Let me explain myself

You may have noticed that, for the past few days, I've been writing something that I have learnt each day. I thought I'd do it to test the saying "You learn something new everyday". So far it hasn't been a very good experiment, because while I have learnt something new everyday, I've been keeping my eye out for it. It's kinda been a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Today however has been a rather dud day. Seeing as I spent most of my day playing with envelopes and printers, I didn't learn a lot. I did have lunch with Lauren and that was a good respite.

I did learn things today, but nothing worth remembering. I learnt that Brad Pitt has gone to hospital with the flu and Scarlett Johansson wanted to shoot a sex scene topless*, but Michael Bay wouldn't let her. But neither of those things are world changing. SMH really does some high class reporting.

I learnt that when Jesus turned water into wine he made somewhere between 500 and 750 litres of wine. But I already knew that, I'd just forgotten.

Last night after midnight I learnt why the Secret Service is part of the US Department of Treasury. It's because when it was created it was designed to catch people who forge money. It still is. It was given the job of protecting the President in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley that year, who was the 25th US President and had a pet parrot called "Washington Post". He was killed by Leon Czolgosz who didn't seem to have any real good reason for shooting the president, he was just an anarchist**. I don't know who looked after the parrot after McKinley died. Theodore Roosevelt was the president who succeeded McKinley.

Anyway, I got distracted. The Secret Service, who are meant to be dealing with forgery, protects the President because there weren't many other people who could take the job when it first went up for grabs. The FBI, DEA, CIA, ATF, NSA and all the rest didn't exist. The only other option was the US Marshals. They didn't get the job though. Probably because US Marshals doesn't sound as cool as Secret Service. One sounds like battery suppliers, the other sounds like a group of super heroes.

The Secret Service was created in 1865. The last law that Abraham Lincon signed before being assassinated himself was to create the Secret Service. People say this is ironic, but I don't think it is, because as I said before, they didn't start protecting the President for another 36 years. I think people have just loaded it with irony which isn't there. Then again you could say that irony is subjective, and then you can think anything you want is ironic. I think Alanis Morissettte subscribes to this view.

Anyway, I learnt, and pondered all that, before going to sleep least night, so I don't want to count that as learning something new today.

I did read today that Australia is buying up to 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. We'll have them by 2012. I already knew that too, but I'm excited about it. I like fighter jets. So I think I'll have learnt that today.

Today I learnt that Brad has the flu, Scarlett isn't shy, and Australia's getting some new planes. Tomorrow I'm hoping to learn who looked after the parrot.

*My hits are going to go way up now. I mentioned "Scarlett Johansson" "topless" and "sex" all in the same sentence. Google here we come!

**I think he was fighting for the rights of the workers but isn't everyone these days?