Random Factness (Inquisitive Minds Want to Know?)

Inspired by a book I became privvy to this week, I'm compelled to begin with a few thoughts by persons far wiser than...

"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for us to grow sharper."

-- Eden Phillpotts

"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry."

-- Albert Einstein

"The dumbest people I know are the people who know it all." -- Malcolm Forbes

Yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, I remain avidly enamoured with the pursuit of knowledge. Nothing beats the feeling of learning something new, no matter how seemingly trivial. So, because I'm feeling generous, thought I'd toss a few bits of random factness your way...

• It's against the law to drive a motorboat down the street in Breton, Alabama.
• The longest word in the English language to be typed solely with the left hand? Stewardesses
• Coke (the soft drink) was initially green.
• Struggling to come up with a word that rhymes with purple? Well, don't strain you're brain--you can't!
• By the time we die, each of us has ingested approximately 8 spiders (ok, so we've heard this one before, but it's just disgusting enough to warrant further mention).
• And, since we're on the subject of nutrition, swallowed gum does not sit in your stomach for seven long years--doing so, however, does feel a little weird.

Granted, I learn a lot more about life, the library, library life (and my role in it) while on the job and at school; so much so, in fact, that it sometimes feels as though I've got information bursting forth from the ears, and I can't be sure that I'm processing it all in equal measure. Still, it's pretty cool. Would I soon come to understand the nature of cataloging (the details! the details!) I'd be one happy camper. Alas, both the dewey decimal system and the construction MARC coding remain as elusive as algebra. Concrete thinking, it seems, defies me, and thus far (to borrow from Ophrah) the one thing that I know for sure is that I'm ardently anti-acronym.

Recommended Reading: The World As I See It by Albert Einstein. Cool hair. Cool dude.