Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 170

The Misappropriation of Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill was one of the most promising singers of the late ’90s. As part of the Fugees, she sang on a smash hit cover of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” and then in 1998 released her solo debut The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Hill wrote and produced most of the album, which sold 19 million copies and won five Grammys, including Best New Artist and Album of the Year.

It looked like Hill would be one of the biggest pop stars of the new millennium…but then almost nothing happened. The only album she’s released since was a live performance in 2002, which was marked by emotional breakdowns and bizarre stage banter. After that she retired from music to raise her five children.

But Hill is in the news again, and it looks like she’ll finally be releasing a follow-up to Miseducation…whether she wants to or not. Late last year, Hill pled guilty to charges that she failed to pay income tax on $1.8 million in royalties earned between 2005 and 2007. She made a $50,000 payment but still owes the federal government more than $500,000. This week, a judge gave her until May 6 to pay off the amount. Where will she get the money? From a brand-new deal with Sony Records—$1 million to record five new songs, and even more if she records a full album.

Will Hill finish the album and/or pay off her bills in time to avoid jail? Not quite. In spite of the deal, and even releasing a song, a judge still sentenced her to three months in prison. Here are some other musicians who forgot to pay their taxes, and their creative solutions.

• Willie Nelson racked up a $16 million unpaid tax bill by 1990. In 1992, he made a $3.6 million dent with the proceeds from his album The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories? He’s since paid off the rest.

• Jerry Lee Lewis eliminated $500,000 of tax debt in 1984 by charging fans $2.75 a minute via a 1-900 number to listen to Lewis tell anecdotes about his childhood.

• In 1979, Chuck Berry was found to owe the IRS $200,000. He served four months in jail and performed 1,000 hours of community service.

The Real Marge Simpson

In late April in Portland, Oregon, the real Marge Simpson passed away at age 94.

Allow us to explain. Margaret Groening was the mother of Matt Groening, the cartoonist who created the comic strip Life in Hell, and later, when he didn’t want to sell the TV rights to Life in Hell, an animated family sitcom called The Simpsons, which you may know as one of the longest-running and universally beloved entertainments of all time.

Groening reportedly came up with the idea for the show while waiting to meet with a TV producer, and peppered it with very personal references to his own family and upbringing:

Homer Simpson was named after his father, Homer Groening
Marge Simpson was named after his mother, Margaret Groening
Margaret Groening’s maiden name was Wiggum, the namesake of Springfield’s police chief.
Margaret had an older sister named Patty…as does Marge.
Besides Matt, the Groenings had three other children, including two daughters named Lisa and Maggie.

But the similarities to the character go even deeper. Margaret Groening and Marge Simpson were both extremely good high school students—Marge was a star on the debate team, while Margaret Groening was named high school valedictorian at Everett High School in Washington in 1937.

She did, however, at any time sport a blue beehive hairdo.

Kid’s Book Giveaway—May 2013

Pop Quiz time!

Do you have horrid memories of pop quizzes from your school days? We’re looking to change that, by awarding prizes just for answering. No ditching class necessary.

So here’s the question (comment below):

Name one thing you’ve learned from an Uncle John’s book.

Tell us something fun. Like that yak milk is pink. Or that the world’s most stolen food is cheese.

You’ll all get an automatic “A” but three random winners will get an “A+” and win our two new kids books: Uncle John’s Infomania Bathroom Reader For Kids Only! and Uncle John’s Smell-O-Scopic Bathroom Reader For Kids Only!.

 

Must enter by May 10, 2013, midnight PST. Winners will be announced on May 13, 2013. Open to US residents only. Entrants must be 18 years or older.

READY, GO!

Video: Baby Goat Jumping On a Pig

We were going to feature a video of a baby goat jumping on a giant zero, but we thought that would be a little noughty.

Get it? Noughty? Like in zero is nought? I know! We’re hilarious!

Ahem.

Here’s the video:

The timing of that rooster crow is too funny.

Titanic II: Oceanic Boogaloo

All aboard? Back in February, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer held a press conference to announce his plans to build a duplicate of the Titanic—arguably the most famous ocean-liner in history. The original Titanic, billed as “unsinkable,” hit an iceberg in 1912 and sank. Palmer is calling his ship, of course, Titanic II.

Think that might be a bad idea? Of course you do. And you’re not alone. While Palmer promises that Titanic II will have a stronger, more iceberg-proof hull (and way more lifeboats), critics say that the new ship makes a mockery of the hundreds of passengers who died on the original Titanic. Descendants of survivors of the disaster are even passing around a petition to block the construction of Titanic II.

Nevertheless, Palmer’s moving forward with his plans. He hopes to make Titanic II the flagship of his Blue Star Line shipping company. It will be built in China and is slated to set sail in 2016. When asked by the press why he’s going through with this, Palmer responded with a curt, “Because I can.”

So far, 40,000 people have applied for tickets. Offers of over $1 million have been placed on first-class cabins on the ship’s maiden voyage. Among those who may be on board: Helen Benziger, great-granddaughter of Margaret “The Unsinkable Molly” Brown. Benzinger hopes to stay in the replica of the cabin that her grandmother occupied on the original Titanic.

What could possibly go wrong?

Iron Man vs. The Mandarin vs. Racism

Surefire blockbuster Iron Man 3 gets the summer movie season going when it’s released tonight. The villain who will try to take down Tony Stark this time: The Mandarin, an original character from comic books of the 1960s. Fortunately, the blatantly racist, stereotypically Asian elements of the character have been toned down for the movies (and he’s played by Sir Ben Kingsley).

Here are couple other questionable—and offensive—comic book characters:

Shamrock. In 1982, Marvel debuted this redheaded Irish heroine. Her super powers: she could harness the spiritual energy of Irish people killed in “the Troubles” and summon “the luck of the Irish.”

Egg Fu. This “yellowface” villain originally appeared in Wonder Woman comics. He’s a gigantic, sentient—and yellow—egg who wears a Fu Manchu mustache and works as a spy for the Chinese government. He first popped up in the ‘60s, but a couple of years ago was reintroduced under the less offensive name “Chang Tzu.”

Pic: Banjo Mute

Oh, internetz – you is funny some days:

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Bonus:

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Double Bonus: UJBR’s Plunges Into Music. The last music book you will ever need. In the bathroom…or anywhere else…

Photo Sunday: Arlington Row, Bibury

So awesome. (Click on the pic for a very big version, and go here for a really big one.)

Caption: “Arlington Row, Bibury, built in 1380 as a monastic wool store. The buildings were converted into weaver cottages in the 17th century.”

Just beautiful. Makes us want to put on a pair of fuzzy slippers, sit next to a toasty fire, and sip a stout or three!

• Many more pics here.

• ChillOutSpots.com on Arlington Row. (And just because it’s bugging us – they’ve got a typo! “Dinning” for “dining”! AHHHK!)

Oh—that made us read closer: “For a unique dining experience be sure to visit the Bibury Trout Farm & Restaurant where you dine on trout that you catch yourself, how fun is that?”

Good fun! We want to go!

• And as you may have seen, this is Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Day for today – and we are great and enthusiastic supporters of the wonderful thing that is Wikimedia Commons. You go, WC! (Appropriate bathroom pun not intended! But we’ll take it!)

The World’s Most Frightening Search Engine: Shodan

You probably use Google, Bing, or Yahoo! to find things on the Internet, but have you ever heard of Shodan? Like the competition, it can be used to search the web for celebrity gossip and Game of Thrones spoilers, but unlike the competition, Shodan specializes in helping hackers to navigate the Internet’s back channels.

Shodan looks for and collects information about hundreds of millions of computerized devices and services—traffic lights, printers, garage doors, heating systems…and power plants. If it has a computer system that connects to the Internet, there’s a good chance Shodan can track it down. Worse yet, all this stuff typically lack firewalls or security programs to protect them from hackers and other nefarious folks.

According to CNN, Shodan’s users have managed to find the control systems for everything from a water park to a crematorium to an automated hotel wine cooler. Far more terrifying is that they’ve also tracked down system grids for nuclear power plants and even a particle-accelerator.

While discussing Shodan at a cyber security conference in 2012, “independent security penetration tester” Dan Tentler used the search engine to locate a car wash he could remotely tamper with and a Danish hockey rink that could be defrosted with the push of a button.

Shodan’s designer John Matherly says he has only the best of intentions for his creation and that it’s primarily used by security experts and law enforcement agents to inform organizations that their systems are unprotected.

What do you think? Is Matherly on the level? (Oh, and if you got here via Shodan…don’t come back!)

Camel Tries to Eat Woman’s Head

You think we’re kidding? Ha!

That’s Juz, one half of Juz and Dave, the human forces behind the blog Our Naked Australia. Juz and Dave are on an adventure:

Neither of us had been on a decent holiday for at least 5 years and after a brief discussion, agreed that it was time to see and experience this country. We had a 75 Series Landcruiser Troopcarrier that was already decked out for when we go on camping trips, and figured that this would make a perfect mobile home.

It was then that we decided to embark on the greatest adventure of our lives and explore Our Naked Australia.

That was, as of today, 143 days ago. Bravo! Very inspiring!

The camel incident happened in March, on their excursion to the town of Bunbury, Western Australia, and then thirty kilometers north to the town of Harvey, where they visited a shop called HaVe Cheese:

They also offer ice cream, local produce like sauces, pickles and preserves, and if you truly love cheese, you can enrol in their cheese making course.  After our cheese tasting, we went outside to meet their camels.  Juz got a little bit too friendly with one of them.

Much too friendly:

The really amazing part: Juz was actually holding her cell phone—and took that shot herself! And she was just fine, as she explains it on Australia’s Today Show:

We’re very happy you came away your camel tasting (in reverse!) okay, Juz—and thank you very much to you and Dave for giving us permission to post these photos! Uncle John and the whole BRI gang wish you safe and adeventureful travels!

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Bonus Camel Video: Camel kicks owner over bad food:

Video. (Note: Everyone in the video speaks Arabic. Except the camel. He speaks “kick.”)