Shopping for hot dogs can be frustrating, because the dogs, themselves, are usually sold in packs of 10…but the buns are sold in packs of 8! Why in the world do we have to endure this unequal dog-to-bun ratio? The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council (which is a real thing) asserts that the disparity…
It’s Springtime again! And that means it’s time for “spring cleaning”, in the hopes of making your home, car, office, etc., look super clean & like new. Your goal should be to make your place look “spick & span”, you might say. But what does that even really mean, “spick & span”? The full phrase…
There’s nothing soft about the 6 or 7 ounce, 11- to 12-inch ball at the center of the sport of softball. But, if it’s not soft (which it isn’t), why is a softball a softball? It actually all goes back to the “ball” that the game began with. In 1887, a group of Harvard &…
Whenever you gas up your car, you’ll always see a certain set of numbers on each pump…usually 87, 89, and 93. What are those numbers? And what do they mean? Those numbers on the yellow buttons on the gas pumps actually denote each fuel’s “octane rating”. The Regular 87 octane rating gasoline is what most…
Getting caught in a spider web…walking through an abandoned warehouse…getting caught in a spider web while walking through an abandoned warehouse…those might make you feel uneasy, scared, or otherwise upset. Some would call that a case of “the willies”. But what are “the willies”? Who, or what, were they named after? And how did they…
Most of our greetings & farewells are pretty straightforward, especially ones that begin with good (like “good morning”, “good afternoon”, “good night”, etc.). But what about “goodbye”? Are you basically saying, “I hope you have a good bye”? What is a “bye”? Is it some old word once used to reference a certain time of…
Ever wonder why there’s a giant wad of cotton shoved into your bottle of aspirin or acetaminophen or ibuprofen? There actually is a reason it’s there, though that reason should gradually be fading away. It was in the early 1900s when the Bayer aspirin folks became the first to stuff cotton into their product bottles…
When Keith Urban sang “Blue Ain’t Your Color”, he clearly wasn’t talking about jeans. Other fashion styles may come & go, but nothing in the garment industry has remained as consistently popular as blue jeans, with their standard features of metal rivets, tiny pockets, and, of course, the blue denim (hence, the name “blue jeans”).…
The lead-up to Lent goes by many names, but the most popular is probably “Mardi Gras”, with its festive celebrations made famous in New Orleans, LA, & Mobile, AL. They’re known for their food, parades, and general rabble-rousing. But what exactly is Mardi Gras? Mardi Gras, which is French for “Fat Tuesday”, celebrates the day…
“30 days hath September…April, June, and November. All the rest have 31, except for February, which has 28…and, counting leap year, has 29. Why DOES February have only 28 days? The reason why February has 28 days is because, to the Romans, February was an afterthought. In the 8th century BC, the 10-month Calendar of…