fact
While filming a 170 foot waterfall in the movie Apocalypto, a cow was trying to cross upstream and went over the falls. It emerged at bottom, banging against the rocks, but after a local man swam in to calm the cow it then climbed up the bank and began eating grass as if nothing had […]
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In 1965, a Swedish student was told by his fiancée in East Germany that she would never be able to leave the country to live with him in Sweden. Undeterred, he took flying lessons for a year, illegally flew a Cessna from Austria into Czechoslovakia, smuggled her out, and married her in Sweden.
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It’s important to be financially responsible, to save for the future and make good decisions with our money.
It’s also important to balance those responsibilities with having a little fun, rewarding ourselves for our hard work, and generally making the journey to financial security worth taking.
If you’re looking to feel better about your own relationship with debt and progress, here are 18 people who bought themselves something really nice – and didn’t end up regretting it at all.
Spending hundreds of euros on broken musical instruments because they were pretty.
I have since bought spare parts and started repairing them.
I found my destiny.
Just shy of $20,000 to go to Antarctica traveling solo (small cruise ship). More than I’ve spent on every other vacation I’ve taken combined.
Was one of the best trips of my life. It also gave me enough space and clarity to realize how toxic my ex was to me so that I could find the strength to leave not long after I got back.
I’ll always want to go back to Antarctica. The inner peace I found there changed my life.
My Couch. I moved out of my moms house last year (2019 so no covid) and I always wanted a good couch. I tested so much. I went to so many furniture stores. Looked at so many different models. And then choose mine.
Its actually from Ikea. Three seats and long enough to let someone sleep on it. In a grey but I saw they were also having a black cover so I am thinking about getting that one. Extremely comfortable. I wanted a couch where you could chill out and love how fluffy it is without losing the ability to sit on it.
In some couches you are not able to lean on the back and still have a straight back. You can sit on the back board and the armrests. They are flat so you can also put a cup of tea on them.
Its also not too low so you dont feel like sitting on the ground (which I do strangely often compared to my love for this couch) but you can let yourself fall onto that damn thing! It also looks easy and simple.
So I dont want the suggestion of someone who tried a LOT of couches and happens to be me then buy the Vimle couch from Ikea.
I spent $300 on a mule. An actual living, 4 hooved, long-eared mule. We raise cattle, so a protection mule was a good excuse. But, really, I just fell in love with him. He’s huge and sassy.
He’ll steal your hat and run away. He’s got a Ninja mode where he can sneak up on you, just to breathe down your neck or startle you. He does keep the coyotes away.
However, he has proved himself priceless because he eats thistle. When we got the lease on the land for our cattle the pastures had been neglected and were in bad shape. Thistle is a spiky plant that spreads across the pasture, choking out grasses. Cow’s won’t eat it. It’s really hard to get rid of.
To our surprise, the mule cleared out nearly all the thistle in a matter of months. He would eat the flowers out of the center. He saved us an enormous amount of money and labor. We were able to avoid using chemical weed killers, which we really didn’t want to do. Probably the best investment in our whole cattle raising experience.
I’ve been a fat guy all my life. Like, really fat. Dressing comfortably was always my preference because being stylish just isn’t an option at my size. This was always a source of anxiety at any social event that required dressing up.
When I realized I had 4 weddings of close friends all coming up within the year, I decided to bite the bullet and get some decent “formal” clothes. I spent $800 on a suit jacket, $250 on two pairs of dress pants, a little over $300 for 3 shirts and 3 silk ties that were between $70 and $100 each. I stood for all my measurements and had everything tailored to my exact specifications.
Did a fitting and had a second round of alterations on the pants so they actually looked decent, even though I wore them under my gut. People were floored when I showed up to the first wedding. I received so many compliments and actual double takes. Being introduced to new people felt completely different. I felt impressive.
Some of those weddings were the best times of my life and it was due, in no small part, to how those clothes looked and made me feel. Some of those friends have big pictures from their weddings hanging on their walls, and I don’t cringe in embarrassment when I see myself in them.
Those clothes cost more than I had/have ever spent on clothing in any ten year period, and they were worth every penny.
My Litter Robot.
Yes, I spent $600 on a cat shi**er, but my house never smells.
Also, I don’t have to scoop litter, and I only have to empty the drawer once a week.
Definitely worth it to me.
Finally found the motorcycle I wanted years ago but could not get. It was not running, but after around dumping $3,500 into it and doing a full frame up restoration and custom job on it.
I have the bike I wanted years ago, but better. Yes I did everything myself, full paint job Tank frame fenders everything. I also did a full engine rebuild, remade the wiring harness, everything was all done in house.
So I put a touch over 3K into a bike that is only worth about $1,500. on a good day, but hell it is mine and I built it.
I spent too much money on a big treadmill for a very small apartment.
But I’ve ran 15-25 km on it every week for the past several years and it’s been incredibly helpful both physically and mentally.
$120 for a towel heater.
I will never dry off with a cold towel again.
Art work.
Can I always afford it? No.
But my walls are full of original, 90% local art.
They make me happy to look at, I’m sure I made the artist happy too.
I went to a Renaissance Fair with my husband and some friends. It was his first time, and he’s a pretty introverted person, so while he has fun watching everyone else dress up and act all goofy and old-timey, he doesn’t really participate.
When we went to buy our first beer, the wench tried to sell him on one of those big mugs that looks like it’s carved out of wood but it’s just plastic. It cost $100. Yes, you get free refills, but we were not planning on drinking $100 worth of beer that day.
I could tell by the look on his face that he wanted it- he looked like a little kid at Disney World. Without thinking, I whipped out my credit card and dropped $100 on a shitty plastic mug.
All day, he walked around proudly with his mug. He even took some big gulps and cheered “huzzah” once or twice. This might not seem like much but for my quiet, gentle giant, it is huge. I manage the finances in our relationship and I am CONSTANTLY cracking down on wasteful spending, so I think we were both amazed I made such a dumb purchase.
Four years later, we still have that mug. He gets a big grin every time he sees it and teases me about my irresponsible impulse. And every time I see it, I just think about how much I love that big galoot…
$800 for a front seat helicopter tour of Kauai for me and my wife!
Totally worth it!
Lego Death Star.
board games, they are expensive, but they bring much joy
I spent $3000 for my wife to meet the backstreet boys and get front row seats.
It is the best thing that has ever happened to her and the smile on her face after the show and look of pure bliss in someone who suffers often from anxiety was worth every cent.
A quick 7 day trip to Maui in February a couple years ago with one of my teenage daughters. Work was grinding me down and I needed a break.
My wife and the rest of the family couldn’t go, they were working or in school. The tickets were expensive, $850 each for bare-bones economy narrow rock hard seats, it was a 12 hour flight that was packed to the brim – I was getting bedsores by the time we arrived.
We rented snorkeling gear and a car, and spent every day from dawn to dusk snorkeling, sitting on the beaches and hiking in the mountains; we did the Hana road, the Seven Sacred Pools and the Haleakalā volcano national park at sunset, and took tons of photos. We ate spam musubi for breakfast, poke and somen noodles for lunch and loco moko for supper. Slept like babies with the windows open wide in the cool nighttime breezes.
The best way to blow $5,000 EVER. So much what I needed at that point in my life.
I got into a stupid fight with my brother, so I found a game he had pledged on kickstarter (Space Haven) and saw that for 360 dollars I could write a premade character bio that would randomly show up.
So I pledged it and wrote a character bio with his name and made him a flaming asshole. I have never played this game and don’t want to.
GE Opal nugget ice maker.
Dang thing cost more than my car payment but, man oh man, I love nugget ice and I use it the heck out of it every day.
I need to get better about picking and choosing my splurges, but I don’t plan on not making any, either.
What’s your favorite expensive purchase? Tell us about it in the comments!
The post People Share the Financial Splurges They’ve Never Regretted appeared first on UberFacts.
Karen season is year-round, so prepare yourselves for the passive-aggressive onslaught of a lifetime.
I’ll bet you really thought you could escape those pesky middle-aged white moms by hunkering down in isolation.
Too bad the internet is where these ladies thrive best, and the Karen memes are in vast abundance.
And they are totally contingent upon this one person’s opinion.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
We love playing an Uno reverse card on a pesky Karen.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Honestly, I’m here for this kind of energy.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Something tells me that this is not how you’re supposed to participate in couples counseling.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
East Florida, please stock up on supplies, perishables, and a whole lot of thick skin in preparation for Hurricane Karen.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
She just picked the worst time to go into labor, didn’t she?
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Behind every Karen is an inherently toxic environment.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
How can you have an attitude like this on Splash Mountain?
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Just you wait, their peak hours are 2PM-4PM, and they come in droves.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Girl, why did you even get the game?
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Now, that’s what I call totally imbalanced!
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Seriously, they all make this exactly same expression.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Next time you have an unfortunate encounter with a real life Karen, just remember these memes. They’ll fortify you for the journey ahead.
What’s your worst run-in with a Karen? Share your story with us in the comments!
The post Karen Memes That Are Totally True and Satisfying appeared first on UberFacts.
One of the hardest things to deal with is finding a way to love yourself – and all of the ways society says you’re not good enough definitely don’t make it easier.
“They” say we should feel insecure or self-conscious about so many things, but what if we all just…stopped?
Not about the important things, maybe but these 13 people have some ideas of stuff we could definitely stop making feel badly about like, today.
Their jobs. If you clean/fix sewerage pipes, then thanks for your service. Someone must have the balls to do it.
There are few people more responsible for the clean, relatively disease free, safe, modern world we live in than sanitation workers.
This includes janitors, street cleaners, garbage workers and anyone who cleans up after the rest of us.
I have as much respect for them as I do fire fighters and EMTs.
Being quiet.
“You never say anything” is such a weird way to both draw attention to someone and give them nothing to work with.
i understand being quiet is not a “meditation” for everyone, but damn. not having endless mental chatter is wonderful. not having endless verbal chatter directed AT YOU without room to respond is good, too.
Making any kind of mistake.
Social media has created an illusion that everyone has to be perfect.
The way someone laughs.
This world is cold and unforgiving. Laughing makes it all a little less heavy. Who gives a f*ck a what it sounds like?
I’ll never forget in high school when I was laughing in Spanish class. The girl in front of me turned around and went, “ew girl, you got an ugly laugh” and EVERYONE started laughing with her.
It’s been 15 years and I’m STILL self-conscious of my laugh because of that.
Aging and the unavoidable physical changes that come with it.
Trade school/gap years- college right after hs isn’t for everyone. even Some of my smartest friends- top of my class should’ve taken a gap because they burned themselves out getting 95-97% avgs throughout HS.
I never should have jumped into college. I went for something I was talked into (because it paid a lot), was miserable, changed majors, still wasn’t happy. Graduated with a degree, 13 years ago, that I never used.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I needed time to figure it out. And money isn’t all that matters.
having acne, it doesn’t mean you’re dirty or don’t wash your face.
it’s simply a skin condition some people get and some people don’t.
Being an introvert doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with people.
Needing mental health treatment.
Even if that treatment includes medication.
I get so many weird backhanded comments when people find out I take psychiatric medication.
I hate that people think of it as the “easy way out” and view me as giving up or being weak.
Your choice of career.
Another one: not having having a dream career.
Exercising in public. To me anyone giving it a go, no matter their physical ability, deserves praise!
Honestly from my experience most gym rats are the most encouraging to heavy people. A few of the guys I used to “work out with” (just be at the gym the same time every morning) kinda made it a point to say small comments to this very heavyset guy that worked out at the same time as us in the morning “you got this brother.”
“Keep up the good work man” “you’re looking good man.” This guy’s face always lit up and he always pushed harder when anyone encouraged him.
Being wrong. It’s okay to be wrong, just be open to learning. Instead of doubling down or getting angry.
People would be a lot smarter if we could all just admit when we don’t know, or when we have been wrong about something!! There is always room to grow, and it’s more than okay to change your mind.
Baldness. It doesn’t seem to be as common for it to happen naturally with women, but for men and women, it can be a really sore subject, especially if it starts happening at a fairly early age.
You could be in control of every other aspect of your life, but if you start losing hair early, it can take the wind out of your sails.
I vote we all make an effort, what do you say?
What’s something you wish you could stop feeling badly about today? Tell us in the comments!
The post People Think It’s High Time We Stopped Feeling Insecure About These Things appeared first on UberFacts.
People who don’t live in small towns tend to romanticize them.
A place where everyone knows everyone else, the kids can still play together until dark, and there are like, pies sitting on windowsills or something.
People who do live in small towns, or who have, know that along with the friendliness and the charm, they can have a dark side like everywhere else – and these 16 little places have their secrets.
A freshman with aspergers was being abused by his family at home. He was a problem child and got in trouble on purpose but no one went too hard on him because of his home life, he was a well loved kid at school and in the community. One day just before Holiday break in December he was really sick but his mom sent him to school anyway. Locked him out of the house.
He decided to try and get into one of the empty houses down the street, through the chimney. Now this kid was the size of a 2nd grader, but he was too big to fit through since chimneys taper down thinner.
Mom never answered her phone when the school reported him missing. Went a whole day without reporting her kid missing. No one knew what happened to him.
It was about a month and a half before we knew what happened to him. We all thought he ran away, was alive somewhere, maybe went to his sisters house. Nope. Dead in a chimney.
The schools organized an entire week of counseling and such, they wore pink for a day and handed out little pink ribbons on pins for him since his favorite color was pink. Everyone was hit really hard by it.
That’s how our small town started 2020. It hasn’t gotten any better as you can see. So weird that its almost been a year now..
About 10 years ago a lot of homeless people disappeared and when the police did the investigation they found out a guy was kidnapping and eating those people.
Police found his hideout and found a half eaten body and bones from another person. People don’t like to talk about it but everyone knows what happened.
We had a crazy rich guy from the 1600-1700s who saw people robbing a grave one night so decided that when he died he would be laid to rest in the roof of a barn behind his house.
He believed he’d only be dead for 30 years so requested that they lock the barn and put the key in his coffin so he could get out but nobody could get in. He requested that whoever inherited his house, fortune and belongings would have to give them back to him when he resurrected.
He did actually get his wish but of course he was never resurrected, people stole his bones and his house is a dentist now.
Oh I have a doozy. Short version: popular kids in high school run a secret towel fight club and accidentally kill one of their friends in the house of a local politician, who proceeds to bury the story.
Towel fight club: tape towels over your hands and beat each other up. It’s supposed to be just boxing but it sounds like they got out of control and hardly could call it that.
This was around 15 years ago, but there was a Sheriff’s Deputy that was seemingly a really cool guy. Friendly, cracked a lot of great jokes, etc. He was working at the local high school as a School Resource Officer and was apparently almost universally well regarded.
Well, it turns out that he repeatedly raped a 14 year old. He told the boy that he’d kill his parents if he reported the officer. I don’t remember all the details, but I believe this went on for weeks or months before it was found out and the officer was arrested and eventually went to prison.
This is a sad one to me. There was an older couple here who ran a halfway house for troubled kids who’d recently gotten out of juvie, they fostered a few as well. They were loved in the community, wonderful people.
One of them had an older brother who was a gangbanger in the nearest big city. During a visit, he snuck his 15 year old younger bro a handgun. Younger bro ended up holding up a local gas station and killed three people. One of them was my friend’s cousin.
The foster parents lost whatever credentials they needed to do what they did, the kids went back into the system, and the giant house has been abandoned since around 2009.
Ours was a football coach and history teacher.
When he was coaching, we won almost every game. When he wasn’t, we lost most of them, so I had to assume that meant he was a great coach. I had him for 2 history classes and even though his jokes were mean and inappropriate, we loved it and learned a lot. He had the highest test scores out of all the history teachers in our school.
A little over a decade after I graduated, he went to jail for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl. I wish I could feel like justice was served, but we had several male teachers who regularly made inappropriate passes and gestures towards the female students (starting at age 11) like spanking us and making us sit still while they gave us awkward massages. He was not one of those teachers…
There’s a half submerged submarine from the war in the bay where I live, you can walk out to it when the tide is out. In the late 80s somebody cut open the hatch (one of the only visible parts left sticking out the sand), climbed in at was having a look around.
The tide came in and he drowned. If I remember rightly the whole hatch was filled with cement, then welded shut to stop it happening again.
Two sisters got picked up by a group of men.
Both were raped and thrown off a bridge that is 45 minutes outside of town.
One sister survived but Later in life went back and jumped off the bridge.
The town I was raised in wasn’t exactly small, but here’s the one “dark secret” I know: my hometown was where lots and lots of sports players had their mansions. And so of course, their wives and children were out and about in the community a lot.
Every single sports-player-wife in that town was (is?) heavily addicted to opioids. Every, single, one. Opioid addiction is obviously an epidemic all over the country, but among the rich wives in the town, it had a 100% ‘infection’ rate, so to speak.
I know because one of my friend’s mom was the hairdresser for basically every single one of those wives. I was homeless my senior year of HS, and one of the sports player wives heard about me from her, and she gifted me an iPhone. That phone was pennies to her, but I still wish I’d expressed my thanks more, because that wife died of an overdose not long after.
This is more comical than dark.
A house burned down in this small town of 600 population. One block from the fire station. It being a volunteer fire department, nobody was at the station. They tried to get the pumper truck out, but one of the volunteers had run it into a brick building the week before and it was still at the shop.
We’re still undecided whether the house owner burned it down for the insurance. Strange that there was nothing valuable inside.
Our local pizza place was a known KKK hub.
Everyone knew it, and still to this day, if you Google “[town] kkk” the first thing that pops up is this pizza shop.
They had some nasty-ass pizza too.
15 years ago, the local District Attorney called his longtime girlfriend and told her he was taking the day off from work and that he loved her. He parked his car in town and went for a stroll past the local shops. He hasn’t been seen since.
His car was found where he had parked it the next day – he had left his cellphone in the car, but his keys and wallet were missing. Later that year, his laptop, sans its hard drive, was found under a bridge at a nearby river. The hard drive was eventually discovered by a local woman walking along the bank of the river, but it was too damaged to recover any data from.
Interestingly, investigators discovered that someone had done a search on his home computer for “how to wreck a hard drive.”
Did he jump from a local bridge, did he encounter someone whom he had prosecuted who did him harm, or did he escape his life to start a new one?
About 30 years ago a local 8 yo girl went missing during the annual carnival downtown. After a few days they found a suspect that was seen near the girl right before she went missing.
The guy confessed to her horrific murder And rape and torture. He was the kids next door neighbor and friend to the kid’s dad. ( I’ll spare the details but it was really bad). He was convicted and sentenced to 40 years or so.
After 8 years he was paroled and returned to the same house with his parents, right next door (laws were a bit different then) to the family of the girl and former friend.
About a week later the man never showed up at his parole office. His parents filed a missing persons report.
Rumor has it that several friends of the victims father took care of him. If you talk to them they just say that they are sure that he won’t be back.
I don’t know if it’s considered a dark secret, but we had a soldier die under some extremely questionable circumstances.
They said he was high/drunk/experiencing mental distress and raided a nursery (the plant kind). They claimed he was attacked by wasps and ran.
He called 911 several times and claimed that someone was chasing him, and was trying to kidnap him. In the last 911 call, he said everything was fine suddenly.
Just 14-15 minutes later, he was struck by a woman who stopped and called 911. He was ran over 2 more times, and died. The autopsy showed no signs of bee or wasp stings.
The connection to the nursery is due to the fact that it was just up the road from where he died, the place was ransacked, pizza eaten, money taken. But his wallet and phone were sitting on the counter, undisturbed.
HOWEVER! The family was not ok with that explanation, especially because he had previously texted that there were some problems with the “local boys” since the soldier wasn’t from this part of the state. So the family had a private investigator look into it. They analyzed the 911 recordings, and found several instances of other people talking in the background, though most of it couldn’t be made out. Except one. In the 911 call where he told the operator that everything was fine, a male voice could be heard saying “Tell her”. And the nursery? There was no DNA, no fingerprints, no footprints that lead back to the soldier, even though his phone and wallet were there in the building.
A lot of people, his family included, think he was killed by some of the local guys there after they got into a fight about something. They chased him down, and caught him. He was able to run again after the final 911 call, and was hit by a driver while trying to get help. And the police in the county covered the entire thing up because the boys involved were connected to the department somehow. Of the three drivers, none were charged for hitting/running over him. I think only the first driver stopped, but it was discovered that one of the other drivers was connected to the department either through family or friendship.
It’s a crazy story, but you can look it up. Just search Austin McGeough. I wouldn’t be too surprised since there is a lot of shady stuff happening in small town police departments, including covering up rapes that officers commit. I really hope his family gets him justice.
Guy owned a bar, across the street from his house, where he lived with his wife, daughter and granddaughter of 5.
He had a contractor working on the house, Grandma who took care of the child during the day, thought it would be no big deal leaving the child sleeping while she went quickly to the market.
Next thing… is the Grandpa sees the contractor running to his car and leaving the house. Curious he went home to find out what happened, only to find his granddaughter crying with blood between her legs.
After the grandmother came back… he left the child with her, went back to the bar, got his gun, and threw the keys to one of his regulars asking him to close the bar because he had to kill someone.
When he arrived at the contractor’s home, he wasn’t there. He then spent the next 2 weeks surveying his home 24/7. Until the rapist probably thought the cost was clear… and returns home. Grandpa sees him… breaks the door, kill the guy in front of his parents, then leaves… going directly to the precinct where he surrenders his gun and makes a full confection detailing everything.
He was tried for premeditate murder… prosecution had all the evidence… testimony from his friends and parents of the rapist… the murder weapon… his confession. It’s was a close and shut case. Jury voted 7-0 not guilty. (In Brazil there’s 7 jurors and you only need a majority to convict, and not unanimous like the US)
These stories should all be movies or books, I swear.
If you’re from a small town, share your secrets with us below!
The post Small Town Residents Share Their Darkest Secrets appeared first on UberFacts.
Communication is a key part of any relationship. Aside from agreeing on what Netflix series to binge, it’s the tried-and-true cornerstone of a successful partnership.
But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you’re just don’t end up on the same page.
That’s exactly what happened to this exasperated husband who bought an entire truck of rice who basically lost it after struggling to keep up with is wife’s grocery requests.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
So, we’re already off to a really bad start here. Cue all that pent up anger and scorn coming in like an avalanche.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
To be fair, though… who in their right mind would order an entire truck full of rice? That just sounds like the worst idea ever. I mean, where did he think they were going to store it all? A ditch?
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Now, the truck driver and this user’s brother-in-law have to try to strike up a deal right then and there, since the warehouse owner isn’t taking any calls.
This just keeps getting worse and worse.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Mom here is the real MVP, serving as an investigative journalist and emotional support all in one day.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Like clockwork, just as mom starts to fix something, dad manages to mess it all up again…
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Enter Manu: a key player in the developments to come in this crazy story.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Wow, it weirdly seems like Manu might have to deal with things like this a lot.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
So the negotiations continue, and they’re not looking promising.
Apparently Manu took such a long time to return that our friend on Twitter decided to insert his own commercial break.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
As if this story couldn’t get any crazier, Manu literally got lost in the middle of negotiations.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Wait, it looks like there might be some progress…
mage Credit: Cheezburger
Ah, and there it is.
As it turns out, Manu is also a married man, so he might be sympathetic to this situation.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
This is the point of the night when negotiations devolve into straight up bartering.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Looks like the brother-in-law found the crack in the wall: the truck driver.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
20-25 bags might be a whole lot more manageable than an entire truck, but man, that’s still a lot of rice.
Image Credit: Cheezburger
Finally, we reach the end of our rice truck saga. It only took about 30+ tweets and an entire evening of this user bugging their mom for updates to get through it all.
Let this be a lesson to all you quarantine couples out there: always openly and honestly communicate exactly what you want. Otherwise, you might be in for a disaster like this one.
Have you ever had a major miscommunication like this? Share your story with us in the comments!
The post Exhausted Husband Misunderstands His Wife, Buys an Entire Truck Full of Rice appeared first on UberFacts.
I’ve always thought it was pretty interesting how car companies got their names – and Jerry Seinfeld’s bit on how car models are named is downright hilarious.
Some names are obvious – like Ford, for example, which is named after their founder – while others are a bit more elusive.
If this sort of semi-obscure knowledge is your thing, below are the origin stories behind the names of 11 popular car companies.
Image Credit: Dougw/English Wikipedia
Machinists and brothers, John and Horace Dodge ran a Michigan bicycle company in the 1890s.
They sold that business and began creating transmissions for Oldsmobile in 1902, then a year later, added Ford to their list of clients.
In 1913 they left those lucrative positions to start working on their own car designs, and the rest is obviously history.
Image Credit: Public Domain
Lexus is actually a Toyota brand, and when the company’s ad agency was looking for a name for the luxury division, they decided on Alexis.
It’s evolved into Lexus, and thank goodness – they would have had to compete with Alexa down the road.
Image Credit: Public Domain
Austrian entrepreneur Emil Jellinek had a secret love of racing cars. He drove Daimler cars in races all over Europe, typically using an alias when getting behind the wheel – Mercedes was his daughter’s name.
Three years in, Jellinek agreed to order more than 30 cars from Daimler to continue his passion, but made the condition that they be called Mercedes.
They agreed, and luxury brand was born.
Image Credit: Public Domain
In 1926, Sakichi Toyoda founded Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, a company that made looms and not cars at all.
It was Toyoda’s son, Kiichiro, who started a separate motors division in 1933, and they quickly took off.
In 1936, during a competition designed to get the company a new logo, the winner was a design that included 3 Japanese characters that made up the Toyoda name.
The family gave it some thought, and decided that not only was “Toyota” stronger overall, the fact that it only required 8 brush strokes instead of 9 was considered lucky in their culture.
Image Credit: Public Domain
Volvo is Latin for “I roll,” and was conceived by Swedish ball bearing company SKF in 1915.
Because of the first World War, though, they didn’t start making cars until 1926.
Image Credit: Wikipedia
This is a tad unsavory, because the company was founded in 1937, during the rise of that unfortunate time.
It translates to “The People’s Car Company,” a reflection of the push to encourage German nationalism.
Image Credit: John Lloyd
Henry Leland, a New Yorker, founded the Cadillac Car Company in 1902, and the moniker is a nod to the history of automobiles itself.
Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, was the French explorer who founded Detroit in the early 18th century.
Image Credit: baku13
Like Ford, Honda bears the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda.
He was a mechanic who, in 1946, started Honda Motor Co. Ltd because he wanted to build small motorcycles.
He had a slow start but he didn’t give up, and by the 1960s owned one of the world’s largest bike companies.
In 1963 the made their first automobile, a Honda T360 pickup.
Image Credit: David Wright
Saab is an abbreviation of “Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolag,” which is quite a mouthful for anyone who isn’t Swedish (and maybe people who are).
It means “Swedish Airplane, Limited,” and obviously, the originally manufactured aircraft.
They produced their first automobiles in the 1940s.
Image Credit: Public Domain
David Dunbar Buick was a Scottish immigrant who got his start manufacturing enameled cast-iron bathtubs. He began toying with engines instead in the 1890s, and founded the Buick Manufacturing Company in 1902.
While his designs were fantastic, he had a timeliness issue that made it hard to earn customers. He always needed new investors, and made a bad call that resulted in his losing his company to William C. Durant, the founder of General Motors.
Buick was handed a pink slip at $100,000, and when he died in 1929, he was broke.
Image Credit: Public Domain
Don’t worry, though, because William Durant eventually got his. At least for awhile.
In 1910, his own creditors forced him out of his management role at GM, so he teamed up with Swiss race car driver Louis Chevrolet to found Chevrolet in 1911.
Durant earned enough to take back control of GM, and then in 1918, he acquired Chevy, too. Louis Chevrolet ended up back at Chevy, working as a consultant in his own company.
Some people have all the luck.
Well, color me surprised! I feel so much smarter now, how about you?
Which one of these surprised you the most? Tell us in the comments!
The post Learn About How 11 Famous Car Companies Got Their Names appeared first on UberFacts.
You’ve heard of tiny homes, but have you heard of a “skinny” house?
Yes, you read that right, “skinny house.” And no, this has nothing to do with diets or eating healthy.
This peculiar “skinny” home, located at 970 Chestnut St. in Deerfield, Illinois, has gained the attention of the internet. A video of the house shared on TikTok has everyone baffled.
@kobbbsalad SKINNY HOUSE SKINNY HOUSE SKINNY HOUSE #fyp #100gecs #geccing #skinny #skinnyhouse #architecture
♬ I Need Help Immediately – 100 gecs & Laura Les & Dylan Brady
From this angle, the house looks impossibly narrow. ‘How could anyone live here?’ people are asking.
However, in truth, the house is not just one long line.
The house is actually larger than it appears, totaling 1600 square feet of living space.
On one end of the house, everything looks completely normal. On the opposite, narrowest end the house is only three feet wide!
Thankfully, it culminates in a bathroom, with a lovely bathroom sink and mirror placed against the final wall. So it doesn’t feel awkwardly small.
Image Credit: Fun.Shared
In Deerfield, it’s known as the “pie house,” because its shape is more like that of a piece of pie (yum!).
It contains two bedrooms and three bathrooms (2 full, 1 half), and a finished basement.
If you’re interested in purchasing the house, unfortunately, you’re too late. It was purchased on August 5th, 2020, and is currently valued at $261,429.
Image Credit: Fun.Shared
When you take a look from the inside, it really doesn’t look that unconventional.
So long as the owners are happy, it shouldn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks. Just because something is different, doesn’t make it bad!
Would you purchase a “skinny” house like this one? Let us know in the comments.
The post People Are Intrigued: How Could Anyone Live in This ‘Skinny House’? appeared first on UberFacts.
I want you to close your eyes and think about the weirdest, craziest, and most disgusting Oreo flavors that you can come up with…
Do you have some in mind?
Well, you might want to send your ideas into a Twitter account called “Upcoming Oreos” that specializes in just that! And their posts are totally hilarious…and odd.
Have you ever considered eating an Eggs Benedict Oreo? Well, you can at least consider it now!
Let’s take a look at some of the funny and strange posts from this page.
This is gonna be great!
Its finals week and you are drunk, time for 303% of recommended daily sodium pic.twitter.com/fxx5QFKBVB
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 19, 2021
Don’t drink the bong water!
yeah sorry bout the shower mat. it will give you a disease pic.twitter.com/r0YwCNhazJ
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 18, 2021
Are you with me on this one?
it does not feel pain . but it bleeds
a lot pic.twitter.com/f1KekBXCsZ— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 28, 2021
It’s like a treasure hunt…or something…
small hot dog . pic.twitter.com/6lyx45qut6
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 18, 2021
I think you just met your future wife.
and one for the young woman at the end of the bar pic.twitter.com/QHftmbApfb
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 17, 2021
Give it a shot!
bottom oreo soaks up the yolk. pic.twitter.com/POk0PRl9mq
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 17, 2021
I can tell you’re excited about this one.
you get like nine of these every christmas pic.twitter.com/uaUZ08pal9
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 16, 2021
Finally! I’ve been waiting for this for years.
soggy slice of heaven pic.twitter.com/mbrdaBoUM3
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 15, 2021
Might get stuck in your mouth for a while.
taste the suffering of an ancient beast . pic.twitter.com/bfGwhNZ3vH
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 15, 2021
You’ll feel like you’re at the beach!
wear a bib or youll get slop on your shirt. pic.twitter.com/9jupjtigIR
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 13, 2021
Do you think you can handle this bad boy?
big cruncha crunch boy . pic.twitter.com/ar6M4ulAsv
— upcoming oreos (@UpcomingOreos) January 12, 2021
You gotta love it! Or, well, at least respect the comedy.
Now it’s your turn!
In the comments, tell us about some other ridiculous Oreo flavors that you’d like to see come to life.
We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
The post This Account Shares Hilarious (and Disgusting) New Flavor Ideas for Oreos appeared first on UberFacts.
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