12 Stylish, Yet Powerful, Bits of Trivia Secreted Away Long Ago by the Great Bandit Misko, Which We Recovered by Venturing Deep into Hidden Caverns and Crevices and Battling the Dreadful Legions of Monsters That Dwell Therein
There’s no limit to the duplicity and trickery that entertainment executives will deploy upon the folks whose hard work makes them their millions. Thanks to the writers' strike, dirty laundry is being aired, billionaires are being dragged, beefs are being stoked and… you absolutely love to see it. But the folks who make TV and movies aren't the only ones being exploited — you the viewer are being manipulated, too! Particularly if you still watch network television, you’ve been exposed to an incredibly sneaky little tactic that, once you notice it, will make Seinfeld reruns utterly unwatchable.
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Grimes Calls Dating Elon Musk an ‘Internship’
Disappointingly, she meant it as a compliment. She did sound remarkably like an undergrad, gushing about “watching all that SpaceX stuff happen,” and defending Musk‘s humiliatingly passive feud with Mark Zuckerberg as an “outlet for trad masculinity.” (Source)
Microsoft’s Ex-CEO ‘Brainwashed’ His Children into the Cult of Microsoft
People say Apple is a cult, but in 2006, then-CEO Steve Ballmer copped to, apparently, making his children subsist on nothing but AskJeeves and Zune: “I’ve got my kids brainwashed: You don’t use Google, and you don’t use an iPod.” (Source)
Some Baseball Players Toughen Up by Wizzing on Their Hands
Moises Alou popularized the idea in the 1990s, but lots of baseball players have turned to urine therapy in the hopes of healing blisters and generally strengthening skin. While suffering from a persistent cut on his finger, pitcher Jameson Taillon said: “If it helps, I’ll put a sign-up sheet and everyone can come and pee. I don’t care, I just want it to go away.” (Source)
Jay Leno Blackballed Joan Rivers for… Reasons
Rivers and Johnny Carson had a famously petty falling out, when Carson took issue with Rivers seeing a modicum of career success. After she got her own show, he refused to have her on his — and Leno kept up the tradition after he took over The Tonight Show. He said it was out of respect for Carson, but he kept the ban up for nine years after Carson’s death. (Source)
Michelle Wolf May Owe Her Career to the Recession
She started taking improv classes in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, when the firm she worked for was sold to J.P. Morgan. She later switched her focus to stand-up, and was able to change careers entirely when she landed a writing gig on Late Night with Seth Meyers. (Source)
Riley Keough Almost Killed Andrew Garfield
No one thought to tell Keough that Garfield was extremely allergic to nuts, so she housed a granola bar shortly before shooting a scene where the two would smooch. If it hadn’t been for a makeup artist who asked about the contents of the bar, she might have tongued a deadly dose of peanut shrapnel into his maw. (Source)
Scientists Put Tiny Little Horse Blinders on Dung Beetles
Dung beetles roll their precious dook orbs in straight lines emanating out from the dung source — the best way to ensure they don’t cross paths with each other — by keeping an eye on the Milky Way far overhead. Scientists tested this theory by fitting their heads with little cardboard vision limiters and blotting out the night sky. Sure enough, they observed the bugs meandering aimlessly like Billy from The Family Circus. (Source)
Guinness Has Gone Woke!
Up until 1990, you could attempt to break the record for eating the most eels, or the fastest time to eat a whole roast ox. In a tragically woke move, they stopped accepting “gluttony records,” calling them ”unhealthy and outmoded, in the light of growing concerns about health issues worldwide.” (Source)
A Lady Was Tag-Teamed by a Snake and a Hawk
A Texas woman was mowing her lawn when a snake fell from the sky and latched onto her arm — at which point a hawk immediately swooped down on her and tried to reclaim its prey. She’s fine now, but her arm was covered in snake bites and talon gouges. (Source)
The World’s Oldest Toy Car Is 5,000 Years Old
Archaeologists in Turkey discovered a fully-functioning toy car that dates all the way back to the Bronze Age — a little four-wheeled chariot (cute!) in what was probably a child’s grave (not cute!). (Source)
The Jonestown Basketball Team Survived Because They Had an Away Game
Thirteen members of Jim Jones’ cult were at a basketball tournament in Georgetown, Guyana, on the day he pulled the plug on his whole operation, killing almost a thousand people. There were contemporary rumors that these guys were a JV hit squad sent to take out more of the cult’s enemies, but in reality, it seems like they just had a really lucky schedule. (Source)
Networks Are Speeding Up Sitcoms to Cram in More Ads — And They Don’t Want You to Know About It
In a since-copyright struck video, YouTuber Itclassics proved that lots of syndicated sitcoms are currently being played at a faster rate than their original broadcast, leaving more airtime for ads. Seinfeld, for example, tends to run 7.5 percent faster than intended, which noticeably affects the audio and video quality, as well as the overall timing of a comedy classic.
As the old saying goes, “thekeytocomedyistiming Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!” (Source)
