Today I Learned …

When you’re thinking about getting your freak on, be glad you’re not a giraffe. In order to determine the best time to mate, a male giraffe will continuously head-butt the female in the bladder until she urinates. Then he tastes the pee and determines whether or not the female is ovulating.

Today I Learned …

Fearing that he might lose his job at a New Zealand ad agency, Joshua Jack took an emotional support clown to an important work meeting. He hired Joe the Clown for $200 in an attempt to lighten the mood with his employers. In the end, he was still fired, but he did have two balloon animals — a unicorn and a poodle — that the clown had made noisily during the meeting. (from Ripley’s Believe It or Not: Out of the Box)

Today I Learned …

At the height of the Battle of Germantown in 1777 during the Revolutionary War, George Washington ordered a ceasefire to return a lost dog to its owner, enemy general Sir William Howe. The little terrier was found wandering the battlefield between the American and British lines. Washington took the dog to his tent, fed him, and had him washed and brushed before returning him to Howe. Once this was done, the battle resumed. (Unfortunately, this bid for karma didn’t succeed. The British won the battle.) (from Ripley’s Believe It or Not: Out of the Box)

Today I Learned …

Hitler gave gifts of honey to wounded soldiers with a sweet note that read “Ein Gruss des Fuhrers an Seine Verwundeten” (“Greetings from the Fuhrer to his wounded”) — though, fittingly, it was really just cheap imitation honey made from beet syrup and yellow food coloring. (from The Secret History of Food, by Matt Siegel)

Today I Learned …

When the Eighteenth Amendment outlawed the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol in the 1920s, many American breweries such as Anheuser-Busch turned to making ice cream to stay afloat. (After all, the ingredients for ice cream — fat, sugar, and vanilla — are a decent substitute for alcohol in drowning one’s feelings.) In fact, ice cream stood in for alcohol as a source of national comfort so much that by 1929, ice cream consumption in the United States had grown to about a million gallons per day. This crashed, along with the rest of the country, in the Great Depression … but the Depression also brought us Rocky Road ice cream. We don’t know who actually invented the flavor, but it was popularized in 1929 by two ice cream makers from California. William Dreyer and Joseph Edy used “rocky road” as a culinary metaphor for the hard times the country was going through. Before this, toppings were primarily just available at the point of sale and sprinkled on top (think of the Dairy Queen business model). The idea of mixing marshmallows and nut chunks was weird, but people dug it. It was a reminder that life could be sweet, even when filled with broken, rocky pieces. (from The Secret History of Food, by Matt Siegel)

Today I Learned …

Mount Olive, North Carolina, home of the Mount Olive Pickle Company (located at 1 Cucumber Boulevard),rings in the New Year with a pickle drop. At the stroke of 7 pm, a 3-foot-long pickle drops from the top of a 45-foot flagpole into a redwood pickle tank. The pickle hits, splashing brine all over spectators as they cheer and applaud. Part of the event is a canned food drive — all participants are entered to win an inflatable pool pickle. Why 7 pm? 7 pm EST happens to be midnight Greenwich Mean Time, which makes things official. (from Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide, by Cecily Wong and Dylan Thuras.)

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 12: Lights Out Extra!

And we’re here together on Christmas Eve. Here is my Christmas present to you all: an extra episode of Lights Out. In this episode, we’ll hear a reading of “Smee”, a short story by A. M. Burrage from 1931. Burrage brings the spooky with this ghostly tale. Merry Christmas! https://youtu.be/J9o1k1wUauE

And I wish you all a very Merry Saturkwanzukah, and the best of all possible New Years. Be safe, be well, and be good to each other. Thanks so much for dropping by, and on your way out, swing by www.weirddarkness.com and wish Darren and the rest of the weirdos a Merry Christmas as well.