January 26 is Australia Day, and so we thought we’d take a look at some inventions that we — and maybe you — didn’t know originated Down Under. Disposable Syringes In the 1940s, drug company A.M. Bickford and Sons identified a problem in the pharmaceutical market: patients who needed to inject medications, such as diabetics, […]
Uncle John loves toilets, of course…even make-believe ones. Here are some of the best, not-quite-real commodes to ever grace movies and TV. Mr. Toilet Man The talking baby movie Look Who’s Talking proved so popular in 1989 that a sequel, Look Who’s Talking Too, hit theaters a year later. This one finds babies (voiced by […]
It’s common knowledge that most people are right-handed, and that most people have brown eyes, and most people have type-O blood. So just how rare (or common) is it to not possess those traits? Eye Color The most common eye colors: brown, then blue, then hazel. Green eyes are relatively rare: only about 2 percent […]
In the late 1970s, disco so dominated the musical landscape that a lot of major bands and singers thought that it was here to stay…and that they best get on board or get left in the dust. Here are some of those wild (and mostly forgotten) attempts to go disco. Paul McCartney As one of […]
It takes a lot of money to buy even a portion of a pro sports team. How’s someone supposed to get those millions of dollars together? Try being a huge success in the world of entertainment! Who has stakes in the Arena Football League? Over the last 30 years, lots of upstart football leagues have […]
One of the greatest moments of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. But it wasn’t planned that way. (This article was first published in Uncle John’s Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.) The March That Wasn’t In 1941 A. Philip Randolph, founder and […]
We can’t look into the future…but these people with psychic abilities say that they can. Here are some major events we can all apparently look forward to this year. The celebrity update Nicolas Aujula is technically 33, but at the age of 17 he claims he discovered that he’d been re-incarnated several times. In one […]
Many of the first major players in cable TV in the early 1980s are still intact today — CNN is still a 24-news network, ESPN is all sports all the time, and HBO plays movies and sports events. Elsewhere, there’s been a lot of “changing channels” so to speak, as lots of networks have changed […]
Professional sports are big business, with millions of dollars regularly changing hands between players and management. But a giant fortune isn’t everything, it would seem. No dogs allowed From 2011 to 2013, Steve Novak played at forward for the New York Knicks. In that same time, he was contractually forbidden from owning a dog. Reason: […]
It seems like there’s always a “must have” gadget that everybody’s clamoring to get. These are some examples of that hype…except that after their were touted and promoted, they never actually hit stores. The Phantom In 2003, a company called Infinium Labs touted a video game system called (what would turn out to be ironically) […]
Hey, Buddy: A lot of popular, colloquial phrases involve the use of a common, generic first name. Here are the origins of some of them, Jack. “Geez, Louise” At least as early as the late 1900s, English speakers started inserting words into their speech that sounded like a blasphemous cuss word that “took the lord’s […]
You never know what you might fight out there, underneath the wood pile, next to the herb garden, or below the kids’ old swing-set. BRING OUT YOUR DEAD In 2010, a New Orleans man named Vincent Marcello got to work on digging the big hole necessary to install a swimming pool in his backyard. While […]
Butter is a lightly processed dairy fat, formed into bricks, and shipped into stores. But butter is relatively expensive, leading to the development of butter-like margarine in the 19th century. Like butter, it’s made from fat—generally some kind of vegetable oil. Unlike butter, it requires a pretty lengthy and science-heavy process to make. Starts as […]
Should you ever find yourself in Canada and don’t understand the conversation, here’s a handy guide. (And if none of these come up…well, you just might be in the French-speaking part of Canada.) Keener: A person who tries desperately to please others or who’s just far too enthusiastic. Runners: Running shoes, sneakers. Supply teacher: A […]
Here’s a taste of what life is like on the bottom of the world. Least populated Of the seven continents, Antarctica is the least populated, but the fifth largest. It’s bigger than Australia and all of Europe. Not one landmass Antarctica isn’t one singular landmass. In addition to its mainland, it also encompasses the South […]
Not everybody watches the same TV shows or reads the same books, but we are all subject to the same ads. That makes marketing a universal language, and as such, marketers and advertisers have introduced several now common words and phrases into the vernacular. MANSCAPING Netflix just rebooted the early 2000s makeover show Queer Eye […]
We’re sure your dog is a very good boy (or very good girl), but you might not know that pooch as well as you think you do. Myth: Dogs are colorblind, meaning they see the world in black, white, and shades of grey. Truth: They don’t experience as full of a spectrum of colors as […]
Do you remember these TV programs? Probably not—they were watched by so few people that they were the first new fall show to get the axe in their respective year. 2018: The Alec Baldwin Show After debuting as a special in March 2018 called Sundays with Alec Baldwin, that fall, ABC brought back the one-on-one […]
