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The Bronx ultimately gets its name from a Scandinavian settler named Jonas Bronck

Scarab Sages

John Milius, an avid gun collector, insisted that part of his payment for writing Jeremiah Johnson (1972) be in antique weapons.

Scarab Sages

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In 2012, Ron Perlman once again endured the 4-hour makeup routine required to transform him into Hellboy -- not for a sequel or other acting job but to fulfill the Make-A-Wish request of a six-year-old boy named Zachary who has leukemia. Creature effects house Spectral Motion applied Perlman's Hellboy makeup (and later also made up Zachary as Hellboy as well), and then Zachary got to spend the day hanging out with "Hellboy".


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The Yeti [Bestiary 1] or Abominable Snowman is an ape-like cryptid taller than an average human that is said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology. Stories of the Yeti first emerged as a facet of Western popular culture in the 19th century. The scientific community generally regards the Yeti as a legend, given the lack of conclusive evidence, but it remains one of the most famous creatures of cryptozoology.


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Of the roughly 100'000 people in Sweden that are allowed to vote in Finnish elections, only about 8'000 did so this year.


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Aberzombie wrote:
In 2012, Ron Perlman once again endured the 4-hour makeup routine required to transform him into Hellboy -- not for a sequel or other acting job but to fulfill the Make-A-Wish request of a six-year-old boy named Zachary who has leukemia. Creature effects house Spectral Motion applied Perlman's Hellboy makeup (and later also made up Zachary as Hellboy as well), and then Zachary got to spend the day hanging out with "Hellboy".

Ron Perlman is the man ... or, rather, the boy.


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Kajehase wrote:
Of the roughly 100'000 people in Sweden that are allowed to vote in Finnish elections, only about 8'000 did so this year.

They figure it's Finnished by the time they get around to it.


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While it is relatively easy to file for an extension on your Federal income tax return, such does not grant an extension on paying any taxes owed.

Croesus of Lydia was, at one point, the richest man in the world, because coins were invented in Lydia (at least in the west).


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The small town of Peor es Nada ("Better Than Nothing"), in central Chile, got its unusual name from the estate that used to be there. In the late XIX century, Enrique Oettinger used to own a large piece of land in the area, and in his testament he split it among his many children, leaving the smallest one to his youngest daughter. Upon hearing of her inheritance, she exclaimed "Oh well, better than nothing", which subsequently became the name of her estate and the village that grew around it. The locals are officially called Peoresnadiences ("Betterthannothingians").

Further south, the ominously named Salsipuedes ("Leave if You Can") got its name due to the moody Claro river which surrounds it. In the late XVIII century, the town would often spend most of the winter completely cutoff due to how massive the river could get (new bridges had to be built regularly). Problem is, due to a severe lack of foresight, the cemetery was on the other side of the river, so when people died during the periods of isolation the dead had to be buried within the town itself, leading to the usual saying in that locale that, upon entombment, "He didn't get out while alive; he'll never get out now that he's dead". In a similar fashion as the previous case, locals are formally listed as Salsipuedenses ("Leaveifyoucanians").

Not far from the last one, the coastal village of Matanzas ("Killing Sprees"), although peaceful today, was once entirely wiped out by English pirates. When officials showed up to assess the damage, they were confronted with the gruesome scene of a groom and bride with their stomachs sliced open right in front of a church, the priest and guests also dead nearby. The place came to be known just as "La Matanza" ("The Killing Spree"), and with time the town that formed nearby took it.


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A lamassu [Bestiary 3] is an Assyrian protective deity, often depicted with a bull or lion's body, eagle's wings, and human's head. In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a female deity. A less frequently used name is shedu [also Bestiary 3] which refers to the male counterpart of a lamassu. In art, lamassu were depicted as hybrids, either winged bulls or lions with the head of a human male. The motif of a winged animal with a human head is common to the Near East, first recorded in Ebla around 3000 BC. The first distinct lamassu motif appeared in Assyria during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser as a symbol of power. The Assyrians typically prominently placed lamassu at the entrances of cities and palaces. From the front they appear to stand, and from the side, walk.

Scarab Sages

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Emma Thompson has won two Oscars and at both ceremonies her statuettes were presented to her by frequent co-star Anthony Hopkins.

Scarab Sages

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Legendary basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar studied Jeet Kune Do Martial arts under Bruce Lee.


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Aberzombie wrote:
Legendary basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar studied Jeet Kune Do Martial arts under Bruce Lee.

He also battles Lee on film, in Game of Death, and does pretty well for himself—at least at first. It's Lew vs. Lee. :)


According to a recent study (which I'm too lazy to look up a proper link for, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I say I didn't make this up), cheese is as addictive as heroin.


Kajehase wrote:
According to a recent study (which I'm too lazy to look up a proper link for, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I say I didn't make this up), cheese is as addictive as heroin.

Well, I'm only marginally less lazy and the only references I can find for this with a quick Google appear on vegan websites aiming to help America get the cheesy monkey off its back...


The only problem with going vegetarian is that you have to make sure you're getting enough different plants in your diet that you're getting all the vitamins, minerals and other trace nutrients that you need to stay healthy. If you can do that then there may even be some advantages. to it. Regardless, Vegans have a tendency to go overboard making a wide variety of different claims which are supported neither by facts nor common sense.


A bit more digging reveals this study was made by a doctoral student at the psychology department at the University of Michigan. I was unable to find out what her eating habits are, though.

(And as I initially read things in a Swedish tabloid, you have to be sceptical about how well the study's findings were reflected in the text.)

Scarab Sages

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The Joule-Thomson Effect is defined as the change in gas temperature which occurs when the gas is expanded at constant enthalpy from a higher pressure to a lower pressure. The effect for most gases at normal pressure, except hydrogen and helium, is a cooling of the gas.


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When Sweden did its first attempt at using self-written tax returns to tabulate how much each citizen (well, subject really, seeing as this was back in 1711) should pay, the king (Charles XII) suggested that the tax returns should be filed under oath. This didn't happen, though, as he was advised that it might lead his subjects "to perjure themselves and thus put their souls at eternal risk."


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In Britain's first commando raid on Nazi-occupied Europe, a landing on Lofoten where they blew up a refinery that was turning fishoil into glycerin, the Brits returned with more men than they'd had when they started the attack since 150 local Norwegians volunteered to join the British Army.


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Kajehase wrote:
In Britain's first commando raid on Nazi-occupied Europe, a landing on Lofoten where they blew up a refinery that was turning fishoil into glycerin, the Brits returned with more men than they'd had when they started the attack since 150 local Norwegians volunteered to join the British Army.

There's just something really cool about that. Norwegians are badass.

Scarab Sages

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Jaelithe wrote:
Norwegians are badass.

Except, of course, when it comes to shape-shifting, alien horrors. Then you just need to call in Kurt Russell.

Scarab Sages

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Tim Curry was the producers' first choice for the role on the Batman animated series. However, after recording four episodes, his take on the Joker was deemed as too scary for children, and thus the part was given to Mark Hamill.

He also auditioned for the role of Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), but was rejected at audition for being too terrifying. The role instead went to Christopher Lloyd.


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Aberzombie wrote:
Jaelithe wrote:
Norwegians are badass.
Except, of course, when it comes to shape-shifting, alien horrors.

That's just because the "shape-shifting alien horror" absorbed their badassness when it absorbed them. :)


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Aberzombie wrote:

Tim Curry was the producers' first choice for the role on the Batman animated series. However, after recording four episodes, his take on the Joker was deemed as too scary for children, and thus the part was given to Mark Hamill.

He also auditioned for the role of Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), but was rejected at audition for being too terrifying. The role instead went to Christopher Lloyd.

While I love Mark Hamill's Joker, I'd like to have heard Curry's voice overs.


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Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Shatolov used to keep two Cuban crocodiles, that he'd been given by Fidel Castro, in his apartment.

Scarab Sages

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Amine (alkanolamine)refers to any of several liquid compounds containing amino nitrogen generally used in water solution to remove, by reversible chemical reaction, hydrogen sulfide and/or carbon dioxide from gas and liquid hydrocarbon streams.


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The Chimera (Bestiary 1) was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of more than one animal. Usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from its back, and a tail that might end with a snake's head, the Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra (also Bestiary 1).

The term chimera has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals, or to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling.


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Joe Simon said Captain America was a consciously political creation; he and Jack Kirby were morally repulsed by the actions of Nazi Germany in the years leading up to the United States involvement in World War II and felt war was inevitable: "The opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted to have our say too."


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Sorelle Booke was Fluent in five languages including Russian and Japanese, earned degrees from both Columbia and Yale universities. He served in the Korean War as a counterintelligence officer. Booke was married to the former Miranda Knickerbocker (the daughter of Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker (1898–1949), a Pulitzer prize-winning war correspondent) from 1958 to 1973.

He is best known for his Portrayal of Boss Hogg on the Dukes of hazard and eating fried chicken.

Scarab Sages

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Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II became Queen in a tree house. At the time of her father's death she was staying at the Treetops Hotel. It is literally built into the tops of the trees of the Aberdares National Park as a tree house, offering the guests a close view of the local wildlife in complete safety. It was there that, uniquely, she "went up a Princess and came down a Queen". She was the first British monarch since the Act of Union in 1801 to be outside the country at the moment of succession, and also the first in modern times not to know the exact time of her accession (because her father, George VI, had died in his sleep at an unknown time). On the night her father died, Sir Horace Hearne, then Chief Justice of Kenya, escorted The Princess Elizabeth, as she then was, to a state dinner at the Treetops Hotel. Upon finding out that she was now Queen she returned immediately to Britain.


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While filming a few lightsaber fight sequences, Ewan McGregor got carried away and made sounds of the weapon himself – these sounds had to be cut out later.


Fantasy humorist Tom Holt (Who's Afrsud of Beowulf, My Hero, Djinn Rummy, and many more novels) has a second, quite succesful career as K J Parker.


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Randarak wrote:
While filming a few lightsaber fight sequences, Ewan McGregor got carried away and made sounds of the weapon himself – these sounds had to be cut out later.

Good to love your work.


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Piracy has reached such massive levels in Somalia that there's a Pirate Exchange in the city of Harardhere. The Exchange has an index calculated from the performance of over 70 "pirate entities" and, although no official data is known, its director Mohammed Hassan Abdi has said it has been "showing continous growth rates".

Both individuals and public or private organizations can purchase shares in the Exchange, which are used to finance piracy operations and then pay based on the profitability of the scurvy venture.

Piracy has become Harardhere's main economic activity; the city has the highest ratio of luxury cars per capita in the country. Though officially against it, it's said the local government charges a special fee over profits earned from the Pirate Exchange, which is used, at least in theory, for funding public infrastructure.

Scarab Sages

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Before finally enjoying success on his own in the late 1960s, Glen Campbell was one of the top studio guitarists on the West Coast for more than a decade. A list of performers he accompanied reads almost like a who's-who of the top names of the era and includes Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, Nat 'King' Cole, Frankie Laine, Ricky Nelson, Jan Berry and Dean Torrence (aka Jan and Dean), Judy Garland, Dean Martin, The Kingston Trio (contributing a fourth voice on their 1963 hit "Desert Pete," you can easily hear him on the chorus), The Crickets and The Limeliters.


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Toto enjoys an even more stellar reputation in music circles, its members having worked with innumerable artists.

Toto Is Rock Royalty ... Really

From that article: "If that's not enough, Toto management estimates, 'the band members' imprint can be heard on an astonishing 5,000 albums that together amass a sales history of a half a billion albums. ... It is not an exaggeration to estimate that 95 percent of the world's population has heard a performance by a member of Toto.'"


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The lead designer of the software program used on Apollo 11 was a woman named Margaret Hamilton. She is also credited with coining the term "software engineering."


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Kajehase wrote:
The lead designer of the software program used on Apollo 11 was a woman named Margaret Hamilton. She is also credited with coining the term "software engineering."

All that when she wasn't moonlighting as Elphaba.

Scarab Sages

Lee Majors entered Indiana University on a football scholarship but was expelled two years later for his involvement in a fraternity fight. After transferring to Eastern Kentucky University, a game injury paralyzed him from the waist down for two weeks. That revealed a condition of congenital spondylolisthesis, an alignment defect of the spine, and he was forced to leave what was beginning to look like a great football career.


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During the Ra II expedition, Thor Heyerdahl and his crew picked up a stowaway - a Spanish carrier pigeon landed on their reed boat in the middle of the Atlantic and never left the boat until they'd reached the Americas.


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...that yesterday was my birthday? In other news...

A wyvern (Bestiary 1), sometimes spelled wivern, is a legendary winged creature with a dragon's head (which may be said to breathe fire or possess a venomous bite) and wings; a reptilian body; two legs (sometimes none); and a barbed tail. A sea-dwelling variant, dubbed the sea-wyvern, has a fish tail in place of a barbed dragon's tail.

The wyvern in its various forms is important to heraldry, frequently appearing as a mascot of schools and athletic teams (chiefly in the United States and United Kingdom). It is a popular creature in European and British literature, video games, and modern fantasy. The wyvern is often (but not always) associated with cold weather and ice.


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Randarak wrote:

...that yesterday was my birthday? In other news...

Happy birthday!

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Aberzombie wrote:
At age three, Michael York broke his nose when he jumped off the roof of a coal house while trying to fly.

Belgarath: What's he doing now?

Silk: *glances down* Learning to fly.

Belgarath: How well is he doing?

Silk: *looks again* Does bouncing count?

Belgarath: No.

Silk: Not very well, then.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jaelithe wrote:
Randarak wrote:
While filming a few lightsaber fight sequences, Ewan McGregor got carried away and made sounds of the weapon himself – these sounds had to be cut out later.
Good to love your work.

"That Alec Guiness makes a mean Ewan McGregor impression!"


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In the Finnish parliamentary election last weekend, the results were:

Centern/Keskusta (The Centre): 21.1%, 49 seats (+5,3% & +14 seats)

Sannfinländarna/Perussuomalaiset (The True Finns): 17.6%, 38 seats (-1,4% & -1 seat)

Samlingspartiet/Kansallinen Kokoomus (The Coalition Party): 18.2%, 37 seats (-2,2%, -7 seats)

Socialdemokraterna/Sosialidemokraattinen (The Social Democrats): 16.5%, 34 seats (-2.6% & -8 seats)

De Gröna/Vihreä Liitto (The Green League): 8.5%, 15 seats (+1.3% & +5 seats)

Vänsterförbundet/Vasemmistoliitto (The Left Alliance): 7.1%, 12 seats (-1% & -2 seats)

Svenska Folkpartiet/Ruotsalainen Kansanpuolue (Swedish People's Party): 4.9%, 9 seats (+0.6% & +-0 seats)

Kristdemokraterna/Kristillisdemokraatit (The Christian Democrats): 3.5%, 5 seats (-0.5% & -1 seat)

Åländsk Samling (Aalandish Coalition): 0.4%, 1 seat

Scarab Sages

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Djimon Hounsou came to Paris from Benin at the age of 13, couldn't find a job and ended as a vagrant, sleeping under bridges and rummaging in trash cans for food. Things changed for the better when fashion designer Thierry Mugler discovered him and made him a fashion model.


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In 1883, Spanish King Afonso II visited Strassbourg, where he was honoured by the Prussian army. On his way back home, he passed through Paris, where the locals (including government officials) booed at him, insulted him, and even threw him stones, as they were still furious over the losses incurred during the Franco-Prussian War.

News of this treatment reached Spain, where the public became deeply offended, but none as angry as the inhabitants of the tiny village of Líjar, in the south.

Calling for the village council, the mayor proposed declaring unilateral war to France over vexations incurred upon the Crown, which was passed with 100% approval; a formal letter of commencement of hostilities was then sent to Paris, though the French didn't pay much attention to it.

The council's ledger for that day reads that they expected each able-bodied man in Líjar (600) to handle about 10,000 frenchmen.

Though not a single shot was fired, the war officially lasted for a whole century. King Juan Carlos I visited Paris in 1983 and sent notice to the mayor of Líjar that he had been treated with the utmost respect. This pleased the locals, who then signed a formal peace treaty with the French consul and viceconsul, thus ending 100 years of blodless conflict.


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A succubus (Bestiary 1) is a female demon or supernatural entity in folklore (traced back to medieval legend) that appears in dreams and takes the form of a woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual activity. The male counterpart is the incubus (Bestiary 3). Religious traditions hold that repeated sexual activity with a succubus may result in the deterioration of health or even death.

In modern representations, a succubus may or may not appear in dreams and is often depicted as a highly attractive seductress or enchantress; whereas, in the past, succubi were generally depicted as frightening and demonic.

The word is derived from Late Latin succuba "paramour"; from succub(āre) "to lie under" (sub- "under" + cubāre "to lie in bed"), used to describe the supernatural being as well. The word is first attested from 1387.

For more information, see this MOST informative thread: Succubus in a grapple

Scarab Sages

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Al Pacino stopped a two-pack-a-day smoking habit to protect his voice. In the mid-1980s he had been smoking four packs of cigarettes a day. He now only occasionally smokes herbal cigarettes.

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