You've done it before; you've been roaming around online looking for one thing when you stumbled into some random fact about an actor, actress, movie or filmmaker that suddenly lead you down a completely different path. And instead of looking for that other thing, you're now zeroed in on the fascinating ups and downs of Jim Carrey's career. Here's a guy that went from absolutely nothing -- a starving comic, living out of his car -- to the biggest thing in comedy for a pretty solid period of time. He successfully transitioned from silly and over-the-top to more dramatic fare, proving some amazing range, and then he just sort of ... stopped. He just stopped being that guy whose every role you anticipate, and he eventually became the kind of veteran actor who chases after his old glory in the hopes reinventing it via some sequel (do we really need another Dumb and Dumber?) will help reinvent his entire career. That's who Jim Carrey is today, though we'll readily agree he's one role away from being back at the top of his game. It just hasn't come yet. Hopefully it will soon.

In reading about Jim Carrey we came across some random facts about the guy, many of which we didn't even know. And while some of these may already be tucked inside your brain (depending on your level of Jim Carrey geekery), we found them rather fascinating and still worth posting. [via IMDb and WDW]

1. At age 10, he sent his resume to Carol Burnett.

2. Wrote himself a check for $20 million and kept it in his wallet until he earned that amount for The Cable Guy (1996). First actor to reach 20 million-dollar mark salary (for The Cable Guy (1996)

3. Wrote letters to Tupac Shakur when Tupac was in prison to help him laugh and smile. Tupac said that Carrey was his favorite actor.

4. He was originally cast as "Dr. Evil" in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), but he had to drop out of the role due to a scheduling conflict with Liar Liar (1997).

5. Was considered for the roles of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), both of which eventually went to Johnny Depp.

6. Auditioned for the role of Farmer Ted in the film Sixteen Candles (1984). Eventually, actor Anthony Michael Hall won the part.

7. As a child, he used to wear his tap shoes to bed just in case his parents needed cheering up in the middle of the night.

8. At one point he and his family all worked as janitors at a factory to make a living.

9. Bought a Harley Davidson motorcycle and got a vanity license plate for it which read "NO TAG" as a joke. This resulted in Jim receiving numerous traffic tickets in the mail that were meant for other people. As it turns out, when filling out a ticket, police officers write "no tag" in the license plate number slot on the ticket when the offending vehicle has no license plate. In some cases, this was interpreted as the actual license plate number, as it was in Jim's case, which caused the tickets to be routed to him.

10. At one time, Carrey was slated to star as the lead in Meet the Parents (2000) and even contributed jokes to the screenplay, such as the main character being named "Focker".

11. Shares the same birthday with Andy Kaufman, who he played in Man on the Moon (1999).

12. During the filming of Me, Myself & Irene (2000), he and the production crew attended a private music show of the band Phish on June 24th 1999 at the guitarist/vocalist house in Careystock, Vermont. There, he sang two songs with Phish, "Hey You" by Bachman Turner Overdrive and "Come Together" by The Beatles.

13. Performed his first stand-up routine (with disastrous results) in a yellow suit and tails (made by his mother) similar to what he would later wear in The Mask (1994).