Israel's Hebrew University owns the rights to the image of Albert Einstein and earns an average of 12 million dollars a year in licensing fees.
In 1958, a combine carrying a full load of freshly harvested crops might weigh 8,800 pounds (4000 kg). Today, a fully loaded combine can clock in at 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg).
There was a John Deere ad that ran in Texas in early 1991 (temporary duty stations can fix dates in your mind so well, can't they?) that showed a guy and his wife at the dealership, along with some eight-lane-wide green monstrosity that "can move the average lawn in 2.3 seconds," not even taking one full turn of its wheels to do so. Wifey dragged hubby away to the actual lawn tractor section of the shop as he wiped the drool from his mental chin. ETA: Holy crap, I think I found it! Details differ but it's close enough for a thirty year old memory:
From our 'there’s naught so queer as folk' department: Room 150 at the Motel 41 in Evansville, Ind., where escaped Lauderdale County inmate Casey White and former jailer Vicky White stayed while on the run during a manhunt that captured the nation’s imagination, has a long waiting list, according to a motel clerk.
Really? I swore that was supposed to happen 20 years ago according to the intro narration to the movie 'Phone Booth' (which I actually saw in the theater). Well, artistic license.
Well, I looked at the opening scene on YouTube and the narrator actually says "the last booth of its type still in operation...scheduled to be replaced tomorrow." Does anyone include qualifiers when writing stories to sort of future proof the details?
I often comment on headlines alone. I regard them as writing prompts, especially if it is like those social media posts from George Takei. Hit those links for an ad blitz. I don't. So sue me.
I tend not to need to worry about that since the stories I've been working on take place in a sort of alternate reality that's vaguely a mashup of late 60's through mid 80's as those eras exist in my memory. Nothing really need be 'accurate'. Example: Since the entire story is filtered through an older narrator's reminiscences, everything is built from his memories, and he mentions several times that they might be wrong, but 'that's the way I remember it'. It's like the beginning of Great Expectations, where the narrator says "I'm not going to tell it the way it happened, but the way I remember it." That little caveat gives you a lot of leeway.
Johnny Depp is in a trial . . . it is televised and posted live with variously-formatted summaries everywhere online. I still don't know what it it about, aside from the fact that the word "defamation" is plastered at every corner. I still don't know and I still don't care to know . . .
Have squirrels gotten suicidal? I’ve noticed a lot who don’t do that which-way-should-I-run thing when a car is coming down the road. They don’t even bother. They just sit there, like they’re thinking “Oh well, if not today…”
I’m sitting in the ‘reception’ area at a car dealership waiting on my wife’s truck. (This is her last free oil change.) The vending machine has all the standard fare- candy bars, chips, nuts, cookies, and even lunchables- at horrible prices. $2.25 for a share size package of M&Ms? I feel like car dealerships are trying to out movie theaters in inspiring people to sneak in their own snacks, so they don’t have to pay concession stand prices.