Stuff I've Googled, what I Googled a few minutes ago, what I'm Googling now, why I'm Googling, and other fascinating information.

Monday, January 31, 2011

How much was was 7 guineas worth in 1837?


Search
: english money

Why: In the song "Boy for Sale" from Oliver! (at 1:05):
Boy for sale, he's going cheap
Only seven guineas
That or thereabout

Boy for sale for one thousand pennies
You can work it out
That's four pounds, three and four
Slightly under four guineas
-Knocked down from seven guineas
-Three pounds, ten shillings
-Three pounds WHAT, sir? Certainly not siiiiiiiir
Shrug!

Answer
: Well, first, some history:
Until 15th February, 1971, Great Britain had much more interesting system of money, known as the pounds, shillings and pence system, or Lsd - the L coming from the latin word libra, the d coming from the latin word denarius (a Roman coin). The penny has been the basic unit of currency from about 775. In 1971, the system was changed to follow the Russian model - the pound being divided into 100 'new' pennies. Inflation followed...
So before 1971:
  • 12 pence = 1 shilling
  • 20 shillings = 1 pound
  • 240 pence = 1 pound
But now:
  • 100 pence = 1 pound sterling (pound, GBP, £)
  • Current coins are:
1 penny
2 pence
5 pence
10 pence
20 pence
50 pence
1 pound
2 pounds
  • Current bank notes are:
5 pound
10 pound
20 pound
50 pound
  • Old money and conversions are:
1/2 penny (ha'penny)
6 pence (sixpence or tanner) = 2 1/2 p
1 shilling (bob) = 5 p
1/2 crown (2 shillings & sixpence) = 12 1/2 p
1 crown = 5 shillings
1 guinea = 21 shillings or £1.05
  • But there were also:
Farthing = 1/4 penny, last made in 1956
2 pence (tuppence) - only made in 1797
3 pence - known as a "threpney bit"
Groats = 4 pence (fuppence), made 1836-1888
Florin = 2 shillings (2 bob bit), made 1849-1971
1/2 sovereign = 10 shillings
1 sovereign = 1 pound
The guinea was introduced in 1663, made in gold obtained from Guinea (Ghana) in Africa, its value being fixed at 21 shillings in 1717 (before that date, its value depended on the current price of gold).

The florin was introduced in 1849 as a first step towards decimalization, which took another 122 years to implement.
The coins of 1849 said 'one florin' and 'one tenth of a pound' on the reverse (tail). They were known as the 'godless' type, as they didn't say Dei Gratia on them.
Anyway, back to Oliver! So in 1837, when the book was written,
  • if 1 guinea = £1 - 1s
  • then 7 guineas (the original asking price) was £7 - 7s
According to this thing that I can't really figure out, that comes out to
  • £7 - 7s (1937) = £554 (2009)
  • and £554 = something like $880 (today)
And the offer that Mr. Bumble scoffed at:
  • £3 - 10s (1837) = £264 (2009)
  • and £264 = something like $420
That is pretty cheap, I guess.

Source
: English Weights and Measures, Understanding the British Pound Money, Measuring Worth

The More You Know: Fun fact: The £ sign is shifted above the 3 on an English keyboard. What's above the 3 on an American keyboard?

Saturday, January 29, 2011

What's the song playing during Faust in "Tombstone"?


Search
: tombstone

Why: That same music plays on every disc of the audiobook of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Maybe it is a Faust thing? I guess it would make sense, whatwith the Devil and graves and whatnot.

EDIT 10/10/11!!! I just heard that the same song is in a new that Jameson commercial that talks about hawks or something.

EDIT 12/8/11!!! I just heard it tonight in "Grimm"!!

Answer: It's called "Danse Macabre"! Maybe you have heard it:

It was written by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns and first performed in 1872.
According to legend, "Death" appears at midnight every year on Halloween. Death calls forth the dead from their graves to dance their dance of death for him while he plays his fiddle represented by a solo violin with its E-string tuned to an E-flat in an example of scordatura tuning. His skeletons dance for him until the rooster crows at dawn, when they must return to their graves until the next year.
The piece originally had words, too, by French poet Henri Cazalis, "based in an old French superstition." Saint-Saëns later reworked everything and changed the vocal line to a solo violin, but here is an excerpt (in translation obvi):
A lustful couple sits on the moss
So as to taste long lost delights.
Zig zig, zig, Death continues
The unending scraping on his instrument.
A veil has fallen! The dancer is naked.
Her partner grasps her amorously.
The lady, it's said, is a marchioness or baroness
And her green gallant, a poor cartwright.
Horror! Look how she gives herself to him,
Like the rustic was a baron.
Zig, zig, zig. What a saraband!
They all hold hands and dance in circles.
Sassy!

Source
: IMDb

The More You Know: Not at all coincidentally, Chapter 5 of The Graveyard Book is called "Danse Macabre." One night, some of the dead folk and some live folk have a little get-together and chant stuff like this:
Time to work and time to play,
Time to dance the Macabray.

One to leave and one to stay
And all to dance the Macabray.

Rich man, poor man, come away.
Come to dance the Macabray.

One and all will hear and stay
Come and dance the Macabray.

Step and turn, and walk and stay,
Now we dance the Macabray.
Anyway, I just found out here that Bela Fleck does the ones on the audiobook. Fun!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Who plays the dog in the new "Wilfred"?


Search
: wilfred elijah wood

Why: I'm watching the season premiere of "Archer" finally, and I just saw a trailer. That guy looks like Rob McElhenney, aka Mac on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," but he sounds like he has some sort of accent.
Answer: Jason Gann! He is an Australian actor who co-created and starred in the original "Wilfred," which played for 2 seasons on SBS in 2007.

Source: EW

The More You Know: Elijah Wood also stars in this new US version. It will start sometime this summer.

How did the novel "I Am Legend" end?


Search
: the omega man; i am legend

Why: In "Changed film endings": [spoiler alert, durr]
I Am Legend

The end of Will Smith's apocalyptic blockbuster sees his character Robert Neville sacrificing himself to ensure his companions get the cure for a deadly virus that has plagued the world. As endings go for a Will Smith action blockbuster it's darker than usual and not the feelgood one studio bosses would have preferred to give their audience. However, it's the ending that was suggested after the original denouement received negative feedback at test screenings.

The original climax, aping the message from the classic book that it was based on, had Neville realising at the end that he was in fact the problem. The 'vampires' had been trying to rescue the creature that he had kidnapped earlier in a bid to find a cure. Will Smith as the bad guy. Not very satisfying for his fans.
Answer: Like they said! First, he finds that other girl and bangs her. The following morning:
Ruth agrees to let him take a blood test on her. She knocks him out just as he realizes she is infected. When he wakes up, Neville discovers a note left by Ruth. In it, she tells him that the infected have slowly been able to adapt to their disease to the point where they can spend short periods of time in sunlight, and they are even attempting to rebuild society. They fear and hate Neville since he has unwittingly destroyed some of their people along with true vampires (dead bodies animated by the 'germ') during his daytime excursions and view him as a predator. In their quest to capture him, the infected sent one of their own to Neville.

Neville meets Ruth again in his prison; she informs him that she is a ranking member of this new society, but unlike the others, she doesn't fear and hate him. She tells him she had come to his prison to try and help him escape, but that is now impossible. She acknowledges the need for Neville's execution and slips him pills, claiming they will 'make it easier.' Emotionally broken, Neville finally accepts his fate and tearfully asks Ruth not to let this society get too brutal and heartless. Ruth kisses him and leaves.

Neville goes to his prison window and gets a glimpse of all the infected milling around in the yard, waiting for his execution. When they spot him, he sees the fear, awe and horror in their eyes, and he understands to them, he is a scourge, just as they were a scourge to him at the beginning of the novel. Previously, Neville saw the destruction of the infected survivors as a right and a moral imperative to be pursued for his own and mankind's survival, but now, he finally acknowledges defeat. He is the only known immune human left in the world, the only survivor of the "old race."

He glimpses a future society where infection is normal and he, Neville, is a murderous biological deviant. As he turns away and swallows the pills, Neville grasps the reversal that has taken place: that just as vampires were legend in pre-infection times, now he, an obsolete exemplar of old humanity, is legend in the eyes of the new race born of the infection. The sheer ridiculousness of it all causes Neville to chuckle as he dies, his last thoughts being "[I am] a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend."

Crazy!

Remember that sad sad scene with the dog? Also, have you seen any of the other 3 adaptations that are probably way better? I haven't.
Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: The guy that wrote the novel is Richard Matheson, aka Logan Swanson. He also wrote the novels What Dreams May Come and The Shrinking Man and the screenplays for The Last Man on Earth (a 1964 I Am Legend adaptation) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). He also wrote a bunch of "Twilight Zone" episodes and the 1983 feature film, and a shitton of other things, too. One of his sons wrote a bunch of episodes of "The A-Team" and "The Torkelsons,"* and another one wrote both Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, which just happens to be my favorite movie. His daughter is also a prolific writer.

*If you are someone I know and you also watched "The Torkelsons," please let me know right away.

Who wrote "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"?


Search
: twinkle little star history

Why: It is the same tune as the alphabet song, which sounds totally terrible when you pronounce Z like "zed" because it doesn't rhyme.

Answer: It was a group effort! The tune was first printed in Paris in 1761 in a book called La vielleuse habile by François Bouin, but it may have been around as early as 1740. In the 1770s, a melodramatic love poem called "Ah! Vous dirai-je Maman" ("Ah! Will I Tell You, Mother") was set to the tune. A parody of the poem (with the same name) developed shortly thereafter, and it is still a children's favorite.

Ah! Vous dirai-je Maman / Ah! Will I tell you, Mommy

Ah! Vous dirai-je Maman / Ah! Will I tell you, Mommy
Ce qui cause mon tourment? / What is tormenting me?
Papa veut que je raisonne / Daddy wants me to reason
Comme une grande personne / Like a grown up person
Moi je dis que les bonbons / Me, I say that sweets
Valent mieux que la raison. / Are worth more than reason.

In the 1780s, Mozart wrote some variations of this tune, but he wasn't the original composer. He wasn't even born until 1756, so anyone who says he wrote it is full of total bullshit. The tune was part of the 18th century harpsichordists’ traditional directory.

Then, in England in 1806, Jane Taylor and her sister Ann wrote a book of poems for children called Rhymes for the Nursery. "The Star" went like this:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveler in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark,-
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

The first time the poem and the tune were known to have been combined was in an 1838 book called The Singing Master.

Source: Mama Lisa,

The More You Know: "The ABCs" song was first copyrighted - that's right, someone copyrighted the alphabet - in 1835 by Charles Bradlee, who called it "The A.B.C., a German air with variations for the flute with an easy accompaniment for the piano forte."
The musical arrangement was attributed to Louis Lemaire, an 18th century composer. This was "Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1835, by C. Bradlee, in the clerk's office of the District Court of Massachusetts" according to the Newberry Library, which also says, "The theme is that used by Mozart for his piano variations, Ah, vous dirai-je, maman."[2] This tune is more commonly recognizable as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."
I also keep seeing that "Baa, Baa Black Sheep" has the same tune, but unless I'm doing it wrong, no it doesn't. As with many other harmless nursery rhymes in our modern canon, it is either political or racist.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

What is propinquity?


Search
: propinquity

Why: My Uncle Hal got a nameart order for a thing that said "PROPINQUITY." The final product looked exactly like this:
Answer: Let's just let Wikipedia handle this one.
In social psychology, propinquity (from Latin propinquitas, nearness) is one of the main factors leading to interpersonal attraction. It refers to the physical or psychological proximity between people. Propinquity can mean physical proximity, a kinship between people, or a similarity in nature between things. Two people living on the same floor of a building, for example, have a higher propinquity than those living on different floors, just as two people with similar political beliefs possess a higher propinquity than those whose beliefs strongly differ.
And I love a good diagram, so here:
U = universe, A = set A, B = set B, and S = similarity:
Source: Wikiwiki

The More You Know: It also says:
Propinquity is also one of the factors, set out by Jeremy Bentham, used to measure the amount of (utilitarian) pleasure in a method known as felicific calculus.
Yes.

What's a lichen?


Search
: lichen

Why: In The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman:
One grave in every graveyard belongs to the ghouls. Wander any graveyard long enough and you will find it - waterstained and bulging, with cracked or broken stone, scraggly grass or rank weeds about it, and a feeling, when you reach it, of abandonment. It may be colder than the other gravestones, too, and the name of the stone is all too often impossible to read. If there is a statue on the grave it will be headless or so scabbed with fungus and lichens as to look like a fungus itself. If one grave in a graveyard looks like a target for petty vandals, that is the ghoul-gate. If the grave makes you want to be somewhere else, that is the ghoul-gate.
I have seen that word before, but never heard it said out loud until today. (I am listening to the audiobook.) He pronounced it to rhyme with "bitchins."

Answer
: A symbiosis composed of two organisms: a fungus (the "mycobiont") and an algae and/or a cyanobacteria (the "photobiont")! While the fungus is sometimes viewed as a parasite in this relationship, in most cases, neither the fungus nor the algae can survive alone in the habitat occupied by the lichen. There are between 13,500 and 17,000 species of these bad boys around the world, and many are used to produce dyes, antibiotics, and even food. Yum!
Source: Earthlife.net

The More You Know: The word can apparently be pronounced two ways, bothˈlɪtʃən (rhymes with "bitchin") and ˈlaɪkən, like lycan, like the werewolves in Underworld: Evolution, which I happen to own (due to carelessness with my Columbia House account - which is also why I own such films as Fun with Dick and Jane and Ghost Rider). In Greek, lýkos means "wolf," which is where that comes from, but leichen means "what eats around itself" and probably comes from leichein, "to lick." Yum again!


Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I want to see some pictures of John Matuszak


Search
: john matuszak

Why: He played Sloth in The Goonies.

Answer: Oh boy, what a gentleman. He played in the NFL from 1973-1982, and he came in 9th in the World's Strongest Man competition in 1978. He was also 6'8" and died in 1989 (age 38) of heart failure related to using steroids.
Source: Google Images

The More You Know: Despite having watched The Goonies just about every afternoon of my youth, I just learned a few new things about it:
  • Mouth's last name is Devereaux
  • Andy's last name is Carmichael
  • Stef's last name is Steinbrenner
  • Data's first name is Richard
  • Sloth's first name is Lotney
  • The Goonies Oath that was cut out goes as follows:
I will never betray my goon dock friends
We will stick together until the whole world ends
Through heaven and hell and nuclear war
Good pals like us will stick like tar
In the city or the country or the forest or the boonies
I am proudly declared a fellow Goony
  • The soundtrack includes "8 Arms To Hold You" by The Goon Squad. It was removed from the film when the octopus scene was cut, but is still on my DVD. It's terrible.

Why do people in various countries drive on different sides of the road?


Search
: why do we drive on the right; why do we drive on different sides

Why: Matt asked, and we wondered if our right-ness was just because we were rebelling against the British. I thought maybe it was because more people are right-handed than are loyal leftists.

Answer: Well, the left-hand-side thing originally comes from the days of riding horses and swinging swords. If you are right-handed (which most people are), you want to hold the horse reins in your left hand and keep your sword in your right. You also want people to pass you on your right so you can stab them with ease. This means you - and they - stay to the left. The Romans did this, and around 1300, Pope Boneface (Boneface?) issued a Papal Edict to his pilgrims to stay to the left.

(Although here is another theory:
Chinese bureaucracy of 1100 B.C. The Book of Rites stated: "The right side of the road is for men, the left side for women and the center for carriages." This Western Zhou dynasty rule applied only to the dynasty's wide official roads and was "more concerned with protocol than avoiding head-on collisions."
Lul.)

Nothing changed for a long time. Here is some theory about the beginning of traveling on the right, but I don't know:
Reasons to travel on the right are less clear, but the generally accepted version of history is as follows: The French, being Catholics, followed Pope Boneface's edict, but in the buildup to the French Revolution in 1790, the French Aristorcracy drove their carriages at great speed on the left hand side of the road, forcing the peasantry over to the right side for their own safety. Come the Revolution, instincts of self-preservation resulted in the remains of the Aristocracy joining the peasants on the right hand side of the road. The first official record of this was a keep-right rule introduced in Paris in 1794.
Meanwhile, an increase in horse traffic led the UK government to introduce a keep-left recommendation as part of the General Highways Act of 1773, and to make it into law in the Highways Bill of 1835.

The rest of the world was influenced by imperial expansion:
  • Australasia followed Britain's keep-left rule.
  • Africa was mostly keep-left - although many African countries changed to the right when they became independent.
  • India was keep-left.
  • The Japanese opened their ports to the British in the 1850s. Sir Rutherford Alcock persuaded them to keep left.
  • France's keep-right rule spread through much of modern day Europe and to colonies like Egypt
  • French General Lafayette recommended the keep-right rule to the US as he helped them prepare for the American Revolution. The first reference to a keep-right rule in the US is in a law regarding the turnpike from Lancaster to Philadelphia in 1792.
In case you were wondering, the driver usually sat on the inside so he could keep a closer eye on the clearing coming toward him. Later, however - like during the Civil War - drivers sat on the outside to ensure that their wheels didn't fall into the deep ditches on the sides of the road.

But then we stopped riding horses and carrying swords (or whips, if you were driving a buggy, or just guns).

When inventors began building "automobiles" in the 1890's, they thought of them as motorized wagons. As a result, many early cars had the steering mechanism-a rudder (or tiller), not a wheel-in the center position where the side of the road didn't make any difference. Lay points out that technical innovation created the configuration we are familiar with in the United States:

However, with the introduction of the steering wheel in 1898, a central location was no longer technically possible. Car makers usually copied existing practice and placed the driver on the curbside. Thus, most American cars produced before 1910 were made with right-side driver seating, although intended for right-side driving. Such vehicles remained in common use until 1915, and the 1908 Model T was the first of Ford's cars to feature a left-side driving position.

By 1915, the Model T had become so popular that the rest of the automakers followed Ford's lead.

Source: US Department of Transportation, Amphicars.com

The More You Know: But why is the steering wheel of a boat on the right instead of the left? Why do boats in England stay to the right? Why? It's at the bottom of this page.

Why were the Rodarte sisters ineligible for an Oscar?


Search
: rodarte black sawn

Why: On the NY Mag Approval Matrix that Amy and Kateloh are passing around:
  • The Rodarte sisters are ruled ineligible to win an Oscar for designing the amazing costumes in Black Swan.
Answer: The designers - sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy - weren't in the Costume Design Guild when they worked on the film!
The Mulleavy sisters weren’t members of the Costume Design Guild when they worked on the film and were reportedly “naive” about movie credits. Kate and Laura Mulleavy ended up receiving a backend credit while Amy Westcott, who worked with director Darren Aronofsky on The Wrestler, received the front credit as costume designer, making Westcott the only one eligible for an Oscar. In an interview, Westcott explained, “It was Natalie who recommended Rodarte. It was important to her and Darren asked me if it was OK. I met with Laura and Kate Mulleavy and I saw their feathered Vulture collection (I think it was Spring 2010). It seemed very appropriate.”
Whatevs. She didn't get nominated, either.

Jicyww, Rodarte has dressed up many celebrities, including Emma Watson, Cate Blanchett, Keira Knightley, Dita von Teese, and both Reese Witherspoon and Nat Nat Portman at the Oscars in 2009. Michelle Obama wore Rodarte while hosting Queen Rania of Jordan in the Oval Office in April 2009.
Source: Fashionista.com

The More You Know: Sorry I just put a tarantula on the Internet, guys. You don't even know how sorry.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Where can I get a Sharktopus doll?


Search
: sharktopus doll; sharktopus toy; sharktopus stuffed animal; sharktopus plush; sharktopus beanie

Why: Some guy in my office has one sitting on the wall of his cube. When I asked where he got it, he said, "On, uh, one of the DVD talk websites...?" Instead of asking for more deets, I turned pea-green with envy and sulked away, feeling very less than.
Answer: I see lots! Like this one by Natalie Metzger:
This one by Suzannah Ashley:
This one by Giffy:
And this one by kamidake on deviantart.
There is even a Sharktopus pinata:
But I can't find the perfect one he has. It's a beautiful monotone putty color, just like a real octopus relaxing on a rock. It srsly looks like an actual Beanie Baby and would look very nice sitting betwixt the 2 octopus Beanie Babies I already have (Inky and Wiggly) and my shark (Crunch).

Source: none :( :( :(

The More You Know: Full disclosure: my Beanie Babies are all on top of a bookcase in my old bedroom at my parents' house, but Sadie and Ben play with them fairly often. Imagine what they could learn from this majestic and formidable hybrid! My birthday is in, like, 3 weeks, everyone. Don't make me go back and talk to that guy empty-handed.

UPDATE 1/21!! I have it on good authority that these things are available at Sundance, which is going on right now. If you can find a way...

UPDATE 2/14!! Here is a picture of The One, which Bryan Reesman got in a promo pack from Anchor Bay. He is calling it a Sharktoplush. Behold:

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

I want to see a picture of Jade Duell


Search
: jade duell

Why: While I was reading this amazing Daily Mail story, "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding: The grisly secrets of courtship revealed," I noticed this headline over on the side:
Owen Wilson announces the name of his newborn son
WHAT!

And it continues:

After announcing he was to be father just days before his son was born, actor Owen Wilson has now named his five day old baby boy.

The Little Fockers star and his girlfriend Jade Duell have named their son Robert Ford Wilson. The baby was born last Friday in Hawaii and is the first child for the 42-year-old actor.

Owen and Jade had only announced four days previously, on January 10, that they were expecting a baby.

I don't know what I was doing January 10th, but it wasn't learning that.

Answer: There are only a few shots of her, and the sources don't even seem to be sure that it's her. But here:
Hiking with Woody Harrelson and Future Man. Well well well.

Source: Google Images

The More You Know: In case you also missed the news that day:
Wilson, 42, met 28-year-old Duell, a U.S. air marshal, on a flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. while en route to film “How Do You Know” with Reese Witherspoon. “It was love at first sight,” says an insider.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Is Princess Leia human?


Search
: is princess leia human; is luke skywalker human

Why: Just because she's from another planet - nay, galaxy - does that make her an alien? Because if you (you) had sex with her, would that mean you had sex with an alien? Serious answers only, plz.
Answer: Yes, she's human! And here's how I know: Wookiepedia has her categorized as such in their list of Humans, alongside such potent notables as Han Solo, Jango Fett and his clone Boba, Grand Moff Tarkin, Emperor Palpatine, and, of course, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Wookiepedia cites The New Essential Guide to Characters as their source of information, even though it was written by someone who really doesn't have much more authority than I do to go around assigning species, but what are you gonna do?

Here is some bullshit to explain how humans fit into the universe:

Having a recorded and civilized history reaching back far beyond the beginning of space travel, before 200,000 BBY, the origin and early history of Humans was lost to their scientists in the depths of millennia. Whatever the original homeworld was, it was universally accepted that Humans evolved on one of the Core Worlds near the galaxy's center. Humans were among the few sentient species in the galaxy whose homeworld was unknown, the Ryn, Yoda's species and the Baragwins being some other examples.

According to an inscription found by archaeologists Dr. Ualp Xathan and Fem Nu-Ar on Seoul 5 around 4 ABY, Humans originated on the planet Notron, an archaic name for Coruscant. The ancient Zhell nations, who drove the Near-Human Taung from Coruscant, may have been the progenitors of later Humans. Coruscant's ground had been several kilometers below its inhabitants' feet for millennia, with the lowest depths of its planet-wide city dating back to 100,000 BBY. Thus, it was impossible to carry out the historical study and archaeological research on the planet's prehistory necessary to prove or to disprove that theory. In addition, Coruscant's natural climate was said to be too cold to support Human life, a claim difficult to be reconciled with the theory that it was the original Human homeworld. Tarnese Bleyd believed that the ancestors of Humans favored trees and high ground based upon his observations of human hunting behavior.

It is possible that some ancient civilization, such as the Celestials or even the Rakata, transported early Humans from their original home planet to others. It was, in fact, alleged that they had once been a slave race of the Infinite Empire; however, any knowledge of Human enslavement was absent from Rakatan records as of 3,956 BBY. Some of the far-flung 'colonies' eventually diverged genetically from the Human baseline, giving rise to various Near-Human races and species.

Durr.

I also found a nice blog post about a mock trial at Georgetown law school that centered around classifying action figures for the purposes of customs.

Source
: Wookiepedia

The More You Know: Here is some more practical information about humans, which I think might actually be necessary for the nerds who write and study this stuff as it may have been years or even decades since they interacted with another human being face-to-face:
Their heads had two eyes, one nose for breathing and smelling, and a mouth for eating, breathing and communicating. Human arms had five-fingered hands for manipulation, mirrored by their legs' five-toed feet. Also, like most species, they came in two sexes, male and female.

Unlike other mammalian species (such as Wookiees or Ewoks), they had only a light covering of body hair, with males being hairier than females. Most of their body hair was concentrated on the head and (in the case of adult males) face. This hair was grown, cut, and styled for aesthetic or ritualistic reasons (as with the elaborate hairstyles of the Royal Naboo and the traditional braids of Human Jedi Padawans.) Older Human males often demonstrated loss of the hair on their head. The facial hair grown by adult males could be grown, styled, or shaved completely.

Despite overall physiological uniformity, baseline Humans varied greatly in appearance. Their hair color ranged from blond to dark, sometimes with hues of red or brown, changing to gray or white as years passed. Their hair could be straight, wavy, or curly. Their eyes came in shades of blue, green, gray, or brown.

Gradiation of skin tone was also seen among baseline Humans, usually limited to various shades of brown, ranging from pale yellowish brown (e.g.: Bana Breemu), to light brown (e.g.: Luke Skywalker), and dark brown (e.g.: Lando Calrissian).

What happened to James Bulger?


Search: james bulger

Why: In "Ten of the most controversial films of all time":
Child's Play 3
The 1991 movie was originally released with little fuss. However, it became notorious two years later, after it was linked to the devastating death of two-year-old James Bulger. His two ten-year-old killers were initially believed to have imitated a scene from the film, most notably splashing their victim with blue paint.
I don't remember this.

Answer
: Oh, it's just gross. Don't read this.
On Feb. 12, 1993, 10 year olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables skipped school and went to the mall. They spent the morning knocking things over, poking old people, climbing on furniture, and stealing candy. Somehow, they got the idea to steal a baby. They walked off with one, but his mother saw and called him back. Then they saw James Bulger playing in the storefront of a butcher shop. It was a month before his 3rd birthday.

The two boys led James by the hand out of the mall. Tons and tons of people saw, and security cameras caught them as they walked out.
They took him down the street, to a canal and under a bridge, and then they pushed him in the water. One of them then picked him up and dropped him on his head. They ran away for a bit, but when they saw someone coming, they went back to get James, who had a cut on his forehead.

They led him across a busy intersection, where even more people saw the boys all together. Someone saw Robert kick James in the chest. A woman saw the boys in the park, and James was laughing. Another woman in the park saw Jon punch James, grab him, and violently shake him. (The press called these witnesses "The Liverpool 38," shaming them for not intervening.) An elderly woman saw James crying and noticed that he was hurt. Jon and Robert told her that they found him at the bottom of a hill, and she told them to take him to the police station nearby. She pointed them in the right direction, but they walked the other way. She shouted at them, but they didn't turn back.

The boys went in and out of shops and interacted with several people. They ran into some boys they knew, but one told them to take James home.

Around 6 PM, they wandered into a railway station. One of the boys threw blue paint onto James's face and into his left eye. As he screamed, they threw stones at him, kicked him in the face and groin, and beat him with bricks. They removed his shoes and pants, sexually assaulting him. The may have inserted batteries into his rectum. They hit him with an iron bar. When they thought he was dead, they laid his body on the railroad track and covered his head with bricks.

Afterward, the boys went back into town to a video store. Jon's mother Susan burst through the door, furious. She dragged the two boys out of the store, screaming and beating them both. She had heard about a kidnapping at the mall and was worried that some maniac could have taken Jon. Robert went home in tears and told his mother about the beating. She took him to the police station to report the beating, noting a scratch under his eye.

Two days later, James's body was found on the railroad tracks. In the morning, an engineer saw a bundle, but he thought it was a cat. In the afternoon, 4 boys found James's upper body wrapped in a coat, but his naked lower half was further down the tracks. He had suffered 42 injuries, most to his face and head. He had still been alive when Robert and Jon left him, but had died before the train hit him.

In the witchhunt that followed the release of the security camera footage and details about the crime, an anonymous woman called in to report that Jon Venables had skipped school that Friday and that he had blue paint on the sleeve of his coat. On February 18th, police picked up both Jon and Robert, noting blood on Robert's shoes. During questioning, each lied, avoided the truth, and blamed the other as often as possible. In November, the boys - now both 11 years old - became the youngest convicted killers of the 20th century.
Source: TruTV

The More You Know: In case you are wondering what James's mother Denise is up to, in 2004, she was busy having 3 kids and watching those killers. They served 8 years but were already out and living under new identities (so people wouldn't find and kill them).

She told the paper she had been sent a letter by an anonymous 'well-wisher' in which Thompson's daytime movements were outlined.

The 37-year-old mother of three then went to the area described in the letter on numerous occasions and waited until she found him in September.

She said she recognised him "in an instant. It was such a shock to see him in front of me. I was staring at him and he was none the wiser. Part of me wanted to jump out of the car and punch him but I was paralysed with the hatred I feel for him. In the end I just stared after him as he wandered down the street, turned a corner - and was gone."

Mrs Fergus said it was now her aim to find Venables and track him down in the same way.

But in March 2010, Venables was put back in prison for violating his release agreement by being a pedophile.

On 21 June 2010, Venables was charged with possession and distribution of indecent images of children. It was alleged that he downloaded 57 indecent images of children over a twelve month period to February 2010, and allowed other people to access the files through a peer-to-peer network.

At the court hearing, it emerged that Venables had posed in online chat rooms as 35-year-old Dawn "Dawnie" Smith, a married woman from Liverpool who boasted about abusing her eight-year-old daughter, in the hope of obtaining further child pornography. Venables had contacted his probation officer in February 2010, fearing that his new official identity had been compromised. When the officer arrived at his home, Venables was attempting to remove the hard drive of his computer with a knife and a tin opener. The officer's suspicions were aroused, and the computer was taken away for examination, leading to the discovery of the child pornography, which included children as young as two being raped by adults.

Who played the transvestite in "Please Give"?


Search
: please give

Why: She was a very convincing homeless transvestite. Maybe too convincing, if you know what I mean. That movie is a pretty good watch, by the way.

Answer: Harmonica Sunbeam! What a lovely name! And get this: she plays more than just homeless transvestites. Other credits include:
  • World Trade Center (2006) - as "9th Avenue Hooker"
  • "Third Watch" (2004) - as "Transvestite Hooker"
  • "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (2004) - as "Hooker Keisha Brown"
(The other thing she plays is hookers.)

But she's more than just a pretty hooker. She's also a drag queen! Wait, no - not a drag queen:
I just love that tiger-print hoodie catsuit. What shade is that? Coral?

Befriend her on Facebook to hear about her shows in NYC and other opportunities. For example:

HARMONICA SUNBEAM I am looking for hot, sexy, open-minded and free spirited contestants for my Wet Underwear contest this Thursday at Raw Thursdays . Hit me up for details. Dive into the pool boys!

Dive!


The More You Know: Incidentally, have any of you ladies or gentlemen out there ever run into a transvestite in a public restroom? It's all I think about these days. Please share your tales.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Is there a real movie called "Croctopus"?


Search
: croctopus

Why: On "Modern Family" this week, Phil and Claire went to go see it in 3D. In 3D!!!!

Answer: No :( not yet...

BUT! Here are some very nice artistic imaginings of how one might look:
Source: nothing, Google Images

The More You Know: A croctopus also lives in the underwater levels of Donkey Kong Country. It is completely invincible, just like the real croctopus, but it really just looks like a regular octopus:

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Where have I seen Megan Bailey before?


Search
: the one with the cheap wedding dress

Why: I haven't posted about "Friends" in a while, but believe you me, it's not because I haven't been watching. Megan Bailey threatens to sign the Swing Kings the weekend of Monica's wedding if she doesn't give her the dress they both want. Yipe!

Answer: "Seinfeld"! That actress's name is Andrea Bendewald, and she is Celia, George's convict in "The Little Jerry." She does the break-out/pop-in.
She is apparently old friends with Jennifer Aniston and was a bridesmaid in her wedding to Brad Pitt. They starred together in The Thin Pink Line in 1998.

Source: IMDb

The More You Know: BUT! the truth is that I was thinking she played Ashley Bartlett Bacon in While You Were Sleeping, which I have, for some reason, seen like 2 dozen times. Turns out that actress Ally Walker plays Pammy Pam Pam-ela in Singles, which I have seen like 6 dozen times (one of them just last week). Twins, no?
Not really.

Monday, January 10, 2011

What is the origin of the name Reebok?


Search
: reebok name

Why: Joel posted this fun video, which features Garth Algar as a Reebok man:
I have always felt like Reeboks are kind of geeky.

Answer
: It comes from the name rhebok, which is a type of antelope or gazelle that lives in Southern Africa!
Legend has it that:
In 1960, two of the [shoe company's] founder's grandsons, Joe and Jeff Foster renamed the company Reebok, having found the name in a dictionary won in a race by Joe Foster as a boy; the dictionary was South African edition, hence the spelling.
It's Afrikaans. I bet that animal is pretty fast.

Source
: Yahoo! Answers

The More You Know: Also, in case you didn't learn this as a toddler because your brother wore head-to-toe adidas whenever possible:
  • The name adidas comes from the name of German founder Adolf "Adi" Dassler.
  • In 1924, Adi (24) and his brother Rudolph (26) - whose father worked in a shoe factory - had their own track shoe-making business called Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory)
  • Adi and Rudi both became members of the Nazi Party in the 1930s, but Rudy was closer to the movement.
During the war, Rudolf was drafted while Adi stayed behind to produce boots for the Wehrmacht. A growing rift between the pair reached a breaking point after an Allied bomb attack in 1943. Adi and his wife climbed into a bomb shelter that Rudolf and his family were already in. "The dirty bastards are back again," Adi said, apparently referring to the Allied war planes, but Rudolf was convinced his brother meant him and his family.

After Rudolf was later picked up by American soldiers and accused of being a member of the Waffen SS, he was convinced that his brother had turned him in.
  • In 1948, after the rift between the brothers, Rudolph left the company to found his own shoe company - first called Ruda (get it?), but later, he changed it to Puma. A year later, Adi changed the other company name to adidas. The division split their town Herzogenaurach in two :(
If you want to know more, you can read this book Sneaker Wars, though I hear it is just OK. Or you can read this post on this blog, since it's way shorter.

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