Unusual Stuff

In the classic movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray stars as a weatherman forced to relive the same day over and over and over again.  He wakes up to Sonny and Cher, gets dressed, and goes out to watch weather-predicting rodent Punxsutawney Phil determine whether or not there’s going to be six more weeks of winter.  Every […]

For the second year in the row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rolled out an Oscar list that was pretty pale in color.  No blacks were nominated for any of the major award, and of course, that means black celebrities have been complaining non-stop.  Of course, when some people speak out, others […]

Stan Kroenke is a man with a dream, and that dream is to be the king of West Coast football.  Thanks to a clause in his contract with the Edward Jones Dome, the city of Saint Louis either had to replace the stadium, upgrade the existing stadium, or the team would be free to move. […]

It’s been 70 years since the death of Adolph Hitler, and that means the copyright to a very famous book is finally expiring.  Since the death of Hitler, Bavaria’s government has used their control over Hitler’s copyright to keep Mein Kampf out of German publishing houses.  The book’s been available all along, but not from […]

On Thursday night last week, I and a whole lot of other people was at a movie theater to watch Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.  The last time I was this excited for a movie was when Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and despite that, I was still really excited for The Force […]

There’s just something about LeBron James that seems to be able to capture the imagination of the public.  Maybe it’s part of the circus that surrounds him:  free agency signing specials, moving from his hometown team to a big media market, moving back to Cleveland, and so on.  Everyone seems to want to pay attention […]

It’s been a really good few sports year for the San Francisco Bay area.  The Giants won the World Series in 2014, and the Golden State Warriors won the NBA title later that same year.  While the Giants have been kind of a let-down lately, not advancing in the MLB playoffs, the Warriors have continued […]

Spiders are scary.  There’s nothing quite as unsettling as a spider, except for perhaps a dozen spiders.  What’s scarier than a dozen spiders?  How about millions of spiders and hundreds of feet of spider webs!  A half-mile of spider-webs are draped all along the town of North Memphis, Tennessee.  A warm fall triggered a spider ballooning, […]

These days, I think everyone is using or working for some sort of ride-sharing service.  Of these, the most popular has proven to be Uber, which is running into problems left and right in places with strong cabbie culture but a real boon to places without taxis.  Everyone but cabbies and state governments, who miss […]

Fantasy football is America’s true national pass-time.  Everyone I know who likes sports (and a lot who don’t) play fantasy football.  I’m in a league and I run a league on my own for my friends, and every year the leagues keep getting more and more popular.  Everyone loves fantasy football, even real players, and […]

Most of the time, air travel is perfectly safe.  Even when there are problems with equipment, most of the time the plane doesn’t take off and the problems are discovered before any issues arise.  That’s not always the case, but planes are usually built in with redundant equipment to prevent catastrophe.  However, when emergency landings […]

There are bigger horses, but there might not be many better horses.  Bob Baffert’s 3-year-old colt American Pharoah has been exceeding expectations since he first stepped on the race track, and now he’s joined the legends of the sport with a season that pretty much any horse short of Secretariat would be impressed by.  American […]

In every martial arts movie, there’s a scene where someone breaks out the nunchucks.  A very simple weapon, two sticks connected by a chain, the weapons are very useful in a situation where the other person is unarmed.  They’re also useful at stopping criminals in their tracks.  Even the cops are getting wise to that. […]

Starbucks loves to roll out special drinks, from the massive Trenta to one of the venerable Pumpkin Spice Latte. Another thing Starbucks loves to do is donate to charity, particularly with some kind of celebrity tie-in.  Marshawn Lynch is an All-Pro, a Super Bowl champion, and a character the likes of which the NFL doesn’t […]

When you’re the biggest social network on the block, a multi-billion dollar company with billions of people using it every day for pretty much every purpose.  Take that away, and as we’ve seen with every Facebook outage, people start freaking out.  When your account is compromised, it’s even more heartbreaking and worrying, so Facebook has […]