Everything And Nothing

Fireworks 101

• Fireworks first appeared around 1000 A.D., in Chinese religious ceremonies.
• Various metal salts are used to create the colored explosions. Barium makes green, copper makes blue, and aluminum is responsible for the sparkle.
• To make different shapes, a chemical mixture is glued to wax paper in the form that it will take when it explodes. Next, the paper is put inside a spherical shell made of cardboard or some other paper. Several are fired off at the same time to give the appearance of three dimensions.
• The U.S. imported around $217 million worth of fireworks in 2007, with $207 million of that coming from China, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

[ via Kristin Appenbrink, Real Simple magazine, July 2008 ]

Happy Friday the 13th!

Dutch statisticians have established that Friday the 13th, a date regarded in many countries as inauspicious, is actually safer than an average Friday.

A study published by the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics (CVS) showed that fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays. There were also fewer incidents of fire and theft, although the average value of losses on Fridays 13th was slightly higher.

So Happy Friday the 13th. (And if your day is not safer yet, you now have an official excuse to fly to Amsterdam.)

Wasted Away Again

Perfect for your Cinqo de Mayo celebration!

$11.99

Don't Know Much About History

A report released last year showed that when more than 14,000 seniors and freshmen at 50 American colleges and universities were tested on the basics of American history and civics, the average score was 52. (The highest results came from Harvard, with a 70.)

In February 2008, it was reported that only 43% of teenagers  in another survey knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900. (While I was on my thrift store junket this weekend, a teenager helping her mother sort through war-time love letters asked what war we were fighting in the 1940s...)

Test your own history acumen here.

Why send a card...

...when you can send a ball?!

Show them how they've bounced right into your heart. (And a $1 will even be donated to the American Heart Association's GO RED campaign in their honor.)

$19.95

Serpentine Security

The coolest bike lock I've ever seen. I don't even lock my bike up - just leave the $50 bike right outside my apartment door. Steal it if you want. I'll buy another. I mean the bike lock costs $27 and my bike only costs $50. But it's still tempting... ;)

$27

'Dem Bones

These anatomically correct bone socks bring new meaning to "knee socks."

$19.98

[ via Boing Boing ]

Back to School In Style

Vera Bradley is now making backpacks. Four exterior pockets, two interior pockets for your PDA and cell phone, adjustable straps and a rolled handle.

$84

Henson Muppet collection donated to Atlanta museum

The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta will be the definitive Jim Henson museum - with everything from original puppets to sketches from his personal collection. The Center will house between 500 and 700 Henson pieces in a wing named for him and set to open in 2012.

Kermit the Frog is already on display at the center, and a series of smaller exhibits from the larger collection will rotate through the center until the new space opens. In September, the center will get Rowlf, Swedish Chef and Dr. Teeth puppets as part of an exhibit focusing on the characters that Henson operated himself.

The center also will display characters from the popular television show Fraggle Rock and from cult classic movies The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

Fundraising will begin soon for the new puppetry museum. The gift from the Henson family stipulates that the center must open a new facility with ample space for the historic collection before it gets the pieces.

[ via Dorie Turner/The Associated Press ]

Weird Things You Would Never Know (But do now)

Courtesy of my Aunt Ann (so complain to her, not me, if the weird things are just weird and not true!) ;) ...

• A shrimp's heart is in its head.
• The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
• Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
• Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. 
• If the government has no knowledge of aliens, then why does Title 14,Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16 1969, make it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles?
• In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
• A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
• 23% of all photocopier faults world-wide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.
• Most lipstick contains fish scales.
• Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
• If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
• If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out.
• In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand.
• It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
• A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
• More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
• Horses can't vomit.
• Butterflies taste with their feet.
• In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
• On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
• On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
• Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
• Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
• Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
• Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
• It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
• Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
• It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
• The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
• A snail can sleep for three years.
• No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH."
• Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. 
• The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
• All polar bears are left handed.
• In ancient Egypt , priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
• "Go," is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
• If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall.
• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
• The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
• Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
• Almost everyone who reads this email will try to lick their elbow.

(Yes, I tried to lick my elbow. No, I could not do it.)