When the classic musical The Sound of music first hit South korea, it was so popular that one Cinema owner in the capital city of Seoul edited it to make it shorter so he could get in more viewings and more customers each day. All he cut out were all of the songs. Fishing may be relaxing, but it is also the activity most frequently associated with drowning and other water-related fatalities.  From 1991-2000, there were 5,900 water-related deaths in Canada; of those, 889 died fishing or 15%.  More fishers drown than power boaters, canoeists, scuba divers, sailors and kayakers *com ..read more

Now that we’re traveling again, here’s a pro tip for those who wish to stroll the heather of the Scottish highlands or hit the Edinburgh Fringe festival – pay attention to your money.  Scotland uses the same coins as the rest of the UK, but they have their own folding money, which look quite different from the notes used south of Hadrian’s wall.  The most important distinction, however, is that they’re not legal tender.  My name’s…   In the before-time, in the long long ago, early man bartered for their individual needs.  If you needed, say, a stone ax to cut wood a ..read more

We all have to eat, but what we eat can often define us, or at least symbolize us, like poutine in Canada or spanakopita in Greece.  There is a dish in Britain of such popularity, such cultural significance in Britain, that it has been called the country’s national dish.  It’s not fish & chips, yorkshire pudding, or bangers and mash.  It’s chicken tikka masala, an Indian dish of marinated chicken chunks in a creamy curry sauce over rice. Or is it a British dish?  My name’s…   Lots of foods don’t come from where you think, either the modes and methods by which th ..read more

We all have to eat, but what we eat can often define us, or at least symbolize us, like poutine in Canada or spanakopita in Greece.  There is a dish in Britain of such popularity, such cultural significance in Britain, that it has been called the country’s national dish.  It’s not fish & chips, yorkshire pudding, or bangers and mash.  It’s chicken tikka masala, an Indian dish of marinated chicken chunks in a creamy curry sauce over rice. Or is it a British dish?  My name’s…   Lots of foods don’t come from where you think, either the modes and methods by which th ..read more

They’re small, squeezable, cute, and a ubiquitous part of an American childhood.  Even if you didn’t actually have a rubber duckie, there was a near-perfect chance you knew what they were, probably had something with the duck on it was a design.  It’s come to be an icon for children or childhood and despite rampant coca-colonization, the spread of American culture through capitalism, has never really caught on in other places.   Let’s dispense with one bit of inevitable pedantry – Rubber duck is a misnomer – they’re pretty much all made of much cheaper vinyl.  Okay, with ..read more

Hoist the jolly roger, buckle your swash, let’s jump right into the unexpected part two on pirates and the age of sail.  My names…   Putting aside injuries and the utter lack of hygiene on a ship at sea in the Xth century, which is a lot to ignore, I realize, what was the greatest threat to any sailor’s health on a long voyage?  If you said scurvy, you’re dead on.  Grab an orange and I’ll tell you all about it.   Between Columbus’s transatlantic voyage and the adoption of steam engines, scurvy killed more than two million sailors.  For a sense of scale, the pla ..read more

  Sources: https://luulapants.tumblr.com/post/679849063731052544/very-excited-because-i-just-reached-the-part-in-my https://explorethearchive.com/stede-bonnet https://www.barbadoscarolinas.org/stede-bonnet-gentleman-pirate http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/08/pirates-rarely-made-people-walk-the-plank/ https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/how-to-be-a-pirate-quartermaster-edition https://daily.jstor.org/clinical-trial-scurvy/ https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/the-age-of-scurvy https://www.pirateshipvallarta.com/blog/pirate-stories/pirate-ship-quartermaster https://www.nosu ..read more

HOME Canadian radio station AMP Radio in Calgary, caused a lot of buzz with a promotion called “Bank it or Burn it” which asked listeners to vote whether they should #BANK C$5,000 and give it away to a listener, or #BURN the money, literally. With 54% of the votes, the option to #BURN emerged victorious, and AMP Radio burned C$5,000 and put it on YouTube.   A YouTube video was posted of the station’s morning show hosts throwing the bills into an incinerator.  AMP Radio defended their actions noting that businesses can easily spend C$5,000 on marketing in a week, and that their pr ..read more

  It’s not unusual for the business side of the music business to include trips to the courthouse.  Usually, these are for copyright infringement, someone else ripping off your schtick.  In the halcyon days of 2005, the band Slipknot was moved to sue, of all people, Burger King for their commercial with a fake band, all in scary masks and costumes, called Cock Rock.   The best way to describe the 1980’s would be to say, you had to see it to believe it.  Weird times, man.  If we weren’t panicking about Russia, we were moral-panicking over Satanic things like he ..read more

HOME     What’s more wholesome and iconic than an apple?  In the Bible, Eve ate an apple and now half of us have to have periods and crap.  In fairness to apples, the Bible just says “fruit” and it was Milton’s “Paradise Lost” that declared the fruit was an apple because the Latin word for apple, m-a-l-u-s, is also the word for evil.  There’s the Greek myth of Atalanta, who would only marry the man who beat her in a footrace, so Aphrodite helped a Melanion cheat by dropping golden apples that she stopped to pick up.  An apple fell on the head of Isaac Newton ..read more