How Often Do You Really Need To Shower?

It's a question fraught with peril, perhaps, answered HERE as follows, "daily showering is actually not objectively healthier or better; and in fact, one of the most common reasons that people cut down on showering is actually for skin-health reasons, not laziness."

I'd like to see the data on that.

If Only Russia's "Threat" To Ban American Astronauts Was a Promise

With the space shuttle fleet retired from service, the United States currently pays Russia more than $65 million apiece to fly American astronauts to the International Space Station, according to THIS Telegraph article.

How much did the first "space tourists" flown to the International Space Station (ISS) pay for the same flight by the Russians, I wondered? The first, Dennis Tito, payed a reported $20 million in 2001. Gregory Olsen also paid $20 million in 2005. The last, a Canadian circus magnate, paid $35 million for his 2009 flight to the ISS.

Is it any wonder, then, that Russia indefinitely suspended these private space tourist flights for millionaires in 2010, at the same time the space shuttle fleet was decommissioned.  At the time, Russia characterized the suspension as being bandwidth and safety-related, according to THIS Reuters article. But as it turns out, it was really all about money. Predictably.

The crew of the most recent mission to the ISS, including one American, arrived home safely just hours ago, coincidentally.  What did we get for our $65 million? The highlight of their "eventful and historic" mission, according to THIS Fox News article, was that one of the three became the first ever Japanese man to command the ISS. Oh, and they oversaw the arrival of a cargo capsule that re-supplied the ISS.  Oh, and they also participated in an "unprecedented" two hour TV event titled "Live From Space" that was broadcast live on the National Geographic Channel. Wow.

In light of all of the above, I laughed when I read this morning of Russia's new 'threat' today to stop ferrying American astronauts to the ISS in light of the crisis in Ukraine, and embargo that they said would begin in (pinky to mouth): 10 years.

So You Led A Failed Rebellion, Then What?

I was surprised to read yesterday that, after the American Civil War ended in 1865, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, lived another 25 years. He spent only two years in prison after the war, apparently, and yesterday was the anniversary of his release in 1867. What did he do for the rest of his life, I wondered?  How do you follow-up leading a failed rebellion and a ruinous, 5-year civil war?

"Sell life insurance" would not have been my first guess.  But according to Wikipedia, he initially became President of the Carolina Life Insurance Company before, amazingly, being re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 1875.  He was barred from  taking that office, apparently, but I wonder whether, if he had been allowed, he would've strode down the aisle of the Senate apologizing to everyone ("sorry... sorry... terribly sorry.... won't happen again...") or triumphantly, with purpose and head held high ("Don't Call It A Comeback!"). 

The Biggest Drinkers In The World... Are in Chad?

"When abstainers are excluded the national averages look extremely different," reads THIS new article in The Economist. "By this measure, it is in Africa, Asia and even the Middle East where actual drinkers quaff the most. In Chad almost nine in ten adults abstain, yet its 780,000 drinkers put away almost 34 litres of alcohol each. On the usual ranking, it would come 115th out of 190 countries. France drinks a lot, but because it has one of the lowest rate of abstainers at just 5%, it ranks 113th compared with 20th."

Santa Maria Found, "Pinta" Means What!?!

We're all familiar with the phrase,"the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria." Now comes news that one of those three ships famously on Christopher Columbus' first voyage to The New World, the Santa Maria, has been found by underwater archaeologists off the northern coast of Haiti (where it drifted and wrecked -with Columbus aboard- in almost slapstick fashion, just weeks after making initial landfall in the Bahamas).

As an aside, "La Nina" and "La Pinta" were not actually those ships' real names. They were nicknames.  "La Pinta" means "the painted" in Spanish, and at the time was apparently sailor slang for "prostitute."

Aborted "Thundarr" Video Game

I loved the cartoon "Thundarr the Barbarian" (1980-1982) as a kid, and wrote HERE previously about the proposed "Thundarr" toy line that was abandoned when the TV show was cancelled and the toy company went bankrupt. 

Today I learned of another, similar casualty. Apparently a "Thundarr the Barbarian" video game was developed in the early 1980s for Atari and for ColecoVision. You can view the original, full color press release for the game, including box art and a screen grab HERE.  But this may've been a blessing.  The game was apparently canceled after the licensor, the animation company Ruby-Spears, determined that it was not of sufficient quality.  But you can judge that for yourself, as it turns out. The game was released in 1984 anyway, under the revised title, "Tomarc the Barbarian," and here is a 4 minute clip of it:

Godzilla: Why 1978?

The new "Godzilla" film that will be released later this week got me reflecting on how I became familiar with "Godzilla" as a kid in the 1970s. Of course, the old B&W movies from Japan were shown regularly on TV on Saturday afternoons back then.  But I mostly knew Godzilla from this 1978 toy and from this 1978 cartoon.

Why was Godzilla suddenly revived in America in 1978 (seemingly out of the blue), I wondered?  (Marvel also published a Godzilla comic book at the time, and a set of "Godzilla" View-Master reels were released that year, too.) I couldn't find a single, definitive answer to that.  But it may've been linked to a proposed 1978 re-make of the original 1954 film that was to have been titled "King of Monsters: Rebirth of Godzilla."  You can read more about it on the Toho website HERE. ("But for whatever reason the project never came to pass.")