Uncle John's Presents: Book of the Dumb

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Which one is really stupid?

  Answer page 311.

  Sources: Ananova, Rolling Stone

  YOUR CELEBRITIES AT WORK

  “Gee honey, it’s like being in a different country!” —U.S. TV personality Kelly Ripa, to her husband, while in Montreal, Canada, to host a gala for the 2003 “Just For Laughs” comedy festival.

  Source: The Star

  DIAL “D” FOR DIVORCE

  Thou shalt not commit adultery: not just a biblical commandment, but also a good idea. One reason—aside from the moral and philosophical issues surrounding the concept of fooling around with someone other than your spouse—is that it’s easier to get caught than you might suspect. Not only that, but the world thinks up new and often exceptionally surprising ways to broadcast your infidelities to those who would be the most ticked off to learn about them.

  “Nils,” from Finland, found this out the hard way when he and his girlfriend decided to participate in some erotic calisthenics in his car. In the midst of their floor exercises, either Nils or his partner accidentally activated Nils’s mobile phone and caused it to autodial a number. Who answered? Why, Nils’s wife, of course. She picked up just in time to hear the mistress proclaim her love in the heat of passion. And wouldn’t you know it, she recognized the mistress’s voice as belonging to one of her so-called good friends.

  Hitting Someone Is the Best Revenge

  This led to Mrs. Nils marching over to her friend’s apartment and punching her in the face, then going after Nils with an ax (he avoided injury). She was hauled into court and received a 14-month suspended sentence for the aforementioned attacks. Ultimately she and Nils ended up getting a divorce. Apparently she couldn’t forgive the adultery and he couldn’t forgive being mistaken for kindling.

  Anyway, that’s a lot of damage from one unintentional phone call. Keep that in mind the next time you’re thinking of fooling around and have a cell phone nearby. One other warning: the newest cell phones can take pictures. All things considered, Nils is probably glad his couldn’t.

  Source: Reuters

  CLOSE DOESN’T COUNT

  A man wanted for murder almost got away from police with the use of a cell phone. When the car in which he was a passenger was pulled over by cops in South Bend, Indiana, the man in question pulled out his phone and made a quick call. Shortly thereafter, the cops who had pulled him over received a radio call that a gun-laden argument was going on in the lobby of the hotel across the street from where they were. The cops let the car go and entered the hotel lobby, which was quiet. The cops realized they’d been had, and tracked down the car a short distance away. The driver and wanted passenger were taken into custody. Nice try, though.

  Source: Indianapolis Star

  NOTE TO SELF: 911 DOESN’T TAKE REQUESTS

  Maybe “Hal” was drinking and driving. Or maybe he just liked swerving down the road at high speeds. For whatever reason, our man Hal was rocketing down the road in Oklahoma and Texas, sometimes reaching speeds of more than 100 mph, trailing cop cars behind him like a string of Christmas lights tied to his bumper. All those cop cars on his tailpipe were getting on Hal’s nerves.

  So Hal decided to do something about it. He called 911. When the line for emergency services was picked up, Hal asked the dispatcher to call off the cop chase. Then he hung up and did it again. “I think he would just hit 9-1-1 and talk to whoever came on,” said Oak Ridge police chief Clint Powell.

  And it worked, sort of: the cops did stop chasing Hal. Not because he asked them to, but because they laid down road spikes outside of Powell, Oklahoma, which popped Hal’s tires and made him stop. Hal was tossed into the clink on various vehicular charges and held on a $33,000 bond.

  Let’s hope his one phone call from jail was to another number.

  Source: Associated Press

  HISTORICAL DUMBOSITY: NOT-SO-GOLDEN OLDIE

  Don’t blame the 8-track for being dumb. It’s not the 8-track’s fault, really. All analog sound recording is a dead-end technology—LPs, cassette tapes, or reel-to-reel—it’s all technologically dead compared to flawless and cheap digital technology, from CDs to MP3s. Even so, when you’re looking for a combination of poor performance, questionable utility and—(click)—inherent technological limitations in any piece of technology, it’s hard to beat an 8-track. Unlike so many unfortunate but promising technological cul-de-sacs, the 8-track is dead for a reason.

  Petula Clark on Wheels

  But let’s be truthful. The 8-track was a piece of garbage, but it was pretty much designed to be that way. Most audio products are designed with at least some attempt toward sound quality. That wasn’t the case with the 8-track, where the overriding idea was not quality but portability. The 8-track made its popular debut not in the middle of a swingin’ ’60s hi-fi rack, bracketed by Playboys, fondue makers, and Ian Fleming novels, but in a car. In 1965, the Ford Motor Company made the 8-track an option on all its 1966 models. The car was the 8-track’s exclusive domain; there were no commercially available home units. The 8-track was available in an auto parts store instead of a record shop.

  If you grant that the 8-track was designed with the road in mind, it’s not an entirely unholy creation. In 1965 it was still well in the era of the AM radio and mono LP recording. Unless you wanted to play a harmonica and drive at the same time, there was no way to bring music of your own choosing into the car. Auto makers had actually tried putting record players into cars; it worked about as well as you might expect. In contrast, you could drive over train tracks and while your 8-track might warble a bit, it could nevertheless keep going. And it was stereo! Put that in your dashboard and play it!

  The Lovin’ Spoonful at Home

  If the 8-track had stuck to the roads, where it was the best thing going, it might not have become a universal symbol of derision and pointlessness. But alas, it did not; 8-track players for the home came out in 1966, and there the format’s shortcomings were exposed for all to see. Unlike reel-to-reel tape players, the sound reproduction of an 8-track was muddy, the effect of having eight tracks of music (four programs, a left and right channel each) on one half-inch strip of tape.

  Unlike the LP, there was no ability to quickly go from one music track to another. Most 8-track players didn’t bother with a fast forward or rewind option; you either had to know where all your favorite songs were in relation to each other in the programs and switch back and forth, or you had to sit there for the long haul and wait for them to come around again.

  Even the compact cassette, which had worse sound quality than the 8-track in the early days, had one up on the 8-tracks: no clicks. Because all four programs on an 8-track had to be of the same length, music listeners were often faced with either dead time at the end of a program or (even worse) the dreaded fade-out-click-and-fade-in phenomena, in which a song was butchered over two programs.

  Pink Floydiana

  This phenomenon however, made for some creative attempts to mask the click—in the 8-track version of Pink Floyd’s Animals album, for example, there’s a guitar solo, unavailable anywhere else, that acts as a bridge between “Pigs on the Wing” parts 1 and 2. It was done by Floyd tour guitarist Snowy White. Now you know something about Floyd that your terminally stoned, former college roommate didn’t. Even better, he’ll hate you for it. And they say there’s no justice.

  Mac Stops Thinking About Tomorrow

  The 8-track was dying by the end of 1970s and was officially declared dead around 1983, when most major record companies stopped making them. After that date you had to get your 8-tracks from the record clubs, which manufactured the things until about 1989. If you look hard, you can actually find an 8-track of Michael Jackson’s Bad album (but then, why would you). The last major album on 8-track, or so it is said, is Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits.

  No one misses the 8-track, which is the final, incontrovertible proof of its dead ended-ness. Sure, people gawk in awe if you show up at a party with one, and if you somehow manage t
o get one to play, you’ll be hailed as a hero of cheese. But this isn’t the same as saying that anyone actually wants to hear music in the format anymore. Unlike old wax cylinders and 78-rpm Victrola records, there’s nothing on 8-track that wasn’t placed on a better recording medium as well. Unlike vinyl, you’ll not hear of some geek audiophile haranguing bored listeners about the supposed sonic superiority of the 8-track.

  Its only value today is to remind us that not every technological “advance” is a good one, or one that will last.

  LIKE A DOOR WITH A DEAD BOLT, LEFT WIDE OPEN

  Maybe we’re new to this, but we thought the whole reason the music industry wants to electronically copy-protect music CDs is to make it difficult to transfer the music from a CD to one’s computer. This being the case, we’re a little confused about the MediaMax CD3 copy protection, used by music giant BMG. The program automatically loads when you put it into your computer’s drive, keeping you from copying the music to your hard drive. But in October 2003, a Princeton grad student found you could disable the software using this incredibly complicated procedure: hold down the “shift” key. Yes, really.

  Yup, that’ll stop the kids.

  Source: C|Net.com

  DUMB MOVIE FESTIVAL: BATTLEFIELD EARTH (2000)

  Our Entry: Battlefield Earth, starring John Travolta and For

  est Whitaker

  The Plot (Such As It Is): Evil space aliens sporting dreadlocks enslave humanity and put them to work in various mines. One of the humans eventually rebels, an action that pits him and his fur-wearing partners against an alien named Terl (Travolta), who is most notable for looking like he mugged KISS bassist Gene Simmons and then got his makeup done on the Star Trek set. the movie is based on a really long novel of the same name by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, of which Travolta is a member.

  Fun Fact: Though it is generally acknowledged as one of the worst science fiction movies ever released by a major Hollywood studio, Travolta (who produced the film) is reportedly pleased with it and is considering attempting a sequel. Live that dream, John!

  Total North American Box Office: $21,471,685 (source: The-Numbers.com). Not so good considering the $80 million production cost.

  The Critics Rave!

  “Battlefield Earth is just a lumbering, poorly photographed piece of derivative sci-fi drivel, full of grunting extras scampering around in animal pelts and more dank, trash-strewn sets than I ever care to see again.”—Entertainment Weekly

  “Even if you were to classify it as a guilty pleasure, it would be the kind of sullying guilt that makes people leap from heights.”—Portland Oregonian

  “So ineptly written, directed, acted and photographed it seems as if it were made by circus chimps . . . easily Travolta’s worst movie ever, and that’s saying something for a resumé that includes such atomic bombs as Moment by Moment and Staying Alive.”—Toronto Star

  “Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It’s not merely bad; it’s unpleasant in a hostile way.”—Chicago Sun-Times

  “Sitting through it is like watching the most expensively mounted high school play of all time . . . [The film] is beyond conventional criticism. It belongs in the elect pantheon that includes such delights as Showgirls and Revolution: the Moe Howard School of Melodrama.”

  —New York Times

  “Sitting through the summer’s first monolithic monstrosity, Battlefield Earth, was one of the most painfully excruciating experiences of my life. This film . . . is the Plan 9 from Outer Space of the new millennium. It’s the film that the infamous Edward D. Wood, Jr., might have made if he had been handed $100 million. Actually, Ed Wood would have done a better job.”—Sacramento Bee

  LIKE A RAT IN A DAZE

  If you have a rat or a mouse scooting around in the attic, you might think you have an infestation. Well, not to take anything away from your rodent problem, but it’s nothing compared to what has been going on at the police station in Caboolture, a town north of Brisbane in Australia.

  The place is crawling with rats, which is bad enough. But some of the rats apparently got into the evidence room, and started snacking on what they found there—bags filled with pot and speed.

  Just Say No to Evidence

  Queensland Police Union general secretary Phil Hocken described the rats, “their eyes wide open, running frantically for no reason at all, round in circles.” The rats were on a rampage in the station ceiling, scampering back and forth like windup toys. As a delightful aside, rat pee was reported dripping down the walls.

  And, on an entirely incidental but significant jurisprudential note, imagine being the prosecuting lawyer in a drug case, trying not to get your case thrown out of court because the evidence was ingested by rodents. Caboolture police have responded to the problem by storing drug evidence in sealed containers and laying traps to catch the drug-addled rats. For bait, might we suggest pizza and snack cakes. Sooner or later, those rats are going to get a serious case of the munchies.

  Source: Queensland Daily Mail

  TIPS FOR STUPID CRIMINALS

  You can tell which ones they are because they move their lips while they’re reading this book.

  JAIL BREAK

  Today’s tip: When escaping jail through an open window, make sure the width of your body does not exceed that of the window.

  In June 2003, inmate #456789 decided he’d had enough of Elkhart County Jail hospitality. But, seeing as he was in a jail cell and all, he wasn’t exactly able to walk out through the front door. So he attempted an exit through the window of his jail cell and managed to get just enough of himself through the window to become well and truly trapped; it took the fire department to dislodge him.

  Funny thing is, he did manage to get out of jail by going through the window—but that’s only because he was then sent to the hospital, under guard, to be treated for lacerations he got trying to cram himself through the window.

  “Not so much brain as ear wax.”

  —William Shakespeare

  DEAR GOD: NEXT TIME SEND AN E-MAIL

  The problem with asking for a sign from God is that sometimes you get one. Just ask the con gregation of the First Baptist Church in Forest, Ohio. At the beginning of July the church was filled with devout Christians listening to a guest pastor preach on the subject of penance when a storm began brewing outside. As part of the guest pastor’s sermon, he asked God to give them all a sign that he was listening.

  “You could hear the storm building outside . . . He (the pastor) just kept asking God what else he needed to say,” church member Ronnie Cheney said to a reporter afterward. “He was asking for a sign!”

  And wouldn’t you know. At just that moment, a bolt of lighting coursed down from the sky, zapped the church steeple, and then plunged into the church electrical system, exiting by way of the microphone the preacher was using. Churchgoers reported that the minister was briefly swaddled in electrical bolts before the charge dissipated, blowing out the church’s sound system in the process.

  On with the Show

  Miraculously, the minister was unhurt. Not only unhurt, but like any good showman, he was ready to roll with this bit of divine improvisation. He continued his service for another 20 minutes before another sign manifested itself: the church was in flames.

  Congregants took this as a sign to get the heck out of the church and call the fire department; the building sustained an estimated $20,000 in damage.

  Now, it could have been coincidence. And maybe from a theological point of view it would be better to think about it that way.

  After all, when you’re being lectured on penance and someone asks for a sign from God and He responds with 300 million volts and $20,000 in damages, what does that say?

  Source: Associated Press

  SAFE-TY FIRST

  He was dared by the other Wooster, Ohio, K-Mart employees to see if he could fit into the four-by-two-foot safe. So, like any 18-year-old with mo
re flexibility than brains, he pretzeled himself into the safe, which his coworker closed once he was in. And which (of course) couldn’t open up again, undoubtedly causing his enclosed friend to wonder just how much oxygen was inside a teen-stuffed closed safe. It took a visit from the firemen to get him out. So if someone dares you to crawl into one of the things, play it safe. Yes, pun intended.

  Source: Newsday.com

  THE REALLY STUPID QUIZ: STUPIDITY AT WORK

  Time to punch in for our final Really Stupid Quiz! One of these subjects deserves a promotion; two need to be laid off. You make the call.

  1. A midlevel manager at a Pittsburgh office found himself standing in the unemployment line because of a leaked memo in which he spoke of employees slated to be laid off in mafioso-like terms, describing them as “capped” and “sleeping with the fishes.” The manager had written the memo at the request of his own supervisors and left it, in e-mail form, on his computer while he attended a meeting. In his absence, someone entered his office, saw the memo and e-mailed it to the employees slated to be laid off; from there the e-mail was forwarded on to others. The manager was first suspended and then fired by the company, which cited the manager’s “insensitivity with an especially sensitive issue.” The company also offered an apology to the workers on the list, but refused to comment on whether those employees would be spared a layoff.