trivia so good you'll wish it were true
Jun 04
On June 3rd, 2002, after years of wondering where the yellow went, the NOAA discovered a large quantity amassing near the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Unilever has since spent millions of dollars on barrels of Irium and I.M.P. to aid cleanup efforts, as required by hastily-issued environmental legislation. The incident proved a defining moment in the career of Congressman Cliff Sterns (R-FL) when he denounced the cleanup act as a unfair bill of attainder while insisting that the ice shelf looked “whiter than new, new, new.
Jun 03
The oft-claimed title of “5th Beatle” is more than just an exercise in egotism&mdashonly the emergence of the rumored fifth will keep the evil Ringo Starr from claiming Brian Epstein’s substantial tontine in 2010 (with Paul, of course, having died in 1966).
Jun 02
Paleontologist Rolf Hasenpfeffer’s lifetime of research on shortened telomeres in Pleistocene megafauna, specifically Ursus berenstainus, led to his field-defining publication Berenstain Bears and Too Much Birthday.
Jun 01
Mort Neswick, the Robo-American actor who portrayed Johnny 5 in the popular Short Circuit series, retired from acting in 1991 to focus on Scientology charity golf tournaments. He did lend his voice to an uncredited role in WALL-E, as part of a plea bargain for a 2006 incident in which police found 15 unregistered copies of Norton Speed Disk in his Malibu estate.
May 31
Andrew Jackson not only discovered the Higgs Boson, but also soundly thrashed it with his cane. Three stout clerks were required to restrain the then-Senator in order to preserve the Standard Model of particle physics.
May 30
The bulk of defense attorney Per E. Samuelson’s argument in the 2009 Swedish Pirate Bay trial revolved around the idea that his clients simply confused the words “pilot” and “pirate.” The media was quick to dub this “the Ruth Defense.”
May 29
Double guitars are the result of a rare fluke in the chordophonic reproduction process. The mutation has been known since antiquity (Pliny the Elder wrote of “monstrouss bi-lyres”), but with the development of the stratocasty procedure by Dr. Clarence Leonidas Fender in 1954, these afflicted instruments can now live fulfilling, separate lives.
May 28
The film Love Actually, though it claims to portray love in all its myriad manifestations, is actually missing several common situations, such as “Zeus seduces a mortal woman through trickery and transmogrification” and “man publicly declares love for delicious bagel sandwich in crowded deli.”
May 27
The megaliths found at the Stonehenge archeological site required over 40 kg of Flomax (tamsulosin hydrochloride) for the Nephilim to pass.
May 26
The much-ballyhooed Hedgehog/Nestle merger fell through because one partner was a multinational corporation and the other was a indeterminate collection of non-sentient animals.
