STRANGE BUT TRUE

• It was American inventor and businessman Thomas Alva Edison who made the following sage observation: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

• If you’re planning a trip to Peru to ring in the new year, you might want to bring along some yellow underwear. In that country it’s considered lucky to wear it on the first day of the new year.

• Another story to add to the file on clueless criminals: In 2010, two men in Portland, Ore., went to a supermarket and started removing price tags from items and filling their backpacks with the loot. However, they didn’t even make it out of the store with their ill-gotten gains. It seems that the would-be crooks decided to do their shoplifting during a “Shop With a Cop” promotion, and there were 60 police officers already in the store — in uniform.

• You may be surprised to learn that the Statue of Liberty is not located in New York. While it is on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, it’s technically within the territorial waters of Jersey City, N.J.

***

Thought for the Day: “Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.” — Mark Twain

(c) 2011 King Features

Synd., Inc.