Useless Facts and Trivia: Volume 15

Oh, yes!

It's time again for the next volume of Useless Facts and Trivia, along with MY COMMENTS in bold italics.




1. Killer whales are not, technically, whales. They are orcas, a relative of the porpoise and the dolphin.

That's not the part of their name that bothers me....umm..its the KILLER part of their name. I don't care if they are KILLER teddy bears, they must have an anger management problem, right?

2. If you stroke a shark from nose to tail, it is smooth. If you stroke it the other way, it is rough, and on some species, can even give you hand lacerations.

Oh yeah. I am going to swim right out and test that little gem of a theory. Here, sharkey, sharkey. I wanna pet you from tail to nose...because if you don't eat me you will just give me hand lacerations.

Who tried that to let us know anyway? Oh, I know! The guy with that bloody stump of an arm over there.

3. Elephants are the only land mammals that can't jump.

Do we really WANT them to? The china in my cupboards would not appreciate it.

I haven't invited them over for a game of hopscotch lately, have you? And you can't buy tutus that large, anyway.

4. More about elephants: If you add up the circumference of two feet, you get exactly the elephant's height. (?!)

Again, who has the time to check out these things?

I know there are theories about a man's feet and the size of his....(oh, don't act shocked! YOU have heard this, I know!!) but I didn't know they were measuring feet of elephants to know their height. What if the baby elephant is exactly two feet tall. Would that be an oxymoron?

5. Your foot is nearly the same length as your forearm as measured from the inside of the elbow to the wrist.

Okay. Now I am SURE someone with a measuring fetish is around doing all of these weird experiments on animal and human bodies.

And I KNOW you have already gone to get a tape measure to check out if this is true...so, is it? Doesn't it look like your arm would be longer from your elbow to your wrist is longer than your foot?

Why did God do this? One day, was he just at the drawing board and in a funny mood, turned to the angels and say: "Hey, lets have a little fun. It's Friday and I am really waiting for Sunday's day of rest. Just for today, let's change the drawings and measure man's arm from his wrist to his elbow and let's make his feet exactly the same length. Then let's see how long it takes man to realize my clever design!!? Are you with me on this one?? Oh, I just crack myself up!!!"

6. In 10 minutes, a hurricane expends more energy than all of the nuclear weapons in the world combined.

Now, I don't want ANYONE out there to test this one. It is one of those claims that someone can state and no one will ever challenge them on. Let's see if I can do one....Here: if you plucked everyone's nose hairs on the face of the earth and then picked every tulip on the face of the earth, the number would match exactly. Isn't that amazing?

7. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

I wonder if they are writing their own obituaries when they are doing this?

So BIC stands for ballpoints induce choking?

How do they know that EXACTLY 100 people do this every year? When they get to 100 people having done this, do they then decide to send out the warning to everyone else?

Last I knew, my ballpoint tasted awful in my mouth. So, who knew that people liked to ingest or inhale them? Maybe they thought the little tube of ink inside was a straw so they are sucking on it?

8. 90% of all New York cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.

No surprise there....the other 10% own 7-11 stores.

9. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

I am so glad I am one of them, isn't that just amazing that I got picked to do this?

Maybe the others are that old, they just don't remember how old they really are?

10. A snail can sleep for three months.

Oh, and any teenager presently living in your house, also. They forgot to mention that.