knowledge is power

if any of you are wondering whether or not you should go ahead and do a ph.d., my answer is: absolutely! there is probably no other time in your life when you have chance to expand your mental horizons in quite the same way as when as you're writing a ph.d.

i, for example, have learned over the past few weeks that:

- saskatchewan is approximately as big as southern sudan
- ren hoek's accent (from the cartoon show ren & stimpy) was inspired by peter lorre (casablanca, the maltese falcon, 'm' - die stadt sucht einen moerder)
- the seven years' war (1756-1763) was the first european conflict fought on 5 continents
- prenzlauer berg, the part of berlin i live in, has an average population density of 13 176 inhabitants per km2
- both johnny depp and amy winehouse appeared on the bbc series 'the fast show'
- while the eu's next expansion will consist of officially integrating the netherlands antilles islands of aruba, bonaire, st. eustatius and saba into the eu on dec. 15 this year, the caribbean islands of turks & caicos have considered joining canada. curacao and sint maarten will gain a special status as associated states
- the album 'lust for life' by iggy pop & david bowie was recorded in a small studio close to potsdamer platz, berlin
- the olm (proteus anguinus) uses mostly non-visual sensory systems such as photoreceptors in the skin, chemoreceptors, mechano- and electroreceptors in order to find its way in the dark
- peru is latin america's biggest potato-producing country
- chris cunningham's video for aphex twin's song 'come to daddy' was shot in the same housing development thingie as stanley kubrick's clockwork orange
- the official languages of the netherlands antilles are dutch and papiamentu; the official language of the turks and caicos islands is english
- the 1,59 eur bottle of chilean la cara cabernet sauvignon from the plus market is better quality for money than the 1,79 bottle of montepulciano d'abruzzo from kaiser's
- judge dread was both the first white recording artist to have a reggae hit in jamaica and the artist with the most banned songs in the u.k.
- famed indian actor amitabh bachchan has played in 172 movies to date, winning 18 film awards and 27 nominations. burt bacharach of kansas city (mo), on the other hand, has so far had 70 top 40 hits in the us and 52 top 40 hits in the uk
- while the latin name for the animal known as cicak in indonesian is hemidactylus frenatus, the tokek is classified as gekko gecko
- actor lee marvin's mother descended from the brother of george washington while his father's forefather was the founder of hartford, connecticut

rest assured that i have not merely picked up these gems of information by idly wandering around the internet when i was supposed to be focusing on my ph.d. topic of masculinities and violence in timor leste. all of the above-mentioned facts are absolutely essential to the fundamental argument of my thesis.