Episode 200!
When the classic musical The Sound of music first hit South korea, it was so popular that one Cinema owner in the capital city of Seoul edited it to make it shorter so he could get in more viewings and more customers each day. All he cut out were all of the songs....
Strange Currency
Now that we’re traveling again, here’s a pro tip for those who wish to stroll the heather of the Scottish highlands or hit the Edinburgh Fringe festival – pay attention to your money. Scotland uses the same coins as the rest of the UK, but they have their own folding...
Suspect Sustenance Stories
We all have to eat, but what we eat can often define us, or at least symbolize us, like poutine in Canada or spanakopita in Greece. There is a dish in Britain of such popularity, such cultural significance in Britain, that it has been called the country’s national...
Awfully Fond of You
They’re small, squeezable, cute, and a ubiquitous part of an American childhood. Even if you didn’t actually have a rubber duckie, there was a near-perfect chance you knew what they were, probably had something with the duck on it was a design. It’s come to be an...
Dread Pirate Misinformation
Hoist the jolly roger, buckle your swash, let’s jump right into the unexpected part two on pirates and the age of sail. My names… Putting aside injuries and the utter lack of hygiene on a ship at sea in the Xth century, which is a lot to ignore, I realize,...
Yaarrr Brain On Facts
This is a rare episode indeed, my beautiful Brainiac - it’s almost topical! Outside of a few holidays and the start of the covid pandemic, rare is a YBOF tied to current events. Evergreen content, me. But there’s a little something in popular culture that has...
We Can’t Have Nice Things – Radio Contests
Canadian radio station AMP Radio in Calgary, caused a lot of buzz with a promotion called “Bank it or Burn it” which asked listeners to vote whether they should #BANK C$5,000 and give it away to a listener, or #BURN the money, literally. With 54% of the votes, the...
Courthouse Rock
It’s not unusual for the business side of the music business to include trips to the courthouse. Usually, these are for copyright infringement, someone else ripping off your schtick. In the halcyon days of 2005, the band Slipknot was moved to sue, of all...
Apple of Our Eye
What’s more wholesome and iconic than an apple? In the Bible, Eve ate an apple and now half of us have to have periods and crap. In fairness to apples, the Bible just says “fruit” and it was Milton’s “Paradise Lost” that declared the fruit was an apple...
Gregor MacGregor
Gregor Mcgregor Remember back in episode 155, Hate to Burst your Bubble, we talked about, among other things, the Florida real estate boom and bust of the 1920s? It’s where we get the phrase, “if you believe that, I have some real estate in Florida to sell...
Fell on Black Days: Sunday
Every year, tens of millions people or so go through Denver International Airport, the fifth busiest in the country and in the top 20 busiest in the world. That’s a lot of bodies to get from hither to yon, so the airport relies heavily on Automated Guideway Transit...
Tax and Taxonomy
We like labels, as humans we like labeling things. Taxonomy is the branch of science concerned with classification and there used to be several inconsistent and sometimes conflicting systems of classification in use. Then came Carl Linneaus and his influential...