Tell Me Something I Don't Know

[EricKei]

Just curious -- I have hazel eyes -- meaning, they alter colors based on the dominant colors around me (they're usually greenish-to-brownish with amber flecks). Is this considered a form of heterochromatic eyes, or is "hazel" its own special category, as it refers as much to apparent color *shifting* as to having multiple colors in the first place?

And, since ye asked It's "lie" -- "Lay" requires a direct object just keep in mind that lay is also the past tense of lie. Just to be confusing ^_^ Help from someone more qualified than myself, complete with charts and a mnemonic device, can be found here.

[Food Lady]

Rats have been found to laugh when tickled. The sound is inaudible to human ears, but using a bat detectors (or similar device), the sound can be amplified to be heard.

It's also fucking adorable.

Totally looked that up on youtube and am becoming fond of them. I always liked white mice, but rat tails freaked me out for some reason.

--We learned in the first post that heterochromatic eyes means each eye is a different color. Dichromatic means there is more than one color in the iris. I have two colors (slate blue and olive green), plus one of my eyes has an orange spot on it.

--A human hair has a cuticle made up of scale-like segments. They lie (or lay? can never remember) relatively flat on straight hair, while they stick up due to the bends of curly hair. That's why curly hair tends to be more dry; it loses moisture through those holes in it's outer protective covering. Those spaces also allow humidity inside the hairs more readily, and they swell up somewhat. Having curly hair is like having a weather-reactive sponge attached to your head.

--Tea can be made mostly decaffeinated by steeping for one minute in hot water and then steeping in fresh water after discarding the first pouring. You're effectively pouring the caffeine (and unfortunately, the flavor) down the drain.

--Those skin tag remover products are largely thuja oil. You'd better off ordering that online because you'd get more use for the money out of the full-strength oil. Mederma's active ingredient is onion juice.

--That super-expensive face cream the celebs use--la mer--is similar to Nivea ingredient-wise (petroleum, mineral oil, wax, etc). At $100 an ounce, I think. It does have seaweed extracts, but still....

--Carrots were purple before they were orange. Orange is a variation from the original. In culinary history they were used as a sweetener in cakes along with honey in places that hadn't discovered how to process beets into granulated sugar and didn't know sugar cane existed, apparently.

[KhirasHY]

The human body contains a fun organic bit of matter called bulboid corpuscles. They are, however, also known by a wonderful name, "The End-Bulbs of Krause." The end-bulbs are a cutaneous receptor that translates environmental stimulus to determine if the air is cold. You have them in your eyes, mouth, lips, genitals, and in the epineurium of nerve trunks.

And, as noted by QI, "The End-Bulbs of Krause" is probably the most magnificent euphemism for testicles that there is.

[EricKei]

Just one I came across recently:

Charlie Brown is NOT bald. The 2-3 hairs visible on his forehead and back of his dome represent his hairline. His hair is very light blond, and/or cut incredibly short. How could he easily keep it that way? Simple. His dad is the local barber, and at least one comic mentions that Charlie goes to Dad's shop quite often, if not, every day, to walk him home after work. Getting a regular trim would pose no difficulty for him.

[Kit-Ginevra]

I'm sure this is useful to someone....

St.John's Wood is the only tube station that shares no letters with the word Mackerel.

In 1985, the artists King,Queen,Prince and Princess all had Top 40 UK hits.

There has been a UK Number 1 single beginning with every letter of the alphabet except Z-the best that managed was No.2 with Zoom for Fat Larry's Band in 1982.

[BlaqueKatt]

centipede trivia!

House centipedes (Scutigera coleoptrata)
Are actually originally Mediterranean.
They live up to 7 years, and cannot reproduce before 3 years.
Their long legs allow them to walk on spider webs without getting stuck.
Their main diet is arthropods and arachnids, they're quite fond of silverfish.
From personal experience they will "play dead" to avoid threats.


Centipedes don't have "fangs" they have a modified pair of legs that inject venom(called forcipules).
Some centipedes are VERY maternal, since they live in damp spaces, their eggs are prone to growing fungus, the mother centipede watches over her eggs and cleans them daily to prevent fungal takeover of her brood(some, notably the desert centipede, even use their body as a nest of sorts for both the eggs and the young)
They are not insects they are classed as Chilopoda of the subphylum-Myriapoda(with 5 separate families)
They have existed in some form since the Silurian, or 443 million years ago, meaning they're one of the first type of land creatures to evolve.
There's an estimated 8,000 species, of which 3,000 have been described.

edit:
The info on the eyes is just too fascinating (courtesy of wikipedia)

[Sheldonrs]

Also, Maria was a money-crazed bitch. She locked her oldest step daughter in her room for weeks to keep her from marrying, which would have broken up their singing act which was their main source of income along with the ski lodge they owned in Vermont.

[fireheart]

A bump-up. Since I have Sound of Music songs on the brain, here's a bit of Sound of Music trivia.

-In reality, Georg and Maria had about 15-20 years difference between them. In the movie, Georg and Maria have what's closer to a 5-year difference.
-Leisl's actress (Charmaine Carr) was definitely not "sixteen going on seventeen" at the time, she was 21! She also apparently had a little thing for Christopher Plummer (Georg) which turned out to be mutual, albeit never moving beyond flirting.
-In a similar vein, apparently Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich) had a crush on Julie Andrews, having seen her in theatre. He's now an Australian citizen (not to be confused with Austrian )
-The whole reason behind "Something Good" being filmed in silhouette was because there was a lighting device that kept making a weird noise and causing Julie Andrews to giggle every time she leaned in to kiss Christopher Plummer, so the silhouette was the way to hide it.

-Some of the songs from the stage production were moved around or cut in the film. The main ones were:

My Favourite Things (Stage: after "Maria". Film: After "Sixteen Going On Seventeen.")
The Lonely Goatherd: (Stage: after "Sixteen Going On Seventeen", Film: after the kids sing "The Sound of Music" and Georg lets Maria stay)
Do-Re-Mi (Stage and film: after "My Favourite Things" but the context prior to that is different. The stage I believe has Maria teaching it to the children shortly after her arrival, while the film has them doing it as part of playtime)
I Have Confidence: New one for the film (replaced "My Favourite Things" in the stage production)
An Ordinary Couple: Becomes "Something Good" in the film.

A couple of songs were cut, presumably for time.

-If you listen closely to the tune that's played during the scene where Maria and Georg dance the waltz, you'll realise that the tune is actually "The Lonely Goatherd" re-written in "waltz" time.
-Speaking of the dance scene, the version of the "folk dance" that they do isn't actually how they really do it (apparently).
-Edelweiss is not actually a traditional Austrian song, however the flower actually does exist. It's also actually a protected species.
-Nonnberg Abbey (the convent that Maria joins) actually still exists and is still running. It's a Benedictine monastery.
-The gazebo for Leisl and Maria's numbers still exists, but the public aren't allowed inside anymore since a number of people kept hurting themselves dancing on the seats!

[fireheart]

Here's another bit of Guardians trivia: Apparently Chris Pratt stole his Star-Lord costume from the set. Why? So that he could visit sick children in hospital all ready to go.

[wolfie]

-Vin Diesel claimed he recorded various versions of the "I am Groot" line over 1,000 times. He also learned how to pronounce it correctly in every language for which the movie would be released, so his voice is the only one used in every version of the film speaking that one line.

Did he do it the way a famous comedy duo (can't recall if it was Abbot & Costello or Laurel & Hardy) did foreign languages? They learned phonetic notation, so they'd be reading the cue cards out loud, not actually understanding what they were saying.

[KhirasHY]

How about some Guardians of the Galaxy trivia?

-Vin Diesel claimed he recorded various versions of the "I am Groot" line over 1,000 times. He also learned how to pronounce it correctly in every language for which the movie would be released, so his voice is the only one used in every version of the film speaking that one line.

-James Gunn confirmed after the movie that Peter Quill's ship, the Milano, is named after Alyssa Milano. She was James Gunn's childhood crush.

-During filming for a fight scene between them, Zoe Saldana nearly broke Chris Pratt's ribs. While rehearsing for the fight, they wore protective gear so they could actually make contact with one another, but when they filmed, Pratt forgot to wear his. He did not tell Saldana (since he thought she would hold back and it would not look as good), and got a swift kick to the ribs from her, as she thought he had the gear on. He said he was bruised through the rest of filming.

-Chris Pratt and Dave Bautista rehearsed their fight scene for two months, but when it came time to film it, James Gunn felt it wasn't working right and scrapped the whole thing. He also wanted the fight scene filmed as one long cut. The new fight scene, which was seen in the movie, had only a few hours of practice, and took 22 tries to get right.

-Iron Man nearly had a cameo in the movie (as he appeared in some of the most recent comics), but the idea was scrapped when Robert Downey Jr. was unsure whether or not he would continue to play the character (he has since signed a contract to do so).

-Rocket was modeled after a real raccoon, named Oreo. Compare: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0KS5Aqk6AP...1a1ba407_o.jpg vs http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/wp-c...ds/Rocket-.png - aside from some fur coloration changes, Rocket was designed to be exactly the same in size, shape, and pattern as the original.

-Benicio del Toro's uncredited cameo as the Collector in Thor: The Dark World was written in to set up his presence in this film.

-Some easter eggs from The Collector's...well, collection: A Dark Elf (Thor: The Dark World), a Chitauri (from Avengers), and a slug creature from Slithers, which James Gunn directed.

-Yondu's primary weapon in the film is a sentient arrow; in the comics, he was an archer. Also, Yondu was a member of the Guardians in the original comic run, and was quite the different character.

-The residence of The Collector in the film was at Knowhere, but in the comics, Knowhere is the base of the Guardians.

-When Groot releases fireflies, Drax responds "Where did you learn to do that?" This is an inside joke, as Groot has never shown that ability in the comics.

-At one point, Quill refers to Ranger Rick. Younger people won't recognize the name, but Ranger Rick was a cartoon raccoon featured in magazines in the 70's and 80's.

-In the film, Ronan the Accuser is an admiral serving under Thanos. This combines his classic Marvel comics portrayal (a top-ranking military governor) with his Marvel Ultimate comics portrayal (an ally of Thanos). Also, in the original comics which featured Star Lord, he was an adviser to Ronan.

-As Quill, Gamora, and Rocket are escorted into a prison, a row of inmates leer at them. One of them near the left of the screen is Lloyd Kaufman, who worked with James Gunn on various Troma films such as Tromeo and Juliet.

-The blue alien that Groot picks up by the nostrils is actually Nathan Fillion.

-When filming first started, Dave Bautista had to be painstakingly applied makeup for 5 hours while standing to be given his tattoos; Chris Pratt said that he would stand completely still holding tennis balls mounted on rails (to avoid hurting his hands) without complaint. As they got better at it, it would take a mere 3 hours to apply the makeup, and 90 minutes to remove it.

-The dog in the spacesuit is actually Cosmo, a Russian dog with psychic powers. In the comics, he is the guard dog who runs Knowhere for the Guardians, and is constantly on bad terms with Rocket (which is why Rocket snarls at him in the movie).

-Regarding the end credits scene character, he is also visible earlier in the film if you know where to look. Also, his movie was released on August 1st 1986, whereas Guardians was released August 1st 2014.

[Victory Sabre]

I'll add a tidbit to the Transformers The Movie (86').

It wasn't released in Japan till 1989. Because of that many of the killed off characters appeared in Transformers The Headmasters series. And Wheeljack appeared in Transformers Victory, to help rebuild God Ginrai into Victory Leo.

[KhirasHY]

I was gonna do Power Rangers trivia for that, but I looked back and realized I'd already done that! So, as a result, you get Transformers trivia! And I mean from the real movie, not the horrors that Michael Bay has brought us. So come, let us go to 1986!!

-Spike originally said "Oh shit, what are we going to do now" in the theatrical release when he and Bumblebee realized that blowing up the moon didn't affect Unicron. "Oh shit" had been put in the theatrical release to guarantee a PG rating as G rated movies could not be played as often during the day as PG, PG-13 or R rated movies back then. However, the line had been taken out of every VHS release until the Rhino re-release in 2000 and it was also restored in the 2000 Canadian DVD and the 2001 Rhino DVD released in the United States.

-This film is considered the "bridge" between the second and third seasons of The Transformers, as several third-season characters are introduced here and several first-season characters are killed or altered (e.g. Megatron to Galvatron).

-The band who sings the songs on the soundtrack called "Nothin's Gonna Stand in Our Way" and "Hunger" is listed on the soundtrack credits as Spectre General, but the band's name is actually Kick Axe. When the soundtrack was being assembled, they thought the name "Kick Axe" sounded too threatening, so they listed them as "Spectre General". The band was not notified about the change.

-Cybertron's third moon, which exists purely due to an editing error in the movie, would reappear in the cartoon Beast Machines: Transformers, still bearing Unicron's claw-marks.

-In season's 1 and 2 of the series, Megatron's first shot in gun mode always missed every autobot. Starscream using him to kill Brawn in the beginning marks the first and only time that his first shot hit an autobot and every shot also hit its target.

-Orson Welles died in 1985, sparking rumors that Leonard Nimoy (who voiced Galvatron after he changed forms) took over and provided the voice for Unicron. However, Susan Blu (Arcee) has since confirmed that Welles completed the voice-over work before he died.

-One potential plot proposed by writer and story editor Flint Dille and creative director Jay Bacal would have involved Optimus Prime embarking on a journey to discover the origin of the Transformer race, as well as find out that their home planet is actually a giant robot itself. Using the Matrix, the planet Cybertron would have transformed into a robot to face off against the evil Transformer planet Unicron, a pawn of the Quintessons. Their script was written in response to the original movie draft which they saw as incoherent, but was discarded shortly after presenting it to the executives. However, some elements of their script did turn up in the finished film, and a drastically reimagined origin story for the Transformers was detailed in the cartoon's third season - the Quintessons, minor one-scene villains in this film, were reimagined as the creators of the Transformers and had no ties to Unicron.

-At the beginning of the movie, when the Autobots are taking off in their ship, Optimus Prime orders "Cliffjumper, commence countdown". The voice of Cliffjumper was that of Casey Kasem who was the host of America's Top 40 Countdown for many years. This was obviously a little joke by the writers.

-Many of the second-season characters (Stunticons, Aerialbots, etc.) do not appear in the movie because they did not exist at the time the movie was written. However, they all suddenly appear in the post-movie episodes.

-Two Cyclonus-style robots are created in the movie; one from Bombshell (Insecticon) and one from Skywarp (Decepticon jet). Many fans have speculated which one became the "real" Cyclonus. Cyclonus was (apparently) originally intended to have many duplicates under his command ("and his armada..."), like Scourge and his Sweeps. However, only one duplicate was created on-screen and was never seen again after that shot. This has led fans to write fanfics about a character called "Armada".

-In the original script, "Life Sparks" would have had a very important role. No such objects are ever mentioned in the finished movie. However, a full decade later in Beast Wars: Transformers, Sparks were canonically introduced into the Transformers franchise.

-The movie was being produced by the same company, and at the same time, as G.I. Joe: The Movie. It had been agreed that both movies would suffer the loss of the lead heroes, Optimus Prime and Duke. Production had begun on G.I. Joe first, and was thus expected to be released first. During the production of the two films, G.I. Joe was held up while Transformers finished production. Release dates were changed and Transformers got theatrical release in 1986. Optimus Prime's death sparked some controversy and caused the writers to change Duke's death to a coma. G.I. Joe never got to the theaters, and was released to video instead. Had G.I. Joe been released first, Optimus Prime might have survived.

-Optimus Prime's death become something of a running gag later on. Almost every transformers series, (including Beast Wars) features Optimus Prime (or his equivalent) dying, only to be resurrected some time later.

-The movie kills off many of the original characters: Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Ratchet, Prowl, Brawn, Wheeljack, Windcharger, Megatron (sorta), Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Shrapnel, Kickback and Bombshell are all casualties, and it is learned in the third season that Huffer also died at some point off-camera during the movie.

[fireheart]

Or that the pink one has a skirt because the character was fem in both series but the yellow doesn't due to the Japanese actor being Male (R.I.P. Thuy Trang)

I meant the stuntman.

[Jay 2K Winger]

-The biggest show of the year for Gaki no Tsukai is the annual Batsu Geme (Punishment Game), which airs every year on New Years Eve. The games have grown over the years, going from simple tasks as a result of losing a bet (ie, going to the Evion factory for a bottle of water), but in recent years have changed into 24 hour long games of tag, and the infamous "No Laughing" games. The No Laughing series involves renting a location, completely remodeling it, and hiring out dozens of comedians, actors, and musicians to make the victims laugh, wherein they are promptly punished by receiving a smack (and one year, a dart) to the ass. These shows are hilarious to watch, but in recent years have 5-7 hours of airtime.

The Batsu Game also features, every year, an appearance from former professional wrestler Masahiro Chono, who will deliver one of his trademark smacks to the face of one of the victims, frequently Hosei Yamazaki. Chono typically enters the scene by yelling "GODDAMN!" and the lead-up to the smack will often prompt the victims to burst out laughing many times.

Chono slapping fools:
Batsu Game: Hotel
Batsu Game: Hospital
Batsu Game: Teachers