Friday, October 05, 2007

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

The World Champion Rubik’s cube championships have kicked off in Hungary today. Who knew they were still popular? Actually, maybe that’s the point. They aren’t really, it’s just that Hungary has only just got them so they’re all mad about them. Apparently the fastest cube puzzle solver is Thibaut Jacquinot of France who did it in 9.86 seconds. That’s not entirely surprising because if you go to France, they are also pretty far behind in terms of pop culture. Like, they’re still dancing to “Stronger” by Britney Spears in the gay clubs and they don’t really have a sense of irony about it. Plus, there are those dorky European guys everywhere who wear their pants too high and who have buck teeth and say they’re out to have a good time because “life is groovy” or some crap like that. Here’s the thing Europe, I’ve done the Rubik’s cube phase so let me let you in on a little secret: after the cube comes those flat puzzle things, they break easily and then you move onto video games and never look back. Once you’ve beat one of those you start to realize that if you don’t go do something else you’ll be fat, pointless and 30 and no one wants that. That’s basically how it goes. Still, good luck and congrats ahead of time to the person who wins the whopping $7000 prize money. [source]

Earlier in the week South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun gave the paranoid and odd Kim Jong Il a package of DVD movies he’d banned, a tea set and a painted screen for his birthday. To return the favour and to be nice after a visit from his southern equivalent Jong Il gave Roh Moo-hyun four tonne of prized mushrooms. I can’t imagine that discussions between the two men were entirely easy going and relentlessly charming but this whole gift giving thing is great. IT’s like this highly theatrical way to be mean. What the hell does anyone want with 4 tonne of mushroom? That’s 4 thousand kilograms of expensive mushrooms. I mean, I guess South Korea could have a freaking mushroom festival but really, is that something they do? That seems more like something a community of retired hippies in Oregon would do. Still, maybe they’ll just keep this going and Roo Moo-hyun can send up a diverse and high quality selection of pachyderms and Jong-Il can send back a chocolate boy. It could go on forever until they run out of stuff and just poison each other. Hilarious. [source]

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