Useless information for your everyday life...

[billysgirl5]

Here are some more interesting facts...

• 37 percent of professionals working in wedding based businesses will never marry. 79 percent of those who do will divorce before two years marriage.

• Despite the common association with Holland, more tulips are grown in the western halves of Oregon and Washington than anywhere else in the world.

• 83 percent of Asian teas sold in the US are produced domestically.

• Glass blowers are ten times as likely to develop cancer in the mouth and esophagus.

• Although it is never mentioned in the Bible, archeologists and religious scholars believe that Jesus was vegetarian.
 
• 84 percent of user-set combination locks are set to the owner's birthday.

• Of the 19 confirmed cases of spontaneous human combustion, 13 of the victims drank a beverage containing an artificial sweetener within an hour of their deaths.

• Three legged stools are outlawed in some of the northern provinces of China.

• A blank expression requires the use of six seperate muscle groups to maintain.

• 65 percent of NBC viewers can identify Law and Order star Sam Waterston by a photo depicting only his eyebrows.
 
• 3 out of 4 online polls conducted by major news organizations allow multiple votes from the same IP address.

• Disney originally planned to include an eighth dwarf, Jumpy, in Snow White, but it was removed early in the story-boarding phase.

• There are at least 45 foods that have been shown in separate studies to prevent one kind of cancer, but cause another. For example, pineapples help prevent breast cancer, but increase the risk of skin cancer.

• 10 percent of double-jointed people are unaware that they are double-jointed.

• There are no words in the english language with four sets of double letters.
 
• Over 2,000,000 tons of paper are wasted every year in the U.S. alone on mail that goes straight into garbage cans.

• The average household in America has 2.3 frying pans.

• While on duty, a trucker usually only gets around 4 hours of sleep every night.

• Students graduating from college with a B average are more likely to earn more money in 10 years than students who graduate with an A average.

• On any given night, approximately 32,000 Americans go to sleep with their contacts still in their eyes.

• Political candidates are three times more likely to have a mental disorder of some sort than the general public.

• The average person sees 11 rainbows every year.

• A typical fully charged cell phone holds enough power to drive a small remote controlled car for over three miles.

• Great Britain leads the world in the number of pairs of socks owned per person, at 21.
 
• On average, 2,117 Americans are hospitalized each year from eating bad sushi.

• The Egyptian government sued the owners of Camel cigarettes for using the Three Great Pyramids of Giza in the background of their logo, forcing Camel to remove one of the pyramids and shrink another.

• 94 percent of complaints sent into the Federal Communications Commission regarding programming are form letters.

• The High-lighter was developed for a learning disability program in 1932.

• Out of all government job classifications, sanitation workers take the least amount of sick leave per year.
 
• People are twice as likely to own an odd number of socks as an even number.

• The National Organization for Women has twice, unsuccessfully lobbied major department stores, encouraging them to refer to female mannequins as womannequins.

• Kung pao chicken is the most commonly ordered Chinese food dish in America.

• The average person will answer 45,228 phone calls in their lifetime.

• 83 percent of door bells chime with the familiar two-tone ding dong sound.
 
• The average American house contains eight depictions of the American flag.

• One out of 18 Canadians don't know who their Prime Minister is.

• The character of Steve Urkel, on the show "Family Matters," was very heavily based off the head writer's own son, Michael.

• One in five AOL Instant Messenger buddy icons is from a children's cartoon.

• General George S. Patton was deathly allergic to carrots.
 
• 60 watt light bulbs make up just over half of all light bulbs sold worldwide.

• The phrase "thinking outside the box" originated in Alcatraz Federal Prison as a way to reference escape plans.

• 78 percent of "vintage" style T-shirt were manufactured in the last two years.

• When first established, Oxford University offered eight separate courses in alchemy.

• A steer releases enough methane gas in its lifetime to power Miami's fleet of public transportation vehicles for one day.
 
• Every gallon of ink used by consumer ink jet printers creates two tons of garbage, including the cartridge and its packaging.

• The phrase "make a beeline" is used to mean "take a very direct route," but bees actually tend to fly in wide, sweeping zig-zag patterns.

• MP3s account for more internet traffic than any other file type.

• In a survey of 3000 grade schoolers in the United States, 20 percent wanted to be astronauts, 13 percent wanted to be President, 3 percent wanted to be janitors, and none wanted to be plumbers.

• The Tween Animator's Guild, whose members fill in between key frames in animated films, is the unhappiest union in the United States. Over the last five years, they have have been on strike approximately 12 percent of the time.
 
• Four percent of all drinking water bought in America is carbonated.

• On average, a person loses 14.3 ball point pens per box of 24.

• Teenagers ages 13 to 18 purchase new cell phones eight months more frequently than young adults 19 to 23.

• The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 26 seconds.

• People who have never traveled internationally live 1.2 fewer years than those who have been abroad.
 
• The American Medical Association estimates that at any given moment, one in three Americans is on some kind of a diet plan.

• 12 percent of fortune cookie fortunes contain the word "luck."

• The man who recorded the widely recognized AOL greeting, "you've got mail" was a friend of an AOL executive and was never financially compensated for his recording.

• "Assistant manager" is the most common job title in Canada.

• For matters of legislation, soy sauce is treated as a beverage and not as a condiment by the food and drug administration.
 
• 63 percent of marble surfaces are faux.

• Before striking it rich, Donald Trump supplemented his income as a birthday party magician.

• According to the Secret Service, president George W. Bush has received more death threats than all other presidents, combined.

• Dental records were first used to identify a deceased person in a court of law in 1802.

• Men whose drivers licenses describe them as "bald" are twice as likely to be required to wear glasses while driving.
 
• Only 1.5 percent of every gallon of gasoline comes from prehistoric animal remains, the rest is derived from ancient plant matter.

• 24 percent of the Arab language satellite channel Al-Jazeera employees are native-born American citizens.

• Baseball caps are worn backwards 18.4 percent of the time.

• The average number of words in newspaper comic strips has fallen from 39 in 1896 to 11 in 2004.

• Ebay administrators remove an average of 114 listings each day from sellers offering fecal matter or urine.
 
• In New York City alone, 2.6 million gallons of water served in restaurants is poured down the drain daily.

• Judith Scheindlin, of the television show "Judge Judy" was enrolled in beauty school for a short period of time.

• Among children worldwide, spinach is the most commonly hated vegetable, narrowly beating brussel sprouts.

• It is estimated that the average Fortune 500 company has 26 employees with redundant job functions.

• White pine bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. In the right conditions it can grow as much as 5.8 feet in one 24 hour time period.
 
• For reasons medical experts don't understand, most people are born left handed, but switch preference to the right hand before they are six months old.

• Scotch tape was named after the inventors preferred beverage.

• Cadbury eggs outsell jellybeans pound for pound.

• 18 percent of rubber bands are used as projectiles at some point.

• Brooklyn native Stephen Bar invented barcodes after studying fingerprint identification with the New York Police Department.
 
• The first Badminton shuttlecocks were preserved bodies of small wrens that had fallen out of their nests.

• The Real, the currency of Brazil, has the most counterfeit-prevention features of any modern currency.

• Despite its claims remaining uncorroborated in medical journals, 11 percent of licensed doctors believe in Magnetology, the healing power of magnets.
 
• The ratio of rats to humans in Washington D.C. is 3 to 1, higher than any other U.S. city.

• Larry David, the co-creator of "Seinfeld," can be seen or heard in 24 of the show's 197 episodes.

• 21 of the United States' 124 billionaires have filed for bankruptcy at some point in their lives.

• Canada has the largest percentage of people whose second toe is longer than their big toe.

• 87 percent of the salt consumed in the United States has been iodized.
 
• 49 percent of teenagers have divorced parents.

• The average 25 year old has seen 'Jurrasic Park' more than twice.

• Only 18 percent of cell phones currently in use in America contain camera functionality.

• Despite relatively slow sales when it was released, 'Magical Mystery Tour' was the highest grossing album by The Beatles in 2004.

• Per capita milk sales have increased 21 percent over the last 15 years.
 
• Every actor on "Beverly Hills: 90210" was 30 by the time their characters graduated high school.

• The Red Bank, N.J., Quick Stop prominently featured in "Clerks" has seen its customer traffic increase tenfold since the film debuted in 1994.

• In July 1969, before the historic landing on the moon, the Associated Press wrote and released the obituaries of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the event they didn't make it back to Earth.

• Perth, Australia has the highest ratio of playhouses to residents of any city in the world.

• Neal Cassady, the inspiration for Dean Moriarty in "On the Road," held a lifelong grudge against Jack Kerouac for not making his fictional counterpart "crazy enough."
 
• Worldwide, an estimated 4,000 children die every year from a sugar deficiency.

• Despite being landlocked, Missouri has the highest per capita boat ownership of any state in the United States.

• The average eight ounce cup of yogurt contains around 6,000 species of bacteria.

• In Valdosta, Georgia, it is illegal to publicly display a whip that is over five feet in length.

• Occidental Palms have the shortest life span of any known tree; most do not live longer than two years.
 
• One out of three families changed their last name upon arrival at Ellis Island.

• Lou Gehrig was one of thousands of people who contracted what became known as Lou Gehrig's disease. New York doctors named the disease after the Yankee slugger posthumously to draw attention to its deadliness.

• The World Almanac has a yearly average of 35 factual errors.

• In California, there are a larger percentage of 16-year-olds with tattoos than 30-year-olds with tattoos.

• Nationwide, 1,087 Americans under 18 were arrested/fined for attempting to vote in the 2004 election. Nearly 60 percent of them said they intended to vote for Democratic candidate John Kerry.

• One in eight Americans will never set foot on a boat.
 
• The word "mushroom" originates from the Old English "mosrhun" which loosely translates to "witch's food."

• If current trends continue, by 2007, 81 percent of all college students in the U.S. will own at least one iPod.

• There is a 75 percent chance that a painting in a hotel room is in the impressionist style.

• The yellow-gloved bush monkey is the only mammal without a sense of smell.

• A family of escaped gorillas from the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle is often cited as the cause of bigfoot sightings in Washington during the 1970s.
 
• There are more species of bird in South America than in the rest of the world combined.

• The average key ring has five individual items on it.

• Only one in three cultures that independently developed counting systems used base ten.

• Three out of ten adults who wear watches wear a digital watch.

• The median size of earth's land masses is two square miles.
 
• While in college, Richard Nixon played guitar in a band called "Richard and The Bottle Caps."

• The average British household has 1.3 square meters of aluminum foil.

• Bees outnumber humans five to one.

• 63 percent of accredited universities have a building named after someone with the last name Smith.

• There is a one in four chance that any given American citizen carries a lighter with them.
 
• The average household has 14.6 feet of extension cord.

• One in 220 people keep their Christmas lights up all year round.

• The Association of American Will Writers reports that more than 10,000 people in the United States and Canada have changed their living wills since media outlets began extensive coverage of the Terri Schiavo case earlier this year.

• Last year, emergency rooms treated 1,560 people for April Fools-related injuries.

• 4 out of 5 bells on university campuses are actually recordings of bells.
 
• Six percent of all vanity license plate requests are rejected for containing foul language.

• The Socialst Farmer's Union oath of citizenship includes a pledge to "never hit another man's work horse."

• The United Nations recognizes 179 international citizens, people born at sea or in airplanes whose parents were from two different countries.

• The daytime soap opera, The Young and the Restless has depicted 118 cases of amnesia.

• Three Supreme Court Justices haved died of venereal disease.
 
• The famous "canals" discovered on Mars in the 19th century have since proven to be massive fissures formed from intense volcanic activity.

• More boxes of Cheerios are purchased each year in America than all other cereals combined.

• The spiciest pepper in the world is the Diablo Negro pepper, which is native to southern Ecuador. It has been known to cause nosebleeds for those who consume it.

• An estimated 6.7 million cockroaches inhabit one apartment complex in Bangkok, Thailand.

• Harare, the capital of the Zimbabwe, is the most youthful city in the world. 40 percent of its population is under the age of 20.
 
• The world's largest commercially available deck of cards is over 8 feet long.

• The average computer hard drive holds 12.4 gigabytes.

• Worldwide, 1.5 million gallons of coffee are consumed each day.

• There is a one in five chance that a person born after 1980 has never heard a telephone ring produced by real bells.

• Over the course of her lifetime, an average female will use almost twice as many cotton swabs as an average male.
 
• Grocery stores sell more cereal than any other product.

• The average hotmail email address contains 2.4 numbers.

• 63 percent of cellular phone text messages contain only a single word.

• German citizens own almost twice as many books per capita as American citizens.

• The average fence is five feet six inches tall.
 
• Massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG's) account for over two fifths of the video game industry's revenues.

• 341 people were injured in 2004 when they attempted to iron clothes that they were wearing. Of those that were asked by the press why they tried it, all but one said it was because they were in a hurry.

• One half of web sites on the Internet have not been updated in the last year.

• The average amount of change given in a cash transaction at a retail store in the United States is $6.12.

• Honduras grows 54 percent of the world's popcorn.