Mahatma Gandhi is a towering, larger-than-life historical figure who changed the geopolitical makeup of the world of the 20th century. But how much do you really know about Gandhi, what he did, and why it’s important? As we prepare to release a book about the man, here’s a look at some of the misconceptions about […]
Based on the author’s love of things weird, bizarre, and strange, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Greatest Know on Earth is an all-new collection of curiosities and oddities throughout the ages. A nonfiction book with dazzling facts, jaw-dropping blunders, and astounding lists of trivia, this impeccably-researched compendium includes a range of single-page articles to extended page-turners. Tune in […]
One thing we all learned this past year of quarantine is that we need to laugh. A lot. Comedians Lisa Beth Johnson and Phoebe Bottoms are here to help with a collection of more than 300 snarky, sassy, and witty jokes for mom. A companion to the best-selling Dad Jokes, Mom Jokes is the best […]
If it feels good, do it, right? Well, not everything that’s pleasurable is healthy — an all-pizza diet is going to allow anyone to live to 100. But it’s really true for laughter. Everyone loves to laugh, at movies, each other, themselves, or the silliest of jokes, and as it turns out, it’s very healthy […]
With virtually all of recorded music at your fingertips when you open Spotify or Apple Music, it can be overwhelming to decide what to listen you. Allow us to help: Avoid these albums at all costs. Kevin Federline, Playing with Fire Hitting stores in 2006 was the first (and so far, only) album by Federline, a […]
This is America, and you have the right to voice your displeasure with someone or something.
Just make sure you address the correct people.
Boo, Miley Cyrus!
The most controversial moment at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards: a performance by Robin Thicke and former child star Miley Cyrus. Cyrus, dressed in little more than a bikini, “twerked” with Thicke—suggestively rubbing up against the singer. The FCC received 161 complaints about the broadcast, the most regarding a single event since Janet Jackson’s 2004 Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction.” A few complaints: “She has the vast majority of her butt cheek hanging out of her bikini,” “Obscene, slutty, indecent,” and “Miss Milly Cyrus should be fined and jailed for performing such sexually provocative material on TV.” Did the FCC punish MTV, Cyrus, Thicke, or cable TV providers? Nope. The FCC doesn’t have any jurisdiction over cable TV—only over-the-air, free, broadcast TV.
Hooray, Paula Deen!
In a lawsuit filed earlier this year against TV chef and cookbook author Paula Deen, it was alleged that Deen had, many years ago, uttered racial slurs and racist comments. Deen admitted it, but denied she was a racist. Nevertheless, Food Network announced they wouldn’t renew her contract. Deen’s most devoted fans, however, thought that she was being unfairly maligned, and sent thousands of emails and phone calls to express their support. Except that a lot of those messages were sent not to Deen’s former employer, Food Network, but to The Food Channel, a Missouri production company that makes cooking segments and shows syndicated to TV stations around the country. “We’ve been getting your emails. Your phone calls. We get that you are mad about her contract not being renewed. The problem is, you are calling and writing the wrong people,” the Food Channel said on its website.
So Tim Horton founded Canada’s most successful franchise. Big deal—did he ever record a disco album? Here are some hockey palyers and their other jobs from the brand-new Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Weird Canada.
WAYNE GRETZKY. In 1991, NBC TV briefly aired ProStars, a Saturday morning cartoon starring three big sports stars of the era: Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, and Gretzky. The cartoon versions of the sports stars had superpowers and a distinct personality, and in every episode the trio would defeat a supervillain, mad scientist, or as they did in one case, recover the stolen Stanley Cup. Gretzky, for some reason, was the jokester of the group and was obsessed with eating. The real Gretzky appeared in live-action bumpers at the beginning and end of the show—voice actor Townsend Coleman performed Gretzky’s voice in the animated sequences.
GUY LAFLEUER. At the height of Lafleuer’s career and popularity in 1979—he’d just won four straight Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens—Lafleuer recorded an album called Lafleuer. It’s where Lafleuer’s strengths and the trappings of the era collide. It’s an album of hockey-themed songs by anonymous studio musicians, as well as monologues of hockey instructional tips from LaFleuer…set to a thumping disco beat. Side one contains six songs: “Skating,” “Checking,” “Power Play,” an extended dance version of “Power Play,” “Shooting,” and “Scoring. Side two: all of the same songs, but in French.
How to celebrate: visit Seattle. Wait, no…do not visit Seattle.
If you were thinking of visiting the ancestral homeland of Starbucks, grunge music, and Fremont Troll on September 16, you’re going to have to change your plans. That’s because that day is Stay Away From Seattle Day.
Believe it or don’t, this strange “holiday” is real, and actually celebrated by many residents in Seattle, America’s rainiest big city. Much like the citizens of its almost-as-rainy and insular rival city of Portland, Seattleites love sharing their city and economy with visitors…but they love them even more when they leave.
How have you lived this long without poop paper? Here are three Canadian inventions you can’t live without. Are we right? Or are we right?
Snow Cone Snowstorm Mask. Invented in Montreal in 1939. Picture a transparent plastic cone—sort of like a small traffic cone—on your face (the point sticking straight out from your face), with a strap that goes around the back of your head to hold it on. This, the inventor believed, would protect your face during especially bad Quebec snowstorms.
Mechanical Skirt Lifter. Invented by a woman (name unknown), in Calgary in 1890, this device was meant to aid women who wore the big poofy skirts popular in the Victorian era. The device, which was made of metal, consisted of two clips on either end of a chain. One clip attached to the skirt’s waist, the other to the hem. When a woman had to cross a muddy road, or climb some steps, or found herself in some similar situation in which her skirt hem might become dirty or be in the way, she could pull the chain and put one of its links on a hook hear the waist, thus holding up the hem of her skirt.
Raise your hand if you like cheese! Wow…if we are counting correctly, that’s millions and millions of people. Poet James McIntyre loved cheese. Here is his story, as published in Uncle John’s Funniest Ever Bathroom Reader.
Have you heard of one James McIntyre?
His unusual verses set the world afire.
Think of this while eating your Cheerios:
In the 1800s, he was the bard of southwestern Ontario. His work is published this day still,
If you read his poems, they’ll make you ill.
ABARD IS BORN
James McIntyre (1827–1906), known to his admirers as the “Chaucer of Cheese,” was born in the Scottish village of Forres. He moved to Canada when he was 14 and lived most of his life in Ingersoll, a small town in Ontario, where he worked as a furniture and coffin maker. But what earned him his reputation was his hobby—writing poetry. McIntyre wrote poems on a variety of topics: He described Ontario towns, saluted his favorite authors, and sang the praises of farming and country life. He even composed tributes to his furniture.
Uncle John’s ancestral homeland might just be Scotland. Check out the recently discovered Drum castle toilet.
Toilets were developed around the world, independently, thousands of years ago, but archaeologists keep finding older and older prototypes in Scotland. One of the oldest was found by archaeologists in the 1850s at Skara Brae, an ancient settlement on Mainland, the largest of the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland. Several stone huts among the ruins contained drains that extended outside their walls. Historians believe that the huts, which date back to 3,000 BC, were one of the first, if not the first, indoor bathrooms on Earth.
Sometimes even a thief can feel remorse. Recently, a group of burglars in San Bernardino, California, had a change of heart. The computers they stole belonged to San Bernardino Sexual Assault Services—a nonprofit. Once the burglars realized what they had done, they felt so bad that they returned the computers and left an apology note. The note read:
“We had no idea what we were taking. Here is your stuff back. We hope that you guys can continue to make a difference in people’s lives.”
Here are few other stories of nice crooks from Uncle John’s True Crime.
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If they were really nice, they probably wouldn’t be crooks to begin with. But what else would you call a thief who apologizes?
GIMME TEN
At 5:00 a.m. on November 17, 2003, a man walked into a 7-Eleven in Santee, California, pulled out a gun, and told the clerk to give him $10. The clerk gave the man the money, and the man ran off. At 10:00 a.m. the same man returned to the store, put $10 on the counter, and apologized for the robbery. The clerk didn’t wait for the apology—he immediately pressed the “panic” button under the counter. The police arrived and arrested the thief, who explained that he had stolen the money to buy gas for his car.
Sometimes you just need a good excuse to TP your neighbor’s house…or leave a batch of chocolate chip cookies on that same neighbor’s doorstep. For either evil deed, or for good deeds, there’s Just Because Day.
Just Because Day is tomorrow, August 27, and it’s the perfect day to do whatever you please—literally anything. Such is the nature of “Just Because Day.” According to Holiday Insights, an internet depository for these unusual annual events and made-up holidays, it was dreamt up by a California man named Joseph J. Goodwin. Back in the ‘60s, Goodwin created the holiday in order to honor life, his family, and leisure time. He celebrated the first Just Because Day by giving his wife a transistor radio (“just because!” he told her). It became an annual tradition for the Goodwins and one that, presumably, spread from them via word-of-mouth.
Part of the fun of travel is enjoying the local flavor. So on your next trip, eat the local food, see the local sights…and stay at the local jail. Here are a few weird hotels we discovered. What is the weirdest hotel you have ever stayed in?
HOTEL: The Old Jail
LOCATION: Mount Gambier, Australia
DESCRIPTION: The Old Jail offers the accommodations—and decidedly spooky atmosphere—of a huge, 19th-century rural prison. The hotel was once the South Australian State Prison, which operated from 1866 to 1995. Not much has changed when it was converted into a hotel. Showers are still communal and best are still cots, but the cell doors can now be opened from the inside. “Inmates” sleep four to a cell (either with strangers or family) or can pay double for a private, two-person suite.
Pet Rock: The item that became synonymous with the whimsical and gullible 1970s has returned! Only now, it’s high-tech. In the spirit of the original, it does nothing; plugging it into your computer’s USB port doesn’t even draw any power away.
Squirming Tentacle: People will think an octopus or the fictional alien monster Cthulhu has taken control of your laptop when they see a moving tentacle coming out of a USB port. Unlike the Pet Rock, at least it moves.
Last month, Ford Motors landed in hot water after a series of sexist advertisements it ran in India.
The three ads feature illustrations of Paris Hilton, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and German racecar driver Michael Schumacher each sitting in the front seat of a Ford Figo. In each ad, the celebrity had their “enemies” tied up in the trunk (to demonstrate how big it was). Hilton had paparrazi bound and gaggedl Schumaker had rival drivers. Berlusconi had a bunch of scantily clad models in his trunk.
Of course, this isn’t the first time an ad campaign has courted controversy. Last year, the makers of Pop Chips thought it would be hilarious to dress actor Ashton Kutcher up as “Raj,” a sleazy, thick-accented Bollywood producer and stick him in a commercial. Following an outcry on the Internet, the company yanked the ad. But here it is!
April Fools’ Day 2013 will go down in history as one that was particularly saturated with public pranks. Among our favorites:
• Outdoor supply company REI announced that it would be selling “Adventure Kitten Gear”. Among the items: a “Wild Cat” backpack that held “100 cubic inches of kibble and catnip,” and an $11 bandana that “doesn’t do anything, but looks cute in photos.”
• The British car show Top Gear announced it was filming in the Netherlands, and that in order to set a new land speed record, a busy 20-mile stretch of highway outside of Amsterdam would have to be closed. Citizens grumbled about the delays and rerouting…until it was revealed that there was no show. It was all a prank from a mischievous Dutch police officer.
Grab your pillows: National Public Sleeping Day is just around the corner, on February 28th. How to celebrate: take a nap in public. That’s it. The dubious, obscure holiday dates all the way back to 2011, and ever since bloggers and news organizations have used it to discuss sleep health issues, or use it as an excuse to run a cheeky photo of their boss napping while on the clock.
