USELESS FACTS!

(a.k.a. Did You know...?)

Here are some useless facts, for you to enjoy.

Taken and adapted from an e-mail written by me on Easter Monday, 1998:

• "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette is most likely about Dave Coulier (of Full House and America's Funniest People)
• Her song "Uninvited" is not on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, released November 3rd of 1998, but on the City of Angels Soundtrack
• Her second single from "Jagged Little Pill", Hand in my Pocket, was the original theme song for the hit drama Dawson's Creek, before it premiered. It was replaced with "I Don't Want to Wait" (Paula Cole) when Alanis refused to allow WB to use her song.
• I told you these were useless facts, yet you continued to read
• Quantum Mechanics states that nothing is real unless it is observed. Hence, if a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, it doesn't make a sound or even exist. For that matter the whole forest is in a state of inexistence.
• Common sense states that humans aren't the only thing on this planet, and we shouldn't be so self-centered as a species. Hence the tree falls, the tree falls. It makes a sound, as any tree would when it falls, and it exists. For that matter, more things exist than we know
• There are around twice as many accountants and related-position-people than doctors (including vets) in Canada
• The neutrino has mass: This means that the Universe is going to implode one of these days (Isn't that a pleasant thought?)
• The Mix 99.9 features 2 non-stop half-hour music mixes an hour
• The American movie rating PG-13 is equivalent to the Canadian AA (Adult Accompaniment).
• The "anti-skip" feature on most portable CD players most often works by storing the music ten seconds in advance, and then catching up on itself
• The topic of "Garfield" on January 9th 1995 was a frozen spider
• Garfield's Birthday is June 19th
• I am composing this message on "Outlook Express"--the e-mail program that comes with MSIE4
• I have to save often because this program causes my computer to freeze
• I hoped that downloading the upgrade to 4.01 would remedy this problem; but it didn't
• Marty York of The Globe and Mail Sports Department has always bet against the Hamilton Ti-cats, and has consistently been wrong in each and every game
• All the counters on this site are from thecounter.com, and they were free
• You can feel free to send this to anyone you like, or don't like
• You can find the "Titanic" website at www.titanicmovie.com
• The "100% ....." that I used to use at the end of most of my messages was taken from the same style e-mail ending used by Tami Levanoni, a graduate of the 96-97 SWC class, now at Brock, who was nice enough to let me steal it for my own purposes
• This thing used to flow nicely, but since I put this page up I have added useless facts, and haven't been able to keep the flow going right
• The e-mail address for the CBS Mailbag, featured on "The Late Show with David Letterman" is cbsmailbag@aol.com
• Most Internet browsers are based on the original Mosaic Internet browser
• The St. Catharines Public Library's DialPAC phone number which can be used to access their computers to search for and place holds on items is 905-687-4800
• You will need your library card and home phone number and/or last name to place a hold/access your personal information
• The Backstreet Boys won on Combat des Clips between 10 and 15 times with "All I Have to Give", from February to April/May
• Bill Welychka who often hosts CombatZone, plays the trumpet
• Rick "the Temp" from MuchMusic went to Brock University
• Many students that go to Sir Winston Churchill S.S. end up going to Brock U.
• Sir Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of Britain during a war
• The war of 1812 was ended by the signing of the treaty of Ghent in December, 1814.  But due to the slow communications of the time, all fighting did not subside until late February, 1815.
• The War of 1812 occurred from 1812 to 1814, and was known as "the war that neither side won"
• When neither side wins in Hockey, it is called a tie
• A face-off in hockey used to be called a 'puck-off', but was soon changed for obvious reasons
• Many people believe that Hockey should be Canada's National sport
• Canada's National sport is Lacrosse; though hockey was recently adopted as the National winter sport
• Lacrosse is played with a ball and a stick, is played on a hockey rink without the ice, and is much more violent
• Hockey rinks often double as figure skating rinks
• Canadian male Figure skating champion and Olympic Silver medalist Elvis Stojko did not participate in 1998's worlds due to an injury
• The hottest item at the 1998 Nagano Olympics was the Canadian Olympic team's hats, as well as General Mills Cereal Boxes that featured different athletes on the front
• The Canadian Olympic hats can be bought at Eaton's, which does not sell General Mills Cereal
• General Mills Cereal includes all the different types of Cheerios
• The mascot for Honey-Nut Cheerios is a bee
• Bee stings are best remedied with vinegar
• Vinegar is also known as acetic acid
• When acids are mixed in equal amounts with bases of the same strength, pure water is produced
• Pure water is very hard to come by
• If you "come by" to my house, we can chat
• Chatting is a popular feature of the Internet, and often requires Java
• Java is a popular type of coffee
• Coffee is found in beans, and is often associated with Juan Valdez
• Juan Valdez is a Spanish Name
• Another thing with a Spanish Name is El Niño, which means the child
• El Niño is a warming trend in the East Pacific Ocean near South America, caused by the reversal of the winds, and as a result the tides.
• El Niño is so called because it usually occurs around Christmas
• Christmas is 256 days away (today being Easter Monday)
• Most older monitors support 256 colour settings
• Most newer ones support "High Colour" (16 Bit) or "True Colour" (24 or 32 bit)
• 8 bits make a byte
• A thousand bytes make a kilobyte
• A thousand kilobytes make a megabyte
• A thousand megabytes make a gigabyte
• A thousand gigabytes make a terrabyte
• A 3.5" High Density floppy diskette holds approximately 1.44 MB of information
• Melissa Joan Hart (Who plays 17-year-old Sabrina the Teenage Witch) is 22, an even bigger age gap between actual and character age than James Van der Beek (Dawson of Dawson's Creek) who is 21 and plays a 17-year-old
• There are two spelling errors on Alanis' Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie: on the cover premises is spelled premiess, and in the lyrics Jekyll is spelled Jeckyl
• In the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "The Phantom of the Opera", the lot number for the famous chandelier is 666
• Very few of the things described in "Ironic" are actually ironic
• Former Ontario Education Minister John Snobelin dropped out of high school in Grade 11
• St. Catharines is the 6th warmest city in Canada
• When Alanis starred on the Nickelodeon show "You Can't do that on TV", she received hate mail because her character was considered by some a slut.
• Tamagotchis come with a warning that the battery is harmful if swallowed
• Toronto is the second largest city in North America (excluding Mexico)
• Previous to the publicising of the Monica Lewinsky affair, Bill Clinton's highest approval rating was 69%
• The following words and phrases are considered Canadianisms (words used almost exclusively in Canada): Baby bonus (government allowance given to all mothers of children under 18), Bloquiste, CanLit (Canadian Literature), eavestrough (gutter), First Nation (Native American), garburator, humidex (heat index), joe job (not what you think), keener, MP (Member of Parliament), parkade (a place to park), question period (a time of day in parliament when the PM and MP's take questions), PM (Prime Minister), RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan), rubby, seat sale (a 'sale' of sorts usually on airline tickets), sportsplex (not that hard to figure out), toonie/twoonie (a two-dollar coin), waferboard.
• The only time the weather varies from sunny and warm in Capeside (the fictional town Dawson's Creek is set in), is when it's required for the story line.
• Challenging a person to a duel is a criminal offence in Canada, with a maximum jail sentence of up to two years for a convicted offender
• It is however, legal to marry your cousin, or anyone of the same sex in your family (the law states that A man may not marry his Grandmother, Grandfather's wife, Wife's grandmother (possible??), Aunt, Wife's Aunt, Mother, Stepmother, Wife's Mother, Daughter, Wife's Daughter, Son's Wife, Sister, Granddaughter, Grandson's wife, Wife's grandmother, niece, or Nephew's wife (the reverse applied for females).
• The Canadian winners of 1999 Grammys (each with two awards) are: Céline Dion, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Alanis Morissette, and Shania Twain
• "Ping-Pong" is a registered trademark of Parker Brothers
• The actor that's "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) was also featured in Alanis' video for Thank U. He is a blur behind her in one scene, and was picked up from that for The Offspring's video
• In Shania Twain's video for "That Don't Impress Me Much", in the last part about the guy who's got a car, she can be seen numerous times in front of "Brad Pitt"s truck.
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite
• There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar
• All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20
• Almonds are a member of the peach family
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain
• When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city
• A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours
• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds
• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket
• The Canadian territory of Nunavut was created (dividing the Northwest Territories) on April 1st, 1999 (no joke), exactly 50 years after Newfoundland joined Confederation as a Province.
• Canadian singer Melanie Doane once did a duet with the Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson called "Tell You Stories". Needless to say it flopped, but has a great video.
• Geri Halliwell (formerly Sexy Spice a.k.a. Ginger Spice a.k.a. Geri Spice) considers Africa a country [and a third-world country at that]
• In addition, she claims to be having trouble finding someone. One of her latest attempts was George Michael, whom she later discovered did not like her...type. In fact she has not consummated a relationship since she took up yoga quite some time ago.
• My best guesses at those that Alanis' "Unsent" letters were addressed (based on information found in "You Oughta Know" by Paul Cantin, and other rumours) to are: Matthew: Matt LeBlanc (of Friends, they did a video together, and came in contact a few times), or Dave Matthews (of Dave Matthews Band, they performed and wrote together); Jonathan (or Eric in the demo): John Ritter (an actor in Problem Child whose movie Alanis' music should've been in, but was only slightly featured, playing in a diner (see the video!)); Terrence/Terrance (or Terry in the demo, also the Terrance line in the demo, I think they're both about him): Terry Sawchuk (A songwriter (for Our Lady Peace etc.), he wrote a song called "Superstar Wonderful Weirdos" with Alanis and Glen Ballard, and was credited as "Terrence Lee"); Marcus (or Marc in the demo): ??? (I really don't know); Lou (or Christian in the demo): Christian Lane (A singer with Loud Lucy, one of her JLP tour opening acts, they were romantically linked and once sang Head Over Feet together); finally Taylor (in the demo only): Taylor Hawkins (her drummer--need we say more??)
• You can defer the taxation of capital gains in Canada if payments are deferred... but no more than 5 years!
• Most North American cars honk in the key of F (i.e. they will honk one of the following notes: F, G, A, Bb (B flat), C, D, E).
• Banging your head against a wall uses 50 calories an hour
• Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure
• On the Backstreet Boys inside album cover of Millennium, they are listed by age in descending order
• You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider
• The riot-plagued Woodstock '99 more than quintupled the size of Rome, New York, and temporarily made it the third-largest city in New York
• For the Woodstock '99 festival, the amount of stuff used was: 17 Million watts of power, 50 miles of cable, 68 sound-attenuated generators, 23,000 ft of road and paths, 3 miles of woodstock peace wall (12 Ft. High and 200,000 square feet), 2,650 gallons of latex enamel paint, 15,000 man hours between 24 artists to complete (but only 48 hours for it to get ripped down), 10,000 sheets of plywood, 155,000 screws, 1200 dorms for staff, 500 licensed doctors, 500 medical support staff, 1000 medical volunteers, 22 ambulances, 15,000 band-aids, 245 acres of camping, 1250 unarmed security guards, 1000 additional security volunteers, 500 state troopers (directing traffic), 425,00 hot dogs, 160,000 hamburgers and cheeseburgers, 2 million sodas, 330,000 gallons of water, 212,000 pounds of french fries, 5 million packages of condiments, 470,000 ice cream bars, 160,000 soft pretzels, 3 beer tents, 2 beer maximum per trip to the beer tent, 30 million dollars pumped into local economy, 2500 portajohns, 1200 tons of solid waste, 500,000 gallons of liquid waste
• Pop singer Vitamin C's real name is Colleen Fitzpatrick
• Chris Gaines' real name is Garth Brooks
• The request e-mail address for Kiss 92 Toronto is requests@kiss92.fm
• On the X-Files, Mulder's filing cabinets are labelled "Fox File" [Mulder's first name is Fox, and there is a show on Fox called the Fox Files]
• A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee
• A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water
• A rat can last longer without water than a camel
• Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks, otherwise it will digest itself
• A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top
• A male emperor moth can smell a female emperor moth up to 7 miles away
• A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue
• A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate
• The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes.  He was albino
• Every night, wasps bite into the stem of a plant, lock their mandibles (jaws) into position, stretch out at right angles to the stem and, with legs dangling, fall asleep
• During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be seen in the distance
• On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily
• Daniel Boone detested coonskin caps
• Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode
• Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time
• Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood
• The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000
• Both Hitler and Napoleon were missing one testicle
• There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver
• The number '172' can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial
• The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan, there were no recorded Wendy's before that
• The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA.'
• Casey Kasem is the voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo.
• The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of ingredients in the sauce
• The dot over the letter 'I' is called a tittle
• In Lebanon it is legal to have sex with a female animal, but illegal with a male one
• 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals
• Every person has a unique tongue print
• There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos
• Cat's urine glows under a black light
• Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries
• Bats always turn left when exiting a cave
• Pearls melt in vinegar
• It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs
• Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married
• It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs
• Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka
• The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet and was developed by Western Union to Test telex/two communications
• The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable
• Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches
• A duck's quack doesn't echo
• The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases
• The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." [Thus the Don Maclean song]
• Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David; Clubs - Alexander the Great; Hearts -Charlemagne; and Diamonds - Julius Caesar
• 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 =12,345,678,987,654,321
• Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired"
• An ostrich's eye is bigger that it's brain
• The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds
• Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously
• St. Catharines and district has the 10th highest average house price in Canada (at $136,932)!
• If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar
• Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating
• Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
• The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections double as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies
• There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar
• Charles Schulz, creator and writer of Peanuts, died on February 12th, 2000; just hours short of the publishing of his final strip.
• The fictional town of "Springfield" on the show The Simpsons is located in northern Kentucky (as stated in the "Behind The Laughter" episode), or Connecticut as mentioned in the episode "Revenge is a Dish Best Served Three Times"
• The second track of Planet Pop 2001 is "Tearin' Up My Heart" by *NSYNC
• The seventh letter of the English alphabet is G
• Jen Lindley (of Dawson's Creek) has locker #45 at Capeside High
• When Everybody (Backstreet's Back) is played backwards, Nick can be heard to say "Hey look at me, look, people in misery because they want sex"!
• The eighteenth word in the fine print on the back of Madonna's "Music" is "AND"
• If you arrange the tracks on soulDecision's "No One Does It Better" alphabetically, every second title is a single (the other ones are not)
• The word "Technicolor" is trademarked
• Jon Arbuckle's (Garfield's owner) licence plate number is TB-312
• It is impossible to lick your elbow
• A crocodile can't stick it's tongue out
• A shrimp's heart is in its head
• It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky
• A pregnant goldfish is called a twit
• Between 1937 and 1945 Heinz produced a version of Alphagetti Spaghetti especially for the German market that consisted solely of little pasta swastikas
• On average, a human being will have sex more than 3,000 times and spend two weeks kissing in their lifetime
• More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call
• Rats and horses can't vomit
• The ''sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick'' is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language
• 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
• 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
• Each episode of Seinfeld includes at least one 'Superman' somewhere
• The cigarette lighter was invented before the match
• Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married
• A duck's quack doesn't echo
• The word that Americans spell "Color," Canadians spell "Colour"
• Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different
• Fish Cough
• If you feed a wild moose often enough, it will begin to attack people who don't feed it
• The word mattress originally meant "place to throw things."
• A snail breathes through it's foot
• Your hair feels like thread but it is as strong as aluminum
• Snakes can get malaria
• Eskimos use refrigerators to keep food from freezing
• Whales can get lice
• On average, U.S. hospitals treat 120 toilet seat-related injuries every day
• It takes an estimated 2,893 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop
• Horses can't breathe through their mouths.
• Mushrooms carry a common ancestry with insects, not plants
• Baby giraffes can grow as much as 1 inch every two hours
• A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in Indiana
• It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs
• If you're a healthy, full-grown adult, your thigh bones are stronger than concrete
• Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal music
• In some parts of Africa, ostriches are used to herd sheep
• Shrimp can only swim backward
• There are approximately 3100 square miles of water in the air at any given time
• Frogs can't swallow with their eyes open
• There are more Barbie dolls in Italy than there are Canadians in Canada
• A cats lower jaw can not move sideways
• The Bullfrog is the only animal that never sleeps
• Brain waves have been used to run an electric train
• Alanis Morissette attending the same Ottawa high school (Glebe) as Miss Canada 2002
• Lakes Michigan and Huron are now considered to be two lobes of the same lake, meaning there are now only four great lakes.
• 7 in every 1000 people in the United States is in prison
• 125 in every 1000 people in Rwanda is murdered
• The first Leon's Furniture store opened was in Welland, Ontario.
• The #1 cash crop in the United States is marijuana
• TheCounter.com SUCKS!!! It cancelled its free service after offering it for a long period of time!
• The word "Teenybopper" has been in use since at least 1967 when Sonny & Cher used it in The Beat Goes On
• Boxes of breakfast cereal that contain a premium or bonus item are not subject to Ontario retail sales tax (PST), provided the item is not liquor, wine, or beer.
• I have more useless facts about the cancelled ABC show Push here

Well that's it!

If you have any useless facts you'd like to add, or any corrections to make, please Sign My Guestbook

Last updated December 21, 2008.

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