MAY 2003

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5/31

Sorry no fact today. I'm on this really old laptop with a flaky modem. Every time I dial up (signed up for 30 days free on AOL) half the time I get static. Then it takes time to reset. Then I try again. And hope to get a dial tone. This modem ain't annoying or anything. And hotels creep me out a little (alot). I'll be home next friday..

Here's the story of the vanishing hotel room.

5/30

I seen on the kooky caly local news that Harrison Ford got a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. He said he thought he already had a star from a long time ago but apparently that was some silent film star with the same name and he was confused. So now he got his own. Um... I'm sorry Harrison. I realize you're a big star and all but, how do you forget if you got a star on the walk of fame or not?! Like you just forget? dickhead...

Here's a shrine to Han and Leia.

*update: someone wrote in and told me i heard the tv wrong. it wasn't that HE thought he got one before. It was that everyone else thought he got one before... cause of the star of the same name thing. My apologies to Han for calling him a dickhead.

*update again: someone sent me this link so maybe i was right on the dickheadedness... 
 

5/29

Sorry no fact from yester... oh wait. I saw that Oxygen is making a tv show for cats. Might be big news but it's all i remember from yesterdays tv. Why do I feel like I might sit there and watch the show like a dope? A gauky feline dope. Curled up on my bean bag chair. It looked kind of relaxing in a shut off yer brainish way... eh... maybe not. Realistically I'd probably not watch it. Scratch that..

Here's an umm... live kitty cam.

5/28

Hey! I'm in California! And I just watched a show about Deer Penis Soup! Soup! With deer penis! Mix it up with a little seahorse and you got yourself a aphrodisiacal soup that will bonerize dudes up! Or so some say in China. So if you're a chick on a first date in china and the dude orders up deer penis soup and then gives you a wink... you know what's up with that... 

 Here's some other things people claim are all aphrodiasiactic... umm... including onions?

5/27

The tv told me about homing pigeons today. The guy on the tv said that they know where they're going by tuning into the magnetic poles. So how does a scientist find that out? Extensive study of migration patterns? Studying their brain patterns? Nope. They scotchtaped a friggin magnet on to a pigeons head and let it go. And the pigeon flew off all koo koo with no idea where it was going. Done and done. Sometimes science is stupid easy.

Here's a clay pigeon shoot at stuff game. It kinda sucks but then doesn't after a while.

5/26

Today I watched a show about the Gangs of New York (the history of... not the making of...) I found out that during that time women fought in gangs too. There were mean chick gangs roaming the streets all tough. The most notorious female gang member was Hellcat Maggie. She had her teeth filed to points and she wore brass fingernails for maximum scratching and she kept a jar of ears. Besides fighting hellcatishly she also liked to go into people's places and throw their stuff out the window. This was called "Irish Confetti".

Here's a sketch of Lady Hellcat. Rowl.

5/25

While watching the Indianapolis 500 today ABC ran a promo for a new show called 'Threat Matrix'.  Umm... Threat Matrix? Sounds like when they named this show they just opened up the newspaper, covered their eyes, pointed at the paper and picked the first two words they hit.

I looked for an online word association game to link from here. But I couldn't find one. So then I looked for an online Rorschach test. But couldn't find that. So here's this.

5/24

Today I learned two facts about Sikeston, Missouri. 1. Once a year the Sikeston cops kidnap a random family off the highway and take them to watch the rodeo. And 2. they have a place called Lambert's Cafe which is the #1 place to 'pig out' in America. Seems fun there. They throw dinner rolls around all willy nilly and people catch them in fishing nets.

Here's some facts about Lambert's.

5/23

Sorry I missed this here fact today. I was all running around and then I got tired and kinda spacey. Then I took a nap and then when I woke up I was all not knowing where I was. Then I went out.

But here's something to kinda make up for it (if you're on dialup and that file is too big here's a little orange something something)

5/22

Today the TV showed me about this ritual in a place called Benin. Over there when a boy becomes a man they have a ceremony and the kid gets circumcised which has to be pretty bad when you're like 12 years old or whatever. But also to help with bravery in preparing for this ritual, a pet dog gets sacrificed and the kid has to eat some. Talk about your bad days...

Imagine the kid from Benin comparing his bad day with Alexander's....

5/21

Back in the day, women in Britain drew up a petition to outlaw coffee. They got all mad at the coffee because men were just hanging around in coffee houses all day and not home enough. So women accused the coffee of causing men to be impotent... but that was probably just a PR spin hook type thing to get press or whatever..

Here's the cover page of the petition. They done wrote kooky back then.

5/20

Clay Aiken is the new American Idol (not a fact yet but it is really). Although I'm a Ruben fan I felt that Clay brought it more than Ruben did tonite, dawg. He did his thing, baby. I'm glad this show is finally going to be over tomorrow. I disturbed myself by with my level of involvement this season. And I don't want Clay creepstaring at me through the tv anymore... I think we need some time apart.

There are people who watch the show... then you got yer fanatics..

5/19

I got some good dolphin news today from the National Geographic Channel. For years the japanese fishing industry has been like slaughtering dolphins like all ridiculouslike. And for the 2002-2003 season the village of Futo got approval from the goverment to kill only 600 dolphins. I guess that was considered progress. But the total number slaughtered for the season... zero.

Mainly cause of this dude named Izumi Ishii who used to hunt dolphins for a living.

5/18

A person on the tv told me that most beluga caviar on the market is illegal and more than half of the stuff is fake. They said it's like the drug trade with smugglers and stuff like that. But don't worry- sometimes problems have a way of working themselves out. Soonish the beluga sturgeon might get all extinct. Boom. Problem solved. Not bad for them as a species too. They've made it like 120 million years. With all that time maybe they should have evolved a little more yuck into the taste of their eggs. 

So lawyers to the rescue!

5/17

Tonite on SNL I saw Dan Ackroid and Jim Belushi perform a song together. It was wrong on so many levels that I lost count after 30 seconds.

Is it possible that anybody on the planet bought this poster?

5/16

The TV told me all about Stonehenge today. The guy said that no one really knows exactly why it was built but there is a possibility that the pre-brits built it back in the day as sort of a "poor-man's egyptian pyramid". Imagine the dude back then who started it the idea getting everyone all psyched up to make a pyramid with everyone to lugging stones and all that- theneveryone looking at him after it was done like... Dude... pyramid? That pyramid sucks! And him being like... Let's see you make a frickin pyramid! F off!

It does sort of look like it was built by ancient stoners.

5/15

Today I learnt what is hip and cool in fashion for this season. Guys wearing girls jeans is 'in'. Apparently Lenny Kravitz and Beck both wear girls jeans! (click here) Because girls jeans are good for showing off the butt and I guess they want to show off their butt. The chick on tv said that Seven Jeans are an 'important jean' this season. 

Speaking of butts here's J.Lo selling out for Subaru.

5/14

Sorry no fact today. I went out of the city and didn't come back till late-ish. I saw a few things watching tv late that I thought might make good facts but none of em were that good so I kept watching and by the time I got tired (which is now) I couldn't remember any of the ones that I saw which is probably for the best because if they were really good I would be typing about one of them now... instead of typing this. 

I just played this and lost. I think the computer totally cheated.. 

5/13

I found out today that back in 1966 one of our B-52 bombers carrying 4 nuclear warheads crashed while flying over Spain. Although no nukes went off there was like radioactive material like all over the place and stuff.  So like imagine being the dude in the US who has to call the King of Spain about it-  it'd be like,  "Hello King? How's it goin?.....  uh huh...uh huh.... that's cool... Hey listen... today we crashed a plane loaded with nukes like in your country... no nukes went off but... ok King... calm down King... I can't understand Spanish... so dude...calm down...(covers the phone and says to someone else in the room "dude, he's like totally flippin out..." then back on phone again) ...ok.... I just...But I...  well you don't have to be a dick about it! I'm calling to apologize!! It's not like they went off! It's just a little radia.... What!?... You don't have to go there!... ok fine! Be that way! Be a dick! <click>

Here's a list of some nuke accidents over the years.

5/12

Hollywood Squares today taught me that if a girl says your name alot in conversation that means she's romantically interested. So for now on when I'm talking to a chick I'll just keep bringing the conversation around to talking all about my name. 

If you wanna find out what your name means check here. (i'm a umm.. fox.) 

5/11

Tonite me and my nephews watched a Flintstones Special. Pebbles and Bam Bam were all grown up and married and Pebbles was pregnant. At the end of the show she had twins and it was weirdly weird seeing Pebbles in the delivery room like all grunting and stuff. What was even more disturbing is apparently Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty have ALL had massive amounts of botox... cause even though their kids are 20 years older they look like they haven't aged a friggin day.

Here's a Flintstonian drive around game follow the arrow errand type thing.

5/10

The TV showed me drunk bees today. Like these bees sometimes go out and get nectar or something from certain trees and it's like fermented sap and the bees get drunk and fly crooked and knock into things. When they return to the hive there are 'bouncer bees' that check em out to make sure they're not gonna go in and mess stuff up inside the hive. If the drunk ass bee persists on trying to get back in the hive, the bouncer bees will kick the drunk bee's ass. 

Here's a spelling bee for ya. I don't want to talk about it...

5/9

Today I watched an old show called 'Go Go Gophers' on Cartoon Network. It was about these two bucktoothed wild silly 'indian' gophers and this cavalry guy who like wants to 'get rid' of them and tries to get them off the land or whatever. The indian gophers hit people on the head alot and act goofy and do dances and stuff. As I was watching it I was like... wow they can't go making stuff like this anymore.... but apparently it's ok to show as a rerun...?

Check out the theme song.

5/8

So like before 1948 the government sort of whatevered the whole clean air thing. People'd be like, 'Yo, government! What up with all this pollution, yo?' And the government'd be like, 'Whatchoo talkin bout, Willis? Ain't none.' Until on halloween in 1948 in Donora, Pennsylvania when an industrial fog floated through town and killed 20 people and injured lots more. Then the government was like, 'Oh THAT pollution!' And then passed some clean air laws...and then kinda buried the history of what happened.

Here's s'more info on the Donora fog.

5/7

Today I learnt that people in Sweden need to get permission from the swedish government before naming their kid. This came up because some couple wanted to name their kid 'Superman' and the government said no. I guess that is setting the bar a little high.

Du yuoo vunna telk leeke-a zee svedeesh cheff? Bork bork bork?

5/6

The TV told me today that the music industry is investing in programs to go after file-share p2p type people. Basically they wanna develop secret programs to install on peoples computers that will like mess up things or delete stuff if you share copyrit files. Secret programs like that are called trojans. Of course when you install most file sharing software they come with trojans of their own. I guess we can't really win... but I get the feeling neither can they.

Want some paranoia? Look what turned up just yesterday.

5/5

So the TV showed me how these geneticist science guys are like all busy working to smarten up mice. They want to make mice smarter so eventually they can make monkeys smarter and create new improved supermonkeys that will be able to do really complex things to help people. For example, like in Star Trek II when Spock had to go into that room filled with radiation to shut off the thing... if there was a supermonkey on the Enterprise the supermonkey would have done that instead of Spock. They'd do stuff like that.

 Here's how you make a Vulcan Mind Meld.

5/4

The TV told me about why some of our coins have like ridges around the edges. Back in the day when the coins were made out of silver, some people would like shave a little silver off the coin to like make a little silver profit on the side. Eventually the coins were all getting smaller and like crooked so they put the kabosh on that scam by adding the ridges. It worked out well extra cause blind people dig the ridges to feel out coins and stuff.

Here's a cointerfeit coin annoying scienceymathy thing. It took me a while :-(

5/3

I saw an interview with this guy Gary Stevens who is like a big time horse racing jockey and I learnt that when horses are in training they race with like practice horses (sort of like a sparring partner in boxing) The training horse is called a "rabbit". I also found out that a jockey might get like $80,000 if they win the Kentucky Derby... but if you come in last you get like only $100. Which I guess makes sense. I mean... I could come in last place too...

This doesn't seem very romantic.

5/2

Today I learned about the Irula people in India. For a long time they were big in the snakeskin business and they'd all go out and kill snakes and sell the skin. Then the gov't banned the trade. So the Irulas were like, 'Dude! Uncool! No ban! That's how we make a living!' But the gov't was like, 'Sorry dudes. You can't go like around clubbing snakes all day everyday.' So the Irulas started up a new business where they collect snake venom to produce antivenom- and don't kill snakes. So they make a living off that. So everything is cool now with them Irula dudes.

Here's s'more info on the Irulas...

5/1

I found out today that the first 'pornographic' film was made one year after Edison invented the motion picture projector. A whole year after!? What the hell took so long I wonder...  I'd figure 2-3 weeks max...

Here's a clip from that film. (adult viewers only. 1.37mb)

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