Category: Weird and Bizarre

In the 1930s, brothers Dick and Mac McDonald were struggling to make a living running a movie theater in California when they noticed that a nearby hot dog stand always seemed to do a lot of business. With a $5,000 loan, the McDonald brothers started the Airdrome hot dog stand in 1937. By 1940, they moved it from Arcadia to San Bernardino and changed the name to McDonald’s Barbeque.

Their simple menu and assembly-line efficiency soon attracted the attention of milkshake machine salesman Ray Kroc. He asked Dick and Mac to hire him as their franchise agent in 1955: in exchange for licensing the name to him, the brothers would get a percentage of sales.

It was a massively profitable arrangement all around. With Ray Kroc opening franchises across the country, McDonalds became the most successful fast food operation in the world.

In 1961, Ray Kroc bought the company and exclusive rights to the McDonalds name from the McDonald brothers, who asked for $2.7 million and the right to control their original restaurant, which they renamed “The Big M”, having sold “McDonalds” to Kroc.

Perhaps smarting from the high price, Kroc opened up a McDonalds right across the street from The Big M and ran the McDonald brothers out of business in six months.

McDonald’s stores number more than 30,000 and are located in more than 100 countries. They collectively serve 52 million people every day.

While there are plenty of camel farms in Saudi Arabia, their camels are bred for domestic uses and racing. The camels from Australia are mostly used for meat, which is a delicacy in many countries in the Middle East.

The first thing about this factoid that you may be surprised to learn is that Australia has camels. They were imported onto the continent in the 19th century from Arabia, India, and Afghanistan because they were well suited to Australia’s outback. However, when the combustion engine came along, the camels weren’t needed. So they were released into the outback, and today it is a huge problem. There is one roaming pack that has 750,000 camels.

Another thing you may be surprised to learn is that Australia also exports camels to Saudi Arabia, a place you’d think would be plentiful with camels. It would be like Canada importing beavers.

People suffering from Omphalophobia are terrified of belly buttons- their own or, in some cases, those of the others. They do not like touching their navel (or even other people touching it). Sometimes the mere sight of the belly button is enough to make them feel disgusted or terrified.

Gaze deep into the darkness of the hole, and be afraid!

Those with this phobia are typically terrified of both touching and even looking at a bellybutton.

Even more horrific for them, would be having their own bellybutton touched.

I myself flinch a little when either I or someone else pokes around there, but only because my navel area is pretty sensitive for some reason. It doesn’t scare me.