Take a look around. Watch our TV spots, which have made it to youtube and are tweeted about regularly. Take a look at what people are asking us now — we hear all the time that people find the scroll to be fascinating to watch.
And while you’re here, sign up at the 542542 Facebook fan page. I’m posting updates about what’s going on with 542542, and we’ll be offering special promos there too. You can also follow us on our kgb542542 Twitter page to get the kgb Question of the Day and other interesting stuff from our Special Agents.
One of the many things I love about the kgb 542542 service is that it is based on collaboration and participation. On one side, we have customers asking us all kinds of interesting, incisive, often funny, sometimes odd questions about everything under the sun. On the other side we have talented kgb Special Agents finding accurate answers quickly for all of these questions, with the goal of always giving just a little more than you asked for.
For the past few weeks we’ve been getting lots of questions about Swine Flu. Not surprising given the general and widespread concern about the spread of this virulent strain. So we’ll be using this space to talk about other trends, styles, topics that our customers really want to know more about.
But I’m also interested in what you all would like to use this blog to discuss. Let me know. Comments here are encouraged. Thanks.
Been tricked as an April Fool yet? If so, while cursing your gullibility, you may want to ponder this question: What are the origins of April Fool’s Day? Our Special Agents have done some digging and here is what we’ve found!
The origins are unclear, but it’s thought that April Fool’s Day began in the 1500s when the Gregorian calendar took over from the Julian. Those who forgot the change and attempted to celebrate New Year’s (previously celebrated on the 1st of April) on the wrong date were teased as “April fools”.
More details:
When the western world employed the Julian calendar, the new year began on March 25th. Festivals marking the start of the New Year were celebrated on the first day of April because March 25th fell during Holy Week. According to the most widely-believed origin postulated for April Fool’s Day, those who could be tricked into believing April 1st was still the proper day to celebrate the New Year earned the sobriquet of April fools. To this end, French peasants would unexpectedly drop in on neighbors on that day in a effort to confuse them into thinking they were receiving a New Year’s call. Out of that one jape supposedly grew the tradition of testing the patience of family and friends. But that’s only one theory. Others are:
The timing of this day of pranks seems to be related to the arrival of spring, when nature “fools” mankind with fickle weather
Another school of thought is that April Fool’s Day commemorates the fruitless mission of the rook who was sent out in search of land from Noah’s flood-encircled ark
Others theorize it may have something to do with the Vernal Equinox
Some think to tie in with the Romans’ end-of-winter celebration, Hilaria, and the end of the Celtic new year festival.
It has become tradition on the first of April to pull jokes of the harmless variety on those near and dear to us. Even the most staid among us have been known to indulge in a practical joke or two, so beware of trusting anyone on that day. However, how the custom of pranking on April 1st came about remains shrouded in mystery. Wherever and whenever the custom began, it has since evolved its own lore and set of unofficial rules.
Superstition has it that the pranking period expires at noon on 1st April and any jokes attempted after that time will call bad luck down onto the head of the perpetrator. Additionally, those who fail to respond with good humour to tricks played upon them are said to attract bad luck to themselves.
Today’s kgb fact of the day: What sea has no coast?
The Sargasso Sea is a region in the North Atlantic Ocean which has no coast. It is surrounded by ocean currents and lies roughly between Cuba and The Azores.
More details:
“Coast” is a very specific term and is only applied to that part of an island or continent that borders an ocean or its saltwater tributaries. A pelagic coast refers to a coast which fronts the open ocean, as opposed to a more sheltered coast in a gulf or bay. A shore on the other hand, can refer to parts of the land which adjoin any large body of water, including oceans (sea shore) and lakes (lake shore).
The “sea of tranquillity” is a lunar mare (Latin word for “sea”) that sits within the Tranquillitatis basin on Earth’s moon. Galileo thought the dark featureless areas on the Moon were bodies of water, even though the Moon is essentially devoid of liquid water, and therefore this is a “sea” with no coastline. The term is still applied to the basalt-filled impact basins common on the face of the Moon visible from Earth.
kgb_ Text your question to 542542. We answer to you.
Q:Why do people sleepwalk?
A:There is a strong genetic and family link to sleepwalking.Sleep deprivation and some medications are causes, among others.
More details:
The medical term for sleepwalking is “somnambulism.”It is known as a parasomnia, which is an undesirable event that occurs while sleeping.
Sleepwalking happens when folks get up out of bed and start walking around while they are still asleep.Sometimes sleepwalkers ease into the behavior by sitting on the bed and looking confused.Others make a clean exit by bolting from the bed and walking or running away.They may be trying to escape from some threat that they imagined or dreamed.
Most of the time, sleepwalking behavior is strange or inappropriate.Sleepwalkers might move furniture around or climb out a window.It can be hard to wake a sleep walker up and sometimes they can become violent during the episode.They may have no memory of the event at all or remember every detail clearly.
Sleepwalking is more common in children, and only about 4% of adults have the disorder.Children who sleepwalk tend to naturally lose the problem when they become teens. When sleepwalking becomes troublesome, those affected are advised to keep a sleep diary for a two-week period to share with a physician.
Sleepwalking is often affected by other sleep problems such as sleep apnea, for which treatment is available.
kgb_Text your question to 542542. We answer to you.
Often, our Special Agents answer questions that are so intriguing that they are inclined to do further research. So here is our Agents choice for question of the day:
What temperature is it in space? Empty space itself cannot have a temperature as it is a vacuum (an absence of matter). An object (matter) that absorbs & emits radiation perfectly, at the Earth’s distance from Sun, will reach 7 degrees C.
More details:
If an object is shielded from the Sun but exposed to interplanetary and interstellar radiation, it reaches about 5 Kelvin. If it were far from all stars and galaxies, it would come into equilibrium with the microwave background at about 2.7 Kelvin.
Space is the unlimited expanse in which everything is located. We can say Space or Outer Space is the seemingly empty places (vacuum) between planets and stars. Space is not really empty, but the material in space is so dilute that it is really hard to detect it.
Along with the conservation of matter and energy there is a universal, fundamental truth or principle of the conservation of Space; that Space cannot be created nor destroyed. Matter, energy and Space each have an essential and indispensable role in existence.
Matter and energy are conserved in Space and, in turn, space is in every way conserved as a place where matter and energy exist. Neither being created, destroyed, nor affected in any way by energy, motion and matter, space remains.
kgb_ Text your question to 542542. We answer to you.
Special Agent Damschroder here.
This morning Taylor and I drove thirty minutes to a storage unit to try to solve “The Case of the Missing 9,000 T-shirts” only to discover that they weren’t in that warehouse either. These T-shirts have been missing for over a week and no one seems to know where they have gone. A mystery indeed.
After our wild goose chase, we came to the beach here in Panama City to set up a second KGB booth on the beach. There is one in the MTV village this week and another one outside of the MTV village. The second set up features free flip cup and beer pong for all of the spring breakers. It’s always a hit!
After we set it up the second booth, we found out that we weren’t allowed to be that close to the village so we had to pack it up and move it even further down the beach.
Tonight we went out under cover to stage some fake vomit and falling down videos with the hope that they’ll go viral. I “threw up” oatmeal three times tonight. Here’s to hoping that some one thinks it’s real.
On Sunday the kgb team were originally going to make their way to Tampa. However, MTV Spring Break-Panama-style has been rockin it since we arrived. It was too hard to walk away. All Stanky Legs were required to jive for one more week. Panama or bust, baby!
The kgb hut in the MTV village officially opened yesterday and we had an interesting assortment of Spring Breakers agree to answer three questions for the chance to win not $100, not $200, not even $500 but $542 dollars!!! Why $542 bucks? Text 542 542….you got it now don’t you? Winners are announced every day at 4pm on the MTV stage. And one inebriated college kid can go home a little bit less in debt than when they arrived.
So after a full day of kgb t-shirts flying off the stage out of the hands of agents and into the mosh pit of men and man killers, rockin the beach with bottle openers and the victory laps around town in the kgb squad cars we called what most know as the “day of rest” a true ALL NIGHTER.
The kgb Special Agents are in Panama City for Spring Break. We asked the Breakers what they really want to know about politics, and most talked about Obama.
Been tricked as an April Fool yet? If so, while cursing your gullibility, you may want to ponder this question: What are the origins of April Fool’s Day? Our Special Agents have done some digging and here is what we’ve found!