12 Delectable Facts We Extracted from the Enormous Cliff-Clinging Trivia Hives of the Yunnan Province While Dangling Precariously from Makeshift Rope Ladders and Being Attacked by Furious Swarms of Minutiae
Look, I’m no billionaire tech mogul. I’m just a lowly internet content creator. But, if I may, I have a piece of advice for any aspiring technocratic oligarchs out there: If at all possible, try not to compare the plight of millions of people in developing nations to a dead rodent. Read on to find out what Mark Zuckerberg said in 2010, when an X-class solar flare apparently fried his communication hardware.
Germany’s 600-Year Concert
At this very moment, a church in Germany is two decades deep in a multi-century performance of composer John Cage’s piece, “Organ2/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible).” In an unbeatable act of comedic timing, the piece starts with a 17-month rest. (Source)
Did Chris Christie Hire a Personal SEO Specialist?
It sounds like a jumble of highly targeted hashtags on an Instagram post, but: Chris Christie gave President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a framed autograph from Jon Bon Jovi. Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have used “It’s My Life” as something of a rally cry as they prepare for, or recover from, Russian attacks. To show his support and appreciation, Bon Jovi wrote out the lyrics by hand, and to show he’s still running for president, Christie traveled to Ukraine and delivered the framed lyrics to Zelenskyy. (Source)
The Founder of Tinder Is an Avowed Sodomite
Exactly one day before the company went public, a disastrous interview dropped wherein founder Sean Rad — that’s his real name — struggled mightily, and ultimately failed, to come up with the word “sapiosexual”: “I’ve been attracted to women who are… well, who my friends might think are ugly. Apparently there’s a term for someone who gets turned on by intellectual stuff. You know, just talking. What’s the word? I want to say sodomy?” (Source)
Robin Williams’ Death Inspired Wayne Brady’s Coming Out
Brady recently came out in a rainbow- and pun-packed TikTok. He says his season of deep introspection began after Robin Williams’ death caused him to feel “depressed, frightened and weighed down.” After years of therapy, he’s come to realize that “I want to be free to love whomever I want. This truth makes me Pan and part of the LGBTQ+ family.” (Source)
The 1970s Were Not Kind to Barbie Inventor Ruth Handler
As acknowledged in the new movie, Handler ran afoul of the IRS, the SEC and Mattel’s shareholders. She was accused of conspiracy, mail fraud and trying to rig Mattel’s stock price, and ultimately pled no contest — though mainly because she was busy recovering from breast cancer, a mastectomy and getting her prosthetic breast company off the ground. She said “the marketing guys who had done most of the ‘dirty work’” got off easy, and the feds wanted to “bring down a woman, a famous woman, an uppity woman who had the nerve to climb to the top.” (Source)
Meta May Not Have the International Community’s Best Interests at Heart
While his signature product has only recently helped foment coups and genocides, Mark Zuckerberg has been a cartoon supervillain since at least 2010, when he said: “A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.” (Source)
50 Cent Has Been Made Aware of the Alternate Meaning of ‘Wanksta,’ Thank You
British journalist Jake Arnott ever-so-politely explained to 50 Cent how the Brits have traditionally used that terminology: “That word sort of means something in England… there’s a hand signal that goes with that.” 50 brushed him off as professionally as humanly possible: “I was told. That blew me away!” (Source)
Father Pellegrino Ernetti’s Chronovisor
In 1992, an Italian monk claimed to have invented a time-traveling View-Master he called The Chronovisor. It supposedly captured real-time images of a long-lost play by tragic playwright Euripides, and a little historical snafu known today as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Intrepid journalists figured out that the crucifixion scene he presented as evidence was just the mirror-image of a postcard from a small town in Italy. (Source)
Dean Corll’s Two Competing Passions
Dean Corll was a certified monster who racked up at least 28 victims between 1970 and 1973. As a kid, he had two hobbies worthy of the MacDonald Triad: He liked to make necklaces with the heads of flying squirrels, and he was obsessed with the trombone. (Source)
Gwyneth Paltrow Would Bomb on ‘The Price Is Right’
Trying to adhere to the $29 per week allotted to SNAP recipients, Paltrow bought a delightful array of fresh vegetables and healthy ingredients — that lasted less than four days. To her credit, she highlighted how hard life is for the approximately 47 million Americans forced to stick to that price cap, and said, “My perspective has been forever altered by how difficult it was to eat wholesome, nutritious food on that budget.” (Source)
Comic Book Guy’s Real Name (And His Real Real Name)
Canonically, it’s been revealed that his name is Jeff Albertson. But Matt Groening says he was absent when the writers named him, and he had envisioned “a more tragic design… In my mind, ‘Louis Lane’ was his name, and he was obsessed and tormented by Lois Lane.” (Source)
Never Forget What They Took from Us
A whole line of Dark Crystal toys was planned, but because the movie was tragically underappreciated during its initial run, they never made it to production. Jen, Kira, Aughra, a Skeksis and 2 Pod Peasants each would have come with a crystal shard, which could all be combined to form an entire Crystal. (Source)
