Actor Dennis Quaid is habitually late. He has started carrying multiple pockets watches set to different times, so that when he arrives late he can pull out a watch set to show that he is on time. He then apologizes and makes a show of resetting the watch to the correct time.

A Candadian company is testing a jacket filled with specially-treated porcupine quills. The quills are treated to become somewhat softer. The quills offer incredible thermal insulation allowing the wearer to work comfortably in temperatures up to -60 degrees Fahrenheit. The quills are also sturdy enough that they provide protection against a .22 caliber bullet. The jackets are specifically intended for member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but there has been a great deal of interest from Russian law enforcement.

Oprah Winfrey keeps 10% of her personal net worth in Sacagawea gold dollars, as a way of honoring strong women that came before her. The coinage is stored in several secure locations and weighs over 1300 tons.

McDonald's is working on making a more heart-healthy Big Mac by using ground earthworms to substitute for up to 25% of the burger.

The South American guanaco, a relative of the llama, can spit hard enough to draw blood.

85% of department store Santas are high school football players that never played in college.

In 2005, the Alabama State Senate voted on a resolution declaring that sushi was "contrary to the values and ideals of the finest Alabama cuisine" and that "it (sushi) would henceforth be classified as Yankee trash".

The first day of each new session of the Australian Parliament always ends with a beer-chugging contest. The winner of the contest has his or her choice of legislative committee assignments. Every Australian Prime Minister since 1904 has won at least one of the these competitions.

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The average American inhales over 20 tons of fecal particles, from various sources, over the course of his lifetime.

Until 1973, the Vatican maintained a committee of three elderly priests to watch and comment on controversial movies and formulate official Church opinions. The priests were chosen for their extensive knowledge of Catholic theology, history and doctrine. This policy was changed due to the release of The Exorcist. The images and words of the movie were so frightening and upsetting to the 70+ year priests that two of them had to be hospitalized and the remaining one retired to a monastery. The committee still exists today, but the maximum age of the priests who serve on it is capped at 50.

Although there were animal-based precursors, the ancient Aztecs were the first society in the world to develop the rubber condom. They were very effective but were almost never used as the rubber had to be applied directly, and at a temperature just short of boiling.

Fashion designer Ralph Lauren is a committed environmentalist and is hard at work finding clothes that are made from ecologically-beneficial and renewable resources. He believes that the best hope in this direction is cloth made from insect parts. He claims that his researchers are, at most, 18 months away from a breathable, soft cloth made entirely from pulverized ants.

Chile leads the world in reported paranormal encounters by a wide margin. Every year, over 80,000 paranormal incidents are reported in Chile. Of these incidents, chupacabra sightings are the largest subset, with over 12,000 encounters a year.

When basketball star Shaquille O'Neal was 16, he grew 2 inches in one 48 hour period. He was extremely hungry from the caloric necessities of the growth, but he was also in excruciating pain. After 15 hours in the hospital, during which time he ate over 10 pounds of food, he was in such pain that doctors induced a coma and let him sleep until he stopped growing. While he was unconscious he was fed through a tube. His body consumed over 50,000 calories.

Although they were originally invented in California, fortune cookies have become very popular in modern China. Many restaurants have hired professional fortune tellers to produce the fortunes. The problem with having individuals overseeing the fortune writing process is that they are susceptible to bribes. Chinese gangsters have been paying fortune writers to write fortunes predicting death. The gangsters then slip there fake fortunes to their rivals and kill them under questionable circumstances, always taking care to leave the fortune with the dead man. Many of the police are superstitious and will not investigate further once they find the fortunes with the body.

Many mainstream movies and television shows inspire porn remakes. 75% of the new television shows in 2006 inspired porn spinoffs. But the record for porn-inspired spinoffs is the television show Miami Vice, which (at last count) has directly influenced over 700 porn movies.

Theodor Geisel, AKA Dr. Seuss, got his inspiration for his book The Cat in the Hat from a schizophrenic friend who only spoke in rhyme and insisted on dressing up all of his pets. Ironically, the friend never owned a cat because he thought that they were agents of the Government bent on stealing his canned goods. Geisel left this part out of the book, although he did acknowledge that he based the goldfish's paranoia about things going wrong on his mentally-ill acquaitance.

Actor Keanu Reeves lists the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Commando as being the most personally influential work of art that he has ever experienced. In a 2003 interview, Reeves said "I've seen the movie at least 75 times. It never gets old. It's the first movie that I ever saw that really made me appreciate the magic of the cinematic process, how it can be used to change lives and make them better. And the main character, John Matrix, is great. Since I first saw the movie I have always tried to live my lifes by the ideals that Matrix holds. I have a WWJD bracelet and in my mind I always use John instead of Jesus. Also, I know for a fact that if it wasn't for this movie, I would never have even thought about playing the role of Neo. I read the script for the The Matrix and thought that it was needlessly violent and philosophically confused. But I could never get over the name, and eventually that is what caused me to take the role."

Although politician Mitt Romney is a teetotaler in keeping with his Mormon beliefs, he likes to gargle with vodka because he thinks that it gives him a "devil-may-care" attitude.