Category: Stranger than Fiction

Not that long ago, this headline wouldn’t have made any sense

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date August 27, 2025

Language evolves with technology, and there’s no better example than the title of a Rolling Stone article posted yesterday: Elon Musk appears to be completely addicted to anime gooner AI slop.

The headline would be unintelligible to most people in North America in 2000:

Elon Musk was not yet a household name at the time. If you wanted to evoke images of high tech with a mainstream audience, you’d mention Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
Anime had only started making headway into popular culture in the mid- to late 1990s thanks to Sailor Moon and Pokémon.
At the time, the term gooner was limited to soccer, meaning “superfan of the Arsenal football club.” It had not yet become internet slang for “porn addict” or “chronic self-pleasurer.”
The term “AI” would have been reasonably well known by then, and a year later, Syeven Spielberg’s film, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, would be released.
“AI slop” is a term that only got mainstream popularity last year thanks to programmer and tech blogger Simon Willison.

Stranger than Fiction The Current Situation

Beware the radioactive Walmart shrimp

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date August 20, 2025

You might not be aware of the FDA’s warning that Walmart’s house brand of raw frozen shrimp might be contaminated with the radioactive isotope cesium-137, a byproduct of uranium-235 fission, which typically happens in nuclear reactors or nuclear detonations. If you enjoy the Fallout games and TV series, we’re one step closer to that world!

You can find out more in this article, but if you’d rather get to the practical info, I’ve posted it below:

Consumers should not eat or serve certain lots of Great Value raw frozen shrimp sold at Walmart stores in AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MO, MS, OH, OK, PA, TX, and WV:

Brand	Product Name	Product Type	Best By	Item Code	Lot Code	Distributor
Great Value	Frozen Raw White Vannamei Shrimp	Frozen Raw Ez Peel Tail-On Farm-Raised White Vannamei Shrimp, 2lb bag	3/15/2027	7383108	8005540-1	Walmart
Great Value	Frozen Raw White Vannamei Shrimp	Frozen Raw Ez Peel Tail-On Farm-Raised White Vannamei Shrimp, 2lb bag	3/15/2027	7383108	8005538-1	Walmart
Great Value	Frozen Raw White Vannamei Shrimp	Frozen Raw Ez Peel Tail-On Farm-Raised White Vannamei Shrimp, 2lb bag	3/15/2027	7383108	8005539-1	Walmart

Stranger than Fiction Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay deal of the day: 8′ tall inflatable Crown Royal bottle!

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date July 30, 2025

Do you have a bar, college dorm, man cave, or stage setup that has an empty corner that needs a little decorative boost? I have the solution:

Someone in St. Pete is selling an eight-foot tall inflatable Crown Royal bottle for $400!

It was listed on Facebook Marketplace four days ago at the time of writing. Here’s a screen capture of the listing:

If you really want it, you’d best contact the seller ASAP!

Stranger than Fiction

How NOT to sell a computer

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date March 31, 2025

As I’ve written before, I sometimes browse Facebook Marketplace for nothing more than pure entertainment, because it always has gems that make me laugh out loud.

Case in point: take a look at the posting below for a laptop for sale recently posted in Tampa Bay’s Facebook Marketplace:

There’s no information that buyers would find useful (such as RAM and hard drive size), but…
there is information that buyers might find off-putting. Read the description to see what I mean.

Stranger than Fiction

“You had me at ‘grenade’” / “Show me the MAC-10!”

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date January 21, 2025

Clearly, I missed out by not watching the director’s cut of Jerry Maguire!

But seriously — when films go abroad, especially to Asia and Africa, they’re promoted with hand-painted signage made by people who haven’t seen them, and often are following the most cursory description of the plot and a couple of photos.

The roots of “Show me the money!” are still visible in the translation from film to poster…

…but I have no idea what’s going on with dismembered Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.’s character). I think the machete-wielding guy to Rod’s left is supposed to be Frank Cushman’s dad (played by Beau Bridges), and that his holding Rod’s severed arm, which in turn is holding a grenade, is an action-film allegory for what actually happens in the movie.

Want to see more movie posters like this? Deadly Prey Gallery is an Instagram account that features wild Ghanian interpretations of American films.