Myths and Rumors — Debunked!

Ever go to Snopes.com? It’s a great site that debunks common rumors floating around the Internet. You may be surprised at which turn out to be true and which are false. Here are some of the more shocking and disturbing “urban legends”:

A tooth left in a glass of Coca-Cola overnight will dissolve by morning.
TRUE
This scientifically proves that Coca-Cola has real cocaine in it.

There’s a prominent phallic shape on The Little Mermaid’s VHS case.
FALSE
Going on the assumption that a “phallic” is some kind of a centaur (I didn’t have time to Wikipedia it), it’s obviously false. Everyone knows there was no horse-man in The Little Mermaid. Only fish-men.

JFK was assassinated by a mysterious gunman on a grassy knoll.
TRUE
That gunman was Hillary Clinton.

If you ingest both Pop Rocks and soda, your stomach will explode.
TRUE
Of course, this is how Michael Hutchence of INXS died.

If you’re being robbed at an ATM, entering your PIN backward will summon the police.
ESLAF
Everyone knows that to summon the cops to an ATM, all you have to do is be black.

In The Wizard of Oz, during the scene when Dorothy and the Scarecrow discover the Tin Man, you can see a Munchkin hanging from a tree in the background.
TRUE
In fact, to make the Munchkin more visible on early Technicolor film, it was actually stuffed with ketchup rather than the usual strawberry jam.

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis is a hermaphrodite.
GROSS
Also, true.

NASA faked the first moon landing.
TRUE
They’d actually landed successfully on three earlier occasions, but each time their film had been erased on the luggage scanner at LaGuardia on the way in. Most of NASA ended up being fired; those disgruntled employees got back together to form what is now known as the TSA, causing 9/11.

Obama wasn’t born in America.
TRUE
He was born in Hawaii.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button actually sucked.
TRUE
I mean, three hours in which no plot whatsoever is advanced. Three hours. Seriously.

The Phil Collins song “In the Air Tonight” is about witnessing a man who could have saved a drowning swimmer, but didn’t.
FALSE
Obviously not true. That song is clearly about an evening fart. Think about it.

KFC isn’t allowed to use “chicken” in its name anymore because its meat comes from genetically modified animals with no bones, beaks, feet, or feathers, which are kept alive via feeding tubes in Aldous Huxley-esque warehouses.
FALSE
Only delicious, tender veal deserve to be raised that way.

Eskimos have no feelings.
TRUE
This is just true.

Walt Disney’s head is cryogenically frozen beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
ALMOST TRUE
It’s actually just his phallic.

The Secret Lives of Fonts

Fonts have interesting histories. For example, everyone knows that Garamond was invented by an albino, but what about the origins of other famous fonts?


Lucida Grande — The very act of inventing this horrific typeface in 1993 rendered its creator sterile.

Clarendon — Proud, squat, and strong, this 72-point font is so dumb, it often misspells itself.

Zapf Dingbats — This slutty font is named for its creator, Ms. Zapf Dingbat (the final “s” came only when her family emigrated from Bucharest to the U.S. in 1939), who became known for her lewd and promiscuous typeface designs throughout the 1960s — as well as her notorious parties, at which entire font collections would trade ascenders and descenders without protection.

Helvetica — Widely acknowledged as the font that incited Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland. Its typographer went into hiding in Argentina after World War II and is still wanted for a war-crimes tribunal.

Comic Sans MS — The “clown” of all scripts, it now suffers from actual MS. This makes it look like it’s always waving.

Readout — A favorite among socialists, this font was invented by a typefacist.

Baskerville — Looks in the bathroom monitor and thinks it’s hideous, which is true but still sad. Last time it was set up on a date, turned out it was a prank setup with Nimbus Sans L, who’s obviously way too handsome to care for a homely font like Baskerville.

Arial — After this font forcibly ghettoized all the seriffed typefaces within its borders, the serifs united in the forest to form their own font, today known as ITC Jew.

Copperplate — A font that rebelled at an early age, went through a few hashish-fueled years overseas, then came home and consummated the love that dared not handwrite its name — cursive. Their illegitimate child, Brush Script MT, now lives in a home for special letters who will always remain lowercase.

Sylfaen — The only font with a built-in lisp.

Caslon Antique — Old and crusty, this font gets annoyed if it sees a Trebuchet Bold holding hands with one of those lazy Italics.

Hoefler Text — Hs never been the sme since its leder, Rchduke Frnz Ferdinnd, ws ssssinted right through the “a,” bringing Europe to the brink of wr.

Century Gothic — The font that’s unable to feel unless it /es itself.

Times New Roman — Did a lot of kerning throughout its teens and twenties, leaving it occasionally drooping over the baseline. Nonetheless, it’s still got it.

Monotype Cursiva — Seemingly always hanging around outside the corner bodega, this font won’t stop grumbling about how there’s no evidence 6 million letters were deleted after being sent to special “libraries.”

Verdana — Fellas are always checking out this typeface twice on the subway, probably because of its generous “m”s.