Enjoy this week's collection of completely pointless but interesting information!
1. There's a tree called the Ponderosa Pine that smells like baking cookies. Check out the article on NPR-- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111803772 . Also, this picture might be one of my favorite things ever. I always joke with my mom about the "NPR retiree" look, usually sported by middle-aged women, and easily confused with the "liberal English professor" look. "The look" does not answer to the fashion runways of New York or Paris, but rather remains the same. Devotees sport just-too-long, frizzy, and graying hair; flat and orthopedic brown shoes; too-long skirts with haphazard pieces of fabric dangling from them; loose, earth-toned colours; multi-coloured spectacles on a glass-bead chain; and bangles and dangly, eccentric earrings. Though our friend in this picture does not sport the "NPR chic" for Fall 2009, his wife probably does.
2. According to an article in The Economist on sex laws in America, it was illegal for willing spouses in Georgia to perform oral sex until 1996. Those found guilty were convicted of indecency and added to a list of sex offenders.
3. According to our mechanic, a modern car has more computers on it than the space shuttle that landed on the moon in 1969. Does this mean that with some minor alterations, I would be able to launch my car into space?
4. The first plane to fly across the English Channel was flown by Louis Bleriot, a Frenchman, in 1909. The Bleriot plane, which I was fortunate enough to see at the La Baule air base in France, looks frighteningly simple. Talking to Bleriot's grandson, who is now working on restoring the plane, I learned that the plane's engine not only had to be greased manually during flight with something that to me resembled a turkey-baster, but was also not able to fly more than 75 feet in the air. In addition, when Bleriot flew to the English coast, he was unable to fly over the Cliffs of Dover and thus had to fly alongside the cliffs until he found a field in which to land. Imagine flying a plane so close to the water and not being able to land, all while greasing your engine (but not too much, or the plane would fall from the sky). Wow.
5. There is a sport called "ferret legging." No joke. According to the wikipedia article, ferret legging is "an endurance test or stunt in which ferrets are trapped in pants worn by a participant." Only sober males who have removed their underwear are eligible. Participants put live ferrets inside their pants and whoever is able to keep the ferret in their pants the longest wins. "Reg Mellor, a retired miner from Barnsley, holds the world record at five hours and twenty-six minutes, a feat he achieved in 1981 at the age of 66." Apparently ferret legging is a "dying sport," though it did see a resurgence in the 1970s and in Richmond, VA, where there is an annual ferret-legging competition each year.
