I discovered yesterday that a lot more goes into toothpaste that I originally thought. Limestone, rock salt, silica, saccharin, glycerin , sodium fluoride, chalk, and baking soda could all be scrubbing your teeth. Makes me regret eating a small tube of Crest Kids toothpaste on a dare when I was in middle school. Stupid kids… but I digress.

The roman’s toothpaste included urine, so I guess chalk is better than that. The Chinese were warned in 2007 that antifreeze was being used to produce their toothpaste. Not surprising- the Chinese seem to enjoy poisoning everything.

Mint flavored toothpaste is the most popular, but there are other bizarre flavors like bourbon, pine, apricot, etc.

Source: How it’s Made or similar Discovery Channel or Science Channel type show, some help from wiki and this site was remarkably helpful in my quest to find more details on what toothpaste is made of.

I have literally one of the first Razor phones. My old phone was dying, I went into the store, they offered me a replacement, but the Razor, which was brand new at the time, was only a little more. Well, it’s been like 3+ years and now my Razor is dying. (I wonder if Jeff smashing it on the floor the second day I had it had something to do with that? Probably not, but still a funny story to bring up.)

So Kalena and I have been talking about my phone troubles so we went into a Sprint store (the cell provider) to see if it would be cheaper for me to be added to her plan then to renew my contract with T-mobile. And while looking at phones, there we saw the Instinct. It’s Samsung’s response to the iPhone.

Touch screen, GPS, streaming video, internet access, MP3 player, the whole 9 yards.

Long story short, I got it. Kalena is thinking of getting on in March when she qualifies for her maximum discount.

Overall, it is a really cool new toy. The only complaints I can make at this point are that there doesn’t appear to be any way to pause the streaming video (which means you can’t let it buffer like I would on a pc) and the browser is a little janky. Oh, and you can’t use your MP3′s for ring-tones, but there is a work-around for that. But again, overall, a really cool new toy! I especially like the GPS function that lets you search for the cheapest gas station near your current location.

The San Francisco Treat, of course. But what’s so San Franciscan about Rice? Does the rice dress up in bondage gear and throw itself an annual parade? Does the rice hate the Marines? Did the rice adopt policies that encourage homelessness and harassment of tourists?

Nope. Nothing salacious about it. The guy who invented it was from San Francisco. He just chose to tie his product to San Fran through the marketing slogan “The San Francisco Treat” and using cable cars in the ads.

It’s actually based on an old Armenian recipe, but “The Yerevanian Treat” didn’t have quite the same ring. (Yerevan is considered to be the San Francisco of Armenia. Duh.)

I had not had the pleasure of consuming Rice-a-Roni until we moved to AZ. Not sure why that triggered the urge, but nevertheless it did.

If you’ve never had Rice-a-Roni, you may be surprised to learn that it is a mixture of Rice and Vermicelli pasta. (The guy who invented the stuff was Italian, and you know that Italians are always calling pasta “Macaroni,” hence the “Rice-a-Roni.” Those Italians also call marinara sauce “gravy” but that’s not really relevant.)

To cook it, you melt some butter and kind of sauté the rice/roni mixture, which smells a lot like the first stages of making Rice Krispie treats. Also good to know- unlike other boxed treats like macaroni and cheese, instant mashed potatoes or even Pasta Roni, Rice-a-Roni takes a long time to cook. Allow at least a half hour. Maybe closer to 40 minutes.

Source: Rice-a-Roni’s world wide web home

BTW, Vanilla Ice knows what it’s like. Having the Roni.

If, like The Wife^® and me, you grew up in the 80′s and 90′s, then you undoubtedly saw both the Christina Applegate classic “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” and the Elisabeth Shue less-classic “Adventures in Babysitting.”

And, if you are like The Wife^® and me, you had a hard time keeping the details of the two movies straight.

Well, now we know why. It’s because Keith Coogan, who played Kenny “The Dishes are Done, Man” Crandell in DTMtBD, was in both movies.

(He played Brad in AiB, where his notable costars were Vincent “Super Cop” D’Onofrio and Bradley “Josh from West Wing” Whitford)

Fear not, though. Mr. Coogan did eventually become victorious over his type casting. He went on to play Jonathan ‘Snuffy‘ Bradberry in the 1991 BEST MOVIE EVER Toy Soldiers. His co-stars in this masterpiece were Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher from TNG) and Sean Astin (Sam from LOTR).

If you’ve never seen Toy Soldiers, you need to. It’s about a bunch of kids who have to fend off Terrorists who attack their boarding school. One of the aforementioned child stars has a super kickass death scene, but I won’t tell you who, for fear of ruining the plot.

The only thing regrettable about Toy Soldiers is that the song Toy Soldiers by Martika is not used in the movie.

Ahh, Sunday. Great day for IMDB Trivia.

Source: imdb

After “The Cosby Show” ended in 1992, Bill Cosby starred with Mos Def in “The Cosby Mysteries,” which only lasted one season.

So, when mysteries didn’t work out, it was back to sitcoms, where he starred in the show “Cosby” which lasted 4 seasons. The plot revolved around Hilton Lucas (played by Cosby) who was forced to retire from his job. In doing so, he began to drive his wife crazy. Who played his wife? Why, Phylicia Rashad, of course.

Yes, there was a second Cosby/Rashad team up, and it ran 4 seasons, yet I somehow never ran into one episode.

Source: imdb

The Empire State Building is currently the tallest building in New York City. The World Trade Center Towers were taller, until a group of islamic terrorists (members of the Religion of Peace) hijacked airplanes and crashed them into the towers. The World Trade Center Towers then collapsed, killing several thousand people.

I know you know that WTC stuff, but sometimes I think that despite the pleas to “never forget,” people have forgotten.

Anyway, the Empire State Building is called The Empire State Building because New York is called The Empire State. But why is it called The Empire State?

Good Question… I think no one really knows.

Explanations found online are all quite vague like “because of the vast resources found there.” The Official New York Tourism Website Explains it like this:

In following years, New York’s economic and industrial growth made appropriate the title “The Empire State,” an expression possibly originated by George Washington in 1784.

Oh, OK.

A little more research indicates that George Washington may or may not have said something in 1784. Compton’s Encyclopedia explains it this way:

In 1784, five years before George Washington was inaugurated in New York City as the first president, he envisioned New York as the “seat of empire,” thus giving rise to its nickname–the Empire State.

Encarta says this:

It has been called the Empire State since before 1800, a reference to its wealth and variety of resources and probably derived from a comment, attributed to George Washington, that predicted that New York would become the seat of the new empire.

So to recap- it’s because George Washington may or may not have said something in 1784.

Nevertheless, New York is called The Empire State, and is the home to the Empire State Building. I mentioned the ESB (that’s what the cool kids call it) in my post about Al Smith.

But, for your reading pleasure, here is some ESB trivia:

• First the basics: 102 floors, 1,453 feet, 8 9/16 inches tall, 73 Elevators.
• Built in 1931. It took 1 year and 45 days to complete. It took over 7 million man hours of labor.
• Construction began on March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day) because Al Smith was Irish.
• Like the Sears Tower, it gets its own Zip Code.
• More than 23,000 people work there on an average day. This makes the ESB the second largest office complex- behind The Pentagon.
• Yes, the top really was built as a docking station for Airships. Don’t worry guys, I’m sure Airships will make a comeback any day now. Damn Hindenburg.
• In 1945, a B-25 Bomber crashed into the building at the 79th floor. The Bomber was on a training mission and was not carrying any bombs. The pilot became disoriented by dense fog. The crash caused damage to several of the elevators. A woman who was hurt in the initial crash was put in an elevator to get her out of the building. All of the cables snapped and she fell 75 stories. She survived, partly due to the snapped cables coiling up below her in the shaft and cushioning her landing.

Source: Science Channel, ESB Website, NY Tourism Site, Elevator World Magazine, wiki

The Bank of Italy was founded in 1904 in San Francisco by Amadeo Giannini.

During the Great Earthquake of 1906, a large part of San Francisco was destroyed, and most of the banks burned to the ground. The larger banks had their money in fireproof vaults. After the fire, these huge safes took weeks to cool down. They could not be opened until they were cool, or they risked spontaneous combustion of the paper money inside.

Bank of Italy did not have a vault. Giannini personally carried all of the money from the bank in a horse cart out of the city. He hid the cash under a bag of oranges to fool potential robbers.

While his larger competitors had to wait for their vaults to cool, Giannini carted the cash back into the city, set up a chair on the street near where his bank used to be, and started making loans. He also had the foresight to charter a few shiploads of building supplies from Washington and Oregon with his liquid capital.

He was able to capitalize on the moment to grow his bank tremendously. Eventually he merged with a Bank in Los Angeles and changed the name to Bank of America.

The company was headed by Giannini until his death in 1949. Giannini had a vision of building a national bank, and the company continued to expand. The bank was successful based on an early adoption of the branch structure that is common in banking today.

In 1958, Bank of America introduced the BankAmericard, which would eventually change its name to Visa. A confederation of competitors introduced the Master Charge (now MasterCard) to compete with the BankAmericard. The idea for the BankAmericard came from a branch manager at one of the banks.

Through a series of mergers, acquisitions, spinoffs, divestitures, and name changes Bank of America has become either the largest or second largest US bank (depending on how you calculate it).

During the recent financial meltdown Bank of America purchased the Merrill Lynch investment firm.

Source: History Channel, BofA website, and wiki

The National War College is an institution of higher learning that prepares members of the Armed Forces, State Department, and other civilian agencies for high-level policy, command, and staff responsibilities.

The enrollment is 25% each representatives of the air (Air Force), land (Army/National Guard), sea (Navy/Marines/Coast Guard) and Civilian Agencies (State Dept, Homeland Security, etc.).

The attendees are mid to upper level representatives of the agencies who have the potential to rise to the highest levels (like Admiral, General, or Chief of Staff). Courses focus on high level international strategic thinking, diplomacy, and interagency cooperation and coordination.

Bottom line- there is a school out there that teaches our best and brightest to how to be better military and civilian commanders.

BTW, John McCain attended the National War College after he was released from the POW camp.

Source: National War College Web Site

Jack Ruby was the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald is the man who shot JFK.

If you believe that.

The Kennedy Assassination is one of those historical events that I really have a hard time caring about. Yeah, it sucks that the President was shot, but the endless speculation and black helicopter theories don’t hold my interest.

So I was familiar with the character of Jack Ruby, but the piece about the strippers was new info.

As a refresher, Ruby shot Oswald two days after Kennedy was assassinated. He did it in front of a bunch of TV cameras. Why he shot Oswald is a matter of contention. At one point, Ruby, whose real name was Jacob Rubenstein, claimed it was to show the world that “Jews have guts.”

Ruby, who was also known as Sparky due to his short temper, was not a good guy by any stretch of the imagination. He was linked to organized crime, bribed police officers, and had been the suspect in the murder of a union boss.

In addition to running strip clubs, he had a public relationship with notorious Texas stripper Candy Barr.

Source: History Channel and wiki for some followup

Joe. He’s 6 years younger. He also has an older sister named Sandy.

Information on Joe is hard to come by.

He mostly tries to stay out of the spotlight, but failed miserably a few days ago when audio surfaced of him calling 911 to complain about traffic. That’s the first I ever heard that McCain had a brother.

Joe did attend the Naval Academy, but only made it a year. He served on a battleship during the Vietnam War. After the war he did a stint as a newspaper reporter, and then as a stage actor.

He tries not to speak publicly, lest he do damage to John’s campaign. Which is probably a good idea, since the only time his name comes up is when he says something stupid.

Source: The Boston Globe