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Here’s a hybrid of Quite Interesting with Whiskey Tango Foxtrot:

Remember Andy Samberg’s duet with Justin Timberlake called “Dick in a Box”? All the rage on YouTube and all, right?

Well, apparently the song won the Emmy for Outstanding Music and Lyrics for 2007.

That’s right. Dick in a Box. Emmy. Same sentence.

I can’t imagine anyone’s happier than Andy Samberg, who will now be able to introduce himself as an Emmy-award winning songwriter… for Dick in a Box.

Freeze-dried ice cream, often consumed by NASA astronauts and 7 year-olds visiting Space Camp, was invented on the request of NASA during the Gemini project. The food’s inventor, however, was not Nestlé or any other food company which was then supplying the space program, but rather the Whirpool corporation, more famously known for its dishwashers.

(via NASA)

You Only Live Twice is my second-favorite Bond movie (after Thunderball, of course). Not only does it have Ken Wallis‘ “Little Nellie” in amazing aerial sequences, but also features what is in my view yet another under-appreciated actor, Donald Pleasence (better known for his roles in THX1138 and The Great Escape), as Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

And who was the writer for this action-packed, starred explosive extravaganza? None other than Roald Dahl, author of Mathilda, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and other childrens’ books.

The film is not without infamy, however. Unfortunately, we have to credit the movie’s homonymous main theme as providing the sample for the Robbie Williams single “Millenium”, which proved to be the tipping point for his solo career in 1998.

Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary, after years of ideological struggle for the disenfranchised, was gunned down on July 23rd, 1923. His last words preserved for posterity?

No permitas que esto acabe así. Cuentales que he dicho algo.

Something like: “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”

I’ve become addicted to a BBC show called “Quite Interesting” If you’re Brazilian, you’ll probably remember the “Guia dos Curiosos”. It’s like a TV version turned into a gameshow. It’s hosted by none other than Stephen Fry, who is so British he once said to have “vocal chords made of tweed”. The jist of it is that points aren’t awarded for the correct answer to the question, but rather an interesting answer. Points are also deducted from giving the obvious answer, which is generally wrong. Fry’s sidekick, Alan Davies, is quite an expert at the obvious answer, and as Fry puts it “rushes headlong like a puppy into the wall of ignorance.”

Here’s a clip so you get an idea:

So, I’ve decided to lighten the load, so to speak, and start inserting some of these Quite Interesting facts and figures in the blog, so as to not absolutely bore you with my drivel. Just to start, however, I’ll pitch in an interesting fact of my own. To make it even more interesting, I’ll make it multiple choice.

The DSV Alvin is one of the foremost submersible exploration vehicles, and was made famous in 1986 for its exploration of the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, along with Robert Ballard. It was commissioned in 1964, has taken over 12,000 people in 4,000 dives and is still in active service with the US Navy. The question is: Who manufactured the 17-ton submarine?

A)General Dynamics – The makers of most of the US Navy’s submarines and the F-16 fighter jet
B)General Motors – The makers of many military vehicles used over the years
C)General Electric – The makers of high-pressure nuclear reactors for the Navy
D)General Mills – The makers of Cheerios and Lucky Charm cereal

In the spirit of QI, the right answer is D) General Mills, who in 1964 won the bid to build a then-unnamed submersible that could dive to 6,000ft, at a contract cost of $472,517. General Mills’s Electronics Division at the time produced their own cereal-making machinery, and was the prime contractor to assemble Alvin. The rest is history.

QI