Fun Facts

[Mongrel]

There's a Lake Devo in Toronto.

[Mongrel]

Don't Delete The Main Page

I liked that you can follow on a page or two from there and "Delete the NSA Windows mainframe". It's purely vicarious, but ahh, that feels good.

EDIT: I also learned that Jimmy Wales is from Alabama. Making Wikipedia probably the best thing to ever come out of Alabama.

[François]

A title of course previously held by the Blind Boys of Alabama.

[Mongrel]

I mean, it may not be an entirely serious thought, but it's really funny to imagine Alabama as the world's knowledge repository.

[Mongrel]

The first comic fan to ever attend a comic convention? None other than George RR Martin

*I don't know if there were ever any European or Japanese comic cons that predate that? I want to say no, that big cons are a more of an American thing that spread, but you never know.

[Caithness]

I was wondering how anyone could hold that distinction: if he's the only first one to attend a comic book convention, then it wasn't a convention, and so he wasn't the first.

So I followed the link and it turns out he was just the first one to pay.

[Mongrel]

In the lighter moments of World War II, the Spitfire was used in an unorthodox role: bringing beer kegs to the men in Normandy .
During the war, the Heneger and Constable brewery donated free beer to the troops. After D-Day, supplying the invasion troops in Normandy with vital supplies was already a challenge. Obviously, there was no room in the logistics chain for such luxuries as beer or other types of refreshments. Some men, often called "sourcers", were able to get wine or other niceties "from the land" or rather from the locals. RAF Spitfire pilots came up with an even better idea.

The Spitfire Mk IX was an evolved version of the Spitfire, with pylons under the wings for bombs or tanks. It was discovered that the bomb pylons could also be modified to carry beer kegs. According to pictures that can be found, various sizes of kegs were used. Whether the kegs could be jettisoned in case of emergency is unknown. If the Spitfire flew high enough, the cold air at altitude would even refresh the beer, making it ready for consumption upon arrival.
A variation of this was a long range fuel tank modified to carry beer instead of fuel. The modification even received the official designation Mod. XXX. Propaganda services were quick to pick up on this, which probably explains the "official" designation.

As a result, Spitfires equipped with Mod XXX or keg-carrying pylons were often sent back to Great-Britain for "maintenance" or "liaison" duties. They would then return to Normandy with full beer kegs fitted under the wings.

Typically, the British Revenue of Ministry and Excise stepped in, notifying the brewery that they were in violation of the law by exporting beer without paying the relevant taxes. It seems that Mod. XXX was terminated then, but various squadrons found different ways to refurbish their stocks. Most often, this was done with the unofficial approval of higher echelons.

In his book "Dancing in the Skies", Tony Jonsson, the only Icelander pilot in the RAF, recalled beer runs while he was flying with 65 Squadron. Every week a pilot was sent back to the UK to fill some cleaned-up drop tanks with beer and return to the squadron. Jonsson hated the beer runs as every man on the squadron would be watching you upon arrival. Anyone who made a rough landing and dropped the tanks would be the most hated man on the squadron for an entire week.

In his book "Typhoon Pilot", Desmond Scott also recalls Typhoon drop tanks filled with beer but regretted that it acquired a metallic taste.
Less imaginative techniques involved stashing bottles wherever space could be found on the aircraft, which included the ammunition boxes, luggage compartment or even in parts of the wing, with varying results. Champagne bottles in particular did not react well to the vibrations they were submitted to during such bootlegging trips.

[Thad]

The original punchline for the "It's twoo! It's twoo!" scene in Blazing Saddles:

"I hate to disillusion you, ma'am, but you're sucking on my arm."

Via Hitfix's new interview with Mel Brooks. Read the whole thing; he always does a great interview.




(Though I really don't get the bit where both Brooks and the interviewer act like it's a big secret that Sheriff Bart is Bugs Bunny. I am not sure how you could possibly make it more obvious that a character is based on Bugs Bunny than to have him hand a box of explosives to somebody, make an exaggerated gesture of putting his fingers in his ears, and then exit WHILE THE LOONEY TUNES THEME PLAYS.)

[Mongrel]

Ladies, you can buy a vibrator designed to be built into your motorbike (or car) seat (link is SFW)

Like, this is a real, no-joke product which is actually for sale.

It's pretty funny, because at first I thought the guy I was talking to was joking about it being a vibrator. I thought the real intended purpose was actually to run it as a counter-oscillator to cancel out vibrations and make your ride feel smoother.

But nope, it's a biker chick vibrator.

[Thad]

Suzanne Collins was a writer for Clarissa Explains It All.

[nosimpleway]

Well, that explains... nothing, really.

[Friday]

maybe one day she was writing a show and she was like "what if Clarissa was forced to fight to the death with a bunch of other teenagers and kids"

and then some guy walked by her desk and his make-up was really out there

[zaratustra]

Well, that explains... nothing, really.

A young resourceful girl faces the world with the help of a earnest male platonic partner? I guess the biggest difference is that Clarissa is a state-of-the-art-tech girl with her computer, while Katniss is a backwoods lower-TL barbarian.

[Disposable Ninja]

You can remove a rabbit's internal organs by just squeezing on it and popping them out of its butt.

[zaratustra]

Luigi is the only character to have seen a Shyguy without their mask.

[nosimpleway]

You can remove a rabbit's internal organs by just squeezing on it and popping them out of its butt.

This is a generally unpleasant idea but that tiny treasonous voice in the back of my head points out that this is probably true for most things if you squeeze hard enough.

[Rico]

You missed that day in chef training?

[Büge]

Reading about the DS9 episode "In The Pale Moonlight" led me to learn about Operation Mincemeat, in which WWII British Intelligence let a corpse with falsified invasion plans float into German territory.

[Mongrel]

Nowhere is Christian disunity more in evidence than in the faith’s most important site, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed to be the place of Jesus’s burial and resurrection. Feuding among Christian denominations for place and position inside the church is so intense that no one branch of Christianity could be entrusted with the key to the building, lest it lock the others out. For that reason, the great iron key has been entrusted for centuries to one Muslim family, the Nusseibehs.

[Mazian]

The infighting at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is absolutely amazing. Disagreement about building maintenance is so intense that one generic wooden ladder has been in the same place for two centuries, because no one group dares to move it.