I am working on refinishing my basement and am putting up steel studding on the walls. We were trying to screw through a piece of steel and my friend today said something to the effect that you would need a handful diamonds to get through it. That made me think that there are probably some strange facts about diamonds that I never thought of.

• Most of the diamonds in the world are used for industrial purposes and not for getting your girlfriend off of your back.
• Less than 1% of women will ever wear a diamond that is one carat or more, my woman being one of them.
• In ancient times diamonds were seen as signs of strength, courage and invincibility.
• Archduke Maximilian of Austria was the first person to give a diamond engagement ring, to Mary of Burgundy in 1477. Blame him.
• The largest Diamond ever found was the Cullinan at 3,106 carats.
• Diamonds can withstand extremely high temperatures so they used in windows on space ships.
• In India, around one million people are employed because of diamond industry, the rest of them answer the phone when my cable goes out.

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This picture will put things into perspective for you. It's massive. A beast. Click on the photo to get the full sized picture, it's easier to read that way.

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I came across this rather interesting list this morning. It is the Wiki List_of_Unusual_Deaths. Some of these are pretty good. It's a rather long list of strange facts but here are a few that caught my eye. They are all sorted by year in history.

1327: Edward II of England, after being deposed and imprisoned by his Queen consort Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, was rumored to have been murdered by having a red-hot iron inserted into his anus.^[20]

1601: Tycho Brahe, according to legend, died of complications resulting from a strained bladder at a banquet. It would have been extremely bad etiquette to leave the table before the meal was finished, so he stayed until he became fatally ill. This version of events has since been brought into question as other causes of death (murder by Johannes Kepler, suicide, and mercury poisoning among others) have come to the fore.^[27]

1753: Professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann, of Saint Petersburg, Russia, became the first recorded person to be killed while performing electrical experiments when he was struck and killed by a globe of ball lightning. ^[35]

1814: London Beer Flood, 9 people were killed when 323,000 imperial gallons (1 468 000 L) of beer in the Meux and Company Brewery burst out of their vats and gushed into the streets.

1963: Thích Qu?ng ??c, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, sat down in the middle of a busy intersection in Saigon, covered himself in gasoline, and lit himself on fire, burning himself to death. ??c was protesting President Ngô ?ình Di?m's administration for oppressing the Buddhist religion.^[76]

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I recently happened upon a great list of failed mcdonalds products. It brought back lots of memories of some of the the goofy things I had seen over the years fly out the drive through window. Well actually, I remember the pizza couldn't fit out the window so they had to walk it out the front door. I think they would have sold more if it looked like the pizza below. I also had a friend that couldn't get enough of the old Arch Deluxe but then again he would have eaten anything.

Topp 10 Failed Mcdonalds Products

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I am bored so here are some totally random strange animal facts. 

An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.

A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night

A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off – it dies from starvation

A crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old teeth

A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average

A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside

A hummingbird weighs less than a penny

Bulls are color blind, therefore will usually charge at a matador's waving cape no matter what color it is — be it red or neon yellow

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand

Cat urine glows under a black-light

Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right or left handed… or is that paws?

Porcupines float in water

The sloth (a mammal) moves so slowly that green algae can grow undisturbed on its fur

A dragonfly has a lifespan of twenty-four hours.

A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.

A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.

A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

A rat can last longer without water than a camel.

A rhinoceros' horn is made of compacted hair. Crickets hear through their knees.

Crocodiles swallow stones to help them dive deeper.

Hummingbirds can't walk.

If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode.

Iguanas, koalas and Komodo dragons all have two penisesMore people are killed each year from bees than from snakes. Only female mosquitoes bite.

Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

Polar bear fur is not white, it's clear

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