Archive for November, 2010

November 30, 2010

Contest: “6 Things Your Dry Cleaner Won’t Tell You”

Winner has been chosen!

I just saw the Yahoo news headline: “6 Things Your Dry Cleaner Won’t Tell You.”

Forget the Koreas, people—this is important!

Anyhoo, we thought we’d have a contest: Submit your entries for “6 Things Your Drycleaner Won’t Tell You”—that might not be on the actual list. And might—at least to you—be funny. Examples:

6 Things Your Drycleaner Won’t Tell You

1. “I have an STD.”

2. “Your babydoll makes me look fat.”

3. “I have a dream to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted List some day.”

Etc.

You have until midnight Thursday to submit your entries. No vulgarity, please! Our panel of dry cleaning experts will pick the very funniest of the entries—and the winner gets an Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader of their choice!

1…2…3…GO!

Good luck!

Update: You don’t have to give six responses! Just give your best ones!

Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

November 30, 2010

Doorknob as Fish-Eye Lens Into Other Room

Oh, this is such a good idea, I can’t believe we didn’t think of it ourselves!

In conjunction with Design Tide Tokyo, architect Hideyuki Nakayama – a protégé of Toyo Ito –　has teamed up with UNION, a manufacturer of door handles and levers, to create a glass globe doorknob. As you approach the doorknob you catch a glimpse of what appears to be another world, waiting for you to enter and join, but in fact is a reflection of the room on the other side of the door.

I suppose that if you didn’t care about people seeing what you were doing behind a closed door you could just, you know, have a window in the door, but hey, it’s still a cool invention.

Via

Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

November 29, 2010

RIP: Leslie Nielsen

The funny man from the Northwest Territories has gone to that great Airplane in the sky.

“LOS ANGELES - Leslie Nielsen, who traded in his dramatic persona for inspired bumbling as a hapless doctor in “Airplane!” and the accident-prone detective Frank Drebin in “The Naked Gun” comedies, died on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 84.

The Canadian-born actor died from complications from pneumonia at a hospital near his home at 5:34 p.m., surrounded by his wife, Barbaree, and friends, his agent John S. Kelly said in a statement.”

A moment from Lieutenant Frank Drebin:

RIP, Leslie Nielsen.

More here.

Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

November 26, 2010

When in China, Do as the Romans Do

Truly fascinating story about a legendary lost Roman army legion—and their possible descendants in remote China:

“Tests found that the DNA of some villagers in Liqian, on the fringes of the Gobi Desert in north-western China, was 56 per cent Caucasian in origin.

Many of the villagers have blue or green eyes, long noses and even fair hair, prompting speculation that they have European blood.

A local man, Cai Junnian, is nicknamed by his friends and relatives Cai Luoma, or Cai the Roman, and is one of many villagers convinced that he is descended from the lost legion.”

The legend has been around for a while. More here, here, and here.


Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

November 22, 2010

The *Other* JFK Conspiracy [Updated]

Today is the anniversary of the assassination of the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy.

Sounds like a perfect time to bring an old conspiracy theory back to life. From Uncle John’s Fast-Acting, Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader…

CONSPIRACY THEORY: John F. Kennedy wasn’t assassinated—he’s still alive!

DETAILS: In early 1963, President Kennedy became convinced his enemies (the Mafia, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and elements within the CIA) were out to kill him. So he enlisted a group of friends and government agents to fake his death and then hide him overseas, should an attempt on his life be made. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald, a pawn in a murder plot hatched by Castro, the CIA, the Mafia, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, and Robert Kennedy (who had presidential aspirations and wanted his brother out of the picture). Contrary to news reports, Oswald’s bullets didn’t actually kill Kennedy—they left him in a coma. The president was secretly flown to a hospital in Poland. When he finally emerged from the coma in the late 1960s, he was crippled, frail, and mildly brain-damaged. Ever since, Kennedy has lived on the Greek island Skorpios in a hospital owned by Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis (who also aided in the cover-up by pretending to be Jackie Kennedy’s second husband). Proof? In 1971 the European tabloid Midnight ran a photo supposedly picturing Kennedy, Jackie, and Kennedy’s two nurses going for a walk on Skorpios.

So is it true? Check back in a couple of hours…and we’ll have the rest of the story…

Update: Okay, we left you waiting long enough—here’s the rest of the story:

TRUTH: Midnight faked the photos and the story. American author Truman Capote gave the tale a wider audience when he presented it as his own idea in a 1971 newspaper article. (In Capote’s version, Kennedy never emerged from his coma and lived in Switzerland, not Greece.) Capote later retracted the story, admitting that he had intended it as a silly piece of fiction. Nevertheless, the theory persists to this day.

Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

November 19, 2010

It’s World Toilet Day

Everyone please take a moment to walk down the hall, open the door to the WC, have a look at that old, taken-for-granted commode, and say, “Thank you, toilet. You’ve been very good to me. So thank you, thank you, thank you.” Everyone, right?

On a more serious note, today is World Toilet Day, brought to us by the World Toilet Organization:

World Toilet Day is celebrated on November 19 of every year. The World Toilet Organization is the main driver for this global event. WTO, a global non-profit organization committed to improving toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide.

A fine and noble mission indeed. Here’s some more information on the issue, here’s a map showing WTO events around the world, here’s their Facebook page—and here’s where you can get an image to add to your own Facebook page, if you so desire.

Happy World Toilet Day, everyone.

Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

November 18, 2010

We are mobile! iPhone app launch and winners!

UPDATE:

Contest is now closed and winners are picked. Thanks all for sending us your favorite footer. We love that a ton of you picked “Hi Mom!” and decided that we will add that footer to the app in December. As far as the five winners of the app, here they are:

Micha: The United Parcel Service (UPS) was started by two teenagers.

Taw Pruitt: Count ‘em yourself: ears of corn always have an even number of rows of kernels.

Stephen Staver: Are you lonesome tonight? In a recent survey, 1% of Americans said they have no friends.

Mars S.: Iceland publishes four times as many books per capita as the United States.

Jeffrey Gary Clinard: About 1 in 3 Prius Owners Also Own An SUV.

Look for these facts on the app and much more in the month of December. Winners have been contact. Thanks for playing and we hope you are enjoying the app.

_____________________________________________

We made it! Apple has kindly decided to grant us our own little corner on iTunes. Check out the new Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad app ($1.99 US)!

From daily facts, to weekly stories, the app is full of trivia and knowledge for you to impress your friends and family on the go.

The Giveaway:
To celebrate the release, we are giving away 5 copies of the app. Comment below, or on Facebook/Twitter with your all time favorite footer from an Uncle John’s book. We will pick 5 of them to add to the app in the month of December. So, not only do you get the app for free, you will also get bragging rights that your favorite content was featured on the app. (Must enter by Sunday, November 21, midnight PST.)

We would also love it if you reviewed the app in the App store and let us know what you think.

App Description

Daily Facts
Get a daily dose of Uncle John! Daily Facts gives you a daily fact from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, similar to the famous “running feet” in our books. A new fact will be added every day so the fun will never run out.

Weekly Articles
Weekly articles will energize your brain as the folks at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute dig deeper into the BRI vault of bizarre and amazing stories from pop culture, history, science, humor, and all-around great entertainment. A new article will be added every week. You never know what you’ll get…but you can be sure that you’ll love it.

Blog
Read all of our blog posts directly from the App. Be the first on your Throne to hear about new releases, sales, contests, giveaways, whatever crazy stories the weirdos at the BRI feel like posting, and much more.

Search
Search by keyword to find information on topics of interest. If your search comes up empty, don’t worry: We’re adding new facts and articles every day.

Share
If you’re like Uncle John, you just can’t help sharing your knowledge with others. So here’s your chance to share your favorite facts via email with a click of a button. Just mark any fact or article you’ve read on your iPhone as a favorite, then pull it up whenever you want. (Ain’t modern technology great?)

Fun
Need an impromptu fart sound? Squeeze our ducky and he’ll help you out. (Good news: Ducky farts are odorless.)

Posted by BRI

Tags:

November 18, 2010

Surfing Killer Whales! [Updated]

It’s becoming more common to call them orcas rather than killer whales, but it makes the title of this story so much more exciting:

But when a one-metre-tall fin popped out of the water and started heading towards him and other surfers, Mr Cunningham decided to head ashore. “I didn’t have anything to sit on and with most of my body under the water, it felt a bit freaky.” The other surfers had stayed at sea unfazed by the visitors.

After catching a wave Mr Cunningham had noticed the orcas had caught a wave behind him.

Wouldn’t that be swell? You’re cruising along on your surfboard just minding your own business when you turn around and see a couple of aquatic killing machines the size of a greyhound buses surfing toward you.

Good thing seawater’s already green…

I’ve got an email into the paper with the photos to see if we can publish them here. I will as soon as we know.

Update: I got permission from the Northern Advocate in the far north of New Zealand to publish the pics. They were taken by one of their reporters, Michael Cunningham. Thank, NA. (Click pics to enlarge.)


Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

November 16, 2010

Caption Contest Winners!

We’ve consulted with our (non) celebrity judges for our recent caption contest, and the two winners are (drumroll, please):

Robert J Moniz:

I told you, my head wasn't up my…

And Courtney Schnetz:

Tragic day at the beach- Butt, at least now both my good sides are showing.

Congratulations to both our winners, an Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader of your choice awaits you!

Thanks for playing, everyone! You are a funny bunch of people. And good luck next time!

Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

November 16, 2010

Cat Scares Off Two Alligators; Bad Idiom Usage

Call this a brave kitty all you like, but this is one dumb cat. A gator that size, that close, could have snapped her head off so quick it would make your head spin. (Pun intended.)

And: The CNN host reporting on this says, as the first alligator retreats into the water, “Cat got your tongue?” That makes no sense at all. Was she expecting the alligator to say something? Just because there’s a cat involved doesn’t mean that any idiom involving a cat automatically applies.

Fifteen-yard penalty for improper use of an idiom. Automatic loss of down.

P.S. Curiosity almost killed this cat! It sure isn’t a scaredy-cat!

Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

« Older Entries





Utah is home to the nation’s only major east-west range, the Uintas.

View More Running Feet