Author Archives: Karl Smallwood

Why It Sucks to Be Rich

To paraphrase famed scholar Christopher Wallace- more money means more problems. As paradoxical as this claim may seem given yet another famed scholar more recently claimed “Whoever said money can’t solve your problems, must not have had enough money to solve ’em”, Mr Wallace, or Biggie Smalls as he was better known to those who had no respect for his […]

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The Life of the Voice of God

Though many of you are perhaps not familiar with the name Don LaFontaine, if you’ve ever watched a movie trailer basically ever, you have almost certainly heard his voice or at the least someone trying to mimic him. A titan of the entertainment industry, LaFontaine lent his inimitable voice to a quarter of a million projects during his career before […]

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How Much Would it Cost to Fill a Swimming Pool With Booze? Has Anyone Ever Actually Done This?

JohnJohn asks: Has anyone ever really filled a pool with alcohol? Several hotels around the world catering to the uber-wealthy offer a bizarrely specific package that offers customers the chance to float around in a hot tub filled with champagne. As pleasant as it sounds to have your nether regions soak in warm bubbly, you’d think someone, somewhere would have […]

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Do Blind People Actually “Hear” Better Than Sighted People or is This Just a Hollywood Myth?

If Daredevil has taught us anything, it’s that, while a closely guarded secret within the blind community, blind people inevitably all become superheroes after losing their sight thanks to their other senses being insanely enhanced. But when talking the real world, does this enhancing of one’s other senses really occur when the lights go out permanently? Well, for those who […]

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Were Nunchucks Ever Actually Used in Combat or are They Just Primarily a Hollywood Thing?

Colin O. asks: Were nunchucks really used in battle? Famously a weapon of choice for legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, at least in certain films, nunchaku, or nunchucks, are a popular facet of pop-culture and there are those who’d have you believe that this humble weapon used to widely shatter jawbones like Samson during a particularly bad hair day. But […]

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The President Who Randomly Liked to Challenge People to Fist-Fights

If you’ve followed this website, our YouTube channel, or BrainFood Show podcast very long, you know one of our favorite historic individuals is Theodore Roosevelt- among countless other reasons to be admired, a man who enjoys a reputation as one of the most terrifyingly badass individuals to ever hold the office of leader of a nation, with countless stories detailing […]

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How Playing with Construction Paper Resulted in Over a Billion Dollars for Two Dudes

Debuting in 1997, South Park has gone from being regarded as a crudely animated show filled with fart jokes to an Emmy award winning, cultural touchstone that has been lauded by critics for its apparent fearlessness in tackling or addressing even the most taboo subjects with unrivaled intelligent satire… and fart jokes and crude animations. The result has been Trey […]

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That Time Muhammad Ali Nearly Had His Leg Kicked Off by a Pro Wrestler in One of the Most Bizarre Matches in History

Muhammad Ali is undeniably one of the finest pugilists to have ever put fist to face. While that is news to approximately no one reading this, a less discussed aspect of Ali’s career is his brief involvement with the world of Mixed Martial Arts- specifically, that time he nearly had his leg kicked off fighting a Japanese pro wrestler in […]

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What was the Largest Bet Ever Made?

Craig B. asks: What was the largest bet ever made? The history of gambling is littered with examples of people dropping unthinkable amounts of money on things as trivial as the toss of a coin or a single roll of dice. Despite stories of such wanton excess, including many of individuals winning or losing tens of millions of dollars in […]

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A Bunch of ‘Wangers- The Nazi Unit Who Were so Awful, Even the Nazi SS Were Disgusted by Them

The SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, better known to historians as simply the Dirlewanger Brigade, holds the dubious distinction of being amongst the most reviled units of the Nazi war machine. Infamous for its brutality and the open sadism displayed by its commanding officer, a man previously imprisoned for raping a young teen girl, the unit and their actions were so detested that […]

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Death Before Defeat- the Badass Story of Arrichion of Phigalia

The ancient Olympics are littered with spectacular stories of athleticism and peculiar characters, like Melankomas of Caria, an ancient boxer who won several Olympic wreaths by reportedly doing nothing but avoid his opponents punches until they gave up. Perhaps the most bizarre Olympic story of all, however, is that of Arrichion of Phigalia, who once won an Olympic wreath despite […]

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What is the Correct Way to Hang Toilet Paper?

In 1977, one of the most influential women of the 20th century, newspaper columnist Esther Pauline Lederer, better known as “Ann Landers” (and funny enough twin sister of one of the other most influential women of the 20th century, Pauline Esther Phillips, aka “Dear Abby”), wrote a seemingly innocent article in which she cited a preference for hanging her toilet […]

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