Amazing!

So, I found this list of "Amazing True Facts", published by SparkNotes last year on April 1. While the list itself is pretty fun, I think my favorite part is the comments. (Looks like Jonathan's gotten me hooked.) Just so we're all completely clear, this was an April Fool's joke, and included this link at the top. Now, in case you didn't follow that first link, below is the list, and after that are some of my favorite comments.

• When placed in warm milk, raisins re-plump into grapes.
• The metal backs of iPods are made from recycled zippers.
• Eskimos don't believe in bridges or tunnels.
• Every sixteen minutes, someone named Richard dies.
• Billy Bob Thornton's grandfather was the first person to own a television.
• Dolphins kill more people annually than sharks and influenza combined.

• On a dare, former President Rutherford B. Hayes declared war on Chile for 17 minutes.
• The original title for Catcher in the Rye was Hey, Look, a Carousel!
• Professionals call the top socket on an electrical outlet the "Martha," and the bottom socket the "Jasmine."
• In the archives at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., there are two identical snowflakes preserved in a freezer.
  
• Three out of every ten nickels has been in someone's mouth.
• If you hold one nostril closed for 72 hours, you will slowly lose the ability to see color. (Your sight will instantly return to normal when you release your nostril.)
• Wave a magnet at the lower left corner of a vending machine to receive a free soda.
• The glossy paper from the backs of stickers can be used to soothe sunburn.
• To be a train conductor, you have to cut off one of your own toes during a loyalty ritual.
• The Z in Jay-Z's name stands for "Zeppidemus."
• Jean shorts were invented three weeks prior to the invention of regular jeans.
• Whispering instead of talking on cell phones saves significant battery power.
• In Austria, the traditional Christmas colors are not red and greed, but purple and clear.
• Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase "Baby Mama" in a satirical poem published in Poor Richard's Almanac.
• If you take the first letter of each word in the Monopoly board game instruction manual, they spell out an X-rated sentence.
• The original name for the laptop computer was "Hinged Smart Slab."
• The average person inhales 3 pounds of spider webs in his or her lifetime.
• When first introduced to the public, plastic laundry baskets cost $75 each.
• Winnie the Pooh started out as a non-fiction account of mental illness.
• Reading backwards for twenty minutes burns the same amount of calories as walking a half-mile.
• The Q in Q-tips stands for "quantum," as the small bit of cotton on the tip contains more atoms than the entire human body.
• Revolving doors were first invented as a way to keep horses out of department stores.
• Peru and the moon weigh the same amount.
• Human beings and anteaters are the only animals that can snap their fingers.
• If you soak a baseball hat in coke, and then let it dry on someone's head, over a 3-hour period the hat will shrink with skull-denting force, causing intense pain and irreparable damage.
• Clouds cannot travel south southwest.
• In sign language, there are 72 ways to say "drawbridge."

Good comments:

Category 1: Dead serious and way excited about the facts.

whoa.....hummm no raisins in the house..guess i'll start looking for that game mannual

excellent....... are these really facts?!!

'Reading backwards for twenty minutes burns the same amount of calories as walking a half-mile’ might be true, cuz thinking and studying burn calories... Why do u think u never see fat nerds???

Category 2: Willing to admit (in public, on the internet, for the rest of the world to see forever) they totally believed this.

So.. these were all fake?
man... what a let down! I love interesting facts and these were like the most awesome ever!
but then not really :(

i swear i thought these were true, though some did seem a lil odd

Okay so I believed every single one of these because idk, why wouldn't I lol

wow...i actually started reading this post backwards to burn calories until someone in the comments said to click on the link and i found it was an april fools joke.

And Category 3 (my personal favorite): Determined to enlighten others about how obviously fake these facts are. I really like the self-righteous tone and the sense of superiority. "I caught this, and you didn't! I know better than to believe obvious falsehoods! I have a basic knowledge of the world! I have no sense of humor!"

But the clouds one doesnt make sence cuz that means that wind is never southwest which is definately wrong... have a nice day!!! (Nice passive-aggressive touch at the end. "You're wrong, but have a nice day!")

I can guarantee these are mostly wrong. The nostril and the monopoly one are for sure. The Q in Q tips originally stood for Quilted and now usually stands for Quality. The Smithsonian does not have two identical snowflakes. Most of these are just made up. (Only most of them, though. -Rachel) This sucks.

I'm eskimo, yuupik eskimo from southcentral alaska... I believe in bridges every time I go over one, and in tunnels every time I pass through one... All your facts are moot. (Personally, I believe in bridges and tunnels even when I'm not going over/through one.)

The thing about dolphins is definitely not true. For example, there are no documented case of a killer whale (which is the largest member of the dolphin family, not in fact a whale. You see early Spanish sailors saw killer whales, aka orcas killing whales so they called them killer whales.) ever killing a human, however scientists did once find another orca inside the stomach of a beached orca.... Dolphins are in fact quite friendly to humans. However, it is true that more people are killed by coconuts than sharks each year. Most sharks, such as the Great White Shark don't actually kill humans for food, but are curious and "taste-bite" humans, realize we are gross, leave, the human begins drowning and/or is eaten by scavenger sharks, like tiger sharks. (Good. Scavenger sharks will eat you, or you'll drown/bleed to death, but let no one pretend great whites are dangerous.)

Have a nice day!!