10 Unknown Facts about Jeff Goldblum

Ladies and Gentlemen, catch-up continues. We've missed two Ten Facts Tuesdays, so here's your second Ten Facts list to make up for it.

This time, we'll focus our exploratory light on Jeff Goldblum. He acts a lot. He used to sell Macs. He is my almost sister-in-law's not so secret celebrity crush. We all know who he is. Here's a little you probably didn't know about him.

10 Unknown Facts about Jeff Goldblum:

1. Jeff Goldblum actually has two stomachs so that even his digestive system can keep kosher.
2. Jeff Goldblum is, according to classified government documents, America's first line of defense against extra-terrestrials.
3. Jeff Goldblum is immune to the germs that cause the gum disease Gingivitis. Hence, he does not need Listerine.
4. Jeff Goldblum has catlike balance, and as such, always lands on his feet unless you drop him many times upside down and then drop him right side up, at which point, habit and expectation will cause him to fall awkwardly just like the rest of us.
5. Jeff Goldblum can make the tastiest pork chops you've ever had in your life. He won't, because he's orthodox Jewish, but he could if he wanted to.
6. Jeff Goldblum likes Lucy a lot and respects her, and he would like it if they could still be friends, but he just doesn't love Lucy anymore.
7. Jeff Goldblum trains every day for the zombie apocalypse.
8. Jeff Goldblum is the modern day incarnation of Spring Heeled Jack.
9. Jeff Goldblum isn't allergic to dogs, but he is allergic to the word dog, often leading to confusion on the subject.
10. Jeff Goldblum has an XBox live achievement named after him called Jeff Goldblum, which so far, only he has earned. The requirements needed to earn are that the person must score 10,000 points for a single trick on Tony Hawk's Underground and be Jeff Goldblum.

You have been informed.

10 Unknown Facts about William Jennings Bryan

Ladies and Gentlemen, this week's 10 Unknown Facts is about my all-time favorite historical figure. Everyone loves an underdog. Everyone loves a man who gives his all and loses anyway. Today, on his birthday, we celebrate history's greatest loser, William Jennings Bryan. He was a U.S. Representative who ran for Senate and lost. Shortly thereafter, he ran for president on a platform of "Cross of Gold" and Free Silver (coinage of, not the idea of just giving silver away) and lost. He even championed creationism in the famous Scopes "Monkey" Trial (as semi-depicted in the film Inherit the Wind) and lost. In all honesty, he was a running joke in my U.S. history class. My teacher would say, "And guess who he was up against?" and we'd all reply semi-knowingly, "William Jennings Bryan!" and immediately knew who the victor would be in the debate, the trial, or the election. Here are several other things he's lost that you may not have known about.

10 Unknown Facts about William Jennings Bryan:

1. William Jennings Bryan was abducted by aliens and lost time.
2. William Jennings Bryan rode a wild bull through the streets of Brazil and managed to stay on, but he lost his lunch.
3. For a while, William Jennings Bryan thought his wife was having an affair and he lost sleep, but as it turns out, she was just planning a surprise party.
4. William Jennings Bryan was being chased by the cops after an Ocean's 11 style caper, and he lost the police in a dark alley.
5. William Jennings Bryan went on a proto=Adkins diet and lost 25 pounds.
6. William Jennings Bryan--or his ghost at least--is a huge fan of Lost.
7. As a child, William Jennings Bryan was lost in space. His exploits have been reproduced as a show of the same name. His character was renamed William Robinson.
8. William Jennings Bryan once told President Taft a joke about a bath tub, but the joke was lost on him.
9. William Jennings Bryan once was supposed to be downtown for a very important meeting but he got caught up in a battle of wits with extraterrestrials for the fate of the planet and lost track of time.
10. William Jennings Bryan spent a month trailing Big Foot through the Pacific Northwest. He followed the beast's trail for days and finally found him. He reached for his camera quickly, but lost sight of his prey in the trees and mist.
11. (Bonus Fact!) William Jennings Bryan lost his temper in 1906 and leveled a city. History has attributed the destruction to earthquakes.
    

He was a remarkable man with a penchant for losing things. He will be missed.

You have been informed.

10 Unknown Facts about Mr. Rogers

Ladies and Gentlemen, I completely missed Ten Facts Tuesday. You would think a regularly scheduled thing with an alliterative title would be easy to remember, but no. It seems to slip my mind all the time. I always remember that it's Sunday (when the new schedule at work is posted), Monday (because I usually have to work the first day of the new schedule), Wednesday (because it's Lost Night), Thursday (because it's the day after Lost and the day before gaming), Friday (because it's Game Night), and Saturday because that's when my teacher friend can hang out. Yet, for some strange reason, I never remember that it's Tuesday, and it has more of a reason for me to remember it that Thursday. How strange.

Your Ten Facts this week are about Mr. Fred Rogers. You may remember him as the guy from your childhood who always wore a cardigan and sneakers and his neighborhood was populated by puppets. Mental Floss recently did a list of 15 facts about what made him so great. This really sparked my desire to learn more about everyone's favorite neighbor. This is what I learned.

10 Unknown Facts about Mr. Rogers

1. Mr. Rogers's friendship with a certain member of the X-Men named Storm allowed him to ensure that every day was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
2. When not producing high quality children's programing, Mr. Rogers would travel the country in his Impala killing ghosts and monsters. The show Supernatural is based on his exploits.
3. Mr. Rogers was granted special permission by Congress to establish a sovereign nation of make-believe within the borders of the United States, though convincing the Senate to allow that nation to be a monarchy took substantially more effort.
4. Mr. Rogers had a magical set of keys that could open any door, thus granting him access to all of those dangerous factories and animal cages he seemed to love to visit so often on his show.
5. Mr. Rogers could shrink down to a height of four inches, which allowed him to ride Trolley into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
6. Mr. Rogers's encouragement to love ourselves and each other prevented a militant alien invasion. The aliens were close to Jupiter and were moving in fast when the intercepted an episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. They decided that war wasn't the way to go and instead returned home after redirecting an asteroid that would have killed us all years ago.
7. Mr. Rogers never had to deal with unpleasant glares on his TV, windshield or anything else thanks to his polarized corneas.
8. Mr. Rogers could communicate with his fish.
   
9. Mr. Rogers literally did not know the meaning of the word "hate," which helped him stay kind but sometimes made it difficult to explain things to him.
10. Mr. Rogers wrote a lot of songs, this is widely known. What isn't widely known is that if all of Mr. Robers's previously unreleased material were put out on CD, he would have over one hundred times more posthumous albums than 2Pac (currently five, with a possible sixth).

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood for Mr. Rogers fans. Fifteen unknown facts from Mental Floss and ten more here. That's 25 unknown facts about Mr. Rogers for you readers today! I hope you enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed growing up with him.

You have been informed.

Killer Klowns and Robot Dogs

Ladies and Gentlemen, in the late 1980s, a gang of killer clowns came from space and ran amok in a small town. These clowns, or "klowns" as they were called for no good reason beyond alliteration, didn't really speak. Instead, they just made high pitched squeaky noises. Now, twenty years later, robot dogs, allegedly from Japan, make the same noises. These robot dogs are clearly the product of killer klowns. Perhaps they've turned to robotic hounds because their balloon canines were too easily destroyed by the inept locals. Perhaps their popcorn pets were no longer pulling in the cotton candy like they used to. Either way, these positronic pooches are out to kill us all. And they'll get away with it too. After all, the klowns were able to take us by surprise because who expects fun-loving, smiling clowns to be so evil> The same goes for these Japanese automaton puppies. No one expects cute little plastic puppies to go rabid and do anything evil. I mean, come on, they don't even chase after balls unless they're a specific color, except, oh wait. That color is bright pink. The same color as cotton candy, which happens to be what the killer klowns' guns turn people into. So the robot dogs can fetch them. 

Beware, then, ladies and gentlemen. These dogs may be cute. They may be adorable. They may play your mp3s. But they fully intend to steal your heart. And probably bury it in the back yard. Until the klowns can get it.

You have been informed.

Not again...

Ladies and Gentlemen, the internet went down on me. For the past couple days. Someone doesn't want the truth told. Could it be Oprah> (the question mark key is still kinda flakey). One might simply blame it all on some y2k9 bug. Nothing happened at Y2K. Maybe the glitch was a little tired. Needed to sleep in for a few years. Or maybe something more sinister is afoot. Someone must have backdated my computer and then retroactively removed the coding that allowed my PC to shrug off the glitch several years ago. But who> I doubt it would be hackers, since they're all about getting information out there. Granted, I'm talking about hackers, people of the hacker culture, and not hackers, people simply with computer hacking skills. 

Which enemy of the truth could pull this off> Vampires> Oprah> Oliver Cromwell> Aliens> Jeff Goldblum taught us that alien technology is fully compatible with the Windows operating system. perhaps it was their revenge for his viral attack against them in 1996. Only now, if the ads from 1999 are to be believed, Jeff Goldblum is using a Mac. And Windows compatible viruses more than likely won't affect someone running with OSX. Perhaps Jeff deliberately made the switch to the iMac to prevent just such retribution. However, being unable to accurately retaliate, for some reason, these maligned aliens have decided I'm a perfectly good proxy for their Jeff Goldblum revenge. I can't say I blame them though. I doubt it was deliberate. We humans all look alike. No natural variation in number of limbs or eyes. I can understand where they'd get confused. I would like to say to Mr. Goldblum, however, that I'm prorating you for three days of internet use. 

You have been informed.

P.S. In other, totally unrelated news, my report on Ten Unknown Facts about Wil Wheaton made his Year End Review. It makes me so proud. 

Oprah's First Move

Ladies and Gentlemen, just to keep you informed on the actions of Oprah Winfrey and the progress of her universal domination plan, I am sharing some news I discovered. While going out to eat with my fiancee and her mother, I overheard an advertisement for an upcoming episode of Oprah (or maybe it was for her Oprah and Friends show on XM). She said it was important that we all watch said episode together. She said she'd be introducing some very important people. She said the episode would have three hundred "of the most beautiful youths" on it to help launch her "O Ambassador Program." This can only mean one thing. The attack is coming soon.

Let's examine each of her three statements.

1. We should all watch the episode together. This means one of two things. First, the episode will contain some subliminal mind control, and if we don't watch it together, those who missed it the first go-round will see what has happened to those who did see it and will be able to form an armed underground rebellion. If we all watch it at once, we can provide no resistance. The other possibility is that she is going to give the secret order to launch her CoO Coup and anyone who misses the episode could cause the elements of her battle plan to not fall exactly into place the way she needs them too. After all, if one person's job is to detonate a bridge to prevent government military reinforcements to the Federal Resistance, it's important that that job gets done as soon as possible, preferably before the assault. At least, it's preferable if you're on Oprah's side.
2. She had some very important people. These could be leaders of her Fabulous Revolution or if my suspicions are correct, aliens, which means she plans to start the Quilting Camps soon. Why do I suspect aliens, you may ask.
3. She has three hundred "beautiful youths" for her "O Ambassador Program." Three hundred is a lot. Where could these kids possibly be sent as ambassadors> The stars, that's where. And why must they be beautiful> Because she's trying to create a master race of humanity in the stars composed of nothing but beautiful people. She's planning on using selective human breeding to make a "pure strain" of humanity. Tsk tsk, Oprah. Further, she's using youths because the human race has yet to discover FTL (Faster Than Light) propulsion systems. As such, any trip to neighboring planetary systems will take a long time. Adults won't survive the trip, but children might. She's planning on creating a master race of ubermen (and women) in the stars, ubermen (and women) who will bring with them their diseased blankets, wiping clean the face of three hundred worlds and creating outposts for the new superhuman empire of O.

Oh Oprah. You must be stopped.

You have been informed.

Women Love Men Who Lose

Ladies and Gentlemen, I apologize for my absence yesterday. It was very busy, and by the time I was done doing all I needed to do, I was exhausted and my fiancee was angry with me, so I could not post. I did, at least, learn something valuable.

Women love men who lose.

Yes, I know that's the subject of the post, but I figured it was important enough to bear repeating. Last night, my fiancee and I and another couple were playing a game of Descent (with the Road to Legend expansion for those who care) and they decided it would be a good idea to take on a certain major bad guy and his minions that I control. I cautioned them. All day, I had been telling them, "If you do this now, you guys will lose, and here is how it will happen." I showed them his stats. I showed them the stats of the minions he would have. I emphasized that they weren't ready to take him on yet. The male in the party who was on the heroes' side convinced the two women playing (his girlfriend and my fiancee) that they should take him on. So take him on they did. And they all died really horribly. In exactly the way I said it would happen. And everyone hated me and no one blamed the guy who said they should do it.

What this tells me is that women love men who lose. (See? There it is again.) After all, after a guy gets beat up by a bully, who gets the attention? The victim. Who gets the cold shoulder? The winner. After a tough game of (insert sport here), sure afterward, women may be excited when their men win, but they are affectionate and caring when the guy loses. When I play a game of Settlers of Catan and I win, who gets the cold shoulder? I do. And who is she suddenly chummy with as they complain about me? Whoever lost.

There are many possible explanations. Perhaps losers appeal to the genetically hardwired nurturing caregiver role. Perhaps it's a result of the Feminist movement, in which winning gives women a sense of smug superiority and men who win challenge their faith in equality. I don't think this is the case. After all, they lost as well last night, so they wouldn't have that sense of superiority over the losing man. I suspect women are planning a coup and things like this are all shadowy information gathering practices. When a man loses, they say kind words like, "It's ok if you lose. It happens to everyone." Then they report back to their secret female headquarters and inform their leader that one more male has been neutralized. He was found not to be a threat to the cause and was made less dangerous by being convinced that when the time comes, it's ok to be defeated by women so he won't try as hard. And when men win against them, women get angry, they give cold shoulders and otherwise make things unpleasant so that the winning men begin to think that perhaps life would be easier if they allowed their girlfriends to win. Another threat neutralized.

And who is this leader? Gloria Steinem, the American feminist icon? Hardly. The real leader of the revolution is someone almost every woman on the planet looks up to, turns to for advice, and otherwise lets dictate their lives and opinions. I'm talking about Oprah Winfrey. She has her daily propaganda hour for the Cult of Oprah (or CoO). Don't think we don't know your book club is really all about subversive literature with subliminal messages and secret codes. Why did everyone in your audience get a car that day? Blitzkrieg, baby. You needed your army mobile and figured any man in your audience was already on your side. You teach men that it's okay to deny our instincts and not fight when we feel threatened so that when the OLA (Oprah Liberation Army) rolls through, we'll sit idly by reading The Color Purple, drinking our chamomille tea, and talking about our feelings. We'll be unable to react to your CoO Coup ways.

Oprah's plans don't end there though. Once Overlord Oprah has proclaimed herself Dictator for Life, she'll ship men off to sensitivity camps where we'll stitch blankets for sixteen hours a day while watching Thelma and Louis and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. It seems innocent enough I suppose. Not pleasant, but at least not physically dangerous. But the plot spreads even wider, for she broadcasts her show via uninhibited VHF airwaves. That's why she isn't on cable tv. It limits her audience. It only goes where the hardwired cable goes. If she broadcasts on a non-premium  analog-and-antenna network, the signal for her show goes everywhere. Even into space. Aliens get her show. Suddenly, femaliens tell maliens to take their feet off the coffee table because it's not an ottoman. Intergalactic workshops all across the galaxy are turned into intergalactic crafts and scrapbooking rooms. Now, extra-terrestrial cultures are no longer technologically or psychologically prepared for an Oprah attack. They'll just want to cuddle up with each other and share their hopes and dreams. And what will they cuddle up under? Blankets. Blankets made by Earth males.

Flash back to Earth. The men in the Quilting Camps will be watching sad movies ALL. DAY. LONG. That's a lot of tears, and more importantly, a lot of sniffling. So at the end of Beaches when she sings "Wind Beneath My Wings," the men will need someplace to blow their noses from all of the sad, sad sniffling. Our blankets are now filled with disease. Oprah then takes these diseased blankets into space and gives them to the (now) peaceful aliens who just want to cuddle and snuggle. They get sick. They get weak. They get taken over by Oprah, intergalactic reinventor of the colonists' conqueror's oldest trick.

Oprah wants to be Queen of the Universe.

And that's why women love men who lose.

You have been informed.

Answers to Questions that Plague Me

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have nothing fancy for you today. What I do have are answers to three to questions that have always bothered me. Today, with the help of CNN, I've discovered the truth, and I'm here to share.

1) What did the turkeys with the presidential pardon do to warrant execution?

It's no secret that every year since Truman has pardoned the presidential thanksgiving turkey, thus sparing them from execution and becoming dinner. But what did the turkey do to be given the death penalty in the first place? We know that it must have been bad. The death penalty is pretty much only given for murder and treason. Even so, most states have a moratorium on capital punishment. Therefore, it must be a federal offense, and not state, meaning the bird committed treason. Perhaps there was talk of him defecting from the U.S. and being the dinner of the president of Iran instead. Further, I think it's obvious he showed no remorse. The farmers saw him "strutting, fanning, and preening." So what's to become of him now? I suspect he'll be forced to spend the rest of his days at the butcher's shop, watching what becomes of traitors like him.

2) I wouldn't date Barbara Streisand if we were the last two people on Earth. What could I do to avoid it?

This is one that kept me up at night. The fear of a weird plague that killed everyone but me and someone else, and that someone else being Barbara Streisand terrifies me to no end. What could I possibly do in that scenario to save myself from her? As it turns out, the polar bears at a Japanese zoo have the answer. I could simply will myself to become female. Come on, the Japanese are really intelligent people. They make all of the cool robots and video games. And if ever there was a culture with no problems researching sex, it is the Japanese. Surely their zoo keepers would have noticed some time in those three years that both polar bears were female. They must have checked when they bought the new bear, and they wouldn't mistake girl parts for man bits. The only logical explanation is that their male bear wanted nothing to do with the Streisand of the Ursa persuasion, and spontaneously changed gender like the dinosaurs in Jurasic Park. It's a comfort to know that if I'm ever in that situation, I can just become a woman and tell her that we'd never be able to repopulate the world so there's no use trying.

3) Why do these aliens keep coming to Earth and abducting people?

There are so many theories about alien abductions. Scientific experimentation, sexual experimentation, enlightenment, and even the unlikely "it's all bunk" theory. But today, after watching an interview with an abductee, I believe I've found the answer. Abductions aren't about science or cosmic truth. The aliens are drumming up tourism for their medical themed amusement park called "Wackyville." Except I hear the rides are lame. "What? Lie down on this table and don't move while you implant tracking beacons in me? Sweet! How tall do I have to be to ride?" Personally, I recommend EuroDisney instead. Why stay in a real castle when you can visit one made of plastic instead?

If you have any questions that need answering, feel free to let me know and I'll see what I can uncover for you.

You have been informed.

Just a few quick notes for you today.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I so often bring you news of doom and danger what with the vampires and seals and zombies. Today I have only a very little of that. Today, I shall take a more optimistic tone, for as you will see, the future starts today.

1) Ghosts: Since the dawn of man, ghosts have been a thorn in man's side: refusing to be dead, being invisible, shutting doors, and making us cold. I suspect that currently ghosts are plotting something big. As CNN reported, a ghost was recorded in a gym. This could give us cause for alarm. After all, we don't know why this particular ghost is bulking up. Is he planning some sort of attack or does he simply feel self-conscious after allowing himself to become so pale? Regardless, I will not play the doomsayer in this, but rather look at the positive. We have reached the point technologically where even public sector security cameras can now detect ghosts. The private, classified technologies are no doubt substantially better at ghost detection. Thus, we may not know what they're up to, but rest assured that someone is now keeping tabs on these bumps in the night.

2) Jetpacks: Yves Rossy, a Swiss pilot has successfully flown across the English Channel in a jet pack of his own design. What does this mean to you and me? First, those jet packs we were all promised we'd have by now... we still don't have yet. But another person does, so percentage-wise, that's an enormous increase. If the number of jet packs increases steadily according to the percentage and not the actual raw numbers, we should all have jet packs in no time. That or we should really be concerned for the economy, because Rossy's transit is essentially a wing and an engine. Why can't he afford the rest of the plane? Does this mean we'll all be in go-carts soon? No, no. I said I would remain positive today. Only fifteen more years until we each get our own jet pack. Unless it's more.

3) Aliens: A news crew for MSNBC has been stuck in the arctic for three weeks. It seems on five separate occasions they have been unable to leave the ship patroling the arctic as they reported on the ice free Northwest Passage, which has only been ice free twice in recorded history. Here's the thing. Or rather, here's The Thing, a John Carpenter movie from 1982 in which a team of scientists and one helicopter pilot named R.J. MacReady are stranded in Antarctica with an alien that can take over and perfectly imitate any living thing, which in turn was based on The Thing from Another World from 1951. What I'm getting at is that everyone knows that shape-changing, paranoia-inducing aliens can be found at the polar regions of the world. The first movie was set in the arctic, the second the antarctic. Clearly the thing made its way from one pole to another, perhaps in a rogue iceberg. With global warming, who's to say that such a frozen piece didn't make the trip back and infect the Canadian team the news crew was stationed with?

You may be asking yourself, "Mr. Truth, how is this possibly optimistic of you?" First, the "Canadian" team hasn't "been able" to let the news crew leave. Translation: they news crew hasn't been turned yet. Further, aside from the fact that an iceberg not melting between Antarctica and the North Pole shows global warming can't be that bad, we must consider timelines. The events of the first movie took place in a rather short time. The second movie happened even more quickly, a matter of days. That the news crew has been on an "over loaded" ship in very close proximity with aliens, constantly eating food prepared for them by said extra-terrestrials ("the ship's pastry chef...is trying to kill us slowly with desserts"), and they still have not turned speaks to either a weakening of alien resolve (good for us), or an improved anti-assimilation constitutions in us (still good for us). In other words, if these parasitic creatures can't overtake us in their most ideal conditions, they have no hope of conquering this world any time soon. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is good news.

You have been informed.

6) Wil Wheaton in GURPS

Ladies and Gentlemen, that you may know more truth, the true story behind number six on the list of 10 unknown facts about Wil Wheaton.

6) Accurately depicted in GURPS, Wil Wheaton as a character would cost 413 points.

In 1986, an alien prophet by the name of Am'pot-clet'mano (roughly spelled phonetically) foretold that doom would be coming to his people and that only one from Earth would be able to save them, one whose worth would have be carefully measured. He began to create a carefully calculated description of this man who would save them, but died before completion. Any prediction by Am'pot-clet'mano was to be taken as a matter of grave seriousness and absolute truth. The alien scientists, mathematicians, and theologians poured over the partial description and created The System.

In the night, an emmisary of the alien people sought The Vessel, the one who would carry their rigid standard of calculating human woth to the people. In Texas, they found him. His name was Steve Jackson. In dreams they came to him, whispering their mathematical secrets, their precise guidelines and systems for determining a person's value in any time or place--the aliens dared not leave out a time or place from their descriptions, just in case humanity discovered time travel. The would not want to unintentionally rule out The One Who Would Save Them due to a narrowly concieved notion of potential based on placement in the space-time continuum.

In the morning, Steve awoke, his head throbbing with ideas. He'd been looking for a follow to Car Wars and OGRE, and now he believed he found it. For the next several weeks, he frantically began typing out what would later become known as GURPS, or Generic Universal Role Playing System. He had the tools to find The One Who Would Save Them, but as a game designer, he misinterpretted the message. Rather than catagorize the world, he used the system to create worlds. In ignorance, he turned their salvation into a game.

Fate would try to intercede on behalf of the aliens. Indeed, a copy even found its way into the hands of The One, Wil Wheaton. Had he put the stats together for himself, he would have discovered his value, 413 points in a world where 100 was heroic. The aliens would have been alerted of his presence and The One Who Would Save Them would be retrieved to stop their ever approaching doom. However, Wil never did make a character of himself.

Time passed, and upon seeing what had become of their system, they began doing cataloguing of their own. Unfortunately, too much time had passed. Their original record of the system was lost, and as such, they needed to a replacement. Down to Earth they went and obtained a copy of GURPS> The system had changed to 4th edition. The point values differed, though they had no way of knowing this. They tested Wil, but in the new system he was worth far more than the prophesied 413 character points, and he would sadly continue to question his worth as a person. As a result, the aliens took instead Steve Perry into the cosmos to save them, who was worth only 187 points under the old reckoning. The civilization is now in the slow process of rebuilding from their armageddon.

You have been informed.