During yet another sleepless night I went to Yahoo and did a search on "nose picking" (don't ask...).

I found a Web page that was just as colorful as it was informative. It detailed a study done about people and their nose picking habits.

Did you know that nose picking is a "universally practiced custom" and that snot is suppose to taste salty?

The page is just one of many on the USELESS INFORMATION Web site, a site researched, written, and designed by a New York state high school teacher named Steve Silverman who has a penchant for the weird and bizarre.

"I can't really say that I have ever been surprised by any of the stories that I have come across," said Silverman about the enormous gathering of stories he has accumulated over the years.  "Human beings as a whole have always been responsible for some pretty outrageous things.  All one needs to do is check the Guinness Book of World Records to confirm this."

Before an unusual story makes it to his site, Silverman shares it with his Physics, Earth Science, and Computer Science students at Chatham High School.

"I started collecting these stories because I realized that they added some pizzazz to my teaching style.  Kids are bored by just about anything that goes on in a classroom today.  It's tough to compete with MTV and Nintendo. I found that if I told just one strange story each day, I had my students hooked.  As a result, I just started to seek out more and more of these stories," he said.

Beyond being funny and a testimony of how odd people can behave, Silverman's stories are like appetizers before an intellectual meal. They really do make you just stop and think about how truly strange this world is.  Told with wit and objectivity, Silverman's offerings will leave you shaking your head in disbelief every time.

Says Silverman, "The main thing that I have done to make my site different from the others was to actually research my stories and post all of my sources.   Since these stories are very unusual, there is a tendency for similar sites to pick up on stories that are false or exaggerated.  In posting all of my references, I am hoping to add a sense of credibility to what I have written.  As a teacher, I wish that others on the web would do the same. Students believe anything that they read on the web and don't question accuracy."

As well as harboring credibility, Silverman's site is one of the most well-designed sites I have ever come across.  Unlike many of us, he's had time to hone his HTML skills.  Silverman discovered the Internet six years ago. Back then it was completely text-based, and as Silverman says, "very difficult to use".  But as the Internet developed he followed it every step of the way. 

"I enjoy finding the stories the best.  When I come across an interesting story, I head over to the SUNY Albany library and research the topic.  The research is actually quite interesting, but can be frustrating at times due to the obscure nature of these topics." 

"I actually find the writing of the web pages to be the hardest part, as I don't consider myself to be a writer," he admitted.

When you get tired of the slow-loading, badly written, and boring Web sites out there, I highly recommend going for a small dose of USELESS INFORMATION.
 

Visit Steve's USELESS INFORMATION site.

Copyright © 1998 by Wendy Wallace