We’ve been enjoying this “archival tidbit” thing a lot. (Less work for us! More facts for you! It’s a win-win.) So this week, and this week only, you’ll be getting not one but TWO factlets drawn from our books and back issues. Today’s first archival tidbit comes from What’s the Difference?

The split-fingered Vulcan salute from Star Trek is actually derived from an Orthodox Jewish ritual, the Blessing Hands used to anoint congregations on holy days. Star Trek icon Leonard Nimoy, who was raised in the Orthodox tradition, adapted the hand gesture for his role as Mr. Spock.

Word on the ‘net is that Electrolux is busy making houseshoes that double as vacuum cleaners… meaning you’ll be able to walk around your house (or better yet, strap your kiddos into them, and let them run wild) until the place is spotless! There’s no word yet on the functionality- like how the shoes will actually pick up and store the dirt, let alone power up, but it seems like a pretty novel idea. Link via Gizmodo.

Normally I don’t post ads, but this one from Nintendo made me grin. Still, it does make me wonder, if they did this with another religion (like if they had Muslim kids playing 5 times a day, or something), whether they’d get away with it. Link via ettf.

Religious pareidolia: the perception of religious-icon-shaped patterns where none were intended. Over the years, everyone from the Virgin Mary to Mother Teresa have been spotted in impromptu appearances on food items, freeway underpasses and almost anywhere you can imagine, often drawing thousands — and sometimes hundreds of thousands — of faithful pilgrims. So here’s the challenge: which of the following examples of religious pareidolia were actually reported (and in many cases, celebrated) and which are made up?

A. The Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Ten years ago, a Florida woman was having her lunch when she suddenly discovered the image of Mary staring back at her, emblazoned on the grilled bread of her cheese sandwich. She wrapped the iconic sandwich in cellophane and cotton, and since then it has shown no signs of mold or crumbling, which the woman describes as “yet another miracle.”

B. The Virgin Mary Piece of Firewood
About to ignite the wood in her fireplace, a Wisconsin woman (named … wait for it … Faith) realized that one of the logs had the Virgin’s image on it. Naturally, she pulled it out of the hearth.

C. The Jesus Tortilla
A New Mexican woman found the image made with skillet burns on a tortilla she had prepared. She built a shrine to house the tortilla, which was visited by thousands of pilgrims after a priest reluctantly blessed it.

D. The Virgin Mary Panel of Wood
Diners at a California Souplantation restaurant noticed a strange pattern in the wood paneling above one of the booths: that of the Virgin Mary.

E. The Mother Teresa Cinnamon Bun, AKA “The NunBun”
A Tennessee coffeeshop turned a funny-shaped bun into an overnight sensation and a cottage industry, selling “NunBun” teeshirts, coffee mugs and other paraphernalia — until a peeved Mother Teresa asked them to cease and desist.

F. Mary and the Chocolate Factory
Workers at a California chocolate factory were stunned to discover that a two-inch column of chocolate drippings which had accumulated under a leaky vat seemed to resemble the mother of God.

G. Mary Holding the Baby Jesus Pretzel
Need we explain further?

H. Jesus Pierogi
Not unlike the Jesus tortilla, but instead of building a shrine to the pierogi, its owners tossed it in the freezer and then tried to sell it on eBay.

I. Jesus Shrimp Tail
A California man believed he saw Jesus Christ’s face on a shrimp tail. He said that when he ate his first shrimp, he had disregarded its tail, but then looked at it again and saw the face of Jesus. The man believed it was a sign, as he was going through a nasty divorce.

Answers after the jump!
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I thought I’d try a different format for the old stumper feature. Today you’ll be filling in the blanks, finishing sentences in this classic song lyric. Actually, it’s from some patter that goes between verses of the song. But that’s the only hint I’ll drop.

As always, if you even think of searching online, you’ll not only be disqualified, you’ll be racked with guilt for days on end. And before the holidays, you need more guilt like you need another charge on your Amex.
So here we go. Fill in the blanks and name that song!

Not even a rhinoceros? ____(1)_______ How about a hippopotamus? Why, I’d thrash him from top to ______(2)_______! Supposin’ you met an elephant? I’d wrap him up in _____(3)_______! What if it were a brontosaurus? I’d show him who was ________(4)_________!

Oh, God bless the Grenada Chocolate Company, makers of the world’s best organic dark chocolate (the Guardian agrees with me on this). I learned one particularly interesting factlet on the tour of the darling factory, which claims to be the world’s smallest — a fact so surprising that I almost hated to check it, lest it turn out to be untrue. But Yahoo backed it up:

Because of the ingredients, many people (including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) don’t consider “white chocolate” to be chocolate at all. …

The highest quality chocolate comes from cocoa beans that are dried naturally in the sun for a week — shorter, artificial drying yields inferior chocolate. Next, the beans are roasted, and the shells are removed. Then the cocoa is ground, resulting in a thick liquid called chocolate liquor (it’s not alcoholic). This liquor is used to make unsweetened chocolate.

For other chocolaty purposes, the liquor is pressed to extract the fat, which is called cocoa butter. With the fat removed, the liquor becomes a powder that is blended with the cocoa butter and other ingredients to make different kinds of chocolate. Plain chocolate is made of cocoa powder, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, and sugar. Milk chocolate, of course, has milk added. White chocolate is made of cocoa butter, milk, and sugar. …

Because white chocolate has no cocoa solids from the chocolate liquor, the FDA doesn’t classify it as chocolate. However, the organization is working with chocolate manufacturers to establish a standard definition for white chocolate. Until a standard is published, check labels and beware of “white chocolate” that contains vegetable fat instead of cocoa butter. The quality and taste are inferior.

I can guarantee you, however, that what the Grenada Chocolate Company makes is the exact opposite of inferior… (shovels chocolate bar into mouth…)

Still having trouble finding the perfect holiday gifts? Well, I already told you what I want, but I’m sure anyone on your list would be happy to have these goodies from Perpetual Kid:

The “We Are Happy to Serve You” Ceramic Coffee Mug

The Please Hold Retro Cell Phone Handset

ABC Cookie Cutters (Already Been Chewed)

Candy Bra or G-String (sadly, these are sold out)

Just Like Dad! Bubblegum Cigarettes

Today’s archival tidbit comes from Condensed Knowledge:

Scientist Peter Fong decided to dope up his research subjects – fingernail clams – by putting them on Prozac, which decreases the uptake of serotonin. In the bivalves’ case, this led to an overwhelming urge for synchronous spawning, a boon for clam farmers and gawky teenage clams alike.

This guy really wants to be blogged about. Well, I’ll bite — the pictures are hard to resist! Thanks to the Cellar for the skinny:

Veterinarians at the oceanarium in Fushun, China had a problem. Two of their dolphins had taken up the habit of eating pieces of plastic off the edge of their pool. And some of the pieces were so large they couldn’t be digested. The dolphins went off their food and became depressed. The vets tried to retrieve the pieces with surgical tools, but the dolphins’ stomachs would constrict, making the job impossible.

Then someone had a brilliant idea: let’s get Xi Shun, the world’s tallest man. at 7′9″ (2.36m) and with arms 41 inches long (1.06m), and recognized by Guinness as the tallest living human, he should be able to reach right down in there. And so they wrapped towels around the dolphins’ teeth and sent in Shun. And he pulled out the biggest pieces that were causing the dolphins trouble.

But on to the real meat: pictures of Xi Shun standing up after the jump!
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Stop the presses, right? Sure, most people assume that celebrities are more narcissistic than regular people. Until recently, however, we didn’t have a study to prove it. That’s where Dr. Drew Pinksy (of Loveline fame) comes in, who is, by the way, an actual doctor of psychology (unlike his less-credentialed ex-sidekick, Adam Carolla). Dr. Drew has celebrities appear on his radio show all the time, and during breaks over the last several years, he has been asking them to take a test.

It’s called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that publicists and managers exist to stop celebrities from taking, which is why there isn’t much hard data on this sort of thing, until now. Drew’s results were pretty interesting:

• On a scale of 1 to 40, 1 being “normal” and 40 being “extremely narcissistic,” celebrities averaged a score of 17.84, or about 18 times more narcissistic than normal people.
• Female celebrities tended to score much higher than male celebrities.
• Celebrities who are actually good at something, like musicians, scored on the low end of the narcissism scale. Celebrities with no real skill set, like reality stars, had scores in the stratosphere.

So what does all this mean? Basically, the that people we idolize — and to some degree aspire to be like — have personality disorders. “Narcissism is not about self love,” says Dr. Drew. “It’s a clinical trait that belies a deep sense of emptiness, low self-esteem, emotional detachment, self-loathing, extreme problems with intimacy.”