12 Scrappy Bits of Trivia That, With a Bit of Grit, Determination and a Fortuitous Encounter With a Bus Full of NFL All-Stars, Might Just Have What It Takes to Beat Their Cross-Town Rivals
These bits of trivia ain’t much to look at. But what they lack in strength, skill and equipment, they more than make up for in gusto. The one about the fart that called the cops. The one about the guy who sued his job for being boring. The one about the prank MI6 pulled on al-Qaeda. They have what it takes to become champions. All they need is for John Madden, Emmitt Smith and Tim Brown to take them under their wing on the way to the big game.
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A Fugitive’s Loud Fart Got Him Caught by the Fuzz
A Missouri man who was hiding from the cops accidentally gave away his position when he ripped a huge fart. That’s objectively funny. But the police department who caught him spent the weekend making poop and fart puns on social media, which is objectively dystopian.
The Ingredients for That Classic ‘Witches’ Brew’ Are Shorthand for Real Herbs
Shakespeare’s Macbeth features the iconic recipe: “Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.” Eye of newt is mustard seed, toe of frog is buttercup and wool of bat is holly leaf.
North Koreans Have a Small Menu of State-Approved Hairstyles They Can Choose From
According to style guides reportedly seen in North Korean hair salons, there are 15 approved hairstyles for women, and 14 for men. Kim Jong-Un’s weird Rubik’s Cube situation doesn’t appear on the list.
Coca-Cola Once Owned 61 URLs That Were Variations of “Ahhhhhh”
For their first big digital ad campaign in 2013, “The Ahh Effect,” they bought up every URL from www.ahh.com to www.ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.com. Their VP of Marketing crowed, “We’ve always talked to teens but never quite in this way.”
The First Animal in Space Wasn’t a Dog or a Monkey
The U.S. sent a bunch of fruit flies on a three-minute trip to space in 1947, to see if the radiation fucked them up. They all survived (unlike several monkeys and dogs that were sent up after them).
Humans Aren’t Naturally Capable of Walking in a Straight Line
We need a distant point to visually focus on — when blindfolded, small bodily asymmetries affect a person’s gait, and they end up walking in a wobbly circle.
A French Man Won $45,000 Because His Job Was Too Boring
Frédéric Desnard sued his company for unfair dismissal when they canned him for taking six months off of work. He successfully argued that he’d been burned out by boredom — what a workers tribunal officially called a “bore-out” — and was given a $45k severance package.
Ronald Reagan Responded to a 7th-Grader Who Wrote a Prank Letter to the White House
In 1984, a kid wrote to request federal funds after his mother declared his bedroom a “disaster area.” Reagan wrote back, explaining that federal funds for disaster relief were dangerously low, and directing his attention instead to the “Private Sector Initiative Program, calling upon people to practice voluntarism in the solving of a number of local problems.”
MI6 Replaced Al-Qaeda’s Bomb Instructions With Recipes From Ellen DeGeneres
The British intelligence agency hacked into al-Qaeda’s English-language magazine, and replaced an article titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” with recipes from The Ellen Degeneres Show’s Best Cupcakes in America.
Humans Are the Only Animal on Earth That Have a Chin
All other animal jaws are merely mandibles; the piece of bone that juts forward at the end of our mandible is the only true chin in the animal world.
You Have About 14 Fewer Minutes to Escape a Fire Than Your Parents Did
If your house is burning down, you statistically have about four minutes to get the hell out of there. Thirty years ago, that number was around 17 minutes. Houses have been burning down faster due to cheaper, more flammable furniture.
Only One Letter in the English Alphabet Is Never Silent
Every letter except for “V” has at least one word in which its voice is silenced.
