Tag Archives: Hawaii

The Dole Air Race: Crash and Burn, Repeat

“*crashes and dies horribly*”

~The average airplane pilot in the 1920s

crashed plane

On the grand scale of human endeavors, we as a species have only recently mastered the art of flight. We’ve been able to stay in the air in a contraption of our own design for only a little over 100 years at this point, and we’re still trying to work out the kinks (consider- Spirit Airlines).

But in the early days of flight, we really had no clue what the hell we were doing.  Like, at all.  Flying was something done by a very select group of crazy people with a death wish—listen, Amelia Earhart was a pioneer and an inspiration and blah blah blah, but it’s safe to say that part of her legacy comes from the fact that she partook in a profession that all but guaranteed that we’d never got to see what she looked like as an old lady.

The fact that Charles Lindbergh lived to be 72 is almost as shocking as the fact that he had a secret Nazi family.

The early days in aviation were filled with daring attempts to do something that had never been done before using planes that were made out of balsa wood, fabric, and a lot of praying. The ambition often exceeded the technology, and when we weren’t trying to milk sky cows, we were trying to fly to parts of the world that we had no right trying to fly to.

Which sets the scene for 1927, when James D. Dole, the “he actually was called this” Pineapple King, decided he would sponsor an air race from Oakland to Hawaii, a trip that had never been successfully flown before.

The Dole Air Race that followed would end up going down in history as one of America’s finest and most tragic moments of “What the fuck did you think would happen?” Just always remember- the reason you are alive today is that your great-grandparents did not try to fly airplanes in 1927.

The Dole Air Race:  Crash and Burn, Repeat

Continue reading

The American States Of America: The Most American Qualities Of Every State (Part 10 of 10)

“Don’t say it’s the musical.  I swear to God, you’d better not say it’s the musical.”

~Oklahoma residents

america states of america

PART TEN

It’s been a long, magical, pissing-off-a-lot-of-people-from-the-more-prideful-states ride, but here we are, in part 10 of our American States of America series, where we go through each and every state in this wonderful nation and tell you what we like most about them.  And after this last segment, from Delaware to Hawaii, every state will have been represented (unless Puerto Rico finally sneaks into the Union, but we don’t know if that’s the best idea, simply because we’ve yet to find a true American who didn’t get nervous trying to count to a number higher than 50).

So it’s with a heavy liver heart that we end this segment.  But don’t you worry, we’ll always be there for America, telling you all the best way to get drunk, or how you can make your cholesterol so high that anyone who takes your blood has to be diagnosed with heart disease.   But until then, we have some final states to introduce.

Continue reading

Are You American Quiz Part 3: Foreign Correspondant Edition

“Even when you start accepting Canadians, you won’t let ME in?”

~Joshua “Hey, remember Dawson’s Creek, eh?” Jackson

 

As we’ve seen previously, we at the AFFotD offices have a series of checks and tests to ensure that those working for us are properly American.  And when our first American test was unable to detect the distinctive traces of maple syrup in Seth Rogan’s Canadian blood, we had to make an secondary “Are You American” quiz to root out the pretenders and, well, Canucks.  And the combination of the two tests worked extremely well, as we were able to spot and turn away Hayden “Well, he was Darth Vader, but he also was the shitty one” Christensen, Ryan Gosling, and Ryan “We get him confused with Ryan Gosling more often than we’d like to admit” Reynolds.  But then, we received a phone call that completely changed the hiring policies of the America Fun Fact of the Day in ways that still has the offices deeply divided.

Jason “Made sweet, grunty, outdoor love to Amy Smart in Crank” Statham called and asked if he could be an AFFotD foreign correspondent.  We’re pretty sure that concept is an oxymoron, but then again we don’t know what oxymoron means (…someone too dumb to breath?), but it did lead to a series of lengthy meetings.  And by meetings, we mean a 48 hour booze party.  When we woke up, we had a series of voice mails from Angelina Jolie asking for us to stop calling or she’d file a restraining order, and Statham was in our offices to thank us for accepting his application.  We don’t remember calling him, but apparently we did.  An excerpt of the voice mail message he played for us is listed below.

“Heyyyyyy Transporter 2 guy!  Hey, it’s the America Fun Fact…urp… of the Day offices here.  Tittays!  Wooo!  Hahaha, dude dude stop it, I’m calling the bald dude from those Guy Ritchie movies.  Hey, shhhhhh guys, I’m on the PHONE here, Christ.  So, listen, like, you’re not American but you do kick ass, like, you know, Americans do, it’s how we doooooooooo.  So you can’t be on the staff man, but you can be like, our British dude.  Like, the resident British dude, or yeah, what you said, the four lane Coors despondent.  Yeah.  Yeah… I’m gonna, just, like, rest my eyes for a bit…”

Forty minutes of silence followed, but the evidence was clear.  We had hired a foreign correspondent doohickey.  And really, if anyone could have swayed us, it would have been Statham.  We added Hugh Laurie to that category shortly thereafter because, dudes, Dr. House, seriously.

But in order to add the appropriate foreign correspondents, and make sure that, despite their “born in another damn country” handicaps, they still have enough American traits to at least keep us informed of the latest crazes in Deer Kickboxing, we needed to create a new, separate test.  One that could determine the Americanness of an individual who was not technically American.  It hurt our brains to think about it, but that might just be the hangover.

And here is the fruit of our labors, the “Are You American Enough To Be Called An Honorary American” Quiz.  You can keep score at home.  A– is worth 0 points, B- is worth 1 point, C- is worth 4 points, and D- is worth 5.  Here we go again.

Continue reading

A Road Trip of Roadside Attractions Through America’s Midwest: Part 1

“Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?”

~Those fucking kids.  I swear to God, I will drive this van into a ravine.


America is a land of roads.  More than any other nation, the highways and interstates of this great land speak of a legacy.  You can drive to any state you want, assuming you had enough time, gas money, and activated charcoal to fool the breathalyzers.   Except for Hawaii, but Hawaii the 51st most American state in the World.  Guam is ahead of it, and Guam isn’t even a goddamn state.

But if it is the roads of America that serve as this nation’s heart, roadside attractions serve as our soul.  America can take something like twine, try to make the world’s biggest ball of it, and center it as the primary reason for people to visit their town.  And people will stop and see that big ass ball of twine because hey, that’s sorta cool, besides, we all need a piss stop anyway.  Hell, this is a country that not only has a “world’s largest cherry pie tin,” they have a contending giant pie tin forty-five minutes away.

No other place in the world comes close to the glory of a roadside attraction during a lengthy road trip.  In Europe, you have to deal with Smart Cars getting all up on your grill.  In South America, the closest thing they have to a “Roadside attraction” is the fact that they carve murder roads into cliffs as a way to battle population growth.

“Hola?”  “ADIOS!”

Every state in America has something just off the highway in some small town that is gloriously pointless.  What is more American than the World’s Largest Toilet ?  Why, the World’s Largest American Flag, obviously, and that’s just two towns over.  Fuck yes!

America’s Midwest is often known as “America’s Heartland,” and Indiana even admits in its state motto of “The Crossroads of America” that “You basically go through our state to get where you want to go.”  For this reason, today’s America Fun Fact of the Day will be about…

Landmark Attractions of the American Midwest (or, like, 3 states)

Continue reading