Strange But True Stuff

I wanted you all to be well armed for those little social situations when the conversation is drying up and you need an unusual piece of trivia to liven things up a bit (See, I’m always thinking of you)….

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off (I like our fashion better).

If you visit Iceland you should keep in mind that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult! (Why you’d be visiting Iceland is probably another strange fact I could list).

The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts three naked men with their hands on each other's shoulders! (No, I’m not implying anything, I’m just saying…).

A car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute. Half an ounce is used to start the average automobile! (Turning off your engine while a train passes isn’t such a bad idea after all).

The Philadelphia mint produces 26 million pennies per day (We could save a lot of money by eliminating pennies, just a thought).

It is estimated that 4 million "junk" telephone calls, phone solicitations by persons or programmed machines are made every day in the United States (sometimes I think mine is the only number they have…).

The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows (I wonder of rental car agencies charge for extra insurance).

Most lipstick contains fish scales (I’m trying hard not to comment on this one).

Why is the word abbreviation so long? (Just wondering).

One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen (any wonder why we get so stuffed up?).

A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; a group of geese in the air is a skein (Have fun correcting people with that one).

Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive! (I thought it was a fear of candy).

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second! (bet you didn’t know that).

Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye" (Japeto had a strange sense of humor).

Americans eat about 60,000 pounds of food in the average lifetime, that's the weight of about 6 elephants (that’s why indoor plumbing is so important).

The average American/Canadian drinks about 600 sodas a year (I drink 3 or 4 a day so I guess that makes me abe-average).

There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses (pointing that out after a few drinks will probably get you called a horses back side).

Okay, that was fun but you’ve had enough for today. We’ll do this again sometime.
 

 

Live Long and Prosper...