Daily Dispatch
Habemus Papam! (That’s Latin for “We have a Pope!”)
This week 76-year-old Argentinean Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope on the fifth papal conclave vote. Fun fact: Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, is the first pontiff from Latin America. To mark the occasion, here are a few more bits of pope-culture.
Pope vote: The vote usually doesn’t take long. Over the past century, the conclave has never lasted more than five days. Longest on record: 33 months, spanning 1268 to 1271. An angry mob got so fed up with the indecision that they literally tore the roof off the building the college of cardinals was staying in and limited their meals to bread and water to inspire them to pick up the pace. (They picked Pope Gregory X, who reigned for four years.
Happy Pi Day!
The Great Hollywood Toilet Boycott
Celebrities: they’re just like us…except that they don’t use toilets.
The great toilet boycott has started.
At least some of them. Movie star Matt Damon, who does a lot of humanitarian work on the side, co-founded Water.org, an organization devoted to bring clean water to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who lack sanitation, including 800 million who don’t have access to clean drinking water.
To promote his cause, last month Damon publicly announced that he would refuse to use a toilet until everyone in the world enjoys the same water privileges as first world nations.
Playing Music…With Ice
A group of Siberian percussionists have become an internet hit with an exhibition of ice drumming on frozen Lake Baikal.
In minus 20C, they found by pure chance that the one metre thick ice has a distinctive and haunting rhythm all of its own, reported the Siberian Times.
‘I felt like we were playing on the drums that Nature has left out for us, alone under the sun on the frozen waters of the world’s most magnificent lake,’ said Irkutsk architect Natalya Vlasevskaya, 31, a mother-of-one and organiser of Etnobit percussion group.
• More here.
• Much more here:
Four Weird and Oz-Mazing ‘Oz’ Facts
Oz: the Great and Powerful crashes into movies theaters today harder than Dorothy’s farmhouse killed a witch. Brush up on your Oz knowledge before you go see the movie.
• Published in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the first Oz book, and the basis for the classic 1939 film, but it’s not the first thing author L. Frank Baum ever published. Decades earlier, he was a chicken farmer, specializing in Hamburgs, a rare German breed. In 1886, Baum published a chicken raising guide called The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise Upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs. (The Oz novels are much more entertaining.)
RIP Alvin Lee
British blues-rock guitarist Alvin Lee, who was best known for his performance with rock band Ten Years After at Woodstock in 1969, died on Wednesday at age 68, his family said.
“With great sadness we have to announce that Alvin unexpectedly passed away early this morning after unforeseen complications following a routine surgical procedure,” the family said in a statement on the singer’s official website.
Ten Years After—”Spoonful”:
Lost TV Pilots & The Nat King Cole Show
Our Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader TUNES INTO TV, which had been a reader request for many years, has turned out to be a darn big hit. An excerpt from a review over at Amazon:
Some great articles here, there are brief histories on NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS. Inventors such as Smirnoff and Farnsworth are given their due, and since modern day tv wouldn’t be where it is without them, it’s wonderful that they’re mentioned.
I really enjoyed their piece about the 1968 showing of Heidi, and the uproar it caused. I would recommend this book, for any up and coming tv historians who need to get a quick overview of the medium. It helped refresh my memory, and introduced me to a few stories I didn’t know about.
JThree
Williston North Dakota
Why thank you, JThree, much obliged.
We thought you might like a look at what’s inside this book, so here are two excerpts for your reading pleasure.
First, some TV pilots you may not have heard about.
A Kick-in-the-Pants Note From a Fan
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Via private message on FaceBook, yesterday:
Oof, Carrie C., what a story. Sad—but with a happy ending! Hooray! It is so thoughtful of you to take the time to send us that note. We are truly touched. Thank you more than we can say – truly.
P.S. We asked Carrie exactly how she uses the Kindle to accommodate her impaired vision. We thought we’d pass it on in case it can help anybody else out there:
Nurse Posts Corpse Pics on FaceBook
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Introducing Nurse Wretched, from “One Flew Over the STOOPID’s Nest”:
An Odd Holiday: National Public Sleeping Day
Grab your pillows: National Public Sleeping Day is just around the corner, on February 28th. How to celebrate: take a nap in public. That’s it. The dubious, obscure holiday dates all the way back to 2011, and ever since bloggers and news organizations have used it to discuss sleep health issues, or use it as an excuse to run a cheeky photo of their boss napping while on the clock.
Mustache Quotes
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Since there’s nothing on TV tonight, we thought you might like a couple mustache quotes:
That’s from UJ’s Fully Loaded 25th Anniversay Bathroom Reader, page 552. (See what you’re missing?!)
Totally related and very weird bonus:
Hate Work? Ever Dream This Man?, Etc.
Uncle John has a bunch of websites in his “WORK BAD—HATE WORK” file. He thought he’d share a few with you. (Some are wine. Some are crackers…)
WARNING: Some sites have auto sound! Be ready!
You Fell Asleep Watching a DVD
Rubber Ducktato, You’re the One…
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This must be from Uncle John’s Certified Organic Bathroom Reader!
Meteorite Hits Frozen Lake? And a Joke
The Guardian has a great – and large – collection of videos, photos, and reports from news media and just regular folks on the wild meteor event that occurred in Russia last night. Including this shot:
Space.com says it was the largest meteor event in 100 years. The blast: it was more powrful than that produced by the nuclear weapon detonated by North Korea the other day. (Wow!)
NASA says, based on very preliminary data, the meteor was almost 50 feet in circumfrence:
Based on the duration of the event, it was a very shallow entry. It was larger than the meteor over Indonesia on Oct. 8, 2009. Measurements are still coming in, and a more precise measure of the energy may be available later. The size of the object before hitting the atmosphere was about 49 feet (15 meters) and had a mass of about 7,000 tons.
The meteor, which was about one-third the diameter of asteroid 2012 DA14, was brighter than the sun. Its trail was visible for about 30 seconds, so it was a grazing impact through the atmosphere.
But here’s what we want to note:
14 Ways an Economist Says I love You
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An oldie – but a darn goodie – for Valentine’s Day:
Gill Communication? 3 Weird Fishing Techniques
- Some guy with a really BIG fish.
Fishing is definitely not for the impatient, especially during winter. Have you ever tried ice fishing? It’s fun…if you enjoy sitting in a frosty shack while waiting for a nibble that may never come. Naturally, many fishermen have tried to take the tedium out of angling. The following three fishing techniques will certainly increase your chances of a big catch.
Monopoly “Iron” Token Out, “Cat” In
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Wow – hadn’t even heard they were doing this! We would have started a “toilet” token movement!
The Monopoly iron is going off to that giant linen closet in the sky.
The token, a staple of the Hasbro board game since the 1930s, is being retired after only garnering 8% of fan votes in a “Save Your Token” campaign. The Scottie dog was the clear choice for fans and game players from 185 countries, getting 29% of the vote.
While the iron leaves the game, a new cat will take its place passing “GO!” and collecting $200 going forward. The feline piece conquered its own competition in a separate vote on theMonopoly Facebook page, winning over four other proposed tokens — a toy robot, guitar, helicopter and diamond ring — with 31%.
Monopoly extras:
