Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 74

Shouldn’t Your Horoscope Have Predicted This Would Happen

Bad news: Your horoscope has been wrong this entire time. By which we mean it’s been wrong forever. (If you believe in that kind of stuff, we mean.) Those “Star Signs” are based on real collections of stars in the night sky, and NASA just made a big discovery about them. 

According to recent research and an announcement from NASA (who usually handles astronomy and not astrology) there aren’t 12 zodiac constellations in the “celestial sphere” of stars above Earth. There are 13. Oops. It would seem that went the Western “zodiac” horoscope system was established 3,000 years ago in Babylonia, those in charge wanted the different star signs to correspond to a 12-month calendar. That meant one of the 13 constellations had to be abandoned—Ophiuchus (also known as Serpentarius) got the boot. (Welcome back, Ophiuchus!)

Of course, with 13 constellations, that means there are now also 13 corresponding star signs. While each zodiac sign previously covered about a month of the calendar year, the 13 are now split up to cover about three weeks and change a piece. And chances are, your astrological sign is going to change. To make room for Ophiuchus, the birthdates corresponding to all the other signs have been pushed back a few weeks. For example, Virgo used to stretch from late August to late September—it now covers those born between August 10 and September 16.

If it doesn’t change, it’s only because you’re getting a new one. The newest zodiac symbol is Ophiuchus. It covers birthdays between November 29 and December 17. And as the Cancer is represented by a Crab and Pisces by Fish, Ophiuchus is “the snake bearer.” Qualities and characteristics “assigned” to those in that zodiac: a skepticism of authority, a willingness to fight for a cause, secretive, and wise. Those with this symbol are also said to be generally successful in life, enjoy bright colors, and dress well.

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$tar War$: Strange Star Wars Products

Nothing says “May the force be with you” quite like a waffle maker. Here are some real tie-ins to a galaxy far, far away. This article was first published in Uncle John’s Uncanny Bathroom Reader . 

Crocs

The plastic sandals are available in a The Force Awakens edition: the bad guys (Kylo Ren, stormtroopers) printed on one foot, and the good guys (Finn and Rey) on the other.

Creamer

Coffee-Mate released a special line of its nondairy creamers in bottles that look like characters, including Darth Vader (Espresso Chocolate flavor), C-3PO (Hazelnut), and Chewbacca (Spiced Latte).

Christmas Decorations

You can buy a 16-foot-tall inflatable Darth Vader to put on your lawn during the holidays. Instead of a lightsaber, he’s holding a big candy cane.

Barf Bags

To promote Revenge of the Sith in 2005, Virgin Airlines carried Star Wars–branded air sickness bags on its flights. They were printed with jokey tips about lightsaber safety.

Waffle Maker

It makes waffles in the shape and image of the Death Star. (Brought to you by Pangea Brands, which also makes a Darth Vader toaster.)

Sleeping Bag

Remember in The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are stuck on the ice planet Hoth, and to survive, Solo kills his mount—a tauntaun—and puts Luke inside? As a 2009 April Fools’ joke, the online catalog company ThinkGeek offered a ridiculous product that they didn’t have—a tauntaun-shaped sleeping bag (that kids could crawl inside). They were inundated with orders and had to scramble to get permission from Lucasfilm to produce it. Today it’s available in their catalog (and from Amazon).

Yoda Mat

It’s a yoga mat, but it’s got a picture of Yoda on it. Get it? It also has an inspiring quote on it: “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

Rugs

This fuzzy throw rug looks like it was made from a Wookiee pelt. It’s even got Chewbacca’s bandolier attached. Also available: R2-D2 rugs, Millennium Falcon rugs, and Death Star rugs.

Cat Toys

If your cat loves Star Wars (and of course she does), she’ll love these stuffed animals that are mouse versions of Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, and Yoda.

Bed

Pottery Barn sells this capsulelike bed for kids, shaped like the Millennium Falcon. Cost: $4,000.

Aquarium

A hollow R2-D2 that is home to a bunch of fish.

Tape Dispenser

This bizarre bit of Star Wars merchandise from 1981 is somewhat inappropriate. It’s a seated C-3PO with a roll of Scotch tape emanating from between his legs.

Refrigerator

It may not keep your drinks hyper-cold, but this mini-fridge looks exactly like Han Solo frozen in carbonite.

George Lucas Action Figure

Star Wars creator George Lucas has a cameo in Revenge of the Sith as a blue creature standing outside of an opera house. His three real-life children stand next to him, also made up like aliens. Like almost every other Star Wars character, action figures of the Lucas family are available.

Duck Tape

It’s duct tape…with scenes from Star Wars on it.

Towels

Mirroring a famous exchange from the movies, these his-and-hers towels from ThinkGeek depict Princess Leia saying “I love you” and Han Solo saying “I know.”

Toilet Paper

For the release of Revenge of the Sith in 2005, fans in Germany could buy special Star Wars–branded packs of toilet paper manufactured by the paper company Zewa. (Each pack came with a Yoda action figure.)

Tackle

Fishing gear manufacturer Shakespeare sells Star Wars stuff that you can fish with. The kids’ fishing starter packs include tackle boxes and fishing rods made to look like lightsabers.

Tongs

Why use regular barbecue tongs when you could use tongs that look like a lightsaber and make lightsaber sound effects? (Frequently bought with Darth Vader apron and Darth Vader heat-resistant silicone oven gloves.)

Fancy Dresses

In 2014, the fashion house Rodarte introduced Star Wars dresses for women. Similar to the garments worn by Princess Leia, the dresses are billowy, flowing, and off-white…but screen-printed with scenes from the Star Wars movies. Cost: about $6,000.

Apples

The fruit distribution company Sage paid a hefty fee to brand Red Delicious apples with Star Wars imagery. Here’s what they came up with in late 2015: apples (regular apples) in a plastic bag with Darth Vader’s picture on it.

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Plenty of Room at the Winchester Mystery House!

Just in time for Halloween, something very spooky has occurred at one of the spookiest places in the United States.

Rifle magnate William Wirt Winchester died in 1881, leaving behind his vast fortune to his wife, Sarah Winchester. Part of her windfall was allocated to building a Queen Anne-style mansion in San Jose, California. Around the time construction began in 1884, Winchester became deeply troubled and believed she was haunted by the ghosts of the countless individuals who had been killed by a Winchester rifle. And so, in an attempt to keep the ghosts at bay, Winchester insisted that the house should always be under some kind of construction.

Sarah Winchester died in 1922, and building finally stopped. Today, the house is more of a series of sprawling, connected, utterly nonsensical edifices with random hallways, doors to nowhere, random passages, 47 fireplaces, 40 staircases, 13 bathrooms, nine kitchens, 10,000 windows, and 160 rooms. Or, due to a recent discovery, 161 rooms.

The Winchester Mystery House, as it’s known, is a California state landmark, and with that designation comes a preservation team. This year, that crew found a room in the attic that was boarded up since 1906. Records indicate that Sarah Winchester was inside that room during the 1906 earthquake that devastated nearby San Francisco and its surroundings. Winchester became convinced that evil ghosts that were in the room with her had actually caused the earthquake, so she boarded them up inside the room before they could cause any more damage. All of the items have been removed from the room for a special exhibit at the Winchester Mystery House, suggesting that the forgotten attic area was Winchester’s sewing room: It contained a sewing machine, a dress form, paintings, a couch, and a pump organ.

Bonus: A movie starring Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester is slated to hit theaters end of 2017. 

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Race-Day Superstitions

Many NASCAR, Formula One, and IndyCar drivers put themselves through some very peculiar rituals, in the belief that if they don’t, bad luck will curse them to lose their race…or worse. This article was first published in our 29th annual edition, Uncle John’s Uncanny Bathroom Reader.

Don’t Drive a Green Car 

Just a few months after winning the Indianapolis 500 in 1920, Gaston Chevrolet died after crashing into a car he didn’t see. His car had been painted green, so from then on it was considered bad luck to drive a green car. (Very few drivers went with green for decades, until 1952…when Larry Mann crashed his green Hudson Hornet into a wall, and died.)

Don’t Eat Peanuts in the Stands

In the early days of NASCAR (before World War II), most races were held at local fairgrounds, and pit crews were stationed in the shade, right underneath the grandstands. Fans sat up there and ate peanuts, and dropped shells into the pits…and the cars. Wrecks at these races almost always had evidence of peanut shells, leading to the idea that peanuts were a bringer of doom.

Don’t Shave Before a Race

NASCAR driver Doc MacKenzie got married in 1936 and shaved off his long beard for the ceremony. On his first race afterward, at the Wisconsin State Fair, he crashed his car and died. Fellow driver Ted Horn later quipped, “Doc shouldn’t have shaved. That jinxed him.”

Don’t Dress Your Left Side First

Many NASCAR drivers past and present believe that the right side is luckier than the left side, so that’s how they dress on game day: underwear, pants, socks, shirt sleeves, and gloves all go on the right appendage before the left.

Don’t Use the No. 13

The number 13, in NASCAR as in so many places, is considered unlucky. It was rarely used as a car number until former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino became a team co-owner, and insisted his car use his old jersey number: 13. (In the 400 or so races where a 13 car has raced, it has finished in the top five only eight times.)

Don’t Handle $50 Bills on Race Day

Racer Joe Weatherly was killed at Riverside Raceway (in Riverside, California) in 1964. Among his personal effects, two $50 bills were reportedly found in his pocket. Racers and crews have avoided fifties ever since.

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No More Mr. Nice President

Sure, you could vote for one of the major party candidates…or you could vote for Alice Cooper! The 1970s shock rocker has thrown his hat into the ring in the race to be Commander-in-Chief.

Running for president this year (but only as a goof) is “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and “I’m Eighteen” horror-rocker/radio host/golfer Alice Cooper. His platform is actually quite simple and direct, and consists of only 10 campaign promises.

However, some of them are far out of the jurisdiction of the power of the United States or its president, so he might have a hard time enacting some his ideas. Among them: renaming Big Ben—the giant clock in London “Big Lemmy” after the late Motorhead singer and heavy metal icon Lemmy Kilmeister, and getting Peter Sellers on the British 20-pound note. Cooper’s other platform ideas might be a little easier to pass, such as putting Groucho Marx on the American $50 bill, adding Kilmeister to Mount Rushmore, a ban on talking during movies, and a ban on selfies (except on “National Selfie Day”). Cooper’s slogan: “I can do nothing as well as they do nothing.”

Cooper has re-released his 1972 hit “Election” as his official campaign song. (Do the other candidates even have an official campaign song?) In fact, that’s long been Cooper’s official campaign song: He’s jokingly run for president in every election since 1972. (In case you’re a little rusty on your American history, he’s yet to win.) To balance out the ticket, Cooper has selected as his running mate beloved Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks…although Hanks has no knowledge or approval of his selection.

However, it would seem that the Arizona resident may have a pretty steep uphill climb to the White House. As of this writing, only 4,919 people have pledged to vote for Cooper in the election in November, which makes him a few million short of what he’d need for a victory.

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The Season That Never Was

In 1994, a players’ strike ended the Major League Baseball season in August. A third of the regular-season games were canceled, depriving some players of a chance to make baseball history with these records. This article was first posted in our 29th annual edition, Uncle John’s Uncanny Bathroom Reader.

First .400 Hitter in 50 Years

The last player to bat over .400 in a season was Ted Williams, with a .406 batting average in 1941. Three-time batting champion Tony Gwynn might have topped .400 if the season weren’t cut short. At the time of the strike, he had a .394 average, the highest since Williams’s banner year.

Single-Season Home Run Record

It’s since been topped several times (Barry Bonds set the current record of 73 in 2001), but in 1994, Roger Maris’s 61 homers in 1961 was the one to beat. When the strike began, Matt Williams of the San Francisco Giants had 43 home runs. At that pace over a full season, he would have tied or broken Maris’s 61.

Worst Record for a Division Winner

At the season’s abrupt end, the Texas Rangers led the American League West despite having a losing record of 52–62. The last-place teams in the other two AL divisions, the Milwaukee Brewers and Detroit Tigers, both had records of 53–62, better than the Rangers.

The Expos in the World Series

Before moving to Washington, D.C., in 2005, the Expos played 26 seasons in Montreal and never made the World Series. (Only one other modern franchise has done that: the Seattle Mariners.) The 1994 season was the best shot they ever had. At the time of the strike, their 74–40 record was the best in baseball.

Fred McGriff

Only 27 players have hit at least 500 home runs. That feat is a virtual free pass into the Baseball Hall of Fame (not including players who may have used performance-enhancing drugs). Fred McGriff is tied with Lou Gehrig for #28 on the all-time list with 493—and he’s not in the Hall of Fame. In 1994, he knocked 34 balls out of the park, and was on pace to hit 47 for the full season…which would have given him a career total of 506.

An Attendance Record

In only its second year as a franchise, the Colorado Rockies had a total attendance of 3.28 million through 57 home games. Averaged out over a full season, the Rockies would have drawn more than 4.6 million fans and shattered the attendance record of 4.48 million, set a year earlier by…the Colorado Rockies.

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“Is Jenny There?”

There are a handful of phone numbers made famous by songs, movies, and TV shows. Ever wonder what happens if you actually call them? This article was originally published in our 29th annual edition, Uncle John’s Uncanny Bathroom Reader . 

867–5309

According to rock legend, Tommy Tutone lead guitarist Jim Keller wrote “867-5309/Jenny” about a real girl (named Jenny) whose number (not “867-5309”) he got off of a men’s room wall, just like the hero of the song. The catchy refrain made the number so easy to remember that it wreaked havoc on anyone unfortunate enough to have the number at the time. Calling the number became a minor fad in 1981, when the song was a Top 10 hit. That year, a Gastonia, North Carolina, junior high school with the number reportedly received prank calls 200 times a day. A Chicago woman with the number reportedly received more than 20,000 phone calls a week.

976-EVIL

The 1988 horror film 976-EVIL takes its plot from the 976 number fad that was popular at the time, which charged callers $3 per minute to listen to prerecorded messages or join in on “party lines.” In the film (directed by Robert Englund, best known for portraying Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies), two teens dial what they think is going to be a horoscope hotline and instead get a direct line to Satan. What would happen if you called 976-EVIL? In 1988, you’d get charged a few bucks to listen to a short ad for the movie. Today, nothing. It’s long since been disconnected (as have most 976 numbers).

1-900-MIX-ALOT

Sir Mix-a-Lot had a #1 hit in 1992 with his rap song “Baby Got Back.” In it, he tells listeners to “dial 1-900-MIX-ALOT, and kick them nasty thoughts.” That number was a real number, set up by Sir Mix-a-Lot and his record label. Callers would be charged a few dollars per minute to “kick them nasty thoughts,” which meant recording their own sexually explicit messages, or listen to ones left by other people. The enterprise was rumored to have made a small fortune for Mix-a-Lot at the time, but the number is no longer active.

Ghostbusters Hotline

One of the most memorable moments in the 1984 comedy Ghostbusters is the low-budget TV commercial the Ghostbusters make, directing potential clients to call them at “555-2368.” During the movie’s theatrical run, director Ivan Reitman set up 1-800-555-2368, and ran it at the bottom of ads for the film on TV. Callers got a prerecorded greeting from stars Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. The movie was a blockbuster, and the hotline racked up an average of 1,000 calls an hour during the six weeks it was in operation.

916-CALL-TURK

In a 2004 episode of the NBC sitcom Scrubs, Dr. Turk (Donald Faison) shares his excitement over nabbing the phone number 916-CALL-TURK. (Numbering conventions being what they are, it was actually “916-CALL-TUR,” but whatever.) Show execs went so far as to set up a working line, which usually delivered a recorded message from Faison urging viewers to watch Scrubs. But occasionally, callers were lucky enough to get their call picked up by one of the cast members, who would then carry on a conversation for a few minutes.

634-5789

In 1966, soul singer Wilson Pickett told us we could reach him by dialing “634-5789.” Given that the song was a Top 20 hit, there are surprisingly few stories about people calling the number en masse. But it’s also understandable because in 1966, during the single’s initial release, all-number dialing was still rolling out to parts of the country where callers were accustomed to using two numbers and five letters.

776-2323

That’s the phone number of God. At least it is in the 2003 comedy Bruce Almighty. The movie is set in Buffalo, New York, and filmmakers chose it because that number was not in use in Buffalo at the time. However, the movie was a nationwide hit, and hundreds of people called it in their own area codes. A Florida woman with the number threatened to sue Universal Pictures, because she was getting 20 phone calls an hour from people asking “Is God there?” In Sanford, North Carolina, it was, ironically, the phone number of a church. (When the movie was released on DVD, 776-2323 was replaced with a generic—and fake—“555” number.)

1-877-TAMEHER

In the 1999 movie Magnolia, Tom Cruise plays a misogynistic self-help guru named Frank Mackey. His seminars instruct callers to dial “1-877-TAMEHER” to order his “Seduce and Destroy” destruction program. If real-life callers tried the number, they got a recording of Cruise’s spiel from the movie, promising them to “get that naughty sauce that you want, fast.”

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Ask Uncle John Anything: Loo Over Here!

Uncle John knows pretty much everything—and if he doesn’t, he puts one of his many researchers 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!)

Where does the phrase “going to the loo” come from?

Uncle John loves talkin’ trivia and bathrooms, so this one is right in his wheelhouse (or outhouse, as it were). It’s one of the most common euphemisms for “using the bathroom”—primarily in Europe, and usually in the United Kingdom. But where does the phrase “going to the loo” come from? It’s complicated…and etymologists don’t quite have a consensus on its origins. Here are some theories.

In the late 19th century, Lady Louisa was a not particularly well-liked wife of the Earl of Lichfield. While visiting some friends’ stately manor house in 1867, someone passive aggressively switched the name card that had been placed on Lady Louisa’s door and put it on the water closet door. For the rest of the weekend, the other guests jokingly called using the bathroom “going to Lady Louisa.” The use spread, and Louisa was eventually shortened to “loo.”


The most commonly distributed idea is that “loo” comes from the Scottish, who shouted “gardy loo!” when throwing the contents of chamber pots out of their windows and onto the streets below. “Gardy loo” is a corruption of the French gardez l’eau, which means, “watch out for the water!” Etymologists have dismissed this, because why would Scottish commoners shout a French phrase to passers by?


One of the first definitive print uses dates back only to 1940 in the novel Pigeon Pie by popular British novelist Nancy Mitford: “…like in the night when you want to go to the loo and it is miles away down a freezing cold passage…” Where Mitford got the phrase from is unclear, and it’s also unlikely that this book spawned popular usage of the phrase because it was published right in the middle of World War II, and was thus not a huge seller.


In 1936 British high society lady Diana Cooper sent some letters from a trip to Tangiers to some other fancy folk and she used the word “lu-lu” to euphemistically describe a bathroom. She was an influential figure, writing to other influential people, and that could have injected the word into the vernacular.


It might be short for “Waterloo.” Possibly a traditionally British dig against the French (it’s the site of a major battle loss by French leader Napoleon), Waterloo was also the name of an early 20th century bathroom fixtures company. In his 1922 novel Ulysses, James Joyce explicitly connects “Waterloo” with “water closet,” another bathroom slang expression. “How much cost? Waterloo. Watercloset.”


In the late 19th and early 20th century, a common French expression for the bathroom was lieux d’aisances, or “places of ease.” It’s possible that British troops fighting alongside French troops in World War I picked up the phrase, converting lieux to “loo.”

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Happy Columbus Day?

Today marks the approximate date in 1492 that Christopher Columbus…discovered America? Not exactly. Here’s a rundown on a bunch of the misconceptions that have persisted regarding Columbus’s landmark voyage that started out as a way to find a faster trade route to Asia.

Columbus proved the Earth was round

By the time Columbus set sail in the 1490s, it was generally agreed upon that the Earth was a sphere. Columbus actually adhered to the idea that the world was more pear-shaped than round. He also thought that the planet was a much different size than we now know it to be—that’s how he came across North America by “accident” on the way to Asia. He thought the planet was much smaller and that Asia was much larger.

Columbus was Italian

Because of the changing cultural perception of Christopher Columbus, the Columbus Day Parade in New York City has evolved and expanded from a celebration of Columbus discovering the New World (which he didn’t really do) to a celebration of Italian-American culture and the contributions of Italians to American culture—such as Columbus. But technically speaking, Columbus wasn’t Italian. Italy didn’t become a unified nation until 1861. Prior to that, it was a loose collection of city-states. There’s no record of it, but Columbus insisted that he was born in Genoa (which is now part of Italy). Because of Genoa’s trade colonies on the Iberian Peninsula (today occupied by Spain and Portugal), some scholars believe Columbus may have been born there. At any rate, Columbus’s fateful voyage was paid for by the government of Spain, not Genoa.

Columbus landed on the mainland

Columbus didn’t exactly pull up to shore on the East Coast of the United States. His first stop in North America was the island of San Salvador, which is presently part of the Bahamas.

Columbus was the first European in North America

While Columbus certainly wasn’t the first human to step foot in the Americas (millions of native peoples already lived there), he also wasn’t the first European explorer to make the trip. The mighty Viking leader Leif Eriksson stumbled onto Newfoundland around the year 1000—a good 500 years before Columbus hit the Bahamas. And while a lot of people get Columbus Day off of work or school, the day commemorating Eriksson’s journey goes largely unnoticed: October 9 is Leif Eriksson Day.

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12 Interesting Facts About Bacon

Some mouthwatering facts about everyone’s favorite snack. This article was first published in our 29th annual edition, Uncle John’ Uncanny Bathroom Reader.

Americans spend more than $4 billion annually on bacon.
Bacon dates back at least 3,500 years. The Chinese were the first to cook salted pork bellies. The salt preserved the meat so it could be eaten all year.
During World War II, Americans were urged to save bacon fat so it could be used in the manufacture of bombs. (It was used to make glycerol, an ingredient in explosives.)
If you’re average, you’ll eat 18 pounds of bacon this year.
Three bacon products you can’t eat: Bacon-Scented Bath & Shower Soap; Bacon Strips Adhesive Bandages (Band-Aids that look like strips of bacon); and the Bacon Surfing Cat Clock (a clock with a picture of a cat surfing on a piece of bacon…in space).
Kevin Bacon’s favorite sandwich is the BLAST—bacon, lettuce, avocado, smoked salmon, and tomato. (He claims he invented it.)
Bacon has been called the food most likely to convince vegetarians to eat meat.
Bacon has a compound that produces a pleasing neurochemical response. Result: bacon is addictive.
U.S. bacon sales fell sharply in the 1980s because of a lean-meat craze. What turned it around? The bacon cheeseburger. The first one debuted at Hardee’s in 1992. Once it became clear that people were more willing to eat bacon when they went out, restaurants started adding it to everything…and started the modern bacon craze.
First recorded death by bacon: In 1543, an English servant named Elizabeth Browne was warming herself by a fire when she was crushed by four sides of uncooked bacon that had fallen from a hook.
Research is inconclusive, but here are three things bacon might do: cure hangovers (it has amino acids), improve a fetus’s brain development (it has choline), lower a man’s sperm count (like all processed meats).
In a recent poll, 43 percent of Canadians said they’d rather eat bacon than have sex.

 

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