What I Learned This Week - 8/1/14

1.  504 days until Star Wars Episode VII is in theaters.
2. Holy cow, its August already.
3. A location to feel better about yourself and your life’s decisions can be summed in three words, “water theme park.”
4. Nothing ruins a woman’s figure more than a crudely rendered tattoo of a flaming strawberry that covers 2/3 of the backside with the words “I don't like fudge” in comic sans font.
5. Water theme parks are prime places to view tattoos NOT to get.
6. Morgan Freeman recently conducted an entire interview with Jimmy Fallon while inhaling helium. Thinking of this always makes me smile.
7. I finally met a person that used Yahoo Answers and thought they would get a serious response. No, really.
8. Best t-shirt in the airport this week was worn by a three-ish year old, running the wrong way on an escalator and screaming for people to get out of his way. His shirt read, “My parents are exhausted.”
9. According to my interns, paper sized chalkboards are called, “Victorian iPads.”
10. Although it was a fictional fraternity in the movie “Revenge of the Nerds”, Lambda Lambda Lambda became an actual chapter at the University of Connecticut in 2006. It is coed and not affiliated with the Greek system – which seems to be a very nerdy thing to do.
11. Neither Booger nor Ogre did their actual burps in the film, “Revenge of the Nerds”. Actor, Curtis Armstrong (Booger) revealed that it’s actually a human burp mixed with the sound of a mating camel during climax. No…I didn’t make that up.
12. I’m fairly certain the only reason people know of Schrodinger's cat is because of “Big Bang Theory.”
13. I have a stronger admiration than I realized for people with physical limitations (asthma, auto-immune disease, etc) that compete in endurance sports. The kind of sappy admiration that makes the eyes well up.
14. If you’re going to have one, the best place to have an asthma attack is at the finish line of the highest triathlon in the world – ten feet from the medic tent.
15. Microbiologists have learned that certain strains of bacteria are capable of using energy in its purest form by eating and breathing electrons – which means many space movie plots could actually be a reality.
16. The Domino’s Pizza chain discontinued the use of its “Noid” mascot because a mentally ill man whose last name was Noid armed himself and took hostages at an Atlanta Domino's. Mr. Noid thought the commercials were making fun of him. Yes, Domino’s was forced to “avoid the Noid.”
17. Chuck Taylor, of Converse shoe fame, was an Indiana high school hoops star in the early 1920’s and was the first person to aid a shoe company in development of a sport specific shoe. The location of the Chuck signature circle patch is to reduce wear at the ankle joint.
18. Reebok is a speedy African antelope. ASICS is an acronym for the Latin phrase “anima sana in corpore sano”, or "a healthy soul in a healthy body." Adidas is not the acronym we all love, it is a portmanteau of the name of Adi Dassler, the German businessman who started the company in 1949. Yes, I read an article about shoes.
19. “Portmanteau” is a combination of two (or more) words or morphemes, and their definitions, into one new word. I didn’t know it either.
20. Every time I see “lock the taskbar” in a Windows setting, I start humming a Clash song.
21. According to the commercial, my wife texts me “K” because every kiss begins with “K”. The reality is it’s NOT the sign to hurry home.
22. I have no idea how autocorrect makes its decisions. 
23. A recent study indicates women rate men with facial scars as more desirable for a short term relationship than men without scars. Cutting yourself shaving doesn’t count as a scar.
24. There is a unique joy watching someone pick the proper ringtone for your contact info.
25. Salt water taffy is a marketing ploy and contains no salt water.