• In international horseshoes competition, the record for consecutive ringers by an individual is 29; the record for consecutive leaners is 6.

• Umbrella manufacturers recommend users hold the umbrella so the shaft is adjacent to one of the user's ears. Most umbrella users hold it eight to nine inches in front of his or her nose.

• In 251 episodes of the television series M*A*S*H, 197 different surgical procedures were simulated.

• The decommissioned aircraft carrier, USS Intrepid, moored in the Hudson River, has had more people on board than any other current or former warship, surpassing the USS Constitution, in 2008.

• There are more Americans who speak with a Brooklyn accent than a southern accent.

• The NBA basketball game played in Hersehey, PA, on March 2, 1962 between the New York Knockerbockers and the Philadelphia Warriors was not only the first and only time a player (Wilt Chamberlain) scored 100 points in a game, it was the first and only time a team (the Knicks) incurred a technical foul for playing with too many men. At the start of the fourth quarter the Knicks had six men on the court.

• There have been a 23 canoeing death on the Delaware River, since records started to be kept in 1845.

• Styx came up with the album title "The Grand Illusion" while discussing the Nixon Administration and Watergate.

• As of December 2008, 29 percent of all instant messaging conversations occured via handheld devices.

• On the average conference call, 53 percent of participants have put themselves on 'mute'.

• In 2008, an estimated 2,842,000 Americans commute daily to work in a time zone that is different from the one in which they reside.

• Turning a compost pile once a week speeds up the decomposition process by 132 percent.

• As of 2006, approximately 0.671 percent of images taken by digital cameras are underwater images. That is approximately quadruple the rate in 1990.

• Between 1980 and 2005 the average price paid for a prom dress in the United States outstripped inflation by 1.1 percent.

• In September of 2004, 132,472 Americans were asked when hockey's Stanley Cup playoffs ended. Of the 47 percent who knew what the Stanley Cup Playoffs are, 26 percent guessed July.