Post #165 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping middle school blogger–

It’s a couple days after Christmas and I know where Santa is right now. He’s taking a cold shower to try to get rid of all the sweat he worked up over Christmas. Imagine lugging all those toys through that heat wave. You know what I mean if you live on the east coast. Here in North Carolina, it’s been over 70 degrees for over a week. (And yes, I know there’s a blizzard in New Mexico and in the midwest right now. And flood in Texas. And torandoes in Alabama. Very strange weather, just like I talked about in my last blog post.)

Anyway, I’m kind of ADD, as I’ve brought up before, and the proof is I’ve already gotten off the topic I promised in the title. Ouch!

Okay, so here I go onto the real subject. Even though it’s kind of hard for me to get through a whole book (’cause of that ADD), one thing I do like to read are these AMAZING FACTS that people think they know and they don’t. Here are six examples.  How many of these did you really know already?

SIX FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW, BUT PROBABLY DON’T
from the research of Dr. Crankenfuss

1. The average football game is over three hours long, but there’s only about 11 minutes of real football action in the whole game.

Wha!! Yeah, I know that sounds impossible, but just type in “how many minutes of action in a football game” in a search bar and you’ll find out what I did. Where does all that other time go? Well, to replays or huddles or commercials or time outs or announcers talking to each other or cheerleaders or whatever. That’s where your DVR comes in really handy. That way you can skip all the stuff you don’t want to watch and just catch the real thing.

2. Few people know exactly how long a mile is, but it really did make sense a couple thousand years ago.

It’s one of our most used distances, but quick, tell me how many feet in a mile. You probably can’t do it, can you? Yeah, yeah, you can pretend you know it after I give you the answer, but I tried this on a bunch of people and only two knew. It’s 5280 feet. It’s all complicated how it came to be that number, but all I know is it’s a very weird number for such a well-known distance. No wonder most people can’t think of it.

But when it first came about, it was a couple thousand years ago during the Roman Empire. They said 1000 “paces” made a mile. (A pace was two regular steps and totaled about 5 feet.) So the mile was 5000 feet. (Thank you, Wikipedia!) They really ought to bring that back. 5000 is a lot easier to remember than 5280. C’mon, whoever’s in charge, gimme a break!

3. New York may be the biggest city in the USA, but it’s way behind when it comes to the rest of the world.

New York officially has around 8.5 million people. We think that’s really big. Not so much! It only comes in #21 in the world when all cities are measured the same way. If you don’t believe me, check it here.

4. Over half the people in the world are Asian.

In fact, it’s way over half. 60% actually. There are now over 7 BILLION people in the world, and over 4 BILLION live in Asia. Heck, around a third of the world’s population is in China and India alone!

5. Except in zoos, NO penguins live north of the Equator.

Yeah, I know a lot of you think that penguins live at the North Pole or close by, like in Alaska. Nope! Some live near the South Pole, but there are a bunch in other places in the Southern Hemisphere. But not one penguin has their natural home in the Northern Hemisphere.

6. Almost no one – and I repeat “ALMOST NO ONE” – knows how big an acre is. But you’re about to find out. CLUE -> It’s HUGE!

How big is an acre? Ask almost anyone. I promise you they won’t know. But now YOU will. Think of a football field. It’s of course 100 yards long, not counting the end zones. An acre would cover about 90 out of those 100 yards. Next time you’re on a football field, just trying running 90 yards. An acre will wear you out, bro! (And for those of you picky types who want to know the exact size of an acre, it’s 43,560 square feet. But that’s a pretty hard number to remember, isn’t it? The football field figure is much easier.)

So, I hope you learned something today. Most of these facts surprised me and so I’m passing them on to you. And yes, they might seem kind of geeky if you’re not into that kind of stuff. Oh, well, I can’t please everybody. But if you feel like it, spread the word. Somebody out there will think it’s cool.

And Happy New Year!

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss