Things you didn't know until very recently...

The BBC World Service has ads, mostly from tourism-related companies and international banking and investment companies. An ad for tourism in Malaysia that seemed to play at least once every ad break a year or two ago had the slogan "Malaysia - Truly Asia". I remember it because I found the rhyme somewhat annoying, as well as the implication that some Asian countries are not true Asia. (I always hate it when a country or continent tries to play that shit with its constituents - in the US, it's usually rural people referring to themselves as "true America", implying that metropolitan areas aren't equally true parts of the country. In Finland, I've heard similar sentiments expressed about the Helsinki metropolitan area, with the idea that it's too multicultural or something to be "real" Finland. It's ridiculous.)

On topic, I learned recently that a non-league (basically lower than 4th tier) side hasn't made it to the FA Cup quarter-finals since 1914. Well, until now, that is - Lincoln beat Burnley this weekend, and now they're drawn against the winner of Sutton v Arsenal. Sutton is in the same division as Lincoln. That means if Arsenal beat Sutton, they'll be going into a second consecutive round against a side that would need to be promoted 4 seasons in a row to get into Arsenal's league. Just to be clear, my submission as a thing I learned recently is not that Lincoln beat Burnley - that's just happened, so it doesn't count - but that it had been so long since something similar last happened in the FA Cup. (I suppose I could also say that I probably hadn't heard of either Sutton or Lincoln before this week, either. I'm not sure, but I don't recall having heard or read about them.)

There is a pantsuit shop named (what else) Hillary.

Ah I did not know King settled that.

There are only two escalators in all of Wyoming.

The difference between herbs & spices.

Herb: leaf

Spice: root, bark, or seed

edited 20th Feb '17 1:44:31 PM by scionofgrace

There is a collection of Hillary paintings out there.

They are all very Hillaryous.

Well, the largest city in Wyoming is only like 50,000 people.

Somebody made realist Pokémon art...and it's rather interesting. Apparently Jigglypuff looks like the offspring of Furby x cat...not sure how to react to that one.

edited 20th Feb '17 5:12:07 PM by Theatre_Maven_3695

Adding in to what I said before about my Arabic accent: I've now also learned that with my accent in Arabic being recognizably Damascene, and with it generally Levantine, the register of Arabic I use isn't quite Levantine enough to be called so, and the way I do use Arabic is described by Arabic friends as being either 'educated Syrian/Lebanese' or 'Integrated standard' due to how I'm in a vague area between Modern Standard Arabic and Levantine.

edited 21st Feb '17 5:26:52 AM by RatherRandomRachel

If Malaysia were to be truly Asia, there would be some pretty awful implications about what the rest of Asia is like.

I would know - I live here.

On topic: Forgotten Weapons (a YouTube channel on their namesake) is going to release a video on the Walther WA2000.

Ave Maria is probably not going to be featured.

Brand Restaurants, which owns Burger King, Tim Hortons, and others, has bought out Popeye's for $1.8 M.

I thought for a moment you meant $1,800,000, which would have been ridiculously small for a chain as big as Popeyes.

What's the correct figure? I would've though it might be 1.8 billion, but is the symbol for that a capital M?

Yes. Popeye's is a good-sized chain, but nowhere near as massive as McDonald's or KFC.

edited 21st Feb '17 11:56:30 AM by Spinosegnosaurus77

The symbol for billion is generally a G, as in giga, but some places do use G as in 'Grand' meaning thousand. M generally means million, for 'Mega'.

I would've understood 1.8 B to mean 1.8 billion. 1.8 m, for me, would be 1.8 million (which you'd need to multiply by 1 000 to get to 1.8 B).

TIL that not all people use the same abbreviations for large numbers. Which, in this case, led to some confusion.

English is an annoying language sometimes.

edited 21st Feb '17 2:20:20 PM by WillDeRegio

Which led. That's the past tense you're looking for.

Sorry, that's a grammar error that I see all over the place here and it really bothers me.

Australia is going to be a playable civ in the next Civilization VI DLC.

There was a clue about Overwatch on Jeopardy! today. Nobody got it right.

The composer of Puzzle of Empires is also a competent player of the game. His co-host of the YouTube video series is one of the top players.

edited 21st Feb '17 4:27:20 PM by murazrai

Apparently, they made a musical out of The Magic Treehouse. I've heard of All Musicals Are Adaptations, but that's a bit much

edited 22nd Feb '17 6:13:25 PM by Theatre_Maven_3695

Witches are casting a spell tomorrow.

Maybe Hillary's actually a witch!

wtf