Unusual oddness at Wikipedia.

January 29, 2007 11:50 PM

The Wikipedia List of Unusual Articles. Including popular favorites such as Raining Animals, Penis Panic, The Utah Teapot, The Jesus Nut, The Mexican Perforation, and The Liver-Eating Johnson. But wait, there's more! Sweater Curse! Turtles All The Way Down! Acoustic Kitty! (Seriously, WTF CIA?) The Ding Hai Effect. Blue Peacock, the Chicken Powered Nuclear Bomb. Chess-Related Deaths, ETAOIN SHRDLU, Alien Hand Syndrome, Colors of Noise, Drake's Plate of Brass, and Mole Day. Click now and they'll also include List of Songs in English Labled the Worst Ever and the List of Songs Whose Title Constitutes The Entire Lyrics free of charge!! Had enough? Succumb to the Flynn Effect but watch out for Exploding Head Syndrome!
posted by loquacious (49 comments total)

Raining Animals? So that's what happened to Florence Henderson.
posted by Cranberry at 12:04 AM on January 30, 2007

Curses and lamantations! Turtles All The Way Down!
posted by loquacious at 12:05 AM on January 30, 2007

The Rain of Fishes!
posted by loquacious at 12:07 AM on January 30, 2007

Wikipedia is so awesome. To hell with Steven Colbert! (Seriously, he was bashing Wikipedia again tonight on his show. Wtf?)
posted by delmoi at 12:15 AM on January 30, 2007

Correct turtles link.
posted by imperium at 12:25 AM on January 30, 2007

D'oh! Delete my foolishness! It's fixed links all the way down.
posted by imperium at 12:25 AM on January 30, 2007

Heh. I always wondered where that Cul De Sac song "Etaion Shrdlu" came from. And the worst songs ever? "We built this city"? More like most awesome songs...ever... in the universe!

Great post.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:21 AM on January 30, 2007

Vagina dentata
posted by GavinR at 1:23 AM on January 30, 2007

I've always longed for someone more talented and creative than I to remake "Hakuna Matata" using "Vagina Dentata" as the leaping off point, but I'm worried that the sheer awesomeness of it might make my head explode if I actually heard someone sing it.
posted by loquacious at 1:28 AM on January 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well, loquacious, the interwebs beat you to it.
posted by GavinR at 1:36 AM on January 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well, loquacious, the interwebs beat you to it.
posted by GavinR at 1:36 AM PST on January 30

ohmygoodnessgracious.
posted by duende at 1:58 AM on January 30, 2007

Great post.

The Utah Teapot link lead to a whole bunch of reminiscent grinning.

Cheers!
posted by Samizdata at 2:08 AM on January 30, 2007

Thank you all for wasting my day!

*damnit*
posted by homodigitalis at 2:10 AM on January 30, 2007

Turtles All The Way Down!

My name is Turtles all the way down and I approve this link!
posted by Turtles all the way down at 3:03 AM on January 30, 2007

I suppose I should say something clever, as well.
posted by Etaoin Shrdlu at 3:06 AM on January 30, 2007

Well, BlackLeotardFront, to fans of Jefferson Airplane, We built This City really is an awful experience. Airplane was cutting-edge in its day. Starship was a plastic cookie-cutter band.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:24 AM on January 30, 2007

I did not know about The Sweater Curse but the Wikipedia entry is scholarly, well-researched and excellent.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 4:26 AM on January 30, 2007

Yes, previously.
posted by Plutor at 4:42 AM on January 30, 2007

Anti-rape female condom
posted by metaplectic at 4:51 AM on January 30, 2007

Wow, that's an amazingly quick way to decrease rape while increasing murder. (probably)
posted by IronLizard at 5:13 AM on January 30, 2007

Well, loquacious, the interwebs beat you to it.

I said more creative, damnit. That hurt so much.
posted by loquacious at 6:02 AM on January 30, 2007

Damn you. Now I will be spending the next week naming imaginary bands after all of these.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:02 AM on January 30, 2007

(Interesting. On further reading, I think I might have exploding head syndrome. Mine's a sudden sharp grating noise — like metal on metal — and it scares the fuck out of me as I'm falling asleep maybe once a month or so.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:12 AM on January 30, 2007

There goes my night.
posted by Jilder at 6:31 AM on January 30, 2007

Ahhh....the old "Jesus Nut". I remember reading that term in a book about a helicopter pilot in Vietnam ("Chickenhawk" by Robert Mason). That term always seemed both funny and appropriate.
posted by MikeMc at 6:42 AM on January 30, 2007

And here I was afraid you were going to get snarky anti-Wikipedia comments; I'm glad the glory of this post is unmarred by such. As far as I'm concerned, Drake's Plate of Brass would have justified a post all by itself; your generosity in this cornucopia is akin to Mozart's pouring enough themes into a single movement for a lesser composer to eke out a lifetime's work from. Kudos, and may the Mexicans not perforate you nor the Johnson eat your liver!
posted by languagehat at 6:44 AM on January 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Rest assured, languagehat. In loquacious, liver eats Johnson!
posted by loquacious at 6:49 AM on January 30, 2007

You should see a doctor about that.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:13 AM on January 30, 2007

I'll second nebulawindphone with a possible self-diagnosis of Exploding Head Syndrome. About once a month while falling asleep I'm shocked awake by what sounds like a transformer exploding between my ears accompanied by a flash of light and immediately followed by what sounds like a sweeping sine wave oscillator. Afterwards it feels as if I'd just touched a spark plug and is accompanied by a quick strong jerk. It's like a more severe manifestation of a hypnagogic twitch but not quite full blown seziure territory.
posted by bunnytricks at 7:17 AM on January 30, 2007

Ahhh....the old "Jesus Nut". I remember reading that term in a book about a helicopter pilot in Vietnam ("Chickenhawk" by Robert Mason).

Ditto here. Great book, btw ("Never fly into a hot LZ the same way twice.")
posted by Turtles all the way down at 7:22 AM on January 30, 2007

How odd, I had a bout of exploding head syndrome just last night. I had no idea it had a name.
posted by Joe Invisible at 7:23 AM on January 30, 2007

I haven't had my head "explode" in a long time, but I used to experience it frequently. It was always just as I was about to actually fall asleep and slip under. I had always felt like I was catching myself from a sudden, very startling fall. There was always a very brief but very intense burst of adrenaline which would, of course, thoroughly wake me. I remember having it happen a few times in an evening and being very frustrated that it kept happening as I was almost asleep.
posted by loquacious at 7:45 AM on January 30, 2007

I'll admit it, I'm just too scared to follow the "Penis Panic" link.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 7:58 AM on January 30, 2007

I'll admit it, I'm just too scared to follow the "Penis Panic" link.

Here's a preview:

Genital retraction syndrome (GRS), generally considered a culture-specific syndrome, is a condition in which an individual is overcome with the belief that his/her external genitals—or also, in females, breasts—are retracting into the body, shrinking, or in some male cases, may be imminently removed or disappear. A penis panic is sometimes a mass hysteria event or panic in which males in a population suddenly exhibit symptoms of genital retraction syndrome.

posted by loquacious at 8:03 AM on January 30, 2007

"I had always felt like I was catching myself from a sudden, very startling fall."

Hypnic jerk. An interesting sensation (and not a bad name for a band). This happens to me once in a while, kinda strange but almost fun in a way (I also used to enjoy "bedspins" when really,really drunk).
posted by MikeMc at 8:05 AM on January 30, 2007

loquacious:

Thanks. I was just joking but this:

A penis panic is sometimes a mass hysteria event or panic in which males in a population suddenly exhibit symptoms of genital retraction syndrome.

kinda burned a band name in my head. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome The Dickless Horde.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 8:10 AM on January 30, 2007

Hypnic jerk. An interesting sensation (and not a bad name for a band).

People sometimes ask me why I bother to spend time posting to MeFi, and this and other items in this thread are why. I learn something every damn time.

Some may erroneously believe I'm generous or giving in wanting to share whatever I find but I humbly submit that it's entirely selfish in motivation - when it goes well I get a whole hell of a lot more out of it than I put in to it. And there's not a damn thing wrong with that. Thanks.

(I'm such a huge infoslut, so more data is almost always good for me. I'll probably be done with almost everything in the list of unusual articles by this evening. I'm almost always reading some form of text or another. Need input.)
posted by loquacious at 8:26 AM on January 30, 2007

Very nice. I wish I played paper RPGs, and I wish Drake's Plate of Brass was a magical item.
posted by OmieWise at 8:48 AM on January 30, 2007

Great compilation of awesome oddness.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 8:49 AM on January 30, 2007

"Very nice. I wish I played paper RPGs, and I wish Drake's Plate of Brass was a magical item."

It sounds like a Magic: The Gathering artifact.
posted by MikeMc at 9:09 AM on January 30, 2007

All this talk of exploding heads and hypnic jerks made me think of another odd sensation - Brain Shivers (a faily common side effect of anti-depressant withdrawal). I always called them "brain shocks" but what do hell do I know? Not that I ever forgot to take my Paxil and had this occur but I have heard of other people forgetting their Paxil and having this happen. I'll stop with the strange sensations now.
posted by MikeMc at 9:49 AM on January 30, 2007

I'm glad to see on the Colors of Noise page, they finally settled on my "AC power noise" instead of "mains hum".
posted by Eideteker at 9:52 AM on January 30, 2007

MikeMc... I called them the zaps. Best way I could ever describe them was "You know when you're on Ecstasy, and you get those rushes? Yeah. These were like that, but bad." Gah.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:10 AM on January 30, 2007

So much good stuff. Excellent work loquacious, I'll be reading these all night.
posted by quin at 12:15 PM on January 30, 2007

Nils Olav is my new inspiration.
posted by QIbHom at 6:48 PM on January 30, 2007

I do believe they missed cycloponomia.
But maybe I just didn't see it.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:31 PM on January 30, 2007

What a fun post. Wikipedia is awesome.

I did an FPP on Penis Panic.

Love the kids sitting on Stalin in the Fallen Monument Park in Moscow.

Fascinating tidbits there, all kinds of Ripley's Believe It or Not stuff, like the cool rain of fish phenomenon, which I couldn't help researching a bit more.
posted by nickyskye at 7:46 PM on January 30, 2007

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
posted by Freen at 9:00 PM on January 30, 2007

omg that buffalo sentence is mindpretzeling. That is so cool!
posted by nickyskye at 4:24 AM on January 31, 2007