20 MORE FACTS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE

That panda has never looked cuter, by comparison

1. A Brazilian ad agency proposed the above ad for the World Wildlife Fund that shows a horde of planes diving towards lower Manhattan's skyscrapers. (The WWF rejected the ad, but somehow it leaked.)



2. A White House report suggests that between 30-50 percent of the U.S. population could catch swine flu during the course of this pandemic and that up to 90,000 could kick the bucket from it.



3. Jay-Z has had 10 #1 albums, but has never had one #1 single.



4. Incoming Japanese Prime Minister Yuiko Hatoyama's wife, Miyuki, once wrote about having ridden in a triangular UFO to Venus.



5. You can now purchase an air freshener that purportedly smells like Nelson Mandela.







6. Prison guards in Florida have now zapped at least 43 children with 50,000-volt stun guns as part of Take Your Kids to Work Day festivities.



7. A Pakistani man drowned to his death during the taping of a Survivor-type reality show.



8. Palo Alto just hosted the United States of America's first National Single Cougars Convention.



Photo by Daniel Britt




9. Kazuo Matsui missed the first few weeks of the 2008-2009 baseball season because, according to the Astros' official website, he was suffering from "anal fissure."



10. 90% of the paper currency in the United States contains traces of cocaine.



11. The band a-ha (of "Take On Me" fame) just released its ninth album.



12. These are just some of the late Don Hewitt's (60 Minutes creator) accomplishments: (1) He invented the concept of B-Roll, (2) produced and directed the Nixon-Kennedy debates, which forever transformed presidential politics, (3) invented the concept of cue cards for news anchors, (4) directed and produced Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, and (5) and invented the idea of putting text on the bottom third of the screen.




Divine Miss M Meets G-Unit




13. 50 Cent recently hung out with Bette Midler, who, by the way, once had an affair with Geraldo Rivera.



14. An affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America is training teenage Scouts how to capture illegal immigrants and fight terrorists.



15. Kid (from Kid 'n' Play) is doing local commercials for a suit store in Carson, California.



16. Federal Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske has chosen to abandon the phrase "War on Drugs."



17. Redfoo of LMFAO (of "I'm in Miami, Bitch" fame) is the son of Motown founder Berry Gordy.







18. Ben & Jerry's is renaming its Chubby Hubby ice cream to Hubby Hubby to raise awareness of marriage equality (which is great, except that Chubby Hubby sounds more like a term used in the gay community).



19. Speaking of Jerrys, Jerry O'Connell is a 1L.



20. Finally, both Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny were apparently packing heat:

(with thanks to JT Money)

--Junichi

ANOTHER 20 FACTS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT

This baby is no longer available for full-frontal nude photography

1. The infant on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind album is now 17 years old.


2. Over three months later, the state of Minnesota is still unable to determine who won the senate race.


3. A large Chocolate Oreo® Shake at Baskin Robbins is 2600 calories, 1220 of which are calories from fat.


4. A Chinese man made a woman deaf in one ear when he kissed her.


5. The winning bid to own the number 867-5309 (popularized by Tommy Tutone) in NYC was $186,853.09.


6. The name of the 18-year-old intern that openly gay Portland mayor Sam Adams had an affair with is actually Beau Breedlove.


7. Alison Krauss is now only one win away from having just as many Grammy Awards as Quincy Jones.


8. A Russian remake of the TV show Married With Children is so popular that Sony, the producer of the show, hired back the original writers to produce new scripts for Russia.


9. Ex-President Bush pardoned rapper John Forte, who was midway through a 14-year sentence for transporting a suitcase filled with $1.4 million dollars in liquid cocaine.


10. A Hawaiian Tropic Zone restaurant in New York City allegedly will not hire people unless they "talk white."


11. Joe the Plumber admitted that McCain "appalled" him and made him "feel dirty."


12. John Wayne once won the dog Lassie from its owner in a poker game.


13. This year, the number of people the Pentagon is employing solely for recruiting, advertising and PR purposes is 27,000, which is almost as big as the entire 30,000-person work force in the State Department.


14. Stevie Wonder produced Minnie Riperton's ballad "Lovin' You."


15. Former Vice President Dick Cheney had an uncredited cameo in Die Hard: With a Vengeance


16. South Korea, Taiwan, Austria, and Switzerland all have laws criminalizing adultery.


17. "Cwm" is a three-letter word in the Scrabble dictionary. (A cwm is apparently a circular basin with steep walls.)


18. eHarmony finally decided to provide its match-aking services to gays and lesbians ... not out of financial self-interest, but because it was forced to do so in a lawsuit.


19. The city of Birmingham (the one in the U.K.) has decided to drop all apostrophes from its street signs.


20. Some Japanese people snack on blowfish testicles, despite the fact that it could kill you if prepared incorrectly.

--Junichi

ANOTHER 20 FACTS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT

Hangin' Tough

Below is my latest list of facts that I find difficult to accept as true:

1. During 68 hours of oral arguments during the Supreme Court's last term, Justice Clarence Thomas did not utter a single word.


2. Halle Berry once dated Danny Wood, the least memorable member of the New Kids on the Block.


3. A baby was just born with an extra penis ... on his back.


4. In 1988, Adrienne Brown, then-wife of James Brown, tried to have a number of traffic tickets dismissed on the grounds of diplomatic immunity. Her immunity arguments were based on U.S. Rep. Douglas Baynard once having made the statement, "James Brown is indeed our number one ambassador."


5. According to a recent Census Bureau survey, blacks and Chicano/Latinos are about three times more likely to find themselves living in a prison cell than in a college dormitory. (Oliver disagrees: see the comments)


6. Paul McCartney did an in-store performance at Amoeba Records in Hollywood.


7. When the Germans asked for Americans to surrender at the Battle of the Bulge, the official American response was: "NUTS!"


8. Feist and Peaches were once roommates.


9. Avocado is derived from the Spanish word 'aguacate' which is derived from 'ahuacatl' meaning testicle.


10. Luther Vandross handled vocal arrangements and provided backup vocals on David Bowie's "Young Americans."


11. In Washington state, a mother of a teenager son is attempting to prevent Urban Outfitters from selling racy, sexually suggestive material to children. Her last name: MILFS.
    


12. In an experiment that asked 18 strippers to log hours worked, tips earned, and whether they were ovulating, menstruating, or neither, scientists discovered that strippers earned $70 during their peak period of fertility, compared with $35 while menstruating.


13. The last name of the man who holds the patent for the floating ballcock used in modern toilets: Crapper.






14. $23 billion has recently gone missing in Iraq.


15. Fox News referred to Barack and Michelle Obama's fist bump as a "terrorist fist jab."
    


16. The last words spoken by Ohio death row prisoner James French, shortly before being executed in the electric chair, were to a newspaper reporter: "How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? FRENCH FRIES."


17. Richard Gere's middle name is Tiffany.


18. Rodney King is going to be on the upcoming season of Celebrity Rehab.


19. K-Mart is selling abstinence-themed pants.


20. At this point, more people have probably seen the video below -- of 13-year-old Sameer Mishra mistakenly thinking he was asked to spell the word "numbnut" at the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee -- than the footage of Mishra winning the contest on ABC.

--Junichi

30 MORE FACTS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT

First Lady and a Tramp

Here is my latest OCD-fueled list of facts that are difficult for me to accept as true, or in the case of the photos on this page, undoctored.

1. Senator Clinton is considering the Dixie Chicks' "Ready to Run" as her campaign theme song -- even though the song is clearly about a woman who is planning to leave her man out of fear of commitment.
   


2. Hillary once gave a speech in which she joked that Mahatma Gandhi "ran a gas station down in St. Louis."
   


3. Jerry Falwell and Larry Flynt were good friends, even exchanging Christmas cards.
   


4. I can now use the Internet to find out who is sick in my zip code.
   


5. Author Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God) spent the last decade of her life working as a maid and died penniless in a welfare home.
   


6. Rep. James Sensenbrenner's $10 million fortune stems from his great grandpa's invention of the Kotex sanitary napkin.
   


7. The Olsen twins are being courted to play Bond Girls in the next 007 movie.
   


8. One in ten Europeans are conceived in an Ikea bed.
   


9. Doug E. Fresh is a Scientologist.
   


10. In an unprecedented verbal smackdown by an ex-president, Jimmy Carter recently called President Bush's administration "the worst in history" when it comes to international relations.
    


11. There is a formula to precisely measure the quality of my butt. (Those without access to NYTimes archives can read a copy here.)
    


12. Over a decade has passed since the Spice Girls' "Wannabe" was #1 on the Billboard charts.
    


13. The world's tallest man is 7' 9" Bao Xishun from Inner Mongolia. (Yes, this means that everybody on this planet, except for Xishun, is shorter than an Asian man.)
    


14. The aforementioned Xishun recently used his incredibly long arms to pull out plastic shards from two dolphins, saving the dolphins' lives.
    


15. Harraj Mann, a 23-year-old cell-phone salesman of Indian descent, was interrogated as a terrorist suspect after a taxi driver reported that he was listening to the Clash's "London Calling" and Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" in the cab.
    


16. Willard Scott claims that he created the character of Ronald McDonald.
    


17. On Led Zeppelin's How The West Was Won live CD, John Bonham's drum solo is 19 minutes long.
    




18. There is a term that describes President Bush's position in the above unedited photo: Lucky Pierre.
    


19. The U.N. Environment Program Convention on Migratory Species just appointed Nick Carter -- Backstreet Boy and former Paris Hilton flame -- as a "Special Ambassador of the Year of the Dolphin."
    


20. After a Japanese hospital created a drop box for unwanted babies, one father dropped off his 3 year-old preschooler boy there on its first day of operation.
    


21. Some people use this website as a search engine.
    


22. I can give piano recitals even after I die.
    


23. The #1 song in the U.S.A. is currently T-Pain's "Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')".
    


24. Boy Scouts in L.A. can earn a new merit badge for "Respecting Copyrights" after learning the evils of downloading pirated movies and music.
    


25. Wrigley filed a patent for a gum that contains Viagra.
    


26. Our planet is apparently running out of disposable chopsticks.
    


27. Gladys Knight is Mormon.
    


28. After the video shoot for Lionel Richie's "Hello," a runner broke the famous bust of Lionel's head while carrying it to Lionel's trailer.
    


29. Somebody translated the Grammy Awards article I wrote for MSN into Japanese.
    


30. I find the video below (NSFW!) of Sad Kermit's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" to be oddly ... moving.
    

Sad Kermit - Hurt
Uploaded by sadkermit

--Junichi

30 MORE FACTS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT

Respect my peeps

1. Had the United States ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the estimated expense of conforming to it would be about the same as the actual cost of the Iraq war thus far. (Source)


2. About 800,000,000 Marshamllow Peeps are consumed each Easter. (Source)


3. 125,000 pigs were killed to make those 800,000,000 Marshmallow Peeps. (Source)


4. According to the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, the U.S. military has spent $364,000,000 since 1994 to replace service members discharged for being gay.


5. Anthony Kiedis once traded a Stratocaster autographed by the Rolling Stones for 10 minutes' worth of heroin.
   


6. On a related note, when I was in college, I once passed on an opportunity to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers in concert where Pearl Jam and Nirvana were the opening acts.
   


7. The Red Hot Chili Peppers once went by the following names: (1) Spigot Blister and the Chest Pimps, (2) the La Leyenda Tweakers, and (3) Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem.


8. Radio Shack just laid off more than 400 workers ... via email. (Source)
   


9. Paul McCartney, born in 1942, is older than the transistor (invented in 1947), Israel (created in 1948), and cake mix (invented in 1949).
   


10. Medical studies have shown that four poppy seeds off of a bagel or muffin could cause a person to test positive for drugs.


11. It costs the U.S. Treasury 1.4 cents to manufacture and distribute each penny.


12. According to Simon Le Bon, Duran Duran frequently opened up their dressing-room door and found Princess Diana under the table trying to get an autograph.


13. There hasn't been a credible lead on Osama bin Laden's whereabouts for two years now. (Source)
    


14. Britney's ex-husband, Jason Alexander, is reportedly dating Shar Jackson, who is Kevin Federline's ex.


15. A 51-year-old emergency-room nurse named Susan Kuhnhausen returned to her home one night and discovered a burglar -- a former convicted felon, in fact -- armed with a hammer. A struggle ensued and she ended up killing him ... with her bare hands. (Source)
    


16. Sandra Bernhard played Rhonda the Picturephone Operator on Pee-Wee's Playhouse.
    


17. According to a study, David Hasselhoff is the male celebrity most likely to be searched for on the Internet by 16 to 24 year-olds.
    


18. R. Kelly recently said, "Osama bin Laden is the only one who knows exactly what I'm going through."
    


19. Randy Jackson of American Idol was once a bass player who was a part of Journey's Raised on Radio tour. (See tour book below.)
    





20. Joe Ranft, the co-director of Pixar's Cars, died in a car accident before completing the film.
    


21. Pat Buchanan received an award from PETA. Really.
    


22. The mention of a mere word -- "felching" -- earned A Dirty Shame an NC-17 rating.
    


23. ?uestlove of The Roots once fired an assistant over Scrabble because she was really condescending toward him after she beat him.
    


24. Victoria Beckham had May 8 tattooed on her arm in Roman numerals to honor the first time she and David Beckham did the humpty dance in 1997.
    


25. On Rick Ross's hit song "Hustlin,'" Ricks raps about how he used to inject steroids into his female drug smugglers.
    


26. There are no twins in the Thompson Twins, the Cocteau Twins, Aphex Twins, or the Ying Yang twins.
    


27. On the other hand, the sisters in Tegan and Sara, Nina Sky, and the Veronicas, as well as the Madden brothers of Good Charlotte, are all twins.
    


28. Tegan and Sara are not only identical twin sisters, they're also both lesbian.
    


29. Valerie Wilson, who works at a Long Island deli, just won $1 million on a lottery scratch-off game ... for the second time.
    


30. LL Cool J was once arrested for public lewdness in Georgia for humping a couch on stage.
    

--Junichi

30 MORE FACTS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT

David Gest gets funkdafied. Must ... look ... away ...

1. David Gest (ex-husband of Liza Minnelli) and rapper Da Brat apparently hooked up.
   


2. The Defense Department has acknowledged that it conducted "inappropriate" surveillance of gay and lesbian groups at several universities across the country -- including UC Berkeley -- that were opposed to the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law.
   


3. On national television, Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston revealed to the world that Bobby once manually removed a "dootie bubble" from Whitney's rectum.
   


4. According to Yale's Economist Ebonya Washington in a forthcoming article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, white Republicans are 25% more likely to vote for the Democratic senatorial candidate when the GOP candidate is black.
   


5. According to that same study, in congressional house races, white Democrats are 38% less likely to vote Democratic if their candidate is black.
   


6. When Patrick Dempsey was 21, he was married to his manager, Rocky Parker, who was 48.
   


7. Before she became a famous sex expert, Dr. Ruth served in Israel as a sniper.
   


8. Ex-Lax was invented by Hungarian immigrant and pharmacist Max Kiss and named after the Hungarian slang term for parliamentary deadlock.
   


9. Cruise control and automatic transmission were invented by a man named Ralph Teetor who was blind starting at the age of five.
   


10. Bluesman Ledbelly was charged with murder -- twice -- and later pardoned by two different governors after they heard him sing.
    


11. According to Harper's Index, a new blog is created every second.
    


12. Tom Cruise told Diane Sawyer that his religion's practice of giving birth in silence is "really about respecting the woman."
    


13. Chuck Norris was once Steve McQueen's karate teacher.
    


14. It is a violation of federal law to use the U.S. flag "for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever." 4 U.S.C. sec 8 (i).
    


15. In 2005, Dick Cheney received more income from Halliburton ($211,465) than from his salary as the Vice President ($205,031).
    


16. Seattle, the Rainy City, gets less rainfall than either Washington D.C. or NYC.
    


17. There is actually a street in Lake Havasu City, Arizona called "Broomrape Lane." Here's the Google Map. And here's the visual proof:
    




18. In 1949, the New York Giants baseball team offered Fidel Castro a $5,000 signing bonus. Castro turned it down.
    


19. Goldie Hawn's real name is Goldie Jean Studlengehawn.
    


20. Since 1996, abstinence-only programs have been given $1 billion in federal funds; none of the programs provide information about safe sex or birth-control methods, other than discussing their likelihood of failure.
    


21. A study on these federally-funded abstinence-programs reports that the curricula erroneously teaches children that "a pregnancy occurs one out of every seven times that couples use condoms" and "a 43-day-old fetus is a 'thinking person.'"
    


22. Horses in Charleston, SC have had to wear diapers in public since 1975.
    


23. In the United States, there are currently 2,225 prisoners serving life sentences with no parole for crimes they committed while juveniles. Outside of the U.S., there are only twelve prisoners serving such sentences.
    


24. One of the Top 15 best-selling singles of all time in the United States is Bryan Adams' "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)," which sold over four million copies.
    


25. The word "nerd" first appeared in Dr. Seuss's book If I Ran the Zoo, published in 1950, where it was the name of one of Suess' many imaginary animals.
    


26. Ex-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan collected a reported $8.5 million for his memoir.
    


27. Dick Cheney himself was once on the receiving end of an accidental shotgun blast during a hunting trip in the late 1990s.
    


28. Prussian Blue, the 13-year-old female singing duo from Bakersfield, California, sent aid for Hurrican Katrina victims earmarked for Caucasians only. (Of course, this is not surprising since the two tweens are white nationalists.)
    


29. The book that holds the world record for best-selling copyrighted series of all time is the Guinness Book of World Records.
    


30. This is a real photo:

--Junichi

30 FACTS THAT ARE DIFFICULT FOR ME TO ACCEPT

Popov strikes out in court

Here are 30 more facts that are difficult for me to accept:

1. An advertising agency angered Johnny Cash's family in 2004 when it proposed using Cash's "Ring of Fire" for hemorrhoid cream ads.


2. Alex Popov (owner of Smart Alec's in Berkeley), who originally caught and then litigated to keep Barry Bonds' record 73rd home run baseball, ended up winning only $225,000, half of the auction sale price of $450,000. However, Popov ended up accumulating over $473,530 in legal fees. His former attorney then sued Popov for the money, causing Popov to spend even more on a new lawyer. Which is to say, Alex Popov lost over $250,000 from catching Barry's ball.


3. The title of Paul Simon's song -- "Mother and Child Reunion" -- derives from the name of a chicken and egg entree he spotted on the menu of a Chinese restaurant.
   


4. Red Bull is a foreign import from Austria, although it is based on a Thai beverage popular with rickshaw drivers called Krating Daeng (กระทิงแดง), which translates into English as Red Bull.


5. In Numbers 22 of the Bible, the Biblical figure Balaam has a conversation with a talking ass.
   


6. "Don't Phunk With My Heart" was nominated for this year's Grammy award for Best Rap Performance By A Duo or Group.
   


7. Donald Rumsfeld holds the record for being the oldest Secretary of Defense ever, as well as the youngest Secretary of Defense ever (when he served under President Ford from 1975 to 1977).


8. Ghost was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
   


9. There is a word for the sexual pleasure derived from enemas: klismaphilia (or klysmaphilia)


10. Young MC has released five albums since "Stone Cold Rhymin'" in 1989.


11. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment for juveniles, has been signed and ratified by all 194 UN member countries except for two: the United States and Somalia. (According to Wikipedia, Somalia is currently unable to ratify the treaty because it has no recognized government.)


12. Jodie Foster began her acting career four decades ago, in 1969, when she made her acting debut on television with a guest spot on Mayberry R.F.D.


13. The cost of obtaining the rights to the Clerks soundtrack (approx. $27,000) was more expensive than the entire production costs of the film itself (approx. $26,800), which was a first in motion picture history.


14. The cost of the Iraq war may exceed $2 trillion.


15. Stephen Chow, director of Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, tried getting Canadian citizenship but was denied by Canadian immigration because of his alleged links to underground gangs in Hong Kong.


16. Somebody is making a movie based on the arcade game Pac-Man.


17. Dubya's first appointment to the FEMA directorship was his friend and campaign manager, Joseph Allbaugh, who also lacked experience in emergency management.


18. Porn star Paris Hilton made the list of Top 10 Most Inspirational Celebrities of 2005 in a poll of teenage girls.


19. Some spend thousands to travel to South Africa for "scalpel safaris," where patients undergo plastic surgery and look at exotic animals while recovering.


20. In 2002, a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader raked in only $50 per game.
    


21. Charles Ingram won the top prize in Britain's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" with the help of his wife and a system of "coded coughs" from a friend in the audience. (They were later convicted of cheating.)


22. The state motto of Wyoming -- which has passed significant anti-gay legislation and has yet to pass hate crime laws protecting gays and lesbians, despite the murder of Matthew Shepard in that state -- is "Equal Rights."


23. Bill Ripken's (Cal Ripken's brother) 1989 Fleer baseball card included the phrase "F@CK FACE" on his bat.


24. In 2005, Hollywood studios brought in revenue of $8.9 billion, compared to the estimated $12.6 billion worth of pornography sales in 2005.


25. 1 in 5 Americans think the best way to become wealthy is to win the lottery.


26. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito was once a member of Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a campus group opposed to the growing numbers of women and people of color accepted into Princeton.


27. Despite fact #26 above and Alito's extensive record as one of the most right-wing appellate judges, 77% of Americans still don't have much of an opinion on him.


28. George Takei (a.k.a. Mr. Sulu), who recently came out of the closet, is now the announcer on Howard Stern's show on Sirius. And he's a great addition to the show.


29. After Hurrican Katrina, the conservative Heritage Foundation actually had the gall to capitalize on the disaster and issue position papers that advocated repealing the Clean Air Act and rewriting the Clean Water Act, permanently eliminate capital-gains taxes on all investments made within the area, suspend all zoning regulations, and slash the wages that private contractors are required to pay workers on federal reconstruction projects. (Source: RS)


30. Not too long ago, we Americans -- while at war, led by a president implicated in numerous scandals, and during hearings regarding a pivotal Supreme Court vacancy -- would not have cared much about whether Angelina Jolie is pregnant with Brad Pitt's child.
    

You can also check out the previous 30 facts and the original 50.

--Junichi

30 FACTS THAT ARE DIFFICULT FOR ME TO ACCEPT

I no longer believe that the children are our future.

As part of my OCD, I keep a list of things I read or other facts/thoughts that are difficult for me to accept as true. I do this for no good reason except to come to terms with them, and possibly, to share them with you, as I've done before.

Here are my latest thirty I've recorded:

1. Hollaback spelled backwards is, basically, Kabbalah. (Thanks, Len)


2. IBM, which introduced the first PC, no longer makes PCs.


3. This year, our federal government will spend $168 million for sexual-abstinence education but only $13 million for adoption awareness. (Source: Parade, April 10, 2005)


4. Ben Affleck's reformed-alcoholic dad, Tim, became Robert Downey Jr.'s drug counselor.


5. Since the invasion of Iraq, the US has allocated $19 billion for reconstruction and related projects in Iraq. $19 billion is more than the combined annual budgets for the National Cancer Institute, Amtrak, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, Federal Air Marshals, operation of the National Park Service, Homeless Assistance Grants, the Superfund Hazardous Substance Cleanup, Home-Delivered Meals to the Elderly and youth employment and training programs. (Source: Parade, April 10, 2005)


6. Chris Rock just turned 40.


7. Karl Rove is not in prison.


8. Popeye has four nephews, one of whom is named Poopeye. (The others are Pipeye, Peepeye, and Pupeye.)


9. The government spent more than $40 million for the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations but only $15 million for the 9/11 Commission to examine the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. (Source: Parade, April 10, 2005)


10. The Canary Islands were named after wild dogs - canis in Latin. The songbirds we call canaries were named after the islands.


11. Vegas will soon host a replica of NYC's "East Village," with a "Meatpacking District" nightlife zone, cops on horseback, and, possibly, the only CBGB in the country.


12. Hootie and the Blowfish sold 16 million copies of their album "Cracked Rear View"


13. The tiny country of Tuvalu negotiated a contract leasing its Internet domain name ".tv" for $50 million in royalties over the next few years.


14. Jack Nicholson, Bobby Darin, and Eric Clapton all discovered that the woman they thought were their sisters was actually their mothers. When he was 32, Bobby Darin not only learned that his "sister" was his mother, but he learned that his "mother" was actually his grandmother.


15. Arizona has an official state neckwear: the bolo tie.


16. I first became aware of two of my favorite comedians of all-time -- Mitch Hedberg and Bill Hicks -- after they died.


17. Ten years ago, Windows 95 was first introduced.


18. There is an independent counsel investigating alleged improprieties by Paula Abdul, but not one for Karl Rove.


19. Gary Dahl of Los Gatos, California became a millionaire in 1975 when he sold over a million of his invention: Pet Rocks.


20. Amman, the capital of Jordan, was once known as Philadelphia.


21. People still use the term "All-American" to describe white Anglo Abercrombie-model-type people without thinking there's anything problematic with the term.


22. Apparently, if you cut an onion in half, rub it on the sole of your foot, and then wait an hour, you'll taste onion in your mouth.


23. John Denver once lost his temper with his wife, Annie (of "Annie's Song"), and sawed their bed in half.


24. China has more English speakers than the United States does.


25. If my stomach does not produce a new layer of mucus every 2 weeks, it will digest itself.


26. The revenue that is generated from gambling is more than the revenue that comes from movies, cruise ships, recorded music, theme parks, and spectator sports combined.


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


28. French fries apparently originated in Belgium, not France.


29. Bob Marley had a white Liverpudlian father.


30. If you farted continuously for six years and nine months, you would produce enough wind equal to the energy of an atomic bomb.


And a bonus one:


31. I could input the names of two of my friends "Jimmy Tran" and "Denizen Kane" as search terms on TiVo and it would automatically record tonight's episode of Def Poetry on HBO. 11:30 tonight! Holla!

--Junichi