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Trigger Loaded wrote:


During Operation Desert Storm, a soldier's Game Boy survived a bombing on the barracks. The Game Boy is still functional, and is currently on display at the Nintendo World Store in New York City.

I am rarely in that part of town, but whenever I am and I have time,I make it a point to go check it out.

Scarab Sages

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Ernest Borgnine spent 10 years in the United States Navy prior to acting.


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The distance between "center of the civilized world" London and "grim oop north" Halifax is approximately the same as the distance between New York and Boston. The United States is f#*%ing huge.


It is illegal to argue in tax court that the federal income tax is unconstitutional.

The Exchange

David M Mallon wrote:
The distance between "center of the civilized world" London and "grim oop north" Halifax is approximately the same as the distance between New York and Boston. The United States is f#!%ing huge.

There is a story I have been unable to verify about Nazi POWs being sent by train to Fort Riley during WWII. The train ride was so long the POWs though that they were being sent in circles to confuse them. They escaped and after days of travel thought that they had gotten away by crossing the border into Mexico. when in fact they had made it to the border... of Oklahoma. They were promptly sent back only then realizing just how big our country really was.

Guess they escaped on May 3rd 1945


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David M Mallon wrote:
The distance between "center of the civilized world" Halifax and "Gotham on Thames" London is approximately the same as the distance between New York and Boston. The United States is f#~~ing huge.

FTFY :P

Scarab Sages

Mia Kirshner is a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Her father, Sheldon, a journalist for The Canadian Jewish News, was born in a displaced person camp in Germany in 1946. He met her mother, Etti, a Bulgarian Jewish refugee, in Israel. Kirshner has a younger sister.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Fergurg wrote:
It is illegal to argue in tax court that the federal income tax is unconstitutional.

It's not illegal to MAKE the argument. You most certainly won't get anywhere with it though.


LazarX wrote:
Fergurg wrote:
It is illegal to argue in tax court that the federal income tax is unconstitutional.
It's not illegal to MAKE the argument. You most certainly won't get anywhere with it though.

Actually, it is. It is considered a frivolous tax argument, and there are civil penalties for using them.

Scarab Sages

Paul Newman was training to be a pilot while in the Navy, but was discovered to be color-blind, ending his flying aspirations.


Aberzombie wrote:
Indeed! One thing at a time, Young Master Trigger.

Who you callin' young? I ain't the oldest fart on this board by a long shot, but I'm still past the 'young adult' stage. And I do what I want with relaying amusing, irrelevant factoids.

Seriously, though, the long post was me typing the fact in point form as I was recalling them, and then expanding on them later. I'll keep the posts shorter, but I'm still likelly to post multiples.

LazarX wrote:
Actually it has the exact same claim. Europe and Asia were once separate just like India. The Ural Mountains were formed the exact same way and reason as the Himalayas, a continental collision. However the collison was much earlier, and Europe, unlike India is no longer grinding against it, having finally stopped in it's motion whereas India has not settled down yet.

While I admit my reasoning is flawed on divisions, (I heard the Urals were chosen mostly because it seemed like a relatively straight, even line) it still sounds like India has a better claim if it's still grinding, while the Eurasian division has settled down.

If nothing else, if time is not a factor at all in determining division, wouldn't that mean all possible divisions have equal claim, since they all used to be one continent?

Anyways, quick factoid for now.

Nintendo and Sony cooperated to develop a CD games console. The deal fell through, Sony took the half-developed console, and made it into the Playstation.

Scarab Sages

Besides his own appearances in the Star Trek series, James Cromwell's ex-wife Julie Cobb played Yeoman Leslie Thompson in Star Trek: By Any Other Name (1968) and his ex-stepdaughter Rosemary Morgan played Piri in Star Trek: Voyager: The Chute (1996).


In France, you may not name your child Nutella.

Chapeau, France.

Sovereign Court

Paul Newman contracted Converse Engineering to rebuild three new 1995 Volvo 960 station wagons with a 400hp Bell-supercharged 5.0 liter Ford 302 V8 engine. The numerous revisions included moving the firewall so the new V8 would fit in the engine bay and a custom engine-management chip for the unique powertrain combination. Newman kept one of the Volvos for himself; the other two went to businessman Ian Warburg and to Newman's friend, David Letterman. Letterman still owns the Volvo, which you can see driven in his 2013 CiCGC interview/chat with Jerry Seinfeld.


Guess what? More Canucklehead facts!

Over 80% of Canadians live within 250km (155 miles) of the US border. Edmonton, Alberta, is the largest city beyond this, being just over 500 km (310 miles) from the US.

Canada is the second largest country in the world, and has the most coastline of any country. (Admittedly, most of it is a result of all those frozen islands we have up north.)

Canada has 60% of the world's freshwater lakes, which cover about 9% of the country's landmass. If it weren't for the lakes, Canada would actually be smaller than the US, which has more land area.

There are laws in Churchill, Manitoba, requiring you to leave your car unlocked, in case a pedestrian has to take shelter from a polar bear.

Canada is bigger than the entire European Union.

Prostitution is legal in Canada. Buying the services of one is not.

The US/Canada border is the longest international border in the world, and also one of the most lightly guarded.

Scarab Sages

Alan Alda served in the U. S. Army, and he went AWOL every weekend because he was dating the woman that he ultimately married, Arlene Alda.


The shortest building on the list of tallest buildings for each U.S. state is the 11-storey Decker Towers in Burlington, VT. For those like myself who have lived in Vermont, this will surprise nobody.

Vermont's largest city, Burlington, has a population of around 42,000 people, while its capitol, Montpelier has a population of just under 8,000.


Interesting....


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Alan Young, the voice actor who potrayed Scrooge McDuck in the original Disney Afternoon DuckTales, has continued to voice him in many modern depictions, including House of Mouse, Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, and especially Ducktales: Remastered. This despite the fact he was born in 1919, and is currently 95 years old.

Vatican City is the only country with no schools. Not overly surprising, considering 60% of its population is over 60, and the birth rate is 0.

In his very first comic appearance, Archie asked to be called Chick.

Three U.S. states may make a claim as the lowest state:
*California is the state with the lowest point in the U.S. Badwater Basin, in Death Valley, is 282 feet below sea level.
*Deleware has the lowest average elevation of any state, bearing an average of 60 feet above sea level.
*Florida has the lowest high point, Britton Hill, which is 345 feet above sea level. (Some of Florida's skyscrapers are higher, interestingly.)

New Zealand has ten times as many sheep as people.

The busiest border in the world is the US/Mexico border.

Some robots in Japan pay union dues.

Sushi is not the Japanese word for raw fish. Sushi refers to the vinegared rice. While raw fish is a common ingredient, vegetables or other cooked ingredients can be used as well.


The easternmost state in the United States is not Maine, as commonly shown on maps; it's Alaska. Part of the Kodiak Islands cross the barrier between hemispheres, putting that part in the eastern hemisphere.


Trigger Loaded wrote:


Some robots in Japan pay union dues.

O_O


An animated segment featuring Beetle Bailey and his company was seen during the 1970s and 1980s on Sesame Street, demonstrating to young viewers the concept of "first" and "last".


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Cabot Cove was the fictional town where the TV show Murder, She Wrote was set. While it looked idyllic, statistics show it was a bloodsoaked hellhole. 286 people were murdered there during the show's 12 year run, a murder rate of 95 per 1000 people. The city with the highest murder rate in the world, San Pedro Sula, Honduras, has a murder rate of 1.7 per 1000.

Scarab Sages

Gene Hackman was the first choice to play Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch (1969).


We saw the Brady bathroom many times, but not once did we see a toilet. The popular joke was that the Bradys were so good, clean, and wholesome that didn't even go to the bathroom. The truth was, the network censors wouldn't allow a toilet to be shown, at that time.


In 1888, the American publisher Joseph Stoddart had dinner with two British writers to see if he could reach an agreement to get them to write his company a novel each for publication. And while the younger of the two Brits almost missed the dinner, Stoppardt was successful, and could a few months later publish The Sign of Four (The Sign of the Four in the US), and The Portrait of Dorian Gray.

Scarab Sages

Portia de Rossi shares a birthday with her grandmother, who was born in 1907.


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My dad shared his birthday with his dad.


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Kajehase wrote:
My dad shared his birthday with his dad.

I share a birthday with my great-grandfather.


The last time West Ham United won a league game against Liverpool in Liverpool, She Loves You by the Beatles was the best-selling record in the UK.


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According to Bryan Adams, the singer of the 80's tune "Summer of 69", the song is about the summer he lost his virginity, and no, the name is not because it happened in 1969.

Scarab Sages

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The great John Ford enlisted in the US Naval Reserve in 1934, commissioned as a lieutenant commander. He served on reserve and active status until 1951, when Captain John Ford was retired with the honorary rank of rear admiral. While on active duty, during World War II, he worked with the Office of Strategic Services, predecessor to the CIA. While he produced a number of documentaries and training films for the OSS, perhaps one of his more notable achievements was a one-hour compilation of films which had been produced by order of General Eisenhower, showing liberated concentration camps. The film, titled simply "Nazi Concentration Camps", was entered as evidence at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials.


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The main Catholic church building in Gothenburg is regularly referred to as "The Heathen Dome (Hedendomen)."


Clowns without borders was founded by Nalle Laanella in 1996 and performs in refugee camps.

Scarab Sages

Farrah Fawcett was originally a Microbiology major in college until changing her major to Art in her sophomore year.

Scarab Sages

Kajehase wrote:
Clowns without borders was founded by Nalle Laanella in 1996 and performs in refugee camps.

This is awesome! I shall share it with people I know are terrified of clowns!!!


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Web of the Romulans was the first original Star Trek novel to reach the US bestseller lists


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If you use Chrome as your web browser, you can turn on an option to mute audio in individual tabs (like from embedded auto-playing videos/ads). To enable it, in Chrome's address bar, type:

chrome://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting

Under the Enable tab audio muting UI control section, click Enable, then close & restart Chrome. Now when audio is playing in a tab, you can click the little speaker icon in the tab, and viola! the sound is muted.

Scarab Sages

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Joey Bishop guest-hosted The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) more than anyone else, doing so 177 times.


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When it was first announced that Johnny Carson was joining "The Tonight Show," he was relentlessly pursued by the press for interviews. Carson eventually provided the journalists with the following list of answers that they could use with the questions of their choosing. Yes, I did. Not a bit of truth in that rumor. Only twice in my life, both times on Saturday. I can do either, but prefer the first. NO. Kumquats. I can't answer that question. Toads and tarantulas. Turkestan, Denmark, Chile, and the Komandorskie Islands. As often as possible, but I'm not very good at it yet. I need much more practice. It happened to some old friends of mine, and it's a story I'll never forget.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Trigger Loaded wrote:


The US/Canada border is the longest international border in the world, and also one of the most lightly guarded.

There are towns, even homes, which are bisected by the border.


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People might freak out at how many state secrets are shared with Canadians on an informal, daily basis, or how many Canadians are living illegally in America.


Off-topic humor:
Freehold DM wrote:
People might freak out at how many state secrets are shared with Canadians on an informal, daily basis, or how many Canadians are living illegally in America.

Like maple syrup, their evil...


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Freehold DM wrote:
People might freak out at how many state secrets are shared with Canadians on an informal, daily basis, or how many Canadians are living illegally in America.

Would explain why so many people like hockey, eh?


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Time for some Simpsons Trivia:

You may have noticed Homer and Krusty the Clown look incredibly similar. An entire episode ("Homie the Clown") is based on this, with Homer becoming a Krusty impersonator, and looking so much like Krusty that everyone is fooled. Originally in the show's early days, the plan was for Homer to secretly be Krusty the Clown, to create friction between Bart's love for Krusty, and his lack of respect for his own father. This was dropped early on, though the near-twin brother look remains.

Comic Book Guy's name was revealed as Jeffrey Albertson, specifically chosen to be as nondescript and average as possible. Matt Groening, however, revealed that his original plan was to have him named Louis Lane, and be "obsessed and tormented by" Lois Lane, but he was not present at the scriptwriter's meeting where the name was picked.

When voicing the early episodes, Dan Castellaneta saw his script required an "(Annoyed Grunt.)" Initially, he tried to emulate a "Dooooohhh!" sound used by Jimmy Finlayson in various Laurel and Hardy films. Deciding that a quicker sound would be better for timing, he shortened it to "D'oh!" To this day, "D'oh," is written in the official scripts as "(Annoyed Grunt.)" Some episode names even keep this tradition, such as "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)."

There was a contest after the season ender "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" to guess the answer. The winner would be selected from a pool of those who guessed correctly. However, nobody guessed that it was Maggie Simpson, and so no prizes were awarded.

The McBain movie clips you see in the early seasons, when put together in order, actually make a coherent narrative.

God and Jesus are the only characters shown in the Simpsons universe with five fingers.

Mr. Burns greets any incoming phone call with "Ahoy-hoy." This is a joke relating to Alexander Graham Bell's belief that "Ahoy" should have been the greeting used when answering the phone instead of "Hello."

The Simpsons holds the world record for most guest stars in a TV series, having over 555 when the record was given in 2010.

Marge is ambidexterous.

Matt Groening says one of his inspirations for Bart was when he was a kid, eager to watch the debut of the Dennis the Menace show, but found the titular character to actually be respectful and obedient to adults, the only real sign of being a menace being talking loud. Matt thus resolved that any child character he makes will actually be a menace. "Bart," incidentally, was chosen as it was an anagram of "brat."


This is what the Supreme Court of India looks like from above.


A citizen of Stanstead, Quebec who wants to visit their local library must cross through Vermont.


Freehold DM wrote:
People might freak out at how many state secrets are shared with Canadians on an informal, daily basis, or how many Canadians are living illegally in America.

I've been trying to warn people in New Zealand about this for years.....

Scarab Sages

Prior to Night of the Living Dead (1968), George Romero was better known as an industrial film-maker, who created TV commercials, promotional featurettes and industrial training films. One of his assignments was to shoot short films that were used in the TV show "MisteRogers' Neighborhood".


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Fred Rogers was instrumental in saving the VCR and thus, paving the way for DVRs. He went against most of the rest of the television industry in testimony for the Supreme Court in noting that he thought it would be beneficial for children to be able to record his program and time shift viewing. The Supreme Court, quoting Mr. Rogers' testimony in a footnote in their decision, was swayed, ruling that the VCR did not infringe on a network's copyright.

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