I want to watch some dik diks fight

Search: dik diks fight; dik diks fighting

Why: In "America's Next Top Animal Graphic Trend" on Hello Giggles:

Dik Dik
If Lady GaGa were to design a baby deer, I’m pretty sure it would look like this. Extra dainty legs, ant-eater nose, teacup stature. My favorite thing about dik diks is that they almost never fight. But when they must, dik diks just run towards each other only to stop short and aggressively shake their heads until somebody gives up. Is this not the animal kingdom’s two snaps up?? Diva!

Answer: Well, I'm not sure that's entirely true. These guys appear to be knocking skulls:

I saw some dik diks in Kenya in 2000, and o my god, they were precious.

Source: YouTube

The More You Know: I also found a bunch of videos from a Japanese guy who owns several fennec foxes and also a cat, of course. Maybe I want to name a child Fennec.

Fun fact: The fox in The Little Prince was hot probs a fennec fox.

The French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry made a reference, in a letter written to his sister Didi from Cape Juby in 1918, to his raising a fennec that he adored. Saint-Exupéry also mentioned encountering a fennec when wandering in Sahara when his plane crashed there in 1935. The fennecs he had known in these two contexts are considered to have inspired the fox character in Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince.

What city is mostly blue?

Search: blue city; the fall

Why: Have you guys seen the giant Scientology center down the street from my apartment? It's real blue.

According to Hailey, some city that may or may not be in Europe and that is also in the movie The Fall is "like, half blue." WHAT!

Answer: Jodhpur, India! From Roger Ebert's interview with director Tarsem Singh (I think):

"Jodhpur, the blue city, is a Brahmin city where you’re only supposed to paint your house blue. I made a contract with the city; we would give them free paint. We knew legally they could only choose blue. So they painted their houses blue and it looked more vibrant than it ever had before."

Why are the houses painted blue? Nobody's sure, but theories include:

• Religious reasons
• To keep mosquitoes away
• Because the color blue absorbs very little of the sun’s heat, which keeps the houses cool

Source: RogerEbert.com, Aliaterra, this guy's travel blog

The More You Know: Sorry I've been slacking with posts, friends and strangers, dudes and ladies. I started a new job 2 Fridays ago, and I haven't yet quite figured out how to fit excessive Googling into my days while still appearing to be productive. I hope to find that balance rill soon.

What kind of tea is sweet tea usually made of?

Search: sweet tea

Why: We are making sweet tea vodka. I have a lot of tea - mostly green, a little black, some not really "tea" at all. Did you know that black, oolong, green, and white teas are all made from the same Camellia sinensis plant? It's true! The leaves and buds are just grown, harvested, or processed differently.

Answer: Black tea! True facts:

• The oldest known recipe for sweet iced tea - published in an 1879 community cookbook called Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Texan Marion Cabell Tyree - called for green tea.
• Most early sweet tea was made of green tea.
• During WWII, the U.S. was cut off from the major sources of green tea (Asian places), so we only had the tea that came from British-controlled India, which was all black.
• Since WWII, Americans have been drinking mostly black tea as iced tea.
  

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: The custom of drinking tea and having that whole snack/mealtime in the British Empire originated when Catherine of Bragança married Charles II in 1661. She brought the practice of drinking tea in the afternoon with her from Portugal.

Anyway, we ended up just using some Irish Breakfast to make our sweet tea vodka. I mean, Irish breakfast indeed!

What are the main panels on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

Search: sistine chapel

Why: I'm looking at this cool virtual tour interactive thing on the Vatican website that lets you swing around the whole room and zoom in and et cetera. I went there in 2001, but I'll be honest with you: I don't remember every little goddamn detail.

Answer: There are 9 "central stories" from Genesis / Bereshit (since it's Passover):

1. Separation of Light from Darkness (La Separazione della luce dalle tenebre)

2. The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth (Creazione degli astri e delle piante)

3. Separation of Land from Sea (La Separazione della terra dalle acque)

4. Creation of Adam (Creazione di Adamo)

5. Creation of Eve (Creazione di Eva)

6. Original Sin and Banishment from the Garden of Eden (Peccato originale e cacciata dal Paradiso terrestre)

7. Sacrifice of Noah (Sacrificio di Noè)

8. The Great Flood (Diluvio Universale)

9. The Drunkenness of Noah (Ebbrezza di Noè)

Source: Vatican.va

The More You Know: How did He separated Light from Darkness before He created the Sun? That is for him to know and you to find out.

What's a Flip Flap?

Search: flip flap

Why: This was one person's answer to a survey question:

2. do you have pets or plants, details please? if not, do you want pets or plants?
2 cats and a Flip Flap.

Answer: A solar-powered Japanese toy plant thing! They really have thought of everything. Check out what these bad boys can do!

Source: YouTube

The More You Know: But wait, that's not all!

Actually, I guess it does more than a real plant. I want one.

What's the origin of the word "jumbo"?

Search: jumbo etymology

Why: A newsanchor teased a story about a "jumbo jet," which I sometimes can't believe is a real name for anything. Jumbo is a name for elephants. Or strip clubs.

Answer: It might have come from the Kikongo word nzamba, which actually meant "elephant"! In 1823, jumbo was a slang term that meant "clumsy, unwieldy fellow," and then the London Zoo had a huge elephant named Jumbo that they sold to P.T. Barnum in Feb. 1882.

He was captured by traders in Abyssinia in 1861, and he died in St. Thomas, ON, in 1885 after stepping in front of a train to save the life of another baby elephant. Well, maybe. The Railway City Brewing Company in St. Thomas brews that classy Dead Elephant Ale up there.

Source: EtymOnline

The More You Know: Barnum, a trustee of Tufts College, donated Jumbo's taxidermied carcass to the school in 1889. He is the school mascot, and I guess they are called the Tufts Jumbos (and by "they" I mean whatever sports teams they have, if they even have any; I've never heard of them). Jumbo's corpse was housed in the campus's Barnum Hall with a bunch of other animal specimens.

He was a big hit with the college's athletes, who adopted him as their mascot, while their coaches invoked his strength and bravery in pre-game pep talks.

For 86 years, Jumbo was a veritable mecca for students, their parents and other campus visitors. Students would pop pennies in his trunk or give a tug on his tail to bring luck for an upcoming exam or athletics competition.

In 1975, an electrical fire wiped out the whole collection, including everything but Jumbo's tail. His ashes are now kept in a Peter Pan Peanut Butter jar on the desk of the Tufts athletics director.

I want to see some stages from the Bregenzer Festspiele

Search: Bregenzer Festspiele; bregenz festival

Why: On Twisted Sifter's Picture of the Day:

COOLEST. STAGE. EVER.

Photograph by AP

Check out this incredible floating stage on Lake Constance in Bregenz, Austria. The Bregenzer Festspiele (Bregenz Festival) has become renowned for its unconventional staging of shows. Verdi’s opera, “A Masked Ball” in 1999, featured a giant book being read by a skeleton.

That looks like a scene from "Metalocalypse."

Answer: Omg they ARE cool. Why has no one invited me to see this?

Source: Google Images

The More You Know: Full disclosure: I started Stumbling Upon yesterday, and now I can't stop.

What are pigeon houses?

Search: pigeon houses

Why: In this collection of aerial photography by Yann Arthus-Bertrand:

Pigeon Houses Mit Gahmr Delta, Egypt

Answer: Well, they are houses for pigeons! But why? Because:

Pigeon is a part of the daily diet in many parts of Egypt

Horf! Also, they use the droppings as fertilizer. The houses, called dovecotes, are made of natural mud brick.

Source: EarthArchitecture.org

The More You Know: Other interesting images from that collection:

Sha Kibbutz, Israel

Copenhagen, Denmark

Denver, Colorado

Why is the last little part of a joint called a roach?

Search: roach

Why: On "1001 rules for my unborn son":

16. You are what you do, not what you say.

"On matters of style, swim with the current. On matters of principle, stand like a rock."
Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson's Airplane

And then, of course, I went rooting around for the origin of the name Jefferson Airplane (because - according to my brother - my favorite song when I was 5 was "We Built This City" by Starship), and I saw this:

The origin of the group's name is often disputed. "Jefferson airplane" is slang for a used paper match split to hold a marijuana joint that has been smoked too short to hold without burning the fingers - an improvised roach clip.

Answer: It comes from Mexican slang! Tobacco adulterated with marijuana or a cigarette stub of marijuana is called cucaracha (cockroach).

In Spanish, tabaco de cucaracha refers to adulterated tobacco generally.

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: So yes, there are a bunch of different versions of the song "La Cucaracha," but this is the one verse I learned when I took Spanish when I was, like, 10. I remember the first 3 lines, but not the 4th:

La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Marihuana pa' fumar

The cockroach, the cockroach
Can't walk anymore
Because it doesn't have, because it's lacking
Marijuana to smoke

It's some sort of satire about the Mexican Revolution, and lyrics and stanzas have changed and developed over time to fit the mood of the country. In general, the cockroach represents President Victoriano Huerta, a notorious drunk who was considered a villain and traitor due to his part in the death of revolutionary President Francisco Madero in 1913.

Who is du Barry?

Search: du barry

Why: I was reading "1001 rules for my unborn son" - which you should also read if you have the rest of the day to kill - and I stumbled on "1001 Rules for my Unborn Daughter," which is not quite as insightful and pithy and has a bit too much Hepburn (both) and Austen for my tastes, but hey, what do you want? Rule 115 says:

115. No matter what, du Barry was a lady.

Answer: Jeanne Bécu, comtesse du Barry (1743-93) was the last maîtresse-en-titre (chief mistress) of King Louis XV! She was the illegitimate daughter of a seamstress who was kind of a slut. A "remarkably attractive blonde woman" -

?

- Jeanne Bécu was "entertaining" in brothels by the age of 20. Her beauty brought her to the attention of Jean-Baptiste du Barry, a high-class pimp who helped establish her career as a courtesan in Parisian high society. He also arranged for her to marry his brother comte Guillaume du Barry and forged her a false birth certificate to make her of nobler descent so she could qualify as an official royal mistress.

Eventually, she became involved in a lot of complicated international politics, and she and Marie Antoinette were bitchy to each other. (In that movie, she was played by Asia Argento, who has very black hair.)

After Louis XV's death - in the wake of the French Revolution - du Barry was imprisoned and beheaded for treason.

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: And I guess the actual rule comes from the title of the 1943 musical Du Barry Was a Lady, which starred Lucille Ball, Gene Kelly, and Red Skelton.

What is an oast house?

Search: oast house

Why: On Farmville (I play it!), you can buy one for your farm in the English countryside. It looks like a teepee, and also what the hell is it and why does it sound so Canadian.

Answer: It has to do with beer-making! An oast is a kiln that is used to dry hops. This is what the inside of that thing looks like:

Brimstone! It's another name for sulfur.

And here's a real one:

Source: The Free Dictionary

The More You Know: Are you now thinking about hops and where hops grow and what hops look like and other things like that? You can read all about them right here.

What's the origin of the word "broker"?

Search: broker etymology

Why: Last night, Jessica Fletcher's niece was a real estate broker. The night before, her stockbroker was murdered! As far as I can tell (not very far), a broker is just a go-between or a middle man. In this economy, he's probably even broker than I am. Hey-o!

Answer: It has nothing to do with "break" or the past tense "broke"! Instead, it all started with the pointy tool Frenchmen of yore used to tap their wine kegs. Its history went like this:

• broche - Old French: "pointed tool"
• brochier - "to broach, tap, pierce (a keg)"
• abrokur - Anglo-French: "tapster, retailer of wine"
• "wine dealer"

• brocour - Anglo-Norman "small trader"
• "retailer, middleman, agent"

And in Middle English, of course, the word was contemptuously used to refer to peddlers and pimps. (Read about pimps here [and male mistresses here]).

Source: EtymOnline

The More You Know: "Go for broke" comes from a Hawaiian pidgen phrase for "shoot the works," used by gamblers risking all their money on a single roll of dice. During WWII, the 442th Infantry, a unit composed of mostly second-generation Japanese-Americans, used the phrase in their fight song (1:15):

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is the most highly decorated unit in American military history for its size and length of service, with 7 major campaigns in Europe, 21 Medals of Honor, 52 Distinguished Silver Crosses, 560 Silver Stars, and 9,486 Purple Hearts. You can watch this 1951 movie about them online here.

What is a Chinese auction?

Search: chinese auction

Why: Jeff said:

Is it racist to have a "Chinese Auction"
at a Boy Scout flea market.

I thought it was and told them so last night,
but they said "You're no expert on how they hold auctions in China".

Answer: It's a kind of silent auction / raffle hybrid!

In a chinese auction, customers buy a number of tickets for a set price, then use the tickets to bid on the items on display by dropping them in a bowl next to the item.

Buyers are free to put as many tickets as they want in the bowl. At the close of the auction period, the winning ticket for each auction item is then drawn from the corresponding bowl.

Obviously, the more tickets a person deposits in the bowl, the higher the chance that he'll win the item. That means that highly desirable items will draw a lot of tickets, just as they would draw a lot of bids in regular auction.

That's part of the big draw for a chinese auction. Ticket costs are low compared to the ultimate value of the auction items, so lucky winners will get a great deal.

I've never heard of such a thing, but it seems so obvious and smart. What pains me, though, is that even if you put in 20 tickets each worth $5, another person could put in only one $5 ticket and still win. Can you imagine? I would be livid.

There are a few variations of such a thing; you can read about them here in case you're planning a fundraiser.

Source: Fundraiser Help

The More You Know: If I had to guess, I would say the idea of a "Chinese auction" did not really originate in China (although it seems like something they would like, whatwith their affinity for communism and all). Other misnomers associated with places:

• Chinese checkers did not originate in China (nor in any part of Asia).
• Guinea pigs do not come from Guinea (nor are they pigs). The "Guinea" may be a re-analysis of "Guyana,"- though they originate from the Andes, and Guyana.
• Arabic numerals originated in India, though they came to be associated with the Arab world.
• The Norway Rat (Rattus norvegicus) did not originate in Norway, but from North China.
• French horns originated in Germany, not France.
• The English Horn is, in fact, neither English nor a horn.

What animal is on the side of the U-Haul truck from Illinois?

Search: illinois uhaul

Why: I drove past one this morning, but I didn't have time to read the blurb. It looked like a gummy worm Loch Ness monster.

Answer: The Tully Monster!

“llinois once lay near the equator on the supercontinent of Pangea and was home to unique creatures. How did the strip mining of Illinois’ coal deposits reveal the secret of the Tully Monster?”

And this website has kindly already done my work for me:

The Tully Monster, discovered in 1958 in the Mazon Creek Lagerstaaten and named Tullimonstrum gregarium in 1966, is the state fossil of Illinois. Many have been found, but so far the Tully Monster is unique to Illinois. It dates back about 300 million years. We do not know what phylum it fits into. Its shape recalls the Anomalocaris, but that disappeared 100 million years earlier. Of course, with fossilization of soft-bodied organisms being so rare, perhaps it is a descendant of Anomalocaris!

Source: Science Notes

The More You Know: The anomalocaris ("abnormal shrimp") was a unsettlingly gigantic sea-dwelling predator that I'm really glad isn't around anymore, although I bet it would have been delicious.

What's the origin of the name Ben-Gay?

Search: ben gay

Why: Chandler hurt his shoulder and has smelled like Icy Hot patches ever since. I don't know if Ben and Gay are ingredients or people or what.

Answer: It's a name! Kind of! The original developer was Dr. Jules Bengué, who invented that stuff in France in 1898. The official name was Ben-Gay until 1995, but now it's just Bengay.

Source: Arthritis.about.com

The More You Know: Here are some other famous Bengues: Senegalese football player Cheikh M'Bengue and French model Jessi M'Bengue. There's also a really tiny town in Côte d'Ivoire called M'bengué.