A guy from the Chicago Reader calls this “low dial pull”. He covered the subject in some detail here. Folks around here may have heard of him. 
What’s the story behind that?
That’s a really good one.
I’m not sure everyone did. UK quiz shows ask questions about the main UK Monopoly board, based on London. It’s a part of UK culture. I was in my twenties at least when I discovered that wasn’t the original.
Prior to 1990 figure skaters had to skate to trace figures such as circles and figure 8s. This was almost never shown on TV but the scores counted as part of the competition.
I was watching The Queen on TV (although, much as I love Helen Mirren I didn’t make it very far) and it begins with Michael Sheen as PM Tony Blair. When I looked Sheen up on IMDB I discovered that he has played Blair in 3 separate, unrelated movies.
I remember seeing that a couple times during Olympic broadcasts, a few seconds at a whack before they’d cut to something less like watching paint dry.
I was shocked to learn not long ago that Debbie Harry and Penn Gillette were lovers way back when, before either of them were famous.
Six Original Otter Pops constitute One Serving size! A great time to be Alive, I assure you!
For some reason, I find this laugh-out-loud hilarious.
Oh, yeah, it was as boring as watching ice melt.
Mexican general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna is best remembered as the bad guy from the Battle Of The Alamo. He also had at LEAST three legs, and accidentally invented chewing gum.
Historians remember him as a brilliant politician, but only when he was trying to get on top; once he was actually THERE, he tended to alienate people by being arrogant, presumptive, and a jerk in general. He really WANTED to be remembered as a great general – he often referred to himself as “The Napoleon Of The West,” but when actually leading his troops, his main tactic was pretty much lifted from the Zap Brannigan School Of Military Science, what a gamer would call a “zerg rush.” By that, I mean, “Charge in there in massive numbers and overwhelm them, and who cares how many of you get killed?”
This is why he lost between one and two thousand troops taking out an undermanned fortress with fewer than 200 defenders in it. It is also why Sam Houston’s army utterly trounced him in the final battle of the War for Texas Independence; he’d been chasing their army around for months, and so one day, he decided to stop and have his men rest, have lunch, and take a nap. It didn’t occur to him that the Texas army might counterattack, so he didn’t bother with sentries.
This led to one of the more one-sided battles in history, and Santa Anna’s capture by Sam Houston’s army.
Upon being remitted to Mexico, he promptly began attempting to take Texas again. He served no less than 12 non-consecutive terms as President of Mexico (hey, I SAID he was a great politician!) and had himself crowned Emperor at least once. He only had one leg; the other got shot off in a military action against the French in 1838, and received a full military funeral. With its own little coffin and everything.
Somewhat later, when he had angered enough people, a mob desecrated the grave, dug up the leg, and carried it through the streets screaming “Death to the cripple!”
Another one of his legs is currently in Illinois; during the Spanish-American war, he had to bug out from his bivouac, and members of the 4th Illinois Infantry found one of his wooden legs in his quarters, along with a bunch of money. The leg is currently in a museum in Illinois, despite several requests from the Mexican government for its return. Couldn’t tell you what happened to the money.
During one of the periods where he wasn’t President, he was in New York City, scheming to regain his position. While there, he arranged for the sale of a ton of South American tree sap to a businessman named Adams. He then ran off to Staten Island with the money to raise an army to retake Mexico. While this failed, Adams’ plan did not – the tree sap, called “chicle” by the Mexicans, wound up launching Adams’ Confectionary Company, and Adams became the first major American seller of chewing gum.
Santa Anna today remains remembered by historians as a brilliant politician who totally achieved his level of incompetence as a general.
That reminds of an exchange on Boardwalk Empire between two gangsters, one of whom was from out of town:
Gangster 1: “So, where’re ‘ya stayin’?”
Gangster 2: “Some flop house on Ventnor.”
Since that was a) pretty much a throwaway line that didn’t further the plot in any way, and b) not only referenced Ventnor Ave., but a hotel on Ventnor, I always wondered if the writers threw that in as a nod to the Monopoly board.
Just learned from an article I landed on during a link-hopping spree that the SR-71 never flew a mission over Soviet territory.
I only found out yesterday that the woman Jack Nicholson thought was his sister was in fact his mother, and that his parents were in fact his grandparents.
Definitely cast a new light on the events of the movie “Chinatown…”
“The Phil Silvers Show,” aka “Sgt. Bilko,” finally went off the air in 1959 after a long and successful run. The invariable plot of every episode revolved around Sgt Bilko trying to pull a scam to get rich, usually with the help of his pals in the motor pool. Its breakout character was Pvt. Doberman, as played by Maurice Gosfield.
Two years later, Hanna-Barbera launched an animated cartoon series called “Top Cat.” It lifted the entire premise from “The Phil Silvers Show” and included Maurice Gosfield as the voice actor for Benny the Ball… a character who was, for all intents and purposes, identical to Pvt. Doberman.
Eric Clapton had almost the same familial history.
He had the most wins without winning the Cy Young Award.
Uma Thurman’s father Robert was a Buddhist monk when he was young. Now he’s a professor of religion at Columbia. He is a great speaker so I assume he’s a top notch professor too.
I think this ought to be preceded by “Officially …”
Free diving is the sport of diving without the use of a breathing apparatus.
“The current no-limits world record holder is Herbert Nitsch with a depth of 253 m set on 6 June 2012, in Santorini, Greece. [5]” That’s 830 feet.
A tourist was arrested in China for wearing a Sgt. Bilko shirt. They thought it was the Dalai Lama.
Well yes, perhaps.