Weird firsts

This post relates to some things I think about when I'm at home by myself and the power goes out. I have always wondered about the first time something was done, and how it came about. Now, I'm not talking about famous cultural shifting firsts such as the first man on the moon, Rosa Parks, or the first person to climb Mount Everest. Most people know the details of these firsts.

What I wonder about is how certain elements of our culture came to be part of our culture, and how did it happen the first time.

1. Mentos and Diet Coke. Immortalized in the Youtube landscape are various videos of people putting a mentos in a Diet Coke and turning it from a low-calorie soft drink to a aspartame and fructose cannon. Who found this out? Did some scientist try to discover this on purpose? If so, I believe there may be better uses of his time. I say his, because I can't see a female doing this on purpose. Stupid experiments with consumer products are strictly a domain of us men.
What if this WAS found by accident. What if mom bought her 5 year old a pack of mentos and a diet coke at 7-11. Being inquisitive, the kid decided to see how Diet Coke flavoured mentos would taste. Instead, he found out what a coke covered minivan looks like. I hope mom was wearing her favourite white shirt just to add to the hilarity.

2. Ski Jumping. I am sure most people have seen this event in the Winter Olympics. You know, someone skiing down a steep slope to get speed, then up a ramp and proceeding to fly through the air and landing a couple hundred feet below. This is one of those sports, along with bull riding, that I politely say "Good luck with that".
To me, this sport had to have been found out by accident. There is no way someone came up with this event with the notion it could actually be feasible to fly off a ramp a couple hundred feet in the air with a couple fibreglass twigs on your feet and land safely without injury. My guess is this was discovered by accident. A talented skier was out of bounds and he skied off the edge of a cliff. He decided to make himself aerodynamic, and behold he survived with some injuries. This fellow (again, stupid ideas ladies) then thought as he was lying in traction - "You know, with a slightly smaller jump and some technique we could make a sport out of this".
My thinking is that this fellow was either a real good salesman, or he hired an excellent marketing firm. How do you market this into something people would actually decide to get into. Skiing is dangerous enough without having to worry about landing safety after jumping off a cliff. And how do you explain your choice to the parents. Little Johnny goes to mommy - "I want to be a ski jumper". Mommy then says to daddy - "I told you we gave him too much Ritalin".

3. Pink Floyd and children's movies. I am sure that a lot of people have heard, at least vaguely, about two famous Pink Floyd albums "synching up" with movies. The jist of it is, if you watch Disney's Alice in Wonderland while playing "The Wall" or watch the Wizard of Oz while playing "Dark Side of the Moon" that the music and movie eerily match up. I haven't seen The Wizard of Oz, but I can say that "The Wall" and Alice and Wonderland do synch up as long as you skip the song "Comfortably Numb".
Now, I give credit to the musical and production abilities of Roger Waters and David Gilmour, but I highly doubt they did this on purpose. So, how did this get found out? Given that 40% of the weed smoked between 1973 and 1985 took place with one of these two albums playing in the background you can guarantee that this was discovered in a "haze".
Let's take the Wall for example... who came up with this idea the first time? I know stoners can have some interesting ideas, but this seems kind of out there. Was it a group of broke college kids that had some weed, their favourite CD, and for some reason a VHS of Alice and Wonderland? They decide to do all three things at once, and one hour in go "Whoa". Seems far fetched to me. Also, how did they find out that everything gets screwed up unless you skip "Comfortably Numb"? Trial and Error? This really puzzles me.

That's it for today.

Cheers.