random funny fact

WTF Fun Fact 12449 – Sly Stallone’s Dog

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We heard this one straight from the legendary actor’s mouth (or Instagram page, which in 2022 is roughly the same thing).

It’s a pretty sad fact, actually. Having to sell your dog for food because you’re both starving must be heart-wrenching. And making the journey to repurchase him, paying out some of the first money you’ve laid eyes on in years sounds like it comes straight from a movie.

But here’s the skinny from Sly himself, which he posted alongside a photo of him and Butkus as a pup from 1971:

“1971… Since we’re on the subject of ” man’s best friend” this is myself and Butkus as a puppy, we were both, thin, hungry and living in a flophouse above a subway stop, I used to say this apartment had ” … Hot and cold running roaches” anyway there was not much to do except spend time with each other and that’s where I started to learn the craft of screenwriting. Since I never went out, I relied on his companionship, And actually it was his idea to write Rocky, but don’t tell anyone…. Years later when things got even worse I had to sell him for $40 in front of a 7-Eleven store, because I couldn’t afford food, then like A modern day miracle, the screenplay for Rocky sold, and I could buy and buy him back, but the new owner knew I was desperate, and charged me $15,000 … He was worth every penny! #NewYorkCity #HellsKitchen#BullMastiff#It‘sADogsWorld. #MoreToCome#inspiration#ThunderingYourHeart#GoingThedistance“

Now, to be completely honest, we were most surprised that Stallone was a screenplay writer and that he wrote the screenplay for Rocky. In fact, he wrote it in 3-and-a-half days, right after watching the championship match between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner on March 24, 1975.

If you’re confused by the dates, only the photo itself is from 1971; the story is from 1975.

– WTF fun facts

Source: Sylvester Stallone @officlaslystallone — Instagram

WTF Fun Fact 12448 – Killer Vending Machines

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In the United States, your chances of dying from a shark attack are roughly1 in 250 million, statistically speaking. In contrast, your risk of dying from a vending machine-related incident is approximately1 in 112 million. So a vending machine is nearly twice as lethal as a shark.

No, it’s not because the snacks you find in vending machines are high-calorie pseudo-food. We mean vending machines themselves can kill. Of course, your chance of encountering either may have gone down during the pandemic, but statistically speaking, you’re more likely to be killed by a vending machine than a great, big, toothy, man-eating shark.

Shark attacks make the news. Sharks seem dangerous. We’re afraid of sharks. They’ve made movies about how scary sharks are. They had to dedicate a whole week to sharks to show off both their deadliness and majesty. You just can’t say the same thing about vending machines. So sharks live in our imagination as something deadly.

Vending machines, on the other hand, are our friends. If the machines take over, we want them to be the ones that dispense snacks, right?

Ok, this isn’t really about ways you’re likely to die. But think about it – don’t we engage in this reasoning quite a lot? We love it. We throw it around all the time. “I can do X because Y is more dangerous.” That’s actually some deeply faulted reasoning since it ignored just HOW deadly X is (which, in this case, is vending machines).

Vending machines aren’t deadly at all. But they sure sound that way when you compare them to sharks.

And sharks? They get our attention as something deadly, even though, statistically, they aren’t. Especially if you live in, say, Indiana.

Now, we’re not going to insult you by spelling out the obvious social implications here, but let’s just say that next time you want to throw around statistics to prove a point, you might want to make sure they’re helpful. –WTF fun facts

Source: “How Are Sharks Less Dangerous than Vending Machines? An Exercise in Conditional Risk” — Freakonomics

WTF Fun Fact 12447 – The Tongue of a Woodpecker

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We never really thought about it up until now, but it makes sense that woodpeckers would have to have some kind of mechanism to protect their brains from getting tossed around in their skulls while they hammer away. But in 2010, a team of Chinese scientists figured it out – and it’s fascinating.

To be honest, we didn’t even realize woodpeckers have such long tongues. But doing all that pecking is a way to chip into beetle grub nests, and their long tongues allow them to get in there without having to bash a big old hole in the tree like the Kool-Aid Man.

A woodpecker’s head strikes with around 1,000 times the force of gravity, about ten times more than what would definitely kill a human.

Their sharp beaks help them out a lot, as do their strong neck muscles, but up until relatively recently, no one knew how their heads could absorb the shock of that motion.

–WTF fun facts

Source: “Why woodpeckers can hammer without getting headaches” — Birdwatching Daily

WTF Fun Fact 12446 – Lady Gaga’s Ghost

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While we don’t quite know when or why “Ryan” the ghost chose Lady Gaga to haunt, it seems plausible that rumors of her purchase of machinery to detect him is true based on past interviews.

Apparently, Ryan followed Gaga around wherever she went, which she found pretty “annoying.” She tried contacting a medium to stage a séance and communicate with him, but apparently, that wasn’t enough.

Now, granted, if we were convinced we had a pestering ghost, we’d probably try to get rid of it too. But we don’t exactly have Lady Gaga’s funds, so we’d have to pass on the $50,000 state-of-the-art Electro Magnetic Field meter. We’re not sure if that got rid of Ryan, but sources also told celebrity news magazines that she would have a team of paranormal investigators on hand to assess each concert venue she was about to perform in.

Frankly, we’d like to know more about what they thought they found. How many ghosts hang out at Madison Square Garden, for example?

Lady Gaga is also rumored to believe that she’s is the reincarnated spirit of a dead aunt.
– WTF fun facts

Source: “Lady GaGa calls in the ghostbusters” — Glamour

WTF Fun Fact 12445 – The Sprinkle Police

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In what can only be described as an absurd abuse of the country’s emergency police services number, a woman called 999 (the English version of 911) to report her ice cream man.

He didn’t steal anything from her or harm her in any way. She was just really upset that he hadn’t given her enough sprinkles. Yes, she was a grown woman at the time.

The police declined to give her name but did release the audio from the absurd 999 call.

During her full minute of complaining, she told the operator: “It doesn’t seem like much of an emergency, but it is a little bit.” In fact, it is not.

In light of the call, police warned citizens of the dangers of abusing the emergency system.

There’s no word on whether the woman got justice following the grave insult of getting a mere sprinkle of sprinkles. –WTF fun facts

You can listen to the call here:

Source: “Woman Calls Police Because There Aren’t Enough Sprinkles on Her Ice Cream” — Time Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12444 – Roosevelt’s Pet Hyena

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There’s an official Presidential Pet Museum dedicated to all the furry and feathered friends that have roamed the White House halls (and lawns).

Theodore Roosevelt has quite a few pets, and he and his family were animal lovers. However, he wasn’t terribly fond of hyenas. And that turned out to be a bit of a problem at first when Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia gifted him a male hyena in 1904.

It was reported by the captain of the ship that brought him to America that the hyena, plainly named “Bill,” “laughed all the time.” Apparently, this grew on Roosevelt, who became fond of the creature. In fact, he even let it into the White House and gave it scraps from the dinner table!

It has always been common for world leaders to give exotic pets as animals, but a hyena seems like a bit of an odd choice. Then again, what do you get the man who has everything?

Roosevelt reportedly was able to teach Bill a few tricks before he was sent along with his White House pal Joe the Lion to the National Zoo to live out his life. After all, Roosevelt was a busy man. –WTF fun facts

Source: “Theodore Roosevelt’s Hyena” — The Presidential Pet Museum

WTF Fun Fact 12443 – Immortal Billionaires

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You know what they say about money – “You can’t take it with you.” That saying is supposed to remind us to live our lives and discourage us from hoarding money since it won’t do any good after death.

But what if you have a fortune and you really can’t bear to think of the world without you? Well, if you’re a tech billionaire, you invest some of that money in your immortality.

There are multiple projects underway to study human immortality and extend life led by the likes of Jeff Bezos, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, and Russian Internet tycoon Dmitry Itskov. Now, not all of them want to live forever, exactly, but they do think that extending life by a decade or so sounds just about right.

We suppose being able to afford everything in life tends to make a person enjoy it more and want to keep the party going. But is it ethical? Will these billionaires share this tech with the rest of us, or will it only be for the rich?

Can the planet really handle a bunch of immortal billionaires? – WTF fun facts

Source: “The Men Who Want to Live Forever” — The New York Times

WTF Fun Fact 12442 – The Power of Forest Bathing

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In Japan, it’s called Shinrin-Yoku. The act of “forest bathing” may have started there, but people around the world are starting to see the benefits of not just spending time in nature, but doing so intentionally (and, importantly, not through the lens of a smartphone).

Forest bathing studies have been shown to have measurable beneficial effects. Much of this research has been conducted by Dr. Qing Li, physician and immunologist at Nippon Medical School Hospital in Tokyo. In his studies, participants are not asked to jog or even kike, but merely practice awareness while out in the woods.

His studies have found forest bathing can decrease stress and blood pressure, slow the heart rate, speed up digestion, help with insomnia, and reduce fatigue. Perhaps more surprisingly are its effects on immunity, particularly NK (or natural killer) cells, which play a role in helping the body fight off the growth of cancerous cells.

Trees release volatile organic compounds known as phytoncides. When we breathe these in, we get more of these beneficial effects.

So next time you find yourself in nature, take a mindful walk, listen to the sounds, notice the colors and textures, and breathe deep amongst the trees. – WTF fun facts 

Source: “Cancer and Canopy: The Healing Power of Forest Bathing” — Spirituality & Health

WTF Fun Fact 12440 – Professional Mattress Jumping

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There are hundreds of mattress companies flooding the market today, and many can even be delivered by mail. However, there are still some artisan mattress makers out there and McRoskey Mattress Works in San Fransicso is one of them. Their classic mattress may run you anywhere from $1,600 to $4,500, but you can be sure it’s been tested well – by a pair of human feet, in fact.

The world took an interest in the factory back in 2012 when SFGATE published a story about them and one of their employees, Reuben Reynoso. Reynoso is the man who jumps on the mattresses to ensure they can stand up to everything from child’s play to…well, whatever else it is you do on your mattress.

While a grown man being paid to jump on mattresses for a living might elicit a chuckle, Reynoso wanted people to understand that his job was an important one. “It’s work,” he told SFGATE in 2012. “It’s not for everybody. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it.”

While we didn’t know there was a “right” way to jump on the bed, Reynoso isn’t doing this for fun and games. It’s his job. “This is not a game. Not to me,” he insisted. And we believe him. After all, even if you were living your dream at your job, after a while it all becomes a serious task. But that doesn’t mean we’re not a little jealous of the free and knee-friendly cardio he gets at work.

To be fair, the task does sound like it can get tedious. As SFGATE noted in their article:

“Jumping on a mattress is one of the final steps in making a handmade mattress…a machine cannot do what Reynoso and his toes can do, which is to expertly compress no fewer than 28 layers of fluffy cotton batting while seeking to detect pea-size mattress lumps or other imperfections…”

While it’s unclear if Reynoso is still with McRoskey or if they still employ a person to test their mattresses “by foot,” we’d like to think it’s all still going strong. The mattress company sure is. They’ve been in business since 1899, surviving the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 and everything that’s come after. –WTF fun facts

Source: “McRoskey mattress jumping is serious work” — SFGATE