~ February 1865 is the only month in recorded history to not have a full moon.
~ Each nostril of a human being registers smells in a different way. Smells that are made from the right nostril are more pleasant than the left. However, smells can be detected more accurately when made by the left nostril.
~ The crack of a whip is a tiny sonic boom, since the tip breaks the sound barrier.
+
~ The full name for Los Angeles is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula".
~ Venus is the only planet to rotate clockwise.
~ A beaver's teeth never stop growing.
~ The world's largest weather vane sits on the shores of White Lake in Montague, Michigan. It's 48 feet tall with a 26-foot wind arrow and adorned with a 14-foot replica of a 19th-century Great Lakes schooner.
~ In her entire lifetime, Spain's Queen Isabella (1451-1504) bathed twice.
Finally the return of my Mindless Fact Monday!!! Because today is Memorial Day, I will give a few Memorial Day facts and a few regular ones...
Memorial Day was first called Decoration Day because of the practice of decorating the soldier's graves with flowers.
On May 30, 1868, President Ulysses S. Grant presided over the first Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery - which, until 1864, was Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's plantation.
On Memorial Day, flags should be flown at half-staff until noon only, then raised to the top of the staff.
Memorial Day was declared a federal holiday in 1971.
On Memorial Day weekend in 1988, 2,500 motorcyclists rode into Washington D.C., for the first Rolling Thunder rally to draw attention to Vietnam War soldiers still missing in action or prisoners of war. By 2002, the numbers had swelled to 300,000 bikers, many of them veterans.
"Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God." That is the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknowns, established at Arlington National Cemetery to inter the remains of the first Unknown Soldier, a World War I fighter, on November 11, 1921.
Now for a few fun ones...
Penguins can jump 6 feet out of the water!
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, there is a wall carving of R2-D2 and C-3PO behind the ark.
If you were to spell out numbers, you would have to go to the number 1,000 before you found the letter "a".
If a raisin is dropped into a glass of champagne it will bounce up and down in the glass.
Thank you to all the soldiers who fought and died for our country and our freedom.
They fell, but o'er their glorious grave
Floats free the banner of the cause they died to save.
Jordan, my 14 year old daughter (for those that don't know), decided Monday night that we needed to do a whole post dedicated to hot guys. Because, as we all know, that is what most 14 year old girls think about. So, to satisfy her needs...and because it honestly sounded like cheap fun...we created this list. Most of the guys were mutual decisions by the two of us but you may notice that some of these choices are very influenced by said 14 year old.
Enjoy...discuss...throw out your suggestions for your favorites. :)
I had never heard of Jason Momoa until I stumbled on a short-lived show called North Shore back in 2004. I didn't hear much about him after the show was cancelled until recently when I learned he was cast in the 2011 remake of Conan the Barbarian.
Fun fact...In his mid-teens he became the youngest lifeguard in the history of the Gulf Coast.
Casey is a Days of our Lives cast member. He plays Chad Peterson DiMera. Only acting since 2009, he's managed to snag roles on the 90210 reboot, Wizards of Waverly Place and Body of Proof as well as his role on Days.
Random fact...He was an avid skateboarder for 10 years and competed at the age of 17 in the 2004 Vans World Amateur Competition. A severe head injury forced him to take some time off from skateboarding.
Kodjoe was born in Vienna, Austria to a German psychologist father and a Ghanaian physician mother. He went to Virginia Commonwealth University on a tennis scholarship. He still has the 9th best record in the school's history with 75 wins. A back injury ended his tennis career and he was quickly signed as a model with acting following soon after.
Milo is probably best know for his role as Peter Petrelli on Heroes from 2006-2010. He's been doing mostly voice work since it's end as Logan/Wolverine in the Wolverine anime series.
Random fact...Milo has been a lacto-vegetarian since birth. (A lacto-vegetarian is one that eats a vegetarian diet that includes milk, cheese, butter, yogurt etc., but excludes eggs.)
Ok...most of you probably don't know who this is - so I'll let you in on a little secret...he's on Days of our Lives as Rafe Hernandez...probably one of the most perfect men on daytime TV. *swoon*
Galen moved to New York City at age 18 and work as a model while going to NYU. He moved to Miami and finished his college at the University of Miami with honors while filming the now-cancelled Passions. He's been a part of Days of our Lives since 2009.
Fun fact...Galen used to play Pro-Am beach volleyball.
We haven't heard much from Colin Farrell in the last few years since his wave of movies in the early 2000's in films like Minority Report, Phone Booth, S.W.A.T, and Miami Vice. He's still been making movies - just ones that, it seems, no one is watching.
In 2011, he had a much talked about performance in the comedy Horrible Bosses and is starring in the re-make of Total Recall which is in post-production.
Shemar is probably most well known for starring as Malcolm Winters on The Young and the Restless from 1994-2005. He since moved into prime-time with a co-starring role on Criminal Minds as Derek Morgan from 2005-present. He was also a the third permanent host of Soul Train from 1999-2003. He has also had a very successful modeling career.
Fun fact...Shemar's name is a combination of the first 3 letters of both his father's and mother's names. Sherrod - his father and Marylin - his mother.
Orton is a WWE Smackdown regular. He is a third-generation wrestler following his grandfather, Bob Orton and his father, "Cowboy" Bob Orton. He signed on to WWE in 2001 and had his first official appearance in 2002. Orton is known for his signature move, the "RKO", a jumping cutter named after his initials.
Fun fact...Randy was the youngest World Champion in wrestling history winning the WWE Raw Title at 24. Also, in high school, he was a straight A student.
Zachary first starting acting in 2000 - but became a sensation during his run as the serial killer Sylar on Heroes. He has since gone on to play an eerily similar resemblance to Leonard Nimoy as a young Spock on the big screen reboot of Star Trek.
Fun fact...Zachary is the only person to appear on the cover of Entertainment Weekly two weeks in a row.
This is definitely one of Jordan's picks. Although, I must say, I don't disagree with this one.
Mark started acting in 1996, but focused mostly on his music career and released a solo album in 2008. He was cast as Noah Puckerman on the instant hit show Glee in 2009.
Random Fact...Mark is a member of the James Hunter Wildlife Rescue charity.
No matter how many movies he makes - or Sexiest Man Alive covers he wins - he will always be Will Tippin to me. :) I absolutely loved him on Alias. Disheveled and determined...he was just too adorable.
Harry plays Mike Chang on the hit show Glee. He is an unbelievable dancer! He has also been in several dance movies such as Stomp the Yard and Step Up 2 and Step Up 3D.
His mother is a native of Hong Kong and his father hails from Guangzhou, China. His parents moved to Costa Rica where Harry and his two sisters were born. They moved to San Francisco when Harry was six, which actually made Spanish his first language. He also speaks English and Chinese.
Harry is also a member of the dance troupe LXD (League of Extraordinary Dancers). Here's a sample:
Fun fact...Harry is one of the iPod silhouette dancers.
Statham is known for his kick-boxing and martial arts skills. This has enabled him to perform most of his own stunts in movies like 2002's The Transporter. He was a model for French Connection before being cast in Guy Ritchie's 1998 movie, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Probably his most well-known roles are from the Transporter series and the muscle-tastic film The Expendables that featured the best of the best of action stars such as Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, and Terry Crews.
Fun fact...Before his acting career, Jason was an Olympic diver and was once ranked #12 in the world. Also, while most divers begin training at around age 4 or 5, Statham didn't start diving until he was 15.
Most people will wonder why he isn't up higher on the list...and well, I don't know. ((remember, I compiled this list with the aide of a 14 year old.))
This was one Jordan and I had no trouble agreeing on.
As rough and tough as Diesel looks, he actually enrolled in Hunter College as an English major but left after 3 years to attempt to further his acting career. After struggling in Hollywood for a year, he returned to New York and wrote a short film based on his acting experiences called Multi-Facial in 1995 for $3000.00. Multi-Facial was accepted at the Cannes Film Festival where it was screened to a standing room only crowd. Steven Spielberg saw Multi-Facial and wrote a role in his Saving Private Ryan especially for him, giving Diesel his first major film role.
As if you don't know, Beckham is a world-famous soccer player from London, England. He currently plays for the Los Angeles Galaxy. He also has a very lucrative modeling and endorsement career. He is known almost as much for his fashion sense and changing hairstyles as his soccer career.
The movie Bend It Like Beckham refers to him as the main character is a girl in love with the game. In the movie, she even uses his poster on the wall as a confidante. Beckham and his wife even have a cameo in the film.
Random fact...He wears a new pair of shoes for every soccer game.
Tatum was cast in the Ricky Martin video She Bangs in 2000. By 2002 he was modeling for Abercrombie & Fitch and Armani. He was soon filming television commercials, landing national spots for Pepsi and Mountain Dew. He had his first real acting job in 2004 on an episode of CSI: Miami and decided to pursue acting full time. His first film role came in 2005's Coach Carter with Samuel L. Jackson.
Boo-ya baby!! He was so unbelievably close to first place - it was practically a tie.
Johnson is an actor and professional wrestler with with WWE. I still refer to him as "The Rock" even though he's a "legitimate" actor now, starring in movies like The Scorpion King, Race to Witch Mountain, and Fast Five.
He was a football player at the University of Miami and a member of the 1991 national championship team. He, like Randy Orton (#13), is a third generation wrestler like his grandfather, Peter Maivia, and his father, Rocky Johnson. With his 16 championships, he is widely considered one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. He continues to wrestle today and is one of the few that has transitioned between wrestling and acting successfully.
Fun fact...His $5.5 million paycheck for The Scorpion King earned him a place in the Guiness Book of World Records as his salary was the highest for anyone with top billing for the first time.
The Rock and Vin Diesel's Fast Five co-star is, quite possibly, one of the best looking people have ever seen. And...I don't usually go for blondes, but he is just purty. Those ice blue eyes are pretty darn mesmerizing.
His career started early. As a toddler, he appeared in a Pampers commercial. He began modeling at age 2 and by 8 was appearing in TV shows like Highway to Heaven and Who's The Boss?. Although his film career began in 1986, it wasn't until 2001's The Fast and The Furious that he had his breakout role.
Walker has since gone on to film 5 more Fast and the Furious movies with the latest one to be released in 2013. Although the Fast series is definitely his most popular, he has had success with other movies such as: Joy Ride, Into The Blue, Eight Below and Flags of our Fathers.
Fun fact...He auditioned for the role of Anakin Skywalker but was too old for the part. He has said that was the only role he's ever really wanted. (((Didn't I tell you he was perfect?? Great looking and a Star Wars fan!)))
Of course, that's not everyone. We had a few more so, in the "Close but not Quite" category, we have these for you:
~ The longest Hollywood kiss was from the 1941 movie "You're in the Army Now". It lasted 3 minutes and 5 seconds.
~The world camel population is over 19 million.
~Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" makes a cameo appearance in Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame". In the same scene - a sharp-eyed viewer can spot The Lion King's Pumbaa being carried by two men with a pole and a street merchant shaking out the magic carpet from Aladdin.
~In 1992, five cows were killed in drive-by shootings in Clay County, Missouri.
~A person uses approximately 57 sheets of toilet paper per day.
~Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
~On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
~The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.
~Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David, Hearts - Charlemagne, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
~Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace.
~ Florida has twice as many lightning injuries and death than any other state.
~ There is a Nike commercial that was shot in Kenya with Samburu tribesmen speaking in their native language Maa. The slogan "Just Do It" appears while the tribesman is talking. In reality, he was saying, "I don't want these. Give me big shoes."
~ A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
~ 315 entries in Webster's 1996 dictionary were misspelled.
~ A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
~ Macadamia nuts are not sold in their shells because it takes 300 pounds per square inch of pressure to break the shell.
~ Cubic Zirconia is 55% heavier than diamonds. ~ Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color.
~ The first toilet being flushed in a motion picture was in the movie "Psycho".
~ Painting a house yellow, or having yellow trim, helps a house sell faster.
~ San Francisco cable cars are the only mobile national monuments.
~ The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagra Falls froze completely solid.
~ There are over 50 different kinds of kangaroos.
~ Great Britian was the first country to issue postage stamps on May 1, 1840. It was named the "Penny Black" to attempt to fix their system of paid postage. Before the stamp, there was not a standard rate for postage and could cost up to a day's wage. Since all mail was sent collect, most mail was returned unopened.
~ If you place a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
~ On average, an American eats 140 pounds of potatoes annually.
~ Fires generally move faster uphill than downhill.
~ The second best selling toy of all time is Jenga, a Swahili word meaning "to build".
~ Cleopatra married two of her brothers.
~ Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
+
