6 People Who Prove Sometimes You Really Should Give Up
As children, we're taught that we can grow up to be whatever we want if we put in enough elbow grease and gumption, especially if our dream job is "elbow grease and gumption manufacturer." However, when your dream is to walk across the ocean or make a sequel to a 25-year-old Mike Myers movie, arguably better advice would be "Give up now, while you still have some life left ahead of you." The following six people refused to let adversity or common sense stand in their way of their dreams, no matter how "dumb" or "ridiculous" the rest of the world may find them.
Wayne's World 3: The Script Hollywood Has Ignored For Two Decades
Hollywood has seen its fair share of hopeful screenwriters, most of whom have had their dreams squashed by bigwigs who don't have the time or patience to care about sci-fi space opera takes on the Watergate scandal -- which is, statistically speaking, the bulk of the The Black List. But some of these writers refuse to stop pushing their story, even after the Universe gives them billboards demanding they give up. Trevor Schindeler, for example, has been trying to convince anyone and everyone to check out his script for Wayne's World 3 for the past 23 years.
Over the years, Schindeler has sprung his WWIII script on everyone loosely involved with the original two films, sending the screenplay to actors, writers, and directors alike, only to receive the same form letter response every time: "NO ONE WANTS THIS." Convinced his story is too damn good for what he dubs "Fortress Hollywood," Schindeler is so serious about his art that he registered the script with the Writer's Guild of America, despite swimming in a sea of "NOPE."
Undeterred, Schindeler continues to labor away at his darling, requesting crowdfunding and creating a trailer and poster to get the fans excited for the long-awaited return of their semi-favorite slacker duo. While Schindeler clearly ignores the rules of Hollywood, he isn't above creating a few of his own. So you can watch his trailer for Wayne's Leisure World, but only if you aren't an employee of Paramount Pictures -- for legal reasons, he says. The trailer is just made up of clips of the first two films, so if you work for Paramount Pictures, make sure you don't watch this clip of scenes you had a direct hand in creating.
Even his poster is nothing but the original Wayne's World one with Wayne and Garth's hair photoshopped grey. Irony is not lost on Trevor Schindeler.
Who knows. Maybe Schindeler's script is actually amazing and we're all missing out. And maybe 20 years from now, he'll be shopping around his script about some angry geriatric birds.
This Guy Has Spent Years Trying To Walk To The End Of
According to this year's almanac, walkthrough and Let's Play videos are all the rage with the world's youths. So if you want people to watch your gaming channel over everyone else's, you need a gimmick. On March 28, 2011, Kurt J. Mac discovered his hook: He would walk to the end of the popular open-world game Minecraft. And he's been fake-walking ever since.
The end of Minecraft, dubbed the "Far Lands," is a glitchy nightmare where logic and sanity have forsaken the player in favor of a pixelated hellscape. Developer Markus Persson was aware of the glitches, but didn't bother to fix them because he incorrectly thought that no one would ever make it that far in the game.
After four continuous years of walking, Mac has only made it 16.78 percent of the way to the Far Lands, and it's estimated that he won't see the end for another couple of decades. This GIF represents Mac's path as of September of last year, demonstrating the 1,303.1 miles he walked up to that point:
Pictured: not a complete waste of time.
The worst part of the entire endless jaunt is that, in most versions of the game, the Far Lands don't even exist anymore. Mac is playing on the Beta 1.7.3. version of the game, and the Far Lands were eliminated in version 1.8. It isn't all for naught, though. While Mac quickly discovered he was in over his head, he refused to quit his journey. Mac now walks for charity, providing sick kids with books and toys. Mac is like Santa Claus, if Santa took 30 years to do deliver presents because he was busy pretending to walk across an imaginary continent.
Sometimes, Getting Your Driver's License Takes Hundreds Of Tries
To call "obtaining your right to transport yourself" a stupid goal is a little harsh, but to spend five years taking the written portion of the driver's license test 960 times is sheer lunacy. Especially if you started the process at age 64 and there's a bus that runs through your little town every two hours.
That's exactly what Cha Sa-soon, an elderly South Korean woman, did. South Korea forbids students from sliding behind the wheel until they score at least a 60 on the written portion of the test -- ten points higher than Cha's highest score as of 2009.
When Cha decided she wanted to earn her driver's license, she started showing up to take the test twice a week, every week, for three years. Eventually, her attempts were spread further and further apart, on account of the fact that Cha was already in her goddamn 60s when she started learning how to drive, and that -- oh yeah -- she was also learning how to read as she went along with the tests. It turned out that Cha only had a fourth-grade education, which she attained at age 15. You do the math, if you dare.
The point is that Cha was essentially teaching herself to read the test while learning the rules of the road simultaneously. Cha's driving instructors felt a huge amount of sympathy for her, hoping to see her succeed but being too afraid to break the poor old woman's heart by telling her that they believed her quest was a pointless one.
Finally, at the age of 69, years after her initial test, Cha beat the written portion and obtained her driver's license. Hyundai rewarded Cha's efforts with a brand-new car so she could spend her golden years cruising around in style.
A Guy Spends Five Years And Two Trials Failing To Make His Signature A Penis
Fed up with the outrageous task of having to sign his name over and over again every time he moved, Jared Hyams wanted to see if it even mattered what he put in the little box on the form, so he drew a straight line. What happened was nothing. Believing this meant he could put whatever the hell he wanted in the box, Hyams started drawing a tiny penis any time a form asked for his signature. Shockingly, people noticed.
The Australian Electoral Commission told Hyams that the drawings didn't count as a legal signature, but he refused to take no for an answer, and continued forcefully using his little dick art in lieu of his name. Hyams was convinced he was in the right, seeing as how he got away with using a straight line previously.
Hyams started using the image for everything, frequently butting heads with the AEC over whether the doodles could be legally recognized as a signature. Hyams was shot down every time, and every time he came away more bullheaded than ever, still convinced that the government had no right to tell him what the visualization of "Jared Hyams" could look like. When Hyams went to have his driver's license signature switched to his new, Prince-like-but-dickish symbol, he noticed his updated card never arrived in the post. He investigated and was informed that the address on file didn't match his current home. Hyams was convinced that the address was intentionally changed to prevent him from ever receiving the license, because that's a totally sane and rational explanation. Really, officials were just nervous that the dong sketch would be too easy to replicate, allowing any Tom, Dick, or Harry to jack Hyams' identity.
Hyams twice took the issue to court, and twice he was thrown out on his ass, because forcing public officials to process genitalia images as part of their job constitutes "sexual harassment" -- a phrase which Hyams no doubt translated as "a conspiracy against Jared Hyams."
Speaking of conspiracies ...
A Man Spent 20 Years Trying To Prove That Michael Jackson Scored Sonic Games
The only person more stubbornly dedicated to a cause than a conspiracy theorist is a diehard fan, and the only person more dedicated than that is a diehard fan with a conspiracy theory. Ben Mallison is one such fan, with a theory he believed in so much that he spent his entire adult life trying to prove it was real.
Mallison was a huge Sonic The Hedgehog fan, and the Sonic franchise is well-known for its Easter eggs. Mallison says he first formed his theory as a teenager, noticing that the Carnival Night Zone music from Sonic 3 was a little too different -- slicker and cooler than the usual Sonic fare. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks: The writer of Sonic 3's music had to be Michael Jackson.
This, of course, was in the '90s, at a time when the internet was a half-formed idea on a CD at the bottom of a distrustful parent's trashcan. Still, Mallison pushed on, comparing Sonic tracks and Jackson tunes for years before he was finally able to post his theory in an early-2000s message board, creating one of pop culture's most enduring mysteries.
Of course, even in its infancy the internet was terrible, so Mallison's fellow Sonic fans would bombard anyone they could find who had been involved with the game with their questions and theories.
Mallison spent years compiling evidence, posting on YouTube, interviewing people involved with the Sonic franchise, trying to find a way to prove his theory. Rumors flew that Jackson had recorded the music but was removed from the credits in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations against him. Or that he was concerned with sound quality. Or that the developers simply sampled his music. They admitted to it, denied it, avoided the question completely, but no concrete proof was ever found. Not that there haven't been enough clues, like Sega's Moonwalker game or Jackson's seemingly open invitation to their ultra-secret headquarters.
So while we may never know the full truth behind the music of Sonic 3, we can be rest assured that where there's an internet, there's a crazy fan willing to spend his entire life obsessing over his pet theory.
A Glorious Asshole In Giant Air Bubble Keeps Getting Rescued From The Ocean
Reza Baluchi is a marathon runner, but marathon running is boring. Baluchi tried to shake things up a bit by pulling a Jesus and running across the goddamn ocean, all the way from Florida to Bermuda. In case you haven't done the math in your head yet, that equals over a thousand miles.
In 2014, the Coast Guard began receiving phone calls about a "disoriented" man in a giant inflatable bubble running around the ocean off the coast of Miami, asking if anyone could tell him how to get to Bermuda. Which leaves us with a thousand questions, not the least of which is "How the hell did Baluchi expect to cross a thousand miles of ocean if he couldn't even get out of Miami without assistance?" Also, how was he communicating with fellow water travelers? A lot of hand-waving and shouting through his bubble?
After three days of running in place, Baluchi gave up on his dream of reaching Bermuda via mobile hamster wheel. Which meant the Coast Guard needed a helicopter, an airplane, and $144,000 to rescue him from his own stupidity.
However, two years later, an undaunted Baluchi was right back at it. Officials pleaded with him not to go, informing him that his equipment was not cut out for the trip. Baluchi refused to see reason, believing he could catch fish along the way and sleep in a hammock suspended inside his bubble.
A very bitter Coast Guard tweeted to remind everyone how much Baluchi's rescue had cost American taxpayers, perhaps trying to intimidate Baluchi into sticking with the rivers and the lakes that he's used to. But Baluchi headed out anyway, and eventually had to be rescued again (obviously), this time with New York Daily News doing enough background work on the guy to report that he'd once entered the U.S. illegally after getting lost while riding his bicycle through the desert.
Carolyn chronicles her stupid dreams on Twitter.
Which Sci-Fi Trope Would You Bring To The Real World, And Why? Every summer, we're treated to the same buffet of three or four science fiction movies with the same basic conceits. There's man vs. aliens, man vs. robots, man vs. army of clones, and man vs. complicated time travel rules. With virtual reality and self-driving cars fast approaching, it's time to consider what type of sci-fi movie we want to be living in for the rest of our lives. Co-hosts Jack O'Brien and Adam Tod Brown are joined by Cracked's Tom Reimann and Josh Sargent and comedians David Huntsberger, Adam Newman, and Caitlin Gill to figure out which sci-fi trope would be the best to make a reality. Get your tickets to this live podcast here!
Also check out 7 People Who Never Gave Up (But Absolutely Should Have) and 5 Stories That Will Compel You To Quit Your Day Job.
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