Since 1982, book folk (libraries, publishers, readers) have celebrated “Banned Books Week,” setting aside the last week of September to examine literature that’s been “challenged” or banned” around the country. Here are some books removed from shelves…for some very odd reasons. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret The Judy Blume novel about a girl’s […]
For every PlayStation or Nintendo Wii that sells in the tens of millions and generates billions of dollars, plenty of other video game systems enter the market…and then it’s game over. OUYA The OUYA system got to market outside of the system—the creators raised $8.5 million in development cash via crowdfunding website Kickstarter. Units were […]
Those TV shows we love, the ones with beloved and familiar characters we welcome into our homes week after week? They could have been a lot different, had creators gone with their original ideas and instincts. Frasier Fraiser was a smash hit for NBC, running from 1993 to 2004 and winning the Emmy for Best […]
“Rideshare” services like Uber and Lyft have only been around for a few years, but they’ve already become a big part of American culture. Basically privatizing the taxicab industry, individuals sign up to be paid drivers, and people pay a reasonable fee for a ride by using a smartphone app. They also leave stuff behind […]
While it takes its name from a German city, there are few foods more quintessentially American than the hamburger. But from sea to shining sea, there are tons of variations on the old meat patty between two buns. After all, America is a big country, and the land of ingenuity. Smash Burger While the rest […]
Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Or, should you know of those scourges of the sea by a different name, International Talk Like a Buccaneer Day. There have been lots of different words throughout history synonymous with pirates, and here’s a little bit about their origins. Or rather, arrrrrr-igins. Buccaneer Pirates, as the […]
A lot of cheeses are named after their points of origin—Cheddar, Roquefort, and Colby are named after places in England, France, and Wisconsin, respectively. Other cheese names are a bit more complicated. Cottage Cheese It’s the most familiar and commonly consumed form of cheese curds (at least in the United States). What are curds? Coagulated […]
Not every video game can thrill gamers and sell millions. Here are some titles that hit the “Game Over” screen entirely too quickly. Pac-Man How can the most famous and popular video games of all time land on a list of flops? Because of the limitations of technology in 1982. In the very early 1980s, […]
Here’s the tale of how humans came to eat bears—tiny, adorable, rainbow-colored Gummy Bears, that is. Origin story Not too long after the end of World War I in the early 1920s, a 27-year-old candy factory worker from Bonn, Germany, named Hans Riegel decided to quit his job and go into business for himself. He […]
Last week, Hollywood news outlets reported that Henry Cavill might be done playing Superman on the big screen, as he’s been doing since 2013 in films like Man of Steel, Justice League, and Batman vs. Superman. It remains to be seen who will next wear the cape…and who will have almost become the Man of […]
Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon lost her bid to become the next governor of New York, losing in a primary to incumbent Andrew Cuomo. She’s certainly not the first well-known actor to ever run for office. Shirley Temple Her heyday was the 1930s, but Shirley Temple arguably remains the most famous (and beloved) […]
September 15 was Batman Day, so we thought we’d take a look at some of the more bizarre and head-shaking moments in the long comic and cinematic history of The Caped Crusader, a.k.a. The Dark Knight, a.k.a. The World’s Greatest Detective, a.k.a. (spoiler alert) Bruce Wayne. What a bear! In a 1977 Batman comic book, […]
What do you do with all your empty toilet paper rolls? Instead of putting them into the recycling bin, turn them into fun craft creations with The Toilet Roll Activity Book. With step-by-step instructions and full-color illustrations for more than two dozen projects suitable for all ages, this book will help you turn those plain cardboard […]
They’re terms we all use every day—so we thought we’d look into why people talk about the “time” and why they look it up on “clocks” and watches.” Time Proto-Indo-European is the common ancestral language of most European languages, and it had a word dimon, which meant “to divide.” Dimon to a form of time […]
Is there a golfer in your life? Then you know that the one things golfers love more than golf are silly golf gadgets and weird golf stuff. (Oh, and ugly plaid pants. Golfers, love those, too.) Potty Putter We don’t want to encourage doing anything to pass the time in the bathroom other that reading […]
It’s almost “awards season,” when every branch of the entertainment history holds lavish, televised parties to give one another trophies to recognize greatness. While Grammys, Emmys, and Oscars are voted on by a winner’s peers, there are some ways to game the system…just like these people did. Who is Al Walser? The 2013 Grammy Nominations […]
No, that didn’t really happen. The All-American king of ‘70s cinema and guys with mustaches, Burt Reynolds, passed away this week at the age of 82. He starred in plenty of classic movies, including Deliverance, The Longest Yard, and, of course, Smokey and the Bandit. But as much as Hollywood would have liked him to, […]
Don’t you hate it when you don’t get around to seeing the hot new Hollywood movie for a couple of weeks…and then a friend lets slip how it ends? It’s very aggravating. It’s perplexing then that some movies gave away their endings before they were even released. ROCKY IV Rocky IV is yet another Sylvester […]
