Mental Floss' Trivia corner

Lifted directly from Mental floss, the best magazine ever created:

1. In 1943, Philip Morris ran an ad acknowledging “smokers’ cough.” They claimed it was caused by smoking brands other than Philip Morris.

2. In the 1970s, Mattel sold a doll called “Growing Up Skipper.” Her breasts grew when her arm was turned.

3. Michael Jackson’s 1988 autobiography Moonwalk was edited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

4. On the 2001 New Zealand census, 53,715 people listed their religion as “Jedi.”

5. Only female mosquitoes will bite you.

6. At the 2010 Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift won more Grammys (4) than Elvis did his entire career (3).

7. At Fatburger, you can order a “Hypocrite”—a veggie burger topped with crispy strips of bacon.

8. Dr. Ruth was trained as a sniper by the Israeli military.

9. In 1999, Furbies were banned from the National Security Agency’s Maryland headquarters because it was feared the toys might repeat national security secrets.

10. Roger Ebert and Oprah Winfrey went on a couple dates in the mid-1980s. It was Roger who convinced her to syndicate her talk show.

11. There was a long-lost fourth member of the Snap/Crackle/Pop gang. “Pow” represented Rice Krispies’ explosive nutritional value.

12. Kool-Aid was originally marketed as “Fruit Smack.”

13. In 2008, The Little Tikes Company sold 457,000 Cozy Coupes, making it the best-selling car in America.

14. Uncle Sam was based on Samuel Wilson, who worked as a meat inspector during the War of 1812.

15. The archer-fish knocks its insect prey out of over-hanging branches with a stream of spit.

16. When Woodrow Wilson married Edith Galt, the real Chef Boyardee (Hector Boiardi) catered the event.

17. There really was a Captain Morgan. He was a Welsh pirate who later became the lieutenant governor of Jamaica.

18. The 3 Musketeers bar was originally split into three pieces with three different flavors: vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. When the other flavors became harder to come by during WWII, Mars decided to go all chocolate.

19. Bear Bryant was once asked to contribute $10 to help pay for a sportswriter’s funeral. According to legend, he said, “Here’s a twenty, bury two.”

20. In 1980, C-3PO and R2-D2 visited Sesame Street. They played games, sang songs, and R2-D2 fell in love with a fire hydrant.

21. Dr. Thomas Harvey removed Einstein’s brain during his autopsy. For 30 years, Harvey kept it in two mason jars in his Wichita home.

22. In 1961, Martha Stewart was selected as one of Glamour magazine’s “Ten Best-Dressed College Girls.”

23. It’s estimated that 95% of the world’s lab mice are descended from mice born in the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.

24. As part of David Hasselhoff’s divorce settlement, he kept possession of the nickname “Hoff” and the catchphrase “Don’t Hassle the Hoff.”

25. “Jay” used to be slang for “foolish person.” So when a pedestrian ignored street signs, he was referred to as a “jaywalker.”

26. Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell is also responsible for starting up the Chuck E. Cheese’s franchise.

27. The string on boxes of animal crackers was originally placed there so the container could be hung from a Christmas tree.

28. Duncan Hines was a real person. He was a popular restaurant critic who also wrote a book of hotel recommendations.

29. Green bean casserole dates back to 1955, when a chef named Dorcas Reilly created it fo a cookbook designed to promote Campbell’s products.

30. Carly Simon’s dad is the “Simon” of Simon and Schuster. He co-founded the company.

31. In 2009, U.S. airlines collected $2.7 billion in baggage fees. Another $2.4 billion came from reservation change fees.

32. Alaska is the only state that can be typed on one row of keys. (Go ahead and try typing the other 49 states. We’ll wait.)

33. While they were in the White House, John & Abigail Adams had dogs named Satan & Juno.

34. Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” was penned by Shel Silverstein, the beloved children’s book author who wrote Where the Sidewalk Ends. 

 35. M&M’s actually stands for “Mars & Murrie’s,” the last names of the candy’s founders.

36. Perhaps our favorite school nickname is The Arkansas School for the Deaf Leopards.

37. In 1907, an ad campaign for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes offered a free box of cereal to any woman who would wink at her grocer.

38. Why did the FBI call Ted Kaczynski “The Unabomber”? Because his early mail bombs were sent to universities (UN) & airlines (A).

39. That thing you use to dot your lowercase “i” is called a tittle.

40. The only number whose letters are in alphabetical order is 40 (f-o-r-t-y).

41. The prolific Alan Thicke wrote the theme songs to The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes.

42. Bono was born Paul David Hewson, and The Edge’s name is David Howell Evans.

43. Male students at Brigham Young University need a doctor’s note to grow a beard.

44. In 1991, Wayne Allwine, the voice of Mickey Mouse, married Russi Taylor—the voice of Minnie.

45. The sum of all the numbers on a roulette wheel is 666.

46. The Vatican Bank is the world’s only bank that allows ATM users to perform transactions in Latin.

47. Utah’s State Bird is the California Seagull.

48. At the Wife Carrying World Championships in Finland, first prize is the wife’s weight in beer.

49. After leaving office, Ronald Reagan was offered a role in Back to the Future III. (He declined.)



50. Oscar the Grouch used to be orange. Jim Henson decided to make him green before the second season of Sesame Street. How did Oscar explain the color change? He said he went on vacation to the very damp Swamp Mushy Muddy and turned green overnight.

Becky's Trivia Corner

 My friend Emily emailed this to me, and I cannot vouch for it's complete accuracy.  That being said, I love trivia! Let this soak into your brain :)


If right handed, you tend to chew your food on the right side of your mouth.  Left handed, you tend to chew on the left side.

To make half a kilo of honey, bees must collect nectar from over two million flowers.

Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by 'Bayer'.

Communications giant Nokia was founded in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill by Fredrik Idestam.

Tourists visiting Iceland should know tipping is considered an insult!

People in nudist colonies play volleyball more than any other sport.

Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952 but declined.

Astronauts can't belch - there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.

Ancient Roman, Chinese and German societies often used urine as mouthwash.

The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.  In the Renaissance era, it was fashion to shave them.

Because of the speed at which Earth moves around the Sun, it is impossible for a solar eclipse to last more than seven minutes 58 seconds.

The night of January 20 is "Saint Agnes's Eve" which is regarded a time when a young woman dreams of her future husband.

There are over 25 million bubbles waiting to burst out of each bottle of Champagne.

Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros.

It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite number of times!

Gold is the only metal that doesn't rust, even if it's buried in the ground for thousands of years.

Your tongue is the only muscle attached at only one end.

If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water.  When a human body is dehydrated its thirst mechanism shuts off. 

When it originally appeared in 1886, Coca Cola was billed as an Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage.

Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals.

Kites were used in during the Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.

Auld Lang  Syne is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year.

For every real Christmas tree harvested, two to three seedlings are planted in its place.

Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent.

Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn't smoke unless it's heated above 450°F.

The Shell Oil Company originally began as a novelty shop selling seashells in London.

The roar heard when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.

Nine out of every ten living things live in the ocean.

The banana cannot reproduce itself.  It can only be propagated by the hand of man.

Airports at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density.

The University of Alaska spans four time zones.

The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.

In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.

Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil) and Mazaru (Speak no evil).

Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday.

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

A comet's tail always points away from the sun.

The 1976 swine flu vaccine caused more death and illness than the disease it was intended to prevent.

Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that's why it is found in some medicines.

The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.

If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up, you can see stars, even in the middle of the day.

When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go.  The first sense lost is sight.

Trivia in Roman mythology was the goddess who haunted crossroads, graveyards and was the goddess of sorcery and witchcraft.  She wandered about at night, and was seen only by barking of dogs who told of her approach.

In ancient times strangers shook hands to show they were unarmed.

Strawberries are the only fruit whose seeds grow on the outside.

Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit; 167 calories per hundred grams.

It cost the soft drink industry $100 million a year for thefts involving vending machines.

The moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year.

The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.

Due to earth's gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters.

Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" in Italy.

Soldiers do not march in step when going across bridges because they could set up a vibration which could be sufficient to knock down the bridge.

The painting that won second place in a competition held by the US National Academy of Design was hanging upside down when judged.

Everything weighs one percent less at the equator.

For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel is needed for lift-off.

The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.  

First Post

The first post is always awkward, so lets get that out of the way.

This blog is dedicated to following the lives of the Family Chapkins - or the blended lives and love of Becky Jenkins and Shana Chapman.  We can't legally marry (yet), so we're making up our own sort of family.  We've got love, that's all that matters :)

We're nerds, and proud of it.  Shana's an Art Nerd, and i'm a knowledge junkie. We both love finding cool stuff online, posting photos and sharing some of our lives, like our candied orange peel recipe!  We thought a blog, created and maintained together, would be a good way to share our lives with the rest of the world.

For better or worse, for richer or poorer,  as long as we both shall live . . . .  and we hope you'll come along for the ride!

Here we go, kids!

Love, Becky & Shana