Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ Read online

  • White settlers in Florida eventually learned the Seminole process and created the first industry in the area by making a cooking powder they called arrowroot starch, or coontie, which was what the Florida cycad was called. During World War I, army doctors discovered that coontie mixed with beef broth was the only food that soldiers who’d been gassed could stomach. The coontie industry lasted until the 1930s, when the market collapsed due to the over-harvesting of native cycads.

  • The Japanese word for cycad is sotetsu. Cycad nuts were eaten as a food of last resort during famines, and a particularly bad famine in the 1920s is still referred to as sotetsu jinkoku, or “cycad hell.”

  • The Japanese sago “palm” is perhaps the best-known cycad in the world (though misnamed—it isn’t a palm).

  • A great petrified forest of cycads lies just outside Minnekahta, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was once a national monument until fossil hunters stripped away all of the visible specimens and sold them to museums and collectors.

  • The largest cycad alive today is the Hope’s Cycad, located in Daintree, Australia. It’s 1,000 years old and 65 feet high.

  • Cycad seeds look like pine cones, and can weigh as much as 90 pounds.

  Zimbabwe issued $1 billion bills in 2008. Price of a bottle of beer: $150 billion.

  OLYMPIC PRANKSTERS

  When American snowboarder Scotty Lago was forced out of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver after he posed for a suggestive photo with his bronze medal, that got us wondering: What other silly stunts have been pulled at the Olympics?

  Athletes: Dean Kent, Corney Swanepoel, and Cameron Gibson, three swimmers representing New Zealand at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, China

  Prank: Taking photos of a young teammate—in a compromising position, in a compromising condition, in a compromising place

  Details: The day after the closing ceremonies, one of the younger members of the team, 18-year-old Daniel Bell, got drunk in a Beijing nightclub where the Speedo swimsuit company was hosting an open-bar party. Kent, Swanepoel, and Gibson found Bell passed out in the restroom (on the pot), and took immediate action. After calling for medical assistance, they cleaned Bell up and dragged him home…but not before taking a picture of him semi-nude (and still passed out) in the toilet stall. Somebody posted copies of the picture around the New Zealand swimmers’ quarters in the Olympic Village, and from there they spread to the rest of the team. That’s how the New Zealand Olympic Committee learned of the prank.

  What Happened: Kent, Swanepoel, and Gibson were thrown off the Olympic team and exiled from the Olympic Village. They had to spend their last night in China in a Beijing hotel. (Bell received no punishment.)

  Athletes: Troy Dalbey and Doug Gjertsen, American swimmers who won gold medals in two relay events in the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea

  Prank: Grand Theft Lion

  Details: The day after winning their medals, Dalbey and Gjertsen celebrated their victory by bar-hopping with friends. As they were leaving the bar in the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Dalbey grabbed a decorative lion’s head off the wall and walked out with it. When the police caught up with them in another bar, they still had the lion and were arrested for theft (valued at $830).

  Odds you’ll get stuck on your next elevator ride: 1 in 100,000.

  What Happened: South Korean prosecutors agreed to drop the charges after Dalbey and Gjertsen admitted guilt and wrote a letter apologizing to the South Korean people. The U.S. Olympic Committee was less forgiving: Dalbey and Gjertsen were dropped from the team and confined to their Olympic Village quarters until they could leave the country. Dalbey was later suspended from competition for 18 months; Gjertsen, who was cleared of the theft charges, received a three-month suspension. (They both got to keep their gold medals.)

  Athlete: Dawn Fraser, one of the greatest Australian swimmers of all time and winner of gold medals in the 1956, 1960, and 1964 Summer Games

  Prank: Playing capture the flag…with the emperor’s flag

  Details: During the 1964 Tokyo Games, Fraser and two friends were walking by the Imperial Palace when they saw an Olympic flag on a flagpole and decided to steal it. Police caught them red-handed.

  What Happened: Apparently pranks are more acceptable in Japan than they are in South Korea, because as soon as the police realized who Fraser was, they released the three without charge, after Fraser signed autographs for the arresting officers. Emperor Hirohito even insisted that Fraser keep the flag. But the story doesn’t end there. Fraser had been making waves with the Australian Olympic Committee throughout the Games, marching in the opening ceremonies after she’d been told not to, wearing her own swimsuit instead of the one provided by the team’s sponsor (hers was more comfortable), and at the closing ceremonies, wearing a friend’s hat instead of the one that came with her team uniform. Small infractions all, but when Fraser got home, the Australian Swimming Union banned her from competition for 10 years, effectively ending her swimming career and shutting her out of the 1968 Summer Olympics. That, in turn, denied her a shot at becoming the first female swimmer to win gold medals in four different Olympics.

  Athlete: Jim Chapin, a speed skater competing in the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York

  If you were born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, during WWII, your birthplace is listed as a post office box in Santa Fe—to keep the Manhattan Project a secret.

  Prank: Boorish behavior—with an actual boar

  Details: When Chapin learned that the Olympic Village cooks were preparing a special exotic-food dinner for the athletes, he and some friends “borrowed” the carcasses of a wild boar, a shark, and a barracuda from the kitchen. They snuck the 250-pound boar into the quarters of speed skater Beth Heiden and tucked it under the covers of her bed, lying flat on its back with its legs and snout pointing up toward the ceiling. “The boar still had the hair and everything,” Chapin told the Washington Post. “Sure would have liked to see Heiden’s face. We considered leaving the shark in the bathtub, but we thought it was too risky.” (No word on what happened to the barracuda.)

  What Happened: They got away with it.

  Athlete: Hal Prieste, an American diver who won a bronze medal at the 1920 summer games in Antwerp, Belgium

  Prank: Stealing another flag—a very important flag

  Details: Acting on a dare from teammate Duke Kahanamoku, Prieste, 24, climbed a 15-foot flag pole at the Olympic stadium and stole the Olympic flag. Not just any Olympic flag, either: The flag he stole was the very first one to feature the Olympic symbol of five interlocking rings, which had been created in 1913.

  What Happened: Prieste was never caught, and the fate of that famous first flag remained a mystery for decades. Then one day in 2000, Prieste, then 103, decided to return the flag he’d kept in the bottom of a suitcase for 77 years. The flag was handed over in a special ceremony during the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. “Will there be a plaque with my name on it?” Prieste jokingly asked officials. Sure enough, if you ever get a chance to visit the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, right next to the flag display you’ll see a plaque thanking Prieste for giving it back.

  NO TAN IN MONTANA

  On December 14, 1924, the temperature in Fairfield, Montana, dropped 84°F—from 63° at noon to -21° at midnight, the greatest 12-hour temperature change ever recorded in the United States.

  FLUBBED HEADLINES

  Whether silly, naughty, obvious, or just plain bizarre, they’re all real.

  UAW Elects King as Next President

  Big Ben Celebrates 150 Years of Bongs

  HOMELESS MAN UNDER HOUSE ARREST

  Colleen Campbell champions the rights of murder victims after being one herself

  Tight end retires after colon surgery

  Seven testify toddler looked hot

  Editor’s wife rented to 2 suspects, FBI says

  Woman in sumo wrestler suit assaulted her ex-girlfriend in gay pub after she waved at man dressed as a Snicke
rs bar

  Want to spell like a champ? Read Wenster’s Dictionary

  DIANA WAS STILL ALIVE HOURS BEFORE SHE DIED

  Arson Suspect is Held in Fire

  Ten Commandments: Supreme Court says some okay, some not

  Minus shorts, banks get breathing room

  Black History Month Will Be Held Feb. 23

  Teen Learns to Live With Stutttering

  A’s Hole Keeps Getting Deeper

  Steele Pure Gold

  Death Is Nation’s Top Killer

  SOME 70,000 TURTLE EGGS TO BE WHISKED FAR FROM OIL

  POLL SAYS THAT 53% BELIEVE MEDIA OFFEN MAKES MISTAKES

  World’s largest tire manufacturer: Lego. They make 300 million toy tires every year.

  HOW NOT TO ROB A BANK

  These days, it’s harder than ever to hold up a bank and actually get away with it, but some people do. Not these robbers, though: Each one made a key mistake. Let’s see what they did wrong.

  THE JOB: A 16-year-old boy handed a note to a teller at People’s United Bank in Fairfield, Connecticut, in March 2010. The demand: “Put $100,000 into a bag.” As the teller started filling a bag, the boy noticed the bank was being put on lockdown, so he ran out with only $900. He made it to the parking lot and started running toward his getaway car. Inside it was his accomplice, 27-year-old Albert Bailey. A swarm of cops were already there and easily apprehended the pair.

  THE MISTAKE: About 15 minutes earlier, Bailey actually phoned the bank and said, “Get the money ready—we’re coming!”

  THE JOB: In April 2005, a group of armed men stormed into a Chicago bank and tied up several bank employees. The gang escaped with $81,000. The police had no leads and no suspects.

  THE MISTAKE: Five months later, one of the robbers called a “Morning Zoo” Chicago radio show and bragged about the job. Calling himself “D,” he gave details that only the robbers would know. An FBI agent on her way to work was listening to the show, so she went to the radio station and traced the call to a cell phone owned by Randy Washington, 24. He and an accomplice, William Slate, 19, were both arrested.

  THE JOB: In March 2010, Robert Yoder, 55, of Fallbrook, Washington, walked into a bank and demanded the teller fill up a pouch full of money. The teller complied. Yoder walked out of the bank, got into his truck, and drove away.

  THE MISTAKE: Yoder was a tow-truck driver, and the name of his company was printed on the truck, which could clearly be seen by a surveillance camera. Yoder got a call that afternoon about a broken-down vehicle, but when he showed up, there was no broken-down vehicle, only the police. He was arrested.

  THE JOB: A man walked into a Chase Bank in Chicago wearing a clown mask with a big red nose and red hair. He was carrying a toy machine gun. He handed a demand note to a teller, who filled up a bag with money. The clown ran out of the bank.

  Mongolian warrior helmets doubled as cooking pots—and inspired the Chinese wok.

  THE MISTAKE: His getaway vehicle was a bicycle. It took him a minute or so to get going (the mask, toy gun, and bag of money made it difficult). That was all the time that a police officer needed to chase down the clown and tackle him.

  THE JOB: Jarell Paul Arnold, 34, walked into a credit union in Anchorage, Alaska, in 2009, asked the teller to check his account balance, and then handed her a holdup note. She filled a bag with about $600, and Arnold fled the scene. Police arrived at the bank a few minutes later, but the suspect was nowhere to be found.

  THE MISTAKE: He asked the teller to check his account balance— and showed her his driver’s license to verify his ID. The teller gave the information to the cops; Arnold is now serving 12 years in prison for bank robbery, with no time off for stupid behavior.

  THE JOB: In 2009 a would-be bank robber in Kirchheim, Austria, approached the door of the bank, donned a Barack Obama mask, took out a gun, and went to open the door.

  THE MISTAKE: The bank was closed. It had been for 35 minutes. Inside were several bank employees taking part in a training session. The frustrated bank robber banged his gun on the window. According to one of the workers, “We thought it was part of the training, some sort of initiative test, or a joke. Laughing only seemed to make him more angry.” The robber gave up and left.

  THE JOB: A man stuffed a knife into his front pants pocket and walked into a bank in Kumagaya, Japan, in 2010.

  THE MISTAKE: He didn’t really know how to rob a bank, so he asked a teller, “Any idea how you rob a bank?” The teller asked her supervisor what to do if someone asks how to rob a bank. The supervisor politely asked the man to leave. He did, but the worker who was escorting him out noticed blood running down the man’s thigh. Somehow, he’d stabbed himself with his knife. He was taken to a hospital, treated, and arrested—but for illegal possession of a weapon, not for attempted robbery. (He didn’t actually rob the bank; he only asked how to do it.)

  Length of the average professional fireworks show in 1980: 1 hour. Today: 20 minutes.

  DOT BOMBS

  Today we take buying things over the Internet for granted. But the concept of e-commerce was brand new in the 1990s, as billions of dollars were invested in new Internet companies. And nearly all of them fizzled—some because they were ahead of their time, others simply because they were bad ideas. Here’s a look at some of the biggest Internet busts.

  COMPANY: Flooz.com

  PRODUCT: Internet currency

  LOADING… Most Americans do at least some online shopping or bill paying today, but in 1998 people were scared and skeptical about giving a credit card number over the Internet. So Flooz.com conceived a “safe” Internet currency. Consumers were supposed to go to Flooz.com, enter in their credit card number, and buy Internet money, or “Flooz,” which could then be used to pay for purchases at online merchants. Based on that concept, Flooz secured $34 million from investors and agreements with Tower Records, Barnes & Noble, Restoration Hardware, and other retailers to accept Flooz as legal tender on their websites.

  …FILE NOT FOUND: A large percentage of Flooz’s budget went to TV commercials starring celebrity spokesperson Whoopi Goldberg. But the idea never quite caught on—as people became more comfortable with buying things over the Internet and as major retailers started securing credit card data with a new, nearly impenetrable data-disguising system called encryption, few thought it was necessary to buy special online money. Flooz flopped on August 26, 2001, after which all outstanding “flooz”—and $34 million in investors’ money—turned to dust.

  COMPANY: Webvan.com

  PRODUCT: Groceries

  LOADING… The service offered by this Internet-based company was both old and new: Home delivery of groceries, which was once common but hadn’t been offered since the mid-20th century, when Americans started switching from local grocers to chain supermarkets. In Webvan’s business model, groceries would be ordered off the Internet and arrive at the customer’s home via a nearly fully automated process (the vans still required people to drive them). It seemed like a great idea to a lot of people: Webvan raised and spent more than $1 billion, using the funds to expand outside of its San Francisco home area to eight more cities in just over a year. Most of the money went for computerized warehouse facilities where orders were automatically boxed, sorted, and loaded onto delivery trucks. By mid-2000, Webvan.com was valued at $1.2 billion and announced plans to expand into 18 more metropolitan areas.

  It takes 50 pounds of olives to produce one gallon of olive oil.

  …FILE NOT FOUND: E-commerce may have changed many elements of business, but it did not change the fact that a company needs a certain number of customers to turn a profit. Webvan looked good to investors, but it expanded too fast. Furthermore, grocery profit margins are very slim—not enough to cover $1 billion worth of state-of-the-art distribution centers. Webvan spoiled in July 2001, its share price having dropped from $30 to 6¢ in a matter of months. The brand name—not the company—resurfaced in 2009 as “a member of the Amazon family.”

  COMPANY: MVP.
com

  PRODUCT: Sporting goods

  LOADING… This company had a lot going for it at its 1999 launch: Its investors included beloved sports icons (and seasoned product endorsers) such as quarterback John Elway, basketball superstar Michael Jordan, and hockey icon Wayne Gretzky. That seemed like a big advantage for a company selling sporting goods online. Another advantage: MVP.com had a lucrative advertising deal—a four-year contract with CBS Television in which the online merchant got consistent ad time during the broadcast of CBS’s highly watched NFL games. In return, CBS got an equity stake in the company, with a guaranteed annual payout of $10 million.

  …FILE NOT FOUND: But just a year later, MVP.com failed to pay CBS its $10 million…because it didn’t have the $10 million to pay. In fact, the company never turned a profit. (Marketing experts say the advertising deal was ill-conceived—sports spectators are not necessarily sports participants.) When they didn’t receive their cut, CBS voided the contract…and canceled all of MVP.com’s future advertising. MVP.com was KO’d at the end of 2000. Its address (www.mvp.com) was taken over by SportsLine, a new sports news service managed by…CBS.

  Made guys: 27 actors from the movie Goodfellas also appeared on The Sopranos.

  WHEN WORDS COLLIDE

  Wii hate when someone points out that weave used the wrong word to describe something, sew we complied this list of commonly misspelled or misused wurds.

  • A capital is a nation or state’s principal city, which houses the capitol, the building in which lawmakers convene.

  • To flounder is to struggle. But if you do it for long, you may founder, or completely unravel and come apart.

  • A hoard is a large group of objects. A horde is a large group of people.

  • Light can pass through a translucent object and become obscured. If the light goes all the way through, then the surface is transparent.