Strange, but True Things We Learned This Week

We will get to why we are using an image of Ozzy Osbourne, who is going to be performing in Tampere, Finland, on June 9th, later in this entry, but first here are four surreal things we found out this week. We have four more strange, but true items on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time." Here are the things that will likely surprise you:

1) Osama bin Laden (1957-2011) was the subject of a UCLA geography department study that sounds a bit like a more formal take on "Where's Waldo?" in which geographer Thomas Gillespie and his colleague John Agnew along with undergraduate students from UCLA tried to predict where the ruthless terrrorist leader was hiding. Through sturdy research, they concluded that with an 88.9 % likelihood that bin Laden was in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which proved to be correct. (I actually thought he was in Karachi or Islamabad myself, but I had never heard of Abbottabad until late Sunday night). I heard this story through the BBC last night, and it was also reported in "Science" magazine.

2) What is the busiest McDonald's in the world? Well, the answer is ironically the historic McDonald's located at Pushkin Square in Moscow, Russia. It serves 30,000 customers per day!

3) Do you think it costs too much to go to the movies these days? Well, as we reported on our sister blog yesterday, the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco is selling tickets for $20-40 for tonight's special 30th anniversary screening of "Mommie Dearest,"for Mother's Day, which will be presented by a local transvestite celebrity named Pecahes Christ. The cinema is also showing a Faye Dunaway double-header (she stars as Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest" and the film is apparently her least favorite) on May 11, including a screening of "The Eyes of Laura Mars." Personally, I would prefer going to the May 11 event, but San Fran is a long way from the east coast!

4) I read another great article/column by "The Atlantic" magazine's media writer James Parker about how heavy metal has 'saved our souls.' The article reminded me of how I heard the music of Ozzy Osbourne (yes, now we are now getting to him) in Bursa, Turkey, which is a fairly conservative city with a large number of fundamentalist Muslims. Interestingly enough, Turkey has a 'heavy metal scene" with domestic bands like Labrient, founded by Serhat Kocak and Yavuz Selim Sarici. But, sadly, we also learned a few months back from WKNC (88.1-FM/Raleigh) the student-run station at North Carolina State that the Turkish scene is not quite as globally recognized as the Greek heavy metal scene, which includes the likes of Acid Death and Nightfall. But, perhaps music associated with demons and warlocks can perhaps bring the two feuding countries together once and for all. And, I'm sure that would delight Ozzy Osbourne and his compatriots!