Things Discovered While Looking Up Other Stuff #2

1. Alan Smithee, one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, doesn't exist. When a director wants to disassociate himself from a film because creative control has been taken away from him, he can petition the Director's Guild of America to have the fictitious name "Alan Smithee" listed as the director in the credits.



2. The lyrics to the "Wiener Song" (on the occasion of the 70th birthday of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile^®, July 18, 2006):
       I know a wiener man; he owns a wiener stand
       He sells most everything from hot dogs to clams
       And in my later life I'll be his wiener wife
       Hot dog I love that wiener man



3. While Tagamet^® is a popular drug for treating heartburn and ulcers, Tagametsa is a town in Estonia that hosted the International Boy Scout/Girl Guide Jamboree in 2001.



4. The hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas is so named because, in the words of group founder will.i.am, "Black Eyed Peas are food for the soul." Meanwhile, down in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana, the folks prefer purplehull peas to black eyed peas. They look very similar, but according to the connoiseurs, purplehulls have twice the flavor. Those in the know insist that purplehull is one word, though they admit that even many seed catalogs separate it into two. Tiny Emerson, Arkansas, on the Louisiana border, is home to the annual Purplehull Pea Festival and World Championship Rotary Tiller Race.