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

ALMOST an inland sea... "a sea closely bordered on three sides by land" or "a western extension of the Atlantic into a bight formed by the Americas" might perhaps be more accurate! (An Inland Sea would be the Caspian or something like that, wouldn't it? Geography gave me up when I was thirteen, couldn't see the point, hated the teacher, was pleased to be allowed to part company)

The "mahnu mahnu" song was the first sketch to feature on the Muppet Show in 1976. The song was originally written in 1969 for a porn movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YevYBsShxNs

At a new "flagship" grocers near my home, they have an ethnic foods aisle. The only product on the "Caribbean" shelves that caught my attention was a variety of flavored sodas waters in very short squat plastic bottles (8 oz.) and bright colors.

They're called "Chubby" soda.

Orang-utans are the only animal to have ball and socket joints at the wrists.

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In Japanese screeched would be considered as having 5 syllables: su-ku-ree-che-do

The dot at the top of a letter i is called a Tittle.

or sometimes an iota. (from a Greek letter that had a dot in it - it's in the Bible somewhere, where God is being particularly unforgiving and asserting to His faithful that the sinners shall be made to repay their iniquity, yea, even unto the last iota).

I wonder if it survives in the proverb about dotting all the "i"'s and crossing all the "t"'s...

Truly useless

AgProv - I think you may be thinking of the verse about 'not an iota shall depart from the law'. Or the may be two uses of the word - I am no scholar.

Useless fact: my highlighter is green.

The Greek letter iota doesn't have a dot but, when it follows a long vowel at the end of a sentence, it is written in miniature (or as a dot) underneath the letter. (This is known as 'iota subscript')

My cigarette lighter is green

The [American] Declaration of Independence wasn't signed until August 2nd, 1776.

My small (6'4'') brother likes cheese.

I like cheese too. But I can't afford it.

The force of gravity is greater at the north pole than it is at the equator (9.86m/s^2 as opposed to 9.8m/s^2):

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~vawter/PhysicsNet/Topics/Gravity/AccOfGravity.html

The Little Mermaid at Copenhagen, Denmark, has been vandalised a number of times. The vandalism has included decapitation and removing one of her arms. The Danish are always able to repair her because they still have the original moulds, so they can just recast and fit a replacement part.

Each year there is one ton of cement poured for each man, woman and child in the world.

Somebody else can have mine if they want. I don't need it.

Just wish I knew who measured it !

Magnetic North is about 30 degrees away from True North. This is why you have to correct the angles on maps. (Why they don't just write the map for Magnetic North...)

'Cos Magnetic North moves. You'd have to redraw the maps time and again.