Merry Christmas Fun Facts and Riddles!

Lets see...The tree is up and decorated, Santa is ready to deliver all the good little boys and girls presents and the turkey (or ham) is ready for the oven! Tomorrow is Christmas and if your children are like mine were a few years ago, they will have you up at 4:00am yelling "Santa has been here!!!" Ahhh the wonders of Christmas and looks like this year we will be under a blanket of white. I personally am not a real fan of that white stuff, but it is very pretty if you are inside, warm and have a full tummy! I have put together a few things so that AFTER the presents are opened, dinner has been consumed, maybe even after the "naps" are taken, you can sit back and enjoy a couple of riddles and fun facts to unwind. Merry Christmas to all.... Please be safe and enjoy the holiday season!! (ANSWERS WILL BE POSTED NEXT WEEK).

Random Fun Facts:
1. Pearls melt in vinegar.
2. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
3. Every second over 7,000 Coca-Cola products are consumed.
4. Every second, Americans collectively eat one hundred pounds of chocolate.
5. As of 2007, China had about 30 million cars and light trucks for 1.3 billion people. The U.S. had about 240 million cars for 300 million people.
6. There are only four words in the common English language that end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
7. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
8. 'Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
9. You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.
10. Google's name is a play on the word googol, which refers to the number 1 followed by one hundred zeroes.

Bizarre facts:
1. Did you know...
Jerkwater is a railroad term. Until about fifty years ago, most trains were pulled by thirsty steam engines that needed to refill their boilers from water towers next to the tracks. But some towns were so small and inconsequential that they lacked a water tower. When trains stopped in those places, the crew had to find a nearby stream or well and, bucket-brigade style, "jerk" the water to the train. Those little dots on the map became known as jerkwater towns.

2. Did you know...
As much as 40-percent of the entire world's varieties of freshwater fish are to be found in the Amazon River basin. There are about 8,600 species of birds in the entire world, and more than half of them are also represented in this area.

3. Did you know...
The greatest snowfall ever in a single storm was 189 inches at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl in February, 1959.

4. Did you know...
Macadamia nuts are not sold in their shells because it takes 300 pounds per square inch of pressure to break the shell.

5. Did you know...
Every U.S. bill regardless of denomination costs just 4 cents to make.

6. Did you know...
The average four year-old child asks over four hundred questions a day.

Computer Age Sayings
1. Home is where you hang your @.
2. The E-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.
3. A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.
4. You can't teach a new mouse old clicks.
5. Great groups from little icons grow.
6. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone.
7. C: is the root of all directories.
8. Don't put all your hypes in one home page.
9. Pentium wise; pen and paper foolish.
10. The modem is the message.
11. Too many clicks spoil the browse.
12. The geek shall inherit the earth.
13. A chat has nine lives.
14. Don't byte off more than you can view.
15. Fax is stranger than fiction.
16. What boots up must come down.
17. Windows will never cease.
18. In Gates we trust (and our tender is legal).
19. Virtual reality is its own reward.
20. Modulation in all things.
21. A user and his leisure time are soon parted.
22. There's no place like www.home.com.
23. Know what to expect before you connect.
24. Oh, what a tangled Web site we weave when first we practice.
25. Speed thrills.
26. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.

Can you find the eleven hidden colours in the following paragraph?

Many injured animals are invited to live at the 'Toronto Range'. Stop in kangaroo corner and marvel at the lovely creatures within. Dig over the potato patch to find small furry caterpillars, but don't yell! Owls can be found swooping for edible rodents, earwigs or perhaps bluebottles in the undergrowth. The brown bear, Rob, lacks grace and may look like an ogre, enter at your own risk! Peacocks can be found showing their colourful wares, which look fantastic when viewed with our ultraviolet torch.

On the 7th Day:
On July 7th, I had a most unusual day. I woke up at exactly 7:07, stumbled to my refrigerator and had a 7up. I got dressed, went downstairs, and caught the number 7 bus to go to my office on 77th street. While sitting in my office on the 7th floor, it dawned on me how my day was going so I called my bookie and placed a $777 bet on the number 7 horse in the seventh race, whose name was Seventh Heaven, to win.

Do you know what happened?

POINTLESS QUESTIONS:

If North is West, and South is North, then when does the wind blow East?
What is the square route of Orange?
If a triangle is happy, and a circle is sad, then what is a rectangle?
If a dog travels into the future and bites his own tail, when does he feel it?
If a man can talk to himself, then can a shadow cast a shadow?
If yellow is 3, and blue is 7, then what number is brown?
What is half of Tuesday?
If a bird eats a frog and chokes to death, then who killed who?
From what animal do we get cat gut?
In which month do the Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
From which animal are the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean named after?
What was King George VI's first name?
What color is a purple finch?
How long did the Hundred Years War last?
Which country makes Panama hats?
Where are Chinese gooseberries from?

RIDDLES:
1. This is a most unusual paragraph - and so is its companion paragraph that follows. This writing may annoy you until you find out why it is so unusual, for you won't find a solution instantly. But don't go into a tailspin about it, for it isn't that difficult. But you will admit that it is most unusual. This writing looks so ordinary that you might think that nothing is worng with it. And, in fact, nothing is wrong with it. But it is unusual, and you must ask why. If you study and think about it, you may find out why, but you must do it without any coaching of any kind. No doubt if you work at it for long, it will dawn on you...who knows? So start to study it now, and try your skill at finding out what is so unusual about this writing. If you can do it in half an hour, you may claim an approach to wisdom, but if you can't do it in half an hour...find our solution
2. What English word can have 4 of its 5 letters taken away and still retain its original pronunciation?
3. What happened in 1961 that will not happen again for over 4000 years?
4. What is it that no man ever saw, which never was, but always will be?
5. What 3 letters change a girl into a woman?
6. What always goes up but never comes down?
7. What 5 letter word can be rearranged 3 different times to get 3 different words each containing 1 more syllable than the last? The word has no duplicates of letters.
8. Jenn picked a book off the highest shelf in her room. On the spine she read "How to Jog". She ran out of the room and opened the book but found it had absolutely nothing to do with jogging. What was the book about?
9. A woman owns a shop and the first day she had 13 customers, the second day she had 14 customers, the third 95, and the fourth 62. Following the sequence, how many customers will she have tomorrow?
10. Eternally I am 1 to 6, Eternally I am 15 to 20, I am always 5, but I am never 21 unless I am flying. What am I?
11. With no wings, I fly. With no eyes, I see. With no arms, I climb. More frightening than any beast, stronger than any foe. I am cunning, ruthless, and tall; in the end, I rule all. What am I?
12. I never was, am always to be, no one ever saw me, nor ever will. And yet I am the confidence of all who live and breath on this terrestrial ball. What am I?