Monday, April 30, 2007

Seventy two

Today I learned that you can actually be allergic to exercise: Exercise Uticaria. The increase in body temperature triggers a histamine reaction which can result in itching and hives...in severe cases you can even develop anaphylaxis. That mostly happens though if you've eaten something you're allergic to and then exercise right after. You can COLLAPSE and DIE. Personally, I just about collapse and die from exercise anyway, although I think that's a separate condition.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Seventy one

Today I learned that Sharon Woods is now open til 10:00 pm. That's so cool! I don't know if I'll ever even stay that late but it's definitely better than having to high-tail it out of there before the sun even goes down.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Seventy

Today I learned that they are going to be opening an Ikea store near Cincinnati. Finally! I have never been to an Ikea, and I never felt like driving to Pennsylvania. I am totally going to max out my credit card on Swedish furniture and accessories. Yay.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Sixty nine

Today I learned that the Goodyear blimp is housed in Akron, Ohio. Actually, it is one of three:

"Today, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company no longer mass-produces airships. In the United States it operates three well-recognized blimps: the Spirit of Goodyear, based in Akron, Ohio; the Spirit of America, based in Carson, California; and the Spirit of Innovation, in Pompano Beach, Florida." (from www.goodyearblimp.com)

I kind of wanted post #69 to be dirty, but sorry, I actually learned about blimps today. I guess I did work the word "rubber" into my entry. Hee!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Sixty eight

I looked up rumble strips online today, because I wondered about the kind that go all the way across the road. I knew the ones along the sides of the road were to let you know you were drifting, but I did not see the point of the ones in the middle of the road. They are there to...slow me down? Or alert me to changing road conditions, or something. That is what I found, but I don't really buy it. I go across some sets of these every morning on my way to work, and they don't do anything. I don't slow down or anything. I just keep driving. That's dumb. They should put spikes in the middle of the road that will blow out your tires if you're going over the recommended speed. That would slow me down.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Sixty seven

Today, finally, I learned how to read a binary clock. I'm totally gonna be in ur living room, tellin ur timez. Although there's less math involved if I just, you know, look at my watch.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Sixty five, Sixty six

Yesterday I learned about dishwashers...what the parts are, what makes them break, and how you might fix one. Needless to say, my dishwasher is broken. Most likely the hose or drain screen is clogged. I will not be fixing it myself, because I'm a huge girl and it sounds gross.

Today I learned that those shoes with wheels in them are called Heelys (shouldn't it be "Heelies?"). There are a bunch of different types of wheels that you can put in them...it's all much more complex than I thought. I kind of want some, even though there's about a 94% chance that I would break a bone in the first five minutes.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Sixty two, Sixty three, Sixty four

Um, yeah. I lose at learning.

For Friday and Saturday I give you two things about horse racing.

1.) Thoroughbreds are English mares + Arabian stallions. Any horse that's called a thoroughbred has to be able to be traced back to that original pairing. To classify today, the mating of the two horses has to be live and witnessed by a real person--no artificial insemination or anything like that. Heh heh. Horse sex.

2.) Keeneland was the last racetrack in North America to start broadcasting racing calls over the PA system; they didn't start until 1997.

And for Sunday I learned that there's a restaurant called the Hoover Grille over by Hoover Dam. I like never drive over that way, but we went to the dam on Sunday and there it was. Who knew.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Sixty one

Wow, this is something that I've wondered about for a long time...what is the story on those I Am Loved buttons?

I started seeing them on my brother and his friends when they were in high school, the I realized where they came from when I got old enough to hang out at the mall all the time. But I still didn't know why they were there or what they meant...were they religious? Did they represent something? What was the deal?

It was pretty simple, I guess. They mean that you're loved. Go figure.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Sixty

Right now I am learning about vaccination. This is pretty interesting. People are believed to have been using some form of vaccination for over two thousand years, primarily against smallpox. People in Asia would deliberately expose themselves to mild cases of smallpox to keep themselves from getting it later. Around 1800 Europeans started using cowpox to vaccinate themselves against smallpox (hence the word "vaccine"--from the Latin "vacca," cow). In the early days they would vaccinate people by cutting a slit in their arm, swabbing sombody's smallpox pustule, and then rubbing it in the slit. Eeeeeew. I mean, I know that's basically still what they do, but let's dress it up a little bit with syringes and Strawberry Shortcake band-aids, shall we?

There are three types of vaccine that can be given: one kind where the virus is dead, one where it's alive but not very stong, and one where you don't get the actual virus at all but just a certain protein from the virus that will trigger an immune reaction.

Compulsory vaccination was used to eliminate smallpox, is currently being used to eliminate polio, and may soon be used to eliminate measles. Some people object to compulsory vaccination on religious grounds or out of the belief that vaccinations are not as safe as we believe (the possible connection between vaccinations and autism, for example). People with strong objections may be exempted from compulsory vaccination.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Fifty nine

I tried to learn something about Tax Day today, but it turns out that Tax Day is incredibly boring. It's the day you have to file your taxes. That's it. Don't even think of doing anything interesting on Tax Day. Just don't. I will report your ass to the IRS.

Instead I learned that declawing your cat is illegal in the UK. I mean, I do think it's kind of mean to declaw your cat, but it's also pretty mean when the cat claws the hell out of your expensive furniture and then you kill it. Know what I'm sayin'?

Monday, April 16, 2007

Fifty eight

Today I learned about multiple births. The most babies ever born at once were 8, but only 7 survived. The most where all the babies survived was 7. Any time there has been 9 babies, none have lived more than a few days after being born. Once a woman conceived TWELVE babies at once WITHOUT the use of fertility drugs, although obviously that did not work out well.

Too. Many. Babies.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Fifty seven

Dude, I SO want to do this! Check out how to take cool sparkler photos. They look really neat.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Fifty five, Fifty six

Friday I learned that Bob Barker will be retiring from The Price Is Right at the end of this season, which makes me want to DIE. Every day since before I was born, Bob Barker has been on The Price Is Right. Watching that show is one of my earliest memories, and to this day I will screw up my whole day's schedule in order to watch it in the morning, postponing my shower until noon, when it's over, if that's what it takes. Damn. Friday June 15 will be a sad, sad day.

Today I learned some Italian. I was shelving a ton of stuff in the teen area whilst some dude was getting an Italian lesson, and by the end of my time over there I think I was doing better than he was. In my head I was all "spero che...you HOPE the movie starts soon" and "no, she said gia, already...the movie ALREADY started..." I should have made him shelve my stuff while I finished up the Italian lesson.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Fifty two, Fifty three, Fifty four

I suck, I suck.

Tuesday I learned about the appendix, because I always think that I am dying of appendicitis. It's on the right side, by the way. I can never remember. Anyway, some people actually think the appendix might have a function. It has lots of lymph cells in it, so it might play some part in the immune system (although that doesn't seem likely because people who've had them removed/are born without them don't seem to have weaker immune systems). One guy thinks it may play a part in developing fetuses (feti?). Most people think it's leftover from when we were herbivores; it produced the bacteria needed to digest cellulose in all those veggies. Now it's shriveled up and does nothing other than occasionally kill people. Thanks a lot, evolution.

Yesterday I learned that American Gladiators airs on ESPN Classic weeknights at 7. Score!

Today is for mood rings. I'm totally copying this straight from howstuffworks.com because I am a lazy motherfucker, and plus they can say it better than I can anyway. So: " The stone in a mood ring is either a hollow glass shell filled with thermotropic liquid crystals or a clear glass stone sitting on top of a thin sheet of liquid crystals. These liquid crystal molecules are very sensitive; they change position, or twist, according to changes in temperature. This change in molecular structure affects the wavelengths of light that are absorbed or reflected by the liquid crystals, resulting in an apparent change in the color of the stone."

Awesome! I am wearing a mood ring today. My mom bought it for me in Arizona...she came back with all this authentic Native American type stuff, plus a mood ring. I dunno.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Fifty one

People who are born on February 29 may be referred to as "leaplings." That is just weird, and I have never heard that before today (uh...hence it being a thing I learned).

I saw a question "would you rather be born on Christmas or Feb 29?" and I was like, damn, those would both suck. A lot. Thanksgiving is not so bad :).

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Fifty

Cadbury eggs are now smaller! Oh man, I saw that BJ Novak appearance on Conan (he's so funny!), and to see that it's already added to Wikipedia is awesome.

Happy Easter. Eat some candy.

Saturday, April 7, 2007

Forty nine

Today I learned that you can buy fabric "remnants" for cheap at the fabric store. Good news if all you need is a little bit and you don't really care what it is. Yay!

Friday, April 6, 2007

Forty eight

Today I learned how to set up PS2s, DDR, Guitar Hero, the controllers and the projector, and get the games started. And by "learned" I mean, "just did it." It wasn't as hard as I feared, even the projector. Setting up the screen was actually the hardest part...that thing is ghetto. And also I didn't know it existed, which makes everything harder.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Forty seven

LMAO....NC-17, y'all. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Tony Danza.

Urban Dictionary is my go-to for all manner of bizarre sexual jargon. It's a veritable fountain of filth. Have fun clicking in horror for hours.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Forty six

Ok, so: uptown vs downtown (let's leave midtown out of this--it is, I think, only a NY thing anyway). There doesn't seem to be like a definitive, absolute definition for these terms. In one case, they can just be referring to north and south; they can even be relative, ie, if you're going to a restaurant south of where you live, you'd say "let's go downtown," but if you were at your office south of the same restaurant, you'd say "we need to head uptown."

Another explanation according to Wiktionary and Google's definitions is that downtown is the commercial center or "central business district," while uptown is the residential area away from the business center. According to that reasoning, something like Westerville's "uptown" is really a misnomer. I think that people have just taken to sticking the "uptown" title on downtown areas because it sounds more welcoming and less urban and intimidating.

So that's that. I'm kind of sleepy so I maybe didn't look into it as much as I should. Let me know if you have anything to add.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Forty five

Today I finally found a good web site about how to juggle with a partner - http://www.passingdb.com/learning.php - and also found that I can buy clubs on Amazon for a reasonable price. This would be useful information if, hypothetically, I were going to secretly learn how to partner juggle. BUT I'M TOTALLY NOT. Move along...

Forty four

Oh, this is so much better than I could've hoped. The song Mah Na Mah Na (Wikipedia will redirect you from "manamana," haha) originally "debuted as part of [Piero] Umiliani's soundtrack for the Italian softcore pornography movie Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso (Sweden, Heaven and Hell) (1968), a pseudo-documentary film about wild sexual activity and other behavior in Sweden ("Mah Nà Mah Nà" accompanied a scene set in a sauna)."

Yes! Not Muppets...porn! Of course. The two go so well together. See Wikipedia for more information about the song, the Muppets, and other uses.

Haha. Porn.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Forty one, Forty two, Forty three

For starters, I really don't like doing a three-in-one blog. It's totally lazy to get that far behind. In my defense I was pretty busy, especially Saturday. Anyway...on with the learning.

Friday:

Friday's may seem like kind of a cop out, because it isn't technically something I learned, but I'm putting it anyway. Friday I went to the park and walked around one of the trails twice. I'm blogging it because it was a new experience for me (going on a walk like that by myself, plus I had never walked that trail before) and also it was good for me and something out of the ordinary, which is really what this blog is about anyway. Technically I could say I learned something, like the time it takes me to walk that trail or whatever, but I don't feel the need to bullshit anybody like that.

Saturday:

I learned how to activate somebody's library card when they've applied at home. Somebody probably already showed me how to do that, but I forgot. Now I know.

Sunday:

April Fools!