Shimbob's Journals

It's True Part 18

Jeffrey Rigo of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, sold a water stain on his bathroom wall for nearly $2600 because he thought it looked like Jesus. He then had requests from people wanting to pray in his bathtub.

Acclaimed artist Rembrandt died penniless, with a friend coming up with the $6.75 it cost to bury him.

The â�œbloodâ� used during the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcockâ�™s Psycho was actually chocolate sauce.

It's True Part 17

Australians bought 118, 000 tonnes of plastic drink bottles in 2006, yet recycled only 35 per cent of them, leaving 76, 700 tonnes in landfills or the environment.

A bicycle designed for riding on water was displayed at the 1992 international exhibit of inventions held in Geneva, Switzerland.

A chimpanzee can learn to recognise itself in a mirror , but monkeys canâ�™t.

The average household uses more than 455, 000 litres of water every year. It takes 32 litres to fluch a toilet, about 227 litres for a shower, 9 litres to brush teeth and 90 litres to wash dishes every day.

It's true Part 16

About the 3 years away from the date â�“ November 8, 2011 â�“ when an asteroid called 2005 YU55 will get to within 159, 322km of Earth to be one of the closest from our planet of all the asteroids heading our way. The closest â�“ Asphosis â�“ will be just 34, 677km away on April 13, 2029 â�“ but the chance of it hitting Earth or the moon has been put at 0.017 per cent.

An Austrian holiday resort offered guests the chance to swim in a pool of beer. The resort, at Starkenberger in the Tyrol. Filled seven pools with about 20, 000 liters of beer, which it claims helps heal a range of skin diseases.

It's True Part 15

The heaviest elements on Earth are osmium and iridium, both discovered in 1803 by UK chemist Smithson Tenant. Osmium has a density measurement (weight compared to size) of 22.59, with a 30cm cube of osmium weighing 640kg.

American Camille Jordan was the proud owner of a budgie named Puck who knew an estimated 1728 words.

Carp collect in such numbers and at such a high density at the base of a reservoir in Pennsylvania that ducks are able to walk across the back of the fish and hardly get their feet wet.

The most jelly eaten in one minute â�“ using only a set of chopsticks â�“ is 45g by Noelle Ike

It's True Part 14

China went into mourning for Mei Mei, the worldâ�™s oldest captive giant panda. An elaborate funeral was held which visitors filed past to pay their respects.

The average dairy cow gives nearly 200, 000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

About 12, 388 simultaneous games of chess were played at the Ben Gurion Cultural Park in Hidalgo, Mexico.

US juggler Bob Whitcomb juggles bowling balls. He can catch three 5.3kg balls more than 60 consecutive times.

It's True Part 13

I1926, Lee de Forest, inventor of the cathode ray tube said: â�œTelevision may be feasible, but I consider it an impossibility â�“ a development we should waste little time dreaming about.â�

Famed director Alfred Hitchcock appeared in all of his 41 movies. He even got to sneak into Lifeboat, which featured just 10 actors and no extras, because his before-and-after photographs were in an advertisement on the back of a prop newspaper.

The move to decimal currency was announced by Prime Minister Robert Menzies in 1963, when he said the unit of currency would be called the royal. Only after widespread was it changed to the dollar.

It's True Part 12

Doctors in the US removed a 20cm knife which had been plunged into the head of a man, who was able to speak and function normally the next day.

A store in British Columbia, Canada, keeps goats on its roof. They remain there all summer but, naturally enough, are brought down for the winter.

The worldâ�™s largest pearl, the Pearl of Lao-tze, was found at Palawan, Philippines, in 1934, in the shell of a giant clam. It weighed 6.3kg, was 24cm long and 14cm in diameter.

To promote its art exhibition The Naked Truth, the Leopold Museum in Vienna, Austria, last year offered free admission to anyone who turned up nude.

It's True Part 11

When glass breaks, the cracks move faster than 4800km/h. To photograph the event, a camera must shoot at as millionth of a second.

Members of the Fugate family, which lived in the US state of Kentucky in the early 1800s, had a blood disorder called methemoglobinemia that gave them plum-coloured skin.

The name on the birth certificate of rock guitarist Dweezil Zappa (son of Frank), is Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa. It was officially changed to Dweezil when he was seven.

It's True Part 10

A poll in 1978 showed that a French TV program screened on August 14 that year was watched not by one viewer. The show was an in-depth interview with an Armenian woman on her 40^th birthday.

The highest mountain in the world is Mt Everest at 8850m. Australiaâ�™s 10 highest mountains are all located within 6km of each other, in the Snowy Mountains, the highest being Mt Kosciuszko at 2228m (71^st in the world). Victoriaâ�™s highest peak is Mt Bogong at 1986m, while Queenslandâ�™s highest is Bartle Frereâ�™s south peak at 1622m.

It's True Part 9

A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than those found at the sunâ�™s surface.

British man Kam Ma received a total of 1015 new titanium piercings in one session, without the aid of anaesthetic.

Archeologists in Hallstatt, Austria, have discovered a 3000-year-old wooden staircase preserved in a salt mine.