Thursday, October 28, 2010

Dropping a Penny from the Top of the Empire State Building Isn’t Dangerous

empire state building
     You’ve probably heard people say how if you drop a penny off the top of the Empire State Building, it will accelerate to such a speed that if it struck someone, it would kill them. This simply isn’t true at all, not by a long shot. The worst that would happen if you dropped a penny from this height is that it would sting a bit when it hit them.  In most cases, it wouldn’t even do that.  In fact, even if you dropped it from an airplane flying at 35,000 feet, it still wouldn’t do any real damage to the person it hit.
So let’s talk specifics.  The Empire State Building is about 1250 feet tall.  If there were no air resistance on the penny as it fell, that would mean it would reach a maximum velocity of around 190-ish miles per hour when it hit the ground, taking just shy of 9 second to do so.  That might sound really fast, but fortunately, it’s still not fast enough to kill someone.
     Somewhat surprisingly, that still likely wouldn’t be fast enough to penetrate a person’s skin, especially if it hit the flat side down, instead of the edge.  For reference, a relatively low-”powered” bullet (.22 caliber), which is about equivalent in mass to a penny, is shot out with an initial speed of around 600 miles per hour.  That obviously will penetrate your skin at close range, but it’s because the surface area that strikes your skin is much smaller. A penny, even at that speed, wouldn’t cause that much damage as demonstrated by Myth Busters when they shot a penny at over 700 mph at a gel “skull”.  The penny wasn’t even able to penetrate the gel at all at that speed, which was over three times the speed a penny would reach falling from the top of the Empire State Building with no air resistance.
     So what about in real life where there is air resistance?  That’s a little harder to calculate because a penny is going to be greatly affected by the wind.  The updraft next to the Empire State Building can even be sufficient to make it so the penny won’t ever reach the ground near the Empire State Building, rather being caught in the swells and flying about until it is free from them.
Let’s move away from a place that has such an updraft and windy environment.  What would the terminal velocity be then?  It turns out, pennies have a pretty low terminal velocity (just a bit faster than a ping-pong ball, which has a terminal velocity of around 20-ish mph).  In open air, with no real updraft or breeze, a penny’s terminal velocity is going to be around 30-50 miles per hour.  If there is a good wind, even without an updraft, that’s going to drop significantly.
     You can even test this near your home because a penny will reach its terminal velocity in only about 50 feet.  Find someplace where you can drop a penny 50 feet down and have someone waiting at the bottom to catch it (or time it to determine the velocity).  They’ll have a really hard time catching it, due to the fact that it will spin and flutter about like a knuckle-ball, particularly if it’s breezy out.  But if you do manage to hit them, I suspect they won’t complain.  Indeed, as you can read in one of my sources, someone conducted this very experiment, dropping some pennies from a height sufficient for it to reach its terminal velocity (they chose a couple hundred feet, which was more than sufficient) and trying to catch them.  One of the pennies hit a person in the chin and it didn’t even sting, it just felt like a bug had hit them.  Several other pennies hit them on various places on their bodies and weren’t really felt much at all through their clothes.
If you’ve got a decent throwing arm, a less nice way to test this out without even leaving the comfort of your own home, which I in no way recommend for legal reasons, is simply to take a penny and attempt to chuck it at someone standing near you.  If you’ve got a good arm at all, it’s going to reach much higher than its terminal velocity (assuming you stand close to them so it doesn’t have a chance to slow down) and you might even be able to get it to hit with the edge pointing forward for maximum speed and stinging power, which is something that isn’t likely dropped from a high height.  They’ll probably not be too happy with you, but even if it hits their bare skin, it’s only going to sting a bit.   Just tell them it’s !!!FOR SCIENCE!!! and try not hit them in the eye.  That would hurt even if you had a weak throwing arm. :-)
     Of course, given all this, one shouldn’t take away from this that it is safe to drop all light objects from high heights.  It really has a lot to do with surface area to weight ratio and how aerodynamic the thing is.  Pennies will flutter about and are greatly affected by the wind.  Something like a decently weighted metal fountain pen, on the other hand, could cause serious damage if dropped from a high height.  It’s aerodynamically shaped and has a nice pointy end.  An object like that reaching even just a hundred miles an hour can easily puncture skin and much worse.  Heck, even bullets shot straight up in the air have been shown to be quite dangerous by the time they get back to the ground (not all bullets, but many).  Many of these aren’t much larger, mass wise, than a penny, just shaped right for traveling through the air.

Bonus Factoid:
  • As stated, a penny’s terminal velocity is going to be around 30-50 mph.  For reference, the terminal velocity of a sky diver is going to be around 130-ish mph (like all these examples, that varies depending on a lot of factors, but that’s a good ballpark number).  Speaking of ballparks, the terminal velocity of a baseball is around 100 mph; for a tennis ball it’s around 60 mph; a ping pong ball is going to be around 20 miles per hour; and a raindrop is going to be around 15 mph.

Friday, October 22, 2010

The Men Behind the Masks

by Ethan Trex

Chewbacca, Sloth, and Big Bird are all iconic roles, but could you pick any of the actors who played them out of a lineup? Probably not. Let’s take a look at the unheralded men behind the mask, under the makeup, or in the suit for a handful of memorable roles in movies and TV shows.

1. John Matuszak as Sloth

A generation of kids grew up cheering for Matuszak as Lotney “Sloth” Fratelli in The Goonies, but they probably didn’t know that just a few years earlier “Tooz” had heard the cheers of thousands of Oakland Raiders fans. Before he ever became an actor, Matuszak was a heck of a football player; as a 6’8”, 280-pound defensive end he was even the first overall pick in the 1973 NFL Draft.
Matuszak won two Super Bowl rings with the Raiders before retiring after the 1981 season, but he’s most remembered for his madcap personality. “Tooz” would throw back a “breakfast of champions” that consisted of vodka and Valium, brawl with teammates and coaches, and generally wreak havoc on and off the field. No wonder Sports Illustrated named him one of the NFL’s top five bad boys of all time in 2005.

2. Kevin Peter Hall as Harry and the Predator

The late Kevin Peter Hall had quite a bit of range once he got inside a suit. He could play a gentle giant like the Bigfoot Harry in Harry and the Hendersons, or he could kick some butt as a bloodthirsty alien like he did in the first two Predator movies. The 7’2” Hall had previously excelled as a basketball player for George Washington University, and he also had a recurring role on the NBC sitcom 227. The gig on 227 proved to be particularly fruitful for the former Predator; he married star Alaina Reed, who had previously risen to fame as Olivia on Sesame Street.

3. Warwick Davis as Wicket W. Warrick

Movie buffs probably recognize Davis as the title character in Willow and the Leprechaun series, but they might not have known that he broke into acting as an Ewok. When George Lucas was casting Return of the Jedi he put out a series of radio ads looking for people under four feet tall to play the Ewoks. Davis’ grandmother heard the spot and took Davis, who was 2’11” and a rabid Star Wars fan, to audition. After Lucas’s original choice to play Wicket fell ill, Davis nabbed the role of lead Ewok and launched a successful film career.
Interestingly, Davis was only 17 years old when he played the title role in Willow. Although he had to take lessons in sword fighting and horseback riding to prepare for the fantasy film, Davis later said that the toughest part of the role was learning how to act like a parent to his infant co-star. He said on the DVD commentary, “I had to learn parenting skills, which taught me how to hold a baby correctly, how to feed a baby, and worst of all, how to change a nappy, or diaper.”

4. Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca

Like the much shorter Davis, Mayhew found his way into films thanks to George Lucas. When Lucas was first casting the Star Wars series, he wanted English bodybuilder David Prowse to play Chewbacca. Prowse wasn’t interested in being a Wookiee, though; he asked to be the man in the Darth Vader suit. Lucas agreed and in turn asked 7’3” hospital worker Mayhew to play Chewie.
An anecdote from the production of The Empire Strikes Back accentuates just how indispensable these costumed actors can be. Mayhew fell ill during one day of filming, and since the producers didn’t want to lose a whole day of work, they put another very tall actor in the Chewie suit. After all, it’s just a suit, right? Turns out it’s not that simple. Mayhew had crafted all of Chewbacca’s mannerisms and his gait based on careful observations of large animals, but the stand-in couldn’t match them. The shots just didn’t look like the real Chewbacca. Eventually Lucas scrapped all of the footage of the impostor Chewie and reshot it with Mayhew in the suit.

5. Caroll Spinney as Big Bird

Spinney has been the man behind Sesame Street’s most iconic resident since the show’s first episode aired in 1969. Although Big Bird is 8’2”, Spinney isn’t as towering as many of the other actors on this list; he’s only 5’10”. Spinney has played Big Bird in the White House for a number of Presidents (his only complaint from these gigs is that Nancy Reagan was rude), and he’s also played another signature Sesame Street role: Oscar the Grouch.

6. Bolaji Badejo as the Alien


Bolaji Badejo was just a Nigerian design student when Ridley Scott put him into millions of audience members’ nightmares in Alien. Scott wanted his extraterrestrial monster to look like no human could possibly be inside the costume, so he sought out an actor who was extremely tall and impossibly lanky. Badejo fit the bill. At 7’2” and incredibly thin, Badejo brought his unique body type to the terrifying role, then never appeared in another film.

7. Dick Durock as Swamp Thing

If not for an NFL trade, we may never have seen Swamp Thing as we know him. Former Marine Dick Durock was living in Pittsburgh with his older sister and her husband, Pittsburgh Steelers tackle Frank Varrichione, when four-time Pro Bowler Varrichione found himself traded to the Los Angeles Rams in 1961.
The trade worked out well for the Rams – Varrichione made another Pro Bowl with the team – but it panned out even better for Durock. He followed his family to Los Angeles and began working out in a gym frequented by a number of stuntmen. Eventually he became a stuntman himself, and in 1982 he took on the role of Swamp Thing for the first of two movies and then 71 episodes of the subsequent television series.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Consumer Pays Off $14,330 In 20 Months With Our Tips

     Stuck in a $14,300 debt hole, reader Trixare4kids was able to dig herself out using tips she learned about on Consumerist.com. Let's learn how she attacked her personal finances and learned to live frugally, and did it all in 20 months.
     She writes: "This morning I made my very last payment on $14,300 in credit card debt and a personal line of credit for a home improvement project that was completed a few years ago. I paid it off over the last 20 months thanks to applying some of the stuff I learned at consumerist.com. It was tough. It took discipline, but I did it!
     Instead of making a bunch of changes at once, I did things a little over time. It looked something like this. It's maybe not in the order that makes the most sense to a financial planner or in the order that someone else would do things; I just know that it worked for me.

MONTH 1: NEGOTIATING BETTER CREDIT CARDS RATES:
     I called every single credit card company and tried to negotiate for a lower rate. I was successful with a lot of them. In once case the rate went from 14% to 7.99%. If they would not lower the interest rate, I politely thanked them and then transferred those balances onto lower rate cards. I canceled each card as it was paid off.

MONTH 2: GO CASH-ONLY:
     I cut up every single card except one for emergencies. I actually put my remaining credit card in a big plastic cup full of water and stuck it in the freezer. That way, I'd really have to work at it to get that card. Cash only was the rule. If I did not have the cash, I did not need it. It's still in the freezer 20 months later.

MONTH 3: START DEBT-SNOWBALL:
     It really works. I first heard about this method on consumerist and set myself up to pay off the lowest balances first. I used an Excel spreadsheet I downloaded here. I liked this one because it was easy to add extra one-time payments. I know that it would probably save me more money to pay off the higher interest rates first, but it was very, very satisfying to get stuff paid and DONE with. I cannot even begin to explain how highly motivating it was to finally pay something off. It was worth whatever little amount extra it cost me extra to pay the smallest balances off first. It makes for that good "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling. I also set up automatic payments on payday through the online bill pay to make this a seamless process. For the first couple of months, I just started off with just $50 extra because that's all I could afford. Once I started living more frugally, I applied more to the snowball.
     Make extra payments to the snowball. They really do help, no matter how small. Every single extra penny that came my way went toward paying down the debt. At the end of the month, if I had anything left over in any of the budget categories, I immediately applied that as an extra payment. The nice thing about online bill pay is that it's just so easy to make as many payments as you want. Sometimes it was $100, sometimes it was $10 or even $3 one month, but every little bit helps. I purchased a printer that was almost free after rebate and applied the rebate to the debt. I did a few side jobs helping a caterer do some prep work; I sold some books on half.com, cleaned out my garage and made $300 from a yard sale, grandma sent me money for my birthday and Christmas, you get the idea. The point is, every single extra penny went right to the debt.

MONTH 4: SET UP BUDGET:
     I made a budget and figured out where exactly my money was going.

MONTH 5: CUT BACK EXPENSES:
     I figured out what I could cut back on or go without. Not only did I figure out what I was giving up would save me I also diligently applied that amount to the snowball. It also really helps to figure out what something is costing you per year. I had no idea I was spending $600 a year just on manicures!

Here's what I gave up:
Cable TV. Got a cheap netflix plan and a roku player instead. Savings: $17/month, $204 a year
Land line phone. Savings: $27/month, $324/year
Gardener. Savings: $40/month, $480/year
Got slower DSL. Savings: $10/month, $120/year
Manicures. Did my own. Savings: $50/month, $600/year
Public Radio Membership. Sorry KQED and KALW, but I have to come first right now. I'll continue to support you later. Savings: $11/month, $132/year
Gym Membership. Savings: $30/month, $360/year
Lunches at work. Savings: $120 month, $1440/year
Starbucks. Savings: $60/month, $720/year

Total extra towards snowball: $365/month, $4,380/year.
Just like that.

MONTH 6:
     I worked on cutting my spending in other ways.
I am an avid reader and I realized one of my biggest expenditures was new books. I gave up my Amazon habit and switched to the library. My local library allows you to browse the catalog online and request books be sent to the branch of your choice. I work 2 blocks from a branch so I just picked up things there. I also used paperbackswap.com, bookmooch.com and swaptree.com to give books I no longer wanted and in return get books I wanted. It only cost me the price of shipping books to other users via media mail. I saved unknown hundreds and hundreds of dollars by making this simple switch.
     For example, in September, I spent $36 on postage to send out used books, books that would otherwise just be sitting around and in return I received about $300 worth of books had I bought them new at retail price. For those who are into DVDs and CDs, swapadvd.com and swapacd.com are also awesome sites. (Other than being a member, I'm not affiliated with any of those sites)
     I stopped buying anything new. If I really, really needed something, I would ask first on freecycle http://www.freecycle.org/ and search craigslist for used items for sale. For example, my hairdryer stopped working about 6 months ago. Instead of running out to buy a new one, I posted an "Item Wanted" listing on the yahoo group and had a new and FREE hair dryer within 24 hours.

Food Budget: I ate the kind of things I normally eat; I just made some simple substitutions. I ate at home instead of eating out. I brought my lunch to work instead of eating out, but I did let myself eat out on Payday Friday. I used coupons and only bought very small amounts of perishable items so there was no waste. I stocked up on items like toilet paper when there was a really good sale, but was careful not to buy too many perishables. Nothing went to waste. I gave up paper towels and used rags instead. I shopped at the grocery outlet instead of Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck)
     Instead of buying new clothes (except for bras, panties and socks) I shopped for things at thrift and consignment stores.
     I know it sounds like I gave a lot of stuff up, but I don't see it that way - I kept thinking about what I was GETTING instead, which is freedom from debt. I still gave myself a small budget for entertainment and frugal dining out once in awhile, and please, nothing could induce me to give up my hairdresser!
You'd be surprised how much you can actually do for FREE if you just look around.
Free Theatre: Lots of theatres need volunteer ushers. You work in the theatre for an hour or so before the show, maybe stuffing envelopes or something. You help seat people before the show and then you get to see the show for free. You often get good seats too. I saw 3 or 4 free show a month this way. You often have to wear black slacks or skirt and a white shirt, but that's a small price to pay for free theatre.

Artist's receptions: You get to mingle and talk with people, see some (hopefully) lovely and interesting art, plus get fed wine and cheese.
I also used squidlist to find cheap and free things to do.

HOW IT FEELS
     I was disciplined and determined and I did it! Thank you consumerist! As of today I am debt free (except for my thankfully low fixed-rate mortgage) and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my mind. My spirit feels lighter. I am FREE. I am doing a happy dance! My plan is to continue to live frugally and start building up a savings now. I will never, ever be in that much debt again. I never want to feel the stress an anxiety of owing so much.
     Oh yeah, all during this time, I also put just $40 per month away into a savings account (ING) which I set up as an automatic $20 deduction every payday. I now have $800 to spend guilt-free and after 20 months I'm ready for a vacation. So, as my prize for getting debt free, I just booked a $295 flight to Cancun a bit later in October. I really deserve this vacation for a job well done and best of all? It's NOT going on a credit card.

originally posted on consumerist.com

Ten Rules for Being Human

by Cherie Carter-Scott

1.  You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
2.  You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
3.  There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
4.  Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5.  Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6.  “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
7.  Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8.  What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9.  Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.

Friday, October 8, 2010

6 Not-So-Secret Secret Societies

1. The Freemasons

freemasons.jpg
     This is the granddaddy of all not-so-secret secret societies. Freemasonry, or “The Craft” as its members call it, most likely has its roots in 17th-century stoneworkers’ guilds. Mason lore, however, extends its origins back to biblical times, linking the society to the building of the Temple of Solomon. Freemasonry is split into numerous subgroups and orders, all of which consider God the Grand Geometrician, or Grand Architect of the Universe. At their hearts, these groups are all means of exploring ethical and philosophical issues, and their rituals and symbols are famous (or infamous). Take, for instance, the square-and-compass logo often seen on the backs of Cadillacs. Or the use of secret handshakes, passwords, and greeting postures/gestures called “due guards,” all collectively known as the Modes of Recognition. The list of famous Masons is massive, a virtual Who’s Who of modern history, explaining the many conspiracy theories regarding the Masons’ influence and intentions. Mozart, FDR, Harry S. Truman, George Washington, Mark Twain, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, John Wayne, W. C. Fields, and Douglas MacArthur were all Masons. But perhaps the Masons’ greatest strides have been made in fast food: KFC’s Colonel Sanders and Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas knew how to secret-shake with the best of ’em.

2. The Illuminati


dollar_ase.jpg
     Over the centuries, lots of groups have called themselves the Illuminati (“Enlightened Ones”), but the one we’re talking about here began as the Bavarian Illuminati. A radical product of the Enlightenment and offshoot of the religion-based Freemasons, the Illuminati espoused secular freethinking and intellectualism and proved a threat to Europe’s old order. Although they were officially banned by the Bavarian government in 1784, some claim that they live on to this day in other guises. So, what’s the Illuminati’s goal? To establish a new world order of capitalism and authoritarianism, of course! They’ve been accused of manipulating currencies, world stock markets, elections, assassinations, and even of being aliens. One common myth is that the eye-and-pyramid image on the dollar bill is a symbol of the Illuminati watching over us. Nope. It’s a symbol of strength and durability (though unfinished, symbolizing growth and change), and the all-seeing eye represents the divine guidance of the American cause. Or so the government says.

3. Opus Dei

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     This organization has a $42 million, 17-story headquarters building on Lexington Avenue in New York City, claims 85,000 members in 60 countries, and was featured in Dan Brown’s bestseller The Da Vinci Code. Now that its existence has been significantly unsecretized, this ultraorthodox Catholic sect has definitely raised its share of eyebrows. Founded in 1928 by Saint Josemaría Escrivá (a Spanish priest who bore an uncanny resemblance to Karl Malden), Opus Dei is the short name for the Prelature for the Holy Cross and the Work of God. The sect (some would say cult) stresses a return to traditional Catholic orthodoxy and behavior, especially celibacy, with members falling into one of three levels. Numeraries live in Opus Dei facilities, devote their time and money to the prelature, attend mass daily, and engage in mortification of the flesh (wearing a spiked chain around the thigh called a cilice, taking cold showers, or flagellating themselves with a knotted rope called “the discipline”). Next come Associates (kind of like Numeraries, but living “off campus”), then Supernumeraries (the rank-and-file members). The group did gain the praise of Pope John Paul II, and has engaged in a lot of charity work. Yet, critics accuse the group of being linked to fascist organizations like Franco’s government in Spain, and of anti-Semitism and intolerance, even of other Catholics. [Photo courtesy of DanBrown.com.]

4. Skull and Bones

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     Top dog among all the collegiate secret societies, Yale’s Skull and Bones dates to 1832 and goes by other spooky names like Chapter 322 and the Brotherhood of Death. With a large number of Bonesmen who have attained positions of power, including the president and the head of the CIA, it’s no wonder that rumors abound that the society is hell-bent on obtaining power and influencing U.S. foreign policy. The fact that they meet in an imposing templelike building on the Yale campus called (what else?) the Tomb doesn’t really help. Bonesmen are selected, or “tapped,” during their junior year and can reveal their membership only after they’ve graduated. But they can never talk about it. The Bones have been accused of all sorts of crazy rituals and conspiracies, including drug smuggling and the assassination of JFK (a hated Hahvahd man, after all). It’s even rumored that the skull of Geronimo resides in the Tomb, stolen from its resting place by Prescott Bush, Dubya’s granddad. In one of the more commonly known rituals, the initiate spends all night naked in an open coffin, confessing all his sexual experiences to the group. So, who’s lucky enough to have made such a confession? George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, John Kerry, William Howard Taft, McGeorge Bundy, William F. Buckley, and Henry Luce are just a few.

5. The Bohemian Club

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     This is a weird one. In the majestic forests of Sonoma County north of San Francisco lies the Bohemian Grove, the 2,700-acre wooded retreat of the Bohemian Club, the nation’s most exclusive men’s club. Every July since 1879, the “Bohos” have gathered at the Grove for a two-week encampment, where they’re divided into more than 100 residential camps with names like Owl’s Nest, Cave Man, and Lost Angels. Membership has included, well, just about everybody important: Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon (who once called it “faggy”), Gerald Ford, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, and many CEOs and wealthy business leaders like Malcolm Forbes. Each encampment opens with a robed-and-hooded ceremony called the Cremation of Care, in which an effigy called “Dull Care” (symbolizing worldly concerns) is burned before a 40- foot concrete statue of an owl, symbol of wisdom and the club’s mascot. Throughout the week, plays are staged (called High Jinx and Low Jinx), there’s lots of eating and drinking (and, reportedly, urinating on trees), and members are treated to speeches called Lakeside Talks. Some opponents go so far as to accuse the group of Satanism, witchcraft, homosexuality, and prostitution, while more reasonable observers object to the Lakeside Talks as national policy discussions to which the public is not privy. But above all, it’s seen as a way that some of the elite meet others of the elite, thereby ensuring that they’ll all stay elite. All this makes the club’s seemingly anticonspiratorial slogan—“Weaving spiders, come not here”—that much more ironic. [Photo of Reagan & Nixon at the Bohemian Club courtesy of Wikipedia.]

6. The Trilateral Commission

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     While not, on its face, as juicily sinister as some of the other societies on this list, the Trilateral Commission has been accused of all sorts of underhanded shenanigans by its critics. Formed in 1973 by David Rockefeller, the Commission includes over 300 prominent citizens from Europe, Asia, and North America in a forum for discussing the regions’ common interests. But conspiracy theorists hold that the Trilateral Commission, along with the Council on Foreign Relations and others, is really just a front for a larger, more sinister order called the Round Table Groups, founded in London over 100 years ago and bent on the creation of a new world order, a global capitalist police state. Yikes! (For the record, some say the Round Table Groups are themselves just fronts for another society, the Illuminati, so who knows?) American members of the Trilateral Commission have included Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Dick Cheney, and Dianne Feinstein.

This article was excerpted from the mental_floss book ‘Forbidden Knowledge.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

All Work and No Play-Doh...

by Stacy Conradt

     With the excitement of Talk Like a Pirate Day and National Punctuation Day last month, I totally overlooked another important holiday that I may put on my calendar from now on – Play-Doh day. How could I have missed such a retro, kitschy holiday? We’re belatedly celebrating here on the Q10 by offering up a few fun facts about the toy that started out as a household cleaner.

1. Play-Doh was first sold as a wallpaper cleaner. People could remove soot and dirt from their wall coverings by simply rolling the wad of goop across the surface.
2. We might not have Play-Doh if it wasn’t for Captain Kangaroo. When it was just a fledgling company with no advertising budget, inventor Joe McVicker talked his way in to visit Bob Keeshan, A.K.A. Captain K. Although the company couldn’t pay the show outright, McVicker offered them two percent of Play-Doh sales for featuring the product once a week. Keeshan loved the compound and began featuring it three times weekly. After that, it caught on like wildfire and was featured on DingDongSchool and Romper Room.
3. Since its inception, two billion cans of Play-Doh have been sold. Not bad for wallpaper cleaner, huh? If you took all of that Play-Doh ever made and wadded it into a giant ball, it would weigh as much as 2,000 Statues of Liberty.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Visit Ai insurance at the 4th Annual Spookorama Car and Truck Show


and many others at the
4th Annual Spookarama Car and Truck Show

Registration is from 9AM to 12PM
Pre-1986 Vehicles ONLY
Registration Fee: $20 on the day of and $15 in advance
Contact Jim Smith @ (910) 426-3314 for info
Awards will be presented at 3:30PM

Door Prizes, 50/50 Drawing, Food, and Drinks will be available.

Awards Given: Best of Show, Best Chevy, Best Ford, Best MOPAR, Best GM, Best Mustang, Best Sports Car, Best Other, Best FWD Sports Compact, Best Truck, Diamond in the Rough, Top 40 Entries

First 75 Entries receive a dash plaque.  All entries receive a photo of their vehicle.

Saturday, October 30, 2010
Tallywood Shopping Center
3100 Raeford Rd
Fayetteville, NC