Moby
• Ten pairs of white cotton crew socks
• Ten pairs of cotton boxer shorts
Backstreet Boys
• Twenty-four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
• Hot coffee, tea, and a gallon of milk
• Absolutely no candy, chips, chocolate, or junk food
Driving with the windows up can increase gas mileage by as much as 10%.
Christina Aguilera
• Six-pack of Coke (no Pepsi, no diet)
• Carnation Instant Breakfast, malt flavor
• Organic whole milk and Oreo cookies
• Liter of vanilla soy milk (must not contain canola oil, barley, oats, or malt of any kind)
• Small bottle of Flintstones vitamins
• Mozzarella soy cheese
• Tray of organic veggies (must include jicama)
Leonardo DiCaprio (on the set of the movie Gangs of New York)
• New clothes delivered daily—the ones worn the day before were to be thrown out.
Michael Jackson
• Never refer to him as a “mega-star.” He is now a “giga-star.”
Ricky Martin
• Orange-colored lighting (to highlight his tan)
Kid Rock
• A new bag of Hanes boxer shorts at every tour stop. (He refuses to wear the same pair twice.)
Britney Spears
• Seven dressing rooms
• Pop Tarts, Cap’n Crunch, Fruit Loops, and Cool Ranch Doritos
• Mocha latte from her favorite Los Angeles coffee shop. If she’s not in L.A., the promoters must have it flown in to her.
• The promoter has to pay her $5,000 everytime she gets a phone call she doesn’t want.
Mariah Carey
• All posters of pop-star rivals must be removed, especially those of Christina Aguilera.
Hey fathead! Your brain loses almost 1 gram of weight per year.
A DEVOTED FRIEND
“A dog is the only thing on this Earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”—Anonymous
GREYFRIARS BOBBY
One of the most loyal dogs who ever lived was a Skye Terrier named Bobby. As a puppy, he was adopted by an elderly Scottish shepherd named “Old Jock” Gray. Old Jock died in 1858, and for the next 14 years, Bobby guarded his master’s grave at the Greyfriars churchyard, day and night. He howled when concerned citizens tried to keep him indoors in bad weather…until they let him out to return to the grave.
He would leave it for a short time each day, only to go to the same restaurant where his master used to go. According to legend, the restaurant owner would give him a bone and then Bobby would carry it away, back to the grave. The citizens of Edinburgh built a shelter to shield Bobby from the cold winters, and when he died in 1872, he was buried beside Old Jock. A statue and fountain of Bobby still stands there with this inscription: Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all.
Q: Why was the first space shuttle named Enterprise? A: Star Trek fans lobbied for it.
ASK DR. FUTURE
Who is Dr. Future? A mysterious visitor from the world of Tomorrow. He’s here to tell us some of the things scientists are doing right now to help save the environment for the future.
UNCLE JOHN: Dr. Future, we keep hearing that we’re destroying our environment. Will we ever be able to fix it?
DR. FUTURE: Not to worry, Johnny Boy. In my time the air is clean, the water is pure, and pollution is all but gone!
UNCLE JOHN: But how? Americans throw away more than 35 billion pounds of plastic garbage every year. Surely our landfills are running out of room!
DR. FUTURE:Settle down, John…and don’t call me Shirley. Your scientists are already trying to fix the problem. Soon all sorts of plastic products will come from landfills: furniture, appliances, even clothes. Recycled plastic grocery bags are already being turned into jackets that look and feel just like leather. And you know those little Styrofoam peanuts you use for packing boxes? They’re being recycled into insulation to put inside the jackets.
UNCLE JOHN: But what about all the other things that get thrown away?
The whites of your eyes are called the sclera.
DR. FUTURE: As time goes on, my friend, fewer and fewer products will be made that have to be thrown away. Your time is already seeing a new kind of fabric that’s strong enough to carry heavy groceries, but gentle enough to use as a hospital gown. Best of all, it also dissolves in hot water, so when you’re done with it, it goes into the sink—not in the landfill.
UNCLE JOHN: But what about the oceans? Oil spills create poisonous slicks that spread for miles. They kill every living thing in their paths and are almost impossible to clean up.
DR. FUTURE: Impossible in your time, perhaps. But in the near future those nasty spills will be cleaned up with a giant, super-absorbent cloth that can suck up more than five times its weight in oil. And the fabric is recyclable—even after a messy cleanup.
UNCLE JOHN: Speaking of messy cleanups, my little nephew goes through five disposable diapers a day. It can take anywhere from several months to several years for a plastic diaper to break down in a landfill. What’s being done about that?
DR. FUTURE: Well, you need to add something to those diapers—besides poop—to break them down.
UNCLE JOHN: What?
DR. FUTURE:Would you believe dead fish? It’s true. In the future, we’ve solved the disposable diaper problem by solving another problem: Commercial fishermen end up with a lot of dead fish in their nets that they don’t want. It’s called the by-catch. These smelly carcasses used to be thrown back into the ocean—where they would end up polluting tidal basins and beaches.
Top 3 bestselling soups in America: 1) cream of mushroom, 2) chicken noodle, 3) tomato.
But not anymore. In my time, the inside of disposable diapers are coated with a gel made from the by-catch. The gel is pure protein, doesn’t smell at all like dead fish, and absorbs up to 600 times its own weight. Bacteria and fungi eat it up. Soon, it will take only 28 days in a landfill for the fishlined diaper to degrade.
UNCLE JOHN: It seems like the possibilities for recycling are endless.
DR. FUTURE: You love to state the obvious, don’t you? Yes, my precious publisher of popular privvy-reading. People all over the world are constantly figuring out new and ingenious ways to conserve energy and resources. You just need to do what you can to help today and keep looking toward the future.
UNCLE JOHN: Wonderful!
So…who will win next year’s Super Bowl?
DR. FUTURE: Well, gotta go! See ya on my next trip to the past!
Why don’t they call it a sea pony? An adult dwarf sea horse is less than 2 inches long.
FUNNY LADIES
One-liners from some of our favorite comedians.
“When I was a kid, I only had two friends. They were imaginary, and they would only play with each other.”
—Rita Rudner
“You have to stay in shape. My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. Now she’s 97 and we have no idea where she is.”
—Ellen DeGeneres
“Statistics say that one out of four Americans suffer from mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re okay, then it’s you.”
—Rita Mae Brown
“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”
—Erma Bombeck
“My parents used to stuff me with candy. M&M’s, jujubes, SweeTARTS. I don’t think they wanted a child, I think they wanted a piñata.”
—Wendy Leibman
“When I was born I was so surprised, I didn’t talk for a year and a half.”
—Gracie Allen
“My mother told me I would never amount to anything because I procrastinate. I said, ‘Just wait.’”
—Judy Tenuta
“Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? Halfway through my fishburger, I realized ‘Oh my God, I could be e
ating a slow learner.’”
—Lynda Montgomery
Babies blink about once a minute; adults blink about once every five seconds.
KIDS ON STRIKE!
This little-known story from American history proves that kids can stand up for their rights—and win—when they’re being treated unfairly.
EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Back in the 1890s, there were about 10,000 homeless children living on the streets of New York City. At night, they slept in doorways, in alleys, under stairways, or anywhere else they could find shelter. In the daytime, they tried to find work. Many of them became newsies, kids who sold newspapers on the streets. They bought papers from the newspaper companies for one price and then sold them for a little bit more.
And the more they sold, the more they earned. So they stood on street corners and yelled out the headlines, urging people to buy their papers. On a good day, a newsie would make 30 cents, barely enough for food and not enough for clothing or shelter.
MILLIONAIRES WANT MORE!
William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were two of the richest and most powerful men in America. Each one owned a giant newspaper in New York City. They counted on the newsies to hit the streets and sell their papers. In early July 1899, sales were slow, so these two millionaires decided to make up for it by charging the newsies more money for their papers. They figured the newsies couldn’t do anything about it because, after all, they were just kids. They were wrong.
Surf’s down: The Aral Sea in central Asia has decreased 80% in volume since 1960.
STRIKE!
Led by three boys called Kid Blink (he was blind in one eye), Racetrack Higgins, and Boots McAleenan, hundreds of newsies met in City Hall Park on July 18, 1899, and formed a union. Kid Blink took charge and spoke to the other kids:
“Friends and fellow workers, this is a time which tries the hearts of men. This is the time when we’ve got to stick together like glue. We know what we wants and we’ll get it, even if we is blind!”
The newsies refused to sell Hearst’s New York Journal or Pulitzer’s New York World until their buying price went back down.
HELP THE NEWSBOYS!
The newsies not only refused to sell the Journal or the World, they also were determined to make sure nobody else could, either.
• Sometimes hundreds of kids would surround the paper delivery wagons and threaten to beat up the drivers.
• Mobs of kids yanked papers out of people’s hands and tore them up.
• Angry boys hurled rocks at the men Hearst and Pulitzer had hired to replace them. (And even though the millionaires demanded protection, the newsies were fast and could usually outrun the cops.)
Youngest tennis champ in U.S. Open history: Tracy Austin, in 1979. (She was 16.)
Other newspapers gleefully made heroes of the striking kids, giving them front-page coverage. The public supported their cause and refused to buy Hearst’s and Pulitzer’s papers.
SPREAD THE WORD!
The newsies’ strike quickly spread to Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The World and Journal were starting to lose money, but Hearst and Pulitzer still wouldn’t budge. Another rally was organized in lower Manhattan, and this time 5,000 kids showed up. When Kid Blink leaped onto the speaker’s platform, the cheers were deafening. Kid raised his hands for silence and then scratched his head, as if he were puzzled.
“I’m trying to figure out how ten cents on a hundred papers can mean more to a millionaire than it does to us newsboys. And I can’t see it.”
The newsies vowed to keep striking until Hearst and Pulitzer begged them to stop. “It’s great,” Kid Blink told a newspaper reporter. “They can’t beat us. Me noble men is all loyal, and with such as these to oppose their nefarious schemes how can those blokes hope to win?”
VICTORY!
When sales dropped by two-thirds, both Hearst and Pulitzer finally gave up. In early August, they offered the newsies a deal that kept the prices the same, and even let the newsies return any unsold papers and get their money back. The newsies took the deal…and in the end, they made even more money than before.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans called bananas “Indian figs.”
LUCKY ACCIDENTS
Have you ever thought you messed something up, only to discover that the result tumed out to be totally cool? Believe it or not, that’s how a lot of everyday products first came into the world. Here are a few examples.
SILLY PUTTY
Scientists were trying to make synthetic rubber and accidentally ended up with this bouncy, stretchy stuff. It seemed worthless. How could it be used?
Here’s the lucky part: A toy salesman happened to see some adults playing with it and realized that it would make a great toy. With only $147, he started a company to sell the goo and named it Silly Putty. Today the factory uses a cement mixer to mix the ingredients and a taffy machine to slice it into little portions. More than three million Silly Putty eggs are sold each year.
SAFETY GLASS
In 1903 Edouard Benedictus, a French chemist, accidentally dropped a glass container on the floor. He expected the floor to be covered with little bits of glass. Instead he found that the broken pieces were held together against a thin film of liquid plastic, which had been inside the container. Benedictus was inspired. From this lucky accident, he invented a glass that, if it breaks, does not shatter. It’s called safety glass and it’s used primarily for automobile windows.
Plan(t) ahead: It takes 3 years for asparagus to grow big enough to eat.
PINK BUBBLE GUM
In 1928 a 23-year-old employee of the Fleer Company invented a bubble gum that wouldn’t stick to people’s faces. As he was mixing up the first batch, he realized he’d forgotten to put any color in the gum. The next day, he made a second batch. This time he remembered to color it. What color should he make it? He looked around the lab. The only color dye he could find was…pink, so that’s what he used. The color stuck. And that’s why most of the bubble gum sold today is pink.
STICK MATCHES
In 1827 an English pharmacist named John Walker was trying to create a new explosive. He was mixing some chemicals with a wooden stick when he noticed a tear-shaped glob had dried on the end of the stick. Trying to clean it off, he scraped the stick across his stone floor and, all of a sudden, the tip burst into flame. Walker had accidentally invented the world’s first friction match.
Shh! The formula for Play-Doh is top secret—Playskool keeps it under lock and key.
HAVE AN ICE DAY
Hockey fans are loud, loyal, and…weird. Here are some of the odd things they’ve done to show their appreciation—or lack of appreciation—for the game.
FLYING OCTOPI
It all began on April 15, 1952. During the Detroit Red Wings’ Stanley Cup run they won an unprecedented eight straight games. Two local fans, Pete and Jerry Cusimano, came up with an unusual way of celebrating the feat—with an octopus. Why an octopus? Each arm of the octopus represented one win in the playoffs. In the stands, the proud Cusimano brothers stood up and hurled an octopus onto the ice—during the game! Ever since then, fans of the Red Wings have chucked octopi onto the ice after every big win.
I SMELL A RAT
It was 1995, the Year of the Rat in Chinese astrology. On October 8 at approximately 6:30 p.m. a rat charged into the Florida Panthers locker room. All of the hockey players were screaming and scrambling to get out of the way, except one—Scott Mallanby. When the rat zeroed in on him, Mallanby one-timed it with a slap of his stick, slamming it against the locker-room wall.
Octopus blood is pale blue.
Later that night, Mallanby scored two goals in a 4–3 win. John Vanbiesbrouck dubbed it the “rat trick.” Word got out, and two games later, on October 13, two rubber rats were tossed onto the ice after a Panther goal. Sixteen rubber rats were thrown on the ice during the next game. The game after that: 50 rats. By the time the playoffs began, fans were pelting t
he ice with so many rats that the opposition goalie had to hide in the net.
Because the games were delayed for so long in order to remove the rats, the National Hockey League created an official rule banning the tossing of rubber rats onto the ice.
DUCK—IT’S A PUCK!
November 14, 2001, is a night Pittsburgh Penguin fans will never forget. Each fan entering the Mellon Arena was given a regulation-size, fully weighted, commemorative hockey puck to celebrate the three most recent inductees into the Penguins Hall of Fame. Everything was fine until the third period, when Penguin Alexei Kovalev scored three goals (which is known as a hat trick). Fans started cheering and throwing their hats onto the ice (another hockey tradition).
When they ran out of hats, they started chucking the only things left in their hands: pucks. The hockey players—who typically aren’t afraid of anything—were ducking and cowering near the glass and under benches. Luckily only one player—Penguins forward Dan La Couture—was hurt. “You expect bumps and bruises on the ice,” he said. “But certainly not from the stands.”
Sir Isaac Newton invented the cat door.
THE DEVIL’S DOZEN
Are you afraid of the number 13, also known as the “devil’s dozen”? Then you have triskaidekaphobia. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. The number 13 has been considered unlucky almost as far back as people can remember.
DID YOU KNOW?
• Many hotels have no room number 13.
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