Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader Read online

  • Lots of great how-to tips. Increase the flow (of ch’i) in your bathroom and increase the flow of gas in your car’s tank. How to wash your washing machine, how to shop at (and have) a yard sale, and how to make a $200-million movie.

  • Calling all nerds! (Or is the correct term “geeks”?) We’ve got a lot about comic books and superheros (my favorite: an Indonesian Aquaman who shoots rainbows from his belt). And you’ll find the origins of World of Warcraft and Dungeons & Dragons.

  It all starts on the very next page…but before we get on with the show, I’d like to give a big THANK YOU to the great BRI staff:

  • To Amy. Her patience, organizational prowess, and artistic eye has led to yet another book formatted to perfection.

  • To Brian, Thom, Jay, and JD, our in-house outhouse writers who are (still) busy finishing up articles they’ve been working on for months. Great job!

  • To Julia, our production manager for many years, and Kait, our new production manager. (Welcome to the family, Kait!)

  • To our cuckoo cover designer, Michael B. Every year, he surprises us with something new…such as an unsinkable commode, floating in the vast ocean.

  • To Angie, who runs in every few days with a few dozen running feet (those facts at the bottom of the page). And Jeff, our formatter-at-large extraordinaire.

  • And to our fantastic crew of freelance writers—Lorrie, Jolly Jeff Cheek, Sue, Megan, Kyle, Jef F., Viola, and Nephew Dave.

  And finally, a sad farewell to our old friend, Richard Staples, who shared with us his razor-sharp wit and left us a legacy of humor. Thank you, Richard. We’ll miss you.

  What gets all of us through life is the ability to laugh and the desire to learn something today that we didn’t know yesterday. Both are waiting for you on the pages ahead, so have fun! And as always…

  Keep on going with the Flow!

  —Uncle John, the BRI Staff, and Porter the Wonderdog

  Confucius says: “All roads lead to www.bathroomreader.com.”

  YOU’RE MY INSPIRATION

  It’s always interesting to find out where the architects of pop culture get their ideas. These may surprise you.

  THE T-1000. The idea for the liquid metal robot that tries to assassinate Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day came to director James Cameron while he was eating a hot fudge sundae. He told his effects team that the robot had to look like a “spoon going into hot fudge; it dimples down, then flows up over and closes.”

  DOES SHE…OR DOESN’T SHE? After Clairol introduced this ad campaign in 1956, the number of American women who colored their hair rose from 7 percent to 50 percent, earning it a spot in Advertising Age’s “Top 10 Taglines of the 20th Century.” The line, which ends with “only her hairdresser knows for sure,” came from advertising legend Shirley Polykoff. When she returned from her own hairdresser with blond hair, her disapproving mother-in-law asked that same question to Polykoff’s husband…in Yiddish.

  THE OAKLAND RAIDERS LOGO. The pirate’s stern face—drawn in silver and gray, sporting an eye patch and old style football helmet (with two crossed swords behind him)—wasn’t based on a pirate. It was modeled after Hollywood Western star Randolph Scott, who appeared in more than 100 movies in the 1950s.

  “OCTOPUS’S GARDEN” On a boat trip in Sardinia in 1968, Ringo Starr turned down the octopus he was served for lunch. That sparked a conversation about octopuses. According to the Beatles’ drummer, “The captain told me how they go ‘round the sea bed and pick up stones and shiny objects to build gardens. I thought, ‘How fabulous!’”

  THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Tim Burton was walking by a storefront one day as workers were removing the Halloween display and setting up for Christmas. Seeing the ghouls and goblins next to Santa and his reindeer got Burton thinking: What would happen if these two worlds collided?

  South Africa’s national anthem is sung in five languages.

  LET’S DO A STUDY

  If you’re worried that the really important things in life aren’t being researched by our scientists…keep worrying.

  • Have you ever been around someone who yawned…and you suddenly had to yawn, too? It’s common in humans (no one knows why), but scientists at Birkbeck College in England discovered that dogs can “catch” yawns from people, too. A 29-dog study found that after they made eye contact with a yawning person, 21 of the dogs yawned as well.

  • University of London doctoral students Sarah Carter and Kristina Aström discovered that as male college professors ascend the academic ladder—from lecturer to senior lecturer to tenured professor—they are more likely to grow beards.

  • In 2005 linguists from the University of Barcelona discovered that rats have difficulty telling the difference between Japanese spoken backward and Dutch spoken backward.

  • A joint study conducted by the Gloucestershire Royal Foundation Trust and the Sword Swallowers Association International (really) concluded that sword swallowers were at high risk for sore throats, cuts in the esophagus, and internal bleeding, especially if they were distracted while swallowing swords.

  • In the 2004 study “Fragmentation of Rods by Cascading Cracks,” French physicists Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch looked into why when dry spaghetti is bent, it breaks into lots of smaller pieces, instead of cleanly in half.

  • Food scientists at Leeds University in England tested more than 700 combinations of cooking temperatures and ingredients in order to determine the formula for the perfect bacon sandwich. Their finding: thin, crunchy bacon works best.

  • Cognitive psychologist Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton wrote a study arguing that short, simple words make writers seem more intelligent than long words do. The name of Oppenheimer’s study: “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity.”

  There are more English-speaking people living in India than in the U.S., U.K., and Canada combined.

  HATS INCREDIBLE

  Three origins to keep the sun out of your eyes.

  THE STETSON (COWBOY) HAT. Before the Stetson, ranchers and cowboys wore whatever hats they had, from top hats to sailor caps. During a hunting trip in the late 1850s, John B. Stetson made himself a hat (he knew what he was doing—his father was a hatmaker) with what he considered to be a comically large brim, but soon realized that it was big enough to keep the sun (and rain) off of his head and neck. In 1865 Stetson decided to start making the hats professionally. He rented a room in Houston, Texas, bought some tools and $10 worth of fur, and founded the Stetson Hat Company. Twenty years later, the company employed more than 1,100 people and manufactured hundreds of hats every day. Stetson died in 1906, but the company continued until it shut down in 1971, when it licensed the Stetson name to other hatmakers.

  THE SOMBRERO. Nineteenth-century farmers in the scorching hot farmlands of northern Mexico wove whatever grass or hay they had on hand to make hats big enough to provide protection from the sun on their heads, necks, shoulders, and arms. They called the hats sombreros, which comes from sombra, the Spanish word for “shade.” Mexican cowboys (vaqueros) adopted the hat, but made theirs out of felt or velvet with embroidery, gold thread, and other adornments. Today, the traditional sombrero is mostly worn by mariachi bands and as part of cultural celebrations.

  THE FEDORA. Exactly who invented the fedora is lost to history, but it got its name from the 1882 play Fedora. Sarah Bernhardt played Princess Fedora, a European royal who wore the now-familiar soft felt hat with a narrow brim, a crease on top, and a pinch on each side. The fedora became the everyday hat of the 20th century (back when men commonly wore hats) but is most associated with movie tough guys like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, or real-life tough guys like gangster Al Capone. Men don’t wear formal hats much anymore, but the fedora is still the bestseller in the United States.

  In Spain, they call the sombrero a sombrero mexicano.

  PRO-NUN-CI-A-TION

  What are the correct pronunciations f
or the words below? The answers might surprise you. If you pronounce them differently, don’t worry—many people do. But here’s how they were originally meant to be pronounced 50, 100, or 200 years ago—and, according to the dictionary, still should be.

  STATUS: “stay-tus”

  TRANSIENT: It has two syllables not three, so it’s “transhent,” not “tran-zee-ent.”

  APPLICABLE: The first syllable is the one that should be emphasized, as in app-lic-able, rather than app-lic-able.

  VALET: It’s not a French word, so pronouncing the last syllable as “ay” is incorrect. It should be sounded as “val-it.” (Another fake French word: foyer, which is pronounced “foy-ur,” not “foy-ay.”)

  SPHERICAL: “sferr-i-kal,” not “sfeer-i-kal.”

  EITHER: “Eee-thur” or “aye-thur”? “Eee-thur” is the preferred way. (And so is “nee-thur.”)

  PRELUDE: “pray-lood” is incorrect; the proper pronunciation is “prel-yood.”

  FORTE: If you’re discussing someone’s “forte,” as in a strength, the “e” is silent. “Fortay” is correct only if you’re using it as a musical term.

  DECREASE: If you’re using it as a noun, it’s de-crease. If you’re using it as a verb, it’s de-crease.

  ERR: Rhymes with “hair?” No, it rhymes with “her.”

  CARAMEL: “Kah-ruh-mull” is the original way and still the preferred way, although “kar-mull,” which was once a Midwestern regional pronunciation, is also acceptable.

  GALA: “gay-luh”

  MAUVE: It once rhymed with “stove,” but now the “au” is sounded as “aw.”

  REGIME: The first syllable is sounded as “ray.”

  JOUST: In the 13th century, it was pronounced (and spelled) like the word “just.”

  LONG-LIVED: Today we say the “lived” as “livd,” but until the 20th century, it was pronounced “lyved.”

  QUASI: Today it’s often pronounced “kwah-zee,” but it’s more correct to say “kway–zi.”

  A first-class ticket for the Titanic cost more than a typical crew member would earn in 18 years.

  OOPS!

  Everyone’s amused by tales of outrageous blunders—probably because it’s comforting to know that someone else is screwing up even worse than we are. So go ahead and feel superior for a few minutes.

  BIKELAHOMA

  In 2001 a German bicyclist named Gerhard Brunger set out from Quebec in an attempt to cycle all the way across Canada. But he never made it. Somehow, despite numerous border checkpoints, Brunger unknowingly crossed the border into the United States and got all the way to Oklahoma—about 1,000 miles from the Canadian border—before he realized where he was.

  LOOKS FISHY

  One night in 2008, a taxi driver named Shen in Huaninan, China, picked up a passenger who was carrying a load of boxes, bags, and appliances. Curiously, he was also carrying a frozen fish. “I thought how much it looked like the fish in my freezer at home,” Shen later said. After dropping the man off at his apartment, Shen returned to his own home, where he discovered that most of his possessions—including his frozen fish—had been stolen.

  YO SOY ESTUPIDO

  While running for president in March 2007, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney gave a speech in Florida to a group of fiercely anti-Communist, anti-Castro Cuban-Americans. He ended the speech with a phrase delivered in Spanish: “Patria o muerte, venceremos!” Romney’s Spanish was impeccable, but the phrase was poorly chosen. It translates to “Fatherland or death, we shall overcome!” It’s the Communist rallying cry routinely used since the 1950s by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro at the end of speeches.

  THE STRAIGHT STORY

  In June 2008, at the U.S. Olympics trials in Eugene, Oregon, sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100-meter event. OneNewsNow.com—a news service run by the conservative American Family Association—reported the story, but because they use computerized word replacement filters that substitute “family-friendly” words for ones they find objectionable, readers were told that the 100 meters was won by “Tyson Homosexual.”

  Q: You may know that Roy Kroc founded McDonald’s. Who founded Dairy Queen? A: Sherb Noble.

  YOU OKAY, DADDY?

  At 6'2", 238 pounds, David Kidwell is one of the biggest and toughest guys in Australia’s National Rugby League. On Easter 2007, he suffered an injury that benched him for the rest of the season: He tore a knee ligament tripping over his two-year-old daughter.

  YOU GOT IT WRONG, SONNY

  In March 2008, a man called in to Howard Stern’s satellite radio show to report that he thought he’d almost met the radio host a few days earlier. While on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, the man spotted a tall person with long, dark hair getting out of a limo. Believing it to be Stern, the man rushed over, yelling “Yo, Howard, I am such a huge fan!” When the person turned around, the man saw that it wasn’t Stern—it was Cher. “You thought I was Howard Stern?” Cher reportedly yelled back. “What did you have for breakfast this morning, a bowl of stupid?”

  BEE PREPARED

  Joshua Mullen of Mobile, Alabama, spotted a swarm of bees in his utility shed. Trying to kill them, or at least make them go away, Mullen dumped a can of gasoline onto the pile of rags where the bees were congregating, then ran away. A few minutes later the pilot light from a nearby water heater ignited the gas fumes. The shed burned down and the fire spread to Mullen’s house, ultimately causing $80,000 in damage. “Looking at all this, there might have been a better way,” said Mullen.

  OOPSS

  It’s fairly common for newspapers to make typographical errors, but the New Hampshire Valley News managed to make an especially boneheaded one—the paper misspelled their own name. The front-page banner of the July 21, 2008, edition called it the “Valley Newss.” “Given that we routinely call on other institutions to hold themselves accountable,” an editor’s note the next day read, “let us say for the record, we sure feel silly.”

  Lowest temperature ever recorded at the North Pole: –59°F.

  IN HOG WE TRUST

  Pigs are where bacon comes from. They also have curly tails and say “oink.” For more complex facts, keep reading.

  • Pig squeals have been recorded as loud as 130 decibels, only 10 decibels less than a supersonic jet taking off.

  • According to behavioral scientists, the pig is the smartest farm animal, and one of the smartest on Earth after humans, primates, whales, dolphins, and elephants.

  • World’s largest pig: Big Norm. He’s 8 feet long, 4 feet high, and weighs 1,600 pounds.

  • Pig lingo: Females are called sows, adult males are boars. A pregnant pig is a farrow, a female that’s never been pregnant is a gilt, and a neutered male is a barrow.

  • Pigs have four toes on each hoof, but use only two to walk, giving the appearance that they walk on their tiptoes.

  • A pig’s natural lifespan: 15–20 years.

  • Pigs have such thick skin that fleas and ticks generally leave them alone—the insects can’t get through to the pig’s blood.

  • Synthetics are mostly used today, but at one time paintbrush bristles were made out of pig hair.

  • A litter of piglets most commonly numbers between 8 and 12. All-time record for a single litter: 37.

  • Although a group of pigs is called a herd, pigs don’t need to be herded. They come when called.

  • Smallest breed of pig: the Mini Maialino. They reach a top weight of only 20 pounds.

  • Myth-conception: If you “sweat like a pig,” you sweat profusely. The truth: If you sweat like a pig, you don’t sweat at all, because pigs don’t have sweat glands. They keep cool by staying in the shade or, occasionally, rolling in mud.

  • Worldwide population of domesticated pigs: around 940 million.

  • Pigs have an excellent sense of smell. In India, they’re used by police departments to sniff out illegal drugs.

  Smile! Each year, Americans use 400 million tubes of toothpaste.

  FLUBBED HEADLINES<
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  Unintentionally naughty or just plain bizarre—but they’re all real.

  Joint Chiefs Head Will Be Replaced

  CASKETS FOUND AS WORKERS DEMOLISH MAUSOLEUM

  U.S., France Agree to Mideast Truce

  Butts Swiped Toilet Paper From Court

  Man Battles to Prove He’s Not Dead

  Hearings to Be Held on Statue of Liberty's Crown

  College Drinking Games Lead to Higher Blood Alcohol Levels

  Helping Hurt Children Is Reward Enough

  Man Stabbed With Fish

  DOE to do NEPA’s EIS on BNFL’s AMWTP at INEEL after SRA protest

  MAN SOUGHT FOR LEWD ACT

  Breast Augmentation Available at Moundview

  Sadness Is No. 1 Reason Men And Women Cry

  YANKEES TAKE A WALK TO TIE STORE

  2 States May See Delegates Halved

  Governor, Legislators Disagree About When They Might Agree

  MEAT HEAD RESIGNS

  SCHOOLS CAN EXPECT MORE STUDENTS THAN THOUGHT

  Clinton Apologizes to Syphilis Victims

  0.10 INCHES OF RAIN PUMMELS COUNTY

  Man Shot In Groin Area On Love Lane

  Volunteers Search for Old Civil War Planes

  Prisoner Serving 2,000-Year Sentence Could Face More Time

  Meeting on Open Meeting Is Closed

  The nape of your neck is also called the niddick.

  THE BEST DEAL IN $PORT$ HISTORY

  When you hear about how much money sports generates for players, owners, and agents, it can make you feel sick—even fed up with the whole sports establishment. But, for some reason, these guys make us smile.

  THE A-B-AWAY

  In 1974 textile tycoons Ozzie and Dan Silna paid about $1 million for the struggling Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association and moved the team to Missouri, where they renamed it the Spirits of St. Louis. Why did they buy the team? Oddly enough, because they knew the league would be going out of business soon. The ABA, just seven years old at the time, was in terrible shape: They couldn’t compete with the growing and much more popular National Basketball Association (NBA), and ABA teams were losing money or folding altogether. The Silna brothers felt that a merger between the two leagues was probably in the cards, and that some of the more successful ABA teams would become NBA teams, a potentially lucrative opportunity. So they beefed up the Spirits with great young players—Moses Malone and Don Chaney among them—and waited for the league to collapse. In 1976 it did, and the NBA moved in. One problem: they didn’t want the Spirits.