Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 84

Really Weird Facts About Canadian Prime Ministers

Trivia books—even ours—are full of fun facts about American presidents. Well, President Taft may have gotten stuck in a bathtub and Abe Lincoln was once a bartender, but they were never the judge on a reality show.

 

Newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the first second-generation leader of Canada (his father was Pierre Trudeau), the second youngest in Canadian history (he’s 43), and he’s participated in several charity boxing matches. He also starred in a made-for-TV movie. In 2007 he starred in the CBC’s The Great War as Talbot Papineau, a lawyer and heroic soldier who fought for Canada in World War II. (In the clip, he’s the guy with the mustache…and the dog.)

In 1993, Kim Campbell became the first woman to be prime minister of Canada…and she served for the third-shortest period of time, just 123 days. Her term was so brief she never moved into the official PM residence at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa because her predecessor Brian Mulroney took so long to move out.


In 2006, an annual essay contest for young Canadians about how they would serve the country if elected prime minister became a reality show on The Next Great Prime Minister. Hosted by Canadian game show host Alex Trebek, contestants aged 18 to 25 answered questions about leadership, politics, and world events. The judging panel, which determined which young Canadian received $50,000 and an internship: Kim Campbell, Brian Mulroney, Joe Clark, and John Turner, all former Canadian prime ministers themselves.


PM Lester Pearson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1957 for his role in helping the U.N. resolve the crisis revolving around ownership of the Suez Canal. Egypt peacefully prevailed over the U.K. thanks to Pearson’s negotiating, but some in Canada criticized the actions because his actions were seen as a betrayal to the U.K., with whom Canada is traditionally and politically tied.


The first prime minister of Canada was John A. Macdonald. He established relations with the States in 1864…the Confederate States. He allowed Canada to be a refuge for Confederates who wanted to keep their slaves and flee. In fact, the reason why he established Canada as a confederation is in sympathies with the Confederate States of America.

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Poker Lingo

Ever watched rounders and fish splash the pot until they’re down to the felt? If so, you’ve seen some serious poker players. They have their own language, too. Ante up!

All in: Bet all your chips

Down to the felt: So broke all you see in front of you is the green felt of the poker table

Tapioca, or Tap City: Tapped out; out of money

Buy the pot: Make a bet so large that other players are unlikely to match it

Tap: Bet as much as your opponents have on hand, forcing them to bet everything

Catching cards: On a winning streak

Boat: A full house

Railroad bible: Deck of cards

Toke: The tip you give to the dealer

Splash the pot: Toss your chips into the pot, instead of just placing them there. It’s considered bad form because other players can’t see how much you’re actually betting

Rake: The house’s cut

Cowboys: Kings

Ladies: Queens

Rock: A very conservative player, someone who doesn’t take big chances

Paint: A face card

Trips: Three of a kind

Berry patch: A very easy game

Underdog: A weak hand that’s likely to lose

Rag: An upfacing card so low in value that it can’t affect the outcome of the hand

 

Big slick: A king and an ace in the hole

Alligator blood: A player who keeps his cool under pressure has alligator (cold) blood

Fish: A very bad poker player. They’re only in the game so that you can beat them out of their money

George: A fish

Wheel: The best hand in lowball poker—5, 4, 3, 2, A

Rounder: A professional poker player. A rounder makes his living parting fishes and georges from their money

Base deal: Dealing from the bottom of the deck

In the hole: In stud poker, the cards dealt facedown, so only you can see them

Bullets: Aces in the hole

 

 

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$pirit of ’76

In 1976 the United States celebrated its bicentennial. Here is a look at how much things cost 40 years ago!

(1)

Want to  watch a movie at home? There’s a new invention called a VCR that sells for a mere $1,600.

(2)

Rather attend the theater to see the year’s hottest flicks, like Rocky or Network? A movie ticket costs $2.25.

(3)

Average household income: $12,700.

(4)

New house: $48,000 (avocado Formica countertop extra).

(5)

Minimum wage: $2.30/hour.

(6)

A new Chrysler Cordoba (with “rich Corinthian leather”) will set you back $5,000.

(7)

Whether for use on the street or in the disco, a pair of new roller skates costs $5.

(8)

Average tuition at a private college: $2,500 per year.

(9)

Ticket to Super Bowl X: $20 (Steelers 21, Cowboys 17).

(10)

Alex Haley’s Roots is one of the bestselling novels of the year. A hardbound copy runs $12.50.

(11)

The year’s biggest albums are available on 8-track. Cost of the Eagles’ Hotel California or Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive!: $7.

(12)

Red meat is good for you. Get a cheeseburger at McDonald’s for 48¢.

(13)

Watch Farrah Fawcett on Charlie’s Angels with a $600, 24-inch color TV. (Or you could be like the five million others in 1976 who dropped $2.00 on her swimsuit poster.)

(14)

Average prices: First-class stamp 13¢; Gallon of gas: 59¢; Dozen eggs: 84¢; Loaf of bread: 30¢; Bananas (per pound): 13¢

(15)

Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford spent a combined $160 million on their presidential campaigns.

(16)

How much for a minivan, CD, Apple computer, SUV, or a cup of coffee at Starbucks? $0. They didn’t exist in 1976.

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How Big Was ‘The Force Awakens’?

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has hit home video after a box office run of $934.89 million, making it the highest grossing movie of all time. Here’s just how much money that is.

If The Force Awakens were a country, it would have the 174th largest GDP on Earth, just behind Guinea-Bissau and ahead of Grenada.


If The Force Awakens were a person, it would have a net worth equal to that of American hotelier Gary Tharaldson ($930 million). And he’s the richest man n North Dakota.


The Force Awakens made more money than the eight most recent Best Picture nominees at the Academy Awards…combined.


The Force Awakens box office is more than the market valuation of about half of all Major League Baseball teams, including the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres, and World Series champion Kansas City Royals. It would also be enough to buy the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, twice.


The box office take of The Force Awakens is about equal to the amount of money after taxes the person who won the $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot earlier this year would get in a lump sum.


The Force Awakens’ haul could be exchanged for Bitcoin. Almost all of the Bitcoin, in fact. There’s an estimated $1 billion of the online “virtual currency” in circulation.


$934 million is enough to finance…more Star Wars movies. Disney has reportedly budgeted around $200 million to produce four more movies in the space saga, which The Force Awakens has now more than paid for.

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A Few Bad “Apples”

From the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad, Apple has had a lot of successes in recent years. It wasn’t always like that.

Macintosh Portable

A portable computer was positively revolutionary in 1989. Apple’s entry had a black-and-white LCD screen, which folded down over the keyboard to make the whole thing easy to cart around. Making it not so easy to cart around: It weighed more than 16 pounds (about the equivalent of four of today’s Macbooks). It also drained the battery quickly, wouldn’t hold a charge, and many consumers reported that the screen sometimes wouldn’t turn on if it was plugged into a wall outlet. The Macintosh Portable was discontinued less two years later.

Apple Newton

Apple’s tablet computers and handheld devices were nothing new when they were introduced a few years ago—Apple had launched the Newton, its first handheld, mini-tablet back in 1993. Ahead of its time? Maybe, but the poor battery life and perpetually dim screen didn’t win it many fans. It’s flashiest selling point—that users could write on the screen with a stylus and the Newton would convert and store their handwriting as typed words—didn’t really work. A few hardcore fans kept the product on shelves until 1998.

Apple Pippin

Perhaps the biggest names in home computing in the ‘90s were video game companies like Nintendo and Sega. In 1995, Apple entered the market with a gaming console called the Pippin. Despite a sleek futuristic controller and CD-ROM based games with sophisticated graphics, the Pippin was a bust. Priced at $600 (more than double that of the systems offered by the competition), only 20,000 units sold—far less than the 300,000 Apple projected.

The U2 iPod

Released in part to promote rock band U2’s album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, Apple unveiled a special U2 edition iPod in late 2004. It was colored black and red, instead of white and gray like a standard iPod. It didn’t come with any extra features (not even a free U2 album), but it did cost $50 extra. The product was gone by 2005.

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Arachnophobia! Interesting Spider Facts

These spider facts are more scared of you than you are of them.

S PIDERS ARE SNEAKY!

Ever seen a newborn spider? No? That’s because they’re colorless (and tiny), making them virtually invisible to predators…and you. Hundreds can colonize your home and by the time you realize it, they’re all fully grown.

THEY CAN SEE YOU!

Most spiders have eight eyes and will see you coming. However, if you venture underground, many cave-dwelling species will not see you…because they have no eyes. But their other senses are so heightened that they’ll know you’re there long before you know they’re there.

THEY’RE CUNNING!

The Bolas spider “fishes” for large, flying insects by spinning a sticky ball at the end of a line of silk. Then it hangs the ball from the web to catch a bug…and reels it in.

THEY’RE FAST!

In a split second, the jumping spider can jump 20 times its own length to catch prey, but it doesn’t have any leg muscles. How does it do it? By increasing its blood pressure to the point where if the spider didn’t jump, it would explode.

THEY’LL TRAP YOU!

The female Darwin’s bark spider, native to Madagascar, spins the world’s largest and strongest web. It can span more than 80 feet (some even cross rivers). Her silk is the strongest biological material in existence—three times stronger than Kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests.

THEY’LL STAB YOU!

Tarantulas have barbed urticating hairs on their abdomens. When threatened, they use their legs to “kick” these hairs into the eyes of their attacker.

THEY WILL DESTROY YOUR MANHOOD!

The Brazilian wandering spider is the most venomous in the world. It’s hairy, five inches long, and if it bites a man, the toxin has a Viagra-like effect. That lasts for several hours, is extremely painful, and if the toxin doesn’t kill him, will render him impotent.

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4 of the Weirdest ‘Archie’ Comics Of All Time

We’ve written about the bold leaps taken by Archie and the Riverdale gang before, but there are just so times this comic book about a bunch of high school kids got really strange.

Faculty Funnies

In 1989, Archie publishers apparently thought that what their legions of kid and preteen readers really wanted was a comic book devoted to the teachers and staff at Riverdale High. Archie, Jughead, and the rest barely appear in favor of stories about the work and personal lives of Miss Grundy and Mr. Weatherbee.

Archie’s R/C Racers

Radio controlled cars were a hot toy in the late ‘80s, and Archie cashed in with this serialized comic about Archie and Reggie as captains of teams of a cross-country auto race…held entirely with tiny toy cars. There were also supernatural elements, such as a side-story about a tour guide Archie meets that gets electrocuted and gains the ability to control electronic devices—such as R/C cars—with his mind.

Archie Meets KISS

There’s an uprising of zombies in Riverdale. Weird? Sure. Even weirder: the ‘70s rock band KISS helps Archie and his band (The Archies) use rock n’ roll to destroy the monsters. (This was published in 2011, long after the heyday of KISS.)

Hot Dog

Like Jughead, his gigantic, shaggy dog Hot Dog is forever sleepy and forever hungry. And he got his own spinoff comic book in which he lived in a fully automated dog house and went on crazy adventures. In one issue, he’s abducted by a UFO and saves a planet of dogs from an army of evil alien cats called the Galacticats. (The doghouse was actually a reward from those dogs.) In another issue, Hot Dog and a Chihuahua friend turn themselves into humans and go on a double date with Betty and Veronica.

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Random Sports Origins

More answers to the burning question, “Where does all this sports stuff come from?”

THE FOOTBALL HUDDLE

“In 1924 Herb McCracken, the coach of the Lafayette College football team, discovered that his hand signals [flashed to players during the game] had been scouted and decoded by Penn, his upcoming opponent. On game day, McCracken countered by ordering his players to gather en masse, several yards behind the line of scrimmage, and talk over the plays in a whisper. It immediately became a ritual.” McCracken later helped start the Scholastic publishing company, “but told family members that he was most proud of giving birth to the huddle.” (New York Times)

BASEBALL’S MVP AWARD

The award started out as an effort to publicize a now-forgotten car called the Chalmers: “Hugh Chalmers announced in 1910 that he would give a car to the champion batters of each league. He was delighted when Ty Cobb, a Detroiter, won the American League championship. But his elation turned to fury when Cobb promptly sold his prize.” (Wheels of a Nation)

THE JOCKSTRAP

“Millions of male athletes can thank bicycling—and the cobblestone streets of Boston—for the truss that protects their masculinity. In 1897 those bumpy Beantown byways got too rough for the nether regions of bike racers. To address this unexpected need, the BIKE manufacturing company invented the ‘bicycle jockey strap’—eventually shortened to ‘jock.’” (Bicycling magazine)

ADIDAS

“Adolf and Rudolf Dassler were the sons of a poor laundress who grew up in the tiny German milltown of Herzogenerauch, near Nuremburg. Before World War II, they started a factory there called Adidas to make house slippers, then branched out to track and soccer shoes. They had a violent falling-out, and after the war went their separate ways. Rudolf left Adidas and started a rival athletic shoe company, Puma. Before long Adidas and Puma— both headquartered in Herzogenerauch—were battling head-tohead all over the world. When Adolf died in 1978, the two brothers hadn’t spoken to each other in 29 years.” (Everybody’s Business)

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Mothers of Invention

History has a tendency to marginalize women inventors, but there have been many. Here are a few that may impress you.

The Circular Saw

INVENTOR: Tabitha Babbitt

STORY: Babbitt got the inspiration for her invention in 1810, at the age of 26, while sitting at her spinning wheel. Watching a work crew saw wood with a two-man saw, she noticed that half the back-and- forth motion was wasted (the back portion), and envisioned a circular blade. By notching the edge of a thin metal disk and then attaching it to her spinning wheel, she effortlessly cut through a piece of shingle, and the circular saw was born. But because of her religious beliefs (she was a Shaker), Babbitt never pursued a patent.

Modern Computer Programming

INVENTOR: Grace Hopper

STORY: When Hopper, a mathematician and Navy lieutenant, started working at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. in 1949, she was assigned to the team developing UNIVAC I, the first computer for business and consumer use. Back then, all computers were programmed in “binary” code—all 0’s and 1’s. Despite ridicule from her peers, Hopper set about creating a “compiler,” a device to convert human language into binary. Her advancements not only made computers easier to program, but easier to use, as well.

The Surgical Eye Laser

INVENTOR: Patricia Bath

STORY: Before Bath’s breakthrough, cataracts were removed through a very painful procedure that involved drilling and grinding them from the patient’s eyes. In 1988 Bath patented a method of painlessly removing cataracts using a surgical laser. Bath also used lasers to cure certain types of blindness in people who hadn’t seen for more than 30 years. She received patents in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Japan, and is the first African-American woman ever to receive a patent for a medical invention.

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The Next U.S. President is From the Future

A self-proclaimed time traveler is among the lesser-known names running for president. Does he win or lose? He probably already knows, but then if he knew he was going to lose, he wouldn’t be running. That means he’s going to win!

Washington lawyer Andrew Basiago says he’s got the government experience that would qualify him to be President of the United States. Basiago claims that from the years 1968 to 1972—when he was 7 to 11 years old—he served as a special advisor to President Nixon. As part of a top secret government agency called Project Pegasus, Basiago was a “chrononaut,” travelling to the past, future, and even alternate dimensions to gather information that would help the president make decisions and maintain peace.

Basiago says he’s witnessed Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address, conversed with George W. Bush and Bill Clinton decades before they became president, and in 1981 went to Mars. Among his fellow chrononauts on that mission: a young Barack Obama. And apart from going into the future to see that he’ll be elected “either president or vice president” sometime between now and 2028, Obama is the reason why Basiago is running for the land’s highest office: He thinks Obama has “betrayed” the world by never disclosing that time travel and teleportation are real.

The main plank of Basiago’s campaign platform is government transparency on time travel and teleportation. He believes that if the world were to know “the truth,” it could develop instantaneous worldwide travel, which has virtually no carbon footprint compared to cars or planes.

Basiago is so open about teleportation that he has freely offered up an explanation of how the technology works. (Well, sort of.) There are two methods he’s used. The first uses “quantum access capability” to send a hologram of a present-day human to observe past and future events. (Basiago says that this process, “chronovision,” was invented by the Vatican.) The other involves actual physical transport and was developed out of notes left behind by the late Nikola Tesla.

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