Weird, Wonderful World
Concerned about the government’s priorities? Now you can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing your tax dollars are being well spent on things like… Dough Dope The National Institutes of Drug Abuse spent $780,000 (and five years) studying whether pizza was as addictive as drugs. Findings: 100 college students surveyed said they felt pizza was […]
Pittsburgh used to be Pittsburg and New York used to be New Amsterdam. And then there are these American towns that got a lot of publicity when they came up with new names for themselves. Hot Springs, New Mexico “Truth or Consequences” is a very mysterious name for a town, particularly a sparsely populated one […]
We found these stories right under our noses. Why the Long Face? In 2003 Bhupati Das, from the Indian state of West Bengal, announced his plan to break the world record in “mustache weightlifting.” The 48-year-old said he’d been inspired to try it six years earlier when he read about a man who had lifted […]
The Onion isn’t a real newspaper—it’s satire that sends up most all aspects of modern culture. But sometimes they’re so spot on in their mockery that they wind up predicting the future. (1) The Onion: Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional, thereby laying the groundwork […]
A working kitchen needs just a few things to function: an oven, a stove, a fridge, and, of course, an automatic hot dog cooker. Hot Diggity Dogger Cooking hot dogs in the microwave: It takes about a minute for the wiener and 10 seconds for the bun. That’s just so complicated. Fortunately, there’s the Hot […]
Sometimes we like to get a little highbrow here at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute. Salieri vs. Mozart Ironically, Salieri became famous because of the movie about how he wasn’t famous. For the 1984 film Amadeus, F. Murray Abraham won an Academy Award for playing the Mozart contemporary who was overshadowed by Mozart, a musical genius […]
Cell phone towers: They’re a necessary part of today’s world, keeping us all connected and able to access trivia book publishers’ blogs whenever we like. But they’re also an eyesore. Fortunately, some designers out there are doing their best to disguise cell towers as things a bit more pleasing to the eye. Cacti In the […]
We couldn’t find Uncle John’s old Fart Bazooka, but we managed to find some other famous weapons. John Wilkes Booth’s Gun The gun that Booth used to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln now resides in the basement museum of Ford’s Theatre, in Washington, D.C. The gun is a single-shot flintlock, made by Philadelphia gunsmith Henry Derringer. […]
Say hello to Dr. Seuss, a rhymer of rhymes both tight and loose. A BRI favorite he really is; the following story is really his. Vital Stats Born: March 2, 1904 Died: September 25, 1991, age 87 Real Name: Theodore Seuss Geisel He adopted “Seuss” as his writing name during Prohibition, while attending Dartmouth College. […]
England is a relatively small country, but it boasts a surprisingly high number of variations of the English language—accents, dialects, and, of course, slang. Here’s a look at Scouse, the uniquely colorful (and often inscrutable) jargon specific to the Beatles’ old stomping grounds of Liverpool, where “Scouse” is also the name many people call themselves. […]
And we don’t mean “ha-ha” funny. Speed Fills (The Coffers) In 2004 the city of Coopertown, Tennessee, realized they had a law-enforcement problem: the cops were costing the city too much money. The Robertson County Times reported that the police department cost about $125,000 to run, but that they had given out only $17,000 worth […]
We’ve talked about strange beer flavors before—and we talked about them again in our book Beer-Topia—but all those craft brewers out there keep coming up with more and more bizarre beers. Here’s another round. Hvalur 2 Stedji Brewery is based in Iceland, where the population has traditionally lived off the land, or more accurately, the […]
On this day in 1933, the first ever American daytime serial, Marie, the Little French Princess, debuted on CBS Radio. “Soap operas,” as they came to be known on both radio, and eventually television, because sponsors were primarily cleaning products, have been a part of the cultural landscape ever since. Like “sands through the hourglass” […]
Some TV show titles make perfect sense—Friends is about some friends, and The Sopranos is about a family called the Sopranos, for example. Other titles are a bit harder to crack—like these. Dragnet Procedurals are a big part of TV today—formulaic crime shows in which police detectives dutifully go through all the steps they’re supposed […]
In the Catholic Church calendar, today marks the beginning of Lent. It’s 40-day period that precedes Easter (and follows Mardi Gras), and is a period of reflection and fasting. Along with it comes a rule that Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays during that period—but fish is fine. What technically constitutes “meat” is a […]
As winter winds down, here’s a look at how a few unique coats and jackets got their names. Blazer Also known as a sportjacket, the blazer doesn’t seem to be something one would associate with burning flames, or a “blaze.” They’re actually quite the opposite—tasteful, sedate, and usually found in subdued colors like navy blue […]
What’s America’s favorite drug? You guessed it—caffeine. We use more caffeine than all other drugs—legal or illegal—combined. Want to know what the stuff is doing to you? Here’s a quick overview. Background If you start the day with a strong cup of coffee or tea, you’re not alone. Americans ingest the caffeine equivalent of 530 […]
Some great reasons to buy, not rent. Victim Eviction Dorothea Thomas of Jacksonville, North Carolina, was attacked in her apartment by an ex-boyfriend. Thomas, a police officer and former Marine, suffered six gunshot wounds but was able to escape by jumping out of a second-story window. When she was released from the hospital a week […]
