h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just read yesterday somewhere on the net that “Jingle Bells” is not a Christmas song, but written for Thanksgiving. So I GOOGLED and found that it was first published in 1857 under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh” by James Lord Pierpont(1822-1893) to be sung on Thanksgiving. In Boston, maybe.

The snow in the film _The Wizard of Oz_ was pure asbestos, as was the witches brooms and the Scarecrow's clothes.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-slow-demise-of-asbestos-the-carcinogen-that-gave-the-wizard-of-oz-snow

James Bond, the Sean Connery version we all love so well, was armed with...


A pellet gun!

Seriously, OK, not in the actual films but on some his most iconic movie posters like From Russia With Love. Specifically it was a Walther LP53, distinguishable by it's long, thin barrel. It's a breach action single shot air pistol.

All action heroes should have pellet guns.

Or nerf guns.

Or supersoakers

Amen.

X-men

Atlantean Ox-men

Leprosy isn't particularly contagious... And you don't lose bits of your body to it typically.

95% of the population is already immune to leprosy.

It's main effect is an inability to feel pain, therefore many sufferers injured themselves by excessive rubbing or scratching, or simply through accident.

Geddy Lee's (Rush) parents met in Auschwitz, were then separated to Dachau and Bergen Belsen. Each survived to be liberated and they reunited after the war.

Bonus: Geddy Lee's real name is Gary, but his grandmother pronounced it "Geddy".

Jim lynn retweeted this wonderful bit of trivia.


The Vapors' song "Turning Japanese" does NOT contain the words "cyclone ranger".

Check out @jjudijjude’s Tweet: http://twitter.com/jjudijjude/status/1095021871752454145?s=09


According to The Vapors official twitter, the line is,
"Everyone around me is a total stranger,
Everyone avoids me like a PSYCHED LONE RANGER.
Everyone"


I guess that makes more sense.

Mondegreen
BG

I’m still getting my head around that one. If the Lone Ranger was psyched (in some way to be determined), would it predispose him to avoid people?

And do I overthink these things?

People are avoiding the "psyched lone ranger", he's not avoiding them.

But no, it doesn't make much more sense than a "cyclone ranger" being avoided.

Your gut (small and large intestines) contain as many neurons as you'd find in a cat's brain.

Regarding the misheard lyric, a friend thought it was "Everyone avoids me like a psycho ranger", which makes more sense than a cyclone ranger. It's probably a good idea to avoid a ranger if they're a psycho!

Cattle sweetbreads (major ganglia driving the legs) contain six times the neural matter of a human brain.

Is that why cows’s legs are so gangly?

Maybe size doesn't neural matter

Here's a fun one I recently learned (but suspect others here are cognizant of).

I'll present it as a pub trivia question...



Who is the only person to ever appear in any Star Trek franchise episode as their self?

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In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Stephen Hawking did... on the holodeck, of course.