June 4, 2025 • 22 mins
René and Shawn help you out by providing fun facts that you didn’t know you need to know.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to another Curveball production, Back from the cabin and
coming to you from the Northern Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We attempted to record this podcast out on the deck
because it is a gorgeous morning, but the cacophony of
noise was a bit much, with the neighbor's dog barking,
the birds freaking out, and wind.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
The birds freaking out. Actually was kind of nice.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It was true story. When I came down, Sean typically
gets out of bed five minutes before me, and so
he comes down and starts the coffee and feeds the dog,
and I look out on the deck five minutes he's
already wrapped up in a beautiful afghan his mother made,
and he couldn't have looked more aged, and the color
(00:57):
scheme like I so wish we were live because it's
a beautiful like shades of blue afghan. And then he's
got red and black buffalo pajama pants on and a
T shirt and he was wrapped up in it like
he was one hundred and fifty years old, drinking his
coffee and his emotional support coffee mug. It was I
took a picture and I didn't tell him. I took
(01:17):
a picture, and then I texted it to him and
said potential LinkedIn post.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
She sniped me. She's big into sniping pictures.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I do not appreciate when I'm snack.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
No, that's but occasionally she gets that, both from me
and from her kids, and uh, you know, payback. It's
the way it works. But yeah, we got back from
the cabin and had to do the usual rituals, mowld
the lawn, yep, do lots of laundry.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
And I brought back some friends.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yes you did, Yes, I did.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I brought back a couple of wood tick friends, which
was fantastic. It has created quite the little problem in
my life this week. Now. I've had a number of
ticks on me over the years, as one is wont
to do living in the Midwest and spending a lot
of time outdoors. This one, one of them was buried
a little bit deep, and I think he still has
(02:11):
a leg in there. I don't know. But now I've
started with some symptoms and we're not quite sure if
I'm coming down with concaus of the boncus or if
I perhaps need to go to urgent care and let
them know about the not one, but two tick bites
that have created a little bit of havoc in my life.
I have excruciating pain in the left side of my face, yeah,
(02:33):
and my ear and my skin, like everything hurts. Anyway,
I realize none of you, well some of you might
be medical professionals, but you're not gonna help me much
on this podcast. So now we're in limbo, like, is
this something that's really going to be a hassle and
I need to go get checked out? Or can we
just assume that I'm coming down with some sort of
seasonal crud.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
The plan is, hopefully, is to make sure that she
stays healthy enough to take me to the airport today, right,
and then after that then she can figure out exactly
what's going on. It is. I'm not gonna lie. It
is a bit concerning the whole, the whole, the way
the whole process has come about, and the fact that
it's just these weird symptoms.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
True, it is very weird, especially because I don't have
any other symptoms. But anyway, something I did learn because
I thought I was dealing with one tick bite and
and yes, I bathed daily, and I shaved and whatever,
and then I went to bed on Tuesday night, so
I'd already been home a full day and I felt
a little itch behind my knee, and sure enough, there
(03:34):
was another wood tick. So that's when I started freaking out,
and I did what any American girl does. She just
starts googling the crap out of the Google. And I
thought I knew everything there was to know about wood ticks,
but I was wrong, and I learned a fun fact.
And now this whole podcast is going to be about
fun facts. However, Sean had some fun facts before this
(03:57):
even happened. It just it all worked out, so it's Sarah,
I guess.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
And so so basically the podcast is about fun facts
that start because Renee might have limes disease.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Okay, let's go well no, but isn't it interesting to
find out so woodticks, as people know in this area,
we have general wood ticks and then we have you know,
deer ticks. The general woodticks are black wood ticks. They're
a little bit bigger. Apparently they don't spread disease quite
the same way that the deer ticks do. Nonetheless, what
I learned, which I thought was kind of cute but creepy,
(04:28):
that you know, we all know that woodticks hang out
like in long grass and wooded areas, and we did
a lot of brush removal the last couple of weekends,
so that's probably how this happened. Any who, Apparently, woodticks
hang out on blades of grass, but they hang out
in a way that they're facing outward with their front
legs kind of up like they're gonna hug somebody. And
(04:49):
it's called questing, right, questing, So they wait until some
unsuspecting animal or human goes by, and then they latch
ondia and then they find the blood source. But they
make it sound so cute when they say the wood
ticks are questing. I was like, well, I've never quite
heard of it before, and herein is the beginning of
(05:10):
our podcast.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I think. Yes, when you first mentioned questing, I thought
to myself, Oh, that is interesting. You know you're out,
you know, trying to find the arc or something of that. No,
it's just a human to latch onto interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Interesting. So anyway, stay tuned next week. If Sean's recording
by himself, you'll know that I shouldn't even make jokes
about this. Limes disease is kind of a serious thing.
It is a very I just think it's coincidence that
I'm coming down with some sort of sinus crud. We
will we will go with that, and Doctor Pank, if
you're listening, I also have a little bit of a toothache,
(05:46):
so that could be it. Wow, okay, and that's.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
A little bit of a mess, just a bit, but yeah,
So we started we started just thinking about fun facts. Also,
it kind of came about in the serendipitous way that
Norm from Cheers died, Yeah, and which brought up Cliff Claven,
(06:10):
who was one of my favorite characters. I kind of
resemble Cliff.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And I've called you Cliff a number of times.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
One of my uh, one of my favorite everybody knows
when Normal would walk into the bar, not not everybody,
but people of a certain age. When Norm would walk
into a bar, people would ask him how things are going,
and he'd have his pithy comebacks. And one of my
favorites of all time is Norm walks into the bar
and uh, I don't know which character asked him a question,
but said, hey, Norm, what's shaken him? And Norm says
(06:41):
two cheeks, four No, four cheeks and three chins. And
I thought that was the funniest thing ever, because I
resemble that, and I thought to myself, yes, I like
this guy anyway. Hats off norm but even hats off
more to Cliff. That's who would really joy the fun
(07:01):
fact that when you cut your grass, you get that
fresh cut smell of the grass, and everybody really likes that.
That is actually a distress call from the grass.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I thought this was fantastic. I actually texted this one
of my dad, who mows his lawn like three times
a week, no joke, at seventy seven years old, and
it is a distress call to the other plants in
the area. Apparently the grass releases some chemicals and you know,
spreads the word. And I'm like, this is hilarious because
find me somebody who doesn't love the smell of fresh
(07:37):
cut grass, right, It's like, great, we just love the
fact that the grass is in pain.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It's the tears of the grass that we're smelling.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Right, And think and think about I bet dad doesn't
have a lot of woodticks in his lawn because there's
no reason for him to hang on to the grass.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
The requests do not end well.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And which brings up then another fun fact that when
you have when you duke, when a human cries they
have you know, the tears have a different composition based
on why you are crying, because I'd like to keep
some things to myself. If you're crying because you're happy,
or you're sad, or you're you're scared, it's because your body, well,
(08:24):
your body will have different hormones that are based coming
out based on those responses, and those affect the composition
composition of the tears.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, now you got me thinking, I need to research
this a little bit more, like are they saltier or what?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Like?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
What is the composition? And I bet now that you
mention it, it's the same for sweat, Like when you perspire.
I wonder if the composition of your sweat is different
based on the reason why you're all ramped up, Like
are you truly hot or did you get yourself into
a little bit of a mind and you're feeling anxious
and lucky maybe you're having a warmest episode.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Maybe there's that too, But lucky for you, well, I'm
actually unlucky for you. You will not be able to test
my tears because my tears with you are only those
of joy.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Oh wow, yeah, sorry, So I could use that as
a test subject.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Well, thanks for that, You're welcome. But so and then,
what are the fun facts can we talk about here?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well, this one has been going viral on the internet,
so it's probably not new news to some of our
younger listeners. But do you know that otters have a
little pocket in their armpit where they stored their favorite rock? Well, exactly,
there you go. See I wish I would have thought
of that, but yeah, they store their favorite rock in
a little pocket in their armpit and then they take
(09:44):
it out so that they can crack open shells for eating,
so they can eat the meat inside. And I was like,
this is crazy. So I when I first saw it
like six months ago, I thought it was super cute
and I forgot about it and it just popped up
again yesterday and I was like, well, we need to
add that to the fun Fact podcast.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I wonder what makes a rock a favorite rock?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I don't know. It must just I don't know. Maybe
it's a flatish like a tool. Well, think about the
caveman days. I mean, it's not that far for you
to think of. Well no, but I mean, you know,
when you find the right stick, Like, how do you
determine what the perfect walking stick is or a rock.
I mean it's gonna have to like a rock I
would imagine would be maybe smooth and flat if you're
(10:26):
trying to get it in there to crack open a shell.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I don't know. That's it's just a question.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
To be a heart shaped rock.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Very uh saying in the animal ish world, did not
know and again, not sure why I would ever know
or ever care. But cow's cannot walk downstairs. Well, they
could walk upstairs, but they cannot walk downstairs. Now again,
I'm not sure why this would ever come into play
(10:59):
because I'm not sure why you would have a cop
I don't know if you would have, like in a
barn situation, you'd put them because they're two. I don't
know why.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
What I'm thinking about right now is, Wow, I'm more
similar to a cow. I really prefer to go upstairs
ursus down. I do.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
It's an ability.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Oh that's true.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And then because we're talking cows, we'll just talk say
out in the on the west side, Wyoming. The state
of Wyoming has only two escalators in the whole state.
Everything everything is that they just don't use escalators.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It's probably similar to Canada. Canada probably only has two escalators.
Probably oh sorry to our Canadian listeners.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Well why would they why would they have more?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
And I like the idea that there aren't a lot
of escalators. And a fun fact, your mom is anti escalator. Yes,
I didn't know that until a few years ago out
of Twins game. And they are suspect when you think
about that. You get on this moving sidewalk of sorts
that's on a hip. Okay, it can randomly stop for
no reason, like, for instance, what of some little brat
(12:05):
oop sorry child decides to just hit that emergency button
and you're like in the middle of a conversation and
you get jostled and fall to your death. It's funny
we don't hear about more escalator accidents there.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I have a couple of very sad stories that I
won't go into escalators. But and for all of you
out there who don't know the proper protocol on an escalator.
When you get to the bottom of the escalator and
you don't know exactly which direction to go right or left,
don't just stop for go forward, or you go right
(12:36):
and left and then figure it out right Too many
I hate when you were at, especially when you're at
sporting events and people get to the bottom of the escalator,
they stop and they go, now, where do we go?
That was my old person voice.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Wow, it sounds a lot like when I imitate my
mom kind of who that. But yeah, logic, that is
what you're creating.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Absolutely, you know what.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I thought? It was really interesting to find out we've
got some family over in France. Actually, my boss and
his family is also in France. And we learned a
fun fact that the Eiffel Tower can be fifteen centimeters taller,
which is almost six inches for you American folk. Thermal
expansion heats up the iron and it gains kinetic energy.
(13:21):
The particles in the iron gain kinetic energy and they
take up more space. So in the summertime the Eiffel
Tower can be up to six inches taller than in
the winter.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Who would have known.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
I am not a science person. I suppose a lot
of science people are nodding their head, going yeah, well, yeah,
of course.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Again, I probably I didn't learn that when I.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Was studying thirteenth century English lit.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Speaking of the the of the Olden times. Because of
Scotland's love of mythology, their national animal is actually a unicorn. Really, yes,
an animal that does not exist is their national animal.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That speaks a lot about the scott Old. I mean,
there's a lot of things in question about Scott's anyway,
but there we go.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, that and the fact that they have they have
four hundred and twenty one words for snow.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Oh you're kidding.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
You'd always think, like we always heard that the Eskimos
have a lot of words for snow Scotland four hundred
and twenty one.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Interesting yet no pants? Good point, Well, they do have pants.
I mean, hey, who isn't a fan of the Outlander
books and or show?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You are, Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
It's it's pretty titillating stuff. Speaking of titillating, Sean, is
it butt naked or buck naked?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I always say butt naked.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I always say buck naked. So we looked it up. Yes,
fun fact, both are correct. Buck naked is a little
bit more old school. But the younger folk, which you know,
you don't necessarily identify as they to say butt naked.
But both are accurate.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Well, I'll see, I'm just trying to keep up with
the kids, right right, trying to you know, just yeah,
that's as far as I know, I was actually in uh.
I took Noah and two of his friends who are
twenty one twenty two years old to the Twins game
when they were back this summer earlier this summer, and
they were in they were having their conversation amongst themselves
(15:25):
and speaking in a language I had never heard before.
I had no idea what they're talking about. They were
throwing out words and I'm like, what what do you?
And I didn't. I didn't have time to actually ask
them what they were saying, but they kind of all
knew what they were talking about.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
It was very odd, just the different things.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, it was very anyway.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
You know what you could have done in the meantime,
You could have started humming and then been really cool
and said, hey, guys, do you know that you can't
hum when you hold your nose and you can try
it listening?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Well, you are, I know you are right.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
But if you're humming and you try to plug your nose,
you can't hum. It just it goes away.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
So so when you're starting to hum, I can just
plug your nose. Got it all right? Fair enough?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You could stop me from singing or talking.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The here's one that I that I ran across. That
could be a whole podcast on its own. But there
is a there's a spot in the South Pacific called
Point Nemo and they it is called the Oceanic Pole
of Inaccessibility. How about that for a term. It is
(16:40):
a spot in the in the South Pacific Ocean that
is the furthest point from any land mass.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So what do they do there? Like, how did somebody
determine this? So what do they do? Well?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It is it? They? I guess based on math, bology, cryptology.
They they they figured that it is. It is two
six and eighty eight kilometers from the closest land mass
and they figured that that is the farthest point from
any land mass that's out there. And what they do
(17:14):
there is because I guess, because it is the furthest
that's where space vessels get dumped, like the Mere space station.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
It's like the safe place for them to dump it
because they've got less of a chance of running into
some humans on land.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And they use it and they use it. That's also
a spot for research then, so they research you know
what happens when they do dump space vessels in there?
Plus the different the creatures and plankton and all that
stuff that's out there. Anyway, I'd never heard of point
nemo before me either.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I love the fact that they call it point nemo.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yes, it's nemo Latin for no.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
One speaking of Latin. Really long words that none of
us remember. How One of the fun facts we learned
was there is a term for the fear of long words. Ironically,
the term for the fear of long words is a
thirty six letter word and it is called the term
is hippopota monstrous equipped allophobia. That is one word that
(18:16):
you said, let me see if hippopota monstrous equipped allophobia,
and that is the fear of long words. Apparently it
was created or invented back in first century BC, uh,
because they were annoyed with some of these writers basically
making up long words and making life complicated. And you
know what, I think that is a great flex. Yeah,
(18:39):
so you know what, we're going to invent the longest
word ever. No, okay, that's not the longest word ever.
I can't remember we had that on a podcast. But
I love the fact that it's hippopota monstrous equipped aliophobia. Anyway,
you can.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Monstrous hip hop right right, and.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
What's a hippopota monstrous? Equipped? Like I just love I mean,
if you break this and I don't even know honestly,
if I'm pronouncing it correctly. I had to break it
out phonetically because I was struggling. But I thought that
was a fun fact.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
The can I go back to food for a second?
Do we ever go to food? We were going to
go to food.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
We talked about otters eating, but I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Dang it, all right, well I'm going back to food anyway.
That in the business is called a very poor segue, right,
But I did it anyway.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I'm pretty sure that's why people will stop listening to
our podcast.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Probably because yes, but because I wanted to get to this,
because I had no idea of two different things. One okay,
the the fun fact is that a chef's hat has
one hundred plats.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Do you know why?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yes? I do, because that one hundred ways. There's one
hundred ways that you can cook an egg.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And so two things came to mind. Was really chef's
hat hundred plats, all of them. I mean, I didn't
know that that was a thing, And what are one
hundred ways you could cook an egg.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I wonder if cooking it on a blacktop on a
hot summer day is one of the ways.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It might be. I just that's a lot of ways
you can cook. And to that point, is it like
in a pan or in a pot? Are those two
different things?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I just don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I think that sounds like a fun winter weekend project.
We will buy one hundred eggs and attempt to be expensive.
Oh that's true. Oh my goodness. Yeah, we'd have to
get a part time job just to afford.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
The egg we'll have to do. We'll have to get
potatoes because they're cheaper, because you can use potatoes for
Easter eggs. So we'll get potatoes and see if there's
hundred ways cook a potato, because if you cook an egg,
a hundred ways.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Potato, I've never met a potato I don't like.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
So I mean we can. Maybe that's what we'll do.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Okay, fair enough, right? I like that fun fact. What's
the other food fact?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
That was it? There was no other food fact. I
was trying to segue into food, and I thought we'd
maybe talked about food, but that was it.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
There was something about a banana, but because I have
a little PTSD with banana as I just moved.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
They're like toxic or something like that.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Oh yeah, they radioactive radioactive. Yeah, we found out that
bananas have a radioactive which is just crazy, which must
be the real reason I don't like bananas.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Did you know? See I'm not even a segue too,
I'm just going to jump right into it. Did you
know that some turtles can breathe out their butts?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
No, wonder why a turtle is my spirit animal?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Like exactly, the talk.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Out of my butt, I breathe out of my butt.
This is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
They have like some have like gill like things, which
is probably why. Maybe you see turtles they'll be or
is it ducks that you have their butt sticking out
with the water.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah, it's often, well I don't know if I've ever
seen Yeah, I've seen turtles like head down, you know,
like butt in the air, but not as often as
I've seen ducks. And one of my favorite sayings when
somebody says something obvious, I say, is a duck's butt
water tight?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
And of course the only appropriate response is I.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Sure hope so wow never gets never.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
But you know what, we have little fear of opinions
very little.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yea, you can. If you don't like this podcast, tell
us well, because we'll know because we don't have that fear.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
There is a term for the fear of opinions. The
fear of other people's opinions is called allah doxophobia.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
We do not suffer from this.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
We don't. I mean, we know that people have opinions,
but we know it's our podcast.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
So we can so if you again, if you have
any comments, good, bad, otherwise, please let us know.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
This has been another Curveball production.
Welcome to another Curveball production, Back from the cabin and
coming to you from the Northern Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We attempted to record this podcast out on the deck
because it is a gorgeous morning, but the cacophony of
noise was a bit much, with the neighbor's dog barking,
the birds freaking out, and wind.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
The birds freaking out. Actually was kind of nice.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It was true story. When I came down, Sean typically
gets out of bed five minutes before me, and so
he comes down and starts the coffee and feeds the dog,
and I look out on the deck five minutes he's
already wrapped up in a beautiful afghan his mother made,
and he couldn't have looked more aged, and the color
(00:57):
scheme like I so wish we were live because it's
a beautiful like shades of blue afghan. And then he's
got red and black buffalo pajama pants on and a
T shirt and he was wrapped up in it like
he was one hundred and fifty years old, drinking his
coffee and his emotional support coffee mug. It was I
took a picture and I didn't tell him. I took
(01:17):
a picture, and then I texted it to him and
said potential LinkedIn post.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
She sniped me. She's big into sniping pictures.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I do not appreciate when I'm snack.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
No, that's but occasionally she gets that, both from me
and from her kids, and uh, you know, payback. It's
the way it works. But yeah, we got back from
the cabin and had to do the usual rituals, mowld
the lawn, yep, do lots of laundry.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
And I brought back some friends.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yes you did, Yes, I did.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I brought back a couple of wood tick friends, which
was fantastic. It has created quite the little problem in
my life this week. Now. I've had a number of
ticks on me over the years, as one is wont
to do living in the Midwest and spending a lot
of time outdoors. This one, one of them was buried
a little bit deep, and I think he still has
(02:11):
a leg in there. I don't know. But now I've
started with some symptoms and we're not quite sure if
I'm coming down with concaus of the boncus or if
I perhaps need to go to urgent care and let
them know about the not one, but two tick bites
that have created a little bit of havoc in my life.
I have excruciating pain in the left side of my face, yeah,
(02:33):
and my ear and my skin, like everything hurts. Anyway,
I realize none of you, well some of you might
be medical professionals, but you're not gonna help me much
on this podcast. So now we're in limbo, like, is
this something that's really going to be a hassle and
I need to go get checked out? Or can we
just assume that I'm coming down with some sort of
seasonal crud.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
The plan is, hopefully, is to make sure that she
stays healthy enough to take me to the airport today, right,
and then after that then she can figure out exactly
what's going on. It is. I'm not gonna lie. It
is a bit concerning the whole, the whole, the way
the whole process has come about, and the fact that
it's just these weird symptoms.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
True, it is very weird, especially because I don't have
any other symptoms. But anyway, something I did learn because
I thought I was dealing with one tick bite and
and yes, I bathed daily, and I shaved and whatever,
and then I went to bed on Tuesday night, so
I'd already been home a full day and I felt
a little itch behind my knee, and sure enough, there
(03:34):
was another wood tick. So that's when I started freaking out,
and I did what any American girl does. She just
starts googling the crap out of the Google. And I
thought I knew everything there was to know about wood ticks,
but I was wrong, and I learned a fun fact.
And now this whole podcast is going to be about
fun facts. However, Sean had some fun facts before this
(03:57):
even happened. It just it all worked out, so it's Sarah,
I guess.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
And so so basically the podcast is about fun facts
that start because Renee might have limes disease.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Okay, let's go well no, but isn't it interesting to
find out so woodticks, as people know in this area,
we have general wood ticks and then we have you know,
deer ticks. The general woodticks are black wood ticks. They're
a little bit bigger. Apparently they don't spread disease quite
the same way that the deer ticks do. Nonetheless, what
I learned, which I thought was kind of cute but creepy,
(04:28):
that you know, we all know that woodticks hang out
like in long grass and wooded areas, and we did
a lot of brush removal the last couple of weekends,
so that's probably how this happened. Any who, Apparently, woodticks
hang out on blades of grass, but they hang out
in a way that they're facing outward with their front
legs kind of up like they're gonna hug somebody. And
(04:49):
it's called questing, right, questing, So they wait until some
unsuspecting animal or human goes by, and then they latch
ondia and then they find the blood source. But they
make it sound so cute when they say the wood
ticks are questing. I was like, well, I've never quite
heard of it before, and herein is the beginning of
(05:10):
our podcast.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I think. Yes, when you first mentioned questing, I thought
to myself, Oh, that is interesting. You know you're out,
you know, trying to find the arc or something of that. No,
it's just a human to latch onto interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Interesting. So anyway, stay tuned next week. If Sean's recording
by himself, you'll know that I shouldn't even make jokes
about this. Limes disease is kind of a serious thing.
It is a very I just think it's coincidence that
I'm coming down with some sort of sinus crud. We
will we will go with that, and Doctor Pank, if
you're listening, I also have a little bit of a toothache,
(05:46):
so that could be it. Wow, okay, and that's.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
A little bit of a mess, just a bit, but yeah,
So we started we started just thinking about fun facts. Also,
it kind of came about in the serendipitous way that
Norm from Cheers died, Yeah, and which brought up Cliff Claven,
(06:10):
who was one of my favorite characters. I kind of
resemble Cliff.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And I've called you Cliff a number of times.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
One of my uh, one of my favorite everybody knows
when Normal would walk into the bar, not not everybody,
but people of a certain age. When Norm would walk
into a bar, people would ask him how things are going,
and he'd have his pithy comebacks. And one of my
favorites of all time is Norm walks into the bar
and uh, I don't know which character asked him a question,
but said, hey, Norm, what's shaken him? And Norm says
(06:41):
two cheeks, four No, four cheeks and three chins. And
I thought that was the funniest thing ever, because I
resemble that, and I thought to myself, yes, I like
this guy anyway. Hats off norm but even hats off
more to Cliff. That's who would really joy the fun
(07:01):
fact that when you cut your grass, you get that
fresh cut smell of the grass, and everybody really likes that.
That is actually a distress call from the grass.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I thought this was fantastic. I actually texted this one
of my dad, who mows his lawn like three times
a week, no joke, at seventy seven years old, and
it is a distress call to the other plants in
the area. Apparently the grass releases some chemicals and you know,
spreads the word. And I'm like, this is hilarious because
find me somebody who doesn't love the smell of fresh
(07:37):
cut grass, right, It's like, great, we just love the
fact that the grass is in pain.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It's the tears of the grass that we're smelling.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Right, And think and think about I bet dad doesn't
have a lot of woodticks in his lawn because there's
no reason for him to hang on to the grass.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
The requests do not end well.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And which brings up then another fun fact that when
you have when you duke, when a human cries they
have you know, the tears have a different composition based
on why you are crying, because I'd like to keep
some things to myself. If you're crying because you're happy,
or you're sad, or you're you're scared, it's because your body, well,
(08:24):
your body will have different hormones that are based coming
out based on those responses, and those affect the composition
composition of the tears.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, now you got me thinking, I need to research
this a little bit more, like are they saltier or what?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Like?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
What is the composition? And I bet now that you
mention it, it's the same for sweat, Like when you perspire.
I wonder if the composition of your sweat is different
based on the reason why you're all ramped up, Like
are you truly hot or did you get yourself into
a little bit of a mind and you're feeling anxious
and lucky maybe you're having a warmest episode.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Maybe there's that too, But lucky for you, well, I'm
actually unlucky for you. You will not be able to test
my tears because my tears with you are only those
of joy.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Oh wow, yeah, sorry, So I could use that as
a test subject.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Well, thanks for that, You're welcome. But so and then,
what are the fun facts can we talk about here?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well, this one has been going viral on the internet,
so it's probably not new news to some of our
younger listeners. But do you know that otters have a
little pocket in their armpit where they stored their favorite rock? Well, exactly,
there you go. See I wish I would have thought
of that, but yeah, they store their favorite rock in
a little pocket in their armpit and then they take
(09:44):
it out so that they can crack open shells for eating,
so they can eat the meat inside. And I was like,
this is crazy. So I when I first saw it
like six months ago, I thought it was super cute
and I forgot about it and it just popped up
again yesterday and I was like, well, we need to
add that to the fun Fact podcast.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I wonder what makes a rock a favorite rock?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I don't know. It must just I don't know. Maybe
it's a flatish like a tool. Well, think about the
caveman days. I mean, it's not that far for you
to think of. Well no, but I mean, you know,
when you find the right stick, Like, how do you
determine what the perfect walking stick is or a rock.
I mean it's gonna have to like a rock I
would imagine would be maybe smooth and flat if you're
(10:26):
trying to get it in there to crack open a shell.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I don't know. That's it's just a question.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
To be a heart shaped rock.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Very uh saying in the animal ish world, did not
know and again, not sure why I would ever know
or ever care. But cow's cannot walk downstairs. Well, they
could walk upstairs, but they cannot walk downstairs. Now again,
I'm not sure why this would ever come into play
(10:59):
because I'm not sure why you would have a cop
I don't know if you would have, like in a
barn situation, you'd put them because they're two. I don't
know why.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
What I'm thinking about right now is, Wow, I'm more
similar to a cow. I really prefer to go upstairs
ursus down. I do.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
It's an ability.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Oh that's true.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And then because we're talking cows, we'll just talk say
out in the on the west side, Wyoming. The state
of Wyoming has only two escalators in the whole state.
Everything everything is that they just don't use escalators.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It's probably similar to Canada. Canada probably only has two escalators.
Probably oh sorry to our Canadian listeners.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Well why would they why would they have more?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
And I like the idea that there aren't a lot
of escalators. And a fun fact, your mom is anti escalator. Yes,
I didn't know that until a few years ago out
of Twins game. And they are suspect when you think
about that. You get on this moving sidewalk of sorts
that's on a hip. Okay, it can randomly stop for
no reason, like, for instance, what of some little brat
(12:05):
oop sorry child decides to just hit that emergency button
and you're like in the middle of a conversation and
you get jostled and fall to your death. It's funny
we don't hear about more escalator accidents there.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I have a couple of very sad stories that I
won't go into escalators. But and for all of you
out there who don't know the proper protocol on an escalator.
When you get to the bottom of the escalator and
you don't know exactly which direction to go right or left,
don't just stop for go forward, or you go right
(12:36):
and left and then figure it out right Too many
I hate when you were at, especially when you're at
sporting events and people get to the bottom of the escalator,
they stop and they go, now, where do we go?
That was my old person voice.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Wow, it sounds a lot like when I imitate my
mom kind of who that. But yeah, logic, that is
what you're creating.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Absolutely, you know what.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I thought? It was really interesting to find out we've
got some family over in France. Actually, my boss and
his family is also in France. And we learned a
fun fact that the Eiffel Tower can be fifteen centimeters taller,
which is almost six inches for you American folk. Thermal
expansion heats up the iron and it gains kinetic energy.
(13:21):
The particles in the iron gain kinetic energy and they
take up more space. So in the summertime the Eiffel
Tower can be up to six inches taller than in
the winter.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Who would have known.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
I am not a science person. I suppose a lot
of science people are nodding their head, going yeah, well, yeah,
of course.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Again, I probably I didn't learn that when I.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Was studying thirteenth century English lit.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Speaking of the the of the Olden times. Because of
Scotland's love of mythology, their national animal is actually a unicorn. Really, yes,
an animal that does not exist is their national animal.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That speaks a lot about the scott Old. I mean,
there's a lot of things in question about Scott's anyway,
but there we go.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, that and the fact that they have they have
four hundred and twenty one words for snow.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Oh you're kidding.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
You'd always think, like we always heard that the Eskimos
have a lot of words for snow Scotland four hundred
and twenty one.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Interesting yet no pants? Good point, Well, they do have pants.
I mean, hey, who isn't a fan of the Outlander
books and or show?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You are, Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
It's it's pretty titillating stuff. Speaking of titillating, Sean, is
it butt naked or buck naked?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I always say butt naked.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I always say buck naked. So we looked it up. Yes,
fun fact, both are correct. Buck naked is a little
bit more old school. But the younger folk, which you know,
you don't necessarily identify as they to say butt naked.
But both are accurate.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Well, I'll see, I'm just trying to keep up with
the kids, right right, trying to you know, just yeah,
that's as far as I know, I was actually in uh.
I took Noah and two of his friends who are
twenty one twenty two years old to the Twins game
when they were back this summer earlier this summer, and
they were in they were having their conversation amongst themselves
(15:25):
and speaking in a language I had never heard before.
I had no idea what they're talking about. They were
throwing out words and I'm like, what what do you?
And I didn't. I didn't have time to actually ask
them what they were saying, but they kind of all
knew what they were talking about.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
It was very odd, just the different things.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, it was very anyway.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
You know what you could have done in the meantime,
You could have started humming and then been really cool
and said, hey, guys, do you know that you can't
hum when you hold your nose and you can try
it listening?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Well, you are, I know you are right.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
But if you're humming and you try to plug your nose,
you can't hum. It just it goes away.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
So so when you're starting to hum, I can just
plug your nose. Got it all right? Fair enough?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You could stop me from singing or talking.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The here's one that I that I ran across. That
could be a whole podcast on its own. But there
is a there's a spot in the South Pacific called
Point Nemo and they it is called the Oceanic Pole
of Inaccessibility. How about that for a term. It is
(16:40):
a spot in the in the South Pacific Ocean that
is the furthest point from any land mass.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So what do they do there? Like, how did somebody
determine this? So what do they do? Well?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It is it? They? I guess based on math, bology, cryptology.
They they they figured that it is. It is two
six and eighty eight kilometers from the closest land mass
and they figured that that is the farthest point from
any land mass that's out there. And what they do
(17:14):
there is because I guess, because it is the furthest
that's where space vessels get dumped, like the Mere space station.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
It's like the safe place for them to dump it
because they've got less of a chance of running into
some humans on land.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And they use it and they use it. That's also
a spot for research then, so they research you know
what happens when they do dump space vessels in there?
Plus the different the creatures and plankton and all that
stuff that's out there. Anyway, I'd never heard of point
nemo before me either.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I love the fact that they call it point nemo.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yes, it's nemo Latin for no.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
One speaking of Latin. Really long words that none of
us remember. How One of the fun facts we learned
was there is a term for the fear of long words. Ironically,
the term for the fear of long words is a
thirty six letter word and it is called the term
is hippopota monstrous equipped allophobia. That is one word that
(18:16):
you said, let me see if hippopota monstrous equipped allophobia,
and that is the fear of long words. Apparently it
was created or invented back in first century BC, uh,
because they were annoyed with some of these writers basically
making up long words and making life complicated. And you
know what, I think that is a great flex. Yeah,
(18:39):
so you know what, we're going to invent the longest
word ever. No, okay, that's not the longest word ever.
I can't remember we had that on a podcast. But
I love the fact that it's hippopota monstrous equipped aliophobia. Anyway,
you can.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Monstrous hip hop right right, and.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
What's a hippopota monstrous? Equipped? Like I just love I mean,
if you break this and I don't even know honestly,
if I'm pronouncing it correctly. I had to break it
out phonetically because I was struggling. But I thought that
was a fun fact.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
The can I go back to food for a second?
Do we ever go to food? We were going to
go to food.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
We talked about otters eating, but I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Dang it, all right, well I'm going back to food anyway.
That in the business is called a very poor segue, right,
But I did it anyway.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I'm pretty sure that's why people will stop listening to
our podcast.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Probably because yes, but because I wanted to get to this,
because I had no idea of two different things. One okay,
the the fun fact is that a chef's hat has
one hundred plats.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Do you know why?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yes? I do, because that one hundred ways. There's one
hundred ways that you can cook an egg.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And so two things came to mind. Was really chef's
hat hundred plats, all of them. I mean, I didn't
know that that was a thing, And what are one
hundred ways you could cook an egg.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I wonder if cooking it on a blacktop on a
hot summer day is one of the ways.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It might be. I just that's a lot of ways
you can cook. And to that point, is it like
in a pan or in a pot? Are those two
different things?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I just don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I think that sounds like a fun winter weekend project.
We will buy one hundred eggs and attempt to be expensive.
Oh that's true. Oh my goodness. Yeah, we'd have to
get a part time job just to afford.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
The egg we'll have to do. We'll have to get
potatoes because they're cheaper, because you can use potatoes for
Easter eggs. So we'll get potatoes and see if there's
hundred ways cook a potato, because if you cook an egg,
a hundred ways.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Potato, I've never met a potato I don't like.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
So I mean we can. Maybe that's what we'll do.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Okay, fair enough, right? I like that fun fact. What's
the other food fact?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
That was it? There was no other food fact. I
was trying to segue into food, and I thought we'd
maybe talked about food, but that was it.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
There was something about a banana, but because I have
a little PTSD with banana as I just moved.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
They're like toxic or something like that.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Oh yeah, they radioactive radioactive. Yeah, we found out that
bananas have a radioactive which is just crazy, which must
be the real reason I don't like bananas.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Did you know? See I'm not even a segue too,
I'm just going to jump right into it. Did you
know that some turtles can breathe out their butts?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
No, wonder why a turtle is my spirit animal?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Like exactly, the talk.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Out of my butt, I breathe out of my butt.
This is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
They have like some have like gill like things, which
is probably why. Maybe you see turtles they'll be or
is it ducks that you have their butt sticking out
with the water.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah, it's often, well I don't know if I've ever
seen Yeah, I've seen turtles like head down, you know,
like butt in the air, but not as often as
I've seen ducks. And one of my favorite sayings when
somebody says something obvious, I say, is a duck's butt
water tight?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
And of course the only appropriate response is I.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Sure hope so wow never gets never.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
But you know what, we have little fear of opinions
very little.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yea, you can. If you don't like this podcast, tell
us well, because we'll know because we don't have that fear.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
There is a term for the fear of opinions. The
fear of other people's opinions is called allah doxophobia.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
We do not suffer from this.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
We don't. I mean, we know that people have opinions,
but we know it's our podcast.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
So we can so if you again, if you have
any comments, good, bad, otherwise, please let us know.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
This has been another Curveball production.
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