Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 110

Bennies From Heaven!

Does your employer provide job benefits? Not all do, of course. So if you’re job hunting, here are a few companies that offer some fantastic—and unusual—perks to let their employees know they’re appreciated.

Google believes that happy employees work harder, so it provides many benefits, such as free breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and free oil changes and car washes at its Mountain View, California, campus. And if a Google employee dies, his or her spouse or partner receives 50 percent of the deceased person’s salary…for 10 years.


AOL offers eight paid weeks of maternity for new moms…and dads. Employees who’ve recently adopted a baby get two weeks. The company also offers pre- and postnatal baby-care courses, and on site day care.


Dealer.com is an automotive consulting company. Its workers do most of their work on computers, and the company doesn’t want them to get lethargic and unhealthy, so it provides free organic vegetables and salads, delivered right to their desks.


Chesapeake Energy offers beauty services. Employees have free access to tanning beds, along with lesion removal, cancer screenings, and Botox injections.


Portland-based Umpqua Bank requires its tellers to dress in professional business attire. That can be expensive, so the company gives new employees a “clothing advance” of up to $500. All other employees can get clothes loans of up to $1,000 per year.


Scottrade is an online investing service, yet they have outlets all around the country. Reason: they’ll open a new branch in an area if an employee is considering moving there. So far, they’ve opened 20 new locations because a Scottrade worker wanted to move there.


Threadless Design produces and sells T-shirts. The company gives employees free beer. Threadless’s CEO is friends with the owner of Chicago brewery Finch’s Beer, and asked him to create a special beer for Threadless. Now, “Threadless IPA” is always available on tap in the employee kitchen.

Read more in Uncle John’s Canoramic Bathroom Reader.

The post Bennies From Heaven! appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

It Only Happened Once in Major League Baseball

Enjoy this baseball season with some bizarre baseball trivia.

Only player to steal the same base twice.

In 1920, base-stealing rules were codified: players from then on could only steal the next consecutive base. But before that, anything went. In September 1908, Germany Schaefer of the Detroit Tigers stole second base…then went back and stole first base. And then he stole second base. Again.

Only pitcher to throw consecutive no-hitters.

About 230 hitless games have ever been thrown by Major League pitchers, a rate of about two per season. In 1938, Reds pitcher Johnny Vander Meer threw a no-hitter…and then in his next game, threw another no-hitter. (It was the highlight of a 119-121 pitching career.)

Only pitcher with an all-strikeout season.

Pitchers aren’t generally very good hitters (the American League doesn’t even let them bat), but the worst might be Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax. In his rookie season with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1955, Koufax came up to bat 12 times…and struck out 12 times.

Only team to come back from a 3-0 playoff deficit.

Best-of-seven playoff series are used in the playoffs of several major team sports. Once a team has a 3-0 lead, they have a 99 percent likielhood of winning the series. Only once in baseball has a team come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the series. In 2004, the Boston Red Sox rallied to win four games against the Yankees…and then swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

Only player to get a hit for two different teams on the same day.

On April 4, 1982, Joel Youngblood hit a two-run single for the New York Mets in a game against the Chicago Cubs. After the game he was traded to the Montreal Expos and flew to Philadelphia to play in a night game against the Phillies. He got a hit in the seventh inning.

The post It Only Happened Once in Major League Baseball appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

The Further Adventures of the Mystery Coke Machine

Things just keep getting weirder and weirder at this unusual Seattle landmark.

Capitol Hill is one of the coolest districts in Seattle. Amid all of the trendiness, one thing remains representative of the area’s shaggier and more blue collar past: The Mystery Coke Machine, which we first told you about last year, at 918 East John Street.

What makes the Mystery Coke Machine so mysterious? Nobody knows who owns it, who put it there and most importantly, who keeps it fully stocked. The machine’s old fashioned prices recently rose from 55 cents a can to 75 cents, but that’s still rather inexpensive.

Over the past year, the machine has attracted lots of attention and new fans. It’s been profiled by several news organizations and its Facebook page has more than 19,000 followers. Many of the machine’s regulars are totally mystified by its “mystery” button too. Pressing it causes the machine to dispense a totally random selection of beverages, anything from Nestea to Hawaiian Punch.

Determined to find out who restocks the machine, a reporter for Vice magazine interviewed the general manager of a nearby locksmith shop last year. When asked if he had ever seen anyone refill it he said, “Nope. [They] must come in the middle of the night on a weekend or something.” Locals and tourists alike have speculated that the machine is maintained by everything from space aliens to a ghost with a Coke problem.

A Seattle film student named Marcy Stone-Francois directed a short sci-fi film called “Mystery Soda” for her final project, and used the real machine. (It’s about a timid young man who presses the mystery button and drinks the contents of a creepy black can.)

Unfortunately, not everyone is a fan of the Mystery Coke Machine. According to the Facebook page, it was recently attacked by vandals who covered it in blue graffiti. Despite its unpleasant new paint job, the machine remains operational…and mysterious.

The post The Further Adventures of the Mystery Coke Machine appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

A Perplexing Problem With Pixies

A forest in the UK has become overrun with tons of tiny residents. Here’s what a few local residents are doing about their new neighbors.

Pixies. Sprites. Brownies. These magical creatures go by many names but folks in Crewkerne typically call them fairies. Once upon a time, they got along pretty well with the ones that “live” in Wayford Woods, a 29-acre forest near the British town. Unfortunately, they’ve been getting pretty upset with the fairies’ recent housing boom.

Fairies aren’t real, of course, but that hasn’t stopped plenty of their fans from installing tiny doors for them on many of Wayford Woods’ trees. The very first door appeared in 2000. It was installed in the exposed roots of one tree and even had a working doorknob and a tiny bed behind it. At first, Crewkerne’s citizens thought the whole thing was cute and more and more doors began to appear. They took photos of them, some of which even had curtains and little potted flowers, and shared them online. Area schoolkids, who found the doors downright magical, even began leaving messages for the fairies.

Unfortunately, more and more doors have been appearing in the forest and they’re starting to become an eyesore. One tree now has ten doors and it looks less like an adorable fairy house than an enchanted apartment building. One estimate claims 200 doors in Wayford Woods, not to mention the complete miniature fairy amusement park.

“We’ve got little doors everywhere,” Steven Acreman, one of the woods’ trustees, recently told BBC News. “We’re not anti-fairies but it’s in danger of getting out of control.” Acreman and his colleagues are proposing measures to put an end to, as they put it, the “profusion of elfin construction.” They’ve begun removing the more garish doors as they appear and argue that the screws and nails being driven into the trees are bad for the bark and overall health of the trees.

While they’re not about to completely evict the fairies, they are eager to prevent the woods from becoming the pixie-equivalent of lower Manhattan. “We put a lot of time into the conservation of the woods,” Acreman said. “We’re trying to keep people to the paths but the fairy doors are making it a free-for-all.”

The post A Perplexing Problem With Pixies appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

Weird Beer News

Beer can often lead to a lot of weird news stories, but these weird news stories are actually about the beer.

Such Convenience!

When you play rugby, your teeth are going to get knocked out. It’s simply a workplace hazard in a very violent and aggressive sport. At least when it’s all over, you can hit the pub and knock back a few cold ones with your teammates. But why wait? Cerveza Salta is a brewery in Argentina. As a publicity stunt, it fitted several local rugby players with some new dental appliances: bottle openers in their jaws where there were teeth before they were claimed by rugby. Now, all those rugby players have to do to get a beer open is stick it in their mouths and pry. (Ironically, if you tried to do this with your teeth, and not a metal opener installed in your mouth, you’d probably lose a tooth.)

Pretty Beer!

As if beer wasn’t great enough, it might be able to make you appear more youthful and more attractive. Collagen is a natural substance found in the human body that makes skin more elastic, but it dissipates as a person ages. In Japan, many women take collagen supplements in liquid or powder forms to restore what time has taken away. Suntory, a Japanese brewery, introduced a much more interesting way to take collagen: Precious. It’s a beer with five percent alcohol per can…and two grams of collagen.

For everything else you’d ever want to know about beer, check out Uncle John’s Beer-Topia . Now in stores!

 

 

 

 

The post Weird Beer News appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

Go, Poop Bus, Go!

The story of a bus that’s powered by poop…and which might be the fastest bus on the planet.

City buses have a long-standing image problem. There’s a widely held perception that they’re slow, pretty boring, and smell bad. The city bus program in Reading, a city in England, is trying to dispel those first two myths…while actually kind of embracing the third one.

Reading Buses is the local transit authority. It operates a lot of buses, but 34 of them are powered by cow manure. Okay, so the buses don’t really smell like cow poop, because of the highly scientific method by which the cow manure is converted to fuel. It’s called anaerobic digestion: in an oxygen-free environment, microorganisms break down the poop into biogas, which is then liquified and used as very efficient fuel. (And it’s a very renewable resource, which you know if you’ve ever been to a farm.)

One of those city buses is nicknamed The Bus Hound, named after the British Bloodhound, a supersonic racing car. The name is well earned, as The Bus Hound just set a land speed record for service buses, if not all buses, and certainly for buses powered by cow manure. It clocked speeds of 76.785 mph while doing laps around a track this May. That’s a record, although unofficially, because Guinness World Records says they can’t consider The Bus Hound’s speed unless it exceeds 150 mph, so as to make its claim undeniable.

Reading Buses don’t really care about an official record—the agency is just glad to raise awareness of biofuels. Another British bus is also raising awareness of biofuels, although a different kind. Bristol’s Bio-Bus helps people get to and from their destinations by running not on cow waste…but human waste.

The post Go, Poop Bus, Go! appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

Ask Uncle John Anything: For When You Crave Trivia

Uncle John knows pretty much everything—and if he doesn’t, he heads his massive research library, or puts one of his many associates on the case. So go ahead: In the comments below, ask Uncle John anything. (And if we answer your question sometime, we’ll send you a free book!)

What do individual cravings mean?

Cravings and hunger aren’t the same thing, apart from the fact that one is specific (and intense) and the other is more general (and intense). That’s because they’re controlled by two difference command centers: a grumble is your stomach’s way of letting you know it’s empty, and needs to be filled. Cravings, however, are controlled by the brain. Hunger is a survival instinct, but cravings are your brain trying to tell you, in as clearly as it can, that you are lacking a very specific nutrient or mineral.

Here’s what some very common cravings mean, or what it is you’re really craving, not the food itself.

If you’re craving chocolate, it’s not because you need sugar, or chocolate, but one of the many trace minerals found inside the raw cacao used to make chocolate. The most likely cause of a chocolate craving: a need for magnesium. It’s found in all forms of chocolate, of course, as well as in whole grains and seeds.

If you’re craving cheese, then you’re most likely lacking in essential fatty acids, such as Omega 3s, and/or calcium. While cheese is rich in both, other foods you can eat include flaxseeds, nuts, and dark greens like kale.

If you’re craving red meat, such as a steak or hamburger, you need to eat more iron. It’s most prevalent in red meat, but red meat is also high in fat and cholesterol. Other dietary sources of iron: beans, legumes, figs, and spinach.

If you’re craving potato chips, you’re most likely after the salt. A craving for this indicates a deficiency in the trace mineral of chloride. It can also be found in olives and kelp.

The post Ask Uncle John Anything: For When You Crave Trivia appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

3 Weird Hot Tubs

While hot tubs can be enjoyed pretty much anytime of the year, for most it’s a summertime activity. Here are some of the weirdest ones on the planet.

The Bug Tub

We’re not sure what’s up with Europeans and unusual hot tubs, but if you’re looking for a unique one that can enjoyed at lower elevations, you might want to have a look at the Bug Tub. This one was built out of a red Volkswagen Beetle. While it’s only currently available for rent over in the Netherlands, it could be only a matter of time before its owners decide to build more to sell around the world. Since its debut in the summer of 2014, the Bug Tub has appeared at various music and food festivals around the Netherlands.

The HotTug

Have you ever wanted to enjoy Jacuzzi jets while aboard a boat but you can’t afford a yacht? Well, then a HotTug might be right for you! These wood-fired watercrafts combine the pleasures of pure bathing culture with the steadfast reliability of a tug boat. The HotTug was developed by a Dutch designer named Frank de Bruijn. The first ones could be spotted cruising up and down the canals of Amsterdam back in 2012. Other HotTugs can be rented in cities like London where bathers use them to buzz down the Thames for £120 an hour. If you don’t want to travel all the way to Europe to try one out, de Bruijn recently announced plans to start selling them in the United States. Cost: They start at $16,587.

The Daredevils’ Jacuzzi

In 2011, a group of 25 fearless individuals decided to build a hot tub and suspend it off the side of the Gueuroz Bridge in Valais, Switzerland (it’s one of the tallest in the world). It took them around six hours to attach a wooden platform to a series of cables and place the tub, a heating unit, and bubbling water on top of it. Then they all lowered themselves down into the tub from the bridge and had one of history’s most daring group photos taken of themselves enjoying a 2.5-hour soak 500 feet over the canyon below. (This isn’t the first time they built an “extreme jacuzzi” either—they plopped one on the peak of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, in 2007.)

The post 3 Weird Hot Tubs appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

3 Weird Allergies

Hay fever got you down? It could be worse.

Cold allergy

Being cold is unpleasant and uncomfortable, but a very small number of people are legitimately, and medically speaking, allergic to cold. It’s called cold urticaria. A reaction such as hives, bumps, or a swelling of the throat and tongue can result when exposed to any number of “cold” conditions, such frosty air, submersion in cold water, or even drinking ice-cold drinks. On a hot day, sweat on the skin mixed with a cool breeze can cause hives in a person with cold urticaria. While some symptoms (throat swelling) can be fatal, cold urticaria is generally easily treated with a common antihistamine.

Sun allergy

People with xeroderma pigmentosum probably hate getting compared to vampires, but that’s the frame of reference: it’s an allergy or extreme sensitivity to sunlight. (Technically, it’s an allergy to the sun’s ultraviolet rays.) People who have “the sunlight allergy” must be completely shielded from sunlight—they have to dress covered from head to toe, and avoid sunlight streaming in from windows. Even a little bit of exposure can cause severe sunburns and skin damage.

Water allergy

Even though the body is somewhere in the neighborhood of two-thirds water, people can still be allergic to water. Only a handful of cases of aquagenic urticaria have ever been recorded, although doctors don’t consider it a real allergy because it doesn’t trigger the same response as other allergies. However, those with the condition exposed to water suffer itchy hives and painful welts. Those with the “water allergy” must be very careful around water, and have to avoid submersion and can only take brief, and cold, showers. The main treatment for it? Topical application of capasaicin.

The post 3 Weird Allergies appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

Impossible Questions: Dem (Fish) Bones Edition – The Answer

Think you’ve got the right answer? Keep reading to see if you nailed it.

How does a song by the quirky ‘80s band Fishbone figure into one of the most iconic scenes in movie history?

Music can make a movie scene memorable as much as acting, lighting, or costumes. Some scenes are so associated with a certain song that it’s crazy to think that that song was not the first choice of the filmmakers. Imagine Casablanca without “As Time Goes By,” for example, or The Muppet Movie without “Rainbow Connection.” Or Cameron Crowe’s 1989 romantic comedy Say Anything without Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) standing outside of his lost love Diane Court’s (Ione Skye) window, hoisting a boombox playing “their song”: Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.”

The romantic, soulful song is such a perfect fit…but it wasn’t the song Crowe, a former music journalist, intended. He wrote the scene to fit with Billy Idol’s 1986 song “To Be a Lover.” But when Crowe and Cusack started filming the scene, they realized that it didn’t work for the moment—or the movie—at all.

It’s got romantic lyrics…but it’s a dance-pop song. So, the crew of Say Anything shot the soon to be famous “boombox scene” with Cusack hoisting the boombox over his head and playing something even more inexplicable and inappropriate: “Bonin’ in the Boneyard,” a fast-tempo, upbeat Prince-esque song by the quirky L.A. band Fishbone.

Unsurprisingly, that song didn’t work well either. As Crowe told Moviefone in 2011, Cusack’s character didn’t seem passionate or romantic, but “like a crazed Fishbone fan who just happened to be outsider her window.” He ultimately went with “In Your Eyes,” a massive hit from 1987 for Peter Gabriel.

Want more impossible questions? Check out Uncle John’s Impossible Questions.

The post Impossible Questions: Dem (Fish) Bones Edition – The Answer appeared first on Trivia Books and Facts | Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.