We’ve been counting down the year’s most-read mentalfloss.com stories. First we rattled off #20 to #14. Then came #13 to #6. At long last, here are the five most popular stories of 2009.

5. Why Does Bottled Water Have an Expiration Date?
by Matt Soniak
Why do bottles of water have a “drink by” date when common sense dictates that water doesn’t go bad? Blame New Jersey.

4. 4 People With Super Memory
by David K. Israel
What if you finished reading this article and remembered every detail of it for the rest of your life?

3. Why is 10:10 the Default Setting for Clocks & Watches?
by Matt Soniak
Reader Humaira Baig wrote in to ask why clocks and watches are always set at (roughly) 10:10 in the store. Here’s the explanation.

2. Symbolism and the $1 Bill
by Ethan Trex
Crack open your wallet, pull out everyone’s favorite portrait of George Washington, and be prepared to learn about some odd symbolism that probably seemed perfectly normal in the 18th century.

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Editor’s Note: We’re counting down this year’s most popular quizzes. Coming in at #3 is Ethan’s quiz on Simpsons guest stars, which we first posted back on January 26th.

A slew of guest stars have lent their voices to The Simpsons during the show’s 20-season run, and although some guests simply play themselves, the most memorable one-off characters often have a guest voice behind them. In honor of last week’s news that the show has been renewed for two more seasons, let’s find out if you know who voiced some of these gems.

Take the Quiz: Simpsons Guest Stars

By Eric Furman

Just hearing the word “champagne” conjures up images of sparkling wine, popping corks, and wild celebrations. But mentioning that other Champagne—as in the northeastern region of France—evokes a much more complex bouquet. Filled with wars, political clashes, and controversy, the bubbly region and its eponymous drink have produced a rich history worth toasting to.

Divine Origins

Today, the region synonymous with sparkling wine is crowded with vineyards—but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, during the 17th century, France’s Champagne district was known primarily for its high-quality wool. Then a Benedictine monk named Dom Perignon came along and changed everything.

At the age of 29, Perignon was appointed business manager of Champagne’s Abbey at Hautvillers. Realizing that the financial health and reputation of the monastery was tied to its vineyards, the Dom set to work resurrecting the beaten-down vines and reconstructing the cellar. In almost no time, the Hautvillers vineyard was up and running.

Nowadays, many people credit Dom Perignon with inventing champagne by forcing bubbles into sweet wine. That’s a myth, though. In Dom Perignon’s day, bubbles were considered a serious wine flaw, and the good monk actually went to considerable lengths to eliminate them during his 47 years as cellar-master. And while he never succeeded on that front, he did succeed in making bubbly wine a whole lot better. (more…)

Why put off until tomorrow what pleasures you can enjoy today? Because people have the mistaken notion that someday they won’t be as busy as they are today. (via Metafilter)
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10 Things You Might Not Know About the New Year. Of course we don’t know anything about the year 2010 yet; this is about the New Year holiday and how we celebrate it.
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Some may not realize that you don’t have to be actually driving a car to get a DUI. Read 11 bizarre stories of people arrested for driving other things while drunk. (via Gorilla Mask)
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How to Start Freelancing (Without Quitting Your Job). This is the safest way to do it; however, I know from experience that desperation is a wonderful motivator.
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Enjoy a new holiday song, “Happy New Year”! This should eventually become a standard because of the emphasis on “happy”.
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Anatidaephobia, the fear that you are being watched by a duck. It’s more common than you might think. (via Bits and Pieces)
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9 Hollywood Scandals Long Before Lindsay, Paris and Britney. Back in the old days, when a scandal might even hurt one’s career!

Did you know that in Switzerland people ring in the new year by dropping a dollop of cream on the floor? Or how about how Armenians bake special bread with “good luck” and “best wishes” stamped into it? We thought you didn’t. So in honor of 2010, here are 10 unusual traditions observed by different countries around the world.

1. Romania

In Romania, some believe that if you toss coins into the river, you’ll have good luck throughout the coming year. Even more impressive: some peasants use December 31st to predict the coming year’s weather by systematically peeling, salting and reading the skins of 12 onions. According to this source, “On St. Vasile’s Day or New Year’s Day, a person who is efficient in witchcraft and spells checks the level of the liquid left by the melted salt in each of the onions peels.” The level helps them determine the climate conditions in the new year.

2. Spain

In Spain, as the clock strikes 12, people eat twelve grapes—one for each month of the year, and for each toll of the bell. The tradition, which is believed to bring good luck, can be traced back to the year 1909 when there was a bountiful harvest in the town of Alicante and Alfonso XIII, the Spanish King, gave grapes to his peeps on New Year’s Eve.

3. Switzerland

Ever hear of dropping a dollop of cream on the floor to ring in the new year with good luck, wealth and peace? Well that’s what some do in Switzerland — it’s thought to bring a year of abundance. (Hey, don’t laugh… provided everyone cleans up his or her dollop, it’s a lot more civilized than screaming along with a trillion other people in Times Square.) Some Swiss also observe the tradition of dressing up in costumes to invoke good spirits and chase evil energies.

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This may make me a total dork, but my favorite part about New Year’s Day is getting up and watching the Rose Parade in my pajamas. I’m really not interested in the Rose Bowl itself at all – in fact, I think I’m swearing off football in 2010 following my painful Fantasy Football loss to Jason Plautz this week. If you’ll be getting up to watch the Petal Parade, here are a few fun facts you can use to impress whomever you’re watching it with.

1. If you’ve ever wondered how many flowers it takes to decorate one float, the simple answer is: a lot. Exactly how many depends on the size of the float, but to give you an idea, it takes about 20 daisies, 30 roses or 36 marigolds to cover just one square foot. All of the floats together take approximately 18 million flowers.
2. You’ve probably noticed that buds and flowers don’t cover the entire float. That’s because certain other organic materials such as bark, seeds, spices, pods and leaves are perfectly acceptable. Living or dead material is also fine – if a decorator sees fit to use dead roses, that’s totally within the limits of the rules.
3. Live near the parade route but didn’t make it down there? Don’t worry – you still have a chance to see the floral beauties up close. For three days, people can pay admission to check out the floats at rest. But since they are made of flowers, it’s probably best to not wait until the third day – you won’t get the full experience due to wilting.

4. The floats can get quite complicated. Past engineering feats have included small working roller coasters, a car transforming into a spaceship, and a working water slide.

5. The Grand Marshal this year is Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. He’s joining a very elite group – past Marshals have included Mr. Rogers, George Lucas, Jimmy Stewart, Pele, Bob Hope, Charles M. Schulz, Shirley Temple Black, Kermit the Frog, Mickey Mouse, both Roy and Walt Disney, Mark Pickford, Carol Burnett, and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Mr. Schulz drew a Peanuts cartoon to commemorate his turn as the Marshal, in fact:
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• Fortune cookies were introduced by a Japanese (not Chinese!) immigrant named Makoto Hagiwara, who ran a tea room in San Francisco. He would serve sayings and thoughtful phrases with his tea. Since the idea wasn’t trademarked, Chinese restaurants later started using the idea as a filler for their small dessert menus, and the phenomenon spread from there.

• So just how lucky are those Lucky Numbers? Depends how you look at it – on the one hand, 110 people won the Powerball in March 2005 that all had the same numbers … from a fortune cookie. Investigators traced the fortunes to a Long Island City factory, which is owned by Wonton Food. The same number combinations go out in thousands of cookies a day. On the other hand, that probably did dilute the prize money quite a bit …

• On occasion, maybe those lucky numbers do work, but what about the fortunes? Danica Patrick got a fortune that said “A four-wheeled adventure will soon bring you pleasure.” before her third place victory at the Indy, and runner Kerry O’Brien decided not to race because of a fortune. A cookie also “predicted” the Motor Voter bill.

• Not all fortunes are good – my friend Melody actually just reported to that she once got a cookie that read, “you should reconsider your fitness regime.” Have any of you Flossers ever gotten a downbeat fortune or advice in your cookie?

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Editor’s Note: We’re counting down this year’s most popular quizzes. Coming in at #4 is Brett’s quiz on Ralph Wiggum, which we first posted back on January 26th.

Of all the brilliant characters the writers of The Simpsons have gifted to popular culture over the years, Ralph Wiggum is one of the few who make me giddily happy to the point of embarrassment. Something about his absurdist oddballism speaks to everything fundamentally great about inspired comedy writing. How much do you know about Springfield’s most endearing goofball? Feel free to leave your own favorite Ralph memories in the comments below, since I’m sure this quiz hasn’t covered everything.

Take the Quiz: Ralph Wiggum

Jason English, our esteemed editor, wonders, “How many other Camrys would my remote unlock? Is it really 1:1, or is there a chance my fob would open a Camry in Phoenix or Toronto?”

When you push a button on your car remote or garage door opener, a radio transmitter inside sends a signal containing a numeric code to a receiver in the car (or in the garage). When it gets the signal, the receiver tells the car (or the garage door controls) to lock or unlock (or open or close)—or whatever it’s supposed to do given the button you pushed.

When remote garage door openers first came out in the 1950s, the transmitters in the remotes sent out a single signal. This was all well and good as long as you were the only person on your block with a garage door opener. But as they became more common, you could open any garage you wanted, because all remotes worked on the same signal. A security breakthrough came 20 years later when DIP switches—sets of eight manual electric switches packaged in a group and attached to a printed circuit board—were added. By setting the eight switches to a certain arrangement inside both the transmitter and the receiver, you had some control over the 8-bit code that they shared. The DIP switches could provide 256 possible codes. So while some security was provided, areas with lots of garage door remotes were still prone to code doubling and people opening up their neighbors’ doors.

Early remote entry systems for cars were slightly more advanced. The system for each car had a unique code set by the manufacturer and used by that car’s transmitter-receiver pair alone. The ratio really was 1:1. Just as my car lock or yours wouldn’t open for Jason’s key, our receivers wouldn’t have responded to his transmitter’s signal. These systems had their own problem: while the codes were unique to their cars, the same code was transmitted every time you used the remote. A radio transceiver called a “code grabber” could be used to intercept, store and retransmit the code later on. It was like having your key stolen and copied, without you knowing, while you were putting it in the keyhole and opening the door.

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This year I posted a bunch of Sesame Street videos. YouTube is a wonderful thing, and what’s better is that the folks at Sesame Street post tons of clips online, and don’t seem to file many rights complaints against others who post clips. For your convenience, I’ve collected the best of this year’s Sesame Street discoveries into one post. Click away, and be transported into the slightly orange-tinged 70′s and yellowish 80′s!

How Crayons Are Made

From Retro Video: How Crayons Are Made.

Philip Glass on Sesame Street

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