Volume 2, Issue 17 August 3 - August 16, 2000

USELESS TRIVIA

The Internet is the storehouse of all knowledge, the ultimate library, the most powerful research tool man has ever invented. In other words, it's the biggest pile of useless trivia in the known universe. The following are sever-al famous and infamous centers of useless trivia, followed by the strange (and often scary) tangents that crop up when surfing this type of site.

This is the online home of Cecil Adams, the world's self-proclaimed smartest human being. Provided by Cecil's home paper, The Chicago Reader, the Straight Dope answers such questions as What is the sound of one hand clapping? (The short answer: idiots shouldn't read Zen literature.) Browse the formidable archive to find the dope on almost any-thing even Isaac Newton's virginity or just pop in once a week for the latest dose of cynical wisdom. A small sample of the master's wisdom, in reply to a question about why Satan has goat-like features: Goats have one must speak frankly prominent genitals. Sheep, on the other hand ... sheepish? Sheep to the slaughter? Sorry, babe, but I'd rather be a goat. With the balls to speak so frankly, and the twisted illustrations of Slug Signorino, this is one site that's worth boning up on often.

An attractive site that's not as gaudy as you'd imagine (you can even log on at work without worry), this site is a tasteful dive into the weird world of sexual rela-tions. Every factoid on the site is, yes I'll say it, titillating, and the layout is clean and easy to understand. And, like I said, the best feature of this site is that it's tasteful; even the Animal World section isn't what you think it is. In fact, that's my favorite stop when I need an ego boost, like: Mosquitoes perform a sex act that lasts only 2 seconds. If you're not satisfied with anything but the very best, check out the related Sexual World Records page (www.sexualrecords.com). It's also a very tasteful site, but the trivia facts are a tad more extreme. The quotes from Flaubert and Maugham add a touch of class as well they help soften the blow when you learn that 7,000 people were once arrested for group sex in ancient Rome.

And here is where the surfing trip took a turn for the worse...

In search of more scientific trivia, I found a small laboratory on the edge of the Internet where twisted souls perform grisly experiments on Just Born Marshmallow Peeps. They burn them. They freeze them. They scare them. They dissolve them. They expose them to liq-uid nitrogen and smash them with a ham-mer. And yes, they take pictures of it all. I think some vapors have been inhaled, if you know what I mean.

After shedding many tears for the poor, abused Peeps, I hoped for tamer pleasures on the Rock Watching site. Tame is an understatement. The page is black text on a boring gray background. The text is mildly amusing, in that dry, professorial way, but it's not much more interesting than ... watching rocks. The real juice came later, on the same site, when I stum-bled across the following phrase on a biology page: I believe we are working on a FALSE assumption: The way to get cleavage is to inject sperm directly into electrically activated eggs. Yes, it's true, everything on the Internet leads to sex.

Thank you Doc Whiz's Official Rock Watcher's Guide. Without you, I never would have found this wonderful, won-derful site. Before you guys get too excit-ed, there are no pictures. It's simply a magazine for women with large breasts. In fact, it's dedicated to the celebration of having large breasts. This obviously pisses some people off (it's like have a site where skinny people gloat about not being fat), but this is actually the most useful site I found. There is breast news from around the world, products and bras to enhance the pleasure of owning breasts, and advice on, uh, what to do with them. Kudos to the Canadian who runs this site.

Are you jealous of the well-endowed ladies of The Breast Chronicles? Does your pair not, shall we say, measure up? This might help. I emphasize might.