Australian Facts

There are often days where we sit at work and think...where would I rather be...??? Today its Australia. Why not?! It has beautiful landscapes, cool animals and of course lovely accents. I'd like to be there today. Its rainy here. I'm bored at my desk and my big afternoon activity is refreshing sodas in the conference room. Seriously. I can't make this shit up. So here is to Australia. Cheers to you because you're so much better than here.

• There are 1500 species of australian spiders (fucking sick dude! Maybe I am not going to australia!)
• Australia has the world's largest population of wild camels with one hump
• The Tasmanian Devil does exist, and it has the jaw strength of a crocodile
• There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only some 20 million people
• Australia has the world's largest cattle station (ranch). At 30,028 km² it is almost the same size as Belgium
• We call Australian's from Queensland "banana benders", and people from Western Australia "sandgropers"
• The Great Barrier Reef has a mailbox. You can ferry out there and send a postcard, stamped with the only Great Barrier Reef stamp
• The Australian Alps, or Snowy Mountains as they are also known, receive more snow than Switzerland
• The Sydney Opera House roof weighs more than 161,000 tons
• The Great Barrier Reef is the largest organic construction on earth
• In 1954 Bob Hawke made it into the Guinness Record Book: he sculled 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds. Bob Hawke went on to become the Prime Minister of Australia

sweet and a vegetable?

Sweet potatoes (sometimes called yams) have always been a mystery to me...they are a vegetable, but their sweet, and then the way people cook them....fries, with marshmellows, in a pie, its very odd. I was going to write about airplanes today since I'm about to head out to BWI to make my way home to kansas for the holiday, but this post was my first topic request...how could I say no? :)

• Sweet potatoes Ipomoea batatas  belonging to the family Convolvulaceae
• Some parts of the genus Ipomoea include garden flowers called morning glory
• Sweet potatoes originated in South America
• Countries where sweet potatoes are ate as a staple food: New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Uganda
• North Carolina leads the U.S. for sweet potato production
• The sweet potato is ranked the highest vegetable for nutritional value and ranked 184 points, 100 points more than the next vegetable on the list (the common potato) 
• The first record of the name "sweet potato" is found in the Oxford English Dictionary of 1775
• Yams are actually related to grasses and lillies, sweet potatoes are a distant cousin of the potato

Converse are for .....JOCKS!

Everyone who knows me can attest that I love my converse sneakers. They are grey, have a star on them and are the ultimate in wannabe hipster fashion. I'm not a hipster, but I love these shoes and crazily enough I've snuck into work today in jeans and my converse and couldn't be more excited about it.

• Marquis Mill Converse opened the first converse rubber shoe company in Malden, MA in 1908
• The company's main turning point came in 1917 when the Converse All-Star basketball shoe was introduced, before they specialize in winterized rubber soled shoes
• Basketball Player, Charles H "Chuck" Taylor came in complaining of sore feet and got a job as a salesman, he worked there the rest of his life and his signature is now on the all star patch
• Converse was bought out by Nike, Inc. for $305M
• "The Weapon" was a basketball shoe designed to match team colors in high and low tops; it is unique because it was made with leather and a high padded heel for ultimate comfort
•  Converse All Stars were the first mass production basketball shoe in America
• Chuck Taylor was himself known to prefer unbleached white high-tops
• Chuck Taylor also managed to become the army's fitness consultant during WWII. Soon after that, white high tops became the “official” shoe for the United States armed forces
• All-Stars became popular again in the '90s to fans of the world as famous grunge-punk band Nirvana

Turkey day is approaching

With thanksgiving approaching, there is no post more appropriate than one about turkey facts. I think we have a lot to learn about our feathered friends today. And yes, this is post #2 today, its a slow work day. :)

• The domestic turkey is a descendant of the Wild Turkey and features prominently in the menu of the U.S. and Canadian holidays of Thanksgiving and that of Christmas in many countries.
•  fleshy protuberance that hangs from the top of its beak called a snood.
• Turkeys are by far the largest birds in the open forests in which they live
• The name given to a group of turkeys is a rafter
• Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the wild turkey, not the Bald Eagle, the national bird of the United States
• A case of mistaken identity resulted in the American Turkey being named after the country.  When the Spanish first found the bird in the Americas more than 400 years ago they brought it back to Europe. The English mistakenly thought it was a bird they called a "turkey" so they gave it the same name. This other bird was actually from Africa, but came to England by way of the Turkey (lots of shipping went through Turkey at the time). The name stuck even when they realized the birds weren't the same.

"can I come spoon with you"

There is something about spooning that lots of people love, the intimacy, the feeling of being protect or just knowing you're not alone in this world.  Well spooning has become not enough, what if you don't have someone to spoon with? The world has to thank Reid and Marcia for inventing the cuddle party. Now I'll admit I have not tried this, and frankly, will probably NEVER try this, but it is definitely an interesting view of our society and how we break the touch barriers with strangers.
 

Cuddle Party

• Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski, a pair of self-described "relationship coaches" in New York City, founded Cuddle Party in New York on February 29, 2004
• A cuddle party is an event designed with the intention of allowing people to experience non-sexual group physical intimacy through cuddling. Cuddle parties are described by organizers as "workshop/social-events" that gives adults an opportunity to "give and receive welcomed affectionate touch in a no-expectation, friendly setting, according to your needs, desires, interests, and boundaries."
• Cuddle parties are described as non-sexual events but kissing may occur at some parties
• "Cuddle-buddies" are almost always ongoing relationships after being formed from prior relationships

Cuddle Party Rules: From the official website

1. Pajamas stay on the whole time.

2. No SEX. (Yep, you read that right.)

3a. Kissing and nuzzling, as well as other forms of touch, are allowed, but you must ask permission and receive a verbal YES before you touch anyone.

3b. You don't have to cuddle anyone at a Cuddle Party, ever.

4. If you're a yes, say YES. If you're a no, say NO.

5. If you're a maybe, say NO.

6. You are encouraged to change your mind from a yes to a no, or a no to a yes anytime you want.

7. NO DRY HUMPING!

8. If you're in a relationship, communicate and set your boundaries and agreements BEFORE you go to the Cuddle Party. Don't re-negotiate those agreements/boundaries during the Cuddle Party. (Trust us on this one.)

9. Get your Cuddle Lifeguard On Duty or Cuddle Caddy if there's a concern, problem, or question or should you feel unsafe or need assistance with anything during the Cuddle Party.

10. Crying and giggling are both welcomed and encouraged.

11. Please be respectful of other people's privacy when sharing with the outside world about Cuddle Parties and DO NOT GOSSIP.

12. Arrive on time.

13. Be hygienically savvy.

14. Keep the cuddle space tidy and pick up after yourself.

15. Always say thank you and practice good Cuddle Manners.

Ikea - love to hate them

So as everyone knows a trip to ikea holds a lot in store...cheap furnishings, expensive furniture that eventually will break either because you made it wrong/a skrew is lose/there isn't real wood involved. You also get the amazing lunch for $3 (2 hotdogs, back of chips and a soda + frozen yougert). There are a million and 1 options there and all for a good price, yet when you get home what you bought never seems to really replicate what the display room they showed you. And with that said, lets gain some insight...

• Ikea began in 1943 in the small village of Agunnaryd in Sweden.
• The founder, Ingvar Kamprad, was only 17
• In the end of 2010 there were 313 IKEA chain stores in 38 countries
• Countries with the top five sales were: Germany 16%, USA 11%, France 10%, UK 7%, and Italy 7%.
• Ikea has 12,000 home furnishing articles
• Ingvar Kamprad who invented the name IKEA by taking the first initial of his first and last name (IK) and adding the first initial of the farm and village where he was raised (Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd). Together the name IKEA was born.

Most interesting the IKEA NAMING SYSTEM - How do they come up with those funny names?

IKEA products are identified by single word names. Most of the names are Swedish in origin. Although there are some notable exceptions, most product names are based on a special naming system developed by IKEA.^[

• Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish placenames (for example: Klippan)
• Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian place names
• Dining tables and chairs: Finnish place names
• Bookcase ranges: Occupations
• Bathroom articles: Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays
• Kitchens: grammatical terms, sometimes also other names
• Chairs, desks: men's names
• Materials, curtains: women's names
• Garden furniture: Swedish islands
• Carpets: Danish place names
• Lighting: terms from music, chemistry, meteorology, measures, weights, seasons, months, days, boats, nautical terms
• Bedlinen, bed covers, pillows/cushions: flowers, plants, precious stones
• Children's items: mammals, birds, adjectives
• Curtain accessories: mathematical and geometrical terms
• Kitchen utensils: foreign words, spices, herbs, fish, mushrooms, fruits or berries, functional descriptions
• Boxes, wall decoration, pictures and frames, clocks: colloquial expressions, also Swedish place names

Ballet - The nutcracker

• 57 people work backstage to coordinate the scenery, lighting, and costumes during each performance.
• 150 costumes appear onstage in each performance
• Between 600 and 700 lighting instruments are used in the stage lighting for the production
• The Sugarplum Fairy’s tutu is made of 7 layers of tulle.
• The giant Christmas tree grows to a full height of 41 feet and weighs 1 ton.
• The Dewdrop costume is adorned with 65 crystal “dewdrops.”
• Mother Ginger’s skirt is supported by a 40-pound metal frame.
• Approximately 50 pounds of paper confetti fall onto the stage to create the snowstorm.
• There are 144 jingle bells on each of the Candy Cane costumes
• At its premiere in Russia in 1892,The Nutcracker was considered a failure by the public and critics. Tschaikovsky died less than a year later, not knowing what a huge international success the ballet would later become

What's a wino to do?

Today some friends and I went to the vineyard and it was absolutely beautiful, there probably are few things better in life than cornhole and wine tastings. I am hardly a wino, but their wines weren't bad at all. I am so sad that its going to be too cold soon to go to the vineyards, in fact, I'm mourning the end of warm weather in general.

• The smell of young wine is called an “aroma” while a more mature wine offers a more subtle “bouquet
• An Italian study argues that women who drink two glasses of wine a day have better sex than those who don’t drink at all ( hells yes! Now these are stats I can get behind)
• California, New York, and Florida lead the United States in wine consumption
• The wreck of the TITANIC holds the oldest wine cellar in the world and despite the depth and wreckage, the bottles are still intact
• As late as the mid-17th century, the French wine makers did not use corks. Instead, they used oil-soaked rags stuffed into the necks of bottles.
• 170 years is the average age of a French oak tree harvested for use in wine barrels (might as well sit back and enjoy a glass while waiting)

Harry Potter Opens Today!

Due to the widespread Potter-Mania that is sweeping our beloved nation today, it seems only fitting to do today's random facts about the Harry Potter Series. I know I'm going to see the new movie, are you?!

• A picture of Gandalf the Grey (from The Lord of the Rings) can be seen in the collection of great wizards in Professor Dumbledore’s study in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
• Rowling is the first person to become a billionaire (U.S. dollars) by writing books
• The actress who played Moaning Myrtle is actually 37 years old and is the oldest actress to portray a Hogwarts student.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on July 21, 2007, and sold 11 million copies on the first day of its release
• Colors play an important role in the Harry Potter novels. For example, shades of red represent goodness, such as Gryffindor’s scarlet robes, Harry’s red ink, and the crimson Hogwarts Express train. The Weasleys have red hair and a red roof. Green is largely associated with negative events, such as when Harry sees a flash of green when his parents die and the green-colored curse that made Ron vomit (not so sure about this one, but I'll go with it)
• Harry’s birthday is July 31, 1980. Rowling’s birthday is also July 31—but in 1966
• Voldemort’s wand is made of yew. Yew is seen by some as having immense supernatural power and being a symbol of death and rebirth, the same immortality that Voldemort seeks.
• Albus Wulfric Percival Brian Dumbledore is Dumbledore’s full name. Dumbledore is an Old English word meaning “bumblebee.”

For more facts visit: http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/05/24_harry-potter.html

Starting a Blog

So my roommate said I should start a blog and post a random fact every day. I tend to know the randomest things and maybe by sharing you'll all get to find out something new as well. I'm going to try to start doing this by posting 2-3 random facts daily and go from there. They'll be completely random and will just be there for your trivia knowledge. I will promise to try to be as accurate as possible, but I'll let you all know now that anything I post will be coming from other (hopefully) reliable internet webites.

 

Enjoy!!!

 

With today's theme our statistics are about Blogs!

 

• 95% of blogs are abandoned  (I seriously hope this won't be the case with me...I'll opt for calendar reminders every morning on outlook)
• There are anywhere between 7-10million blogs on the internet, only 50-100,000 of these generate followings
• 77% of internet users read blogs
• 1 in 5 bloggers update on a daily basis (eeek I guess I'm going to be that 1)
• 2/3rds of bloggers are male