12 Trivia Tidbits for Wednesday, June 26, 2024

To promote his 1993 film Son in Law, MTV ran a Marry Pauly Shore Contest. The winner was an 18-year-old from Connecticut, who they picked out of 25,000 entrants and flew out to Las Vegas for a few days. They had a little ceremony, shared a little smooch, but didn’t sign any paperwork that would make it official. She did get a bumblebee ring and a light-up yo-yo out of the ordeal.

Forty-nine-year-old Tamayo Perry was a go-to surfer/actor for a while, appearing in Blue Crush, Hawaii Five-0 and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. He was attacked by a shark while surfing in Hawaii and died from his injuries.

According to a survey by Expedia, Americans top the charts on both fewest average vacation days allowed (12), and smallest percentage of vacation days used (about 50 percent).

A 13-year-old British kid saw an 80 percent reduction in daytime seizures after getting a deep-brain stimulation implant.

The four rarest trees on the planet are the baobab, the dragon’s blood tree, the monkey puzzle tree and the quiver tree, all of which either look or sound like they’re native to Hyrule.

A man whose roof was crushed by falling space debris has sued NASA, kicking off an unprecedented legal battle between a government agency and a private citizen who doesn’t want to get merked by astronaut scraps.

Studies have found that intelligent animals like chimpanzees and elephants do respond with vengeance when they’re injured or otherwise wronged. But their actions seem to be in service of maintaining order, and don’t seem to rise to the out-of-proportion, spiteful brand of revenge that humans sometimes like to indulge in.

They go through the motions every four years, but very few televised battles of wits are likely to have actually swayed anyone’s opinion. Al Gore lost his edge against George W. Bush in 2000; Ross Perot’s performance (and George Bush Sr.’s underperformance) probably swung things toward Bill Clinton in 1992; Ronald Reagan probably sealed the deal with his last-minute debate against Jimmy Carter in 1980; Gerald Ford probably nailed his coffin shut against Carter in 1976; and Richard Nixon showed the country how old and beat-up he looked in 1960’s first-ever televised debate.

Delta’s official contract with passengers states that if a person’s “hygiene or odor creates an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance to other passengers,” they can be removed from the flight. In recent years, a guy was kicked off for farting too much, while a family of three were booted for their B.O. (and their luggage was lost, leaving them stranded with only their already be-stunk travel outfits).

Llama farmers have found inventive new ways to monetize their adorable herds — from school and nursing home visits to wedding entertainment. Sherwood Forest Golf Club has even started fitting llamas with special gear that allows them to carry golf equipment.

Backlash over higher prices and viral A.I. screwups has forced McDonald’s to return to its roots, and attempt to sell affordable food. They’re offering a four-item meal for $5, which is, of course, still more expensive than its classic Dollar Menu, and only made possible by a $4.6 million cash infusion from Coca-Cola.

Researchers have found what appears to be a deliberate burial site of and by Homo naledi, an ancient human-like creature that mainly liked to hang out in trees, hidden 100 feet underground in a South African cave system. That predates the earliest known Homo sapien interment by about 100,000 years.