Bucket Lists

Through a series of high-caliber Internet searches extensive interviews, we've been able to track down the bucket lists of several celebrities. We've saved the best for last! Enjoy!


Tom Riddle (Lord Voldemort)

Destroy Harry Potter
Purge the world of Mudbloods
Steal the Sorcerer's Stone and live forever
Unleash a Basilisk on Hogwarts
Hear the prophecy about Harry Potter and myself
Acquire the Elder Wand
Destroy Harry Potter (for reals this time)
Vaca to Albania
Create seven (or eight) Horcruxes
Become the most powerful wizard ever
Find a spell to regrow my nose
Buy a toupée

Katniss Everdeen

Catch a fish with my bare hands
Volunteer for the Hunger Games
Find out Foxface's real name
Go to the Capitol
Survive the Quarter Quell
Get married to Gale
Light my wedding dress on fire
Get stung by tracker jackers
Go hunting with a gun

Party Like It's 1312

International Tolerance of Populace Ignorance Act notice: TL;DRs are included and bolded.

Ever since the debut of their duet "Beauty and a Beat," the fan mailbags of pop star Justin Bieber and rap star Nicki Minaj have been flooded with questions regarding the ambiguous lyrics. In a press release yesterday, the duo officially revealed the lyrics to the pre-chorus as:

"We gonna party like it's 1312 tonight 

I want to show you all the finer things in life 

So just forget about the world, we're young tonight 

I'm comin' for ya, I'm comin' for ya"

Bieliebers and Bieskeptics alike are drawing particular attention to the first line. Eager to obey the command of their idols, countless teens and preteens around the globe are now asking: how exactly does one party like it's 1312? 

Since both artists are based in the New World, it can safely be assumed that Bieber and Minaj refer to the customs of early 14th century America. A critical investigation into the history may elucidate the customs of the day. Lasting European contact with the Americas (marked primarily by exploration, conquest, and colonization) did not truly occur until the voyages of Christoffa Corombo (Christopher Columbus) in the late 15th century, almost 200 years after the date in question. 

The only European influence comes from the early 10th century Norse expeditions of Leifr Eiríksson (Leif Ericson); however, any European influence on the New World from Leif's journeys would be concentrated in Newfoundland, Labrador, and Baffin Island, areas avoided by inhabitants both anciently and modernly.

Tweeter: The New Twitter

You don't twit, you tweet.  So then why is it called Twitter, and not Tweeter?  We can even make stylistic changes to the spelling to avoid copyright infringement: TWEETer, Tw-eat-er, Twītter, or even Faycsbuuk.

I know some of you are saying it'll be impossible to fit some of those into hashtags though.  No problem!  Use ampersandtags!  Just replace every "@" with a "&."  Clearly the ampersandtag is superior to the hashtag.  & is a much better symbol to use.  &you &you &youtoo!  Plus, on the computer keyboard, it is pressed with the right index finger, which is much more commonly used for things, like pointing. (Results may vary in countries outside the US.)

There's a solution for all you computer programmers who might get confused too!  To type a real ampersand, just type "&&" and an ampersand will appear without referencing anyone else.  Then you can use your TwE&Ter hatetags again.

Dead People and Stuff With Their Names

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?

Neither do I; this certainly isn't some sort of ill-timed Christmas post. As much as I love northern Holarctic ungulates in serious need of rhinoplasty, we all know I'd rather talk about dead people.

Humans have a long-standing tradition of naming things after dead people. For example, the city of Cincinnati was named after Roman farmer-turned-dictator Cincinnatus. Much the same can be said for Nashville, Baltimore, and San Diego; all were named after Roman farmers-turned-dictators, a surprisingly large coterie.

But nowhere is the practice of dead-guy-name-recycling more evident than in the scientific community. A few minutes in any college science class worth its salt (read: not soft science) will produce the names of several famous albeit dead guys (usually French), such as James Prescott Joule, Nikola Tesla, and Olivia Newton-John.

New evidence has shown that this deep-rooted tradition stretched its gnarly vines further back in history than we thought. The International System of Units (Le Système international d'unités) defines seven base units that serve as the building blocks from which all other units of measure can be derived. They are the meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela. 

The ampere and the kelvin are irrefutably named after William Thomson, First Baron Kelvin and André-Marie Ampère, respectively; however, SI recently revealed that all SI base units are named after individuals from scientific history. Below are SI's official biographies of the five recently rediscovered scientists.

森田郎 (Ichirō Meter)

森田郎 (1437?-1589), modernly known as Ichirō Meter, was born in Toyko, Japan to middle-class parents. At the age of 32, Meter moved to England, where his name was anglicized and consistently misspelled as Metre. Meter worked as a physicist, laying much of the groundwork for Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, and Sir James Paul McCartney.

After his success as a physicist, Meter turned to alternative medicine later in life. Meter's remarkable longevity is due to his pioneering research in the field of essential oils; he is best known as the first to distill the essential oil of the lavender, wild orange, and OnGuard plants.

Stephen Waldo Kilogram

Stephen Waldo Kilogram (1990-present?) is an American chemist. Kilogram's discovery of time-travelling technology in 1852 led to the adoption of the kilogram as SI's unit of mass in 1795. Kilogram is also notable for his work with Casiodoro Gram (no relation) in the 24th century. Kilogram served as the inspiration for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Where's Waldo?.

Kilogram was last seen during the Great Lisbon earthquake in 1755. The current whereabouts and whenabouts of Kilogram are unknown, but he is believed to be somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy about 5.8 millenia ago.