Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 174
March 14, 2013
Art (and Explosions)
This is cool – art made from layers of wire mesh:
And now that we have that artsy fartsy stuff out of the way – let’s get to the explosions!
1. “The Explosive Collection”:
2. “Huge explosions”:
3. “The Ultimate Explosion”:
4. “Underwater Explosions”:
5. “8 CRAZY EXPLOSIONS IN 1080p!!”
6. “Nasty Big Oil Tank Explosion”:
7. “Massive Propane Explosion – LPG filling station – Bucheon, South Korea”:
Pssst: BLEVE.
8. “H-Bombs in HD”:”
9. “Boum” (includes French comics!):
And finally, 10. “Surprised Kitty…EXPLODING!!!”
This has been another fine edition of “Art (and Explosions).” You’re welcome!
March 13, 2013
Hilarious French Toilet Paper Ad
It’s like it was made for the Bathroom Reader!
He’s got no TP – but he can still have a read! (Somebody give that guy our website address!)
Found here.
Note: The ad is called, “Emma, le Trefle.” Le Trèfle is the name of the toilet paper brand – and le trèfle means “the clover.” (Trèfle à quatre feuilles is “four-leafed clover.”)
The Great Hollywood Toilet Boycott
Celebrities: they’re just like us…except that they don’t use toilets.
The great toilet boycott has started.
At least some of them. Movie star Matt Damon, who does a lot of humanitarian work on the side, co-founded water.org, an organization devoted to bring clean water to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who lack sanitation, including 800 million who don’t have access to clean drinking water.
To promote his cause, last month Damon publicly announced that he would refuse to use a toilet until everyone in the world enjoys the same water privileges as first world nations.
Today, more celebrities joined the crusade, including Jason Bateman, Jessica Biel, and Josh Gad. (No word on exactly how they’ll go about their “business.”)
Obviously we care a lot about toilets and bathrooms, not just as reading rooms, but as a privilege that many of us enjoy as a modern health marvel and take for granted. If you, like Damon, think that access to clean water and sanitation should be a right, check out water.org and strikewithme.org to see how you can help…or even take the pledge yourself.
March 12, 2013
Playing Music…With Ice
A group of Siberian percussionists have become an internet hit with an exhibition of ice drumming on frozen Lake Baikal.
In minus 20C, they found by pure chance that the one metre thick ice has a distinctive and haunting rhythm all of its own, reported the Siberian Times.
‘I felt like we were playing on the drums that Nature has left out for us, alone under the sun on the frozen waters of the world’s most magnificent lake,’ said Irkutsk architect Natalya Vlasevskaya, 31, a mother-of-one and organiser of Etnobit percussion group.
• More here.
• Much more here:
No one knows exactly what creates the unique sound – whether it’s the shallow depth at the site (5m) or the unique shape of the ice flakes – but the ice drums at this spot 50m offshore don’t occur anywhere else on the lake. Even the drummers can’t explain.
• And some fascinating information on the lake:
Situated in south-east Siberia, the 3.15-million-ha Lake Baikal is the oldest (25 million years) and deepest (1,700 m) lake in the world. It contains 20% of the world’s total unfrozen freshwater reserve. Known as the ‘Galapagos of Russia’, its age and isolation have produced one of the world’s richest and most unusual freshwater faunas, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science.
• Totally appropriate and extra related Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader right over here. (Find the EBook here.)
March 10, 2013
1979 Soviet Propaganda Cartoon: ‘Shooting Range’ [updated]
For your Sunday commie cartooning experience!
First, we found this description of this film at Febriblog? An Appreciation of Neglected Films (which looks pretty awesome itself):
Shooting Range, well, it’s a different beast all together. No two ways about it, Shooting Range is pure unadulterated propaganda. Its story is also simple; a young man wanders the bustling metropolis desperately looking for a job, a mere innocent peasant in the hands of corporate evil and greed. So naturally, our hero eventually finds a job from a lasciviously kind tycoon, as a human target in a shooting range. Live in a capitalist world, and you are setting yourself up as a walking bullseye. It’s essentially The Most Dangerous Game for the set who found that film to be a bit too subtle. But once again, the animation is stunning to behold, a sense of movement that really does convey a level of panic in the viewer. That, and it’s hilarious.
Part I:
Part II:
Bonus: A 1966 Soviet anti-Beatles film excerpt: “When they started their career, they wore nothing but swimming trunks and toilet seats around their necks.”
We have no idea if that’s actually what the narrator says – but we sure hope so!
Update: Now with actual anti-Beatles video!
Here’s a longer, all Russian version.
March 8, 2013
Four Weird and Oz-Mazing ‘Oz’ Facts
Oz: the Great and Powerful crashes into movies theaters today harder than Dorothy’s farmhouse killed a witch. Brush up on your Oz knowledge before you go see the movie.
• Published in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the first Oz book, and the basis for the classic 1939 film, but it’s not the first thing author L. Frank Baum ever published. Decades earlier, he was a chicken farmer, specializing in Hamburgs, a rare German breed. In 1886, Baum published a chicken raising guide called The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise Upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs. (The Oz novels are much more entertaining.)
• In 1905, Baum announced his intentions to funnel his wealth from the huge sales of The Wonderful World of Oz into an Oz-themed amusement park on Pedloe Island, off the coast of California. Baum said he planned to both live there, and hire an all-children advisory board to consult on the park’s operations. One problem: there’s no such place as Pedloe Island. (It was probably a practical joke.)
• The Oz series has been adapted for the screen many times, none more famous than the 1939 MGM version starring Judy Garland, Burt Lahr, and Ray Bolger. A movie that popular is bound to generate some urban legends. You’ve probably heard the one about how if you look closely you can see a suicidal “Munchkin” actor hanging from a tree, or that the film syncs up with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album. But one that is true: there’s a lost musical number, “The Jitterbug.” In the scene, the Wicked Witch of the West sends the magical bugs after Dorothy and her friends. The producers cut the scene because they felt it would date the film. The only footage that survived is a home movie shot during the dress rehearsals but you can listen to the studio recording they’d already made:
• In 1985, Walt Disney Pictures released Return to Oz, an unofficial sequel to the 1939 film, loosely based on the second and third novels in Baum’s series. The big-budget extravaganza flopped and it’s now considered one of the most frightening family films ever made. Among the scary scenes: Dorothy gets sent to a hospital for electric shock treatments, she fights a witch with a gallery of removable heads, and she watches her friends get turned into ornaments. The farm girl also spends much of the film hanging out with a talking chicken and a freaky character with a gigantic pumpkin for a head. You can view the theatrical trailer here (but send the kids out of the room).
March 7, 2013
CONTEST WINNERS!
WE HAVE A WINNER! (Several, actually)
We had a contest the other day! You had to guess the number between 0 and 100 that Uncle John picked! Two hundred and thirty-odd of you submitted entries! As per rules numbers 4, 5, and 6:
4. The five people who come THE CLOSEST to the number Uncle John picked will win ONE (1!) Uncle John Bathroom Reader books of their choosing. (Yeehaw!)
5. The person the VERY CLOSEST to the number Uncle John picked will win TWO (2!) books of their choosing. (Bazinga!)
6. The submitter who guesses THE EXACT NUMBER (gasp!) that Uncle John picked will win FIVE (5!) books of their choosing.
Drum roll please:
AND THE NUMBER IS:
Nobody picked 41! But, because Douglas Adams wrote some funny books…
Ten of you picked 42! (D’oh!) And are simultaneously the closest and very closest (nobody picked the number 40) – and therefore we’re just going to give the whole lot of you TWO (2!) BOOKS EACH!
The ten winners:
Young Sheng
Michael C. Falk
Victoria
Wes Richey
Dan Burke
Alexandra Conrad
Sabrina
Mike (there were several Mikes; this one – obviously – is the one who chose 42!)
Raina
Ceecee
CONGRATULATIONS, WINNERS! Mana will contact you soon!
Thank you everyone else for playing! Better luck next time!
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March 6, 2013
RIP Alvin Lee
British blues-rock guitarist Alvin Lee, who was best known for his performance with rock band Ten Years After at Woodstock in 1969, died on Wednesday at age 68, his family said.
“With great sadness we have to announce that Alvin unexpectedly passed away early this morning after unforeseen complications following a routine surgical procedure,” the family said in a statement on the singer’s official website.
Ten Years After—”Spoonful”:
RIP, to the great Alvin Lee.
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March 5, 2013
Lost TV Pilots & The Nat King Cole Show
Our Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader TUNES INTO TV, which had been a reader request for many years, has turned out to be a darn big hit. An excerpt from a review over at Amazon:
Some great articles here, there are brief histories on NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS. Inventors such as Smirnoff and Farnsworth are given their due, and since modern day tv wouldn’t be where it is without them, it’s wonderful that they’re mentioned.
I really enjoyed their piece about the 1968 showing of Heidi, and the uproar it caused. I would recommend this book, for any up and coming tv historians who need to get a quick overview of the medium. It helped refresh my memory, and introduced me to a few stories I didn’t know about.
JThree
Williston North Dakota
Why thank you, JThree, much obliged.
We thought you might like a look at what’s inside this book, so here are two excerpts for your reading pleasure.
First, some TV pilots you may not have heard about. Click on the pic to enlarge. (Here’s a PDF version: LostTVPilots)
And another, this the unfortunate story of “The Nat King Cole Show.” (PDF: AKingDethroned)
Hope you enjoyed them! You can get Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader TUNES INTO TV at Amazon, among other places. More choices in the EBook section over here.
Uncle John…out!
March 3, 2013
CONTEST CLOSED! Guess the Number Uncle John Just Thought Of! [updated]
CONTEST CLOSED! (THRURSDAY, MARCH 7!) WINNERS ANNOUNCED HERE!
Ah-ROOOOOOO-Gah!!!
BREAKING: UNCLE JOHN’S BATHROOM READER IS HAVING A CONTEST!!! ENTER AND YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY WIN STUFF!!!
Alrighty then. First, here’s a picture of what this contest might look like if it were humanly possible to render such a complex thing into one image:
I think we’ve seen enough!
Moving right along:
GUESS THE NUMBER UNCLE JOHN JUST THOUGHT OF Contest Rules
1. Uncle John just thought of a whole number between 0 (zero!) and 100 (one hundred!). We’ve saved that number in Uncle John’s super-secret super-safe safe. (It’s a tissue box. It’s in his bathroom.) Your job: Gather all your psychic abilities into one tremendous bundle of other-worldly communication potentialities and determine exactly what that number is! Or better yet, just guess.
2. Tell us the number you have chosen in a comment below. (One entry per person. Two per giraffe. But giraffes have to submit their entries in person.)
4. The five people who come THE CLOSEST to the number Uncle John picked will win ONE (1!) Uncle John Bathroom Reader books of their choosing. (Yeehaw!)
5. The person the VERY CLOSEST to the number Uncle John picked will win TWO (2!) books of their choosing. (Bazinga!)
6. The submitter who guesses THE EXACT NUMBER (gasp!) that Uncle John picked will win FIVE (5!) books of their choosing. (Holy mackeral! It’s like Christmas and your birthday and Hungarian Goulash Appreciation Day all rolled into one! ‘Cept without the goulash.)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
• U.S. residents only. (You would not believe how complex and legally treacherous international laws are regarding simple contests like this. We are very sorry to our international fans for this.)
• UPDATE: WHOLE NUMBERS ONLY! NO DECIMALS! (Note: This update was added just minutes after the contest was posted.)
• You have three days to enter! Entries will be taken until midnight on Wednesday, March 6, 2013!
• Winners will be announced on Thursday!
• Tell your friends! Spread the word!
• You cannot enter on FaceBook or Twitter! You have to submit your entry here!
READY SET GO!
AND GOOD LUCK!
• Contest image from right over this-a-way.
