Good Job, Brain! - 8: Very Superstitious...

Episode Date: April 23, 2012

Gold underwear, chopsticks, and rabbit's foot. Everyone has their own crazy superstitions and lucky charms. We confess to our own rituals, talk about really nutty ones in the world of sports and theatre, and find out about the origins of classic superstitions like black cats and triskaidekaphobia. Hope you enjoy the show, FINGERS CROSSED! (Har har.) ALSO: bizarre headlines, name the famous pooch, Chris' special challenge! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hello, bright and brilliantly buoyant brain buffs. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode eight, and of course, I am your humble host, Karen. and along with me is our freaky faction of fact-fancying fanatics, our co-host contestants. I'm Colin. Dana. And I'm Chris.

Woo. All right. Yay. I'm just going to start the show with a couple of weird headlines I read this week. And here are the exact headlines. Number one, Fed's Puzzle, how to remove frozen cows from Colorado Cabin. Oh, I read about that. I read that story.

I did. I have some detail on that. Yeah. So these, and I guess this is not uncommon, but these cows, it's a frozen cabin, like a temporary hunting lodge up in the mountains. And the cows walked in there seeking shelter, froze to death, and then there's just like this mass of frozen cow in there. So basically, I guess the common way of doing this is with explosives. So they're, yes, they're pondering whether to remove the cows with explosives. Okay.

First of all, how is this not a reality television show? Cow expletors. Cow blasters. Only on the history channel. Coming soon. So the big threat of why this is such a big deal is because they're scared that the cow bodies will decompose and sink into the earth and pollute the springs. The water table. Oh, my God.

So it would be cow germs or rotting cow germs. Rodding cow germs in your water. That's why you've got to get one of the Britta filters. It's just good sense. And the other weird, weird headline is Man accused of getting his dog drunk on vodka So this guy is charged And you know, rightfully so

For giving his Pomeranian So it's a small dog A to go cup of vodka What's a to go cup? Like a coffee cup? Yeah, like so it's not like a little dish or anything It's like it's actual cup That's not right

And that's nuts. And I think the dog, they noticed that the dog, they described, couldn't walk in a straight line. Couldn't drive a car. You couldn't say his alphabet backwards. The dog's like, listen, man, I love you. So much. Why don't we play fetch anymore? I thought I was your best friend.

Now, I mean, maybe, okay, other extenuating circumstances, did the dog just lose his job? So, Arley, the second is the dog's name, and its blood alcohol level was at 0.34%, which is four times the limit for driving, and almost at the level that is fatal to humans. Again, I would not put that dog behind the wheel of a car. I wonder how you get the dog to blow in the breathalyzer. How are they meant to? Poor doggy, man. So, yeah, this guy is facing charges. Like animal abuse?

Yep. Animal cruelty. Well, also the dog was a minor too. Oh, man. Oh, God, it's worse. So I feel bad because, like, obviously I love dogs. And I'm like, this is horrible, but at the same time, it's like bizarrely funny. Yeah.

It doesn't seem uncommon. Like, you can imagine people, drunk people finding this is a funny thing to do. Why not? What? We're having a good time. How is the dog? The dog is alive. Oh, okay.

The dog is fine. All right, good. And wise. Yeah. With a really bad hangover. All right, and Dana, you have some quick news. Oh, I wanted to say thank you to everybody who downloaded T-Rex Tea Party. Yeah.

We should come out of last week on the advertisement show. Really appreciate it. You guys are awesome. There are a couple little bugs, but we have a patch being processed right now for Apple, so that should be out within the next couple of days. Awesome. Thanks so much. If you haven't downloaded Dana's game available on iPad and iPhone, it is T-Rex Tea Party.

Check it out. Very fun. All of us kind of have. help too so they're on the leaderboard see if you could take them down i'm number one right now oh snap okay here we go let's start the show with our general trivia quiz segment pop quiz hot shot and here we go get your barnyard buzzers ready everybody blue wedge what u.s. state is home to the women's rights national historical park I'm going to guess New York

You are correct I just I know that like a lot of the early suffrage movement Was based in New York Seneca Falls Well that's where the thing Yeah Okay look at that Very good

You got it the right way Yes I reasoned it out Pink Wedge In his 2009 Golden Globe acceptance speech Who did Mickey Rourke single out with a special thank you.

Oh, that's right. I remember. It was somebody, God, I remember when this happened. I cannot, I cannot recall. And he won,

obviously, for the wrestler. Yeah. Uh-huh. I'm like, Dana. Hokeke. In correct.

Chris? Classy, Freddie Blassie. No. He thanked his dogs. Oh. Both his dogs from past and present. Do you know he's a big dog lover?

That they always believed in him. Yeah. Okay, Yellow Wedge. Who was the first pope to enter a mosque? Oh. Oh, that was Chris. He was alive forever. I'm going to say John Paul II.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense because part of his thing was just building bridges and really building ties with other major religions. That makes sense. Yep. and a purple wedge who began a trilogy

with the girl with the dragon tattoo I'm sorry I buzzed in a little early but I think we all know it's Steak Larson All right green wedge for science Which of these Multiple answer Is a scientific term For the sleep you might wake up in your eyes

Is that groom Plume room room or shloom. Wait, the sleep you might wake up in your eyes? Yeah, that's how it's worded. They mean like the sandy, like you rub the sleep out of your eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Read them all again.

Groom, plume, room, or shloom. Chris. Room. Correct. What a weird room. We're going to come from, though. It just said room. Oh, really?

Yeah. Thanks, Trou. Is it R-O-O-M or? It's R-H-E. E-U-M-R-O. Interesting. That's kind of what I was thinking, yeah. All right.

Rheumatism. Orange Wedge. I thought it might be schmum like smugma or something like growth cred. This is a family show. It's not explicit. Moving on. Moving on. Yeah, move it, moving on.

I don't know if it's moving right along to a better place or not. Orange Wedge. What brand of gum use the slogan. The gum that goes squirt. So there was gum, I don't know it, but it's, no, no, no, no, no, there was gum that actually had, like, juice inside of the gum, and you'd bite into it and it would squirt in your mouth. Yeah, like a McGrittle, pass. Like a McRiddle? You bust in and you're like, pass.

It's, it's, juicers. The gum that goes squirt. I cannot remember. I can picture the commercials. I can picture the commercials. I feel like this would be a pretty memorable tagline, but like none of us remember. It is freshen up. Oh. So it might be some sort of mouthwashy.

No, I guess, oh, that's, yeah, I guess we're wrong. I can, I know what the package looks like, because I do enjoy that gum. I have been known to enjoy that gum on occasion. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And we have our Kickstarter backer questions. This one is from Alfredo Lera from Shikers.

Oh, what a weird question. His question is, what is a group of unicorns known as? Colin. I'm going to say unicornocopia. That's good. That's good. That's only if they're in a basket. I think that is better than the real answer.

Chris. A rainbow of unicorns. Incorrect. Dana, you want to take a stab? I don't know. A fable. Oh. Ooh, that is very poetic.

That's good. The answer is blessing. A blessing of unicorns. I mean, who's the, what's the authority on me, unicorn? I'm going to call, I'm going to call baloney on this. Like, who comes up with? A blessing of unicorns. Rolled eyes of unicorns.

A rolled eyes of unicorns. What about a business of unicorns? I always like that. It's a business of fractures, I think, right? Oh, a murder of unicorns. Oh, that murder of unicorns. Oh, how about a miracle of unicorns? All right, and our second backer question is from Jake Jensen from British Columbia, Canada.

And this is a video game question, so we should all get this. What was the first PC video game to only be available on CD-ROM and not floppy disk? Oh. Colin. Was it Quake? Incorrect. You say I'm supposed to get this, but this is tough. Only on CD-ROM and not Floppies.

Something with a lot of graphics. Chris. Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. Incorrect. You know, I would have guessed MIST. No, no. Missed was like the killer app for CD-ROM. It was what made people run out and buy CD-ROM because it was so amazing.

But there were CD-ROM games beforehand. Can I throw out a few early CD-ROM games? Okay, Mario. was missing. Nope. Not Sherlock Holmes. Geez, I don't know. I don't know what game.

It is the seventh guest. Oh, I remember that one. Holy cow. I remember that one. Yeah, yeah. Released in April 1993. Compu, USA, go down there

and get it from the story. So Jake wrote in and he said, I was obsessed with this game and it's music and still feel that it has one of the best video game soundtracks of all time, and it was released when he was in eighth grade, and it cost him $90. Whoa, he got ripped off.

And it totally put, I mean, it could be Canadian. Could be Australian, yeah. And definitely, the seventh guest put his tray-loaded single-speed CD-roll drive to the test. Oh, you mean the cup holder. So, yeah, seventh guest, first CD-ROM only. That's a good one. The first are always awesome trivia. All right, good job, everybody's brains.

time for our topic of the week, and today it's all about superstitions and good luck charm. Not ghosts. Well, I mean, that's essentially what it is, right? I mean, the word superstition, it's a belief in supernatural causation, right? I mean, that's what it is boiled down to. The belief that if you do something, that it will cause something else to happen by some process that has nothing to do with the physical world. With no reason. Or prevent something from happening.

Oh, sure, yeah, yeah. You know, warding off certain things. Yeah, but that's a causatory, cause and effect. It's a belief in cause and effect that you can't actually measure. So I want to start out by asking you guys if there are any superstitions that you yourself actually follow. I mean, we hear about, you know, like four-leaf clovers and horseshoes and, you know, cracks on the sidewalk. But what are some that you actually notice or realize that you actually do follow or, quote, practice? It's funny.

I mean, I like to think of myself as a pretty rational, empirically minded person. So I was struggling to think of a superstition that I really follow. I think the closest one for me is a sports superstition, which at least in America is probably one of the most accepted kinds of superstitions is related to sports. So what do you do? Well, so I'm a big, I grew up in Los Angeles, so I'm a Los Angeles Lakers fan, which makes me very unpopular with a lot of other basketball fans. But, so I'm a Lakers fan, even though I'm living in the Bay Area. So when the Lakers are in the NBA finals, when they're in the championships, I have a Lakers hat that I wear. And I'll wear it every game day that they're playing, and I've been doing this for over a decade now.

Hoping they would win. Hoping that they would win. And it's, I mean, you know, the Lakers colors are purple and gold. So it's a little bit of a garish hat. And they've won championships five out of the seven years that I've been doing this. It's Colin. Yeah, it's clearly me. Right, right, right, yeah.

Those sorts of things can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? So Tyler Hinman, previous guests here on Good Job Brain, right? I believe he is, at every crossword puzzle tournament he has competed in, has worn the shirt that he wore, the year that he won, the first one that he won. So, you know, and when you do that, you give yourself that confidence, right? If you kind of, like, have this totem, like they tell people, use one pen in your classrooms when you're taking notes and use the same pen on your test because that pen has only ever written the correct answers. So, you know, stuff like that, that actually can, there probably is an effect on you if you believe that, that's sort of positive effect. I think, I mean, definitely, anything that makes you more comfortable or more familiarize the process, you're going to perform better.

However, the Lakers do not know you're wearing the hat, so there's no effect there. Well, I keep sending them videos every year. Okay. All right. It's just you with the hat, nothing else on. Oh. It has a different effect. Good job, brain.com.

I have a lot of superstitions. So if I go through a light and it's yellow, it hasn't turned red yet. I'm not breaking the law. I just want to make the color. I, like, you kissed your fingers and then you touch the ceiling of the car. A lot of people do that, yeah. To keep it from turning red, is that, or just... I feel like it's like, I sneaked by right here.

You're thinking the guy. It's good luck. My mom said it's for good karma. I was like, I don't think that's how karma works. So this raises the question. Did you get it from your mom? No, I think I got it in college. And I don't even notice myself doing it.

It's only when I'm driving other people around. They're like, what are you doing? I don't know. I don't know. If I feel like I'm bragging too much or I'm talking about good fortune, like I have to knock wood because I'm like, oh, I'm about to jinx myself. Things are going great. Knock wood. Like, oh, no.

Man, so I have, I grew up in Asia, so I have a whole bunch of them. But this is a weird one and very specific. It's related to some Chinese dog superstitions that I, air quote, practiced since I was a kid. And it's weird. And I was trying to research and try to justify and verify these beliefs online. But it's like folklore. You never know where they come from. So maybe you can file this under stuff my mom used to tell me, but it totally could be nonsense.

But regardless, so there's a belief that having a dog with rear due claws and do claws that like that extra toe. Oh, okay. The one that's like halfway up the leg. Yep. A couple inches above the paw, and it's on their hind legs. And not all dogs have it, but the dogs who do have it is believed to bring good luck. And the reason is because the belief is that those dogs are kind of like, how do I describe this? It's like the quintessential version of a dog, like the loyal hound archetype.

And it's like all the essence of the greatest qualities of a dog can be found on dogs. Ness. Yeah, the dog-ness, the essence of dog. Oda-dog, O-de-Scien. And dogs with do claws are considered, the rear do-claws are considered being really loyal and good luck. When I moved here to America, it's a common procedure for vets to take them off. Wow. Because might get stuck, might be, you know, might get infected, just because it's just skin.

It's not any, it's not connected to bone. It's like the stigial, right? Yeah. Exactly. And so when I adopted my first dog, it's just, it's just, because it's just skin. here who has rear due claws the vet's like oh I can I can use surgery and take them off and I was like no

are you crazy it's not a dog anymore what are you kidding me this is like the best kind of dog I think that the vet is just hoarding all the due claws to himself oh yeah oh yeah he's scotch taping him on the other dogs he's like a modern day blue beard he's just a closet full of dukelau

yeah no he's just got one dog with dew claws hanging off like jewelry off of the he's more due claw than dog at this point yeah I know yeah to believe that he'll ascend into some sort of dog god

your veterinarian is a horrible person just saying that right now this guy's sick so um so there is I tried to think because I'm I'm in no way superstitious but the one thing that I make sure to that would be considered a superstition.

But then there is a rational basis for doing this as well, is that when you are in Asian countries and you're eating rice out of a bowl or you're eating with chopsticks in general, you do not ever, and people, you know, Westerners do this a lot. You don't just take the chopsticks and leave them in the bowl of rice.

You don't just stick them right into the bowl and leave them there. And the reason that you don't do this is they do this at funerals. It's actually, it's reminiscent if you look at it. First of all, people have suggested that you don't do it because it's reminiscent of burning incense sticks at funerals because they're burned kind of straight up at funerals. But then also, typically, they will leave a bowl of rice with chopsticks in it, you know, for the deceased at a grave site.

So for one of those reasons or possibly both of those reasons when you're eating, you put your chopsticks in front of the bowl or on top of the bowl. You never stick them in there and leave them there. And the reason I don't do it is because it freaks people out and it reminds them. It's not because you believe in it. It's not because I believe it. It's because, A, it freaks people out. be it reminds them of death and that's one of the things it's like you don't do something

that reminds people of the ritual for death now some people superstitiously would say that if you do something that reminds you of death or a funeral you're inviting death in you know sort of reverse causation like if you do something that you typically do with a funeral you're saying hey death i'm ready for you come on in let's hang out yeah i'm cool eating with ghosts So you essentially don't do that. Now, the other, there was something else involving noodles that my fiancée Regina told me that she had a boyfriend in college who was a white guy and he would make ramen. When you eat long noodles, long noodles symbolize long life.

And so when you're eating these long noodles, it's about having a long, long life. And what he would do is he'd get the package of ramen, he'd make the ramen, and then he'd smash up the whole thing, you know, and break apart all the noodles into little tiny pieces and eat them with a spoon like soup. Yeah. You know, because white people, huh. So, and she would freak. And she'd just be like, no, what are you doing?

You're chopping up your life. Like, you're going to die. Because she had, I mean, she'd really had all of these things, you know, kind of like you, instilled upon her, like superstitions from soup to nuts, instilled upon her by her, by her very Asian, you know, parents. Can't do that. This is bad. This is bad. You're going to die. You're going to die.

You're going to die. You're going to die. Right. The other thing is, I actually found out doing research for the chopsticks. thing. You don't pass food between chopsticks. You don't take food in chopsticks and pass it over to someone else and somebody else takes it. Yeah, you know why? It's hard. It's super hard. My mom said that too. No, at cremations, when they cremate the body and the bones are left over like in the ashes, the family members use chopsticks together and like I'll use chopsticks on one part of it

and you use chopsticks in the other part, we put them into the urn, like that. And so the only time that you ever have two people having two pairs of chopsticks on something is at funeral. So again, to do that, if people see you doing that, it reminds them of a very painful time. They're also very... You don't want to do that at the table. As you said, they're very auspicious behaviors. You don't want to... You call attention to the bad fortune on these kind of things.

Right, right, right, yeah, yeah. It's weird to talk about cremation and food, like in the same little section. Uh-huh. And I see why you shouldn't talk about death and food. I almost threw up when you were so... Yeah, exactly, yeah. Well, that's the thing so many of these... Put it in your soup.

As we're going to find out, as you keep researching, like, why the superstitions exist, they exist. There's a reason. Like, there's an actual reason why they exist, and a lot of it has to do with, like, taboos about death and unclanliness, right? But then, as that taboo kind of goes away, you're just left with the behavior. Yeah. And the behavior is like, well, you don't do that. Why? Because we just don't know.

And obviously a lot of these things are passed down from parents or from families or from cultures. And we see a lot of superstitions in the professional world. Right. Just from the trade, from the old craftsmanship passing down. And we have a couple examples. I found that in gourmet cuisine kitchen culture, you cannot whistle. Whistling is not allowed. not only is it bad luck, it's also disrespectful.

And the reason is, and obviously, I don't know if this is confirmed by this folk tale reason. During the French Revolution, when Marie Antoinette was, you know, heading to the guillotine and getting beheaded, all of her staff, including the kitchen staff, all got executed as well. And so when they're walking their way to the guillotine, people would cheer and whistle as they're on their death march. And so the custom of whistling in the kitchen, especially in a French kitchen, makes people super, super duper nervous. It's not allowed. Yeah, whistling is actually you're not supposed to whistle when you are doing a play, when you are doing a theatrical performance. You're not supposed to whistle. Unless you're bad luck, unless you're, you know, if you're on stage or off stage, you're walking off stage or hanging around.

No, no, no, no. Well, yeah, you have to whistle. I guess you whistle. But like, you're not supposed to just sort of idly be whistling, and it's considered bad luck. Now, the reason why is because back in the day, the people that they would hire to rig the theater were actually, the reason it's called rigging. It's because it's the rigors of ships. They would get rigors of ships to come in and rig the curtains up and all that kind of sort of theater. The way that they would communicate to each other, letting each other know what to do was to whistle, was to do certain whistles, which would be like, okay, well, time to close this down or take this up or change the set.

You don't want to mess them up. You don't want to mess them up. So you're not supposed to be whistling because they're going to misinterpret that. And then again, as the coded whistle system of swapping scenes out for plays became passei, it just became, you know, oh, don't do it. Why? Well, you know, bad luck. Yeah. Yeah, whatever.

And there's a lot more, actually, in the theater. You know, I did plays in high school. And so very quickly you're introduced to, you know, all of the different theater superstitions. Yeah. One of them I heard, and from Good Job Brain, Twitter and Facebook followers, they mentioned, you cannot mention McBack. When you're referring to the play Macbeth, you cannot say McBeth. The Scottish play. And quite frankly, we're doing a production of something right now,

which means we really shouldn't even be saying it. It's so weird. There's people listening at home going, why are you saying this? You're all going to die. If you're not some wood, I think it'll be okay. Let's cancel it. Well, you know, yeah, I mean, there's always something you can do to cancel it out.

If you say it, you know, they'll make you go outside, spin in a circle, spit on the ground. It's a porcel, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, do whatever, this little ritual. But, I mean, you know, Macbeth, and people don't really know why you're not supposed to say it, but, you know, it's because, you know, the play, it has, it opens with witches and sorcery, you know, and people in theater are always afraid of ghosts and witchcraft. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's deathly, but it's supernatural, and so to invoke the name of this play is to invite witches and supernatural behavior to come screw up your play, you know, so it's sort of like saying Beetlejuice three times, right? Really, I mean, they always will say the Scottish play, if they have to refer to. to Macbeth in the course of production. I was in a production of the Scottish play. It also makes you seem like you're in and you're cool. You know the

you know, oh, you know the lingo. You can't whistle here. Get out of you. It's the Scottish player, okay? And of course, everybody knows you don't say good luck in a performance. You never wish someone good luck.

Break a leg. Break a leg. That's where that comes from. That's why you say break a leg because you don't wish someone, because you're jinxing it. If you say good luck, it means you're jinxing it and they're going to screw up.

Yeah, exactly. So you say, break a leg, which means that, you know. It's like a reverse psychology. It's a reverse jinx. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. By saying break a leg, you know, like do bad. Yeah. So what other things are not allowed in the theater? Well, I can tell you about the ghost light, which again, I mean... What is a ghost light?

The ghost light is... So in a theater, typically, there will always be a plight on stage. When nothing is going on in the theater, they'll have a free state. standing light, like a naked bulb, you know, sort of in a tall lamp, placed somewhere on stage, depending on the theater. They have specific directions where it goes. And it's called the ghost light. And so there are various superstition-based reasonings, you know, for why it's there.

And, in fact, both of the major explanations actually contradict each other, because one explanation is you put it there so the ghosts don't come onto your stage and start acting out their own plays. That's cute The other explanation is You put it there So that the ghosts can Come onto your stage While you're not there

And act out their own little plays Because then that appeases the ghosts of the theater They can do their own plays And then they're going to be nicer to you Don't scare us Right, right The closest thing I could find To an actual rationale is

Because it's really dangerous To have an unlit stage So if someone has to walk out into the stage In the total darkness And like find the lighting boards So they can start turning the actual lights on they might fall into the orchestra pit and break their death and die

so you want to have a light out there I mean I don't know if there's any again I mean I alluded to this earlier with the sports the sports superstitions that you know sports is chock full of superstitions and again I mean as Chris mentioned a lot of it's because it's the ritual and athletes you know are probably the most ritual oriented

people of any profession because it's all about winning it's about winning there and it's about yeah whatever you do if it works one time you want to perpetuate that and keep that going So when you see somebody get into the batters box and get outside the batters box and back in and tap the batters box in the two, three corners and taking swings, he's not like mathematically making sure he's all well, a lot. He's doing it all because it's a ritual. Right. And if you watch any given ball player, they'll do the same thing each time.

And, you know, I mean, as we said, it's not necessarily, I mean, this is even the greatest athletes in their sports, perhaps part of the reason is that they have these superstitions. You know, I mean, as I'm a basketball fan of one of my famous, you know, this is a pretty well known in basketball circles that, you know, Michael Jordan, who. who played for University of North Carolina in college, he wore his UNC shorts underneath his Bulls shorts for his entire playing career. His little shorty shorts from winning the championship in 1982, and he would wear his tar heels, his UNC tarheels shorts underneath his bulls, baggy bulls shorts for every game.

And again, clearly... A little bit constricting, not at all. Didn't stop Jordan. It worked for him. I don't think it could be more constricting than a jock strap. Tiger Woods, you know, a lot of people... wore Michael Jordan's U.S.C. shorts underneath

underneath his trousers. They had to trade them off. Yeah. It's really. The schedule gets conflicted some days. If you watch golf highlights, you know, you'll frequently see Tiger Woods

wearing the red shirt, which is, you know, he wears his red shirt on Sundays, which are the last day of golf tournaments. Always, always, always, has worn a red shirt on Sundays. You know, it's his dominant color. It's a strength color.

Also auspicious in the Asian culture. Very much so. And as, you know, his mother was, I believe Thai, or that's right, a mix of Thai and Chinese possibly. But she told him once that he's a Capricorn, and so red is his power color, so his power would be the highest at red. So he saves it for Sundays when he's on the showdown day.

And, you know, also they've done some studies that red can be an intimidating color in sports uniforms. Baseball just through and through full of superstitions. I was reading about some unusual personal practices. Now you guys know most baseball players wear batting gloves when they're up, right? Protect your hands, do a little bit of grip. There are some players who don't wear batting gloves, and they have their own unique way of toughening up their hands. They pee on their hands. So a couple big-name players, Moises Alu and Jorge Pasada as well, among them.

They don't wear batting gloves, and they will, over the course of the season, routinely urinate on their hands. They swear it toughens their hands out. And I feel like they've convinced themselves of this truth. Is it superstitious? There's no scientific evidence that it toughens your hands. In fact, I came across a little thing that said, actually, if anything, they said that the urea, the ureic acid, might actually soften your hand. Yeah. Works on jellyfish bites.

Yeah. I mean, just all kinds of crazy stuff. This is a little bit of a crass thing in baseball, but... More so than peeing on your own hand. More so than peeing on your own hands. You guys know what the slump buster is. Have you heard of this concept? Well, I'm guessing you bust a slump.

Get yourself out of your slump. If you're in a hitting slump, yes. and one of the more common... Is there poop involved? There's no poop involved. I think it's a groupie thing. It is related to groupies, you're right. Yeah, there's a lore among a lot of baseball players

that if you're in a slump, you find... I'm going to put this as diplomatically as I can. You find the most unattractive groupie that you can and have relations with her. And that will break you out of your slump. Wow. Another slump luster that is just comical was... Do you guys know the ball player Jason Giambi?

Yeah. He has his own personalized. slump buster, he is a gold lame thong that whenever he is in a prolonged hitting slump, he would wear this thong until he got out of the slump. Wow. Where it gets even creepier is that he would

lend it to other players if they were in a slump. Now, I can only hope that the team equipment manager washes this thing between you. You don't know. I can see where you're like, oh, I need to feel fancy under my uniform. Like, nobody knows what I'm

wearing under these pants. Imagine wearing... It's like you're punishing yourself. I think it just brings you into the moment because you can never forget I'm wearing this song. I'm wearing this song. Yeah. And it belongs to someone else, so you can think about that too.

So do you guys know in baseball there's the concept of a perfect game? Yeah. Oh, okay, yeah. So no one reaches base, no one gets a hit. But it just happened. It just happened. Really? Just happened just a couple days ago.

Philip Humber, through the 21st perfect game in MLB history. So that should give you an idea of how rare they are. 21 and you know 150 years of baseball history you know if a pitcher's in the middle of a of a perfect game or no hitter you don't talk about it you do not mention it you know you don't say it you don't say hey you got a no hitter going you know you don't bring it up everybody knows everybody knows and you do not want to be the guy who jinxes it by mentioning it and you know oftentimes they'll even show the guy you know on the bench you know between innings no one sits near him no one talks to him you don't want to look at him you don't want to be the guy who interrupts the rhythm yeah it makes it don't change anything about the state. Yeah, yeah. And then just one of the more random ones, especially to non-sports fans, is in hockey, you guys know the Detroit Red Wings, one of the winningest teams of all times. When they're in the playoffs, for home games, fans throw octopus, octopi on the ice.

Have you guys ever seen this? Yes. Real, real actual octopi. And it goes back to the 50s, these brothers threw an octopus on the ice. And the lore goes that the eight tentacles represented the eight wins that you needed to win the Stanley Cup at the time. And I like that. I like that.

The team knows it's coming. Everyone in the ice knows it's going to happen. Do people ever protested? When? Like animal cruelty? These are dead octopids. They're dead octop. Yeah.

You purchase them. They're food. Oh, man. So if you're going to play them, you should like practice being pilted with oxford. Yeah. That's one of the training exercises. I imagine like like a Rocky style training montage where the player just getting

octopus is thrown at them. Yeah. No frills. Delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from no friends. with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca.

Steve Cubine and Nan McNamara's podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. Mary Astor has been keeping a diary. Mary writes everything down. And so this torrid affair with George S. Kaufman is chronicled on a daily basis. In great detail. And Ipe pulls out a box and gives McAllister a ring saying, And here's something to remember me by. This article caused Daryl Zanick to hit the roof.

Actress Ruth Roman followed that up with playing a foil to Betty Davis in Beyond the Forest. I mean, if you can stand toe to toe with her, boy. And she does because she plays the daughter of the man that Betty Davis kills out in the hunting trip. And it's directed by King Vidor, so he's no slouch. How do you go wrong with that? Speaking of the Oscars, talking about what I call Beginners Luck, It's all about the actors and actresses who won an Oscar on their very first film. Get your fix of old Hollywood from Stephen Ann on the podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign.

So we did do some outreach with our good job bringing Twitter followers and Facebook likers. They contributed their own weird superstition. Alex Fowler wrote in. He developed his own personal superstition. And it's caused by a nightmare he had. And he wrote, when I was a child, after having a recurring nightmare, where a green skeleton without a head chase me through my house and tried to eat me. I was convinced I would have the same nightmare unless I chanted Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa,

over and over in my head and moved my eyes while closed, left, right, up, down, left, right, up down a few times. And he says, why Santa? Why enter cheat codes with my eyes? I may never know. But it seemed to work. Oh, good one. Yeah, it's just a lot of these weird personal things. And Lindsey Miller from Facebook, she said she'll always skip the 13th stare.

When she's hoping for something, she would find herself chanting, no whammy, no whammy, no whammy, no whammy, no whammy. A lot of us do too. That just works, yeah. Yeah. And on Twitter, Joseph said that he doesn't know if it's O'S, CD or a superstition, but he doesn't step on cracks. And Scott Campbell on Twitter also wrote, always throw

spilled salt over the shoulder to which shoulder, though? It's supposed to be the left one. Oh, really? I was heard of salt over the left shoulder. I didn't know. Because the devil's back there. Sinister. Left being the bad. And he also doesn't walk under ladders.

And so, yeah, a lot of us still have these kind of old school common superstition. It's like, they're so weird because it's like, where did they, where did they come from. A lot. I mean, you mentioned 13 in particular, and that's a really good one. As trivia nerds, we all know, it's Trisca Decaphobia. Absolutely. A Greek. An awesome word. Yes, Greek from Triskeedecaphobia. Trisca Deca. Triscaphobia. So Greek, Tris 3, Kai, K-A-I, meaning and, Deca, D-E-K-A, 10. This one was really interesting. There's so many, I mean, we talked about so many possible

explanations for this one that it is kind of lost. It seems like the most common origin of people's sight has to do with, you know, either the Last Supper. Last Supper, yep. That Judas was, you know, obviously Judas who betrayed Jesus was the 13th to sit at the table. You know, unfortunately, the Bible doesn't mention what order they were seated at the table. So it's really arbitrary, but it certainly seems like the common thread is that 13 is one more than a lot of good harmonious things. Yep. Most likely is that it's just in relation to 12.

There are so many the 12 Olympian gods. There are the 12 apostles, the 12 zodiac signs, the 12 tribes of Israel. I mean, it recurs a lot of places and that 13 kind of upsets the balance. And also being an odd number and also a prime number seems kind of out of place. That's right. That's right. There's one story that a lot of people cite. It stems from the Code of Hamarabi, the Babylonian Code, where there was no 13th law.

And that sounds really, you know, very kind of Dan Brown, mystery exciting. But I read that really, no, in later. additions they had it in, they had just omitted it by accident in earlier. For all you math nerds out there, I discovered... Yes, yes, that's me. 13. Karen, do you know what an e-merp number is? E-merp.

E-merp. Sounds familiar. It's prime spell backwards. So, 13 is the smallest e-merp number, meaning that 13 and 31 are both crime. Oh. Yes. Yes. And, of course, a math nerd would come up with emirp number.

Sounds so nerdy. E-erps. Certainly, yeah, there's Friday the 13th, and we see it manifesting a lot of ways. A lot of buildings don't have a 13th floor. Even where we live in San Francisco. There's no 13th street, and there's no 13th Avenue as well.

Well, I'll tell you, I mean, you know, very closely related is, of course, tetrophobia, fear of the number 4, which of course is prevalent throughout all of Asia. And it's a lot easier to figure out why there's the fear of the number 4 because it's pronounced in Japanese pronounced she, which is the same way the word death is pronounced.

And, of course, in other languages as well, right, Karen? Yes, in Chinese, it is a, so death is s'i, and then the character four is si, si, and si, very similar. Very, quite similar, yeah, exactly. Is it bad because of the similarity of words, or is it bad for other words? Just sound. It doesn't, the characters don't even look alike, but just sound. But it's the sound.

In some buildings, in Asia, they will not have a fourth floor, right? Sometimes they will also not have a 13th floor, and sometimes they will not have any floors that even have the number four in them at all. So there may be no 14th floor. Or the entire block of 40s. The entire block of 40s. There are buildings in Shanghai where the floors go from 39 to 50, right? After skipping four and 13. So it's like for one, two, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fifteen, sixteen.

I would just like why they don't just switch to letters at that point. No, floor A, floor B, four C. There are housing blocks where they number the blocks of housing gated communities, whatever. Then it's like block one, block two, block three, block three A, block five. Oh. Office, this was interesting. I came across this. So, you know, Microsoft Office.

So after Office 2007, which was Office 12 in terms of the numbering, they skipped the numbering. They went from Office 2007 to Office 14 as sort of an acknowledgement of, you know, But let's just not even mess around with this. Whether we believe it or not, we don't want to have it be Office 13. Because, I mean, it's not them that superstition may be the consumers. It's a lot of other people. Right, exactly.

We're talking about all this, like, bad luck stuff. What about good luck charms? And I looked into the rabbit's foot, which to me has always been kind of random. And also kind of cruel. Why would you have just a foot? It wasn't lucky for the rabbit. No, it wasn't. It's like, where did the amputation of rabbits come from?

The whole thing about rabbits is it has been a symbol of fertility because they breed a lot of offsprings and they're very sexual. I like how you were trying to avoid it. I was trying to avoid it. I was like, nah, let's just say they like to have sex. They are quite vigorous. And so obviously fertility and birth and it's kind of the symbol of Easter, right, the rebirth and birth, why particularly the foot?

I thought I was going to get such a great story. but it turns out to be kind of anticlimatic because within the rabbit family we have rabbits and we have hairs right right and hairs are one of the extremely few four legged animals whose back feet hit the ground first when running because they have the big paws and they kind of swing when back in the days when people looked at hair tracks they kind of look weird because their their hind feet are first people thought they were magical. People thought the hind legs of hairs or rabbits were lucky

because it's kind of weird when they have these tracks. Obviously, don't know if this is, all this folklore stuff, you'd never know if it's proven or not, but kind of dumb. Yeah, no, and on that note, so a hair walks into a bar, and he says to the bartender, yes, I'll have a gin

and tonic, and the bartender says, to the hair, why the big paws? Oh, because the Oh, I'm so bad at those. I'm so bad. I'm so dumb. Do you guys have other common superstition beliefs? So black cats are cute.

Adort. I think they're cute. They're considered bad luck a lot of times in Western culture. But that's not everywhere. Some places they're good luck in Japan. If a woman has a lot of black cats, they say, oh, she'll have a lot of suitors. Which, ironically. Because what guy doesn't love crazy cat lady?

Yeah, sometimes they're a symbol of prosperity. Sometimes pirates have a mixed relationship with cats or 19th century pirates did. I'm talking about them as if they were still. Right, right, right. When you say mixed relationship, I'm like, you mean romantic? Well, you know, you're on the sea, all those. Get lonely. If they're walking away from you, they're good luck, and if they're walking towards you, they're bad luck.

But if they go on your ship and then leave the ship. ship that's bad luck like there's all sorts of like tricks if you spin around holding the cat like black cats though have this checkered history where people would kill them uh because they thought they were bad luck or associated with witches so in the middle ages they killed a bunch of black cats they would also kill the people who owned them because they were obviously witches and and this led to like an increase in the rat population and also helped spread the black deaths so i were like see there are a lot of shelters that don't adopt out black cats around Halloween because they're worried people will torture them or use them as Halloween decorations,

that kind of thing. Oh. Actually, August 17th is National Black Cat Awareness Day because they're, along with brown cats are the least likely to be adopted from shelters because people are superstitious about the cats. So, superstitions, really. Had some black cats, wish them a good luck, find a happy home. All right.

Woo. That was a lot of superstition talk. And, Chris, you've prepared something special for us and special for the listeners, I believe. Thank you, Karen. I did, in fact, bring a quiz for you guys. This has absolutely nothing to do with superstitions. So we're just varying it up a little bit here. Karen might run away with this, you guys.

So, I'm going to have to. It's about it's all to Disney. Yes, it is, this is called family dog. Oh, wow. And I'm going to name the fictional dog. See, I didn't grow up in America. And you are going to tell me, What movie or television show or cartoon, this was the family dog.

All right. I'm not going to do well. We'll see if you can get these guys. We'll start off. We'll start off with Buck. Oh. Oh, sorry. I thought you said Bud.

I was going to say married with children. It was. Was it? Oh, Bud was the son. I'm sorry, David Foster. All right. All right. I was right for one for one.

I was right for the wrong reason. Einstein. Colin? That was Doc and Back to the Future. Doc Brown's dog Back to the Future. Also a dog in Dean Coot's book, Watchers. Porthos. Man.

Porthos. Like Three Musketeers? Yes, like Three Musketeers. Think a science fiction. Popular science fiction television show. Porthos was, in fact, Captain Archer's Beagle from Star Trek Enterprise. Look up pictures of Captain Archer's Beagle from Star Trek Enterprise. Wow, that is nerdy.

Okay, let's go back in time. Brandon the Wonder Dog. Is it full house? It's not full house. Their dog's name's Brant. No, no, no. It's Funky Bruce. Pumpy Bruce.

Yes, as soon as you said that, I got... Brandon, the Wonder Dog, Puckie Brewster. All right, next one. Comment. I'm horrible at this. Oh, crap. That's full house. Full house.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Comet. Okay, all right. Crypto. Colin. Is that Superman's dog? That's Superman's dog. Mason, Parents in Smallville.

Eddie? Colin. That's Frazier. That is Frazier. Good job. Let's throw Karen a softball. Astro. Oh.

Can I buzz in? I don't know. The Jetsons. Softball. Snowy. Karen. Tintin. Yes.

The non-American one. And finally, Sprocket. Oh. Sprocket was the dog. on Fragal Rock. What's the name of the dog on Doctor Who? K-9. Oh, that's right.

Didn't have it in there. So anyway, I've actually got a related challenge for all of you listeners. So I'm going to give you guys this challenge, and we're not going to tell you the answer until next week's episode. So you have until next week to try to figure it out. You know, post it in the comments, and we'll respond in the comments if you get it correct. But you'll spoil it for other people. So here is the challenge.

Take the name of the family dog from a popular cartoon series of the, the 1980s and swap the positions of two of the letters in its name. And you'll have the name of the family dog from a popular cartoon series that began airing in the 1990s. What are the two shows? Okay. I'll say it one more time. Yeah.

A family dog from a popular cartoon series of the 1980s and swap the positions of two of the letters in the name. You just have to reverse the positions of two of those letters. Once you do that, you will have the name of the family dog from another popular cartoon series, which began airing in the 1990s. Wow. Name us the two shows. That's a good puzzle.

If you can't figure it out, we will give you the answer to the puzzle on next week's episode. Oh, man. Now you're locked in. Yeah. All right. We're going to end the show with this. Wow.

That's a cool challenge. Cliffhanger ending. I know. Dun, dun, dun, done. All right, you guys. Thank you guys for joining me. And thank you guys, the listeners, for our listening in. Hopefully you'll take up Chris's Dog Challenge.

You can find us on Zoom Marketplace, on iTunes. tunes on our website, which is good job brain.com. And we're also on Twitter and Facebook. You know, we ask some cool questions that has some cool links. You can win some stickers sometimes. So, uh, see us there and see you next week, you guys.

Bye. Bye. Bye. On the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the Minute Earth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to?

Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down. into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to Minute Earth wherever you like to listen.