In case you missed it…
Titanic life jacket sells for more than $900,000
A life jacket worn by first-class passenger Laura Mabel Francatelli as she abandoned the USS Titanic sold at auction April 11 for $906,000. The life jacket is made of canvas with cork-filled sections and is signed by Francatelli and other survivors from her lifeboat. Once considered unsinkable, the Titanic, on her maiden voyage, hit an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland and sank in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean April 15, 1912. Around 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers and crew died in the maritime accident.
New kind of potty seat
Chinese carmaker, Seres, patented an in-vehicle toilet that slides out from under a passenger seat. It comes with a fan and exhaust pipe. Waste, collected in a tank has to be emptied manually, unfortunately. However, this is not the first in-vehicle toilet. The 1950s Rolls Royce Silver Wraith also came with an in-car toilet that doubled as a champagne cooler, gold-plated, of course.
Happy Holidays from Salvador Dalí
In the late 1950s, Halmark Cards commissioned surrealist painter Salvador Dalí to design a series of greeting cards that included Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter and Mother’s Day. There were no melting clocks in his watercolors and only three of the new cards were ever printed (“Nativity,” 1959, at left). To see his famous melting clock paintings visit the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla.
BONUS: ‘Bum Bum, Bum-Bum Bum Bum, Bum-Bum, Bum Bum …’
It’s hard to depict the opening notes from Mission Impossible in writing, but it’s a tune everyone knows. What most people don’t know is those notes—two long beats, two sort beats—are actually based on Morse Code for the letters “m” and “I”—Mission Impossible. The theme song was composed by Argentinean composer Lalo Schifrin. His working song title was “Burning Fuse.” Now that’s a bar bet winner.
Holt Enterprise News 