Largest gold coin ever minted: The Canadian $1 million Maple Leaf (diameter: about 20 in.).
FIRST QUARTER (DAY 8): The name says “quarter,” but really half of the moon is now visible, with the curve on the right, resembling a big letter “D.” The moon is at a 90-degree angle in relation to Earth and the sun, leaving exactly half of the moon illuminated and the other half of it in shadow.
WAXING GIBBOUS (DAY 11): Again, the moon is waxing (growing), so the lighted part is getting bigger. The word gibbous, derived from Latin, means “more than half.” In this case, it means that the moon is about three-quarters illuminated, with only a small portion on its left side still stuck in the shadows.
FULL MOON (DAY 15): Just as with a new moon, all three bodies are in near-alignment, but this time the moon is on the opposite side of Earth from where it was during the new moon. So the entire sunlight-illuminated part of the moon now faces Earth. The shadowed portion of the moon is on the far side, hidden from view. As with the new moon, on rare occasions the three bodies align perfectly, causing an eclipse—in the this case, a lunar eclipse, when Earth’s shadow crosses the moon.
WANING GIBBOUS (DAY 21): After a full moon, the moon appears to “shrink” or recede into the shadows. Waning means the opposite of waxing, so in this phase, the moon is once again three-quarters visible and illuminated, but now its right side is the portion that is obscured.
THIRD QUARTER (DAY 23): This phase is similar to the first quarter: Half of the moon is visible, and half is obscured. But since the moon is now completing its cycle, the sides are reversed: The left side is illuminated; the right side is obscured.
WANING CRESCENT (DAY 26): Another crescent moon, in which there’s a small sliver of moon in the sky, but now the curve is on the left.
And then it’s the new moon again.
Long-term parking: There are 3 lunar rovers still on the moon.
VIRAL VIDEOS
You probably already know that pop superstar Justin Bieber’s career was launched when his mother posted some home movies on YouTube. Here’s a look at some other folks who found fame—or infamy—when their videos went viral.
Internet Star: Dave Carroll, a Canadian country singer
Better Known As: The “United Breaks Guitars” guy
The Story: In March 2008, Carroll and his band were seated aboard a United Airlines plane at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport when they and other passengers saw the airline’s baggage handlers throwing the band’s instrument cases around on the tarmac. When Carroll retrieved his $3,500 Taylor guitar at the end of the flight, the neck had been broken off. United refused to replace the guitar or pay for repairs, even after Carroll pursued the matter for nine months. Rather than accept defeat, he decided to make a music video about the experience and post it on YouTube.
What Happened: Carroll uploaded the video, “United Breaks Guitars,” onto YouTube on July 6, 2009. By the end of the day it had received 150,000 hits. That got United’s attention, but Carroll wasn’t interested anymore. When the airline offered to buy him a new guitar, he told them to give the money to charity instead. As of March 2011, “United Breaks Guitars” had been seen more than 10 million times, making it the most successful song of Carroll’s career. (Believe it or not, he still flies United.) The airline uses the video as a training tool.
Internet Star: Ardi Rizal, 2, the son of Indonesian street vendors
Better Known As: “The Smoking Baby”
The Story: Indonesia is well known as being a nation of smokers—one in three Indonesians smokes 12 or more cigarettes a day—and many of the smokers are children. But Ardi Rizal got an earlier start than most: When he was about 18 months old, his father let him smoke a cigarette. The toddler took to the habit quickly, and his parents were happy to let him smoke because it kept him occupied while they worked long hours in their street stall. By the spring of 2010, two-year-old Ardi was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. That was when a reporter filmed the toddler puffing away like a pro. The video found its way onto the Internet; by the summer of 2010, millions of people had seen it.
More than 25% of Arizona is designated as Native American lands, the most of any state.
What Happened: By then Ardi was hooked on smokes, and his parents could not get him to quit. “He’s totally addicted,” his mother told reporters. “If he doesn’t get cigarettes, he gets angry and bangs his head against the wall.” Luckily for Ardi, the story embarrassed the Indonesian government, and they arranged for him to be treated in a clinic in the capital city of Jakarta. They even promised to buy the Rizals a car if their boy kicked the habit. After a month of “play therapy,” in which Ardi was distracted with toys and lots of attention from therapists and playmates, he quit smoking. (No word on whether his parents got their car.)
Internet Star: Jack Rebney, an on-air pitchman and producer of industrial videos in the 1980s
Better Known As: “The Winnebago Man” and “The Angriest Man in the World”
The Story: In the summer of 1989, Rebney filmed a sales training video for Winnebago Industries, the motor-home company. It was a difficult shoot in hot, humid weather, and Rebney was foulmouthed and irate as he flubbed one take after another. The camera crew was so annoyed with his antics that they assembled a videotape of his outbursts and used it to get him fired. That was the last Rebney knew of the tape for nearly 20 years.
What Happened: Today anyone with Internet access can view a video clip or recommend it to friends with a couple of keystrokes, but the Winnebago Man phenomenon predates YouTube by more than a decade. Rebney’s obscene rants were so compelling that people made bootleg copies of the VHS tape and circulated them by hand for more than 15 years before YouTube came along in 2005 and Rebney became one of the site’s earliest stars. Since then his outtakes have been seen by more than 20 million people.
Update: Rebney’s fans have long wondered what happened to him, as he seemed to have disappeared from the face of the Earth. A documentary filmmaker named Ben Steinbauer finally tracked him down with the help of a private detective. Rebney, now in his 80s, lives a hermitic existence on top of a mountain in Northern California. The search for Rebney is the subject of the 2009 documentary Winnebago Man.
In 2006 a London fashion show called “Naked Fragrance” had nude models wearing different brands of perfume, walking in front of a blindfolded audience.
Internet Star: Ghyslain Raza, 15, a Canadian high-school junior
Better Known As: “The Star Wars Kid”
The Story: In November 2002, Raza made a video of himself in his school’s video lab swinging a golf-ball retriever like a Star Wars lightsaber. Some classmates found the tape and e-mailed it to their friends; it bounced around a small circle of kids until April 2003, when someone posted it on the Internet. Since then it has been viewed more than a billion times, making it perhaps the most-watched video of all time.
What Happened: Raza was humiliated by his sudden fame. He couldn’t step into the hallway at school without his classmates chanting “Star Wars kid! Star Wars kid!” and had to drop out of school. He was treated for depression, and his parents sued three of his classmates for $250,000 in damages. The term “cyberbullying” was coined with him specifically in mind.
Update: Raza eventually overcame his humiliation, and his parents’ lawsuit even helped him settle on a career: At last report he was studying law at McGill University in Montreal.
Internet Star: Casey Heynes, an Australian high-school student
Better Known as: “Casey the Punisher”
The Story: In March 2011, a kid named Ritchard Gale picked a fight with Casey at school while a third kid filmed the fight. In the video, Ritchard is clearly the aggressor as he punches Casey in the face. Casey fends off several blows then suddenly grabs Ritchard, lifts him over his shoulder, and slams him to the ground. Casey then walks off in triumph as Ritchard, injured, staggers away.
What Happened: The video was posted online a few hours after the fight. It must h
ave struck a chord with people’s own memories of childhood bullying, because by the end of the week it had spread worldwide. Casey, a loner who says he’s been bullied at school for years, suddenly had millions of admirers, including more than 230,000 on Facebook alone.
Update: Casey and Ritchard were both suspended from school for four days. At last report Casey was transferring to another school; Ritchard blames Casey for provoking him and refuses to admit responsibility for starting the fight. (The families of both kids received $40,000 apiece for letting them be interviewed on TV.)
BILL MURRAY STORIES
Bill Murray has played funny and bizarre characters in Stripes, Caddyshack, and Ghostbusters. His weirdest role: real-life Bill Murray.
NO ONE WILL EVER BELIEVE YOU...
A “Bill Murray story” is a type of personal urban legend. It begins as a plausible description of an ordinary event on an ordinary day or night, but then veers into the surreal when Murray shows up and does something outrageous or absurd. It ends with him saying something to the effect of, “No one will ever believe you.” And then he disappears. Here are some classic Bill Murray stories that have been circulating via word of mouth and the Internet for years.
• “My freshman year of college, I was hanging out in my dorm room with some friends playing Xbox when I hear this deep-pitched meowing coming from outside my window. I look outside, and there’s Bill Murray, clinging to a branch about 10 feet up in the air, meowing at a kitten stuck in the tree. Then he looked at me and said, ‘No one will ever believe you.’ Then he climbed down the tree and ran off.”
• “So I was visiting my friend out in Santa Monica. She works the reception desk at this upscale hotel and she’s always telling me stories about which celebrity is there that week. Anyway, she was on break and we were having dinner together in the bar when Bill Murray walks up, leans over, and picks a piece of potato off my plate with his bare fingers and just pops it in his mouth. I just sort of stare at him and he’s looking me right in the eye and smiling as he chews and swallows. And you know what the best part is? He finally says, ‘No one will ever believe you.’ And he walks away.”
...NOR SHOULD THEY
While Murray is an eccentric person, the truth is that these stories, which have been making the rounds for over a decade, probably never happened. Or maybe one or two of them did. But that’s the nature of tall-tale-telling: The stories are so absurd, they couldn’t possibly be true, but they might be true.
Wishful thinking? In North Korea, large nursery schools are called “palaces.”
Or maybe they used to be not true...but now they are. In this age of the camera phone and instant Internet distribution, Bill Murray has now been spotted and recorded doing crazy things. Whether the following sightings are Murray trying to make an urban legend come true, or he’s just a weird guy doing funny things, is known only to Murray himself.
• MURRAY TENDS BAR WITH THE WU-TANG CLAN
During the 2010 SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, Murray showed up at the crowded Shangri-La bar with RZA and GZA of the legendary rap group the Wu-Tang Clan. Murray pushed his way behind the bar and began taking orders. But no matter what starstuck patrons ordered, Murray poured them shots of tequila. Then he ran off.
• MURRAY READS POETRY TO BUILDERS
In 2009, while construction workers were busy putting the finishing touches on the Poets House Library and Literary Center in lower Manhattan, Murray stopped by to read the workers some poetry. After a straight-faced recital of former poet laureate Billy Collins’s “Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House,” Murray told his confused audience (a small crowd had gathered), “They get worse, so if you want to lie down, get sick, or take a sick day, do it now.” He then read poems by Lorine Niedecker and Emily Dickinson, among others. When he finished, he told the crew, “You have about three minutes left on this break, so smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em.” Then he ran off.
• MURRAY WASHES DISHES AT A HOUSE PARTY
In the 2003 film Lost in Translation, Murray played a Hollywood actor who forms an unlikely friendship with a younger woman in a foreign city (Tokyo). In a case of life imitating art, while in Scotland in 2006 for a celebrity golf tournament, the 56-year-old actor met a pretty 22-year-old Norwegian university student named Lykke Stavnef in a pub. Stavnef invited Murray to attend a local house party with her. Murray surprised her by accepting. The incident was witnessed by dozens of partygoers and reported in the U.K.’s Sunday Times. The party got crowded as word spread that he was there, and he became concerned that there weren’t enough clean glasses for all the guests, so he began hand washing the stack of dishes that had piled up in the sink. Then he ran off.
Road hogs: Before crash-test dummies, pig cadavers were used to simulate accident victims.
POINTS TO PONDER
Profound thoughts from some of the world’s most respected thinkers.
“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.”
—Samuel Johnson
“To love and win is the best thing; to love and lose the next best.”
—William Makepeace Thackeray
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.”
—Marie Curie
“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eye for an instant?”
—Henry David Thoreau
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves.”
—Victor Hugo
“Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads.”
—Erica Jong
“You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die or when. You can only decide on how you are going to live now.”
—Joan Baez
“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
—The Dalai Lama
“The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the imagination.”
—Emily Dickinson
“It is not true that love makes all things easy; it makes us choose what is difficult.”
—George Eliot
“Hope awakens courage. He who can implant courage in the human soul is the best physician.”
—Karl Von Knebel
“To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Florida’s official state gem, the moonstone, is not native to Florida.
MISSED IT BY
ONE LETTER
It’s a good thing that we at the BRI never make any typos, or it would be really embarrassing to call out these folks for getting one little letter rong.
• MICHIGAN ELECTION OFFICIALS missed it by one letter in 2006, when they printed 180,000 mail-in ballots that used the word “pubic” where “public” should have been. By the time the error was caught (by an election clerk after a professional proofreader missed it), 10,000 ballots had already been mailed out. The remaining 170,000 ballots were reprinted at taxpayers’ expense. Total cost: $40,000.
• PEDRO URZUA LIZANA missed it by one letter when he chiseled a new design for Chile’s 50-peso coin in 2008. In his rush to finish on time, he accidentally left off the bottom stroke of the “L” in “CHILE.” Result: 1.5 million coins—all in circulation—are inscribed with “REPUBLIC DE CHIIE.” Lizana was fired.
• DAVID BECKHAM missed it by one letter when he gave the Hindi translation of his wife’s name to a tattoo artist. It was supposed to be “Victoria,” but instead it said “Vihctoria,” which is what ended up (in huge letters) on the soccer star’s right forearm.
• ERIC SCHMIDT missed it by one letter on his business card when he called himself “Chariman of the Executive Committee.” (If you missed it, read that first word again.) If only the
re were some Internet search engine that he could have used to find a good spell-checking program. (Schmidt was the CEO of Google.)
• THE GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF LABOR missed it by one letter when a clerk sent a business license application to a carpet-cleaning company called Rug Suckers. But the package wasn’t addressed to “Rug Suckers”—it was...something very naughty. The company’s owner, Pepper Powell, called the Labor Department to complain, only to be told by the clerk, “I understood you to say that the company’s name was Rug *uckers. I asked you twice and you replied, ‘Yes, it was.’” Powell told the clerk that he would never dream of giving his company such a foul name. “What would be the point?” Georgia Labor officials agreed. They issued an apology and reprimanded the worker.
Lewis & Clark left with 34 people, and came back with 33. (One died of a ruptured appendix.)
• STRATFORD HALL, a personalized holiday card company, missed it by one letter on the cover of its 2007 catalog: “Reliability: always upholding the highest standards for every detal.”
• THE VICTORIA, B.C., PARKS & REC DEPARTMENT missed it by one letter when it unveiled a statue of Emily Carr (1871–1945), an influential post-impressionist landscape painter and a hometown hero. Apparently nobody proofread the plaque that accompanies the $400,000 statue, which is cast with this inscription: “Dedicated to honour Victoria’s best know citizen.”
• KTXL-FOX40 SACRAMENTO missed it by one letter in 2011 when it ran a graphic during a breaking news story that read “Obama Bin Laden Dead.”
• THE TORRANCE PRESS, a newspaper in Southern California, missed it by one letter on a two-page advertisement: “Sleeping on a Sealy Is Like Sleeping on a Clod.” Sealy terminated their contract. (That was the ad department’s second chance with its potentially lucrative new client. A day earlier, the Torrance Press ran an ad that read, “Sleeping on a Sealy Is Like Slipping on a Cloud.”)
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