Author: Uncle John

The December 5 Birthday/Phobia News Report

Mickey Mouse

As we do every year on this day, we now present you with the December 5 Birthday/Phobia News Report:

Birthday: Today is the birthday of one of the most famous names in the history of – well, just about anything, really – but mostly in the history of film, and especially animated film, Mr. Walt Disney. He is known for his role in the creation of some of the most memorable characters in the history of animation, including the world-wide animated mega-superstar, Mickey Mouse.

The Tupperware Story

THE TUPPERWARE STORY

Today the word Tupperware is a generic term for any plastic food container
with a sealable lid. That’s thanks to two people: Earl Tupper, inventor
of the product that bears his name, and Brownie Wise, who has
been all but erased from the company’s history.

BLACK GOLD
In the fall of 1945, a plastics manufacturer named Earl Tupper tried to place an order for plastic resin, one of the key ingredients in plastic, with the Bakelite Corporation. But the material was in short supply, and Bakelite couldn’t fill his order. When Tupper asked if they had anything else for him to work with, the company gave him a black, oily lump of polyethylene slag, a rubbery by-product of the petroleum refining process that collected at the bottom of oil barrels. Bakelite, makers of an early plastic by the same name, couldn’t find a use for the waste product, and neither could the chemical giant DuPont. Both companies had plenty of the stuff lying around. They told Tupper he could have as much as he wanted.

Tupper spent months experimenting with different blends of polyethylene—“Poly-T,” as he called it—and molding them at different pressures and temperatures. He eventually came up with a process for forming it into brightly colored cups, bowls, and other household items. A year later he patented the idea that he’s most famous for: the “Tupperware seal,” which provided a spill-proof, airtight seal between Tupperware containers and their lids. (He borrowed the idea from paint-can lids.) Tupper called his first sealable container the “Wonderbowl.”

The Beer-Powered Hospital

Take it away, Homer: “Beer—is there anything it can’t do?”:

Beer and health care may sound like an odd mix. In one case however, the two have formed an unlikely partnership to get creative with renewable energy.

City Brewery in La Crosse, Wisconsin is using all of its biogas byproduct from the brewing process to create three million kilowatt hours per year of electricity by employing a capturing, cleaning and burning process through an engine called a jenbacher.

Down the road from the brewery is Gundersen Lutheran Health System which is credited for the electricity produced by City Brewery. And while this only accounts for 10-13 percent of their total needs, it means they are on their way to meeting complete energy independence by 2014.

So very good.

And there’s even a beer-powered hospital video:

Website Posts Anonymously Sent Nude Pics

Looks like someone’s gunning for the “Worst Jerk of the Century” award:

[It] is fairly simple in concept: someone anonymously submits nude photos to Moore through the site’s submission form. Perhaps it’s a jilted ex, or a recent hookup, or a vengeful friend. These days, the site receives many self-submissions as well. Provenance doesn’t matter. Moore uploads those photos and attaches identifying screen-grabs from the person’s Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter accounts—whatever’s available. He sometimes adds a pithy caption and a reaction gif at the end, usually from a television show or meme. And that’s pretty much it.

Good gads, what a monumental ass. It’s no surprise that this happened:

The Last Living Veteran of World War One

Please meet Mrs. Florence Green (this article is from February):

The revels were not quite as wild as on Armistice Day. Still, there was plenty to celebrate yesterday when the world’s last surviving female veteran of the First World War celebrated her 110th birthday.

Florence Green, from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, was 17 years old when she joined the Women’s Royal Air Force, in the late summer of 1918.

She looks good! 110? Wow!

Imagine telling the good Florence when she was still a young woman in the 1920s, “Hey Flo, you’re going to have your own Wikipedia page some day!” She’d be like, “Umwut? LOL.”

The Hawaiian Island You Cannot Go To

Niihau

FORBIDDEN ISLAND, USA

If you’ve ever visited the Hawaiian islands, you may already know that
one of them, Niihau, west of Kauai, is off-limits to outsiders. Here’s the
story of how that came to be, and what life on the island is like today.

RIP, Andy Rooney

Andy Rooney‘Andy Rooney, the “60 Minutes” commentator known to generations for his wry, humorous and contentious television essays – a unique genre he is credited with inventing – died Friday night in a hospital in New York City of complications following minor surgery. He was 92, and had homes in New York City, Rensselaerville, N.Y. and Rowayton, Conn.’

His last appearance on 60 Minutes was on October 2—just one month ago.

Here’s a nice writeup from his hometown of Albany, New York.

John Hodgman on Uncle John’s [updated]

Update: Mr. Sir Hodgman has responded. We are humbled.

John Hodgman of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show fame has a new book coming out: That is All, the third in his groin-pullingly funny The Areas of My Expertise series.

Hodgman talked to Publishers Weekly about it—and a fan sent us the link:

Hodgman shares the four books that inspired his oeuvre.

He saved the best for last. Ahem:

Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader
There are many volumes now of this great work of disposable facts for disposable time, but I discovered the first edition lying around back when I was still an agent at Writers House in New York City. I was not a very good agent, but Writers House itself, a beautiful 18th-century townhouse once belonging to John Jacob Astor, was a lovely place to read and scheme up a new life. And thankfully, it also had a bathroom.

Thankfully indeed!

We can think of only one thing to say to this, Mr. Hodgman…sir…your highness:

Gander

In 2002, in Uncle John’s Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader, we wrote about what happened in a little Canadian town called Gander in the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11. It’s the kind of story we can all use on a day like today.

GANDER

Far too few people know the heartwarming story about what
happened in a small town on a remote island in the North Atlantic on
September 11, 2001. Canadian air traffic controller (and BRI member)
Terry Budden told us about it, and we decided to share it with you.

“I Did Not Realize I Was P***ing on Her Leg”

Oh, yeah, we should mention that he said that…after being taken off the airplane:

An 11-year-old girl asleep on a flight was horrified when she woke up to find a drunken man urinating on her leg, reports say.

The alleged incident occurred on a JetBlue flight between Portland and New York when a reportedly inebriated teenager stumbled out of his seat and began emptying his bladder on the sleeping child.

Associated Press reports angry scenes broke out on the flight when the girl’s father returned from the toilet and caught 18-yearo-old Robert Vietze in the act.

98-year-old Gets 10th-degree Judo Blackbelt

Impressive:

Just two years before her 100th birthday, Sensei Keiko Fukuda has  become the first woman to achievea tenth-degree black belt—the highest rank in the martial art and combat sport Judo. Fukuda is now one of only four living people who’ve earned the tenth-degree (or dan) black belt. To put the accomplishment into better perspective, throughout history, only sixteen people have ever achieved this honor.

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