Fun Fact #1:
The vibrating alarm on my wrist watch is set to the rhythm of Reveille, also known as the bugle call, used in the morning to wake up the armed forces and prisoners. The word is French for "wake up." My mom used to set words to this melody when waking me for school - "it's time to get up, it's time to get up, it's time to get up in the morning. You have to go to school now, you have to go to school now..."

Fun Fact #2:
Viagra is used to save the endangered species such as pandas which are on a brink of extinction. The breeding program can be performed with help of Viagra that is given to the animals to help them to create a special mood. Even animals need penis meds. Those impotent ass pandas.

Fun Fact #3:
The curse of the evil eye is believed to be cast by a malevolent glare (I'm sure you've cursed hundreds). The amulet you've noticed on my counter is a Nazar (Turkish for blue bead). It's a legacy of the Turkish Ottoman Empire and is a popular souvenir from countries in the region of the former empire. It's believed to defend against the evil eye curse. If I upset you I may have to start wearing one around my neck.

Fun Fact #4:
The word chamomile is from the Greek for "ground apples." The plant's primary pollinator is flies. Two species are cultivated: Roman and German. The Roman (annual) is a small shrub one foot high, but the German (perennial) grows to be three feet. Lastly, Chamomile was used in mummification.

Fun Fact #5: 
Irish writer Bram Stoker invented Dracula in his 1897 novel, but borrwed the name from Vlad the Impaler, Prince of the 15th century Wallachia region in the Ottoman Empire. Vlad was also know as Vlad Dracula, son of Vlad Dracul - in old Romanian Dracul meant "dragon" but it's meaning is now devil (probably Vlad's fault). But we all know Gary Oldman is the one true Dracula.

Fun Fact #6:
The act of giving flowers dates back to prehistoric times when flowers were thought to have magical properties - graves as old as 60,000 years have been found with flowers for the dead. Modern flower giving exploded in the Middle Ages as a way to express emotion without breaking church rules forbidding public affection. The Persian language of flowers in the 1700s was so specific that even the military would use bouquets to send messages. Most flower meanings today survive from Victorian era books. Yellow Daffodils express chivalry, peonies can mean compassion, and hydrangea express frigidity (hydrangeas are how you shoot down a ineffectual courter).

Fun Fact #7:
Solvang is Danish for "sunny field". Founded in 1911 by Danes who bought 9000 acres for $75,000 (1.8M present value), the intent was to escape harsh winters of the Midwest US (most immigrant Danes settled in Utah/Illinois/Minnesota/Iowa/Nebraska/South Dakota). It is no longer worth visiting as the Viking Dong corndog has been discontinued.

Fun Fact #8:
The name "Big Sur" comes from the Spanish "el país grande del sur" meaning "the big country of the south." The Portolá exposition of the late 18th century founded Monterey but left the Big Sur area relatively unexplored due to inaccessibility. In the early 19th century big sur belonged to Mexico, but was won by America in the Mexican-American war of 1848. My college roommates contracted so much poison oak from the Pfeiffer state park in 2004 that they were injected with cortisone in their asses to reduce swelling.

Fun Fact #9:
The term spritz cookies is short for Spritzgebäck, German Christmas cookies originating in the 16th century, an offshoot of gingerbread baking tradition, named from the verb spritzen for to squirt. Earliest forms were typically Christmas tree shaped, but all manner of shapes are in use today. In Norway the shapes "S" and "O" are popular. I can't find the explanation, but I want to say it stands for Sugar Overdose.

Fun Fact #10:
Septum piercings are the second most popular piercing in primitive people, favored for holding large objects such as bones, tusks, and wood, to give a fierce look to warriors. A Native American Tribe in a Washington state is named after their septum piercings - deemed the "Nez Perc" by French fur traders, meaning "nose pierced." The warriors of the Irian Jaya tribe in West Papau, Indonesia, sometimes fashion themselves a one inch diameter septum plug made from tibia bone of an enemy slain in battle. Warrior such that you are, if you ever get really upset with me you'll be able to slay me and wear a piece of my corpse in your face.

Fun Fact #11:
Since 1890, an American Christmas tradition has been to hide a pickle ornament in the tree. The first child to find the pickle gets an extra present or a year of good luck. Once believed to be a German tradition, that origin has actually been debunked. The practice was invented by Woolworth's marketers to coincide with the import of German glass ornaments. But the American belief of the German Christmas pickle tradition became so strong that that German glass ornament manufacturers catered to it, and now Germany sells an abundance of gherkin ornaments under the guise of tradition. Doesn't that just tickle your pickle.

Fun Facts #12:
The word "tea" comes from the Chinese word for the tea plant - T'e in the Amoy dialect. And similarly "chai" comes from the Mandarin ch'a. The plant's scientific name is Camellia Sinensis. Humans have been drinking tea for at least 4700 years! Though most tea is Chinese, You can thank America for inventing the tea bag in the early 20th century (Thomas Sullivan). My favorite type of tea is Chamomile (sedative effects are attributed to the flavanoid apigenin which binds to the brain's benzodiazepine receptors).

Fun Facts #13: 
The highest grossing single unit independent pizzeria in the United States is Moose's Tooth Pub and Pizzeria in Anchorage Alaska, selling $6 million a year. It's 0.6 miles from the house I grew up in! Globally, pizzerias purchase more than $4 billion of cheese very year, and Americans eat about 46 slices per year on average. A great way to predict the future is through the reading of pizza crusts. After the traditional scaring of slices, tear crusts into morsels and shake within a Yahtzee cup. Cast them vigorously down onto the plane of a greasy pizza box cardboard, and consider as the come to rest the implications of their geometry on your Fatalist destiny.

Fun Facts #14: 
Breast implants originated in the 60s, invented by plastic surgeons Thomas Cronin and Frank Gerow (leave it to two men to pioneer techniques for increasing boob mass). The United States has the most breast implant surgeries in the world with Brazil in second place and Mexico in third, and the average cost is about $3700. Dang, I could have bought myself a rack instead of Fritz. The world record for largest breast implants belongs to German "model" (really? Model? Are we really calling this a model?) named Beshine, whose breasts weigh over twenty pounds each. That makes them each bigger than the average weight of a commercial Thanksgiving turkey (16.83 lbs). Gobble, gobble!

Fun Facts #15: 
Fashionable high heels originated in 16th century Italy where a short noble woman had them made to seem as tall as possible when first meeting King Henry of France, to whom she was betrothed. But ancient utilitarian forms have existed for much longer. Romans and Greeks used them for theater (the higher the shoe the more important the character) and prostitution (high heels advertised prostitution services). Egyptian butchers wore high heels to keep much of their feet out of the animal blood! For today's heels, there are two types of blood. One from the male's foot when pierced by a stilleto's maximum pressure of 1600 psi, and one from the woman's toes when stomped on by clumsy male dancers.