I bet you didn’t know that the red spot on the 7-Up can is there because the inventor was an albino. Or that roughly 12 newborns are given to the wrong parents on a daily basis. What about the fact that 23% of photocopier problems are caused from people photocopying their asses? Now you might ask, why would I ever need to know that? That’s the point. You don’t.
But there is a certain amount of fun in useless information. The next time you see a little kid at a beach holding a sea shell up to his ear, go up to him and say, “Hey dude, that’s not the ocean, it’s the sound of blood flowing through your head.” He might think you’re a creep, and his mother might think you’re killing harmless fun by bringing a sense of reality into childhood, but hey, you might feel smart.

There is a video on youtube.com called “Did You Know?” This video is created by a history teacher and updated every year with useless but though provoking material. Like the fact that if MySpace was a country it would be the 5th largest in the world. Or that pretty soon China will become the largest speaking English county in the world. Maybe you find it fascinating that predictions show that by 2013 a computer will exist that has the same capacity as the human brain. I always find these facts to be hilarious. I’ve always wondered who comes up with these statistics? Is there really a job that involves finding out how many people are killed by vending machines each year. By the way, that number is 13.
There is a television show on FOX titled “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” Am I smarter than a fifth grader? No. Are you? Probably not. If you have ever tuned into this show you would realize by about the third question that these questions aren’t the everyday 2 times 2. True or False: Polar bears feed off penguins? Did you ever learn that in 1st grade science? Because I sure as hell didn’t. The show thrives on making everyday Americans look like complete idiots because they don’t know how many sides a trapezoid has, because that information is, what’s the word? Useless.

Remember that one guy? Ken Jennings. That dude won 74 games of jeopardy. He was a national superstar. Everyone wanted to know how much crap this guy really knew. How did Ken know all this stuff? Was he a loser in high school that sat at home reading books of useless information and such? How do you even store up that much in your brain? These questions haunted America for 74 straight episodes of jeopardy. Until Kenny lost.
So the next time you wish yourself a happy birthday, wish the 9 million others that share your birthday a good day as well. Or the next time you pull up to a McDonalds’ realize that 7% of your fellow Americans are also enjoying the same meal. Enjoy useless information, thrive off it. Because I’m sure someone out there would love to know that approximately .07% of the world is drunk right now.