Read Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! (2 page)
The Intro-duck-tion
Here at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute,
we’re suckers for cool facts, and we’re constantly quizzing each other: How many gallons of peanut oil does it take to deep-fry a turkey? What cartoon character is prohibited from running for elected office in Texas? Why did the game of bingo used to be called beano?
So a few years ago, when Uncle John noticed that many of the letters we received from fans were asking for the same thing—an entire book of running feet (those fun factoids at the bottom of
Bathroom Reader
pages)—he called in a team of bathroom-reading writers and sent them on a fact-finding mission: search old
Bathroom Readers
for running feet and then organize the facts into interesting lists. The finished product turned out so great that even more readers wrote in asking us to do it again.
We got right to work…diving into a whole new batch of
Bathroom Readers
and pulling out the running feet. We sorted the facts, organized them, argued (gently) about how best to arrange them, and then organized them again. We also came up with 50
new
pages of facts.
The end result is
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up!
, more than 380 pages packed with useful—and sometimes useless—but always interesting information.
If you’re joining us for the first time, welcome! And if you’re on your second
Bathroom Reader
book of facts, welcome back! We’re really glad you’re here. And as always, go with the flow…
—Uncle John and the BRI Staff
P.S. We’re already gathering new running feet for the next
Bathroom Reader
. So email your favorite obscure bits of trivia and fun facts to
[email protected]
!
…630 silkworm cocoons to make one silk blouse.
…a chicken-plucking machine 14 seconds to pluck a whole chicken.
…a drop of ocean water more than 1,000 years to circulate around the world.
…a manned rocket ship 70,000 years to reach the next closest solar system.
…about 540 peanuts to make a 12-ounce jar of peanut butter.
…a combine harvester nine seconds to harvest enough wheat to make 70 loaves of bread.
…a car traveling at 75 mph 258 days to drive around one of Saturn’s rings.
…a year’s worth of corks from all the wine bottled in France to circle the world three times.
…Pluto 248.53 years to travel around the Sun.
…every star in the Milky Way to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool (if each star were the size of a grain of salt).
…the Milky Way about 200 million years to make one revolution.
…about 600 grapes to make a bottle of wine.
…70 separate pieces of wood to make a violin.
…up to six gallons of peanut oil to deep-fry a turkey.
…only one steer to yield enough ground beef for 1,000 McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.
…the average American 40 days to earn enough money to pay for a year’s worth of food.
Colorado is the only state to have turned down the opportunity to host the Olympics, in 1976.
The only player in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ starting lineup with a batting average of .300 or better going into the 1965 World Series was pitcher Don Drysdale.
Only cats born with no tail: the Manx. The breed carries a genetic mutation that causes the abnormality.
Only all-female African American military unit to deploy to Europe during World War II: the 888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, out of Georgia. They sorted and delivered mail to soldiers.
Frank Zappa’s only Top-40 song: “Valley Girl,” in 1982 (it reached #32).
Only player to get caught stealing to end the World Series: Babe Ruth, in 1926.
According to
Billboard
, only two songs with the word “summer” in the title have reached number one: “Summer in the City” and “Theme from a Summer Place.”
Only Norwegian band with international success: a-ha. Biggest hit: “Take on Me.”
Michelangelo signed only one of his sculptures—the
Pietà
.
Only golfer to spend 30 minutes on a single hole in the U.S. Open: Ray Ainsley (1938).
The only member of Pink Floyd to play on every one of the band’s albums: drummer Nick Mason.
Shirley Bassey is the only artist to have recorded songs for more than one James Bond movie (
Goldfinger
,
Diamonds Are Forever
, and
Moonraker
).
The only horse to defeat Man o’ War was named Upset.
In the 1940s, the Canadian government advised mothers to begin toilet-training babies at one month old.
Of Canada’s 36 “Fathers of Confederation,” two of them were named John Hamilton Gray.
One in ten Canadians say they’d support a law that encouraged people in major cities to wear name tags.
During World War II, German U-boats sank 23 vessels in Canada’s St. Lawrence River.
The United States has invaded Canada twice—once during the American Revolution and once during the War of 1812.
One of Canada’s founding fathers was an American: William P. Howland of Pawling, New York.
In 1943, Fred Rose became the only Communist ever elected to the Canadian parliament.
Despite their good-guy image, Canada’s Mounties have been caught spying on people illegally.
THREATS
Your sands are run!
(I’m going to kill you!)
I’ll slit a couple of feet of steel into your vitals!
(I’ll stab you with my sword!)
I come from hell, and I’ll carry you there presently.
(How all good pirates answer the question “Where are you from?”)
INSULTS
You’re a dung-souled knuckle brain.
(You’re an incapable idiot.)
You’ve got a split tongue.
(You’re a liar.)
You should be fed on pap and suckets.
(You’re acting like a baby. Pap and suckets were soft foods often served to babies.)
The smell of you alone is enough to wrinkle the noses of pigs.
(You stink.)
GENERAL DIRECTIONS
“Scupper your hide out of here.”
(
Go away.
)
Clap a stopper on your eyes.
(Quit crying.)
Put a name on what you’re at.
(What do you mean?)
Bestir yourself!
(Move it!)
Cough up your tale.
(Tell us your story.)
Keep your tongue behind your teeth.
(Don’t say anything.)
Shiver your timbers.
(Wait a minute.)
Stay your claws.
(Keep your hands to yourself.)
Strike your colors.
(Surrender.)
Cock your piece.
(Get your gun ready.)
Chuck Berry has a degree from a beauty school.
Tony Blair’s schoolmaster called him “the most difficult boy I ever had to deal with.”
Singer Huey Lewis scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of his SAT.
Philosopher and author Eric Hoffer (
The True Believer
, published in 1951) was self-educated. He was homeless for many years, and then worked as a dishwasher and longshoreman.
Gene Simmons of KISS was once an elementary school teacher.
Garth Brooks’s college major: advertising.
Al Capone dropped out of school when he was 14.
Jack Nicholson spent every day of an entire school year in detention.
In high school, Mariah Carey’s nickname was “Mirage” because she was absent so often.
Monica Lewinsky’s classmates voted her “Most Likely to Get Her Name in Lights.”
The term “feeling blue” has its roots in nautical traditions. In the old days, when a captain or officer died, the ship flew a blue flag.
People sitting in the first few rows of a Blue Man Group concert get plastic ponchos before the show to protect them from the mess created as the performers bang on the liquid-filled tops of drums.
In many languages, people use the same word for the colors blue and green.
The sky is blue because of the way the human eye perceives color. On sunny days, light scatters in such a way that the eye “sees” only the blue part of the spectrum.
First official blues record: Hart A. Wand’s “Dallas Blues,” in 1912.
In 2002’s
Die Another Day
, James Bond sliced Thomas Gainsborough’s painting “The Blue Boy” with a sword.
The Toronto Blue Jays are the only Major League Baseball team located outside the United States.
World’s largest blue sapphire: the Blue Giant of the Orient, at 466 carats.
Canada’s largest fruit crop: blueberries.
The term “blue jeans” comes from the French
bleu de Gênes
, meaning “blue of Genoa.” Why? Some of the first denim pants were manufactured in Italy and were shipped out of the port of Genoa.
Bluebirds were considered a rare species until 1996.
1. THE FIRST VIENNESE VEGETABLE ORCHESTRA
This nine-member Austrian group plays instruments made completely out of fresh vegetables, including carrot flutes, eggplant drums, and a “gurkaphone” (a hollow cucumber with a carrot mouthpiece and green-pepper bell). At the conclusion of live performances, the Orchestra chops up its instruments and makes a soup, which is shared with the audience.
2. MAX Q
It’s the world’s only soft-rock band made up entirely of former astronauts. All six members flew on the U.S. space shuttle in the 1980s and 1990s. They play mostly love songs about space and alienation. “Max Q” refers to the the point at which a spacecraft maximizes aerodynamic pressure.
3. POWERGLOVE
This American group plays fast, heavy versions of the instrumental music from 1980s Nintendo video games, such as Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda.
4. GWAR
The band dresses in elaborate rubber ogre and monster costumes and takes stage names like “Oderus Urungus,” “Flattus Maximus,” and “Beefcake the Mighty.” GWAR plays hard-driving heavy metal songs (such as “Maggots” and “Death Pod”). Their show includes staged deaths and buckets of fake vomit and blood that they throw at the audience.