HOO HOO – very funny video of a guy who stepped into the hallway behind President Obama and VP Biden during the health care speech last night. You can almost feel the guy’s stomach drop into his shoes when he realizes what he’s done and does a slow pirouette outta there. (Via)
The Pillsbury Doughboy, the advertising mascot of the Pillsbury Company, was introduced to the world on this date, March 18, in 1965. At least according to some trivia lists. Others say it was November 7, 1965. Pillsbury, apparently, says they have no idea. We here at the BRI are going to go with today. Why? Because it’s today, and we had to do something.
And we mostly want to give our regards to “Poppin’ Fresh” because without him—and the Michelin Man—we would never have had the “Stay Puft Marshmallow Man,” from 1984’s Ghostbusters. And for that we are very grateful.
Extra: From the first link above we found something that not even Uncle John knew: The voice of the original Pillsbury Doughboy was played by Paul Frees—the same guy who did Boris Badenov of the original “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.”
Or: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!, as an old superstition says for the very best cabbages you should get out to the garden and plant them today. After that you can have some corned beef and cabbage and a good fat glass of Guinness—you deserve it.
A few more St. Patrick’s Day tidbits:
Apparently humans are not the only species that use toilets. Wonder if we should send these rodents Bathroom Readers to enjoy while doing their business? Click here for the full story (courtesy of our friends at Neatorama).
Today is the anniversary of the 1967 release of the very first song by the great British psychedlic-rock (and so much more) band, Pink Floyd. The song was Arnold Layne, written and sung by Syd Barret. It’s about a guy who steals women’s clothes from washing lines and wears them. He is unfortunately caught doing this, and “doors bang, chaingang.” Poor Arnold. Wikipedia has quite a bit of information on the song here.
It was hard to believe that this story wasn’t a hoax, but it apparently is the real (weird) deal:
“Road safety chiefs have put up traffic signs warning motorists of drunks in the road in a bid to reduce accidents. Mayor Petru Antal ordered the signs – saying ‘Attention – Drunks’, complete with an image of a reveller on his knees with a bottle – after despairing of accident figures in Pecica, Romania.”
We meant to post the winners of the contest yesterday, but there were so many comments it took us an extra day to get through them all! We call that a rip-roaring success for our first blog contest. 775 comments later, and we now know the intimate details of your toilet paper habits from those […]
From the “How Very, Very Strange” drawer:
Police in Cyprus say they may have found the body of former President Tassos Papadopoulos, three months after it was snatched from its grave. Remains thought to be those of the ex-president were found at a Nicosia cemetery after a tip-off, police said. DNA tests will determine whether it was Mr Papadopoulos’ body, police on the Mediterranean island said. He was president from 2003 to February 2008 and died in December 2008. It is unclear why his body was stolen.
The original report can be found here.
If you look at several “On This Date” lists online (like this one) you’ll find an interesting bit of info for today, March 8: “1st flight of the Goodyear blimp (1972).”
1972? Hasn’t the Goodyear Blimp been around for a bit longer than that? Uh, yes, it has. But since it now exists only after March 8, 1972 – on the internet, where reality goes to die – we’d like to say “Happy Birthday, Blimp.” What the heck, y’know?
And just for the occasion, here are some blimpy facts, from our very own Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (page 273).
Wow! Have you heard? The already blizzardized New York City got another two feet of snow. Check it out.
We spend a lot of time on the internet here at the BRI, and one of the things we love about it is that amid all the clutter and crap there is some truly wonderful stuff out there. In “Internet Wonders” we’ll be sharing those finds with you, hopefully pointing you to gems you haven’t seen before. Like this one: “Librophiliac Love Letter: A Compendium of Beautiful Libraries,” from the underappreciated Curious Expeditions:
“For us here at Curious Expeditions, there has always been something about libraries. Row after row, shelf after shelf, there is nothing more magical than a beautiful old library.”
We couldn’t agree more. Here’s just one of the dozens of incredible photos they’ve collected over there, this one of the library at the Abbey of St. Gallen in Switzerland, dating all the way back to the 8th century:
Today is the Man in Black’s birthday. He died in 2003, but if he were still alive, Cash would be 78 today.
Cash’s signature song was “Folsom Prison Blues.” But Cash didn’t get the idea for the song while doing time. He got it while watching a documentary in 1951 about the legendarily tough northern California penitentiary called Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison. It struck him that most people live in a prison of one kind or another, and that they would relate to a song about prison (even a real one) as much as they would to a song about the frequent country song subject matter of drinking, trains, or broken hearts.
We just found out that our friends at Neatorama have also recently gone through a redesign of their blog, and the site looks great. While looking around their new site, we ran across a newly added section called Neatorama Spotlight with the post “7 Mad Science Experiments You Can Do At Home, But Probably Shouldn’t.” […]
One of the features of the new Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Web site is our new store. We’ve upgraded the store to make the process of getting books from us faster, easier, and smoother.
But of course with anything new, there’s always a bit of tweaking that still has to happen. What that means for you, our loyal fans, is that even if you’re a returning customer you’ll need to set up a new account within the new store.
Since Monday is Presidents Day, we thought we’d share some presidential firsts we’ve collected over the years.
When we first launched the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Web site back in the early 1940s (it was made of wood then), we said to ourselves, "Let’s schedule a Web site update for February 2010." Well, we’re right on time—as usual—and we’re very happy to introduce to you the new and improved, extra-strength, slightly irregular, ahh-inspiring, supremely satisfying <strong>Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Internet Station Extraordinaire</strong>. Most notably, we’ve added a new blog, which will appear right here on the front page, and which we’ll be updating regularly with tantalizing tidbits of mindbending information.
Happy 25th anniversary…to the BRI (hey, that’s us!) The Bathroom Reader turns 25! Uncle John is celebrating this historic milestone with his biggest all-new edition ever- more than 600 pages of absorbing material! Introducing Uncle John’s Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader. “Fully Loaded” is putting it mildly. This behemoth of a book is overflowing […]
