Daily Fun Fact for 12/16/2011

Russian mobster Boris “Pretty P” Gorbachov was nearly allowed to settle permanently in the United States last year after winning a “Miss Bo Peep” costume contest that promised citizenship and a strawberry farm as the top prize.

Gorbachov was crowned “Miss Bo Peep 2011” after hiring Chris Crocker as his makeup artist and Judy Bloom as his pronunciation coach. Although some media pundits claimed that he won primarily for his beauty, esteemed former NYT journalist Jayson Blair praised his oratory ability:

“‘Pretty P’ recites every Mother Goose nursery rhyme with the dignified eloquence of a 10 year-old Russian female Barack Obama. Her angelic voice can restore the eyesight of the 3 Blind Mice and put Humpty Dumpty together again. Put simply, at this pivotal moment in history, this dark, cynical world desperately needs a sweet, innocent girl like Pretty P.”

Fortunately, the mobster was deported when police discovered that he had forced a legion of children, all aged 10-12, to do all manual labor on his new farm. Their tasks included picking strawberries, operating heavy machinery, and sometimes even pulling plows in small teams. They now live safely in foster care.

Fight child labor

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 12/14/2011

Thirsty partygoers and responsible parents lookin’ for a frosty, fruity thrill can find drive-thru strawberry daiquiri stands just about anywhere in New Orleans. However, this local treat may be causing a very syrupy problem on its city streets: Clever patrons mask the fact that they are drinking and driving by keeping unopened restaurant straws handy.

Police aren’t laughing at the fact that these daiquiri-toting “straw men” tend to cause traffic accidents. Officer Rengold told Factopolis that “street hooligans driving with opened strawberry daiquiris are responsible for at least 35 injuries a year, mostly due to illegal street racing and gang-related drive-bys.”

Drive-thrus now limit customers to only one straw per visit, and they can no longer pack adult-strength strawberry daiquiris with kids' meals. Unfortunately, an underground market for daiquiri straws thrives on eBay and amongst NOLA’s most notorious drug rings.

Officer Rengold urges concerted action. “Not only do we need to brush our teeth of this sugary madness rotting our morals, but we also need to brush our streets clean of this ‘berry’ big problem by putting these thugs on ice.”


©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 12/9/2011

Today's fact is once again a guest fact:

Back in 1975, Jimmy Carter, soon to be 39th President of the United States, had a close encounter of the third kind. According to him, "Extraterrestrial bacteria in little extraterrestrial bacteria spaceships visited me on my peanut farm." What were they looking for?

Well, unbeknownst to most, many aliens (especially those largely invisible to the naked eye) power their ships with peanuts. Jimmy supplied them with enough peanuts for their journey, and they, showing their gratitude, plagued his opponent with the most severe case of explosive diarrhea yet experienced by man. From this originated the expression, "When the shit hits the fan," as that's exactly what happened (rather frequently) during the first presidential debate. As we all know, Jimmy Carter won, and the rest is history.

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 12/7/2011

Oprah has an ‘obsession’ with okra and incorporates it into every facet of her life.

“I love giving okra-related gifts from Oprah.com to my friends and family,” she said in an intimate, revealing interview with Factopolis. “Whether it’s comfy PJs with an okra print, professional-grade okra shaped stainless steel pans, fabulous okra earrings, or heavenly okra scented candles, okra gifts are always a big hit on Oprah.com.”

As one can imagine, Oprah loves cooking with okra. Her recipe book resembles a CEO’s rolodex and contains well over 300 okra recipes. She added, “I share tons of recipes to my Facebook friends through Oprah.com. You can also find several in my book Dreams of My Mother: Oprah and the Okra Empire, on sale now at Amazon.”

She reveals in her book that her love for the vegetable comes from her longtime partner, Stedman Graham, and her best friend Gayle King. “I call Stedman ‘my beard’,” Oprah said. “Um, by that, I mean, he grows on you quickly and can get scruffy at times, but at the end of the day he makes you look good in the public eye. I like him. He's sweet. He’s a pretty good guy.” Regarding her best friend Gail, Oprah has similar, if not more loving, words.

“She calls me “my little okra” and gives me little bunches of okra flowers and occasional pecks on the cheek. Our friendship has always been kind of playful; I like getting away from my ‘beard’ sometimes to focus on my friendship with Gayle.” She sighs and gets teary-eyed. “You always want to be with people you care about, but some people are more private. One day, maybe, when this is all over, we can experience the wonders of okra together and run away to ‘Okraland,” the theme park of our dreams.”

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge

The information in this post is just for fun and does not reflect any judgments/claims about the subjects' preferences.

Daily Fun Fact for 12/6/2011

Contrary to the popular belief that grizzly bears are menaces to small, edible animals, they are inexplicably natural allies with certain animals one would expect would make to a great snack.

Bern Frank was a 650 pound grizzly bear at the world-famous zoo Berlin Zoo, named after US politician Barney Frank, and German cities Berlin and Frankfurt. One day, zoo keepers left the doors of the penguin pen open overnight, causing several chicks to escape. They were found next day cuddled against Bern Frank.

Ever the protective parent, Bern Frank charged at any zookeeper that tried to move the penguins. Eventually zookeepers permitted the penguins to play with their adopted parent for about an hour each day in order to, as one zookeeper said under the condition of anonymity related to Factopolis, “boost morale, but also to see if inter-species hybridity was remotely possible.”

The bear likely suffers from a rare disease similar to Prosopagnosia, a human disease in which sufferers cannot recognize faces. One potential corrective procedure would be to introduce wasps, which studies have shown never forget a face, into the pen to interact with Bern Frank.

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge


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Daily Fun Fact for 12/5/2011

Today it is possible to buy and sell cattle, 40,000 pounds at a time, from a computer screen through the cattle futures market. The practice has been around for about a century now, but for a short period (1918-1919) the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was renamed as the New York Livestock Exchange because stock traders shared the floor with living, breathing livestock.

No one could predict the impact that the homecoming of thousands of soldiers at the end of World War I would have on the demand for cattle meat and leather. The cattle industry had been in dire straits for two decades and industry leaders wanted solutions to stabilize the market.

The decision to make live livestock trading available at the Exchange floor was mostly a personal decision by Gordon Logic, then the managing director at the NYSE, as a favor to a friend who had lost several barns in a fire. Regarding his decision to add dozens of mooing, clucking, and defecating animals to the floor, he gave an apprehensive response:

“Most traders loved the idea of being able to buy livestock in small quantities but for all the wrong reasons. Most regarded it as a cheap and convenient way to get a live chicken at “market” prices. They’d drive down the price so that they could purchase all of them at a cent or two a pound, then magically the price would skyrocket the next day. They’d all say the same, sexist thing the next morning: ‘My wife’s a great cook and does whatever I tell her to do, but I wish she wasn’t such a heifer.”

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 12/4/2011

Gropeon® Inc. was a little-known sister division of Groupon® Inc. that specialized in collective couponing for adult merchandise. Gropeon® founders soon realized the miniscule customer base could not sustain the massive discounts that retailers were offering and sought additional avenues to convey traffic to the site.

The “Gropeon® Top 5!” incentivized celebrity groping and encouraged users to check the site often to discover the top celebrity gropers. The celebrity groper of the month earned notoriety as well as exclusive TV, movie, or music contracts.

Hollywood became awash in hysteria and groping incidents within hours of the site’s launch. Tyra Banks, who accrued an impressive 3 gropes (Katherine McPhee, Rosie O’Donnell, and Cookie Monster) in three days, described Sunset Boulevard as “out of control. You’d see Jessica Alba loitering outside the liquor store salivating and stretching out her hands as men sauntered by. She was as fearsome of a predator as I’ve ever seen, like a starving lion chasing down the sickliest gazelle as prey. You’d hear a scream, turn around, and see a herd of men running to the nearest police officer, crumpling at their feet in terror. It was a dangerous time for everyone.”

Celebrity gawkers flooded the site, causing overnight site traffic to hit 3 million page views. Google took note of the advertising potential of the site and offered 6 billion for Groupon® Inc.

The aftermath wasn’t pretty. The FBI shut down Gropeon® in the beginning of 2011 because the site led to a “demonstrable spike in serial gropings across the country.”

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 12/3/2011

Today's fact is a guest fact from Richard Farrell.

The Spanish pirate Peach Beard Del Gato is considered by many to be History's most pathetic pirate. Standing at a mere five foot nothing, with a hint of stubble on his face and a receding hairline, he was rarely able to intimidate anyone. In fact, when asked about a robbery Del Gato committed, the tavern owner could only reply, “That was a pirate?”

The owner's confusion is understandable. Del Gato had all limbs intact and both eyes “unpatched.” His hat had been lost years before, and he was never able to afford a new one. Also, it was well documented that his parrot had a history of flying away, probably because it couldn't perch comfortably on his slanted shoulder. In Del Gato's defense, however, no one in the tavern got a good look at him as he ran out the door, stolen wine cooler in hand.

Daily Fun Fact for 12/2/2011

Amidst the post 9-11 hysteria, we got most wanted Iraqi playing cards, freedom fries, and that Enya song that makes everyone cry. Seeking to capitalize on this outburst of patriotic fervor, Mayfair Games, creators of Settlers of Catan and countless variants, tested small quantities of a war-themed ‘Settlers’ spin-off called The Settlers of Iraq.

The gameplay only deviated slightly from the original game. The game added two oil resource hexes and allowed players to build tanks which could be used to raze buildings and roads for a steep cost. The addition of tanks to the game added a much needed defensive aspect, but this caused most games to devolve into pissing matches and hurt feelings.

Another difference is that Settlers of Iraq replaced the faceless robber with Saddam Hussein. The robber functioned the same way as in the original with the added rule that only soldier cards (a US marine) could force Hussein off of an oil field. WHO NEEDS 7s? WE ARE THE USA.

But just as WMD were never found in Iraq, neither was this game found on many store shelves. Mayfair quietly let the game rot because they feared that it couldn’t compete against War On Terror, the board game.


©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 12/1/2011

For a short time during the early 2000s, Ron Jeremy was Mr. Nintendo. During this period, he was a secondary voice actor for many of the video game company’s most famous characters, including Super Mario and Link. Although you will not hear his voice in many of their trademark exclamations, you will hear his voice in many exclamations in which they become exhausted, hurt, or surprised. Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s chief designer, wanted to claim “top American voice talent” in advance of the launch of the Nintendo 64, at the time the most advanced and highly anticipated video game consoles ever made.

Miyamoto made the recommendation to recruit Ron Jeremy when his top aide, a “huge fan” of Jeremy’s classic films, praised him for his “spirited exclamations that effused realism, agony, raw masculine power, and a hint of satisfaction. These are the most important foundational qualities of our company.” His aide also admired his ability to “excel over long periods of continuous physical exertion.” The Super Mario look-a-like was nicknamed Mr. Nintendo for his versatile voice-acting and for his legendary work ethic, which yielded 20 games over five years of work.

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 11/30/2011

In 1912, William Taft became the first American president to participate in a boxing match with a live kangaroo. Australian Prime Minister Andrew Fisher challenged Taft to fight the animal in order to generate national pride for Australia, which gained dominion status from Britain just a few years earlier. From a political perspective, Fisher was much more of a champion of the working class than the more business-friendly American president. Fisher boasted that if that "husky boar (President Taft) can defeat our most elite fighting kangaroo, then I will humbly undo every piece of workers' legislation passed in Australia and will sell my mother to his administration for a year to work for free as the White House maid."

President William "husky boar" Taft accepted the challenge and fought "Excelby" the kangaroo in front of a small crowd of dignitaries on the White House lawn. The match was intended to be symbolic, and the President was ready to throw the fight. However, Taft slipped after failing to connect on his first punch and fractured his jaw. Taft's wife Helen wrestled the kangaroo to the ground after it had begun a "celebratory dance" atop his fallen opponent. After the fight, Fisher playfully telegraphed Taft the message "so, when will I get to meet your mother?" and mailed to Taft a basket of Australian bushfood and Excelby's boxing glove.

Taft's pride already wounded, he would get stuck in the bathtub soon afterwards.

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts and Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 11/29/2011

Parker Brothers originally planned for the Monopoly mascot to be "Pennywinkle," an anthropomorphic, moneybag-toting Dalmatian wearing a mink coat. They had to scrap the idea when the owner of a large pet store on Oriental Avenue sued the board game creators for stealing their logo: a greyhound wearing a top hat. With patent law being in its infancy in the early 1930s, George Parker believed that he would easily win the case if he could collect enough money to hire a lawyer.

Unfortunately, his ailing father had just been thrown in jail for swindling a casino out of tens and thousands of dollars by playing craps with loaded die. He circumvented the house advantage and tipped off the casino pit bosses by finding a way to roll doubles with a startling regularity. Parker had to decide on whether to use his savings to bail his father out of jail or to save the mascot of his dreams.

Parker gave up on fighting the lawsuit, used the money to bail out his father from jail, and replaced "Pennywinkle the Dalmatian" with "Mr. Monopoly". It was also because of this difficult decision and his frequent visits to his father in jail that Parker made three important gameplay changes to Monopoly:

1) Implementing the "Get Out of Jail Free" card
2) Creating the rule that rolling doubles 3 times consecutively lands the player in jail
3) Adding the "Just Visiting" pathway to the jail square.

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts

Daily Fun Fact for 11/28/2011

Zelda, the famous princess from The Legend of Zelda series, was named after American author F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda Fitzgerald. In speaking about the decision, Zelda series creator Shigeru Miyamoto said, "She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name." No cute story about his most famous creation, Super Mario, who was originally named Mr. Video and was planned to be a generic stock character to be inserted into any video game.

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts & Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 11/27/2011

Contrary to popular belief, "The Burger King" is not an only child. For several years during the late 2000s, Burger King considered opening "Pho King," a Vietnamese Pho restaurant concept, to rival McDonald's/Chipotle's Shophouse Southeast Asian stir-fry restaurant. The idea gained traction among high level Burger King executives, many of whom believed that salty, high-margin Pho noodle soup would appeal to American tastes. Intent on developing their brand, Burger King named the mascot "The Pho King," an anime-inspired, yeoman-like version of The Burger King sporting a conical hat. Profit concerns after the 2008 US financial crisis officially ended the experiment, but a high-ranking former executive told Factopolis that the deal breaker was finding a reliable source for organic water buffalo meat in the United States.

Still, two of these concept restaurants remain. Both the Sacramento, CA and Oakland, CA stores feature unassuming storefronts and interiors, but don't let the restaurant's modesty fool you -- the Pho is really, really good.

The author is not affiliated with any of the listed restaurants in any way and cannot verify the information listed in this blog.
©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts & Useless Knowledge

Daily Fun Fact for 11/26/2011

Never get stranded in a Canadian forest with a container of Moose Munch during the early fall. Bull moose will aggressively seek out Moose munch because it causes them to secrete pheromones that make them more desirable to the comparatively rare female moose, which for unknown reasons comprise only 15% of the moose population. More 10 Moose Munch related injuries occur every year in Manitoba, Canada, but most incidents occurred when local adolescents and tourists taunted bulls with the tasty snack. Still, some wilderness experts insist on not following this advice. Les Stroud, star of the hit Discovery Channel show Survivorman, accepts a care package from his grandmother every year and insists that "nothing -- not a bull moose, not a flying moose, not a Darth Vader moose -- will get in the way of me enjoying the 'moose' delicious chocolate-drizzled, caramel popcorn that the world has ever known."

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts

Daily Fun Fact for 11/25/2011

The Niagra Falls Shipwreck of 1888 was America's most preventable shipwreck. It happened when the ship's captain steered his ship under Niagra Falls in the middle of the night because, he "was feeling a bit parched." An observer reported seeing the captain holding a small mug in the air as if trying to collect water, before the force of the falling water and ice (the wreck occurred in December) broke the ship's bow and doomed the 17 sleeping crew members on board.The incident was the subject of ML Whitner's famous painting, "Winter Falls, Winter Dreams".

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts

Daily Fun Fact for 11/24/2011

Today's fact is a guest fact:

Thanksgiving originally developed around 600 B.C. in Athens, despite modern beliefs of origination among pilgrims to the, now, United States. In fact, Plato once said, 'Thanks in giving should be of utmost importance.' Socrates agreed. Jesus even said something along the same lines: 'Love your brother and give thanks. Thanksgiving should be your ultimate goal in life.'

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts

Daily Fun Fact for 11/23/2011

Oatmeal is not only delicious, but it also has a huge cult following in Korea. "Oat clubs," where members share new oat recipes such as oat oat-flavored soy milk, oat covered bean cake, and kimchi mixed with oats, are fairly common in Seoul. In fact, some recent landmark studies concluded that out of all lifestyle choices, daily oat consumption ranks only behind witchcraft in determining whether one lives to become a centenarian.

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts

Daily Fun Fact for 11/22/2011

The Norwegian Prime Minister gifts the Dutch government a boar-tusk shoehorn every year. This custom pays homage to a centuries-old military tradition in which Norwegian soldiers crafted shoehorns for their Dutch allies, who often had trouble putting on their boot-like war clogs. This is only one of many reasons that older Norwegians commonly refer to shoehorns as their "Nasjonale Oppfinnelse" (National Invention).

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts

Daily Fun Fact for 11/21/2011

"We Found Love" by Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris was originally penned by Michael Jackson in 1997 for Lisa Marie Presley as an attempt to save their marriage. The marriage fell apart for good when he sold the rights of the song to Mr. Harris in exchange for his exotic collection of peacock feathers.

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts

Daily Fun Fact for 11/20/2011

Openness is one of five major personality factors known to be constant throughout multiple cultures, heritable in families and largely unvarying throughout a person's lifetime. The other four factors: extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts

Daily Fun Fact for 11/19/2011

Dixie cups were the brainchild of William H. Dixie, the great grand-father of Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks. When asked about her famous relative, Maines responded, "I heard he was sweetest guy. I used to use his red cups every day, but now I can afford better."

©Factopolis - Daily Fun Facts