That’s Jean Valjean’s prisoner number from Les Miserables. He was imprisoned for stealing bread.

There used to be a show called Street Cents on CBC that focused on consumer and media awareness. On one episode, they torture tested Nalgene bottles.

It’s been a while but if I’m remembering right, I watched them survive:

• being thrown off a building
• being run over by a bulldozer
• being dipped in liquid nitrogen and hit with a hammer
• being heated with a blow torch

The lids broke in some of the tests, especially if they had liquid in them, but the bottles themselves are basically indestructible.

I’ve seen a knock-off bottle break when somebody set a backpack down on it too hard.

Using warm water is unsafe. Cold water only.

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/big-thaw-safe-defrosting-methods

I uninstalled Duolingo the day they started offering to restore your streak for money.

I live about 100km from my hometown. It’s where I was born and I lived there on and off for about half my life but I no longer think of it as home.

Zelda and Chill

Doomsday preppers

There are two kinds of people who own a pressure canner - people who enjoy making preserves and fucking crazy people.

Are they just betting that AI is gonna be good enough to replace all of them then?

Yes. That is literally the plan.

In a few years, I am expecting a huge consulting boom like the COBOL / FORTRAN boom that happened during Y2K.

Tame compared to some of the other stories here but the Motel 6 across from Disney World in Florida when I was visiting for a high school trip. I noticed that the soles of my feet were all black and assumed it was because I’d been walking around in the parking lot in bare feet. Turns out it was actually the carpet in the room. I wore my shoes in the room for the rest of my stay.

Windwaker had a ton of content cut. The ice island and fire island were both supposed to be full dungeons. Both of those incomplete dungeons later ended up being used in Twilight Princess.

The tower of the gods was supposed to be longer.

Fires the entire R&D department

Changes the company slogan to “Innovate”

The seasoning on cast iron is polymerized oil and it’s chemically bonded to the iron. You’re only really going to be removing the seasoning if you’re using abrasives or scrubbing too hard with steel wool or something like that.

https://www.seriouseats.com/the-truth-about-cast-iron#toc-myth-4-dont-scrub-with-soap

Any loose bits of black gunk that are coming off while you’re cleaning it with a sponge or a scrubby are just burnt food.

It’s an image of a scene from the Clue movie:

Col. Mustard: Are you trying to make me look stupid in front of the other guests?

Wadsworth: You don’t need any help from me, Sir.

Under the Influence is Terry O’Reilly’s show and he’s usually really good about sourcing things. Pretty disappointing, honestly.

I did some research on this when I was hunting for stainless cookware and I would stick with three ply.

Three ply stainless pans have an aluminum core with stainless steel cladding. At least for the brands I was looking at, five ply stainless pans are alternating layers of stainless and aluminium, where each of the two aluminum layers is half as thick as the aluminum core in the three ply pan.

In the course of my research, I learned that stainless cladding is great for ease of cleaning, durability, etc. but for actual cooking performance, it’s the aluminum core that’s doing the heavy lifting. The stainless steel layer in between the two aluminum layers makes the pan more complex to manufacture (and therefore more expensive) and doesn’t help (or actually harms) the pan’s performance.

Yep. Exactly right.

In North America, Christmas lights usually have a plug end and a socket end so you can connect multiple strings together in series.

If you accidentally put the plug end at the top of the tree, it might be tempting to try to buy or make one of these cords so you don’t have to take the lights down and redo them.

It is as dumb and lazy as it sounds.

I’m not sure if this is universally true but I’ve never seen a fully electric vehicle that uses motor oil. Hybrid vehicles with an internal combustion engine and an electric drive train would still need it, of course.

Not having to take my car for oil changes is bliss.

I wasn’t into Megas XLR but it was part of cartoon Fridays when I was in school and probably belongs in this list.

You can’t list Oblongs, Undergrads, and Clone High without mentioning Mission Hill.

Chilly Beach is probably a deep cut for non-Canadians. I most often saw it described as Canadian South Park.

I’m not sure if it counts as obscure but Invader Zim also aired around this time.

Going back a bit further, there was Duckula, where the latest in a line of vampiric ducks was resurrected using ketchup instead of blood and became a vegetable vampire.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was made into a cartoon of questionable suitability for children.