Stat's daily tidbits of weird but not worthless factoids, one topic per day!

[Statistikhengst]

08.05.2015:

There are no rhymes in the English language for "orange", "silver" or "purple".

 

[Gracie]

For LOTR fans.......

Lord of the Rings Spoof Page

(For example...most of the riders were women. Jackson needed people with their own horses...80% of those that requested to ride in the film were women and wore fake beards and mustaches).

• The actors who played the Riders of Rohan may surprise you. "Ideally, we wanted guys who were six feet tall with long hair and long beards to ride the horses," says Steve Old, head the Horse Department. "On New Zealand's South Island, though, it's mostly females who ride horses. In the end, we probably had five guys and the remaining 250 or so riders were women dressed as men! And the average age of the women was about 50."

• The Orc battle cries for the Helm's Deep battle sequence were provided by a stadium of 25,000 cricket fans, who screamed the war chants, spelled out on the Diamond Vision screen, with Jackson himself leading the crowd.

 

[Statistikhengst]

10.05.2015

On the average, 14 Americans are killed per year by VENDING MACHINES that fall on them.

Oy.

 

[Statistikhengst]

11.05.2015

Perspective.

Circumference of the Earth: 24,901.55 miles

Width of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter: 25,000 miles

The earth could easily fit into that red spot:

 

[Statistikhengst]

12.05.2015 : This is a person whom I want to meet!

Grass Guzzler: in 1986, a guy at the time known as Ben Garcia rode his lawn-mower from Old Orchard Beach, ME to Los Angeles CA, a 2,801 mile ride. ON A LAWNMOWER!!!


But there is much more to this guy than just this one amazing story, he is fascinating:

Strange Maine Out of the mower into the phonebooth

(info as to why he changed his name at the link)

And a follow up, here:

New Port Richey man goes for Guinness World Record in a phone booth Tampa Bay Times

Month in phone booth in search of Guinness record comes to an end Tampa Bay Times


And something new here:

West Pasco artist putting in a peak performance



And something very poignant here:

Pasco Unflagging zeal

 

[Pogo]

11.05.2015

Perspective.

Circumference of the Earth: 24,901.55 miles

Width of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter: 25,000 miles

The earth could easily fit into that red spot:

Eh - I dunno about "easily" -- you've got less than 100 miles clearance, without counting the atmosphere layers, half of which would be sheared off including the ionosphere. Taking the aurora away

 

[Statistikhengst]

12.05.2015: rubbery cannabilism!

If an octopus is hungry enough, it will eat its own arms.

 

[Pogo]

12.05.2015: rubbery cannabilism!

If an octopus is hungry enough, it will eat its own arms.

Fun fact:

The Beatles set out on a movie venture with a temporary working title song "Eight Arms to Hold You" (another Ringoism). This octopudinal concept was soon dropped in favour of Lennon's new song "Help".

Ringo made his squid-mark (hee hee) a few years later when he wrote "Octopus' Garden" during an impulsive holiday when he temporarily quit and walked out of the recording studio, having tired of the bickering (during which time Paul McCartney played drums, with audibly second-rate results; see "Dear Prudence" and "Back In the USSR")

 

[Statistikhengst]

14.05.2015: Money away!!

More than 70% of all US currency in circulation is held in foreign countries.

 

[Statistikhengst]

15.05.2015 The IDES of May!

The big picture: The very first VCR, made in 1956, was about the size of a piano...

That's the AMPEX VRX-1000, and it sold in 1956 for about $50,000.

 

[Statistikhengst]

16.05.2015: Terms of the times

What does "genitofemoral neuropathy" mean? "Jeans are too tight!"

 

[Statistikhengst]

18.05.2015

A wolf's howl can be heard as far as seven miles away.

A bullfrog's croak: one mile.



Wolfsister77

 

[Statistikhengst]

19.05.2015

J, the youngest letter in the English alphabet, was not added until the 1600s.

 

[Wolfsister77]

18.05.2015

A wolf's howl can be heard as far as seven miles away.

A bullfrog's croak: one mile.



Wolfsister77

Statistikhengst

I can believe it. Cool!! Thanks!!

 

[Statistikhengst]

20.05.2015

The word "hussy" originally meant "housekeeper".

 

[Statistikhengst]

21.05.2015

Napoleon's writing was so unreadable...

...that many of his personal letters were mistaken for battlefield maps.


No joke.

 

[Statistikhengst]

22.05.2015

The fishing reel was invented around the year 300 AD.

 

[Statistikhengst]

23.05.2015

Fully grown, Argentina's falabella horses are only 28-32 inches tall.

Falabella - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[Statistikhengst]

25.05.2015

Memorial Day factoids

Memorial Day, which was first known as "Decoration Day" sprang from the carnage of the Civil the Civil War and women began the tradition:

Ten facts about Memorial Day - CNN.com

(Many good details at the link, worth reading!)

You might find point no. 4 to be very enlightening.


Happy Memorial Day

 

[Statistikhengst]

26.05.2015: Prickly, prickly, prickly

There are 1,000 barbs in a single porcupine quill.