Top Five SIX awesome things I learned while wasting time on the internet this month
By Jenny Bundock
6. Hugh Downs was born in 1921
I looked up Hugh Downs on Wikipedia the other day after noticing that he was hosting an infomercial that comes on at like 2:00 a.m. for the book of health secrets “YOUR DOCTOR DOESN”T WANT YOU TO KNOW!” (As if your doctor really wants you to get sick and die, when it could be as simple as putting powdered celery and molasses on your cereal every other Tuesday to cure that pesky cancer.) But yeah, long story short, I decided to see if he was still alive, guessing out loud that “he must be like 100 or something”. Turns out he is 86 — but really, when you are that fucking old, who’s counting?
5. People care about Britney Spears and Heath Ledger a lot!
Every damn day I log into my Hotmail to see who has “poked” me on Facebook, only to discover yet another headline about Britney Spears. I got a bit of a break from Britney when Heath Ledger died [or DID he? He is The Joker. -ed], and everyone freaked out like he had been their best friend from Grade 2 that they used to share popsicles with, saying shit like “I just can’t believe that Heath Ledger is dead! He was so young! And his Batman movie just finished filming… so sad… his mom must be devastated.” I bet she is, but what I don’t get, is why anyone else is feeling the same. I keep hearing people say, “I can’t believe he died!” I can believe he died, do you know why? Because the radio told me he did. That is all the proof I need. What I don’t believe is why anyone at all, anywhere, cares what Britney Spears wore to court last week… now THAT is a real shocker.
4. There are Giant Rabbits out there.
I am not lying. Not at all. Search for “giant rabbits” — they are about the size of German Shepherds! My subsequent search was for a saddle that might accommodate riding such a beast, but I came up empty-handed. It’s hard to see 50 percent of a dream realized, but then fall short on locating the equipment that would make it possible for me to finally ride a rabbit to school. I dreamt it up in Grade 2, and I’ve never lost hope — it’s so close I can taste it (the dream, not the rabbit).
3. Most of the girls who were mean to me in high school either got fat, married, or pregnant, or all three.
This awesome, AWESOME fact came compliments of Facebook. Being the creeper that I am, I decided to check up on some of the townies from back home, to see if staying with their high school sweethearts paid off the way they thought that it would. I am pleased to report that I am much happier with the outcome than I would have expected to be when in Grade 10, and jealous of their “love.” Turns out that the recipe for getting fat is: stay in your hometown, stay with the guy you started dating in Grade 8 at semi-formal, work at the local retirement home, and drink a 2-4 of beer every week from Grade 11 until you are 25. Yeah, I know, I’m a huge bitch and it’s not their fault, blah blah blah, but in my defense, revenge IS a dish best served cold. (And with, evidently, a lot of ranch dressing, a side of mozzarella sticks, a milkshake, and some fries from the arena.)
2. There is such a thing as a fart fetish, and hundreds of perv-y guys post comments on You Tube videos of girls farting at the camera, at mirrors, or into the faces of cats.
I’m dead serious. What started as something I thought was a HILARIOUS video of this really cute girl farting into her cat’s face, turned out to be so very, very wrong. The video IS hilarious, but the really funny part was the enormous volume of comments the video received from guys saying stuff like “I wish I was your underwear,” or “lucky cat,” or “I bet your farts smell like candy.” It was seriously amazing. God bless the internet for taking all these hilariously-fetished people and releasing them from obscurity, showcasing them for the rest of us to stare at, open-mouthed and in laughing-so-hard-we-cry awe. I can personally say that my life is richer for having seen both a girl fart in a cat’s face AND someone responding with feelings of jealousy towards that cat’s position.
1. The band Rednex, who made the song “Cotton Eye Joe” is from __________.
I’m not even going to tell you. My friend Chris looked this up, and made all of us guess, and NO ONE got it right. By the time he actually told us, he was laughing so hard that we had to read it for him. Do you remember that song with the lyrics, “Where did you come from? Where did you go? Where did you come from Cotton Eye Joe?” with that crazy fiddling and clapping? It came out when I was in Grade 7 or 8, and it was really, really popular. Yeah, I’ll tell you right now, it wasn’t from the USA, which is what I had assumed. Go ahead, lock in your guess, and then let me know if you got it right. If you did, you know your shitty 90s bands better than me. I’ll give you that one.
I wonder if Bryan Adams was the guy who made the underwear comment. He does have a song on his “18 Till I Die” album, entitled “I Wanna Be Your Underwear.” Look it up, I’m not even joking. I wish I were.