We’re continuing the monthly tradition by soliciting the myths you want to see written. It’s a lot like how on Mythbusters they solicit fan requests on the site, only on Mythbusters they solicit urban legends that the fans want to watch the team debunk while blowing things up and possibly being injured in the process, while here you come up with questions or aspects of day to day life you’d like to have explained in wholly unscientific and fantastic ways. Also, I have all my hair and don’t own a beret.
Now, understand — if your myth doesn’t get told within the span of the month, that doesn’t mean we throw the myth away. I’m still going back through all the myth calls to see what one to cover next in our little journeys through the lands of legend. But it’s still fun to see new and exciting myths being solicited. So get in on the fun!
Please. It’s lonely here without you.
As I asked in some other comment, what happens to the change lost in furniture? Is there a secret society that takes it, or a black hole?
Why is it that creativity and rationality constantly seem to be at odds?
Or in other words, why do the most creative people always seem to be batshit insane (at least, while they’re actively being creative), and very few people can come up with a new or interesting solution to a problem that 1) actually works and 2)logically follows from what is known?
Why is it that computers, which should be bastions of logic, seem hell-bent on driving us all insane by giving us different outputs in response to apparently identical inputs?
Why do TV shows stay in reruns forever when everyone’s seen every episode at least twice?
Why exactly are there a few angelic three-year-olds when the vast majority of them seem to be channeling demons?
What possesses some parents to name their children Bertha, Agnes, or Mildred?
Variation on Joel’s question above: Why, when a show you’ve only seen once comes on, is it always the episode you’ve already seen?
Why did the tv season used to be first-runs all September through March, but nowadays the first-runs get broken up into batches so that season finales come in May?
In a lot of cities (I know DC, NY and Chicago), you’ll be walking along the sidewalk when all of a sudden it will be made not of concrete, but of a large metal grate over a deep hole. What’s really down there?
Uwe Boll. What did we as a species do that was so horrible to deserve this?
Why do Americans (because I understand that the rest of the world is more sensible) feel the need to work such long hours? Why is looking busy more important than actually getting the job done?
Why for Sturgeon’s Law? Why must 90% of everything be crap?
no_relation @9 I know that one! It’s due to the arrogant writer and the beached mermaid.
Why does it take longer to get from Check In to Take off, than it does to get from London to Estonia?
*facepalm* Right. Knew that. Sorry.
How about some stories about the English language?
Why does English hate Phonics? See also: the t-shirt that says “English doesn’t so much borrow from other languages as mug them in dark alleys and go through their pockets for loose grammar.”
Why do English dialects as different as rural Scottish and “Ebonics” all count as English, despite being less similar than Spanish and Portugese?
Why does so much of working involve sorting things in alphabetical order? I’ve worked in:
1) two bookstores and a library (alphabetizing books)
2) a drycleaners (alphabetizing clothing by customer)
3) two offices (alphabetizing files)
This page: http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/ has a bunch of different tiny snippets about interesting, odd, or unusual linguistic subjects; I offer it merely as an item of interest and not necessarily as topic suggestions. ^_^
Whence goes the sock lost in the laundry?
How do time zones relate to the witching hour? If someone performs a dark rite in, say, a county which doesn’t do daylight savings time, but the state as a whole does recognize daylight savings time, and the area of the town he/she’s in is claimed by two states, one in the Central time zone and one in Mountain, when is “midnight” according to the Forces of Darkness?
Sorry, the above should have read “Whither goes the sock…”
Why is the school system in the US so obssessed with standardized tests?
I don’t have a specific question formulated, but: Tell us a story about Procrastination. The Lord of the realm. Why it is tied to stress and also relaxation. Something. Anything.
It is the end of semester over here, if you can’t tell.
Why do we all get so annoyed when another driver drives below the posted speed limit? How does “maximum legal speed” get transformed into “minimum polite speed?”
Why are people rude?
(Yes, I know, it’s almost November now, but I only just started reading this.)
Why is the Far East considered so exotic even to people who were born and bred in the Far East and are for all intents and purposes also part of one of the Far Eastern breeds of people (Asian, South East Asian)? Why in particular Japan and China?
Why do Prime Ministers and Presidents always constantly go into reelections long after their use by date is passed?
(Yes, I know two questions, but the first one wasn’t as modern as the second. Next time I submit a question, it will be about Australia. ^_^ It’s fun to be international.)
How come, when you have only seen a given TV series two or three ever, it always seems to be the SAME EXACT episode every time?
Crap, never mind, I didn’t read to see it had already been asked!
My question is about cilantro- why do some people absolutely love it, while there’s also a good hunk of the population who think it tastes like soap/death?