Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 31

Some Impurrrrfect Truths About Cats

96 percent of the internet consists of cute cat pictures and funny cat videos. Okay, that’s not true, and neither are these long-held myths about cats. Myth: Cats love milk. Truth: It’s one of things we most associate with cats — they love to lap up a saucer of milk in much the same way […]

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The Hows and Whys of Coffee

Does Uncle John, the guy responsible for producing a 600-page book every year, drinking a lot of coffee? You better believe he does. Here’s how the good stuff works.  

Awaken!

Caffeine affects neurotransmitters. Normally, those keep blood vessels mostly closed, but the stimulation by caffeine widens them, allowing more blood to flow right through them. The blood carries oxygen, of course, and that delicious, life-giving oxygen heads for the brain and body tissues, making you feel awake and refreshed. But that’s not all. Caffeine stimulates the production of the hormone, adrenaline, which famously makes the whole body speed up, particularly quickening the heartbeat.

Number 1 at Number 2

Coffee’s most famous effect on the body is as a stimulant: a cup or two perks you up and keeps you going…all the way until the time when you need more coffee. The second-most famous thing coffee does to the body—it keeps you…well, let’s just say it gets you to a place where you can read an Uncle John’s book. That’s because caffeine (as well as chlorogenic acids and other organic compounds) can lead to contracts in two different parts of the digestive system: the intestinal muscles, as well as the colon. (That’s called the gastrocolic reflex.) First, all that activity in the intestines forces whatever is in there further along, and into the colon, where more contractions push your breakfast to the rectum, and, well, you know what happens next. Water also helps the digestive system work in this way, although caffeine (and a cup of coffee packs a lot of it) is 60 percent more effective in its colon-jostling affects.

The Original Jitterbug

The caffeine in coffee is a stimulant, and a single brewed cup can contain anywhere from 50 to 100 mg of the stuff. The definition of a stimulant is anything that makes your body react by speeding up the central nervous system’s functions, which leads to you feeling more awake and alert. Too much caffeine, however, means that the central nervous system gets set to hyperspeed, which leads to too much awakeness and alertness. That, in turn produces the dreaded “jitters,” feelings of anxiety and nervousness along with a sense that your body is shaking.

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News That Just Blew In

Catch a whiff of these recent stories all about natural gas. (They’re about farts is what we’re saying.)

The Air Up Here

On a February 2018 flight from Dubai to Amsterdam on Transavia Airlines (a discount Dutcher carrier), an elderly man just couldn’t stop farting…nor would he (or could he) hold it in. He was aggravating passengers seated in his bad-smelling radius, some of whom complained to flight attendants. The pilot even ordered the man to stop, but he was unable. The farting drove two men so mad that they tried to physically attack the guy. That forced the pilot to make an emergency landing…where the guys who started the fight were thrown off the plane and banned from Transavia Airlines. (As for the farter, he kept farting…and everybody else just had to deal with it.)

Ewww Tube

The movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop concerns a mall security guard. In 2018, a real-life security guard who called himself “Paul Flart” found fame as a viral video store for releasing a compilation of all the times he farted at work over the previous six months. (The clip consists of Paul Flart farting and making funny faces as he does so.) The video got so popular that it aroused the attention of Paul Flart’s bosses…who fired him. But don’t cry for him (his real name is Doug, by the way) — he told reporters he plans to start a line of Paul Flart merchandise and wants to make a TV show where he travels around the world to exotic locales…and farts there.

Faux Farts, Real Trouble

One Sunday afternoon in July 2018, 75-year-old Collin Mitchell got a knock on the door of his home in St. Albans, England. A neighbor noticed that whenever a woman walked by Mitchell’s house, “offensive human noises” would be unleased from inside. The cause, police realized: a handheld sound effects box called a “fart machine.” At the push of a button, it makes fart sounds. Mitchell had given one to his three-year-old great-grandchild, Charlie, to play with. “What an absolute waste of police time,” Mitchell told reporters. “They could be doing something better because there’s so many problems with the shortage of money in policing.”

Let it Go

In September 2018, University of Newcastle, New South Wales nutrition professor Clare Collins published an essay in The Conversation explaining the results of years of fart research. Apparently, humans can’t hold in a fart…or at least not for very long. According to Collins, clenching and not going with the flow will cause the body to reabsorb the gas bubbles into the bloodstream, and, since it can’t escape the back door…it will come out of the mouth. “Trying to hold it in leads to a buildup of pressure and major discomfort,” Collins added.

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The Strange and Twisted History of Thanksgiving

Here are some facts about Thanksgiving that are darker than the turkey’s dark meat, and more alarming than your aunt’s green gelatin casserole. 

Be Glad You’re Eating Turkey 

We often think of the Pilgrims as the inventors of Thanksgiving. And while they certainly popularized the idea with a feast with Native Americans in 1621 in what’s now Massachusetts, they weren’t the first European settlers to count their blessings with a large harvest meal. Beginning in the 1610s, colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, had their own celebrations that combined prayer and food. They were very thankful that year, seeing as how the winter of 1609 had been so harsh, and the colonists had been so unprepared, that they had to resort to eating horses, their shoes, rats…and other colonists that had already died.

Heading South

Our modern celebration of Thanksgiving developed as a regional holiday in New England (because of the history of the Pilgrims there). It spread throughout the nation by the 1850s, but when the Civil War seemed inevitable by the 1860s, some of the most staunchly pro-slavery states in the South refused to celebrate it. Why? Because it was a distinctly “Northern” holiday. Part of the reason why President Abraham Lincoln made it an official national holiday in 1863 was an attempt to unite the fractured nation.

Same Turkey, Different Day

When Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving an official thing, he set it to occur on the fourth Thursday of November. But then in 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt decided to change the day — he moved Thanksgiving to the third Thursday in November. Why? Like a lot of his Depression-era policies, it was an attempt to jump-start the economy. An extra week between Thanksgiving and Christmas made the holiday shopping season that much longer. However, for two years, 16 states refused to change and held Thanksgiving on the old date, with some public officials derisively labeling the newer, earlier date “Franksgiving” after the president.

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The Heroic Toilet from the Future

That’s no understatement — for the 2.3 billion people around the world who don’t have access to sanitation, a new kind of loo could save countless lives. Flush toilets aren’t everywhere Flush toilets are commonplace in the U.S. and Europe, but for large swaths of the developing world, the technology is yet to land. Many […]

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So Long, Springfield

The Simpsons has been on the air for more than 30 years now, and the setting of Springfield has expanded to include literally hundreds of characters. On occasion, the population contracts. Here are some characters no longer on the show…and why.

APU NAHASAPEEMAPETILON

The discussion has been going on for years, but the idea that Apu, Springfield’s resident Kwik-E-Mart proprietor, was problematic, reached peak volume in 2017, when Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu released the documentary The Problem With Apu. He argued that the character embodied several hurtful Indian-American stereotypes, particularly his employment at a convenience store and the broad voice characterization used by actor Hank Azaria, who does not have an Indian background. Others may argue that Apu is a fleshed-out, multifaceted character — he’s been a part of The Simpsons for more than 25 years, and viewers became familiar with his extended family (his parents arranged his marriage, which turned out happy and resulted in octuplets) and backstory (he came to the U.S. to get his doctorate in computer science). In early 2018, The Simpsons responded to the controversy — Marge reads Lisa a P.C.-sanitized bedtime story, and both are unimpressed. Next to a photo of Apu, Lisa monologues, “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?” Well, here’s what The Simpsons can and did do.  Producers have announced plans to completely retire the Apu character. Not everyone is happy with this move — while it eliminates a character some find stereotypical, some critics have pointed out that it also means one less Indian-American person on television (of which there aren’t many).

TROY McCLURE and LIONEL HUTZ

Two of the most popular and hilarious characters in the early seasons of The Simpsons were also among its sleaziest. One was the Simpsons go-to attorney (meaning he was cheap and terrible) Lionel Hutz. (He once asks for a mistrial by calling it a “bad court thingy.”) The other: washed-up 1970s heartthrob actor — turned infomercial pitchman and educational film host — Troy McClure. (“You may remember me from such films as P is for Psycho, and The President’s Neck is Missing.”) Both of those characters disappeared from the show after 1998. The reason: legendary comic actor and Saturday Night Live alum Phil Hartman voiced them both, and after he was tragically murdered, there was no way producers could re-cast those roles.

MAUDE FLANDERS

The Simpsons neighbors’, the Flanders are so kind and pious that it seemed shocking and unfair when, in 2000, the show killed off matriarch Maude Flanders, wife of Ned and mother of two young boys. She dies in a ridiculous way, too — at the Springfield Speedway, Homer eggs on the T-shirt canon guy, and one of those projectiles hits Maude, knocking her off the grandstands to her death below. Why did The Simpsons do this? Because of a contract dispute with voice actor Maggie Roswell. She wanted more money than producers wanted to give her, so they let her walk. Some of her roles were assigned to other actresses (Miss Hoover, Helen Lovejoy), but writers killed off her main part, Maude.

 

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Your 2018 Uncle John’s and Portable Press Holiday Gift Guide

The holidays are coming, and you’ve got a long gift list. Let us handle that for you.

For those who seek knowledge: Uncle John’s Actual & Factual Bathroom Reader

For more than 30 years now, Uncle John and his crack team of BRI stall-warts have delivered a 500-plus page volume of, well, a little bit of everything. The latest, Uncle John’s Actual & Factual Bathroom Reader keeps up the tradition, offering little known-stories and fascinating facts from the worlds of history, movies, music, inventions, and more, with plenty of wordplay, weird news, and brainteasers thrown in to keep your lucky gift recipient occupied in the bathroom (or other, less important rooms).

For the lover of fine cheese: Dad Jokes

You don’t have to have fathered a child to like puns, jokes, quips, and cracks so cheesy and corny that they go all the way around from being unfunny to being funny again. In other words, “dad jokes,” because these are the kinds of jokes goofy dads around the world and throughout time love to tell. That reminds us: Knock-knock. (Who’s there?) Amarillo. Amarillo who? Amarillo old-fashioned cowboy!

For the cinephile:  Best Movies of the 80s

Packed with photos and memorabilia of Hollywood stars, this collection of classic cinema blockbusters offers summaries, release dates, trivia, and fun facts on each motion picture. This book covers the invention of massive-budget action films, the Brat Pack, and even popular foreign flicks of the day. Nobody puts this book in the corner—you’ll be donning your Ray-Bans and immersing yourself in gnarly nostalgia from the neon-colored 1980s in no time!

For truly wondrous ladies: I Am a Wonder Woman

Now here’s a book that will inspire anyone lucky enough to be gifted it. Inside are the (delightfully illustrated) stories of some of the most interesting, influential, and remarkable women who ever lived. The young reader on your gift list will find history comes alive as read, answer questions, and do some text-related activities. To be frank, we think it’s pretty “wonder”-ful.

For the crafty: Toilet Roll Activity Book

And here all this time, you and that special someone on your gift list have just been using toilet paper for its, well, “intended purpose” and then throwing out (or at least recycling) the round cardboard tube inside! This book will show you how to turn trash into treasure, and challenge, entertain, and delight with its many project and craft suggestions on how to better use that tube. (For example, hold it up to your eye, and you look just like a pirate!)

For those who like it weird: The Strange series

We probably don’t have to tell you that it’s a big, beautiful, and totally weird world out there. Every day, stuff happens that mystifies experts, pundits, and people who ought to know better. And we cataloged hundreds of them into our strange book series, or rather our Strange book series. Whether your gift recipient is a (baffling) history buff, a (bizarre) science, or just to read about really dumb things people did while (trying) to commit a crime, we’ve got the books for you, with Strange History, Strange Science, and Strange Crime, respectively. (How very strange!)

For the unabashedly old-fashioned: Top 100 Classic Radio Shows

Long before there were far too many TV shows, streaming shows, and podcasts to get to, there were way too many fun radio shows to listen to. With this exhaustive book on the history of the golden age of radio, anyone can harken back to the good old days of the 1930s and 1940s, when families gathered in front of a big radio to listen to shows like The Shadow and The War of the Worlds and picture the action as it unfolded in front of them.

For the listmakers: The Top 10 of Everything 2019

Santa only made one list this holiday season, while the trivia elves at Portable Press made hundreds. Who doesn’t love lists? There’s so much information out there in the world, and here’s a big book of it, with everything broken down into the best and most prominent top 10 for easy reference. (It’s also impossible to put down, because after you read about the top 10 bestselling video games, you’ll want to check out the top 10 fastest cars, and then you’ll flip and discover the top 10 most popular movies…and so on.)

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It’s Almost Wolfenoot!

Here’s the lowdown — and adorable origin story — of the world’s newest and fluffiest holiday.

A day just for dogs

There are so many holidays to celebrate different members of the family — Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Grandparents Day, for example. A seven-year-old boy decided that we need a day just for dogs. Enter Wolfenoot.

An invisible dog version of Santa

On September 27, a Facebook user named Jax Goss rote a post about her seven-year-old son’s idea for a day to honor the “spirit of the wolf” as well as dogs, and people who are nice to dogs. Like an invisible dog version of Santa, it plays out with the embodiment of the Spirit of the Wolf hiding small presents around the house for all humans, but the ones who love dogs the most get the best presents. Then, the family retires to a feast of roasted meat (because wolves and dogs like meat) followed by a cake that’s decorated to look like a full moon (which wolves also enjoy). Another way to celebrate: Spend the day being nice to your dog, or other people’s dogs, or just animals in general.

Its first official observance: November 23

Goss’s post exploded in popularity with her friends, and then she made it public, and it went viral on the internet, because if there’s one thing internet denizens love, it’s dogs. Result: Wolfenoot will be celebrated by tens of thousands of people on its first official observance of November 23.

“The Great Wolf’s Death”

Why November 23? Well, it’s a nice coincidence that a full moon rises on that day. But Goss’s son says Wolfenoot (pronounced “WOLF-uh-noot”) must and will fall every year on November 23 because that marks the anniversary of “The Great Wolf’s Death.”

Donating to animal shelters

It falls on the day after Thanksgiving this year, a.k.a. Black Friday, because the Goss family lives in New Zealand, where American Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated. But that’s a big weekend for roast meat, so it’s easy to fold Wolfenoot into the festivities. The Gosses also strongly encourage donating to animal shelters as part of one’s Wolfenoot celebration.

 

Will you celebrate Wolfenoot? What will you get your dog?

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Stan Lee Was Truly “Excelsior!”

Stan Lee passed away this week at the age of 95. As the chief creative mind at Marvel Comics for decades, he helped make comics a viable literary form and a distinctly American contribution to art with near-mythological-level by introducing everyone from Spider-Man to the Avengers to the X-Men to the Fantastic Four to the Guardians of the Galaxy. Here’s a look back on the hero’s journey of the man born Stanley Martin Lieber.

The 1920s and 1930s

Growing up in the ‘20s and ‘30s, Lee harbored dreams of becoming a novelist, but in 1930 he took a job as an office runner at small comic book publisher Timely Publications. Timely turned into Atlas Comics, and then…Marvel Comics. Lee brought along his old Timely co-worker Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America.

The 1960s

The early ‘60s were a very fruitful time for Lee. In 1961, he developed the Fantastic Four. In 1962, he launched Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, and probably his most famous and important creation, Spider-Man.

President and Publisher

Lee stopped actively writing comic books in 1972, at the age of 50. From there, he held the role as president and publisher of Marvel Comics, as well as face of the company and its unofficial cheerleader. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, he moved to Hollywood to develop his creations for television. He was so hands-on that he was even the narrator for Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man cartoons.

Superman = Boring

Lee created countless characters for Marvel Comics, but he liked plenty of work put out by other publishers. But not quintessential D.C. Comics hero Superman. Why? He’s boring because he’s so powerful that there’s little dramatic tension. “He is so unstoppable that they had to later on invent kryptonite because nobody worried about him!” Lee once said. The difference between Superman and Lee’s characters — and which made them so compelling, and oddly enough, relatable — was that his had real human problems and flaws.

Movie Cameos

Stan Lee created and developed so many Marvel Comics characters over his decades of work that when movies in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” finally started to hit screens in the 2000s, filmmakers paid homage by giving Lee a clever cameo appearance in all of them. In Iron Man, he’s shown wearing a robe, smoking a pipe, and surrounded by models, leading Tony Stark / Iron Man to mistake him for Hugh Hefner. In The Avengers, a TV reporter interviews Lee, a man playing chess in a park, who says that he doesn’t think the heroic Avengers are real. 

So Many Characters, So Little Time

Lee created so many characters and invented so many plots that he sometimes forgot the details. In one issue of Spider-Man, he wrote that Spider-Man’s real identity was that of Peter Palmer (it’s actually Peter Parker), and another time, he noted that The Incredible Hulk transformed back into his regular persona of Bob Banner (not Bruce).

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Actual and Factual Facts About Soda Pop

This article was first published in our 31st annual edition, Uncle John’s Actual and Factual Bathroom Reader.

Generic name

The generic name for a soft drink varies by region: In New England and the Southwest, it’s generally called “soda,” in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, it’s generally “pop,” and in Texas and the South it’s called “Coke” (even if it isn’t Coca-Cola). 

Special formulas

If you ever see a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola at the store with a yellow cap, it’s a special formula—it’s kosher, brewed up for Passover.

Based on frosting flavors

Faygois a popular soda (or pop) in the Midwest, produced in Michigan. It offers super-sweet flavors like Cotton Candy and Grape because the company’s founders were previously bakers, and based the flavors on frosting flavors. 

Drink it warm

In the 1960s, Dr Pepper was losing business in the winter So it started a marketing campaign to teach consumers to drink Dr Pepper warm with a slice of lemon, like tea. 

3,500 different types

Worldwide, Coca-Cola produces about 3,500 different varieties of beverage.

Plastic costs less

It costs soda companies less to manufacture their product in plastic bottles than glass ones, but glass ones work better. Carbon gas can slowly escape through the plastic,leading to less fizz over time, and a far shorter shelf life. 

The Nazi’s

When Nazi Germany was placed under trade embargoes during World War II, thecountry couldn’t get Coca-Cola.So the country’s local Coke bottler created orange flavored Fanta. (After the war, Coca-Cola adopted the drink worldwide.) 

The most caffeine

Soda with the most caffeine: Diet Pepsi Max, with 69 milligrams per 12-ounce serving.Legal FDA-imposed caffeine limit for soft drinks: 71 milligrams per 12-ounce serving.

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