People are obsessed with William Shakespeare.  Did he really write his plays?  Why did he make up all those words?  What would he tell you about himself if he filled out that 25 Things meme that’s all the rage on Facebook and MySpace?  What was he really like?  Well, scholars have recently uncovered a lost painting of Shakespeare that may reveal the real face of the bard of Stratford-on-Avon.

It’s pretty fascinating to see that Shakespeare wasn’t the mustachioed, balding, skulleted dude everyone always pictures him as being.  In fact, he had Don Johnson in Miami Vice 5 o’clock shadow and a pompadour!  Did he secretly ride a steam-powered motorcycle and wear a leather jacket with a big frilly collar?  Was he actually gay?  Who knows?

Part of the fun with historical figures is that whatever you want to believe about them can be perceived as true.  Given enough time, any conjecture can be supported by some piece of evidence or another, which is fun for amateurs but maddening for professionals who actively try to debunk conspiracy theories.

Tags: William Shakespeare, lost portrait of Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s real face, Cobbe painting, historical figures, conspiracy theories

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]