 | by Mangesh - Wednesday, December 31, 2008
| Last New Year, after the champagne had dried and the midnight smooching had ended, I openly resolved to make more time for reading. It was a smart resolution, I thought. After years of making vows that I quickly break (drinking less caffeine, exercising more, etc.) I figured this was something I could actually stick to.
My fiancée decided to think bigger. She, too, was determined to make a resolution she wouldn't break, so she quickly dubbed 2008 The Year of Helpful Suggestions. This has mainly meant "suggesting" how I can improve my general character, hygiene and fashion sense, though it apparently extends to the methods by which I ingest peanut butter. (I am hoping her vision for 2009 is a little less ambitious).
Of course, hers aren't the only suggestions I'm open to. Jason, Will and I are working hard to make mentalfloss.com even better in the new year, and we're eager to hear what you think. Whether it's new types of columns, topics you want to see covered, new quiz ideas, or just a heaping pile of "helpful suggestions," go ahead and list out your wish list. We'd love to know what we're doing right, and what we need to tweak. After all, mentalfloss.com is your site, we're just here to stock the pond.
| Best wishes for the New Year,
Mangesh
Click here to give us your $.02. And don't forget about all the great trivia below! E-mail Jason and Mangesh, here. | | $50,000 Tuition Giveaway from mental_floss magazine, Borders and Merriam-Webster
Deadline January 31, 2009 Write a little. Win a lot! Just 750 words could knock $10,000 off your tab. Simply answer: "Why are you the most deserving person on the planet to win a scholarship?". Details and submissions at www.tuitiongiveaway.com. |  | Our weekly attempt to stock our newsletter readers' closets (and bookshelves) with mental_floss paraphernalia!
| Oh, and even if your fact doesn't win you some swag, it could win you some fame! The best user-submitted facts will go into our Amazing Fact Generator.
| Last Issue's Theme was "BIRTH & BABIES". The winners (and their facts) are:
| | 1) Alligators don't have sex chromosomes; their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubating egg with females being produced in very cold or hot temperatures and males being produced in more intermediate temperatures. -Allison Schnier | 2) A litter of puppies can have more than one father, depending on when the breeding occurs.
-Jennifer Hedrick
| 3) In the 1700s, a Russian peasant woman gave birth to 69 children (16 sets of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadrulplets).
-Andrew Hopkins
| Congratulations to all of you... you should be receiving your T-shirts by Pony Express any day now!
| | | 4 Stories About our Favorite Muppets by Stacy Conradt |
|  Grouches Across Borders: Carroll Spinney, who's also the genius behind Sesame Street's Big Bird, claimed he based Oscar's cranky voice on a crabby NYC cab driver he once had the pleasure of riding with. In Pakistan, Oscar's name is Akhtar and he lives in an oil barrel. In Turkey, he is Kirpik and lives in a basket. And in Israel, the grouch isn't Oscar at all - it's his cousin, Moishe Oofnik, who lives in an old car.
|  The Count as a Lady Killer: Count von Count made his first appearance in 1972 and was made out of an Anything Muppet pattern - a blank Muppet head that could have features added to it to make various characters. Originally, he was more sinister - he could hypnotize and stun people. Luckily, a kinder, gentler Count found his way into the public's heart as the show went on. Of course, it wasn't just kids' hearts he was after. The Count is quite the ladies' man - he has been linked to Countess von Backward, who loves to count backward; Countess Dahling von Dahling and Lady Two. |  Kermit the Lizard: Kermit was "born" in 1955 and first showed up on Sam and Friends, a five-minute puppet show by Jim Henson. The first Kermit was made out of Henson's mom's coat and some ping pong balls. At the time, he was more lizard-like than frog-like. By the time he showed up on Sesame Street in 1969, though, he had made the transition to frog. There are rumors that he got the name Kermit from a childhood friend of Henson's or a puppeteer from the early days of the Muppets, but Henson always denied both.
|  Boring Old Bert: Frank Oz was Bert's puppeteer and rather hated him at the beginning. He thought Bert was ridiculously boring, but then realized that he could have a lot of fun with being boring. Jim Henson once said, "I remember trying Bert and Frank tried Ernie for a while. I can't imagine doing Bert now, because Bert has become so much of a part of Frank." | Disclaimer: All submissions made to mental_floss become the property of Mental Floss LLC and may be used without further permission by the submitter and without compensation to the submitter. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not submit anything to mental_floss.
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