Editor Eric: The Great Unsolvable Mysteries of Modern Life


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	Forget the trivial questions like how the universe began or why we exist. Here are the really important unsolvable mysteries of modern life, courtesy Editor Eric. New every week or so. If you have an unsolvable mystery of your own to contribute or a comment on any of these, let Eric know. This week's Great Unsolvable Mystery #187: Movies and TV How do people in movies and on television know what's coming up on the news? Our hero who's involved in a murder investigation gets a phone call: "Turn to Channel 11." He goes to the nearest TV, turns it on, flips to channel 11 and—minutes after the caller must decided to place the call—the news anchor is just starting to announce, "Sources close to the police today say a suspect is about to be arrested...." What is this, psychic detection? Previous mysteries: #186: Language What are clams supposed to be so happy about? People talk about being "happy as a clam", as if it's such a great life sitting there, not being able to move worth beans, keeping your trap shut so some hungry fish doesn't come along and scoop you out, and hoping some beachcomber doesn't grab you anyway to make chowder. You don't even get to create pearls like your cousins, the oysters. "Pathetic as a clam" would be more appropriate. #185: Business Why does every store or public building with a double front door always keep one of the doors locked? Can't tell you the number of times I push and pull the wrong one before realizing it's the other one that's open.
	#184: Media What's with all this "greatest...of all time" nonsense? You hear or read about someone being voted the "greatest hockey player of all time" or the "greatest rock guitarist of all time". As if we're going back more than a few decades. Like someone considered all the great hockey stars of ancient Greece and the top rockers of the Middle Ages before coming up with these. As for me, I'm proud to be the greatest author of this website of all time. #183: Language Why is zero of anything considered plural? We say, for example, "two points" and "one point", but when it comes to fewer than that we say "zero points". How can less than one be more than one? #182: Products Why does it say, "May contain nuts" on a package of...nuts? Is there someone out there with an allergy who'd sue the food packager, claiming, "When I ate that bag of peanuts, I never realized it might contain nuts"? #181: Human behaviour When we're in line and a small gap opens up somewhere ahead of us, why does it bother us so much? We want to yell at the person who's dawdling, "Move up!", even though we know it makes no difference at all to how fast we get to the front. #180: Language *Why is it usually reported that so-and-so choked on his own* vomit?** As if it's more newsworthy than choking on someone else's vomit! #179: Language Why do we call the liquid we put in our cars "gas"? #178: Language Why do we call the liquid we put in our cars "gas"? #177: Driving Why do fire trucks have signs on the rear that say, "Stay 150 metres back", when you can't read it that far away? #176: Human Behaviour How come we never sip hot drinks through straws, only cold ones? More