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Random facts

Comic book fact: John Constantine of the Hellblazer series is one of the few comic book characters that ages in real-time. Visually, his look was based heavily on Police lead singer Sting, and like Sting, Constantine is portrayed as British in the series.
 
Music fact: Stanley Burrell, aka MC Hammer, got his nickname because during his time as a batboy for the Oakland A's, player Reggie Jackson noted the striking resemblance he had to Willy "The Hammer" Mays, so he called Burrell "Little Hammer", and the nickname stuck. Burrell was often used as the eyes and ears of Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley. Players would often derisively refer to him as the "Executive Vice President" behind his back.
 
Art fact: Salvador Dali was notorious for not paying his tabs at restaurants and bars. He would get out of it by drawing on the check, reasoning that the restaurant or bar would not want to throw away a valuable piece of art. More often than not, he was right, as the doodles he drew on the checks invariably sold for many times the amount listed...
 
GreenTea said:
Tom Cruise was born Thomas Mapother, and spent a good chunk of his childhood in Canada.
Click to expand...
 
He was also studying at one time for the priesthood at a Catholic Seminary, and despite rumors of him being short, he's actually 5'7", and only looked short because Nicole Kidman, his wife at the time the rumors started, is 5'11", and she was fond of wearing heels in public after divorcing him.
 
Movie fact: The movie Full Metal Jacket is often cited as required viewing for people about to enter the Marine Corps to see what Basic Training is like, due in no small part to the fact that the actor who plays the lead Drill Instructor, R. Lee Ermey, actually was a Marine Corps Drill Instructor during the Vietnam era. In addition to his role, he served as a Technical Advisor, and also had a hand in building the set, how the barracks looked, and was the only person on set permitted by the director to ad-lib his lines. In fact, all the insults he spouts off at the recruits, he made up literally on the spot, and every take, he would spout off a different insult, eventually making up several pages' worth of one-line insults to spew at the recruits. His training video on ad-libbing involved him yelling insults at a group of British Royal Marines in formation, all while being pelted with oranges. During the whole 10-minute tirade, he never flinched, ducked, or repeated himself, and several of the Royal Marines later reported they were legitimately terrified of him. People were so used to him giving orders that in one instance, he was talking to director Stanley Kubrick, who was sitting down, and Ermey barked an order to stand up when being spoken to. Almost instinctively, Kubrick stood at attention and listened to Ermey before realizing what happened.
 
Also, even after breaking all the ribs on his left side due to an accident in a Jeep, GySgt. Ermey continued filming without taking any leave.
 
Medical fact: Casein, the primary protein found in dairy products, breaks down into Casomorphins in the digestive system, which have an opiate-like effect that has the same strength as a 10% solution of morphine.
 
Plant fact: Strawberries are not a type of berry but bananas are.
 
Acting fact: Ken Jeong from the Hangover series wasn't always an actor. He studied medicine, graduating from Duke University with his MD, completing his residency in New Orleans and is licensed in California to practice medicine.
 
Animal fact: Horses and camels evolved in North America, then migrated to Eurasia during the last several Ice Ages, after which they went extinct in North America.
 
Movie fact: In the movie remake of Charlie's Angel's, during the dream sequence where Cameron Diaz wakes up and dances around in her bedroom, she was asked to dance worse with each take. She found doing so more and more difficult, given her extensive ballroom dance training.
 
Literary fact: Raised to be a devout Roman Catholic by his mother, famed author J.R.R. Tolkien was adamant that his magnum opus, The Lord Of The Rings, and all the associated works (The Hobbit, The Simarillion, etc.), were a definitively Catholic work, and couldn't stand the hippies that constantly tried to tell him otherwise. He was so devoutly Catholic, that reportedly, when the Vatican Council proposed changes to the Catholic Mass and he heard of it at his local church, he stormed out in protest.
 
Fast fact: Modern cartographers deliberately put one or two pieces of false information into their maps as a means of detecting unauthorized copies being made.
 
Toy fact: There are more Barbie dolls in Italy than there are people in all of Canada...
 
Statistical fact: In the US, if you call for an ambulance and order a pizza, 40% of the time, the pizza will arrive first.
 
Movie fact: Quentin Tarantino chose the Island of Okinawa on purpose for Hattori Hanzo to operate a sushi shop as a front, because it is almost universally believed by the Japanese that Okinawa is the single worst place to get sushi, meaning that except for the occasional tourist (like The Bride), he would effectively be left alone to his own devices, which, according to Tarantino, is what Hanzo wanted all along.
 
Chemical fact: Diamonds are excellent conductors of heat, with natural diamonds being approximately five times more efficient as copper, and synthetic diamonds certified as 99.9% C12 having the highest thermal conductivity of any known solid at room-temperature, due to the tight carbon bonds.

Medical fact: Approximately 20 people in the world have hyperthymesia, a condition which allows them to instantly recall every detail of everything they've ever experienced in their lives from the day they were born.
 
Medical fact: There is a small percentage of the population that, upon starting to walk in the sun, will begin sneezing. It's cause by improperly connected neurons in the brain related to sensory input, and is completely harmless.

TV fact: All the equipment shown in all three CSI TV shows are all fully functional pieces of equipment used in forensic analysis, but for the sake of drama and time constraints, tests that would take days, weeks, or even months, are done in mere seconds or minutes on the show.
 
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