What I Learned This Week - 3/25/16

1.  627 days until Star Wars - Episode VIII is in theaters. 
2. When a daughter threatens to quit school and become a stripper to scare you, telling her that you’ll sit in the front row of her show every night scares them more. #BeSupportive
3. “Dog Maternity Photo Shoots” are a thing.
4. The Japanese practice of “Hikaru Dorodango”, or “Shiny Dumpling”, is the practice of polishing mud.
5. When I compliment my wife with cheesy pickup lines like, “…if you were a fruit – you’d be a fineapple”, she just sighs and mumbles.
6. In the 1980’s TV series, “Miami Vice”, Sonny Crockett’s Ferrari Daytona, was actually Corvette modified to resemble one. Ferrari sued the show’s creators – hence the appearance of the Testarossas in the latter episodes.
7. Standard college dorm furniture is now the fancy version of all the creations I (and many others) built 30 years ago with 2x4s and bolts.
8. I’m not sure how “Pizza on a stick” makes it more portable. #CollegeCafeteria
9. The hip new college tour recruiting phrase is, “Make sure you try <insert cafeteria hall’s name here> ice cream – it’s AMAZING”. #No-NoItsNot.
10. College tour guides believe many things on their campuses are “super-important” and will tell you no less than 100 times.
11. The Ideal Conceal Company makes a compact .38 pistol that folds up to look exactly like a smartphone. #NoMute
12. Pistachios used to be dyed red to hide blemishes and stains form various harvesting methods employed in the Middle East. 
13. Researchers have found that attaching green battery powered LEDs to fishing nets reduced the number of green turtle deaths by 64 per cent, without reducing the intended catch of fish.
14. According to my middle daughter, bobby pins are the universal symbol of girl ownership and how girls mark their territory
15. There is a website that summarizes every single test performed on Mythbusters. http://mythresults.com/
16. “Never mind” is teenager speak for “I really don’t have the energy or gumption to explain this to you again”.
17. Microsoft unveiled a twitter “AI robot”, named “Tay” that uses a fancy computer algorithm to learn conversational language by allowing everyone the opportunity to talk to the account or make the account repeat any request. I just asked it if, “Tay Tay was bae” #DidNotGoWell
18. The average person can tell the difference between hot or cold water being poured into a glass. 
19. A team of astronomers have discovered a “water reservoir” in space that is at least 140 trillion times that of all water in the world's oceans combined.
20. When you fill out a safety questionnaire that asks what to do if you accidentally get chemical(s) in your eyes, the correct answer is not, “…fight crime, defend Hell’s Kitchen”.
21. If you walk into an Irish bar on St. Patrick’s Day and yell “O’Doyle Rules” you’ll just get a lot of dirty looks.
22. “Jeep” upside down is “beer”. #Coincidence