MARK MY WORD: TRIVIA IS RIGHT AT HOME ON THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY

You can latch onto all kinds of useless facts while cruising down life's information highway.

We can thank computers for providing us with such knowledge. Without the Internet, we would never know that Kermit the Frog has 11 points on his collar or that it takes 18 minutes to cool hot chocolate into a Hershey's Kiss.

Most of us would never know that Britain's shortest monarch was Charles I, who was 4 feet 9 inches tall, and that was before he lost his head.

We wouldn't have a clue that jackals have one more pair of chromosomes than dogs or wolves. We just know they don't look like man's best friend and they don't eat like him either.

Thankfully, we can go to Deb and Jen's Land O' Useless Facts Web page to find out all this trivial stuff.

Deb and Jen are Stanford University students. It pays to go to a good university and major in obscure trivia.

Since 1995, more than 1 million visitors have clicked on their page, proving that a little knowledge can go on forever if it's on the Internet.

Naturally, not everyone is up to speed in this Information Age. Some people are still stuck on the back roads.

But when it comes to useless facts, you don't need a computer, just a columnist willing to devote plenty of space to the subject.

Thanks to Deb and Jen, I've learned the following:

* 1961 is the most recent year that could be written both upside down and right side up. That's clearly important if you're tumbling about in space.

* The smallest unit of time is the yoctosecond. If you need an exact definition, you have too much time on your hands.

* Ferrets sleep for about 20 hours a day. It's just those four hours that they're awake that drives you crazy.

* Hippopotamuses do 80 percent of their talking under water. I'm sure it took a government grant to figure that out.

* Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats. I'm sure the surviving cats thought the whole thing was pretty silly.

* Women blink nearly twice as often as men. Perhaps the Ancient Egyptians are to blame for this too.

* Giraffes have no vocal chords unless, of course, they live in the Wonderful World of Disney.

America's presidents also have found their way into the trivia list.

With a click of a computer button, you can read over plenty of presidential useless facts.

It's not the stuff you find in your regular civics class.

Take the case of President Andrew Jackson's pet parrot. The parrot had to be removed at Jackson's funeral because it was swearing.

Then there's President Andrew Johnson, the nation's 17th president and the only self-educated tailor. He made his own clothes and those of his cabinet, which explains why people wanted to impeach him.

Gerald Ford was once a male model, a fact that is clearly more trivial than his golf game.

None of this stuff is likely to help you pay the phone bill or ace your college history test.

But it does give you something to do while you're glued to the computer screen.

Besides, it's reassuring to know that you don't have to overload your brain with trivial knowledge unless you're a sports announcer. You can leave that task to the computer.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.