DON'T SELL YOUR OSCAR

View image | gettyimages.com

All Oscar statuettes issued since 1950 do not really belong to the recipient. If a recipient or the heirs of a recipient wish to sell such an Oscar, they are obligated by contract to offer the Academy of Performing Arts and Sciences the right of first refusal and to transfer it to the Academy in exchange for the payment of one dollar.

Pre-1950 Oscars have no strings attached against the recipients and have great value on the open market or at Beverly Hills garage sales--often in the six figures. The one issued for Best Picture in 1940 (Gone With the Wind) was purchased by Michael Jackson in 1999 for $1.5 million.

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S SALARY

George Washington's Presidential salary was $25,000 a year, which would be about $700,000 in today's money. He led a lavish lifestyle, including spending on liquor about 7% of his net earnings (which was the same as his gross salary, as back then there were no income taxes or Social Security withholding). He also pimped his ride by buying leopard-skin robes for his horses.

HONGEO

View image | gettyimages.com

One of the most highly-prized food delicacies on the Korean peninsula is "hongeo." Hongeo is specially prepared skate (a fish similar to a ray). The preparation consists of letting the fish rot in a refrigerator for two months or so and then eating it raw. Prior to the invention of refrigerators, the fish was stuffed in a pile of hay during its period of fermentation.

Cartilaginous fish (i.e. rays, sharks, and skates) do not excrete uric acid through a bladder like most critters. Instead, it seeps out through their skins. Hongeo, therefore, is essentially fish which has been pickled in its own concentrated urine. Diners who have eaten this stuff in a restaurant report that the stench of ammonia is burning and overwhelming, follows them home on their clothes, and infiltrates their houses. The ammonia level is so dense that it can cause intoxication. Perhaps the only substance which is more vile is hongeo juice, which is the liquid which seeps out of the fish when it is decomposing. It is collected for drinking by truly devoted conno-sewers. 

Hongeo is not readily available in grocery stores in the USA. Please do not accuse me of xenophobia if I assert that this is not necessarily a bad thing.

THE JOY OF GUNCOTTON

View image | gettyimages.com

Nitrocellulose essentially consists of cotton exposed to nitric acid and sulfuric acid. It was discovered around 1845 by Christian Friedrich Schönbein when he used a cotton apron to wipe up an acid spill. His curiosity became piqued when the apron spontaneously disappeared in a ball of flame after drying out. Fortunately, he no one was wearing it at the time.

Nitrocellulose, a high explosive, is also called "guncotton," as it has been a significant ingredient of many formulas for smokeless gunpowders and other stuff which goes boom since the 19th century. It is fairly inert when wet but extremely unstable and unsafe when dry. 

It is still used in the manufacture of guitar picks and  paint for guitars. Until the EPA stepped in, it was also a component of lacquer paints used on automobiles.

X-rays, movie films, and photo negatives were for several decades made from plasticized nitrocellulose (also called "nitrate" film). As anyone who watched the 2009 movie Inglourious Basterds or the Simpsons parody thereof knows, nitrate film is extremely inflammable and will continue burning intensely even under water. After several hospital and movie theater disasters, safer alternatives were introduced for X-rays in the 1930s and for movie, negative, and slide film in the late 1940s. If you look at a photo negative from about 1950 or later, it will probably have "SAFETY FILM' printed on it, which denotes that it is not nitrate film and is thus unlikely to burn down your house. The government now has extreme safety protocols, including asbestos projection booths and special film projectors containing holes in which to insert fire extinguisher spray, imposed on anybody who will actually be showing movies on nitrate stock.  If you would like to see film archivist Geoffrey Rayle perform a nitrate burn, please click here.

Even if it does not catch fire, nitrate film will decompose unless stored under very controlled conditions. Many early movies are no longer available as a result.

Photo courtesy of  Library of Congress

For a while, nitrocellulose was used in the manufacture of artificially ivory for billiard balls. However, this practice died out after players made complaints about being distracted by their balls exploding during the course of a game.

View image | gettyimages.com

THE DIALECT OF COWS

Cows have local dialects. Cows of one herd will low in a different fashion than cows of another herd, even if the species are identical. The reasons are the same as with people--one speaks with the same accent as his parents and other folks with whom he is raised.  

And yes, I know that strictly speaking, "cow" refers only to a mature female bovine. I am obviously using the term here in the common informal sense of describing anything which goes "moo." At least I am not portraying bulls with udders like Paramount Pictures did in Barnyard.

Embed from Getty Images

DID SLAVES REALLY BUILD THE PYRAMIDS?

View image | gettyimages.com

It has been presumed for centuries both by historians and cartoonists that the pyramids of Giza were constructed by slaves.  However, evidence discovered in 2010 suggests an alternative theory. Archaeologists uncovered nine tombs in the vicinity of the pyramids containing a dozen skeletons which were buried in a position of respect according to the Egyptian religion and which were provided with vessels of food and water for the afterlife. The remains and other evidence indicate that the individuals were well nourished in life with beef and mutton, received good medical care consistent with the time, yet underwent sustained periods of hard labor. The tombs did not contain the lavish displays of wealth usually associated with royalty.

The archaeologists now theorize that the tomb builders were lower class Egyptians who were skilled artisans who were paid for their work and who were respected for their craft. Mere slaves would have been recycled into crocodile food upon their demise.

Of course, we are talking about twelve skeletons. It is estimated that it took 10,000 laborers thirty years to complete a single pyramid. To assert that no slaves whatsoever were involved in any part of the construction would be perhaps a little bit premature.

THE FOWL BEHAVIOR OF HARRY POTTER FANS

When the Harry Potter books were being released, numerous fans in the United Kingdom obtained pet owls. Now that the series has been over for awhile, many of these same fans in Britain have grown bored with their charges. As a result, a large number of pet owls have been "escaping" out of open windows.

British officials do give a hoot and are concerned that the sudden influx of large quantities of predatory birds can have detrimental effects on local ecosystems. The officials have pledged to enforce the laws against illegal owl-releasing, which include up to six months imprisonment and up to a $7,000 fine.

Embed from Getty Images

BEATING THE ODDS AT COIN-FLIPPING

With most coins, if you flip them, you will have a slightly better chance of getting tails than heads.  This is because coins usually have a bust or portrait on the obverse which makes that side a wee bit heavier than the weight provided by the design on the reverse.  If you were to flip a U.S. penny (the kind with the Lincoln Memorial on the back) 1,000 times, it would probably come up heads about 495 times and tails 505.

THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NAMED AFTER A TOY

In the 1950s, Lamar Hunt attempted to obtain a license from the NFL to start a professional Dallas football team. He was turned down, so he went home with his ball and formed the American Football League, which proved quite successful after it first took to the field in 1960. Several years later, the two leagues decided to join together. Prior to the consummation of the union, the two leagues planned, as a transition event, to hold a few annual championship games between the leagues which, like the World Series in baseball, would bring the best team from each league together.

The first such game was scheduled for January 15, 1967 and was officially called the "First AFL-NFL World Championship Game." Hunt and other football kingpins were sitting around in the summer of 1966 trying to come up with a catchier nickname. Finally, Hunt, inspired by his children's obsession with their Wham-O Super Ball, (which had garnered intense popularity with the toy crowd when introduced in 1965), blurted out the phrase "Super Bowl." The football barons started using it, and the media followed.

The football tsars did not intend "Super Bowl" to have any staying power; the name was supposed to be only a placeholder until they came up with something better. They held a contest in 1969 for a new designation, but the judges were not impressed with any of the entries, including the "Ultimate Bowl" or the "Premier Bowl."

For more information on the naming of the Super Bowl, go to the History Channel website. If you would rather instead see a commercial which may be dropped from the Super Bowl because some folks claim it uses subliminal sex to market the product, go here.

Embed from Getty Images