We here at the BRI love politics. Especially this kind:
Ukraine’s parliament collapsed into chaos during a debate about extending the Russian navy’s lease on a base.
Parliamentary speaker Vlodymyr Lytvyn was forced to dodge eggs and was later shielded by two aids with black umbrellas.
Opposition MPs set off smoke bombs and the debate had to be held over the whining of alarms.
There are several photos at the link, including this one:
This is such a great idea for a Web site:
This site is about . . .
. . . how people furnished and equipped their homes in previous centuries, and how they handled household tasks. Plans are to keep adding more articles, with the homepage updated every Wednesday – at least. Please email if you want to suggest a topic connected with the history of everyday home life, housekeeping, domestic objects, or any related bits of social history.
Simple and fascinating. There are many, many photographs of actual antique items, along with descriptions of their use. Just a few of the items covered:
No, it’s not a new Google program—I smell lawsuits! (no pun intended)—it’s a look at what curious Web surfers like ourselves might find by putting the word “toilet” into Google images. Our Toilet-View Top Ten:
On this date five years ago the very first video ever was uploaded to internet video behemoth YouTube. It was created by YouTube cofounder Jawed Karim, and is just 19 seconds long. And I know it might be difficult to believe, with the millions of horrible rotten awful just plain dumb videos that have been uploaded to the site in the time since, but this very first video just might be The Most Boring YouTube Video…Ever. Even more boring than this one, which, you might like to know, is titled, “The Most Boring YouTube Video…Ever.” Go ahead. Watch and decide for yourself:
Today is the fifth anniversary of the very first video upload to internet video behemoth YouTube. It’s just 19 seconds long and was made by YouTube cofounder Jawed Karim. And I know itit might be hard to believe, with the millions of horribly awful videos that have been uploaded to the site over the last five years, but this very first one is a strong contender for The Most Boring Video in YouTube History. I kid you not. Watch:
Holy cow, don’t know how we missed this YouTube clip. Here’s to Fordham University’s Brian Kownacki, and the “Safe!” heard ’round the (YouTube) world. (1,193,475 views…in two days.) Here’s a quote from Kownacki to set the clip up:
“I got about halfway between third and home and I knew I was in trouble, but there was no turning back,” he tells the Daily News. ” When I was about five feet away, I saw the catcher kneel down in a crouch.”
Hap
py Earth Day, Earthlings! Here’s a cool little story for the occasion, from Uncle John’s Certified Organic Bathroom Reader (page 21), on the creation of that nifty little symbol used the world around that let’s you know if a product is recyclable and/or made from recycled materials. Little known fact: It’s creation was timed to coincide with the very first Earth Day.
The new high-tech $100 bills are in, and they are pretty darn cool looking.
If that’s not exciting enough for you, watch this totally bizarre video the Treasury Department made introducing the new note. It’s just images of the note, strangely dramatic music, and occasssional onscreen text describing some of the new bill’s features. Example: “Bell in the inkwell.” (Which would be a great name for a emo band.)
It seems that our first president, that paragon of virtue who could not even lie about cutting down a cherry tree (although he apparently had no problem going around randomly cutting down cherry trees), was a bandit borrower of books:
Founder of a nation, trouncer of the English, God-fearing family man: all in all, George Washington has enjoyed a pretty decent reputation. Until now, that is.
The hero who crossed the Delaware river may not have been quite so squeaky clean when it came to borrowing library books.
The New York Society Library, the city’s only lender of books at the time of Washington’s presidency, has revealed that the first American president took out two volumes and pointedly failed to return them.
At today’s prices, adjusted for inflation, he would face a late fine of $300,000.
It should be noted that this story is from a British news source, so it should be taken with a grain of sore loser salt.
And holy cow—we’ve just found a terribly incriminating photo of the Father of our Nation about to engage in one of his notorious book thefts! Join us after the jump for this shocking, never before seen photo!
Or should that be, “Take the Grasshopper From My Pizza, Hand”?
As locusts swarm across Australia, folks are finding a way to get back at the insects that devour crops – eat ‘em!
One café in Mildura, northern Victoria state, is offering locusts as a crunchy topping for pizza, CNN affiliate ABC news reports.
And, thank goodness, there’s an honest-to-goodness photo of one of the locust-topped pizzas:
Really, do we have to say anything else?
Better known as the toilet-shaped house, this showcase of superior plumbing was built by Korean Assembly Representative Sim Jae-Duck—a.k.a. Mr. Toilet—and his World Toilet Organization. It’s intended to celebrate the cultural centrality of the toilet and raise awareness of the plight of the world’s toilet-less. “We should learn to go beyond seeing toilets as just a place for defecation,” the late Mr. Sim once said, “but also as a place of culture where people can rest, meditate and be happy.”
We’re working on an article for Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader (due out in November 2010) called “Show Stoppers.” It’s about concerts or theater shows or whatever that had to be stopped mid-performance for one humorous or interesting reason or another. Here’s an excerpt—and it just happens to be our favorite. (We’ll tell you why at the end of the piece in the “Special Note” section.)
I was just doing some research for an article on—well, you’ll see in November!—when I came across a Straight Dope discussion board from February where people were talking about actors who were in the midst of making films—and died before they were finished. Brandon Lee in The Crow, Vic Morrow in The Twilight Zone, and Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 from Outer Space are mentioned. Then someone wrote this:
“Keanu Reeves died at the beginning of The Matrix, but fortunately they found a plank of wood that looked just like him.”
With all due respect to Mr. Reeves—dat funny.
While performing an important search for an article one day—okay, I admit it, it was this morning, and I was bored, and I put “pergle” into Google just to see what would happen, you caught me!—I found this blast from the past: Pergl Gas Pump Globes. Remember those?
“Gas globes are spherical glass signs that sat atop gas pumps in the first half of the 20th century, advertising a specific oil company or brand of gasoline. Generally made from a ring of metal with a lens mounted on either side, they were produced in various shapes (like the Shell clamshell) and innumerable designs.
The purpose of gas pump globes was brand identification for drivers at a distance. Lighting wasn’t as good on gas stations as it is today. Sometimes all a motorist could recognize driving by was the gas pump itself lit up, and the globe glowed so they’d know what brand of gas was available. Post World War II, pumps started getting smaller, and by the 1960’s, it was unusual to have a globe.”
Pergl makes reproductions, but there are of course lots of dealers in actual antique globes, and over at OldGas.com, “The Gas Station & Auto Service Collectibles Web Site,” they have a huge gallery of photos of vintage globes.
Very cool photographs of several bridges from all over the world that, if you had to cross them, would definitely have your knees clattering. (Unless you don’t have knees.) Be sure to check out the video…complete with strangely creepy music.
We can’t tell if this story is funny…or hilarious:
“Scores of Carlsberg workers walked off their jobs in protest Thursday after the Danish brewer tightened laid-back rules on workplace drinking and removed beer coolers from work sites, a company spokesman said.
The warehouse and production workers in Denmark are rebelling against the company’s new alcohol policy, which allows them to drink beer only during lunch hours in the canteen. Previously, they could help themselves to beer throughout the day, from coolers placed around the work sites.
The only restriction was ‘that you could not be drunk at work’.”
I don’t know about you, but if I was 96 years old I’d be afraid that bungy jumping might, I don’t know, make parts of my body fall off or something. But not South African Mohr Keet. And holy cow, watch the video—that’s a really high bridge. (216 meters, or 708 feet high!)
Our favorite part: After Mr. Keet jumped, his daughter did, too. She’s 72 62. (And they both said they were “poop scared” before jumping.)
Today, April 7, marks the 77th anniversary of the beginning of one of the most raucous 24-hour periods in American history. It was on this day in 1933 that Congress officially modified the Volstead Act, better known as the National Prohibition Act, which in 1919 had made it illegal to manufacture, sell, or transport any beverage containing more than .05% alcohol. The modification rose that to 3.2%, and, as the day neared, the breweries around the country that hadn’t been driven out of business in the dry, 14-year period (they survived by making drinks like root beer and ginger ale), readied for what would become one of the wildest national parties in American history:
