Category: Trivia

Seriously Trivial – 2022

Here are some things you probably have never thought about:

1 — If you Google “Star Wars movie mistakes” you get over 4 million different websites in 0.38 seconds.  I didn’t scroll through them all, but — wow!  I can’t even imagine the massive number of nerd hours it took to examine all 13 hours and 14 minutes of the Star Wars franchise, frame by frame, and create even one of these.  However, I have seen more than a few smug clouds enveloping the pompous asses who insist on discussing their particular Star Wars, Star Trek or Stargate discoveries.

2 — Rumour has it that the four Indiana Jones movies are chemically-induced hallucinations that Han Solo had when he was frozen in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back.  As if?

3 — There is a fan theory that much of the Disney movie universe is connected.  For example, Elsa and Anna’s father, King Agnarr from Frozen, is thought to be Rapunzel (from Tangled‘s) mother’s brother.  Thus, when he and Queen Iduna were lost at sea, they were on their way to their niece Rapunzel’s wedding to Flynn Ryder.  Furthermore, the storm that sinks their ship off the coast of Africa is the same one that rejuvenates the land in The Lion King, plus the sunken wreck that Ariel explores in The Little Mermaid is that same ship!  Not only that but, Agnarr and Iduna survive the catastrophe, make their way ashore and eventually have a son — Tarzan — Elsa and Anna’s little brother.  This isn’t just idle chatter, like that Han Solo crap.  Much of it is backed up by some pretty substantial circumstantial evidence.

4 — There are hundreds of theories about what’s in the briefcase from Pulp Fiction, but the most enduring is it’s Marcellus Wallace’s soul.

5 — Millions of people want to believe R+L=J, and thousands and thousands of people are working, day and night, to find the clues that prove it. (Who knew it would all end so badly!)

6 — A lot of people think that originally, Gandalf the Grey, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, had a cunning plan to use the eagles to fly Frodo, Samwise and The Ring directly to Mordor, drop the jewelry into Mount Doom and be back in The Shire by Second Breakfast.  Unfortunately, Gandalf unexpectedly gets his ass kicked by the Belrog in the Mines of Moria, and when he comes back to life as Gandalf the White, he’s forgotten all about it.  And, to many people, Gandalf’s last words to Frodo, “Fly, you fools!” is indisputable proof of this.

7 — I said all this to say we live in an age of relentless entertainment, and our society has become so abundant and benevolent that we can indulge ourselves in it, any time we please — for as long as we please.  Where once entertainment was an occasional escape from grim reality, to many people these days it is their greater reality.  And, like it or not, that has blurred the line between what we treat seriously and what is mere trivia.

I wrote this in January 2016!  Not much has changed.

Let’s Get Smarter!

When I was a kid, I had a teacher who told me that a good day was going to bed smarter than when you woke up.  She was right.  Even though, in the 21st century, we have the wisdom of the ages in our pockets, the act of learning is good for the psyche, the ego, the mind, body and soul.  It feels good.  To that end, here is a bunch of useless information than won’t change the world, but it will make you feel good about yourself.  Enjoy!

Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.  No biggie!  It was just the fashion at the time of the painting.

Since the advent of commercial passenger airlines in the 1920s, the entire population of planet Earth has never actually been on planet Earth — all at the same time.

Unless you’re a hopeless egomaniac, the rest of the world sees you as a lot more attractive than you see yourself.

American astronaut Charlie Duke left a photograph of his family on the Moon in 1972.  It’s still there.

Computer malfunctions are called “bugs” because the first one was caused by a real bug crawling around in the equipment.

The laws of probability alone dictate that there are at least 4,000 undetected serial killers in the world.

Statistically, in times of stress (war, recession, famine, natural disaster, etc.) there are more male births than female.

When you close your eyes, the colour you see isn’t black – it’s a unique shade called eigengrau.

Birds do not pee — ever.  They do other things when they are flying around up there – so be careful – but they don’t pee.

On average, people have 5 secrets that they’ve never told anyone – and usually only one of those is about someone else.

If you’re overwhelmed by downloads, uploads, Skype, Messenger, Zoom, streaming and on and on and on.  If you can’t (don’t wanna) understand what half the icons on your Smart phones are for.  If you long for the days when your VCR flashed 12:00, 12:00, 12:00.  Then you suffer from a real condition called Technostalgia.

The largest dressmaker in the world is Mattel.  The folks who make clothes for Barbie.

There are more Lego mini-figures in the world than there are humans.

Dactylolysis is a medical condition that causes toes (one at a time) to spontaneously fall off.  It only happened to men and it’s very, very rare, but tonight, when take your slippers off – give ‘em a count – just in case.

Prosopagnosia is a cognitive condition that inhibits facial recognition.  People who suffer from it simply don’t recognize the faces of their friends and family — and in some severe cases, don’t even recognize themselves.

And one of my favourites:

Retail companies spend more on advertising in January.  This is to counteract all the New Year’s Resolutions everybody makes.

A Pack Of Lies

Somebody (Hitler? Goebbels? Lenin? Trotsky?) once said, “If you tell a big enough lie loud enough and long enough people will eventually believe it.”  It’s terribly ironic that, in the Age of Information, there are quite a few of those kind of “truths” kicking around, and a lot of what we call common knowledge is just a load of crap.  Here are some glaring examples that just fall apart when you think about them:

1 – Einstein did NOT fail high school math.  Think about this for a minute!  The guy was a genius who E=MC2-ed himself to the top of the intellectual ladder, along with Newton, Copernicus and da Vinci.  What are the chances he had trouble with Grade 10 algebra?  Besides, the records show that he skipped most of what we would call high school, anyway.

2 – You can NOT see the Great Wall of China from space.  Here’s the deal.  Yes, the Great Wall is absolutely huge.  Yes, it’s the largest man-made structure on earth, and yes, it runs for thousands of kilometres, but — surprise — it’s less than 4 metres (12 feet) wide.  Your house is probably wider.  Looking down from space, the Great Wall of China is invisible — just like your house.

3 – You do NOT use “only” 10% of your brain.  The truth is, even with all our advanced technology, we know so little about the brain’s function that nobody knows how much of our brain’s capacity we actually use.  However, given some people I’ve worked with, 10% might be wildly optimistic.

4 – Coca-Cola™ does NOT dissolve teeth.  Folks, they use dental work to identify bodies that have been lying around for centuries.  Every museum on Earth has at least one set of Cro-Magnon chompers.  The corrosive elements that Mother Nature can throw at the human body make Coca-Cola look like a bubble bath.  This is just another Coke™ myth that circles our planet once a generation.

5 – Undercover cops do NOT have to tell you they’re police.  Police, undercover or otherwise, cannot entrap you into committing a crime, but they are under no legal obligation to identify themselves before you commit that crime on your own.  Use your head!  If undercover cops had to tell you they’re cops, it would kinda defeat the whole purpose of “undercover,” now, wouldn’t it?

6 – Jedi is NOT a recognized religion anywhere in the world.  Despite the best efforts of literally millions of Star Wars nerds, no national or international body outside a few fans clubs views Jedi as an organized religion.  The word is you can claim to be a Jedi on your income tax form and reap all the religious benefit and advantages.  You can’t.  Don’t believe me?  Try it!

7 – There are NOT more people alive today than have ever lived in all of history.  Do the math!  Even using the ten millennia of recorded history, fifty generations a millennium and the current reproductive rate of 23 per thousand (for most of history, it was closer to 80) the result is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100 billion people.  Even counting all the lost Australian backpackers, at 7 billion, this generation isn’t even close.

8 – Mr. Rogers was NOT a Navy Seal sniper in Vietnam.  Quit saying that!  There is absolutely no evidence that Fred Rogers served in the military, nor even that he ever left the continental United States — although there’s an e-rumor that he went to Maui once, on vacation.

And finally

9 – You do NOT eat 7, 9, 12 or 16 spiders every night in your sleep.  Spiders prefer dry, still, quiet places where they can spin a web and catch themselves some breakfast.  Occasionally, maybe, a single spider might venture across your bed, but, unless they’re unusually stupid, the inhale/exhale of breathing air would scare them off.  I’m sure this lie gets retold so much because it’s a guaranteed gross out.