Luchadores (Spanish wrestlers) are highly regarded just like any other sportsmen in their countries.
Lucha libre (Spanish: Free wrestling, lit. "free fight") is a term used in Mexico, and other Spanish-speaking countries, for a form of professional wrestling that has developed within those countries. Although the term nowadays refers exclusively to professional wrestling, it was originally used in the same style as the English term "freestyle wrestling", referring to an amateur wrestling style without the restrictions of Greco-Roman wrestling.
Mexican wrestling is characterized by colorful masks, rapid sequences of holds and maneuvers, as well as "high-flying" maneuvers, some of which have been adopted in the United States. The wearing of masks has developed special significance, and matches are sometimes contested in which the loser must permanently remove his mask, which is a wager with a high degree of weight attached. Tag team wrestling is especially prevalent in lucha libre, particularly matches with three-member teams, called trios.
There is an official Pillow Fight League that exists.
The Pillow Fight League (PFL) is a Toronto-based semi-professional sports league centered around public pillow fights. The tongue in cheek women's sport is hosted in a fighting arena, much like a boxing or wrestling match. The League was founded by PFL Commissioner Stacey P. Case, and Honorary PFL Commissioner Craig Daniels in February 2004.[1] The formal league launched at a Canadian goth bar called The Vatikan in downtown Toronto. Events since then have been hosted in both Montreal, Quebec and New York City,[2] but the primary seat of the League remains in Toronto, Ontario. Fighter Abbie Roadkill, originally of British descent, recently speculated about a similar event in the United Kingdom
Wedgies can cause testicular damage.
There is at least one reported case of testicular damage resulting from the popular schoolyard prank. Jack Watson, boy in Lincolnshire, England, nearly lost a testicle in 2004 when one of his friends at school gave him a wedgie. He was rushed to the hospital where doctors spent an hour reattaching his testicle to his scrotum. Afterward, he said that the wedgie still hurt.
Bike Vending Machine is now available!
The First Bike Dispenser came out in 2005 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. It is actually a renting machine where the user has to return his bike after he has finished driving. These biked have built-in RFID tags that helps the bikes being tracked when you forget to take it back.
Special shoes can allow you to jump up to 6 feet!
Shoes called Powerisers allow the wearer to jump up to 6 feet in the air!
Real life superheroes do exist.
Shadow Hare is a real life superhero.
He and his team of "heroes" patrol the streets of Cincinnati, OH, and solve crimes, help the homeless and walk around in broad daylight like it was Halloween at your local high school and nobody had enough money for a real costume.
It's great to see people legitimately helping out the general public while asking for nothing in return; but it's funnier to see them dressed up like comic book heroes and handing certified police men business cards in case they "ever need help".
Elaine Davidson from Brazil has the most piercings in the world for a woman.
Meet the world's most pierced woman.
The Brazil Elaine Davidson is now at 6,005 body piercings.
You might be tempted to think her addicted to pain, but Davidson, a nurse who lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, says she actually doesn't like piercing, but suffers through for the sake of competition.
"I don't enjoy getting pierced, but to break the record you have to get to a high level. I wanted to break the record," she told the British Telegraph.
Justin Bieber never believed in Santa Claus.
Instead of opening presents from Santa under the tree, Bieber and his family opted for a unique gift exchange.
"We played a game on Christmas Day where everyone brought a girl gift and a boy gift. You roll the dice and if you get doubles, you get to pick a present and if you don't, it's the next person's turn. Then, the next time you roll doubles you get to choose someone else's present and switch," he explains. "One time I really wanted a Game Boy but I ended up with pots and pans, which was disappointing. I think I gave them to my mom."
Read more: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-my-mom-never-let-me-believe-in-santa-claus-20111812#ixzz1gw7SYwLO
There are over 2000 varieties of fleas around the world...so wash your dog!
Fleas are present all over the world. Over 2000 varieties, in fact. In America there are over 200 different types of fleas. 200!!! This will be no easy battle. Fleas are capable of jumping from 14 to 16 inches and will bite humans as well as your pet. Females can begin to lay eggs after just 48 hours of their first blood meal. The most common in this vast array of minuscule nuisances are the cat flea (Ctenocephalides felis) and the dog flea (Ctenocephalides canis). The most common parasite on your dog will actually be a CAT flea. Dog fleas are commonly found in Europe, while cat fleas are very common to the U.S. Cat fleas are not picky about who they feed on. Cat fleas can, in rare cases, carry disease. Also, if ingested can cause tape worm. The cat flea has been found to carry the plague and murine typhus to humans. They can be brought into your home almost undetected to the untrained eye. They can attach to your clothing or to your pet. They are found in yards, kennels, forests, parks, or an other areas common to warm blooded animals. Why? Because this is where they can find their hosts so they can reproduce. Did you know the female flea can lay up to 50 eggs a day? That means in approximately 9 months a female can cause up to a trillion decendents!! And due to the 4 stage life cycle they are extremely impervious to extermination tactics.
The S'more was created by Loretta Scott Crew, a leader of the Girl Scouts.
S'more appears to be a contraction of the phrase, "some more." While the origin of the dessert is unclear, the first recorded version of the recipe can be found in the publication "Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts" of 1927.[2] The recipe is credited to Loretta Scott Crew, who reportedly made them by the campfire for the Scouts.[3] It is unknown whether the Girl Scouts were the first to make s'mores, but there appears to be no earlier claim to this snack. Although it is unknown when the name was shortened, recipes for "Some Mores" are in various Girl Scout publications until at least 1971.
In the movie "Lilo and Stitch", the references to "Mulan" are a clue: the voice of Stitch, Chris Sanders, is one of the writers of "Lilo and Stitch" - and also one of the writers of "Mulan"!
Random Facts: In the movie "Lilo and Stitch", the references to "Mulan" are a clue: the voice of Stitch, Chris Sanders, is one of the writers of "Lilo and Stitch" - and also one of the writers of "Mulan"!
Random Facts: Alcohol increases the chances of having nightmares during sleep.
A nightmare is simply a more exaggerated dream. During sleep, both the body and brain complete all sorts of processes to repair the wear and tear from the day. Throughout these processes, we pass through different stages of sleep including REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and non-REM sleep.
We spend about 30 minutes in REM sleep for every 90 minutes cycle that occurs through the night and this is where our dreams occur. Dreams become more unrealistic as we progress from one stage of REM sleep to another all throughout the night, so nightmares may become more frequent further into the sleep cycle.
Nightmares also cause the body to react as if challenged by some sort of threat. Just like when watching a horror movie, we become highly alert at the first recognition of any type of threat present in a nightmare.
At this point, we generally wake up startled and confused. This awakening is actually due to a protective mechanism in the brain. Essentially, you detect a threat in your dream and the best thing you can do to protect yourself is to wake yourself up.
Obviously, a nightmare is nothing to fear and some experts even believe that vivid dreams are actually a sign of good mental health. You can lower your chances of experiencing nightmares, however, by setting a reasonable, regular bedtime, avoiding food and exercise too close to bedtime and turning off the lights and television in the bedroom.
Alcohol is another risk factor for nightmares as it can boost the strength of REM sleep, so lay off the booze if you want more pleasant dreams.
Random Facts: The collagen used for lip injections can come from a human cadaver.
Random Facts: The collagen used for lip injections can either come from cows, a human cadaver or a synthetic gel.
If only we could pout like Angelina Jolie. Those luscious lips speak volumes, don't they? They talk class, style, femme fatale appeal -- and girls secretly desire it. Perhaps, we could snag our own Brad Pitt if we could pucker like Angie!
Technology has actually made getting that Angelina pout possible. In a surgical procedure known as lip augmentation, collagen (usually harvested and processed from a cadaver), fat from your own body or some other synthetic material is injected or surgically implanted into the upper or lower lips or both. Costing at an average of $2,000, lip injections are usually done in the cosmetic surgeon's clinic and takes anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours to complete.
Lip injections are touted as one of the safest surgical procedures ever done. The risks are relatively minimal compared to that of other cosmetic procedures. However, they are there. Here's a rundown on the dangers of lip injections and some precautions to consider so you can minimize, if not eliminate, these.
1. Complications. Like any other surgical procedure, the possibility of complications like bleeding exists. Your risk doubles if you have a history of diabetes, problems with blood clots and other heart or lung disease. Make sure that you discuss your health history with your doctor before undergoing the procedure.
2. Allergic reactions. The collagen used for lip injections can either come from cows, a human cadaver or a synthetic gel. Surprised? These materials are processed in the most sterile of conditions. However, allergic reactions can still occur, so a sensitivity test is usually performed before this procedure is carried out. Itching, redness or scarring as a result of these allergic reactions can occur. Thus, it's important to tell your doctor any allergies you may have before the start of any procedure so he is forewarned.
3. Unnatural shape. In some circumstances, there are times when the end result would make an individual look like a blowfish. The promises given at the start of the procedure may not always be met or even run counter to expectations. The lips could protrude unnaturally and look even more asymmetrical. There is even the possibility of it going numb permanently. In severe instances, the implant material moves to a different part of the body, necessitating another round of surgery to remove it.
So here's a final word: Getting that pout necessitates a certain amount of risk. While lip injections are generally considered safe and one of the most commonly used cosmetic procedures done in the country, and all over the world, today, it does not mean that they are 100% foolproof. Barring collagen from cow or the fat harvested from your own stomach, it might also be worth looking at the fact that other kinds of injections for that perfect pout take their material from human cadavers. Granted, they process these with utmost care to make it as clean and disease-free as possible, but what are your guarantees? How do you know that the one injected to you does not carry any ailment of its now-dead host? But, as they say, beauty always has a price. If you're willing to pay it, then that is ultimately your call. Where getting that sexy pout is concerned, one can always think of it as an investment towards bagging your own Brad Pitt.
Random Fact: Anabolic steroids can cause male breasts and shruken testicles.
Anabolic steroids
What are they?Some athletes take a form of steroids — known as anabolic-androgen steroids or just anabolic steroids — to increase their muscle mass and strength. The main anabolic steroid hormone produced by your body is testosterone.
Testosterone has two main effects on your body:
- Anabolic effects promote muscle building.
- Androgenic effects are responsible for male traits, such as facial hair and a deeper voice.
Why are these drugs so appealing to athletes? Besides making muscles bigger, anabolic steroids may help athletes recover from a hard workout more quickly by reducing the muscle damage that occurs during the session. This enables athletes to workout harder and more frequently without overtraining. In addition, some athletes may like the aggressive feelings they get when they take the drugs.
Designer steroids
A particularly dangerous class of anabolic steroids are the so-called "designer" drugs — synthetic steroids that have been illicitly created to be undetectable by current drug tests. They are made specifically for athletes and have no approved medical use. Because of this, they haven't been tested or approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and represent a particular health threat to athletes.
Risks
Many athletes take anabolic steroids at doses that are much higher than those prescribed for medical reasons, and most of what is known about the drugs' effects on athletes comes from observing users. It is impossible for researchers to design studies that would accurately test the effects of large doses of steroids on athletes, because giving participants such high doses would be unethical. This means that the effects of taking anabolic steroids at very high doses haven't been well studied.
Anabolic steroids come with serious physical side effects as well.
Men may develop:
- Prominent breasts
- Baldness
- Shrunken testicles
- Infertility
- A deeper voice
- An enlarged clitoris
- Increased body hair
- Baldness
Milk from cows contains blood, pus, feces, bacteria and viruses.
Random Fact: Milk from cows contains blood, pus, feces, bacteria and viruses.
Random Facts: Real Life Super Robot Exists!
Some robots are designed to kill human beings. Others are designed to kill other robots. But when there’s nothing left to kill, what do we do with our robots? We make them play sports. TOPIO began development in 2005 as a humanoid robot designed to play table tennis. Built by a Vietnamese robot firm, TOPIO confirms at least two things for us: mankind has run out of useful things to do as a whole and Vietnam has robot firms, apparently.
TOPIO’s main features are the ability to recognize fast moving objects, to react to fast moving objects and to maintain balance. In other words, TOPIO does what any human would do if they took up the lost art of table tennis.
K.I.T.T., which stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand, was originally named T.A.T.T. for Trans Am Two Thousand because the design was based on the Pontiac Trans Am.
Random Facts : Biggest Laser Tag Arena in the World!
The biggest laser tag arena in Europe called the LaserZone in Bradford, United Kingdom. The 1670 sq.m' arena is equipped with ZetaBlast (Laser Blast) laser tag system for 40 players and has a multilevel maze.
Random Facts: Busty Barbie brings controversy!
“‘Busty Barbie’ in Mattel’s new Back to Basics Barbie collection is too revealing for some parents” by Tracy Miller at the NY Daily NewsBarbie has always been known for her curves – but a new doll from Mattel is upping the ante, much to some parents’ consternation.
The Barbie “Back to Basics” collection is a new line of Barbie dolls dressed in stylish cocktail attire: Little black dresses, off-the-shoulder frocks and tiny strapless numbers. But one doll in the line is grabbing all the attention: No. 10, who’s quickly earned the nickname “Busty Barbie.”
The Barbie “Back to Basics” collection is a new line of Barbie dolls dressed in stylish cocktail attire: Little black dresses, off-the-shoulder frocks and tiny strapless numbers. But one doll in the line is grabbing all the attention: No. 10, who’s quickly earned the nickname “Busty Barbie.”
The game Monopoly has a strange beginning...
Cut-throat, competitive, and unapologetically capitalist, Monopoly's winner-takes-all gameplay has made it the world's most popular board game.
But it wasn't always quite so ruthless. Believe it or not, Monopoly began its life as an anticapitalist teaching tool, spent decades as an underground pastime played by early American progressives, leftists, and other radicals, went on to aid countless wartime prisoners escape from German camps, and wound up in a ten-year trademark dispute with a Californian economist. And you thought it was all about Boardwalk.
Birth of a Monopoly
Monopoly is usually remembered as an invention of Depression-era America, and the brainchild of an entrepreneur called Charles Darrow, but neither of those things are exactly true. In fact, the game was actually conceived some three decades prior by an Illinois progressive named Elizabeth Magie Phillips.
Phillips was a devotee of an economic ideology called "Georgism," which advocated the abolishment of all taxes save for a so-called "single tax" levied on land owners. In order to demonstrate what she saw as the advantages of Georgism and the injustices of land monopolies, she created an unusually intricate board game, named it the Landlord's Game, and in around 1904 she filed the first of a series of patents on its design. Monopoly was born.
Phillips' patents reveal she was one of the first to make a board with a looped, repeating circuit, rather than just a point-to-point race. Among familiar squares like "Go to Jail," the utilities, and the railroads were less recognizable stops named "Public Park," "Legacy," and "Mother Earth." The game ran until one player had completed five laps of the board -- and the winner was the player who had accumulated the greatest amount of property, cash, and goods.
[ Photos: See more Past and Present Old School Board Games ]
No such fortune awaited Phillips, however. By the time Monopoly made it big (in the middle of the Great Depression, no less) its ownership had passed -- via a somewhat unclear chain of friends and acquaintances -- to a Philadelphia plumber named Charles Darrow.
Darrow learned the game in 1932 and, impressed by its potential, created much of the iconography that we still associate with the game: the little green and red houses, the color-coded properties, the artwork. Beginning by hand-crafting copies of the game in his spare time, Darrow, a skilled salesman, managed to convince local department stores to stock his version of Monopoly. It was an immediate success.
By 1935 his efforts attracted the attention of Parker Bros., which added the game's metal playing pieces, and began mass-producing it in earnest. Parker's first edition sold for $2 -- and in less than two years it had sold over two million copies. Its place in board gaming history was secured.
Monopoly at war
Monopoly made Parker a household name, and Darrow a millionaire -- but it would be put to more creative use during the Second World War, thanks to a unique collaboration between its British publisher Waddington and the British Secret Service.
It's a story that sounds like the product of an overstimulated Hollywood producer rather than the bowler-hatted gents at the Ministry of Intelligence. But upon discovering that German authorities were happy to provide their prisoners-of-war with games and pastimes (perhaps in the hope that a little light entertainment would distract captives from plotting escape or other misbehavior), the British hit upon a plan.
They'd send Monopoly games to the German stalags.
As you might assume, these were no ordinary Monopoly games. Manufactured amid immense secrecy, their boxes hid secret compartments containing compasses, silk maps, and tiny files, and tucked amid the Monopoly currency were real banknotes, intended for prisoners to use in their attempts to flee mainland Europe. Q would have been proud.
How many prisoners did they free? Nobody knows. The veil of secrecy surrounding the program remained in place for decades after the war was over. No examples of the games survive. But certainly many thousands of British soldiers did escape German captivity, and it's not unimaginable that some of them did so with the assistance of a simple board game. Sure puts a spin on the game's "Get out of Jail Free" card.
Anti-Monopoly: the backlash
As irony would have it, Monopoly's anti-capitalist roots would wind up making an unwelcome re-appearance during the heady days of the 1970s. Hunting for a way to educate the public about the dangers of rampant monopolies -- and unimpressed with the economic principles behind Parker's board game -- a California economics professor named Ralph Anspach created an educational board game he called Anti-Monopoly. Bearing a pronounced resemblance to its namesake, it went on sale in 1973, and enjoyed no shortage of success.
Parker Bros. were not pleased. Unsurprisingly, they saw Anspach's game as a misappropriation of their valuable trademark, and filed suit. Anspach and his legal team tried to convince judges that Monopoly's decades of pre-Parker history rendered its trademark invalid, kicking off some ten years of courtroom drama.
Early judgements favored Parker, and even ordered Anspach to destroy all his stock of the game -- but after a lengthy series of appeals the opposing parties reached an accord. Anspach could continue to sell his game, and Parker kept their trademark. If you feel like a lesson on the evils of capitalism, Anti-Monopoly is still on sale today.
Who's Mr. Monopoly, anyway?
Tubby, moustachioed, and permanently raising his top hat, Mr. Monopoly has been representing the game since 1936 -- although he's only been known by that name for the last decade or so. Prior to that, he had the rather less stylish moniker "Rich Uncle Pennybags." But whatever you call him, Monopoly's mascot had a real-world inspiration: 19th-century banker and businessman J.P. Morgan, who cut a similarly rotund and whiskery figure.
But it wasn't always quite so ruthless. Believe it or not, Monopoly began its life as an anticapitalist teaching tool, spent decades as an underground pastime played by early American progressives, leftists, and other radicals, went on to aid countless wartime prisoners escape from German camps, and wound up in a ten-year trademark dispute with a Californian economist. And you thought it was all about Boardwalk.
Birth of a Monopoly
Monopoly is usually remembered as an invention of Depression-era America, and the brainchild of an entrepreneur called Charles Darrow, but neither of those things are exactly true. In fact, the game was actually conceived some three decades prior by an Illinois progressive named Elizabeth Magie Phillips.
Phillips was a devotee of an economic ideology called "Georgism," which advocated the abolishment of all taxes save for a so-called "single tax" levied on land owners. In order to demonstrate what she saw as the advantages of Georgism and the injustices of land monopolies, she created an unusually intricate board game, named it the Landlord's Game, and in around 1904 she filed the first of a series of patents on its design. Monopoly was born.
Phillips' patents reveal she was one of the first to make a board with a looped, repeating circuit, rather than just a point-to-point race. Among familiar squares like "Go to Jail," the utilities, and the railroads were less recognizable stops named "Public Park," "Legacy," and "Mother Earth." The game ran until one player had completed five laps of the board -- and the winner was the player who had accumulated the greatest amount of property, cash, and goods.
[ Photos: See more Past and Present Old School Board Games ]
No such fortune awaited Phillips, however. By the time Monopoly made it big (in the middle of the Great Depression, no less) its ownership had passed -- via a somewhat unclear chain of friends and acquaintances -- to a Philadelphia plumber named Charles Darrow.
Darrow learned the game in 1932 and, impressed by its potential, created much of the iconography that we still associate with the game: the little green and red houses, the color-coded properties, the artwork. Beginning by hand-crafting copies of the game in his spare time, Darrow, a skilled salesman, managed to convince local department stores to stock his version of Monopoly. It was an immediate success.
By 1935 his efforts attracted the attention of Parker Bros., which added the game's metal playing pieces, and began mass-producing it in earnest. Parker's first edition sold for $2 -- and in less than two years it had sold over two million copies. Its place in board gaming history was secured.
Monopoly at war
Monopoly made Parker a household name, and Darrow a millionaire -- but it would be put to more creative use during the Second World War, thanks to a unique collaboration between its British publisher Waddington and the British Secret Service.
It's a story that sounds like the product of an overstimulated Hollywood producer rather than the bowler-hatted gents at the Ministry of Intelligence. But upon discovering that German authorities were happy to provide their prisoners-of-war with games and pastimes (perhaps in the hope that a little light entertainment would distract captives from plotting escape or other misbehavior), the British hit upon a plan.
They'd send Monopoly games to the German stalags.
As you might assume, these were no ordinary Monopoly games. Manufactured amid immense secrecy, their boxes hid secret compartments containing compasses, silk maps, and tiny files, and tucked amid the Monopoly currency were real banknotes, intended for prisoners to use in their attempts to flee mainland Europe. Q would have been proud.
How many prisoners did they free? Nobody knows. The veil of secrecy surrounding the program remained in place for decades after the war was over. No examples of the games survive. But certainly many thousands of British soldiers did escape German captivity, and it's not unimaginable that some of them did so with the assistance of a simple board game. Sure puts a spin on the game's "Get out of Jail Free" card.
Anti-Monopoly: the backlash
As irony would have it, Monopoly's anti-capitalist roots would wind up making an unwelcome re-appearance during the heady days of the 1970s. Hunting for a way to educate the public about the dangers of rampant monopolies -- and unimpressed with the economic principles behind Parker's board game -- a California economics professor named Ralph Anspach created an educational board game he called Anti-Monopoly. Bearing a pronounced resemblance to its namesake, it went on sale in 1973, and enjoyed no shortage of success.
Parker Bros. were not pleased. Unsurprisingly, they saw Anspach's game as a misappropriation of their valuable trademark, and filed suit. Anspach and his legal team tried to convince judges that Monopoly's decades of pre-Parker history rendered its trademark invalid, kicking off some ten years of courtroom drama.
Early judgements favored Parker, and even ordered Anspach to destroy all his stock of the game -- but after a lengthy series of appeals the opposing parties reached an accord. Anspach could continue to sell his game, and Parker kept their trademark. If you feel like a lesson on the evils of capitalism, Anti-Monopoly is still on sale today.
Who's Mr. Monopoly, anyway?
Tubby, moustachioed, and permanently raising his top hat, Mr. Monopoly has been representing the game since 1936 -- although he's only been known by that name for the last decade or so. Prior to that, he had the rather less stylish moniker "Rich Uncle Pennybags." But whatever you call him, Monopoly's mascot had a real-world inspiration: 19th-century banker and businessman J.P. Morgan, who cut a similarly rotund and whiskery figure.
True story about Tetris!
If you've owned pretty much any computing device in the past thirty years or so, you've likely had the opportunity to play Tetris on it.
The immensely popular puzzler has appeared on just about everything with a screen since its 1984 debut, and while the Game Boy version released just five years later would become the most widely played version, it's been a hit everywhere. Next up? A new board game version, Tetris Link, which arrived in Europe earlier this year and will hopefully hit the U.S. in time for the holidays.
But while you certainly know how to rotate blocks, did you know these five fun facts about the line-clearing classic?
- Its theme song is over a century old.
Doooo, doo doo doooo, doo doo dooooo, di doo doo doooo...on and on it drones, endlessly urging you to twist another shape, fill another hole, and remove just one more line. But while that impossibly catchy Tetris toe-tapper is a chiptune legend, it actually dates back a lot farther than its synthesized bleeps and bloops imply.
The Tetris theme is a remake of "Korobeiniki," a 19th century Russian folk song about the burgeoning love between a peddler and a peasant girl. In the Game Boy version, this was the 'Type A' music (one of several available musical selections) that has since become the game's de facto theme. Its arranger, Hirokazu Tanaka, is something of a video game music legend, having penned the theme songs from other massive hits like Duck Hunt, Metroid, and Super Mario Land.
- Its creator barely made a dime off it.
These days, it takes teams numbering in the hundreds to crank out hit games.
Back in 1984, it took Alexy Pajitnov.
The brilliant Russian programmer created Tetris while working at the Academy of Science Computer Center in Moscow. Almost immediately, a nightmarish licensing struggle between the Soviet government and a number of interested European game publishers ensued, cutting Pajitnov out of the picture. By the time it was released in the U.S. by Nintendo for the Game Boy, the man who actually built the game had earned next to nothing from it while the Kremlin raked in millions from royalties.
Eventually, however, Pajitnov would land in the U.S. himself and co-found The Tetris Company. Formed in 1996, the company now owns the trademark rights to Tetris and routinely goes about shutting down unauthorized clones.
- It's named after its blocks.
Pajitnov might have designed the game, but the famous Tetris blocks have been around for much, much longer.
The etymology of Tetris begins with "polyminoes," geometric shapes made up of smaller square blocks. There are 12 polyminoes, and many of them have been used in puzzle games dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.
Check out 99 Bricks on Yahoo! Games
Specifically, Tetris uses "tetraminoes," which are polyminoes comprised of four square blocks. There are five unique tetraminoes, though two of them can be inverted, giving us the seven tetraminoes (line, square, T, L, inverted L, N, and inverted N) used in the game.
As for the game's full name? Legend has it has Pajitnov insisted on combining the 'tetra' prefix in tetramino with 'tennis', his favorite sport. Hence, Tetris.
- It's been played on buildings.
In 1995, a group of dedicated students at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands turned the Electrical Engineering Department into what was, at the time, the largest Tetris game ever. Taking up a full 15 floors, it was playable via telnet by anyone in the world.
But even that monstrosity pales next to the current Guinness World Record holder: The British television show 'The Gadget Show', who managed to drop blocks on a 1100 square foot board using 200 massive LED lights back in September of 2010.
- It really does make you see things.
You know a game's good when, even hours after turning it off, you're still playing it in your head. Tetris is notorious for leaping off the screen and seemingly infiltrating our real lives, causing us to see interlocking shapes around every corner.
But don't freak out if you find yourself rotating blocks in your sleep. For sailors wobbling around on land after spending months at sea, it's called 'sea legs'. For gamers, it's called the 'Tetris Effect' -- a legit scientific phenomenon in which habitual tasks begin to express themselves in dreams, memories or other mental images.
But while you certainly know how to rotate blocks, did you know these five fun facts about the line-clearing classic?
- Its theme song is over a century old.
Doooo, doo doo doooo, doo doo dooooo, di doo doo doooo...on and on it drones, endlessly urging you to twist another shape, fill another hole, and remove just one more line. But while that impossibly catchy Tetris toe-tapper is a chiptune legend, it actually dates back a lot farther than its synthesized bleeps and bloops imply.
The Tetris theme is a remake of "Korobeiniki," a 19th century Russian folk song about the burgeoning love between a peddler and a peasant girl. In the Game Boy version, this was the 'Type A' music (one of several available musical selections) that has since become the game's de facto theme. Its arranger, Hirokazu Tanaka, is something of a video game music legend, having penned the theme songs from other massive hits like Duck Hunt, Metroid, and Super Mario Land.
- Its creator barely made a dime off it.
These days, it takes teams numbering in the hundreds to crank out hit games.
Back in 1984, it took Alexy Pajitnov.
The brilliant Russian programmer created Tetris while working at the Academy of Science Computer Center in Moscow. Almost immediately, a nightmarish licensing struggle between the Soviet government and a number of interested European game publishers ensued, cutting Pajitnov out of the picture. By the time it was released in the U.S. by Nintendo for the Game Boy, the man who actually built the game had earned next to nothing from it while the Kremlin raked in millions from royalties.
Eventually, however, Pajitnov would land in the U.S. himself and co-found The Tetris Company. Formed in 1996, the company now owns the trademark rights to Tetris and routinely goes about shutting down unauthorized clones.
- It's named after its blocks.
Pajitnov might have designed the game, but the famous Tetris blocks have been around for much, much longer.
The etymology of Tetris begins with "polyminoes," geometric shapes made up of smaller square blocks. There are 12 polyminoes, and many of them have been used in puzzle games dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.
Check out 99 Bricks on Yahoo! Games
Specifically, Tetris uses "tetraminoes," which are polyminoes comprised of four square blocks. There are five unique tetraminoes, though two of them can be inverted, giving us the seven tetraminoes (line, square, T, L, inverted L, N, and inverted N) used in the game.
As for the game's full name? Legend has it has Pajitnov insisted on combining the 'tetra' prefix in tetramino with 'tennis', his favorite sport. Hence, Tetris.
- It's been played on buildings.
In 1995, a group of dedicated students at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands turned the Electrical Engineering Department into what was, at the time, the largest Tetris game ever. Taking up a full 15 floors, it was playable via telnet by anyone in the world.
But even that monstrosity pales next to the current Guinness World Record holder: The British television show 'The Gadget Show', who managed to drop blocks on a 1100 square foot board using 200 massive LED lights back in September of 2010.
- It really does make you see things.
You know a game's good when, even hours after turning it off, you're still playing it in your head. Tetris is notorious for leaping off the screen and seemingly infiltrating our real lives, causing us to see interlocking shapes around every corner.
But don't freak out if you find yourself rotating blocks in your sleep. For sailors wobbling around on land after spending months at sea, it's called 'sea legs'. For gamers, it's called the 'Tetris Effect' -- a legit scientific phenomenon in which habitual tasks begin to express themselves in dreams, memories or other mental images.
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