If your party guests are getting sick of your ‘open a bottle of beer with another bottle of beer‘ trick, Mental Floss has you covered. John Green‘s YouTube repository of interesting facts is the home of Be More Interesting, a branded series from Dos Equis that teaches viewers a host of unique skills.
In the first three episodes of Be More Interesting, we have learned how to uncork a champagne bottle (undeniably cool), bisect a phone book with our bare hands (good way to get rid of old Yellow Pages), and start a fire without matches (actually useful). Go ahead, give it a look; you might actually learn something.
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Despite the protests of some commenters, the branded element is actually very unobtrusive, with Dos Equis beer only showing up at the end of each episode. One does wonder why Dos Equis feels the need to pay for a series when it gets so much free pub from the image macro community.
Even beyond the brand ties, many Mental Floss viewers seem to be very irritated with the series, with host Max Silvestri drawing the ire of many commenters. It’s true that he has a tendency to go yammering on, cracking lame jokes when the nice people are just trying to teach him stuff, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that the three skills we’ve learned thus far have been very neat. In the remaining five episodes, I’m expecting a bevy of cool tricks, with or without Silvestri’s interjections.
Of course, Mental Floss’ main show, where John and his occasional guests rattle off lists of interesting facts, is still alive and well. Be More Interesting doesn’t have the same tremendous pace, but it is more likely to lead to applause at a party. All I need to do now is find a saber.
