Tag Archives: America

Ridiculous Drugs That Were Once Medicine: Part One

Posted on March 28, 2011 | 2 comments

“Ah, I see you have a nail in your foot.  Some heroin will cure that right up.”

~Like, just the best doctor ever, you guys, circa 1898

As a rule, the non-crazy members of American society don’t really question what doctors tell us to put in our body, unless the words “Hamster” and “Suppository” are involved.  Got a rusty ticker?  Swallow this white chalky square.  Sinus infection?  Rub some of this nasty smelling ointment on your chest.  You just can’t make the jump from “Utility role player” and “Star slugger” on your professional baseball team?  Just let this guy inject some “Vitamin B12” into your ass cheeks.  It’s called plausible deniability, in case Congress ever asks.

But despite all the weird things we’ll just cram into our bodies without a second of hesitation (“Lupidemitrexeral?  Why, I almost named my daughter that!”) the American pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars on development and research to make sure that their medicine won’t turn you into some sort of pig lizard.  And once they hit that perfect, non-mutation-forming treatment of medical ailments, they’ll do us the favor of charging us out the ass for it.  But we can’t fault them for that, hell we’ll applaud them for finding a way to make big bucks even when times are bad by feeding off our addiction to “living.”  Prescription drugs can cost the arm and leg they were meant to treat because they work, and they work better than anything else at our disposal.  Otherwise, those thousands of rabbits and rats died in those laboratories for nothing.

However, in America, things used to be a bit less “controlled” with “procedures in place to make sure you don’t take mercury for medicinal purposes.”  Which was bad for sick people, but absolutely amazing for people who like to laugh at the mistakes of past generations.  Because, come on, are you serious late 19th Century/early 20th Century!?

Damn, 15 cents?  Who’s THEIR dealer?

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America Fun Fact of the Day 3/27- March 27th in American History

Posted on March 27, 2011 | 2 comments

“Ugh, I don’t care.  Just have the research monkeys list off shit that happened today.  I need some aspirin.”

~A Very Hungover Johnny Roosevelt, Editor-in-Chief of AFFotD

Today is Sunday, which is a national day of “getting over Friday night and Saturday night” for many Americans, that 24 hour period where you re-hydrate and prepare yourself for another week at work.  At America Fun Fact of the Day, we go to the offices everyday, mainly because it’s got more impressive amenities than any home, and also because we just installed the world’s first vodka swimming pool.  Actually, the vodka swimming pool is the real draw currently.  Just think about that.  It’s a swimming pool.  Only instead of water, it’s vodka.  If you accidentally swallow the pool water, you don’t taste chlorine, you get wasted.  We’ve had to fish so many bodies out of it these past few weeks, but no one would dares ask to get rid of it.  We know the risks.

To be fair, it’s the next logical evolutionary step as far as pool based alcohol is concerned.

So despite the fact that we spend our time in the office, ignoring our “families,” “responsibilities in life,” and “going to the dentist, like, ever,” we do feel compelled to at least pretend to follow the traditional American work week structure.  That’s why, from Monday through Friday, we give you top notch content, discussing important issues like Andrew Jackson’s dueling habits, or how the Washington Monument looks like a dong.

But come the weekend, we tend to take our foot off the accelerator.  We’ll put a photo of the week here, or a clip show because we’re terrible people there, but we tend to prep ourselves for the following week of American Facts but just hopping into our vodka swimming pool, like that one scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day off.

You can interpret this how you want, but did you know that your body can absorb alcohol through its pours?  Well, you can.  There a whole bunch of places other than your mouth that alcohol can sneak into your bloodstream through.

So, we don’t really have the energy, or ibuprofen supplies to research a full, engrossing fun fact today.  Instead, we will present you…

The American History of March 27th in America

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Saturday Image of the Week: March 26th

Posted on March 26, 2011 | 1 comment

“Ha, holy shit.”

~The Second Amendment

There’s not much we can say about this, other than.  Giant gun.  Amazingly giant gun.  America.

Holy shit you guys.  Giant gun.

This is a gun you use to shoot down planes, and the only thing that really makes us feel even better about this?  The red plastic cup on the ground.

That’s right.  This guy has been day drinking, and now he’s ready to fire a gun that is larger than he is.  And really, since he’s over 45, there’s no need to make a distinction between day drinking and night drinking.  At that point, you’re just surviving.  Hence the giant gun.  We agree with everything in this picture.  This is America.  God bless.  Have a great weekend, everyone.

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Key Lime Pies are American and DELICIOUS

Posted on March 25, 2011 | 2 comments

“Nothing comes closer to satiating my ungodly bull bloodlust than a nice slice of Key Lime.  And lots of alcohol.”

~Ernest Hemingway

We all often hear things described as being “as American as Apple Pie.”  It’s a simple, lazy way to say something is typically American.  Early America Fun Fact of the Day staffers assumed that baseball is the most American thing next to ecstasy and apple pies until Jon Hamm, our mailroom worker and a relatively recent hire, decided to do a little research, and discovered that Apple Pie’s “American” nature is grossly exaggerated.

Apples did not even originate in the United States- they had to be brought over by the English, where apple pies had long been popular.  But the American colonists, showing the true American spirit, said, “fuck pies” and used the apples to make alcoholic cider instead.  While there is a town called “Pie Town” named after apple pies, it’s in New Mexico, which is just three letters and a space away from being Mexico.  So, we at the America Fun Fact of the Day had to smash up our Apple Pie cooking station from our offices, and ban ourselves from using the term “as American as Apple Pie” (this is entirely unrelated to the fact that every AFFotD can be summarized by saying “____ is as American as Apple Pie”).

But that left a void in our pastry loving, red-blooded hearts.  What could replace Apple Pie as our Pie Messiah?

There was only one possible answer, only one baked dessert loaded with sweet, sweet, cavity creating sugar, and invented right here in the U.S. of A.

The Key Lime Pie. Continue reading →

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Posted in America's Best Foods

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The Oregon Trail Raised a Generation

Posted on March 24, 2011 | 1 comment

“The river is too deep to ford.  You lose:  103 bullets, 2 wagon wheels, 2 wagon axles, 2 oxen, TEDDY (drowned), C. DALE (drowned), ULYSSES (drowned).”

~Shit, should have just taken the ferry…

The Oregon Trail was two thousand mile wagon route connecting towns of the Missouri River to the Oregon valley, originally discovered and utilized by fur trappers and traders who would agehpgap

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Oh shit, sorry, fell asleep on the keyboard.  That’s boring.  Stop being so boring.  Besides, that’s totally historically inaccurate.  Because, we at AFFotD, like many Americans, know the real story behind the Oregon Trail.  We know it not because we “read books” or “watched PBS documentaries” or “listened to a lecture from a storied American History academic.”  Fuck that noise.  We know it because we lived it, man.  We were there, we know what’s at stake, and we know what we have lost.


That’s right, you can take your “historical discussions of the cultural impact regarding settlements along the Oregon Trail” and shove it up your monocle, we know the score because we are intimately familiar with the most American Educational Video Game of all time.

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Posted in Miscellaneous America

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Andrew Jackson Will Shoot You in the Face

Posted on March 23, 2011 | 4 comments

“How have you not done a fun fact about me yet?  I ought to duel the shit out of you for that.”

~Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson

Every day, Americans deal with opposition, antagonization, and frustration at the actions of their fellow man.  Some of us bite our tongue and move on, choosing to take the high road.  Some of us complain about perceived injustices until they feel their grievances have been addressed.  AFFotD writers just stare at the person responsible and say in an eerily intense manner, “You’re next, fucker,” while scribbling their name down on a sheet of paper labeled Enemy’s List (admittedly, this list is often vague, with entries like, “That popped collar tool who cut me in line at Costco that one time.”)

And of course, some truly great Americans just decide to shoot their problems in the face.  Americans like Andrew “Middle Names Are For People Who Aren’t Called Old Hickory” Jackson.

As seen here unfortunately portrayed by John Kerry

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BoozeTown Is Real. Seriously.

Posted on March 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

“Doctor, I have a question.  Is it technically possible to, well, live…inside a bottle of liquor?  Because if there’s a way, let me know, and I’ll just do that instead.”

~Mel Johnson

Every so often, we at AFFotD imagine that you, our readers, ask aloud  something along the lines of, “Hey, whichever AFFotD writer you’ve got on staff today, what is the craziest and most American idea you have ever heard of?  Is it a bear-murder fueled cannon that shoots cheeseburgers?  Or, like, a sex doll made out of ham?  Or do you guys sometimes dream about making a hat that turns you into Robocop?  Holy shit, I want all of those things I just mentioned right now.”

Well, to you, we’d say, first of all, back the fuck off, those are our ideas and our legal department is like, 90% certain that the copyright is going through any day now, so if we even hear a WHISPER about someone putting RoboCap out on the market, we will sue your ass.  And secondly, uh, what a ridiculous question.  Do you even understand how complicated it would be to make a hat that turned you into Robocop?  Or how much time our creative department would take to come up with such an amazingly appropriate name for that as RoboCap?  Yeah, that shit doesn’t just happen, so no, we never think about those awesomely crazy American ideas.

We do, however, think about BoozeTown.

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Chuck Yeager is Faster Than Sound

Posted on March 21, 2011 | 3 comments

“Listen, if this plane probably won’t explode in the air, why the hell do you want me to fly it?” 

~Chuck Yeager

America is a land of advancement through the idiotic risks of others.  If someone hadn’t ignored “conventional wisdom” and eaten tomatoes when they thought it was poisonous, where would we get our pizza sauce from?  If Neil Armstrong had been worried about the very real threat of Carnivorous Moon People, we wouldn’t have the most famous example of someone fucking up a prepared speech in the history of the world (seriously, “one small step for A man,” get it right.)  If Sam Adams hadn’t gotten drunk and decided to make a bunch of people throw tea in a harbor, we wouldn’t know what to call his beer.  Dumb decisions always work out for you if you’re an American, but someone has to have the parachute-sized sack to go out and make those dumb decisions.  One of those men is renowned testicular giants was Chuck Yeager, test pilot.

That smile means he just shot down a German fighter

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America Fun Fact of the Day 3/20- Hahahahahaha Oh We’re So Sorry

Posted on March 20, 2011 | 1 comment

“Oh my god, those bastards!  They suck!”

~Everyone reading today’s fun fact

As the enterprising members of the America Fun Fact of the Day staff spend the next few weeks working on additional American projects, like a ray  gun that turns celery into donuts, or a gender-neutral sex machine that plays James Brown’s “Sex Machine” during copulation, you may have noticed a drop off in production lately.  And it’s understandable that you are upset, you all pay a very high price to be the first daily receivers of the America Fun Fact of the Day.  We have all your credit cards on file, as you no doubt have noticed the surprisingly expensive charges to “Xing Xia’s Massage” that have been popping up on your credit card bills.  How does one massage cost 500 bucks?  It’s all part of the creative process, you wouldn’t understand.

So, as a huge “fuck you” to you, the loyal readers…today’s Fun Fact will be a fucking clip show.  That’s right, just a clipboard of the greatest America Fun Fact of the Day moments of the past few months.

You see, clip shows are the most American form of entertainment.  It’s backhanded, which is the best way Americans like to deal with things (can I get a “How?” from my Indian brothers and sisters out there?  Ha, see what I did there?), and it’s incredible lazy, which is, all together now, American.  As with any clip show, we’ll add some thematic additions to each bit, but really, the writers just crapped this out in like 10 minutes, because what the hell.

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Baseball Caps: Durable Tool of Athletes and Douchebags

Posted on March 18, 2011 | 2 comments

“Baseball caps MUST BE WORN BACKWARDS.”

~You, 1992, after seeing “3 Ninjas”

“Why is every douchebag in this bar wearing a backwards baseball cap?”

~You, last Saturday

America is all about putting shit on the tops of their head.  While the notions of hats date back to the 15th century, when French noblemen began putting cloth and feathers in a piece shaped to fit the top of their skulls in their generations old tradition of, “How ridiculous can we make ourselves look in oil paintings,” hats are an essential clothing item for most everyone in the world, be it practical like a ski-cap, or offensive to a lot of people to hear it described as a “hat” like those water jugs African villagers carry on their heads.

“Let’s call it ‘Tribal Chic’ and sell it to impressionable socialites!”

But of all the hats, can you think of one that is truly American?  Sure, we have hats such as the Top Hat, the Sombrero, the….beret.  But what is the most American hat?  The one hat out there that grabs you by the ears and screams, “LOOK AT ME!  I AM AMERICA!”

The Coonskin cap?  Oh…fuck, yeah that’s actually a really good one.  Like really good.  Goddamn it, no that’s not the one we’re writing about today, but we sort of wish we were.  We had forgotten about all the badass traits associated with the Coonskin cap.  Goddamn it.  That meets both the “fuck nature” quotient we try to cram into every AFFotD, plus it would let us go on just a crazy wild tangent about Davy “Kills With a Smile” Crockett.  Davy fucking Crockett! We could have told you how Davy Crockett’s Coonskin cap alone could have sex with more women than a 2008 Tiger Woods at a Club Promoter’s Convention.  We could have talked about how Coonskin cap gave Davy Crockett the power to use fucking alligators as jet skis.

Do you think this just fucking happens!?

Shit.  Anyway, no, we were not thinking about the Coonskin cap.  Dammit.  But, no, dig deep, really try to figure out what, as a hat, do you define as being…American?

OH SON OF A BITCH!  Goddamn it to hell!  Fine.  Yes.  A Cowboy hat is a fucking awesome America hat too.  Yes, it is a hat that basically reeks of sex-at-a-19th-century-brothel.  Yes, it is the hat best designed to cover a man’s junk.  Yes, it is a hat so associated with gunfights that even new cowboy hats reek of gunpowder and fear.  Yes, cowboy hats are so damn manly that if you have sex while wearing one, it’s technically considered a Devil’s Three-Way, no matter who’s wearing it.  Fine.  Fine.  Goddamn it.

Okay, one more time, what is the most American hat you can think of?

JUST FUCKING STOP OKAY!?  We’re talking about fucking baseball caps, alright?  THOSE are pretty damn American too, you assholes.  BASEBALL CAPS.  And besides, that last one is cheating because you can totally find a baseball cap that looks like an American flag.  So yeah, eat it.  You guys suck.

Anyway, before we fire our research guru who managed to totally ignore the above examples when we asked him, “What’s the most American hat you can think of?” let’s at least discuss the actually-pretty-fucking-American background of the baseball cap, or as it used to be known, the “Brooklyn Style” cap, which was invented here in America in 1860.  And for you Coonskin cap and Cowboy hat lobbyists, technically Coonskin caps were first created by Native Americans, and the style for a Cowboy hat first was invented by Mongolians.  So there.

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