If you have sex with a prostitute against her will, is it considered rape or shoplifting?

Can you cry under water?

How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

Why do you have to ‘put your two cents in’… but it’s only a ‘penny for your thoughts’? Where’s that extra penny going to?

Once you’re in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?

Why does a round pizza come in a square box?

What disease did cured ham actually have?

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?

Why is it that people say they ‘slept like a baby’ when babies wake up like every two hours?

If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?

Why are you IN a movie, but you’re ON TV?

Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They’re going to see you naked anyway.

Why is ‘bra’ singular and ‘panties’ plural?

Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?

Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?

If the professor on Gilligan’s Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can’t he fix a hole in a boat?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!

If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn’t he just buy dinner?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

Why did you just try singing the two songs above?

Why do they call it an asteroid when it’s outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it’s in your butt?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

Offbeat Tuesday

Following the Halloween theme here are some unusual facts about pumpkins.

A pumpkin is really a squash?
It is! It's a member of the Cucurbita family which includes squash and cucumbers.

That pumpkins are grown all over the world?
Six of the seven continents can grow pumpkins including Alaska! Antarctica is the only continent that they won't grow in.

That the "pumpkin capital" of the world is Morton, Illinois?
This self proclaimed pumpkin capital is where you'll find the home of the Libby corporation's pumpkin industry.

That the Irish brought this tradition of pumpkin carving to America?
The tradition originally started with the carving of turnips. When the Irish immigrated to the U.S., they found pumpkins a plenty and they were much easier to carve for their ancient holiday.

Fun Facts About The Pumpkin!

Pumpkins contain potassium and Vitamin A.

Pumpkin flowers are edible.

The largest pumpkin pie ever made was over five feet in diameter and weighed over 350 pounds. It used 80 pounds of cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took six hours to bake.

In early colonial times, pumpkins were used as an ingredient for the crust of pies, not the filling.

Pumpkins were once recommended for removing freckles and curing snake bites.

The largest pumpkin ever grown weighed 1,140 pounds.

The Connecticut field variety is the traditional American pumpkin.

Pumpkins are 90 percent water.

Eighty percent of the pumpkin supply in the United States is available in October.

Native Americans flattened strips of pumpkins, dried them and made mats.

Native Americans called pumpkins "isqoutm squash."

Native Americans used pumpkin seeds for food and medicine.

Offbeat Tuesday

Pi
Pi is how many times the diameter of a circle fits into its circumference.
Pi = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751
05820974944592307816406286208998280348253421170679...

These are some of the numbers names that you may or may not be familiar with.
1,000= Thousand
1,000,000 = Million
1,000,000,000= Billion
1,000,000,000,000= Trillion
1,000,000,000,000,000= Quadrillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000= Quintillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000= Sextillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000= Septillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000= Octillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000= Nonillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000= Decillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000= Undecillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000= Duodecillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000= Tridecillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000= Quathordecillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000= Quindecillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000= Sexdecillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000= Septendecillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000= Octodecillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000= Novemdecillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000= Vigintillion

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,
000,000 = Googol.

A "1" followed by 303 zeroes is called a centiliion. I'm just to lazy to write all that zeroes.
A googol by the way is a "1" followed by 100 zeroes.
A googolplex is a "1" followed by a googol zeroes.

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,
000 = Centillion
Well lookie! Look who's lazy after all! I don't think I'll add a googolplex though.

Offbeat Tuesday

Numbers, Averages And Percentages

85% of men don't use the slit in their underwear.
67.5% of men wear briefs. Yep!
85% of women wear the wrong bra size.
50% admit they regularly sneak food into movie theaters to avoid the high prices of snack foods.
90% believe in divine retribution.
10% believe in the 10 Commandments. Yep!
82% believe in an afterlife. Yep!
45% believe in ghosts. Yep!
29% of us are virgins when we marry.
58.4% have called into work sick when we weren't. Yep!
40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
35% give to charity at least once a month.
69% eat the cake before the frosting.
When nobody else is around, 47% drink straight from the carton. Yep!
85% of us will eat Spam this year. Yep!
70% of us drink orange juice daily.
Snickers is the most popular candy. Yeah baby!
22% of us skip lunch daily.
9% of us skip breakfast daily.
66% of us eat cereal regularly.
22% of all restaurant meals include French fries.
14% of us eat the watermelon seeds.
Only 13% brush our teeth from side to side.
45% use mouthwash every day. Yep!
29% of us ignore RSVP.
71.6% of us eavesdrop.
Less than 10% are trilingual.
37% claim to know how to use all the features on their VCR.
53% prefer ATM machines over tellers.
56% of women do the bills in a marriage.
2 out of 3 of us wouldn't give up our spouse even for a night for a million bucks.
44% reuse tinfoil.
57% save pretty gift paper to reuse.
53% read their horoscopes regularly.
16% of us have forgotten our own wedding anniversary.
59% of us say we're average-looking.
90% of us depend on alarm clocks to wake us. Yep!
28% of us have skinny-dipped. 14% with the opposite sex. Yeah baby!
51% of adults dress up for a Halloween festivity. Yep!
On average, we send 38 Christmas cards every year.
20% of women consider their parents to be their best friends.
2 out of 5 have married their first love.
Only 4% asked the parents' approval for their bride's hand.
1 in 5 men proposed on his knees.
6% propose over the phone.
71% can drive a stick-shift car. Yep!
45% of us consistently follow the speed limit.
2/3 of us speed up at a yellow light. Yep!
1/3 of us don't wear seat belts.
62% of us pop our zits. Yep!
33% of women lie about their weight.
10% of us claim to have seen a ghost.
Only 30% of us know our cholesterol level. Yep!
14% have attended a self-help meeting.
15% regularly go to a shrink.
78% would rather die quickly than live in a retirement home. Yep!

H/T: Rex

Offbeat Tuesday

There are more than 1500 active volcanoes on the Earth. We currently know of 80 or more which are under the oceans.

The Earth's crust is made up of huge slabs called plates, which fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. These plates sometimes move. The friction causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions near the edges of the plates. The theory that explains this process is called plate tectonics.

Volcanoes are like giant safety valves that release the pressure that builds up inside the Earth.

A volcano is a geological landform (usually a mountain) where magma (rock of the earth's interior made molten or liquid by high pressure and temperature) erupts through the surface of the planet.

The name "volcano" has its origin from the name of Vulcan, a god of fire in Roman mythology.

As pressure in the molten rock builds up it needs to escape somewhere. So it forces its way up “fissures” which are narrow cracks in the earths crust. Once the magma erupts through the earth’s surface it’s called lava.

Magma is liquid rock inside a volcano.

Lava is liquid rock (magma) that flows out of a volcano. Fresh lava ranges from 1,300° to 2,200° F (700° to 1,200° C) in temperature and glows red hot to white hot as it flows.

An active volcano is one that erupts regularly.

A dormant volcano is one that has not erupted for many years, although there is still some activity deep inside.

An extinct volcano has ceased to be active.

A volcanic eruption is when hot rocks and lava burst from a volcano.

Geysers are springs that throw boiling water high in the air. They are caused by volcanic heat warming trapped ground water.

Lava cools slowly because lava is a poor conductor of heat. Lava flows slow down and thicken as they harden.

The world's largest, active volcano is Mauna Loa in Hawaii, where famous coffee is grown in the rich volcanic soils.

Mauna Loa is 13,677 feet above sea level. From its base below sea level to its summit, Mauna Loa is taller than Mount Everest. Mauna Loa is about 36 m (120 ft) lower than its neighbour, Mauna Kea.

Hawaii was formed by 5 volcanoes. Mauna Loa, and Kilauea are the only active volcanoes.

Offbeat Tuesday

Alaska and California, with 8 each, are the US states with the most national park sites.

Disney World in Orlando, Florida covers 30,500 acres (46 square miles), making it twice the size of the island of Manhattan, New York.

Grand Rapids, Michigan was the first city in the US to put fluoride in their water.

Hawaii is the only US state that grows coffee.

Hawaii officially became apart of the US on June 14, 1900.

In the Great Seal of the US the eagle grasps 13 arrows and an olive branch.

Lake Pontchartrain Causeway at New Orleans, Louisiana, is the world's largest bridge. It is almost 24 miles (about 38 kilometers) long.

Maine is the only state in the United States whose name has one syllable.

Mexico City is the oldest capital city in the Americas.

More water flows over Niagara Falls every year than over any other falls on earth.

Most landfilled trash retains its original weight, volume, and form for 40 years.

New Jersey, with 96, is the US state with the greatest number of hazardous waste sites.

St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in the US.

The 1st US zoo was built in Philadelphia, PA, in 1876.

The abbreviation 'ORD' for Chicago's O'Hare airport comes from the old name 'Orchard Field.'

The border between Canada and the U.S. is the world's longest frontier. It stretches 3,987 miles (6,416 km).

The Fresh Kills Landfill site on Staten Island, New York, opened in 1948, is the world's largest. It covers 3,000 acres and receives up to 14,000 tons of garbage a day.

The Great Lakes are Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

The Great Lakes are the most important inland waterway in North America. All the lakes, except Lake Michigan, which lies entirely in the United States, are shared by the United States and Canada and form part of the border between these countries.

The Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of fresh water, one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world.

The Great Lakes have a combined area of 94,230 square miles - larger than the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Vermont combined.

The Hollywood sign was first erected in 1923. Conceived as a real estate ad, it originally read Hollywoodland. The sign stands 50 feet tall, stretches 450 feet across, weighs 450,000 pounds.

The largest body of fresh water in the world is Lake Superior.

The largest US city in area is Juneau, Alaska, which covers 3,108 square miles. Los Angeles covers only 458.2 square miles.

The Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii is the largest volcano on Earth. It rises more than 50,000 feet (9.5 miles or 15.2 kilometers) above its base, which sits under the surface of the sea.

The Ohio river forms at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela.

The original name of Los Angeles was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles del rio Porciuncula, translating into:The Village of our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciuncula River.

The San Diego Zoo in California has the largest collection of animals in the world.

The tallest monument built in the US, the Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, Missouri, is 630 feet tall.

The US city with the highest murder rate is Detroit.

The water in the Great Salt Lake of Utah is more than four times as salty as any ocean.

The world’s largest statue of a mosquito is a roadside attraction in Komarno, Manitoba, the Mosquito Capital of Canada. Sculpted in 1984, it is made of steel and has a wingspan of 15 feet. It’s also a weathervane, swiveling in the wind.

Offbeat Tuesday

A "Blue Moon" is the second full moon in a calendar month (it is rarely blue).

A bibliophile is a collector of rare books. A bibliopole is a seller of rare books.

A ghost writer pens an anonymous book.

A magic potion or charm thought to arouse sexual love, especially toward a specific person, is known as a "philter."

A poem written to celebrate a wedding is called an epithalamium.

A speleologist studies caves.

Ballistics is the science that deals with the motion of projectiles.

Cannibalism, eating human flesh, is also called anthropophagy.

DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleicacid.

"Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.

The side of a hammer is a cheek.

The study of insects is called entomology.

The study of word origins is called etymology.

The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.

Offbeat Tuesday

Plant Trivia is our topic today.

84% of a raw apple is water.

A cucumber is 96% water.

A notch in a tree will remain the same distance from the ground as the tree grows.

A pineapple is a berry.

Advertisements for coffee in London in 1657 claimed that the beverage was a cure for scurvy, gout and other ills.

Almonds are the oldest, most widely cultivated and extensively used nuts in the world.

Americans eat more bananas than any other fruit: a total of 11 billion a year.

An average ear of corn has 800 kernels, arranged in 16 rows.

Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams.

Banana oil never saw a banana; it's made from petroleum.

Bananas are actually herbs. Bananas die after fruiting, like all herbs do.

Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew cannabis sativa (marijuana) on their plantations.

Cranberries are one of just 3 major fruits native to North America. Blueberries and Concord grapes are the other two.

Dr. Joel Poinsett, the 1st US ambassador to Mexico, brought the poinsettia to US in 1828. The plant, called "flower of the blessed night" in Mexico was renamed in Poinsett's honor.

Eggplant is a member of the thistle family.

Ginger has been clinically demonstrated to work twice as well as Dramamine for fighting motion sickness, with no side effects.

Hydroponics is the technique by which plants are grown in water without soil.

In Siberia, in 1994, a container full of marijuana was discovered in the 2,000-year-old grave of a Scythian princess and priestess, among the many other articles buried with her.

Morphine was given its name in 1803 by the discoverer, a 20 year old German pharmacist named Friedrich Saturner. He named it after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.

No species of wild plant produces a flower or blossom that is absolutely black, and so far, none has been developed artificially.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.

One pound of tea can make 300 cups of the beverage.

One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen.

Oranges, lemons, watermelons, and tomatoes are berries.

Peanuts are beans.

Plants that need to attract moths for pollination are generally white or pale yellow, to be better seen when the light is dim. Plants that depend on butterflies, such as the poppy or the hibiscus, have more colorful flowers.

The California redwood - coast redwood and giant sequoia - are the tallest and largest living organism in the world.

The fragrance of flowers is due to the essences of oil which they produce.

The largest single flower is the Rafflesia or "corpse flower". They are generally 3 feet in diameter with the record being 42 inches.

The oldest living thing in existence is not a giant redwood, but a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, dated to be aged 4,600 years old.

The plant life in the oceans make up about 85 percent of all the greenery on the Earth.

The rose family of plants, in addition to flowers, gives us apples, pears, plums, cherries, almonds, peaches and apricots.

The world's tallest grass, which has sometimes grown 130 feet or more, is bamboo.

Wheat is the world's most widely cultivated plant; grown on every continent except Antarctica.

When a coffee seed is planted, it takes five years to yield consumable fruit.

When you give someone roses, the color can have a meaning. The meaning of rose colors:
Red = Love and respect
Deep pink = Gratitude, appreciation
Light pink = Admiration, sympathy
White = Reverence, humility
Yellow = Joy, gladness
Orange = Enthusiasm, desire
Red & yellow blend = Gaiety, joviality
Pale blended tones = Sociability, friendship

Willow bark, which provides the salicylic acid from which aspirin was originally synthesized, has been used as a pain remedy ever since the Greeks discovered its therapeutic power nearly 2,500 years ago.

Wine grapes, oranges, figs and olives were first planted in North America by Father Junipero Sera in 1769.

Offbeat Tuesday

When its this hot I have troubles sleeping. So this weeks topic includes facts about sleep.

-The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.

- It's impossible to tell if someone is really awake without close medical supervision. People can take cat naps with their eyes open without even being aware of it. Yeah baby...that's me!

- Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you're sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you're still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.

- A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year

- One of the best predictors of insomnia later in life is the development of bad habits from having sleep disturbed by young children.

- REM sleep occurs in bursts totalling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep.

- No-one knows for sure if other species dream but some do have sleep cycles similar to humans.

- Scientists have not been able to explain a 1998 study showing a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain's sleep-wake clock. Wha?

- Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.

- The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep-deprivation played a role.

- The NRMA estimates fatigue is involved in one in 6 fatal road accidents.

- Exposure to noise at night can suppress immune function even if the sleeper doesn’t wake. Unfamiliar noise, and noise during the first and last two hours of sleep, has the greatest disruptive effect on the sleep cycle.

- The "natural alarm clock" which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.

- Tiny luminous rays from a digital alarm clock can be enough to disrupt the sleep cycle even if you do not fully wake. The light turns off a "neural switch" in the brain, causing levels of a key sleep chemical to decline within minutes.

- To drop off we must cool off; body temperature and the brain's sleep-wake cycle are closely linked. That's why hot summer nights can cause a restless sleep. The blood flow mechanism that transfers core body heat to the skin works best between 18 and 30 degrees. But later in life, the comfort zone shrinks to between 23 and 25 degrees - one reason why older people have more sleep disorders.

- A night on the booze will help you get to sleep but it will be a light slumber and you won't dream much.

- After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you've slept enough. Cheap date!!!

- Humans sleep on average around three hours less than other primates like chimps, rhesus monkeys, squirrel monkeys and baboons, all of whom sleep for 10 hours.

- Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnoea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke. Hmmmmm...

- Snoring occurs only in non-REM sleep

- Teenagers need as much sleep as small children (about 10 hrs) while those over 65 need the least of all (about six hours). For the average adult aged 25-55, eight hours is considered optimal

- Some studies suggest women need up to an hour's extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men. Mood swings...just sayin'.

- Feeling tired can feel normal after a short time. Those deliberately deprived of sleep for research initially noticed greatly the effects on their alertness, mood and physical performance, but the awareness dropped off after the first few days.

- Experts say one of the most alluring sleep distractions is the 24-hour accessibility of the internet.

- The extra-hour of sleep received when clocks are put back at the start of daylight has been found to coincide with a fall in the number of road accidents.

Offbeat Tuesday

There are approximately ten million bricks in the Empire State Building.

The oldest business in the United States of America is the cymbal company Zildjian which was founded in Constantinople in 1623.

"Weird" Al Yankovic received a Bachelor's degree in Architecture in 1981. He also served as valedictorian of his high school at age 16.

The lightning that we see actually goes from the ground to the sky in what is known as the "return stroke" at 1/3 the speed of light. We can't see the initial "stepped leader" that passes from the sky to the ground.

The most common invention of the 19th century was the washing machine. Between 1804 and 1873, at least 1676 patents were issued by the United States Patent Office for various forms of this device.

The five most stolen items in a drugstore are batteries, cosmetics, film, sunglasses, and, get this, Preparation H. Apparently people are just too embarrassed to purchase the last item.

In four separate instances between October 1987 and February 1988, small pink frogs rained down from the sky on to various parts of Great Britain. Scientists are still uncertain as to where these frogs originated, although some have traced them back to the Sahara desert.

Did you ever wonder what the WD in WD-40 stands for? The name was lifted right out chemist Norm Larsen's laboratory notebook. Way back in 1953, he was trying to concoct an anti-corrosion formula, which worked on the basic principle of displacing water. On his 40th try, Larsen finally got it right. Hence the name WD-40. It literally means Water Displacer, 40th try.

Offbeat Tuesday

Uranus is visible to the naked eye.
Benjamin Franklin was first to suggest daylight saving.
The most abundant metal in the Earths crust is aluminium.
It snowed in the Sahara desert on 18 February 1979.
On average, an iceberg weighs 20 million tons.
The far side of the moon was first photographed by a Russian satellite in 1959.
Captain Cook was the first man to set foot on all continents except Antarctica.
The diameter of the Moon is 2,160 miles.
The pressure at the Earths inner core is 3 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure.
200 million years ago Earth contained 1 land mass called Pangaea
At the deepest point, an iron ball would take more than an hour to sink to the ocean floor. ( 6.8 miles )
The largest wave ever recorded was near the Japanese Island of Ishigaki in 1971. It was recorded at 279 feet high.
Antarctic means ' opposite the Artic '.
The largest iceberg recorded ( in 1956 ) was 200 miles long and 60 miles wide, larger that the country of Belgium.
The surface of the Dead Sea is 1,312 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, which is only 47 miles away.
The moon orbits the Earth every 27.32 days.
The country of Benin changed its name from Dahomey in 1975.
The Nova Zemlya Glacier in the (former) USSR is over 1,312 feet long.
The coldest temperature ever recorded was -94 deg Fahrenheit, in Siberia.
The second largest US state in the 1950's was California.
The US state Maryland was named after Queen Henrietta Maria.
The only country to register zero births in 1983 was the 'Vatican City'.
The US state of Florida first saw the cultivation of oranges in 1539.
The world's largest National park is 'Wood Buffalo National Park' in Canada.
The world's largest exporter of sugar is Cuba.
There are no rivers in Saudi Arabia.
England's Stonehenge is 1500 years older than Rome's Colosseum.

Offbeat Tuesday

The Earth's equator is 24,901.458 miles long.

The distance to the center of the Earth is 3,958 miles.

The Earth is farther away from the sun in July than in January.

The axial tilt of the Earth is 23.45 degrees.

The Earth's diameter is 7,926.68 miles, or 12,756.776 kilometers.

The deepest depression on the Earth is the Marianas Trench, at 35,798 feet deep, located in the Pacific Ocean.

The three types of plate boundaries are divergent boundaries, convergent boundaries, and transform boundaries.

The biggest and most destructive earthquake in the world since 1900 was in Chile on May 22, 1960, with a magnitude of 9.5 on the Richter Scale.

The biggest earthquake in the United States since 1900 was in Alaska on March 28, 1964, with a magnitude of 9.2 on the Richter Scale. This was also the second largest earthquake in the world.

The largest volcano in the world is Mauna Loa, located at the island of Hawaii, in the Pacific Ocean.

The tallest volcano in the world is Ojos del Salado in Chile. It is 22,589 feet (6,887 meter) tall.

If all the ice in the world was melted into water (some 5.5 million cubic miles) (23 million cubic kilometers), in all, the oceans would rise 1.7% percent, or about 180 feet (60 meters).

The world's smallest volcano is Mount Taal, located on the island Luzon, about 30 miles south of the Philippines' capital, Manila, which is about 1,310 feet high, where a building in Chicago is taller than.

Millions of years ago, all the land on Earth were together as one big island (continent), called Pangaea.

The world's worst earthquake occured in 1556 in China killing approximately 830,000 people.

The Earth's prime meridian is 24,859.731 miles long.

U.S. cities Los Angeles and San Francisco become about 2.5 inches closer to each other every year because they are on opposite sides of the St. Andreas Fault.

The Earth weighs (mass) 6,585,428,233,724,480,000,000 pounds (5,974,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms).

The weight of the Earth's crust is 23,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms.

The weight of the Earth's mantle is 4,050,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms.

The deepest valley is the Yarlung Zangbo valley in Tibet at an average 16,400 feet (5,000 meters) deep. The deepest point has been measured at 17,657 feet (5,382 meters).

Offbeat Tuesday

Animal Kingdom

All polar bears are left-handed.
All porcupines can float in water.
An adult porcupine has approximately 30,000 quills on its body, which are replaced every year.
All snakes on the island of Tasmania are poisonous.
All the swans in England are property of the Queen.
Alligators can live for more than 100 years.
Amazon ants (red ants found in the western U.S.) steal the larvae of other ants to keep as slaves. The slave ants build homes for and feed the Amazon ants, who cannot do anything but fight. They depend completely on their slaves for survival.
An ant can survive for up to two days underwater.
An ant's sense of smell is as good as a Dog's.
An adult lion's roar can be heard up to five miles away, and warns off intruders or reunites scattered members of the pride.
An adult male ostrich, the world's largest bird, can weigh up to 345 pounds.
An elephant can smell water 3 miles away.
An elephant could carry up to 2 gallons of water in its trunk.
An elephant has 4 knees
An elephant may consume 500 pounds of hay and 60 gallons of water in a single day.
An elephant's trunk contains more than 50,000 muscles.

Offbeat Tuesday

No color exists in a pure state. There are innumerable variables that influence how we perceive a particular hue. Color is always affected by light, and the placement of one color next to another alters the way each is experienced, as great artists and designers have always understood.

The color of a flower attracts the insect or bird that's required to pollinate the plant. Red blooms lure butterflies and hummingbirds; blue, violet and purple blossoms tend to entice bees.

In the early 1990s, paint manufacturers offered four hundred to six hundred colors. Ten years later, that number grew to nearly sixteen thousand, according to the Paint Quality Institute.

The avocado-colored kitchen appliances that proliferated in the 1970s were a reaction to the psychadelic colors of the 1960s.

Warm colors stand out to the human eye, which is the reason signs and signals warning of potential danger tend to be yellow or red.

School busses in the United States are Chrome Yellow and used to be Omaha Orange.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

Ants cannot chew their food, they move their jaws sidewards, like a scissor, to extract the juices from the food.

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.

A baby eel is called an elver, a baby oyster is called a spat.

H/T to reader Michelle for providing some of todays trivia!

Offbeat Tuesday

-A cough releases an explosive charge of air that moves at speeds up to 60 mph.
-A healthy individual releases 3.5 oz. of gas in a single flatulent emission, or about 17 oz. in a day. Healthy...it says healthy!
-A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
-According to German researchers, the risk of heart attack is higher on Monday than any other day of the week. I can relate...and its absolutely correct!
-After spending hours working at a computer display, look at a blank piece of white paper. It will probably appear pink. Consuming too much booze has the same effect...try it!
-Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies.
-Blood sucking hookworms inhabit 700 million people worldwide. Ewwwwww...just ewwwwwww!!!
-By the time you turn 70, your heart will have beat some two-and-a-half billion times (figuring on an average of 70 beats per minute.)
-It takes 17 muscles to smile...43 to frown.
-Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.
-On average women say 7,000 words per day. Men manage just over 2000. No comment...
-The average human produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools. TMI TMI
-The human body has over 600 muscles, 40% of the body's weight.
-The human brain is about 85% water. See mom, all those times you told me there was water between my ears, you were right!
-The most common blood type in the world is Type O. The rarest, Type A-H, has been found in less than a dozen people since the type was discovered.
-The sound of a snore (up to 69 decibels) can be almost as loud as the noise of a pneumatic drill. I hope the wife doesn't see this!
-There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being.
-There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.

Ok Health Class, there will be a test next Tuesday! It counts for 50% of your grade. bwhahahahaha

Offbeat Tuesday

A hippopotamus can run faster than a man can.

A Holstein's spots are like a fingerprint or snowflake. No two cows have exactly the same pattern of spots.

A honey bee must tap two million flowers to make one pound of honey

A honey bee travels an estimated 43,000 miles to gather one pound of honey. A pound of honey consists of 29,184 drops.

A honeybee can fly at fifteen miles per hour.

A horse can sleep standing up.

A Horse has 18 more bones than a Human.

A human being loses an average of 40 to 100 strands of hair a day.

A human has a bone just after the spine ends, which helps proves that humans once had tails.

A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been decapitated.

A human's scent membrane in the nose is about the size of a postage stamp. A dog's is about the size of a handkerchief. It's olfactory lobe is also 4 times that of a human.

A humming bird flaps its wings up to 90 times in one second or over 5000 times a minute.

A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.

About 10% of the world's population is left-handed.

About 10,000,000 people have the same birthday as you.

About 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens each year.

About 20% of bird species have become extinct in the past 200 years, almost all of them because of human activity.

About 200,000,000 M&Ms are sold each day in the United States.

About 24% of the total ground area of Los Angeles is said to be committed to automobiles.

About 55% of all movies are rated R. About 500 movies are made in the US and 800 in India annually.

About 70% of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money.

About 75% of the people in the U.S. live on 2% land.

About 80% of the city was burned in the Great Fire of London in 1666.

About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they're still sitting on it.

About one-tenth of the earth's surface is permanently covered with ice.

Offbeat Tuesday

"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" with your right.

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".

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.

The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).

There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

A snail can sleep for three years.

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Babies are born without kneecaps They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

H/T to reader Michelle!

Offbeat Tuesday

The exact geographic center of the United States is near Lebanon, Kansas.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel - which crossing Chesapeake near its mouth, at Norfolk, Virginia - uses a combination of bridge spans and tunnels. Manmade islands allow the roadway to enter the tunnels beneath the Bay's shipping channels.

The only nation whose name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan.

Given their sheer volume, ninety-nine percent of the living space on the planet is found in the oceans. The average depth of the oceans is 2.5 miles (4 km). The deepest point lies in the Mariana Trench, 6.8 miles (10.9 km) down. By way of comparison, Mount Everest is only 5.5 miles (8.8 km) high.

Ninety percent of all volcanic activity occurs in the oceans. In 1993, scientists located the largest known concentration of active volcanoes on the sea floor in the South Pacific. This area, the size of New York state, hosts 1,133 volcanic cones and sea mounts. Two or three could erupt at any moment.

According to NASA, the U.S. has the world's most violent weather. In a typical year, the U.S. can expect some 10,000 violent thunderstorms, 5,000 floods, 1,000 tornadoes and several hurricanes.

Zion, Illinois - located on the shores of Lake Michigan north of Chicago - was founded by the followers of John Alexander Dowie, whose Christian Catholic Church disapproved of pharmacies, doctors, theaters or dance halls. Smoking, drinking and the eating of pork also was prohibited in town.

The U-S Park Service says the older Old Faithful gets, the more the geyser at Yellowstone National Park slows down. In the 1950s, it erupted every 62 minutes. Lately, it's been erupting every 77 minutes. Some experts say Old Faithful may someday just stop.

At 840,000 square miles, Greenland is the largest island in the world. It is 3 times the size of Texas. By comparison Iceland is only 39,800 square miles.

According to experts, large caves tend to "breathe"; they inhale and exhale great quantities of air when the barometric pressure on the surface changes, and air rushes in or out seeking equilibrium.

The surface area of the Earth is 197,000,000 square miles.

Forty six percent of the world's water is in the Pacific Ocean. The Atlantic has 23.9 percent; the Indian, 20.3; the Arctic, 3.7 percent.

Offbeat Tuesday

With Spring in full bloom and summer lurking around the corner, today's Offbeat Tuesday is dedicated to bugs.

The natural diet of Lady Beetles consists of soft bodied insects such as aphids, spider mites, and young caterpillars. Adults can consume up to 100 aphids a day.

Certain species of male butterflies produce scents that serve in attracting females during courtship.

The Giant cricket of Africa enjoys eating human hair.

A nest in which insects or spiders deposit their eggs is called a "nidus".

Honeybees have hair on their eyes.

The only insect that can turn its head 360 degrees is the praying mantis.

Scientists have identified more than 300 viruses capable of bringing fatal diseases to insects. The organisms are believed to be entirely different than those that cause disease in humans, and are thus harmless to man.

The average airspeed of the common housefly is 4 1/2 mph. A housefly beats its wings about 20,000 times per minute.

Small cockroaches are more likely to die on their backs than large cockroaches.

There is an average of 50,000 spiders per acre in green areas.

Fleas can jump more than 200 times their body length.

Crickets don't chirp by rubbing their legs together, they make the noise by rubbing their wings together.

The social life in ants and termites has been accompanied by an extraordinary royal perk: a 100-fold increase among queen ants in average maximum lifespan, with some queens surviving for almost 30 years. This longevity can be attributed in part to the sheltered and pampered life of the royal egg layer.

Between 20,000 and 60,000 bees live in a single hive. The queen bee lays nearly 1,500 eggs a day and lives for up to 2 years. The drone, whose only job is to mate with the queen bee, has a lifespan of around 24 days—he has no sting. Worker bees - all sterile females - usually work themselves to death within 40 days, collecting pollen and nectar. Worker bees will fly p to 9 miles to find pollen and nectar, flying at speeds as fast as 15 mph.

There are 4,300 known species of ladybugs in the world.

You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day that in any other weather.

The tarantula spends most of its life within its burrow, which is an 18-inch vertical hole with an inch-wide opening. When male tarantulas are between the ages of 5 to 7 years, they leave the burrow in search of a female, usually in the early fall. This migration actually signals the end of their life cycle. The males mate with as many females as they can, and then they die around mid-November.

Until very recently, no centipede was found that did not have an ODD number of leg pairs. Usually the number varies from 15 to 191 pairs, all odd. No one knows why. However, Chris Kettle, a doctoral student in ecology, recently found a centipede with 48 pairs of legs, an even number. The remarkable discovery was presented to the International Congress of Myriapodology in Poland and featured in the science journal Trends in Genetics. Mr. Kettle suspects a genetic mutation is responsible for the even number of leg pairs.

62 degrees Fahrenheit is the minimum temperature required for a grasshopper to be able to hop.

Mosquitoes prefer children to adults, and blondes to brunettes.

Spiders have transparent blood.

There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are humans on the entire earth.

A spiders web is made of two types of silk, one sticky and the other not. The spider begins the web with the non sticky silk and forms the "spokes". After the frame is constructed and secure, the spider goes back with the sticky silk and completes the web design we are so familiar with, connecting spoke to spoke. They will also add rows connecting the spokes to allow them access for web maintenance.
Spend time watching a spider and you will see that they painstakingly avoid the sticky silk and walk on the spokes. Should the spider be startled and walk in the sticky silk it will affix to the spider the same as it would you or any thing else.
Spiders recycle their webbing, so a spider that gets stuck in its own web may eat its way out.

Some crickets burrow megaphone-like tunnels that help transport the sound of their chirps as far as 2,000 feet away.

A bee could travel 4 million miles (6.5 million km) at 7 mph (11km/h) on the energy it would obtain from 1 gallon (3.785 liters) of nectar.

A dragonfly flaps its wings 20 to 40 times a second, bees and houseflies 200 times, some mosquitoes 600 times, and a tiny gnat 1,000 times.

A fly can react to something it sees and change direction in 30 milliseconds.

A housefly can transport germs as far as 15 miles away from the original source of contamination.

A mature, well-established termite colony with as many as 60,000 members will eat only about one-fifth of an ounce of wood a day.

The silkworm's silk comes out of its mouth as a thread of gooey liquid, so that nice silk blouse you spent a fortune on is really just worm spit.

Offbeat Tuesday

A full-grown bear can run as fast as a horse.

A full-grown pumpkin has about 15 miles of roots.

A giant squid has eyes that can grow up to 20 inches in diameter. (Now think of how big your computer screen is..)

A giraffe and rat can go longer without water than a camel can.

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue. i know some people who can do some amazing stuff too.

A goldfish has a memory span of 3 seconds.

A googol is a 1 followed by 100 zeros. Mathematician Edward Kasner supposedly asked his nephew Milton Sirotta to suggest a name for the number, and he came up with this word.

A grasshopper needs a minimum temperature of 62 degrees Fahrenheit in order to be able to hop.

A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group in the air is a skein.

A group of crows is called a murder.

A hamlet is a village without a church and a town is not a city until it has a cathedral.

A hard-boiled egg will spin. An uncooked or soft-boiled egg will not.

A healthy (non-colorblind) human eye can distinguish between 500 shades of gray.

A healthy individual releases 3.5 oz. of gas in a single flatulent emission, or about 17 oz. in a day.

A hedgehog's heart beats 190 times a minute on average and drops to only 20 beats per minute during hibernation.

A hedgehog's skin is so tough that when they get run over, its entrails come out of its mouth and its ass.

A herd of forty-five thirsty, rambunctious elephants stampeded into a brewery in Midnapore, where they smashed vats and slurped up beer in a bender that went on for two days.

A hinny is the offspring of a female donkey.