While starfish have a complex nervous systems, they actually don’t have brains.

So that’s why Patrick’s kinda, well, you know, how do I say this, dumb?

]

“Sonic Underground” is an animated series released in 1999, featuring the fastest hedgehog to walk the face of the planet (in people’s minds, anyway), Sonic.

The show is different from the other storylines because in this story, Sonic is part of a triplet, the other two being Sonia and Manic. They were supposed to be the children of Queen Aleena and the rightful heirs of Mobius. Their enemy is Doctor Robotnik, who wants to rule over Mobius and has robotocized a lot of the Mobians already. His reason for chasing over the siblings is because of a prophecy saying that the Queen’s three children will find their mother and once again rule over their king-, er, queendom. They were separated at birth to prevent Doctor Robotnik from finding them, but fate intervened, and they found each other.

 The triplets each have medallions that transform into magical musical instruments, which they use not only to beat Robotnik and his henchmen Sleet and Dingo, but also to form their rock band, Sonic Underground.

Sonic is the oldest sibling. His character remains true to the different versions, in that he has super speed. Here, his medallion transforms into a guitar (which doubles as a laser gun). Aside from playing that, he is also the lead vocalist of Sonic Underground. He was raised by a middle-class family.

Sonia is the only girl of the triplet. Because she was raised by an aristocratic foster family, she is a litle spoiled. Physically, she’s the strongest of the three. Her medallion transforms into a keyboard. Like Sonic’s, it can shoot laser beams.

Manic is the youngest of the three (and my personal favorite!) He was supposed to be raised by a well-off family, but a thief stole his basket and raised him as a thief. He is great not only in stealing and sneaking, but also with gadgets and machines. His medallion transforms into a drum set. Unlike Sonic’s and Sonia’s, his instrument can actually control the earth, producing quakes that can be controlled by Manic. Only the cymbals can fire laser beams. According to the oracle, Manic has the strongest weapon.

The abacus was not a Chinese invention, even if they did make this old-school calculator popular.  It actually originated in Egypt in 1000 BC, almost 1,000 years before it reached the Orient.

Yeah, bet the Pharaoh had a fun time calculating how much his treasury had.

Believe it or not, the lighter was invented first before matches.

In 1816, a German chemist named J.W. Dobereiner devised a way of automatically igniting a jet of hydrogen.  Unfortunately, it required powdered platinum to act as a catalyst.

Ten (or eleven) years later, John Walker comes up with the first matches.

1. He Liked His Feet Naked

“When I was young, I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in the sock,” he once said. “So I stopped wearing socks.” Einstein was also a fanatical slob, refusing to “dress properly” for anyone. Either people knew him or they didn’t, he reasoned - so it didn’t matter either way.

2. He Hated Scrabble

Aside from his favourite past-time sailing (”the sport which demands the least energy”), Einstein shunned any recreational activity that required mental agility. As he told the New York Times, “When I get through with work I don’t want anything that requires the working of the mind.”

3. He Was A Rotten Speller

Although he lived for many years in the United States and was fully bilingual, Einstein claimed never to be able to write in English because of “the treacherous spelling”. He never lost his distinctive German accent either, summed up by his catch-phrase “I vill a little t’ink”.

4. He Loathed Science Fiction

Lest it distort pure science and give people the false illusion of scientific understanding, he recommended complete abstinence from any type of science fiction. “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” He also thought people who claimed to have seen flying saucers should keep it to themselves.

5. He Smoked Like A Chimney

A life member of the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club, Einstein was quoted as saying: “Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs.” He once fell into the water during a boating expedition but managed heroically to hold on to his pipe.

6. He Wasn’t Much Of A Musician

Einstein would relax in his kitchen with his trusty violin, stubbornly trying to improvise something of a tune. When that didn’t work, he’d have a crack at Mozart.

7. Alcohol Was Not His Preferred Drug

At a press conference upon his arrival to New York in 1930, he said jokingly of Prohibition: “I don’t drink, so it’s all the same to me.” In fact, Einstein had been an outspoken critic of “passing laws which cannot be enforced”.

8. He Equated Monogamy With Monotony

“All marriages are dangerous,” he once told an interviewer. “Marriage is the unsuccessful attempt to make something lasting out of an incident.” He was notoriously unfaithful as a husband, prone to falling in love with somebody else directly after the exchanging of vows.

9. His Memory Was Shot

Believing that birthdays were for children, his attitude is summed up in a letter he wrote to his girlfriend Mileva Maric: “My dear little sweetheart … first, my belated cordial congratulations on your birthday yesterday, which I forgot once again.”

10. His Cat Suffered Depression

Fond of animals, Einstein kept a housecat which tended to get depressed whenever it rained. Ernst Straus recalls him saying to the melancholy cat: “I know what’s wrong, dear fellow, but I don’t know how to turn it off.”

Taken from http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980907140525data_trunc_sys.shtml.

Oh well, even if he wasn’t much of a musician, he’s still a good physicist. And the whole forgetting thing, well, isn’t that a typical guy thing?:P (Peace to all the guys out there!)