Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader)

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Think a cow is the craziest theory behind the Chicago Fire? Turn to page 481.

  Wet T-shirt: It takes 713 gallons of water to make a single cotton T-shirt.

  THE QUICK BROWN FOX…

  Pangrams are sentences that contain all the letters of the alphabet. For example: “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” Other languages have them too…but we don’t understand those languages, so we opted for these English translations.

  • Italian: “But the fox with her leap has reached the quiet Fido.”

  • Icelandic: “A cow in heat with such a limp would admittedly keep silent about drugs in sheep on a farm.”

  • Portuguese: “A curious little tortoise saw ten happy storks.”

  • Danish: “The quiz contestants ate strawberry with cream while Walter the circus clown played the xylophone.”

  • Latvian: “Glass shack gnomes steal Bach piano covers while inebriated.”

  • Korean: “The essential condition for a kiss is that lips meet and there is no special technique required.”

  • Croatian: “The overweight little schoolboy with a bike is holding hops and fine cotton in the pocket of his attire.”

  • French: “Mister Jack, you type much better than your friend Wolf.”

  • Swedish: “God help Zorn’s maiden get trousers quickly.”

  • Hebrew: “A curious fish sailed the sea disappointedly, and suddenly found company.”

  • Turkish: “The patient in pajamas quickly trusted the swarthy driver.”

  • Slovak: “A flock of woodpeckers teach a horse to feed on bark.”

  • Russian: “So eat more of these soft French loaves, and have some tea!”

  • Polish: “Come on, drop your sadness into the depth of a bottle!”

  • Romanian: “Drinking whisky, the drunken jazzman threw up right in the tequila.”

  • Bulgarian: “For a moment I was in someone else’s plush squeaking armchair.”

  • Klingon: “Because of your apparent audacity the depressed conqueror is willing to fight you.”

  Vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to mania and psychotic behavior.

  NO DRIVE, NO FIVE!

  More bowling lingo to help distract you from all those pumpkins you’ve been throwing lately.

  Scenic Route: The long curving path a “hook” ball takes to the pins.

  Suitcase Grip: Holding the ball as if it were a suitcase, to reduce the curve or hook.

  Pin Monkey: A bowling-alley employee who watches the automatic pinsetter and ensures that it does not jam.

  Beer Frame: The bowler who knocks down the fewest pins of a designated frame has to buy beer for the team.

  Bowling with a House Ball: A term for any bowler who’s having a bad night—i.e., bowling with one of the cheap balls the bowling alley provides for people who don’t own a bowling ball.

  Parking Lot: A bad lane, or other conditions that make accurate bowling impossible.

  Pumpkin/Marshmallow: A ball that strikes the pins with little force.

  Logs: Pins that seem “heavy” or difficult to knock down.

  Greek Church: A split with three pins on one side of the lane and two pins on the other. (The pins are said to resemble the spires of a Greek Orthodox church.) Also known as the “big five.”

  Tap: A “perfect” hit that should have been a strike but left a single pin standing.

  Part of the Building: A pin that’s still standing after a tap is said to be “part of the building.”

  Chicken Wing: A throw made with your elbow sticking out, not down by your side.

  Buzzard: Three splits in a row.

  Pin Deck: The place where the pins are set up at the beginning of each frame.

  Ten in the Pit: A strike that knocks all the pins off of the pin deck and into the sunken “pit” behind it.

  No Drive, No Five: If a ball hits the 1 pin without enough power to knock down the 5 pin, you won’t get a strike.

  Serene and mean: When threatened, swans have been known to capsize boats.

  DUMB CROOKS

  More proof that crime doesn’t pay.

  SIGN OF THE TIMES

  Residents of a Portland, Oregon, neighborhood were concerned about an alleged “drug house.” They had tried numerous times to get the police to investigate it, but to no avail. Then, in late 2011, someone in the area saw a flier related to the house, removed it from a pole, and brought it to the cops. That was all they needed to secure a warrant. When officers raided the house, they discovered marijuana, heroin, a sawed-off shotgun, thousands of dollars in cash, and the materials for a meth lab. What did the flier say? “Heroin for Sale.” And then it listed the address.

  A CINDERELLA STORY

  A thief in Severina, Brazil, stole a woman’s purse and ran away. During his sprint, he put the purse strap in his mouth and dialed his cell phone (to order a pizza?). But the purse fell to the ground, and when he scooped it up, he left behind something else: his dentures. A witness found them and turned them over to the police. A brief investigation led officers to the home of Milton Cesar de Jesus, 34, who tried to keep his mouth closed. He was ordered to try on the dentures. They fit perfectly, and de Jesus was arrested.

  TWO WRONGS

  A 30-year-old metal thief broke into an abandoned hospital one night in Devon, England. He heard police entering the building, so he hid in an air duct. Meanwhile, a 19-year-old metal thief broke into the same hospital. He heard police enter the building, so he hid on the roof. Turned out that the two burglars hadn’t heard the police—they’d heard each other. Neighbors heard the commotion and called the actual police. Both men were arrested.

  THE LONG ARM OF THE LAWLESS

  A 17-year-old crook tried to break into a Belfast, Ireland, home by reaching through the mail slot and unlocking the door. But his arm got stuck. The homeowners arrived and called the police. Firefighters had to remove the door and then remove the mail slot frame from the door, but they still couldn’t free the boy’s arm. So he was taken to the police station—still stuck in the slot—and booked. His arm was finally freed that night; he was not.

  Big deal? In a poll, 40% of Americans said they believe in the possible existence of Bigfoot.

  LACK OF (BRAIN) POWER

  First he charged his cell phone; then he got charged and put in a cell. The burglary occurred in early 2011 when a snowstorm knocked out power to thousands of homes in Silver Spring, Maryland. Cody Wilkins, 25, broke into a house (that still had power) and stole some jewelry. He also plugged in his phone charger because his own place had no power. But someone came home unexpectedly, and Wilkins had to make a quick getaway. Later, the homeowner discovered the strange phone plugged into the wall. That led police straight to Wilkins…and pictures on the phone’s hard drive linked him to several more burglaries.

  JACK ATTACK

  A 41-year-old Brazilian man, Ricardo Sergio Freire de Barros, made his living by using fake IDs to open bank accounts and then get credit cards. The banks and the police were onto him, but he always managed to stay one step ahead…until he tried to open an account one day in 2011. What gave him away? The picture on the fake ID. It was movie star Jack Nicholson, who bears little resemblance to de Barros. The police were quietly alerted, and the joker was arrested.

  SHOW NO MERCI

  In 2010, Calgary Mountie Charanjit Meharu was called to a home where the owners claimed they’d been burgled. “I’ve lost everything!” said the woman. While her boyfriend was listing all of the missing items to Meharu, the woman received a call from her father in Quebec. Speaking French, she bragged on the phone that they’d hidden all of their jewelry and electronics, then staged the robbery as an insurance scam. When Meharu finished writing down his notes, he said to the couple, “Merci beaucoup,” which means “Thank you very much” in French…which the Mountie could speak fluently. He arrested the couple for fraud.

  Patrick Henry, of “Give me liberty or give me death” fame, owned 65 slaves.

&nb
sp; MORE TUBA!

  Looking for some trivia to amaze people with at your next party? Here’s a list of actors who have played the tuba in a TV show or film!

  GARY COOPER. Cooper is Longfellow Deeds in Frank Capra’s 1936 classic, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Deeds is a tuba player from Mandrake Falls, Vermont, who unexpectedly inherits $20 million from a rich uncle. Deeds doesn’t want money—he just wants to play his tuba. But he moves to New York City, where seemingly everyone tries to take advantage of him and his “hick” ways. In the end, Deeds outwits the city-slickers—and gets to play his tuba once in a while, too. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town—very likely the first tuba-player-based film of the sound era—won Capra his second Academy Award for Best Director, and earned Cooper his first-ever Best Actor nomination.

  Tuba Bonus: Gary Cooper couldn’t actually play the tuba. His part was recorded by a Hollywood studio tubist (that’s what they’re called) named Winthrop “Windy” Warner.

  ROBERT WAGNER. Wagner is Willie Little, who plays the tuba for the Marine Corps Band in the 1952 film Stars and Stripes Forever. Not only that, he tinkers with the shape of a tuba so it wraps around his body and rests on his shoulder, making it easier to carry while marching. He names his new tuba-like instrument the “sousaphone”—after his conductor, John Philip Sousa, played in the film by Clifton Webb.

  Tuba Bonus: The sousaphone is a real instrument with a sound that is virtually identical to the tuba, and it is commonly used in marching bands because it is (relatively) easy to carry. But the film, a biopic on the life of John Philip Sousa, bends the truth a bit: The first sousaphone was made in the 1890s by Philadelphia instrument-maker J. W. Pepper—at Sousa’s request. Pepper named it in Sousa’s honor.

  DIANA RIGG. In a scene in a 1965 episode of The Avengers TV show titled “The Murder Market”—the very first with Diana Rigg in the role of Emma Peel—Peel sits on a sofa in John Steed’s (Patrick Macnee) apartment, her long, nylon-clad legs stretched out before her, and, for no apparent reason, plays a few notes on a tuba. According to TheAvengers.tv website, Macnee was originally supposed to play the tuba, but suggested that Rigg do it instead. “The director balked, but Macnee insisted, and the result proved his instinct was right—thereby helping to shape Emma’s character.” (A tuba can be seen in many Avengers episodes, standing in a corner of Steed’s living room with a bunch of carnations in its bell.)

  Tuba Bonus: In a 1966 episode, a child’s ball bounces into Steed’s apartment. He picks it up…and realizes it’s a bomb. So he pulls the flowers out of the tuba, throws the bomb into it, points it out the window, and KABOOM! (If you watch closely, you can see the prop bomb fall from the tuba as Steed points it out the window.)

  Technically, chipmunks, prairie dogs, and marmots are all squirrels.

  BILL MURRAY. In the 2000 film Charlie’s Angels, the Angels need a retinal scan of one of the bad guys. So they go to his house dressed in skimpy German milkmaid outfits and sing for him in his driveway while Bill Murray, in the role of Bosley, plays an “oompah” tune on a sousaphone…which happens to be equipped with a retinal scanner! Because the bad guy is so entranced by the Angels—Bosley is able to get the scan! (How did this movie not win an Oscar?)

  Tuba Bonus: Murray’s tuba part was played by Tommy Johnson, the “most heard tubist on the planet,” according to his 2006 obituary in the Washington Post. Over a 50-year career, he played tuba in thousands of commercials, TV shows, and films, including The Godfather and Jaws, in which he plays the famous “bum-bum-bum-bum” sound you hear when the shark is near.

  EXTRA TV AND FILM TUBA MOMENTS

  • Hong Kong film legend Sammo Hung is the star of a 1986 screwball comedy in which he plays a police officer who would rather play the tuba than do police work. Title: Where’s Officer Tuba? (This film is available in Chinese only.)

  • In the 1944 Sherlock Holmes film The Spider Woman, Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) is seen playing the tuba in Holmes’s study. He plays exactly 13 notes, is interrupted by a man from the “Bureau of Entomology” named Adam Gilflower, and never plays the tuba in that film—or any other Sherlock Holmes movie—again.

  Louisiana is losing about 25 square miles of land a year to erosion. China’s Gobi Desert is expanding by nearly 4,000 square miles a year.

  BISCUIT = COOKIE

  Some words in British-English are different from American-English. The British “biscuit” is our “cookie,” for example. Here are a few you might not have heard.

  Noughts and Crosses: Tic-Tac-Toe

  Ground floor: First floor (their “first floor” is our “second floor”)

  Baps: Hamburger Buns

  Silencer: Muffler (on a car)

  Welsh dresser: China hutch

  Trolley: Grocery cart

  Fairy cake: Cupcake

  Aubergine: Eggplant

  Zebra: Pedestrian crosswalk

  Aluminium (pronounced al-yoo-MIN-ee-um): Aluminum

  Cooker: Stove

  Fish fingers: Fish sticks

  To let: For rent

  Girl Guides: Girl Scouts

  Mince: Ground beef

  Beetroot: Beet

  Draughts: Checkers (the game)

  Earth, or earthed: Ground, or grounded (electrical)

  Bank holiday: Legal holiday

  Tin: Can (of food)

  Flyover: Overpass

  Bedsit: Efficiency apartment

  Fir apple: Pinecone

  Tailback: Traffic jam

  Articulated lorry: Semi-truck

  Footpath: Sidewalk

  Gaol: Jail

  Caravan: Trailer

  Drawing pin: Thumbtack

  Treacle: Molasses

  Dummy: Pacifier (for a baby)

  Valve: Vacuum tube

  Swede: Rutabaga (from “Swedish turnip”)

  Caretaker: Janitor

  Spanner: Wrench

  Torch: Flashlight

  Anti-clockwise: Counter-clockwise

  Peckish: Hungry

  Full stop: Period (at the end of a sentence)

  Boiler suit: Overalls

  Facia pocket: Glove compartment

  Gammon: Ham

  Toilet: Bathroom

  THE WORST BUSINESS DECISION EVER? PART II

  Here’s the second part of our story of one of the unluckiest executives in the history of Silicon Valley. (Part I is on page 199.)

  SIGNED, SEALED, AND DELIVERED

  Ron Wayne wasn’t a lawyer, but he had “some background at writing in legalese,” as he puts it in his book, Adventures of an Apple Founder. So when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were ready to launch Apple Computer, he drafted the company’s founding partnership agreement himself. In addition to dividing ownership between the three partners 45%–45%–10% as agreed, the contract stipulated that any expenditure of more than $100 would need the consent of at least two of the partners. The three men signed the contract on April 1, 1976, and Wayne filed it with the county registrar the next day. Apple Computer was in business.

  BOARD OF EDUCATION

  Wozniak and Jobs printed up their first batch of Apple circuit boards and brought them to the Homebrew Computer Club. They sold quite a few. One of their most promising prospects should have been Paul Terrell, owner of a small chain of electronics hobby stores called the Byte Shop. But Terrell wasn’t interested, giving Jobs his business card and telling him to “keep in touch.”

  The next day, Jobs walked (barefoot) into the Byte Shop. “I’m keeping in touch,” he told Terrell, and tried again to sell him some circuit boards. Terrell still wasn’t interested. What he wanted, he explained to Jobs, was fully-assembled computers. He wanted 50 of them, and he was willing to pay $500 apiece, in cash, as soon as they were delivered.

  In the years to come, Steve Jobs would be hailed as a visionary, and he was, after all, the guy who thought that pre-printed circuit boards would sell. But in those early days, even he didn’t realize that there was a market for assembled computers, at least not until Terrell placed his order.
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  In the last section of the Declaration of Independence, “British” is misspelled as “Brittish.”

  THE HARD PART(S)

  Wozniak, who made $24,000 a year at Hewlett-Packard, didn’t need a computer to tell him that 50 computers purchased for $500 each added up to $25,000—not a bad sale for a company launched with $1,750 raised from the sale of an old Volkswagen van and a calculator just a few weeks earlier.

  But there was a catch: The computer chips and other parts that were needed to build those 50 computers were going to cost about $15,000. Where would they get the money? Jobs tried to borrow it from a bank, but, not surprisingly for a man who still wasn’t bathing regularly, he couldn’t get a loan. He finally found a school friend whose father was willing to lend him $5,000 for three months, and he also talked an electronics company into selling him parts on 30-day credit.

  PAYBACK

  The clock was ticking. Apple Computer, with three partners and no employees, had 30 days to assemble and deliver 50 computers, something it had never done before. Then it had to collect $25,000, and pay for the parts. The $5,000 loan would come due 60 days after that. If there were any snags and the creditors weren’t paid on time, they were likely to sue Jobs, Wozniak, and Wayne to recover their money.

  And that’s when Wayne really began to think about what it meant to be a partner in Apple Computer. According to the contract that he himself had drawn up only days before, Apple was legally defined as a partnership, not a corporation—and there’s a big difference. Corporations have limited liability. If you buy shares in a corporation and the corporation goes bankrupt, your shares are wiped out and the money you’ve invested is gone. But that’s it—creditors who are owed money by the corporation cannot seize personal assets, such as your house and bank accounts, to settle the corporation’s debts.