Norway is the world's most expensive city. A gallon on gas costs almost $5, and it costs $1.32 to use the public restrooms.
Villanova University's commencement speaker this year is the actor who plays Big Bird.
In 1965, auditions were held for the "Monkees" TV show. Some of the people who responded (but were not hired) were Stephen Stills, Harry Nilsson, Paul Williams and Charles Manson.
Kevin Spacey's older brother is a professional Rod Stewart impersonator.
71% of office workers stopped on the street for a survey agreed to give up their computer passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar.
George W. Bush and John Kerry are 16th cousins, three times removed.
If current trends continue, Medicare costs will absorb 51% of all income tax revenues by 2042.
The prison system is the largest supplier of mental health services in America, with 250,000 Americans with mental illness living there.
Newest trend in the Netherlands: Tiny jewels implanted directly into the eye.
Researchers have found that doctors who spend at least three hours a week playing video games make about 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery than surgeons who didn't play video games.
Before he had his own show, Jerry Seinfeld appeared on three episodes of the TV show "Benson" as the governor's speechwriter.
There are 1,008 McDonald's franchises in France.
Hostess Twinkies were originally filled with banana filling. The filling was changed during World War II when the United States experienced a banana shortage.
World War II veterans are now dying at the rate of about 1,100 each day.
George W. Bush is probably going to be the eighth president in US history to have completed a term in office without ever having issued a single veto.
A deployed air bag adds as much as $2,000 to the cost of repairing a vehicle. That's enough for insurance companies to often declare the car "totaled".
For the first time in history, the number of people on the planet aged 60 or over will soon surpass those under 5.
A British gymnast survived a fall from a fourth story window because he went into a somersault and came down on two feet.
One out of five people in the world (1.1 billion people) live on less than $1 per day.
The Swedish pop group ABBA recently turned down an offer of $2 billion to reunite.
The New Yorker magazine now has more subscribers in California than New York.
Five years ago, 60% of all retail purchases were made with cash or check. Now it's 50%. By 2010, 39% of purchases will be made by cash or check.
35 Billion e-mails are sent each day throughout the world.
The richest self-made American under 40 is Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computers. He is worth $18 billion.
Legislators in Santa Fe, New Mexico, are considering a law that would require pets to wear seat belts when traveling in a car.
Life Savers got their shape by a malfunctioning machine, which mistakenly punched a hole in the center of each candy.
SUV sales are up 18% in the first quarter of 2004 vs. the same period of 2003, even though gas prices are skyrocketing. Consumer surveys show that gas prices would have to hit $3.75 per gallon before there will be any real impact on SUV sales.
Airport security agents at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts caught a passenger trying to sneak a severed seal head onto a plane inside a cooler. The man said he was a biology professor and had found the dead animal on the beach.
Jimmy Carter once reported a UFO in Georgia.
There are 150,000,000 cell phones in use in the United States, more than one per every two human beings in the country.
A Boeing 767 airliner is made of 3,100,000 separate parts.
The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade.
Last December, the House of Representatives earmarked $50,000,000 to create an indoor rain forest in Iowa.
Amusement park attendance goes up after a fatal accident. It seems many people want to ride upon the same ride that killed someone.
Jeffrey and Sheryl McGowen in Houston turned to vitro fertilization. Two eggs were implanted in Sheryl's womb, and both of them split. Sheryl gave birth to two sets of identical twins at once.
For every ton of fish that is caught in all the oceans on our planet, there are three tons of garbage dumped into the oceans.
June Foray did the voice for Rocky the Flying Squirrel and the Chatty Cathy dolls.
Japanese and Chinese people die on the fourth of the month more often than any other dates. The reason may be that they are "scared to death" by the number four. The words four and death sound alike in both Chinese and Japanese.
People with initials that spell out GOD or ACE are likely to live longer than people whose initials spell out words like APE, PIG, or RAT.
More people in the United States die during the first week of the month than during the last, an increase that may be a result of the abuse of substances purchased with benefit checks that come at the beginning of each month.
In the film Forrest Gump, all the still photos show Forrest with his eyes closed.
There are an average of 18,000,000 items for sale at any time on EBay.
The New York Times reports that in February 2004, 62% of all e-mail was spam.
A Massachusetts surgeon left a patient with an open incision for 35 minutes while he went to deposit a check.
In 1991, the average bra size in the United States was 34B. Today it's 36C.
U.K. telecom provider Telewest Broadband is testing a device that hooks to your PC and wafts a scent when certain e-mails arrive.
The average North Korean 7-year-old is almost three inches shorter than the average South Korean 7-year-old.
In 1993, David McLean developed lung cancer. He died on October 12, 1995. McLean's death made him the second Marlboro Man to die of lung cancer. Another actor, Wayne McLaren, died in 1992 at the age of 51 from lung cancer.
There is a bar in London that sells vaporized vodka, which is inhaled instead of sipped.
According to market research firm NPD Fashionworld, fifty percent of all lingerie purchases are returned to the store.
On EBay, there are an average of $680 worth of transactions each second.
The Eiffel Tower shrinks 6 inches in winter.
The first FAX machine was patented in 1843, 33 years before Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone.
72% of Americans sign their pets' names on greeting cards they send out.
In an effort to encourage the use of nuclear energy, the United States lent highly enriched uranium to countries all over the world between 1950 and 1988. Enough weapons-grade material to make 1,000 nuclear bombs has still not been returned by such countries as Pakistan, Iran, Israel and South Africa.
Homing pigeons use roads where possible to help find their way home. In fact, some pigeons followed roads so closely that they actually flew around traffic circles before choosing the exit that led them home.
Every year, 2700 surgical patients go home from the hospital with metal tools, sponges, and other objects left inside them. In 2000, 57 people died as a result of these mistakes.
A snowflake can take up to a hour to fall from the cloud to the surface of the Earth.
Only 5 percent of the ocean floor has been mapped in as much detail as the surface of Mars.
The only people whose likenesses adorn Pez dispensers are Betsy Ross and Paul Revere.
We forget 80 percent of what we learn everyday.
Pain is measured in units of "dols". The instrument used to measure pain is a "dolorimeter".
In a nod to astronauts, Texas is the only state that permits residents to cast absentee ballots from space.
Eleven top executives of the Direct Marketing Association (the telemarketers' group that is trying to kill the federal "Do Not Call" list) have registered for the list themselves.
An iceberg the size of Long Island, New York, has broken off Antarctica and has blocked sea lanes used by both ships and penguins.
In 2003, the Transportation Security Administration dropped a requirement that air marshals pass a marksmanship test. Some applicants were even hired after they repeatedly shot flight attendants in mock hijacking episodes.
As of January 2004, the United States economy now borrows $1,500,000,000 each day from foreign investors.
A Costa Rican worker who makes baseballs earns about $2,750 annually. The average American pro baseball player earns $2,377,000 per year.
Former keyboard player for Jethro Tull David Palmer is now a woman named Dee Palmer. He waited until his wife died before going through with his longtime desire for a sex change.
During Bill Clinton's entire eight year presidency, he only sent two e-mails. One was to John Glenn when he was aboard the space shuttle, and the other was a test of the e-mail system.
Albert Einstein never knew how to drive a car.
The UK's best selling hiking magazine published faulty coordinates for descending Scotland's tallest peak (Ben Nevis), and recommended a route that leads climbers off the edge of a cliff.
The Mars Rover "Spirit" is powered by six small motors the size of "C" batteries. It has a top speed of 0.1 mph.
Zeppo Marx (the unfunny one of the Marx Brothers) had a patent for a wristwatch with a heart monitor.
The entire town of Capena, Italy (including children as young as 2 years old) lights up cigarettes each year in honor of St. Anthony's Day. This tradition is centuries old.
The Amish a diet high in meat, dairy, refined sugars and calories. Yet obesity is virtually unknown among them. The difference is since they have no TVs, cars or powered machines, they spend their time in manual labor.
Microsoft threatened 17 year old Mike Rowe with a lawsuit after the young man launched a website named MikeRoweSoft.com.
As of January 1, 2004, the population of the United States increases by one person every 12 seconds. There is a birth every eight seconds, an immigrant is added every 25 seconds, but a death every 13 seconds.
There is a Starbucks in Myungdong, South Korea that is five stories tall.
Astronauts cannot burp in space. There is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.
There has been no mail delivery in Canada on Saturday for the last thirty five years.
The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of an aspirin tablet.
The world's smallest winged insect is the Tanzanian parasitic wasp. It's smaller than the eye of a housefly.
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
If you have three quarters, four dimes and four cents, you have $1.19. But you cannot make exact change for a dollar.
There are more plastic flamingoes in the United States than real ones.
The chance that you will die on the way to buy your lottery ticket is greater than the chance of you winning the big prize in most lotteries.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton Look-Alike contest.
An average of 100 people choke to death on ball point pens each year.
The National Anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
Toto was paid $125 per week while filming the "Wizard of Oz".
All polar bears are left handed.
Fidgeting can burn about 350 calories a day.
To help reduce budget deficits, several states have begun reducing the amount of food served to prison inmates. In Texas, the number of daily calories served to prisoners was cut by 300, saving the state $6,000,000 per year.
The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the last name Beard.
Pope John Paul II is the world's Scrabble champion in the over-70 category.
Montpelier, Vermont is the only state capitol without a McDonald's.
Wearing headphones for an hour increases the bacteria in your ear 700 times.
In 1993, the board of governors at Carl Karcher Enterprises voted (5 to 2) to fire Carl Karcher. Carl Karcher is the founder of Carls Jr. restaurants.
The little hole in the sink that lets the water drain out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator."
The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.
Ted Turner owns 5% of New Mexico.
Over 8 years, this happened 284 times: "Cosmo" Kramer went through Jerry Seinfeld's apartment door.
The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2 moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns.
There are more 100 dollar bills in Russia currently than there are in the United States.
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
65% of Elvis impersonators are of Asian descent.
Burt Reynolds was originally cast to be Han Solo in the first Star Wars film. He dropped out before filming.
Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem Globetrotter" in 2000.
There are only three types of snakes on the island of Tasmania and all three are deadly poisonous.
It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is "shake" and the 46th word from the last word is "spear".
If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long.
The strength of early lasers was measured in Gillettes, the number of blue razor blades a given beam could puncture.
The drive-through line on opening day at the McDonald's restaurant in Kuwait City, Kuwait was at times seven miles long.
Point Roberts in Washington State is cut off from the rest of the state by British Columbia, Canada. If you wish to travel from Point Roberts to the rest of the state or vice versa, you must pass through Canada, including both Canadian and U.S. customs.
The Pentagon in Washington, D. C. has five sides, five stories, and five acres in the middle.
Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with "Midnight Cowboy." Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
There is an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of 200.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Newborn babies are given to the wrong mother in the hospital 12 times a day worldwide.
The Starbucks at the highest elevation is on Main Street in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Each year, over 1,000,000 people fail to itemize out the mortgage interest deduction on their income taxes. Last year, this amounted to $473,000,000 in taxes.
In 1998, more fast-food employees were murdered on the job than police officers.
The lead singer of The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and Jack Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug and Jeffrey Feiger.
Two very popular and common objects have the same function, but one has thousands of moving parts, while the other has absolutely no moving parts - an hourglass and a sundial.
One out of three employees who received a promotion use a coffee mug with the company logo on it.
If you know a (male) millionaire who happens to be married, The most likely profession of his wife is a teacher.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
1 pound of lemons contain more sugar than 1 pound of strawberries.
The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator.
60% of all US potato products originate in Idaho.
61,000 people are airborne over the US at any given time.
A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.
Mark Twain was born on a day in 1835 when Halley's Comet came into view. When he died in 1910, Halley's Comet was in view again.
The Weddell seal can travel underwater for seven miles without surfacing for air.
In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first (and only) home run.
The longest words in the English language with only one syllable are the nine-letter "screeched" and "strengths".
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye".
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" read 4:20.
A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
A baby is born without kneecaps. They appear between age 2 and 6.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
A snail can have about 25,000 teeth.
A snail can also sleep for three years.
A starfish can turn its stomach inside out.
A strand from the web of a golden spider is as strong as a steel wire of the same size.
A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans.
About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they're still sitting on it.
According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg.
Soldiers from every country salute with their right hand.
The microwave oven was invented by mistake when an engineer testing a magnetron tube noticed that the radiation from it melted the chocolate bar he had in his pocket.
Moisture, not air, causes super glue to dry.
Only 14% of Americans say they've skinny dipped with the opposite sex.
"60 Minutes" on CBS is the only TV show to not have a theme song or music.
Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace.
Most boat owners name their boats. The most popular boat name requested is Obsession.
100% of all lottery winners gain weight.
An average American will spend an average of 6 months during his lifetime waiting at red lights.
The Olympic flag's colors are always red, black, blue, green and yellow rings on a field of white. This is because at least one of those colors appears on the flag of every nation on the planet.
Cats can hear ultrasound.
In a recent survey, Americans revealed that banana was their favorite smell.
In all three Godfather films, when you see oranges, there is a death (or a very close call) coming up soon.
The arteries and veins surrounding the brain stem called the "circle of Willis" looks like a stick person with a large head.
Brushing your teeth regularly has been shown to prevent heart disease.
If you were to spell out numbers, you would you have to go until 1,000 until you would find the letter "A".
23% of employees say they have had sex in the office.
Bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers were all invented by women.
Married men change their underwear twice as often as single men.
A kiss stimulates 29 muscles and chemicals causing relaxation. Women seem to like it light and frequent, men like it more strenuous.
There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year.
Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
40% of all people who come to a party in your home snoop in your medicine cabinet.
3.9% of all women surveyed say they never wear underwear.
Superman is featured on every episode of "Seinfeld", either by name or pictures on Jerry's refrigerator.
85% of the men who cheat on their wives die while having sex.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served first class.
Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28
Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38
Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80
Percentage of American women who say they would marry the same man: 50
Percentage of men who say they are happier after their divorce or separation: 58
Percentage of women who say they are happier: 85
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches
Percentage of bird species that are monogamous: 90
Percentage of mammal species that are monogamous: 3
Chances that a burglary in the United States will be solved: 1 in 7
One third of the land in the United States is owned by the government.
The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards.
Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles or snakes.
An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.
In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
When George Lucas was mixing the American Graffiti soundtrack, he numbered the reels of film starting with an R and numbered the dialog starting with a D. Sound designer Walter Murch asked George for Reel 2, Dialog 2 by saying "R2D2". George liked the way that sounded so much he integrated that into another project he was working on.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school.
Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than horses.
Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
Your nose and ears never stop growing.
They have square watermelons in Japan - they stack better.
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
Heinz Catsup leaving the bottle travels at 25 miles per year.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
Men get hiccups more often than women.
Armadillos can be housebroken.
Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.
The first Fords had engines made by Dodge.
A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee.
The flashing warning light on the cylindrical Capitol Records tower spells out HOLLYWOOD in Morse code.
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
Over 1,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
The State of Florida is bigger than England.
Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.
It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland.
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food. That's the weight of about 6 elephants.
Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
The world's oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.
In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow.
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones.
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe.
In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
Slugs have 4 noses.
Recycling one glass jar saves enough energy to watch TV for 3 hours.
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue.
The average American drinks about 600 sodas a year.
It's against the law to slam your car door in Switzerland.
There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.
Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.
A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.
One quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
America once issued a 5-cent bill.
You'll eat about 35,000 cookies in your lifetime.
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under is cap to keep him cool. He changed it every 2 innings.
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
The pitches that Babe Ruth hit for his last-ever homerun and that Joe DiMaggio hit for his first-ever homerun where thrown by the same man.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.
There are over 52.6 million dogs in the U.S.
Dogs and cats consume almost $7 billion worth of pet food a year.
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.
The Pentagon has twice as many restrooms as necessary. When it was built, segregation was still in place in Virginia, so separate restrooms for blacks and whites were required by law.
In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
In 2003, there were 86 days of below-freezing weather in Hell, Michigan.
The average person laughs 15 times a day.
One of Hewlett Packard's first ideas was an automatic urinal flusher.
As you age, your eye color gets lighter.
There are more cars in Southern California than there are cows in India.
The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows.
The province of Alberta, Canada is completely free of rats.
Illinois has the most personalized license plates of any state.
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.
There are 206 bones in the adult human body, but 300 in children (some of the bones fuse together as a child grows).
Fleas can jump 130 times higher than their own height. In human terms this is equal to a 6 foot person jumping 780 feet into the air.
Snakes are true carnivores as they eat nothing but other animals. They do not eat any type of plant material.
There are no venomous snakes in Maine.
The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.
The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times a year.
It takes approximately 12 hours for food to entirely digest.
Erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result, the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years.
The longest living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
North Dakota has never had an earthquake.
Alexander Graham Bell (who invented the telephone) also set a world water-speed record of over seventy miles an hour at the age of 72.
There is enough fuel in a full tank of a jumbo jet to drive an average car four times around the world.
Hawaii is moving toward Japan 4 inches every year.
Chimps are the only animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror.
The leg bones of a bat are so thin that no bat can walk.
There are more living organisms on the skin of a single human being than there are human beings on the surface of the earth.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot.
If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
Almonds are members of the peach family.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
One person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Animal Kingdom".
The dot that appears over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job (in case their pants split).
The Spanish word esposa means "wife." The plural, esposas, means "wives," but also "handcuffs."
If all Americans used one third less ice in their drinks the United States would become a net exporter instead of an importer of energy.
If the Nile River were stretched across the United States, it would run nearly from New York to Los Angeles.
San Francisco cable cars are the only National Monuments that move.
The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. Its concrete will not be fully cured for another 500 years.
Abraham Lincoln's dog, Fido, was assassinated too.
All of David Letterman's suits are custom made - there are no creases in his suit trousers.
Cranberry Jell-O is the only flavor that contains real fruit flavoring.
Fewer than half of the 16,200 major league baseball players have ever hit a home run.
In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first.
Richard Versalle, a tenor performing at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, suffered a heart attack and fell 10 feet from a ladder to the stage just after singing the line "You can only live so long."
If the entire population of earth was reduced to exactly 100 people, 51% would be female, 49% male; 50% of the world's currency would be held by 6 people, one person would be nearly dead, one nearly born.
In 1920, Babe Ruth out-homered every American League team.
Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores.
Toxic house plants poison more children than household chemicals.
The original name of Bank of America was Bank of Italy.
The ant, when intoxicated, will always fall over to its right side.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles has issued six driver's licenses to six different people named Jesus Christ.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
People in China and Japan die disproportionately on the 4th of each month because the words death and four sound alike, and they are represented by the same symbol.
Chicago is closer to Moscow than it is to Rio de Janeiro.
Dogs have two sets of teeth, just like humans. They first have 30 "puppy" teeth, then 42 adult teeth.
In 1950, President Harry Truman threw out the first ball twice at the opening day Washington DC baseball game; once right handed and once left handed.
A Swiss ski resort announced it would combat global warming by wrapping its mountain glaciers in aluminum foil to keep them from melting.
The chameleon has a tongue that is one and a half times the length of his body.
Beethoven dipped his head in cold water before he composed.
There once was a town named "6" in West Virginia.
Ten years ago, only 500 people in China could ski. This year, an estimated 5,000,000 Chinese will visit ski resorts.
In 1920, Babe Ruth broke the single season home run record, with 29. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 30 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 40 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 50 home runs.
A Nigerian woman was caught entering the UK with 104 kg of snails in her baggage.
Profanity is typically cut from in-flight movies to make them suitable for general audiences. Fox Searchlight Pictures has substituted "Ashcroft" for "A**hole" in the movie Sideways when dubbed for Aerolineas Argentinas flights.
Author Hunter S. Thompson, who committed suicide recently, wanted to be cremated and his ashes to be shot out of a cannon on his ranch.
Sports Illustrated magazine allows subscribers to opt out of receiving the famous swimsuit issue each year. Fewer than 1% choose this option.
There is a company that will (for $14,000) take your ashes, compress them into a synthetic diamond to be set in jewelry for a loved one.
The RIAA sued an 83 year old woman for downloading music illegally, even though a copy of her death certificate was sent to the RIAA a week before it filed the suit.
Two 1903 paintings recently sold at auction for $590,000 - the paintings were in the famous "Dogs Playing Poker" series.
Russian scientists have developed a new drug that prolongs drunkenness and enhances intoxication.
Romanian firefighters could not get their trucks close enough to a burning building, so they put out the fire by throwing snowballs at it.
A perfect SAT score is 1600 combined. Bill Gates scored 1590 on his SAT. Paul Allen, Bill's partner in Microsoft, scored a perfect 1600. Bill Cosby scored less than 500 combined.
Motorists traveling outside Salem, Oregon saw one of the "litter cleanup" signs crediting the American Nazi party. Marion County officials had no choice but to let that group into the adopt-a-road program. The $500 per sign was picked up by Oregon taxpayers. The Ku Klux Klan is also involved in the adopt-a-road program in the state of Arkansas.
Spam filters that catch the word "cialis" will not allow many work-related e-mails through because that word is embedded inside the word "specialist".
McDonald's restaurants will buy 54,000,000 pounds of fresh apples this year. Two years ago, McDonald's purchased 0 pounds of apples. This is attributed to the shift to more healthy menu options (the Apple Pie, which has been at McDonald's for years uses processed Apple Pie Filling).
The biggest dog on record was an Old English Mastiff that weighed 343 pounds. He was 8 feet, 3 inches from nose to tail.
Mailmen in Russia now carry revolvers after a recent decision by the government.
All of Queen Anne's 17 children died before she did.
There are over 87,000 Americans on waiting lists for organ transplants.
American made parts account for only 1% of the Chrysler Crossfire. 96% of the Ford F-150 Heritage Truck is American.
A Dutch court ruled that a bank robber could deduct the 2,000 Euros he paid for his pistol from the 6,600 Euros he has to return to the bank he robbed.
Only 6% of the autographs in circulation from members of the Beatles are estimated to be real.
The time spent deleting SPAM costs United States businesses $21.6 billion annually.
60.7 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2004 presidential election, the highest percentage in 36 years. However, more than 78 million did not vote. This means President Bush won re-election by receiving votes from less than 31% of all eligible voters in the United States.
John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, loved to skinny dip in the Potomac River.
La Paz, Bolivia has an average annual temperature below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. However, it has never recorded a zero-degree temperature. Same for Stanley, Falkland Islands and Punta Arenas, Chile.
41% of Chinese people eat at least once a week at a fast food restaurant. 35% of Americans do.
A Wisconsin forklift operator for a Miller beer distributor was fired when a picture was published in a newspaper showing him drinking a Bud Light.
G-rated family films earn more money than any other rating. Yet only 3% of Hollywood's output is G-rated.
Richard Hatch, winner of the first "Survivor" reality series, has been charged with tax evasion for failing to report his $1,000,000 prize.
The entire fleet of Unicoi County Tennessee's salt trucks was rendered out of commission in one accident. All three trucks were badly damaged when one of them began skidding down a road, causing a chain reaction accident. Officials blamed road conditions.
More people study English in China than speak it in the United States of America (300 million).
Fast food provider Hardee's has recently introduced the Monster Thickburger. It has 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat.
More than 2,500 left-handed people are killed each year from using products that are made for right-handed people.
For every person on earth, there are an estimated 200 million insects.
There are 2,000,000 millionaires in the United States.
1.5 million Americans are charged with drunk driving each year.
A Georgia company will mix your loved one's ashes with cement and drop it into the ocean to form an artificial reef.
The Washington Times newspaper is owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
The busiest shopping hour of the holiday season is between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm on Christmas Eve.
In 2002, women earned 742,000 bachelor's degrees. Men earned only 550,000 during the same year. The difference is growing so large that many colleges now practice (quietly) affirmative action for male applicants.
Most of the deck chairs on the Queen Mary 2 have had to be replaced because overweight Americans were breaking them.
Actor Bill Murray doesn't have a publicist or an agent.
The day after President George W. Bush was reelected, Canada's main immigration website had 115,000 visitors. Before Bush's re-election, this site averaged about 20,000 visitors each day.
Only 30% of stolen artwork worth more than $1,000,000 each is recovered.
The typical American child receives 70 new toys a year, most of them during the holiday season.
90% of Canada's 31,000,000 citizens live within 100 miles of the U.S. border.
Costco is the largest wine retailer in the United States. Annual wine sales are about $700 million.
The worst air polluter in the entire state of Washington is Mount St. Helens.
There are less than 100 surviving American World War I veterans.
Actor Bruce Willis has filed a lawsuit against the movie studio that produced his film "Tears of the Sun", alleging he was struck in the forehead by a fake bullet. Since 2002 (when the movie was in production), the lawsuit claims he has endured "extreme mental, physical, and emotional pain and suffering".
A ten year old mattress weighs double what it did when it was new, because of the -ahem- debris which is absorbed through the years. That debris includes dust mites (their droppings and their decaying bodies), mold, millions of dead skin cells, dandruff, animal and human hair, secretions, excretions, lint, pollen, dust, soil, sand and a lot of perspiration, of which the average person loses a quart per day. Good night!
About 20% of gift cards never are redeemed at the full value of the card.
John Kerry's hometown newspaper, the Lowell Sun, endorsed George W. Bush for president in 2004. Bush's hometown newspaper, the Lone Star Iconoclast, endorsed John Kerry for president in 2004.
Only 939 of the 1,400,000 high school seniors who took the SAT in 2004 got a perfect score of 1600. Two of them are twin brothers Dillon and Jesse Smith from Long Island, NY.
Billboard magazine has recently launched a top 20 chart of cell phone ringtones.
The US Army is handing out $2,500 to Fallujah residents whose property was destroyed by US planes and artillery.
George W. Bush, who presents himself as a man of faith, rarely goes to church. Yet he received votes from nearly two out of three voters who attend church at least once a week.
In 2015, it is estimated that half the federal budget will be spent on programs for the elderly.
A private elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia, accidentally served margaritas to its schoolchildren, thinking it was limeade.
The Chicago Cubs are suing former Hartford Courant newspaper carrier Mark Guthrie to get back $301,000 in pay that was intended to go to a Cubs pitcher with the same name. The Tribune Company owns both the Hartford Courant and the Chicago Cubs.
In February 2004, a Disney World employee was killed when he fell from a parade float and was trapped between two float sections. OSHA termed this a serious workplace violation, but Disney was fined only $6,300.
Even today, 90% of the continental United States is still open space or farmland.
The second Saturday in September is usually a popular time for weddings. Not in 2004, as most couples did not want their anniversaries on September 11.
Mel Gibson has personally earned almost $400,000,000 from his movie "The Passion of the Christ".
Austin High School in Texas has removed candy from its vending machines. Now some enterprising students are earning $200 per week dealing in black market candy.
In 2004, Virgin Atlantic Airlines introduced a double bed for first class passengers who fly together.
The world's largest book, "Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey" is in a Chicago public library. The book measures 5 feet tall by 7 feet wide when open. It weighs 133 pounds.
If the recent U.S. election was held in Canada, John Kerry would have beaten George Bush in a landslide - 64% to 19%.
Oprah Winfrey and Elvis Presley are distant cousins.
55% of Americans claim they would continue working even if they received a $10,000,000 lottery prize.
The company that manufactures the greatest number of women's dresses each year is Mattel. Barbie's got to wear something.
All radios in North Korea have been rigged so listeners can only receive a North Korean government station. The United States recently announced plans to smuggle $2,000,000 worth of small radios into the country so North Koreans can get a taste of (what their government calls) "rotten imperialist reactionary culture".
La Paz, Bolivia is the world's most fireproof city. At 12,000 feet about sea level, the amount of oxygen in the air barely supports a flame.
The estates of 22 dead celebrities earned over $5 million in 2004. These celebrities include Elvis Presley, Dr. Seuss, Charles Schulz, J.R.R. Tolkien and John Lennon.
George Washington spent about 7% of his annual salary on liquor.
Each year, more people are killed by teddy bears than by grizzly bears.
If you disassembled the Great Pyramid of Cheops, you would get enough stones to encircle the earth with a brick wall twenty inches high.
Nearly one third of New York City public school teachers send their own children to private schools.
The New York City Police Department has a $3.3 billion annual budget, larger than all but 19 of the world's armies.
CBS's fine for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in the 2004 Super Bowl show was $550,000. This could be paid with only 7.5 seconds of commercial time during the same Super Bowl telecast.
In September 2004, a Minnesota state trooper issued a speeding ticket to a motorcyclist who was clocked at 205 mph.
Al Gore's roommate in college (Harvard, class of 1969) was Tommy Lee Jones.
In her later years, Florence Nightingale kept a pet owl in her pocket.
The New York Jets were unable to find hotel rooms for a game in Indianapolis recently because they had all been booked up by people attending Gencon, a gaming convention.
China is the world's largest market for BMW's top of the line 760Li. This car sells for $200,000 in China - more than almost all people in China make in a lifetime.
A chef's hat is shaped the way it is for a reason: its shape allows air to circulate around the scalp, keeping the head cool in a hot kitchen.
Life expectancy for Russian men has actually gone down over the past 40 years. A Russian male born today can expect to live an average 58 years.
Each year, sixteen million gallons of oil run off pavement into streams, rivers and eventually oceans in the United States. This is more oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
An employee of the Alabama Department of Transportation installed spyware on his boss's computer and proved that the boss spent 10% of his time working (20% of time checking stocks and 70% of the time playing solitaire). The employee was fired, the boss kept his job.
In 1985, the most popular waist size for men's pants was 32. In 2003, it's 36.
Solid structures (parking lots, roads, buildings) in the United States cover an area the size of Ohio.
A Brussels Airlines flight to Vienna was aborted because the pilot was attacked in the cockpit. The attacker was a passenger's cat, who got out of its travel bag.
Physicists have already performed a simple type of teleportation, transferring the quantum characteristics of one atom onto another atom at a different location.
At General Motors, the cost of health care for employees now exceeds the cost of steel.
There is a regulation size half-court where employees can play basketball inside the Matterhorn at Disneyland.
One of pitcher Nolan Ryan's jockstraps recently sold at auction for $25,000.
Television stations hung banners at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, including Al-Jazeera, until it was noticed and taken down.
A woman was chewing what was left of her chocolate bar when she entered a Metro station in Washington DC. She was arrested and handcuffed; eating is prohibited in Metro stations.
The New York City subway system, in an effort to raise revenue, is considering selling sponsorships of individual stations to corporations. Riders could soon be getting off at Nike Grand Central Station or Sony Times Square.
The Nike swoosh was designed by a Portland State University student, and purchased by Nike for $35.
Gerald Ford once worked as a cover model for Cosmopolitan magazine.
Gillette spent $1,000,000 to place razor samples in the welcome bags handed out at the Democratic National Convention, only to have them confiscated as they were considered a threat. This caused huge delays at all security checkpoints.
Quebec City, Canada, has about as much street crime as Disney World.
Jim Carrey voted in 2004 at the Beverly Hills City Hall. He had an assistant wait in line for him, however.
As part of a charity event, 500 cats were spayed and neutered in the cafeteria of an elementary school. School was cancelled for days and $10,000 was spent on cleaning and sterilizing the room.
The United States has five percent of the world's population, but twenty-five percent of the world's prison population.
Seven percent of Americans claim they never bathe at all.
The largest McDonald's is in Beijing, China - measuring 28,000 square feet. It has twenty nine cash registers.
A house in Baghdad worth $15,000 before the Iraq war now sells for $120,000 to $150,000.
There are between 5,000 and 7,000 tigers kept as pets in the United States.
The fertility rate in states that voted for George Bush is 12% higher than states that favored John Kerry.
The chicken is one of the few things that man eats before it's born and after it's dead.
The number of US college students studying Latin is three times the number studying Arabic.
In 2004, one in six girls in the United States enter puberty at age 8. A hundred years ago, only one in a hundred entered puberty that early.
If you hook Jell-O up to an EEG, it registers movements almost identical to a human adult's brain waves.
Some dogs can predict when a child will have an epileptic seizure, and even protect the child from injury. They're not trained to do this, they simply learn to respond after observing at least one attack.
32 out of 33 samples of well-known brands of milk purchased in Los Angeles and Orange counties in California had trace amounts of perchlorate. Perchlorate is the explosive component in rocket fuel.
The remains of 125 people will be launched into space where they will orbit the Earth for centuries.
The leading cause of on-the-job deaths in workplaces in America is homicide.
So far, Congress has authorized $152,600,000,000 for the Iraq war. This is enough to build over 17,500 elementary schools.
Americans take an average of just ten days per year vacation. In France, the law guarantees everyone five weeks of vacation, and most full-time workers get two full months vacation.
The IRS admits that one in five people who call their help line get the wrong answer to their question.
20% of Americans think that the sun orbits around the Earth.
Van Halen singer David Lee Roth trained to be an EMT in New York City, and planned to be certified by November 2004.
The thong accounts for 25% of the United States women's underwear market.
On average, 40% of all hotel rooms in the United States remain empty every night.
When you hear a bullwhip snap, it's because the tip is traveling faster than the speed of sound.
There is a new television show on a British cable called "Watching Paint Dry". Viewers watch in real-time. Gloss, semi-gloss, matte, satin, you name it. Then viewers vote out their least favorite.
The largest ocean liners pay a $250,000 toll for each trip through the Panama Canal. The canal generates fully one-third of Panama's entire economy.
French author Michel Thaler published a 233 page novel which has no verbs.
The spring thaw finally allows cemeteries in Alaska to start digging graves for those who died during the winter.
When Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen turn 18 in mid-2004, they will take official control of a company worth more than the gross national product of Mongolia. Their earnings in 2003 topped $1 billion.
Orthodox rabbis warned that New York City drinking water might not be kosher; it contains harmless micro-organisms that are technically shellfish.
David Bowie thinks he is being stalked by someone who is dressed like a giant pink rabbit. Bowie has noticed the fan at several recent concerts, but he became alarmed when he got on a plane and the bunny was on board.
A party boat filled with 60 men and women capsized in Texas after all the passengers rushed to one side as the boat passed a nude beach.
In 1997, a woman in Bradenton, Florida lost her cat. In 2004, she got a call from the local animal shelter. The cat turned up wandering the streets in San Francisco, California. The cat's identity was proven with a microchip that had been implanted prior to 1997.
Almost 20% of the billions of dollars American taxpayers are spending to rebuild Iraq are lost to theft, kickbacks and corruption.
The treasury department has more than twenty people assigned to catching people who violate the trade and tourism embargo with Cuba. In contrast, it has only four employees assigned to track the assets of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
There are 40,000 New York City cab drivers, who collectively drive more than a million miles each day.
An estimated 800,000 senior citizens voluntarily give up their driving privileges each year. The average age at which they surrender the wheel is 85.
More than 8,100 US troops are still listed as missing in action from the Korean war.
3,400,000 Americans are considered "Extreme Commuters". These people commute over 90 minutes round trip every day to work.
82% of Americans made a purchase at Wal-Mart in 2002.
Oslo, Norway is the world's most expensive city. A gallon on gas costs almost $5, and it costs $1.32 to use the public restrooms.
Villanova University's commencement speaker this year is the actor who plays Big Bird.
In 1965, auditions were held for the "Monkees" TV show. Some of the people who responded (but were not hired) were Stephen Stills, Harry Nilsson, Paul Williams and Charles Manson.
Kevin Spacey's older brother is a professional Rod Stewart impersonator.
71% of office workers stopped on the street for a survey agreed to give up their computer passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar.
George W. Bush and John Kerry are 16th cousins, three times removed.
If current trends continue, Medicare costs will absorb 51% of all income tax revenues by 2042.
The prison system is the largest supplier of mental health services in America, with 250,000 Americans with mental illness living there.
Newest trend in the Netherlands: Tiny jewels implanted directly into the eye.
Researchers have found that doctors who spend at least three hours a week playing video games make about 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery than surgeons who didn't play video games.
Before he had his own show, Jerry Seinfeld appeared on three episodes of the TV show "Benson" as the governor's speechwriter.
There are 1,008 McDonald's franchises in France.
Hostess Twinkies were originally filled with banana filling. The filling was changed during World War II when the United States experienced a banana shortage.
World War II veterans are now dying at the rate of about 1,100 each day.
George W. Bush is probably going to be the eighth president in US history to have completed a term in office without ever having issued a single veto.
A deployed air bag adds as much as $2,000 to the cost of repairing a vehicle. That's enough for insurance companies to often declare the car "totaled".
For the first time in history, the number of people on the planet aged 60 or over will soon surpass those under 5.
A British gymnast survived a fall from a fourth story window because he went into a somersault and came down on two feet.
One out of five people in the world (1.1 billion people) live on less than $1 per day.
The Swedish pop group ABBA recently turned down an offer of $2 billion to reunite.
The New Yorker magazine now has more subscribers in California than New York.
Five years ago, 60% of all retail purchases were made with cash or check. Now it's 50%. By 2010, 39% of purchases will be made by cash or check.
35 Billion e-mails are sent each day throughout the world.
The richest self-made American under 40 is Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computers. He is worth $18 billion.
Legislators in Santa Fe, New Mexico, are considering a law that would require pets to wear seat belts when traveling in a car.
Life Savers got their shape by a malfunctioning machine, which mistakenly punched a hole in the center of each candy.
SUV sales are up 18% in the first quarter of 2004 vs. the same period of 2003, even though gas prices are skyrocketing. Consumer surveys show that gas prices would have to hit $3.75 per gallon before there will be any real impact on SUV sales.
Airport security agents at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts caught a passenger trying to sneak a severed seal head onto a plane inside a cooler. The man said he was a biology professor and had found the dead animal on the beach.
Jimmy Carter once reported a UFO in Georgia.
There are 150,000,000 cell phones in use in the United States, more than one per every two human beings in the country.
A Boeing 767 airliner is made of 3,100,000 separate parts.
The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade.
Last December, the House of Representatives earmarked $50,000,000 to create an indoor rain forest in Iowa.
Amusement park attendance goes up after a fatal accident. It seems many people want to ride upon the same ride that killed someone.
Jeffrey and Sheryl McGowen in Houston turned to vitro fertilization. Two eggs were implanted in Sheryl's womb, and both of them split. Sheryl gave birth to two sets of identical twins at once.
For every ton of fish that is caught in all the oceans on our planet, there are three tons of garbage dumped into the oceans.
June Foray did the voice for Rocky the Flying Squirrel and the Chatty Cathy dolls.
Japanese and Chinese people die on the fourth of the month more often than any other dates. The reason may be that they are "scared to death" by the number four. The words four and death sound alike in both Chinese and Japanese.
People with initials that spell out GOD or ACE are likely to live longer than people whose initials spell out words like APE, PIG, or RAT.
More people in the United States die during the first week of the month than during the last, an increase that may be a result of the abuse of substances purchased with benefit checks that come at the beginning of each month.
In the film Forrest Gump, all the still photos show Forrest with his eyes closed.
There are an average of 18,000,000 items for sale at any time on EBay.
The New York Times reports that in February 2004, 62% of all e-mail was spam.
A Massachusetts surgeon left a patient with an open incision for 35 minutes while he went to deposit a check.
In 1991, the average bra size in the United States was 34B. Today it's 36C.
U.K. telecom provider Telewest Broadband is testing a device that hooks to your PC and wafts a scent when certain e-mails arrive.
The average North Korean 7-year-old is almost three inches shorter than the average South Korean 7-year-old.
In 1993, David McLean developed lung cancer. He died on October 12, 1995. McLean's death made him the second Marlboro Man to die of lung cancer. Another actor, Wayne McLaren, died in 1992 at the age of 51 from lung cancer.
There is a bar in London that sells vaporized vodka, which is inhaled instead of sipped.
According to market research firm NPD Fashionworld, fifty percent of all lingerie purchases are returned to the store.
On EBay, there are an average of $680 worth of transactions each second.
The Eiffel Tower shrinks 6 inches in winter.
The first FAX machine was patented in 1843, 33 years before Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone.
72% of Americans sign their pets' names on greeting cards they send out.
In an effort to encourage the use of nuclear energy, the United States lent highly enriched uranium to countries all over the world between 1950 and 1988. Enough weapons-grade material to make 1,000 nuclear bombs has still not been returned by such countries as Pakistan, Iran, Israel and South Africa.
Homing pigeons use roads where possible to help find their way home. In fact, some pigeons followed roads so closely that they actually flew around traffic circles before choosing the exit that led them home.
Every year, 2700 surgical patients go home from the hospital with metal tools, sponges, and other objects left inside them. In 2000, 57 people died as a result of these mistakes.
A snowflake can take up to a hour to fall from the cloud to the surface of the Earth.
Only 5 percent of the ocean floor has been mapped in as much detail as the surface of Mars.
The only people whose likenesses adorn Pez dispensers are Betsy Ross and Paul Revere.
We forget 80 percent of what we learn everyday.
Pain is measured in units of "dols". The instrument used to measure pain is a "dolorimeter".
In a nod to astronauts, Texas is the only state that permits residents to cast absentee ballots from space.
Eleven top executives of the Direct Marketing Association (the telemarketers' group that is trying to kill the federal "Do Not Call" list) have registered for the list themselves.
An iceberg the size of Long Island, New York, has broken off Antarctica and has blocked sea lanes used by both ships and penguins.
In 2003, the Transportation Security Administration dropped a requirement that air marshals pass a marksmanship test. Some applicants were even hired after they repeatedly shot flight attendants in mock hijacking episodes.
As of January 2004, the United States economy now borrows $1,500,000,000 each day from foreign investors.
A Costa Rican worker who makes baseballs earns about $2,750 annually. The average American pro baseball player earns $2,377,000 per year.
Former keyboard player for Jethro Tull David Palmer is now a woman named Dee Palmer. He waited until his wife died before going through with his longtime desire for a sex change.
During Bill Clinton's entire eight year presidency, he only sent two e-mails. One was to John Glenn when he was aboard the space shuttle, and the other was a test of the e-mail system.
Albert Einstein never knew how to drive a car.
The UK's best selling hiking magazine published faulty coordinates for descending Scotland's tallest peak (Ben Nevis), and recommended a route that leads climbers off the edge of a cliff.
The Mars Rover "Spirit" is powered by six small motors the size of "C" batteries. It has a top speed of 0.1 mph.
Zeppo Marx (the unfunny one of the Marx Brothers) had a patent for a wristwatch with a heart monitor.
The entire town of Capena, Italy (including children as young as 2 years old) lights up cigarettes each year in honor of St. Anthony's Day. This tradition is centuries old.
The Amish a diet high in meat, dairy, refined sugars and calories. Yet obesity is virtually unknown among them. The difference is since they have no TVs, cars or powered machines, they spend their time in manual labor.
Microsoft threatened 17 year old Mike Rowe with a lawsuit after the young man launched a website named MikeRoweSoft.com.
As of January 1, 2004, the population of the United States increases by one person every 12 seconds. There is a birth every eight seconds, an immigrant is added every 25 seconds, but a death every 13 seconds.
There is a Starbucks in Myungdong, South Korea that is five stories tall.
Astronauts cannot burp in space. There is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.
There has been no mail delivery in Canada on Saturday for the last thirty five years.
The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of an aspirin tablet.
The world's smallest winged insect is the Tanzanian parasitic wasp. It's smaller than the eye of a housefly.
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
If you have three quarters, four dimes and four cents, you have $1.19. But you cannot make exact change for a dollar.
There are more plastic flamingoes in the United States than real ones.
The chance that you will die on the way to buy your lottery ticket is greater than the chance of you winning the big prize in most lotteries.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton Look-Alike contest.
An average of 100 people choke to death on ball point pens each year.
The National Anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
Toto was paid $125 per week while filming the "Wizard of Oz".
All polar bears are left handed.
Fidgeting can burn about 350 calories a day.
To help reduce budget deficits, several states have begun reducing the amount of food served to prison inmates. In Texas, the number of daily calories served to prisoners was cut by 300, saving the state $6,000,000 per year.
The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the last name Beard.
Pope John Paul II is the world's Scrabble champion in the over-70 category.
Montpelier, Vermont is the only state capitol without a McDonald's.
Wearing headphones for an hour increases the bacteria in your ear 700 times.
In 1993, the board of governors at Carl Karcher Enterprises voted (5 to 2) to fire Carl Karcher. Carl Karcher is the founder of Carls Jr. restaurants.
The little hole in the sink that lets the water drain out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator."
The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.
Ted Turner owns 5% of New Mexico.
Over 8 years, this happened 284 times: "Cosmo" Kramer went through Jerry Seinfeld's apartment door.
The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2 moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns.
There are more 100 dollar bills in Russia currently than there are in the United States.
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
65% of Elvis impersonators are of Asian descent.
Burt Reynolds was originally cast to be Han Solo in the first Star Wars film. He dropped out before filming.
Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem Globetrotter" in 2000.
There are only three types of snakes on the island of Tasmania and all three are deadly poisonous.
It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is "shake" and the 46th word from the last word is "spear".
If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long.
The strength of early lasers was measured in Gillettes, the number of blue razor blades a given beam could puncture.
The drive-through line on opening day at the McDonald's restaurant in Kuwait City, Kuwait was at times seven miles long.
Point Roberts in Washington State is cut off from the rest of the state by British Columbia, Canada. If you wish to travel from Point Roberts to the rest of the state or vice versa, you must pass through Canada, including both Canadian and U.S. customs.
The Pentagon in Washington, D. C. has five sides, five stories, and five acres in the middle.
Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with "Midnight Cowboy." Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
There is an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of 200.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Newborn babies are given to the wrong mother in the hospital 12 times a day worldwide.
The Starbucks at the highest elevation is on Main Street in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Each year, over 1,000,000 people fail to itemize out the mortgage interest deduction on their income taxes. Last year, this amounted to $473,000,000 in taxes.
In 1998, more fast-food employees were murdered on the job than police officers.
The lead singer of The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and Jack Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug and Jeffrey Feiger.
Two very popular and common objects have the same function, but one has thousands of moving parts, while the other has absolutely no moving parts - an hourglass and a sundial.
One out of three employees who received a promotion use a coffee mug with the company logo on it.
If you know a (male) millionaire who happens to be married, The most likely profession of his wife is a teacher.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
1 pound of lemons contain more sugar than 1 pound of strawberries.
The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator.
60% of all US potato products originate in Idaho.
61,000 people are airborne over the US at any given time.
A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.
Mark Twain was born on a day in 1835 when Halley's Comet came into view. When he died in 1910, Halley's Comet was in view again.
The Weddell seal can travel underwater for seven miles without surfacing for air.
In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first (and only) home run.
The longest words in the English language with only one syllable are the nine-letter "screeched" and "strengths".
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye".
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" read 4:20.
A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
A baby is born without kneecaps. They appear between age 2 and 6.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
A snail can have about 25,000 teeth.
A snail can also sleep for three years.
A starfish can turn its stomach inside out.
A strand from the web of a golden spider is as strong as a steel wire of the same size.
A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans.
About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they're still sitting on it.
According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg.
Soldiers from every country salute with their right hand.
The microwave oven was invented by mistake when an engineer testing a magnetron tube noticed that the radiation from it melted the chocolate bar he had in his pocket.
Moisture, not air, causes super glue to dry.
Only 14% of Americans say they've skinny dipped with the opposite sex.
"60 Minutes" on CBS is the only TV show to not have a theme song or music.
Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace.
Most boat owners name their boats. The most popular boat name requested is Obsession.
100% of all lottery winners gain weight.
An average American will spend an average of 6 months during his lifetime waiting at red lights.
The Olympic flag's colors are always red, black, blue, green and yellow rings on a field of white. This is because at least one of those colors appears on the flag of every nation on the planet.
Cats can hear ultrasound.
In a recent survey, Americans revealed that banana was their favorite smell.
In all three Godfather films, when you see oranges, there is a death (or a very close call) coming up soon.
The arteries and veins surrounding the brain stem called the "circle of Willis" looks like a stick person with a large head.
Brushing your teeth regularly has been shown to prevent heart disease.
If you were to spell out numbers, you would you have to go until 1,000 until you would find the letter "A".
23% of employees say they have had sex in the office.
Bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers were all invented by women.
Married men change their underwear twice as often as single men.
A kiss stimulates 29 muscles and chemicals causing relaxation. Women seem to like it light and frequent, men like it more strenuous.
There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year.
Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
40% of all people who come to a party in your home snoop in your medicine cabinet.
3.9% of all women surveyed say they never wear underwear.
Superman is featured on every episode of "Seinfeld", either by name or pictures on Jerry's refrigerator.
85% of the men who cheat on their wives die while having sex.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served first class.
Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28
Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38
Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80
Percentage of American women who say they would marry the same man: 50
Percentage of men who say they are happier after their divorce or separation: 58
Percentage of women who say they are happier: 85
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches
Percentage of bird species that are monogamous: 90
Percentage of mammal species that are monogamous: 3
Chances that a burglary in the United States will be solved: 1 in 7
One third of the land in the United States is owned by the government.
The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards.
Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles or snakes.
An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.
In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
When George Lucas was mixing the American Graffiti soundtrack, he numbered the reels of film starting with an R and numbered the dialog starting with a D. Sound designer Walter Murch asked George for Reel 2, Dialog 2 by saying "R2D2". George liked the way that sounded so much he integrated that into another project he was working on.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school.
Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than horses.
Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
Your nose and ears never stop growing.
They have square watermelons in Japan - they stack better.
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
Heinz Catsup leaving the bottle travels at 25 miles per year.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
Men get hiccups more often than women.
Armadillos can be housebroken.
Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.
The first Fords had engines made by Dodge.
A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee.
The flashing warning light on the cylindrical Capitol Records tower spells out HOLLYWOOD in Morse code.
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
Over 1,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
The State of Florida is bigger than England.
Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.
It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland.
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food. That's the weight of about 6 elephants.
Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
The world's oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.
In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow.
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones.
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe.
In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
Slugs have 4 noses.
Recycling one glass jar saves enough energy to watch TV for 3 hours.
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue.
The average American drinks about 600 sodas a year.
It's against the law to slam your car door in Switzerland.
There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.
Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.
A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.
One quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
America once issued a 5-cent bill.
You'll eat about 35,000 cookies in your lifetime.
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under is cap to keep him cool. He changed it every 2 innings.
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
The pitches that Babe Ruth hit for his last-ever homerun and that Joe DiMaggio hit for his first-ever homerun where thrown by the same man.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.
There are over 52.6 million dogs in the U.S.
Dogs and cats consume almost $7 billion worth of pet food a year.
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.
The Pentagon has twice as many restrooms as necessary. When it was built, segregation was still in place in Virginia, so separate restrooms for blacks and whites were required by law.
In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
In 2003, there were 86 days of below-freezing weather in Hell, Michigan.
The average person laughs 15 times a day.
Darwin Awards 1999
For those sheltered few of you who are not fully aware of the Darwin Awards, the awards are given annually (and posthumously) to those individuals who did the most for the human gene pool by removing themselves from it.
DARWIN AWARD RUNNERS-UP: #1 - LOS ANGELES, CA. Ani Saduki, 33, and his brother decided to remove a bees' nest from a shed on their property with the aid of a pineapple. A pineapple is an illegal firecracker which is the explosive equivalent of one-half stick of dynamite. They ignited the fuse and retreated to watch from inside their home, behind a window some 10 feet away from the hive/shed. The concussion of the explosion shattered the window inwards, seriously lacerating Ani. Deciding Mr. Saduki needed stitches, the brothers headed out to go to a nearby hospital. While walking towards their car, Ani was stung three times by the surviving bees. Unbeknownst to either brother, Ani was allergic to bee venom, and died of suffocation en-route to the hospital.
#2 - Derrick L. Richards, 28, was charged in April in Minneapolis with third-degree murder in the death of his beloved cousin, Kenneth E. Richards. According to police, Derrick suggested a game of Russian roulette and put a semiautomatic pistol (instead of the more traditional revolver) to Ken's head and fired.
#3 - PHILLIPSBURG, NJ. An unidentified 29 year old male choked to death on a sequined pastie he had orally removed from an exotic dancer at a local establishment. "I didn't think he was going to eat it," the dancer identified only as "Ginger" said, adding "He was really drunk."
#5 - MOSCOW, Russia-A drunk security man asked a colleague at the Moscow bank they were guarding to stab his bulletproof vest to see if it would protect him against a knife attack. It didn't, and the 25-year-old guard died of a heart wound. (It's good to see the Russians getting into the spirit of the Darwin Awards.)
#6 - In FRANCE, Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide. He stood at the top of a tall cliff and tied a noose around his neck. He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock. He drank some poison and set fire to his clothes. He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment. He jumped and fired the pistol. The bullet missed him completely and cut through the rope above him. Free of the threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea. The sudden dunking extinguished the flames and made him vomit the poison. He was dragged out of the water by a kind fisherman and was taken to a hospital, where he died of hypothermia.
#7 - RENTON, WASHINGTON, USA. A Renton, Washington man tried to commit a robbery. This was probably his first attempt, as suggested by the fact that he had no previous record of violent crime, and by his terminally stupid choices as listed below: 1. The target was H&J Leather & Firearms...a gun shop. 2. The shop was full of customers, in a state where a substantial portion of the adult population is licensed to carry concealed handguns in public places. 3. To enter the shop, he had to step around a marked Police patrol car parked at the front door. 4. An officer in uniform was standing next to the counter, having coffee before reporting to duty. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a holdup and fired a few wild shots. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, removing him from the gene pool. Several other customers also drew their guns, but didn't fire. No one else was hurt.
AND THE 1999 DARWIN AWARD WINNER IS..... THOMPSON, MANITOBA, CANADA. Telephone relay company night watchman Edward Baker, 31, was killed early Christmas morning by excessive microwave radiation exposure. He was apparently attempting to keep warm next to a telecommunications feed-horn. Baker had been suspended on a safety violation once last year, according to Northern Manitoba Signal Relay spokesperson Tanya Cooke. She noted that Baker's earlier infraction was for defeating a safety shut-off switch and entering a restricted maintenance catwalk in order to stand in front of the microwave dish. He had told coworkers that it was the only way he could stay warm during his twelve-hour shift at the station, where winter temperatures often dip to forty below zero. Microwaves can heat water molecules within human tissue in the same way that they heat food in microwave ovens. For his Christmas shift, Baker reportedly brought a twelve pack of beer and a plastic lawn chair, which he positioned directly in line with the strongest microwave beam. Baker had not been told about a tenfold boost in microwave power planned that night to handle the anticipated increase in holiday long-distance calling traffic. Baker's body was discovered by the daytime watchman, John Burns, who was greeted by an odor he mistook for a Christmas roast he thought Baker must have prepared as a surprise. Burns also reported to NMSR company officials that Baker's unfinished beers had exploded.
DARWIN AWARD RUNNERS-UP: #1 - LOS ANGELES, CA. Ani Saduki, 33, and his brother decided to remove a bees' nest from a shed on their property with the aid of a pineapple. A pineapple is an illegal firecracker which is the explosive equivalent of one-half stick of dynamite. They ignited the fuse and retreated to watch from inside their home, behind a window some 10 feet away from the hive/shed. The concussion of the explosion shattered the window inwards, seriously lacerating Ani. Deciding Mr. Saduki needed stitches, the brothers headed out to go to a nearby hospital. While walking towards their car, Ani was stung three times by the surviving bees. Unbeknownst to either brother, Ani was allergic to bee venom, and died of suffocation en-route to the hospital.
#2 - Derrick L. Richards, 28, was charged in April in Minneapolis with third-degree murder in the death of his beloved cousin, Kenneth E. Richards. According to police, Derrick suggested a game of Russian roulette and put a semiautomatic pistol (instead of the more traditional revolver) to Ken's head and fired.
#3 - PHILLIPSBURG, NJ. An unidentified 29 year old male choked to death on a sequined pastie he had orally removed from an exotic dancer at a local establishment. "I didn't think he was going to eat it," the dancer identified only as "Ginger" said, adding "He was really drunk."
#5 - MOSCOW, Russia-A drunk security man asked a colleague at the Moscow bank they were guarding to stab his bulletproof vest to see if it would protect him against a knife attack. It didn't, and the 25-year-old guard died of a heart wound. (It's good to see the Russians getting into the spirit of the Darwin Awards.)
#6 - In FRANCE, Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide. He stood at the top of a tall cliff and tied a noose around his neck. He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock. He drank some poison and set fire to his clothes. He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment. He jumped and fired the pistol. The bullet missed him completely and cut through the rope above him. Free of the threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea. The sudden dunking extinguished the flames and made him vomit the poison. He was dragged out of the water by a kind fisherman and was taken to a hospital, where he died of hypothermia.
#7 - RENTON, WASHINGTON, USA. A Renton, Washington man tried to commit a robbery. This was probably his first attempt, as suggested by the fact that he had no previous record of violent crime, and by his terminally stupid choices as listed below: 1. The target was H&J Leather & Firearms...a gun shop. 2. The shop was full of customers, in a state where a substantial portion of the adult population is licensed to carry concealed handguns in public places. 3. To enter the shop, he had to step around a marked Police patrol car parked at the front door. 4. An officer in uniform was standing next to the counter, having coffee before reporting to duty. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a holdup and fired a few wild shots. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, removing him from the gene pool. Several other customers also drew their guns, but didn't fire. No one else was hurt.
AND THE 1999 DARWIN AWARD WINNER IS..... THOMPSON, MANITOBA, CANADA. Telephone relay company night watchman Edward Baker, 31, was killed early Christmas morning by excessive microwave radiation exposure. He was apparently attempting to keep warm next to a telecommunications feed-horn. Baker had been suspended on a safety violation once last year, according to Northern Manitoba Signal Relay spokesperson Tanya Cooke. She noted that Baker's earlier infraction was for defeating a safety shut-off switch and entering a restricted maintenance catwalk in order to stand in front of the microwave dish. He had told coworkers that it was the only way he could stay warm during his twelve-hour shift at the station, where winter temperatures often dip to forty below zero. Microwaves can heat water molecules within human tissue in the same way that they heat food in microwave ovens. For his Christmas shift, Baker reportedly brought a twelve pack of beer and a plastic lawn chair, which he positioned directly in line with the strongest microwave beam. Baker had not been told about a tenfold boost in microwave power planned that night to handle the anticipated increase in holiday long-distance calling traffic. Baker's body was discovered by the daytime watchman, John Burns, who was greeted by an odor he mistook for a Christmas roast he thought Baker must have prepared as a surprise. Burns also reported to NMSR company officials that Baker's unfinished beers had exploded.
Lawyer Joke
A guy is visiting San Francisco, and walks into a small store in Chinatown. He notices a small bronze statue of a rat. He asks the owner "how much", and the owner replies "$50 for the bronze rat, and $1000 for the story behind it". The guy says, "forget the story", and buys the rat. As he's walking down the street he notices two live rats following him. As he continues to walk, more rats start following him. He starts to get a little concerned, and heads for the waterfront. By the time he gets there there are thousands and thousands of rats following him. He walks up to the end of the pier and throws the bronze rat into the bay, and the rats all follow and leap off of the pier and drown. The guy rushes back to the store and walks in. The owner says, "Ah!, so your back for the story". The guys says, "no, I was wondering if you have any bronze lawyers?"
First Post
So, I just wanted to introduce myself and tell you about the site. My name is Chris and I created this site by myself, free of charge. I use all free ways of publicity and if you have any other suggestions, give them. This site is pretty much a collection of funny/interesting things I have found online.
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