The weekly collection of useless and fun facts. In this week’s edition: A Foul Parrot, Liquid Doritos, Naughty Coffee Stirrers, The Lord of the Rings Loss, and Eating a Dairy Cow’s Diet.
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| Duncan Rawlinson/Wikimedia |
The first useless fact for this week has to do with a naughty parrot. During President Andrew Jackson’s funeral in 1845, his pet parrot “Poll”, had to be removed and carried away because it was swearing too much. The story is from the recollection of Reverend William Menefee Norment, who attended the funeral. He told of the parrot that had to be led away because it was swearing too much as the crowd gathered for the funeral. The African Grey parrot was Jackson’s pet and even leads the audio tour for children at The Hermitage, Jackson’s home and museum. I doubt he still uses his same vocabulary. Source
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| Joe’s nipples/Imgur |
Pepsi is currently developing a Doritos flavored version of Mountain Dew called Dewitos. Yes, nothing sounds better than Doritos in liquid form. A Reddit user broke the story when the company was testing the new flavor on college students, because obviously, what other test market would there be? PepsiCo owns Doritos and Mountain Dew, so it doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch that they would link them together at one point or another. Maybe the next flavor could be “Cool Dew Ranch”? We can only dream of such a thing. Source, Source
McDonald’s used to have tiny spoon-shaped coffee stirrers in their restaurants, but they discontinued the stirrers in the restaurant because they weren’t being used just to stir coffee. People were using them to measure and snort cocaine. Unfortunately, the spoons were just the right size and held just the right amount for this sort of thing. But it wasn’t just cocaine. Law enforcement discovered that drug dealers were using them to measure heroin too. It was found that they held exactly 100 milligrams of the drug. The company switched to flat stirrers after cases emerged from the United States to the United Kingdom of the spoon being used improperly. In the case of the heroin dealing in the United Kingdom, the drug dealers would use the spoons instead of scales, since using a scale was clear evidence in court that someone was a dealer. The retired spoons can still be found as a novelty item on places such as Ebay, for those with a bit of nostalgia for when you could still stir your coffee with an actual spoon. Some people just ruin everything. Source
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings in 1954 and 1955, and today it is considered a classic of literature, but some who were giving out prizes in the 60’s didn’t feel the same way. J.R.R Tolkien was rejected for a Nobel Prize in 1961 because his story telling wasn’t “the highest quality”. In other words, the members of the jury thought Tolkien just didn’t tell a good story. The Nobel committee’s thoughts had been a secret until 2012 when Andreas Ekstrom, a Swedish reporter, found the news after the classified documents were made available by the Nobel Library in Stockholm, Sweden. Ivo Andric was awarded the prize in that year, and the documents showed that the committee wasn’t impressed with Tolkien’s story. He didn’t even finish in the top three. One of the jury members wrote that the story, “has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality.” It’s really too bad that the whole “Lord of the Rings” thing didn’t work out. Source
I bet you can’t match this eating machine. According to the Wisconsin Dairy Council, dairy cows eat 20 pounds of corn silage (the corn and its stalk that ferments into a high-moisture feed), 20 pounds of hay, 10 to 20 pounds of normal corn, and 6 to 12 pounds of supplements (proteins, vitamins, and minerals) every day. If people ate the same amount as dairy cows, they would have have to eat around 360 cheeseburgers and drink between 400 to 800 glasses of water per day. I know there’s a joke in there some where. Source
Another edition of the Useless Facts of the Week is done. Check back again next week for another edition. As always, remember to annoy those around you with your new found knowledge.
Past Issues of the Completely Random Facts of the Week
