Sometimes it'll just be things I learned from observation, things about people or social interaction. Other times it'll be some of the many bits of useless info I learn in a day. Learning is arguably my favorite thing to do, so maybe sharing that will make this journal more interesting, or at least have some purpose.
What I Learned Today:
Popsicle® is a trademarked word. So is Seeing Eye® dog. And Kitty Litter®. Styrofoam® too.
This morning I decided to look up other words that were commonly considered generic yet were not. The Straight Dope has an excellent article on the subject.
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I also found that there were once trademarked terms that are now generic; escalator being one of them.
The word Escalator started out as a trademark of the Otis Elevator Company. Otis, however, failed to police its usage sufficiently, so escalator became a generic term in 1950. But until then, other manufacturers had to market their escalators under different names. The Peelle Company called theirs a Motorstair, and Westinghouse called their model an Electric Stairway.
Escalators are also sometimes spiral, which I found interesting because I've never seen one. One notable set of spiral escalators is at the San Francisco Shopping Centre in San Francisco, California and at Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm visiting both cities later this year so I guess I'll see them then.
Since I was a little kid I've found escalators somewhat fascinating. As Mitch Hedberg said, they're never truly broken; just temporarily stairs. 
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A lot more people die in train accidents than I ever would've imagined. I found this out while reading MyDeathSpace, a website dedicated to MySpace profiles of now deceased members. There were at least three or four people that died in train accidents. The first one I could understand, the girl was deaf and didn't hear the train coming from behind. But how do you die in a train accident? You can hear those things coming a mile away.
