Useless Facts For Your Head

A collection of useless facts and random information to clog your synapses and force out important info -- like where you parked the car. Most of this is from my "Special Expanded Edition" of Uncle John's Ultimate Bathroom Reader, but some of it is just stuff that I've been carrying in my cranium.

 60.2% of the U.S. TV audience watched the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983.

 Years after he became famous as the author of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx took a job as the London correspondent for the New York Tribune. He said his anti-capitalist political writings hadn't earned him enough to live on.

 Three Mile Island is only 2.5 miles long.

 It can take as long as 4 hours to hard-boil an ostrich egg.

 Elvis Presley got a 'C' in his eighth grade music class.

 The Beach Boys never won a Grammy. Does that surprise anyone?

 In 1965, the best-selling record was Satisfaction; the Beatles recorded Help!; Motown was tearing up the charts. Who won the grammy for Best Vocal Group? The Anita Kerr Quartet, for their immortal album We Dig Mancini.

 Never wear anything that panics the cat.

 Congress has proposed nearly 11,000 amendments to the U.S. Constitution since 1789. Only 27 of them have passed.

 Australia is the only continent with more varieties of poisonous snakes than non-poisonous ones.

 The New York Times, in 1967, predicted that by the year 2000 "a trip down an air street to see a neighbor may be on top of an individual flying platform; a trip to Europe by rocket may take only half an hour."

 New York's Central Park is nearly twice the size of the entire country of Monaco.

 "Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you would like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." -- The Duchess, Alice in Wonderland

 Maine is the only U.S. state with a one-syllable name.

 Bugs Bunny first said, "What's up, doc?" in the 1940 cartoon A Wild Hare.

 Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

 If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. If life hands you a passion fruit...

 How much did it cost to sequester the jury in the OJ Simpson trial? $2,985,052

 The five most common American surnames are: Smith, Johnson, Williams, Jones and Brown

 Animals that lay eggs don't have belly buttons.

 It's against the law to whistle under water in Vermont.

 Americans eat more than 30 million slices of pizza a year -- about 350 slices per second.

 Suzuki is the most common last name in Japan.

 How many spikes are on the Statue of Liberty's crown? 7

 "Monty Python's Flying Circus" was almost called "Owl Stretching Time" or "The Toad Elevating Moment".

 "When I was real small I heard about this thing called the decline of civilization...and I decided that it was something I would like to get involved in." -- George Carlin

 Mr. Potatohead was the first toy advertised on TV.

 Randy Ober of Bentonville, AR holds the world record for tobacco spitting...47 feet 7 inches.