Tell me why…
Why is the sky blue? Or grass green? What's the nursery rhyme 'sing a song of six pence' all about? What do ants do when it rains? Where did the name 7Up come from?
Don't have a clue to the answers? Try Straight Dope, a syndicated column by Cecil Adams, World's Smartest Human Being, who has been fighting ignorance since 1973. He admits, however, that, "it's taking longer than we thought."
For those who want answers to questions like these, a mailing list helps you add to your font of knowledge daily. For those who don't want to stare at the screen for days to get answers, the site offers you Cecil's collected works, conveniently in book form.
And as for how 7Up got its name, here is Cecil's reply: "Anything had to be an improvement over the original name - 'Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda.' Figuring he was going to have a problem selling a product that you needed two years of speech therapy just to be able to pronounce, soda pop mogul C. L. Grigg changed the name to 7-Up, apparently because the drink contained 'seven natural flavours blended into a savoury, flavoury drink with a real wallop.' You may wonder what the seven natural flavours were besides lemon and lime. I ain't saying. I'm just glad they dropped the horseradish."
Informative and witty, just like the rest of his comments.
For those reading about pink slips and the downswing of fortunes in Silicon Valley, there's another bit of news. Those guys still possess a sense of humour. A pseudo website and project which was good for a laugh on April Fools' Day was DutchWater. Using typical jargon, the project claimed to have developed a unique client-side nozzle (CSN), "which functions just like a conventional modem. It connects an ordinary PC to a regular household water faucet, providing an always-on Internet connection." For more gags in the valley on April 1,read this.
Like they say, there is a sucker born every minute. And on the Internet, there are many of them.
An Australian site is encouraging people to buy gilded Tasmanian devil dung by mail order. Harvested in the bush from contented Australian kangaroos, this site offers to return your money if the products are not complete shit. It promotes this as an ideal birthday, Christmas, or just an "I Love You Poo" present for the man who thinks he has everything.
Wait, there is more. San Michel Arcangelo sells statues, rosaries and candles online, all of which have supposedly been blessed by the Pope himself. There are blessings as well, featuring a picture of the Pope on parchment, available for weddings, christenings and Holy Communion. The cost? Between £16 and £26 each.
Another of those good things about the wide, wonderful web is that it lets you dream a little. And even analyses them for you. For those who aren't finicky about sharing their most intimate dreams, check out Dream Vortex. Anyone who drops by can post an interpretation of your dream. Anyone.
If, on the other hand, you're the type who gets a recurring nightmare, share it on the Nightmare Project, which currently boasts '1,141 nightmares.' There's a good search engine too and, when you click on a nightmare, it opens a new window featuring the dream and responses to it that range from bizarre to the sublime. It also lists other people who share similar dreams with you.
Spooky stuff, that!
Tell us what you think of this article
