July 19, 2012
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
First thought: Promising. Not all he way there – but promising. (Hard to go wrong with Larry David, though. And you have no idea how much Uncle John is Larry David’s brother from another mother. Seriously.)
* The “free-range chicken” part is hilarious.
July 18, 2012
This almost seems fake – like it’s going to suddenly become something by Funny Or Die – but it’s not.
This is Aussie hurdler Michelle Jenneke’s pre-race routine at the 100m hurdles during the World Junior Championships in Barcelona. It’s become an internet sensation. For some reason.
Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi!
Update, video from December 4, 2012: Aw – she’s taken the whole internet sensation in very good stride: “I actually broke the Cobsy Sweaters website…”
May 2, 2012
Always wanted to take a Harvard class? Soon you’ll be able to do so from the comfort of your own home.
Harvard and MIT announced a partnership Wednesday to offer free online courses to students around the world. The initiative, known as edX, will be run by a non-profit organization controlled by the two schools. Each has committed $30 million to the effort.
The first official courses will be announced this summer and are set to begin in the fall.
EdX students won’t receive university credit for the classes, which will span a variety of disciplines. There’s no admissions process, but there are exams and other assessments, with certificates available “for a modest fee” to students who demonstrate mastery of the material.
There are no prerequisites. Anyone with a computer can take the classes. (We’re talking to you, 1.8 GPA Guy! Off to Harvard with you!)
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• Practically related fact from this weird little book: “ Harvard University’s library has two books bound in human flesh.” (Mmmmm, books.)
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March 24, 2012
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader StumbleUpon page is open for business.
We’ve got a bunch of cool links. Like this. And this. We think you’ll like it.
Come on over. Have a look. HIt that “Follow” button if you are so inclined. It’s pretty dang cool…
March 20, 2012
This is pretty hilarious. It could be a joke – but still hilarious. (Click pic to enlarge.)
Hi, my name is Eric Moneypenny. I would like to raise money to buy Kickstarter. WorthOfWeb.com estimates Kickstarter’s worth at 18.6 million dollars. Therefore, I estimate that I will need at least 19,000,000 to make this happen.
We told you about Kickstarter some months ago in this post.
Via.
March 15, 2012
Here’s a nicely made very short film we came across yesterday.
Uncle John sometimes wishes there was a guy like this on the streets of his little town:
This video shows how an ear cleaner leads a simple, honest and straightforward life in spite of many difficulties. An honest and humble, hard-working and simple man, he carries on an old tradition, while bringing on a meagre but respectfully-earned income for himself and a livelihood for his family, in Old Delhi, India.
P.S. This video is 3 minutes, 14 seconds long. We almost included it as part of our Pi Day celebration yesterday — but we thought that would be a bit early. (Get it? Ear-ly? He’s an ear cleaner? Okay. You got it. We’re going now…)
P.S.S. Hey! Maybe we just found a new job for a certain unemployed someone? Look: “Bear the Ear Cleaner!” It rhymes! It’s perfect!
March 13, 2012
Its legacy winds back through centuries and across continents, past the birth of America to the waning days of the Enlightenment. It is a record of humanity’s achievements in war and peace, art and science, exploration and discovery. It has been taken to represent the sum of all human knowledge.
And now it’s going out of print.
The Encyclopedia Britannica has announced that after 244 years, dozens of editions and more than 7m sets sold, no new editions will be put to paper. The 32 volumes of the 2010 installment, it turns out, were the last. Future editions will live exclusively online.
Is there something very right – or very wrong – that we are now linking you to “The History of the Encyclopedia Britannica“…at Wikipedia?
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January 9, 2012
This photo of a “monster rat!” allegedly found in a Foot Locker store in the Bronx has become a bit of a sensation lately:
Wow! It’s huge! It’s being described as “three-feet-long” and “the size of a small dog”! And…it’s probably more like a foot long (body only), if that, because the old perspective trick is being played on us once again.
As you can see, the guy holding the rat (on some sort of scraper/shovel tool) is reaching to hold it up close to the camera, which makes him look relatively small, and the rat look relatively huge. (The same thing appears to be happening with the guy holding up the “monster rat!” on the pitchfork in the photo at this link.) More than that: The scraper/shovel tool might actually only be six or so inches across—how could we know from the photo?—which means the rat could actually be pretty small. Perspective is a powerful tool!
Much like this OHMYGOD THERE’S AN ENORMOUS CHILD LOOSE IN PARIS!!!
Don’t get us wrong: A rat with a body a foot long is big—but it’s not anything out of the ordinary. Brown or Norway rats (we’re assuming that’s what it is, since it is the most common type of rat in North America and much more of the world today) commonly grow to ten inches in length, and, as most New Yorkers can tell you, often grow larger.
So, how about them Mets?
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December 7, 2011
Get ready for UncleJohn’sBathroomReader.xxx - coming to your internet any day!
Oh, no, wait, really. That sounded funny in our heads – for about 1.23 seconds – but now that we think about it a bit more…no. Really. Uh uh. No with a capital N.O.
Back to the story:
Web addresses ending in .xxx have gone on general sale, as legal efforts continue to scupper the domain name.
Some 100,000 addresses have already been purchased in a restricted sale. The first pages went live in September.
Much more on the whole “.xxx” story here. (They’ve apparently become available to the general public only yesterday. And some colleges are apparently trying to get .xxx addresses.)
Exxxtra: When you think about it, if you owned a company that made, say, x-ray machines, you might want the .xxx web address for good and pure and perfectly non-pornographic reasons, wouldn’t you? “XraysR’Us.xxx!” Or if you were a lawyer that specialized in divorce cases: “GetItAllFromThe.xxx!” Or if you just turned thirty years old, and you wanted to celebrate that with a website – and you can only write in Roman numerals: “YayI’m.xxx!”
Okay, that last one would be, well, dumb, but I think you get our point…
P.S. We looked for a cool image to go along with this post, but when you put “xxx” in Google – you would not believe what happens! Oh dear oh dear oh dear…
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HOLIDAY SALE! 30% off best Christmas presents ever! Goes through December!
November 9, 2011
This is a fun YouTube video – it shows the South American “Sensitive Plant,” being, well, sensitive.
And it has a very weird choice of background music:
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Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader’s HOLIDAY SALE – 30% of all books – goes through December.
Giveaway ends May 31, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
The Rolling Hills Country Club in Florida was the setting for the movie Caddyshack.
