House o' Bubble Wrap

Sometimes, inventors will invent an incredibly awesome product, but will have no idea how to utilize it. Such was the fate of play dough, aluminum foil, and bubble wrap.

Also like my new invention: WoodBoxWithStringsThatMakesNoiseGood (patent pending).

"But..." you may be thinking, "What else could bubble wrap possibly be used for?" The answer? Wallpaper. Inventors Alfred W. Fielding and Mark Chavannes originally peddled their product as the hip new thing in interior design. 

Unfortunately, it sold terribly. Not ones to be deterred by a little failure, the inventors set their sights on a new target market: greenhouse insolation. Predictably, the product failed miserably again. 

"Dammit Frank stop popping the walls and get back to work!"

And failed product it would have stayed, if it weren't for up and coming computer giant IBM. Fielding and Cavannes sold them their product to IBM, who wrapped their delicate, expensive, and cutting edge 1401 computer model in old wallpaper and shipped it to customers. Needless to say, it was instantly a huge hit.

Knee-high in Cobras

British controlled India had some problems. The British invaders were destroying India's religions, changing their government, and forcing them speak a whole new language. And also snakes were everywhere. More specifically cobras, which are statistically the worst type of snake to have everywhere.

The British governor of Delhi, none too pleased about said snakes, decided to offer a bounty on cobra skins. He figured a little money for one less venomous monster slithering around his city would do everyone a little good. The crowdsourced extermination took off all according to plan, the civilian population began slaughtering everything with scales they could get their hands on.

But the government, in their overzealousness for getting rid of the snakes, made one small mistake. They set the bounty for the skins too high. Namely, the reward for one dead snake was a significantly greater amount of money than it cost to breed and raise one.

You can see where this is going.

Many people realized that it was much easier to simply sit at home and raise cobras, compared to going out and actually hunting them. This realization gave birth to an entirely new profession: the snake farmer. Eventually the government, realizing the scaled mini-satans were still everywhere, caught on to the racket and called off the bounty. Predictably, this resulted in the snake farmers returning to their day jobs; loosing their worthless/terrifying stock into the city. Which, ironically, resulted in a much larger/terrifying infestation.

Operation Ghost-Fox

The Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) was a US intelligence agency formed during WWI. It preceded the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). It was formed with the purpose of coordinating espionage activities behind enemy lines. And all of the people with leadership positions in it had questionable sanity at best.

Here's an excellent example. So when the US was battling Japan, some OSS agents heard of a Japanese superstition surrounding fox spirits with shape-shifting abilities. So in reaction to the news, the OSS planned to release a bunch of glow in the dark foxes into Japan in hopes of... scaring them or something? But alas, sources revealed that the "spirit fox" folklore was fake. So the OSS, realizing the stupidity of the operation in the first place, abandoned the whole thin- Ha! No this is the OSS we're talking about, instead of abandonment, they moved on to developing their furry super weapon.

"Get our scientists working on shape-shifting foxes right away."

The OSS tested their assault of the coast of New York by dumping a bunch of foxes that had been dipped in phosphorus into the ocean. Predictably, all of the foxes swam in the wrong direction and promptly drowned. 

Tax dollars at work.

At that moment, someone realized that the whole project was incredibly silly. So the OSS scrapped the whole project, and moved on to bigger and better things. Things like shipping hundreds of barrels of yellow dye to Cambodia in order to dye one of the largest rivers in the world, only later to find that the dye didn't work. 

In my opinion the OSS' ideas were less based on whether or
not their idea would be effective, and more on whether or
not their idea would be something a cartoon supervillian would attempt. 

The "Free" French Army

Back in World War II, Germany obliterated the French government early on in the war. Not wanting his country to go down without a fight, Gen. de Gaulle went abroad and formed an army of resistance fighters from French territories in Africa.

Not only did de Gaule's rag tag army consist of native Africans, it also included Arabs, Tahitians, and French officers.

Anyway, the dubbed "Free French Army" went on to do incredibly well in the war, something not usually affiliated with the French at the time. They carved a bloody path all the way to Paris, where they were ready to liberate the capitol united with British and American allies. That is, until the allies said "Yea, this victory is kind of a whites only type of thing."

"Please enjoy this $5 Bed Bath and Beyond gift card for your troubles."

De Gaulle had to quickly replace anyone in his army who had failed the melanin test with more easily-sunburnable persons or else he could not take part in the liberation. This of course, was difficult because this was his problem in the first place. He ended up dressing a bunch of Spanish soldiers as French ones, and hoped that no one would care at that point.

Meanwhile, the Africans were deported back to Africa. They at least got to enjoy the benefits of having served... well until 1959, when the French Government inexplicably cut off all of their military pensions and attempted to erase their entire evolvement in the war.

But hey, it just goes to show that all we need is love to get along.
And Nazis to fight. 

The Overtoun Death Bridge

 

   

 The Overtoun House can be found near the small Scottish village of Milton. The house itself isn't that special. No, the arched bridge that spans over the Overtoun burn is what's really interesting. Since the 60's, over 600 have been reported to have jumped to their death from the bridge.

And absolutely zero humans have died jumping off of it.

Worst trick ever

Just to clarify, yes, no humans have every jumped off the bridge. However, over 600 dogs have leaped to their death. For no apparent reason.

Many theories exist that try to explain this extremely bizarre occurrence. Some speculate that particularly pungent rodents drive the dogs over the bridge, while some think it's nothing more than a very particular string of random coincidences.

And to make things stranger  (as if they weren't already strange enough), it has been observed that several dogs that survived their jump climbed back up and hurled themselves off again. For no discernible reason whatsoever.

Moral of the story? Dogs are probably more depressed than we
think that they are.

The Best Soccer Game

       I am no expert on soccer. My knowledge extends as far as knowing to not kick the ball into your team's goal, and that the game is called "football" pretty much everywhere except America. Well, it turns out that I know even less than I previously thought. Kicking the ball into your own team's goal can be an ingenious maneuver. Well, supposing you are Barbados' 1994 soccer team.

       The Barbados team was playing Grenada in the Group round of the Caribbean Cup. They were winning 2-0 with seven minutes still on the clock, when all of a sudden Grenada scored and brought the score to 2-1. Even though Barbados was still winning, they were technically losing. You see, if they won the game, the two teams would be tied in the standings. But Grenada would win the tiebreaker based on having scored more in prior matches. The only way Barbados could advance to the next round was in they won the game by two goals.

       So with three minutes to go and Barbados still only winning by one, the team came up with a brilliant plan. Instead of trying to score, they would force overtime. By tying the scores. Ergo  scoring  on themselves.

Barbados - Grenada 1994 - YouTube

      "But so what?" You may be asking. "Supposing that they score in overtime, the score will still only be 3-2, and they still don't advance, right?" Well you obviously don't know much about the Caribbean Cup scoring policy. It states, for some strange reason, that overtime goals counted as double.

      So then all hell broke loose. As much as Barbados needed overtime, Grenada needed to prevent it. Even if it meant losing. So then they started trying to score in their own goal, hoping to lose the game by only one goal, meaning of course that they would advance to the next round. So Barbados ended up defending both sides of the field, as well as trying score on themselves again. 

      This four-minute farce finally ended when Barbados scored (miraculously on the other team), winning 4-2. Thereby advancing to the next round. Where they were promptly and brutally defeated.

      Now I see why soccer is the most popular sport in the world. No wait, actually I still have no idea.
     

Cuffed Sleeves and Malpractice

            Not much else can ruin your day quite like getting getting guts and various other bodily fluids all over the sleeves of your sharpest looking suit.

Second only to being seen crying while watching Twilight. 

          Much like you, the dapper surgeons of the 19th century decided that bloody sleeves must become a thing of the past. So, instead of discovering new medicines or groundbreaking surgical techniques, the 19th century surgeons invented custom-tailored suits which allowed them to roll up their sleeves for impromptu surgery. And thus cuffed sleeves, or "surgeon's cuffs," were born.

Because a true gentleman doesn't even take off his jacket when he's cutting
into dudes. 

          Since being a surgeon was such a prestigious title, many common folk started purchasing cuffed jackets to look educated and cool. Soon tailors started just slapping vestigial buttons on the sleeves of suits, even though they served no purpose other than looking like a 19th century surgeon. Which I'm sure everyone still aspires to.

"Stab wound? No problem! Look at my sleeves!"