Monty Python’s “Flying Sheep” sketch was spawned from a thesaurus.
I can’t seem to find a non-paywalled source but there are relevant bits floating around:
“When they got stuck, Cleese would pick up a thesaurus and read words until something clicked. He remembers one session where the first bunch of words elicited no reaction. ‘And then I said, ‘plummet,’ and instantly Graham’s face lit up, and he said, ‘I like plummet.’ … And I said, ‘What would plummet?’ And he said, ‘A sheep.’ And I said, ‘Why would it plummet?’ And he said, ‘Well, if it tried to fly.’”
Sometime around 2017, after a woman in Indonesia was swallowed, there were photos online of the snake and woman after it had been sliced open. Foolishly, I looked.
It happened to a man in Malaysia when I was there on business. I made several trips there between 1993 and 1998 so during that time frame. The man was only partially eaten and the pictures were in the paper.
Twister was invented by Reyn Guyer and sold to Hasbro. One of the other games he invented and was testing had little foam rocks as pieces. He found that he and his playtesters really enjoyed throwing them at each other. So he went to Hasbro with this as a toy, but they didn’t want it. Parker Brothers was happy to produce the original Nerf ball.
Hasbro eventually bought out Parker Brothers, so they ended up with Nerf after all.
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (who the Fresnel lens is named after) was a cousin of Prosper Mérimée (author of the novella Carmen, which was later made into an opera by Bizet).
A friend’s dad (John Spinello) invented Operation when he was in college. He sold the game for a pittance, and it turned out to be a big hit. Decades later, John was in a position where he needed, but couldn’t afford, surgery.
John’s daughter (my friend) approached the people at Hasbro, and they kindly stepped up and paid for his surgery.
I have a new-in-box Operation game signed by John.
John has a great sense of humor. At a party I attended to celebrate his successful surgical outcome, probably 80% of the attendees made a funny bone joke.
I’m pretty sure other 2010 Lexuses offered it, too. My 2010 ES350 doesn’t have one, but since I’m looking to replace my radio, I’ve found listings that show the 2010 ES350 with a cassette player. See picture A below.
Today I stumbled across the fact that parrots are able to do a thing called eye pinning. From the link:
Eye pinning, also known as eye flashing or eye blazing, is a form of body language used by parrots. The term that refers to the rapid and very conspicuous dilation and constriction of the pupils of the bird’s eyes in response to an external stimulus. Unlike humans, parrots are able to control this reflex and use it as a form of nonverbal communication. It is a common behavior in amazons, macaws, Poicephalus species and the African grey parrots.
I have no idea how this is called in any other language that I speak, wikipedia does not link to any other language except Persian!
ETA: Chicken can do this too! I think I have found a rabbit hole here. Excuse me for a while.
