The Know-It-All - M, N

Happy birthday to my dad who is half way around the world right now. He'll read all of these entries and claim he already knew all this stuff. And I'll believe him. Come home safely. I'm proud of you and I'm glad you were born!

M

majuscule - Official name for uppercase letters, but that's not the most interesting thing I learned under this entry. Here it is: Abe Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent. It was for a device that lifts boats over levees.

manure - Whale poop (ambergris), when dry, takes on a sweet aroma and is used for spices and perfumes.

memory - The opposite of deja vu is jamais vu, a false unfamiliarity with a situation. I had a friend in college who I thought had that. Turns out he was just wasted all the time.

mime - Not my favorite form of entertainment, but I had no idea about its history. Mime started in Greco-Roman times and the usual mime plot included scenes of adultery and other vice. Some of the scenes were actually acted out on stage during the Roman empire. And that's not all! Execution scenes were carried out with convicted criminals in the place of actors. I'd like to see some namby-pamby-tight-rope-walkin'-boxed-in-park-clown try that!

Mussolini, Benito - This famous Italian, fascist dictator grew up poor because his father kept his mistress better fed and clothed than his family. Mussolini was an angry young man (I imagine he hated his father and that mistress of his) who spent his youth getting into trouble and stabbing his schoolmates with his penknife.

At the age of 27, Benito fell in love with a 16 year old named Rachel Guidi. How'd he meet her? She was the offspring of his fathers mistress from a previous marriage. Jerry Springer has nothing on these people.

N

Napoleon - Here are five interesting facts about the diminutive Frenchman. One for every foot he measured.
1. Loved ice skating.
2. Was shown undying devotion by a man named Nicolas Chauvin who is memorialized in the word "chauvinism."
3. Made sure there wasn't a parish priest present when he married Josephine because he knew he'd probably dump her some day and wanted to avoid a messy divorce.
4. Commissioned a nude sculpture of himself.
5. Sold the western half of the United States to Jefferson for less than 3 cents an acre.

nonfictional prose - Don't ask me how this relates, but I now know that waves break when the wave depth equals 1.3 times the wave height. And that's nice to know.

numismatics - Ever wonder why coins have serrated edges? I know I have. When they were made out of gold and silver, criminals would shave down the smooth edges and melt down the valuable slivers. That's why we have the cool ridges now. Come on, drop that little tidbit into your next dinner party conversation and watch the pretty girls flock to you.