Some Weird Facts . . . . . . .

• Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
• The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
• There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
• The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
• A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
• There are more chickens than people in the world.
• Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
• The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched." (Is "broughammed" a word??? SS 10/06/99)
• All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
• No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
• "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
• All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
• Almonds are a member of the peach family.
• Winston Churchill was born in the ladies' room.
• Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
• There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous." tremendous, horrendous,stupendous, and hazardous.
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
• A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
• A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
• On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the shield", and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner
• The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
• In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radartube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
• John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
• The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
• There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
• "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
• In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So, in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's." (Note: reader DM wrote on 08/06/1999 "P's and Q's is actually derived from the 18th century French term Pieds ets Queues - meaning to mind your feet and wig.")
• Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their  ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.
• In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes, when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase, "good night, sleep tight" came from.
• The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WW II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
• The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
• The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the Army for the General Purpose" vehicle, GP.  Also, in WWII, "just enough essential parts."
• The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver."
• 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.
• The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
• On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
• The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.