Heads-UP! #43: From Money Making Toys To Commercial Overload

Welcome, welcome, this week we’ve been studying up on our Amsterdam trivia and getting a little too familiar with our local vending machines (there goes that resolution!). So, look and learn and maybe you’ll even surprise yourself with a little chuckle.

  • 25,000: That’s the number of bicycles that end up in Amsterdam’s canals each year. Oddly, they say only 8,000 bikes are pulled out of the canals annually. It sounds like there are quite a few bicycles still lurking under the waters. – Ayesha

  • $3 billion worth of Star Wars toys were sold in 2011— a year no new instalment of the franchise was released – Cécile
  • Vending machines in Japan bring in $67b each year, enough to fund the country’s entire annual defence budget – Valeria

  • By the time a person in the United States is 65 years old, he would have seen an estimated two million television commercials. – Katie
  •  In 1891 a vending machine dispensing wine and beer was invented in France.  – Lynn (courtesy of Cécile’s vast fact bank)