Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  GOING PUBLIC

  Finney was impressed…but skeptical. His team had drawn some of the same conclusions, but even so, there had to be thousands of middle-aged men who fit that profile. What good would it do?

  “I think you ought to publicize the description I’ve given you,” suggested Dr. Brussel. “Publicize the whole Bomber investigation, in fact. Spread it in the newspapers, on radio and television.” Finney disagreed. It was standard procedure to keep details of investigations away from the press. But Brussel maintained that if they handled the case correctly, the Mad Bomber would do most of the work for them. He said that, unconsciously, “he wants to be found out.” Finney finally agreed. And as he left the office, Brussel added one more thing: “When you catch him, he’ll be wearing a double-breasted suit, and it will be buttoned.”

  So the papers published the profile and the chase went into high gear. As Finney predicted, “a million crackpots” came out of the woodwork, all claiming to be the Mad Bomber, but none of them had the Mad Bomber’s skill or his distinctively neat handwriting. A slew of legitimate leads came from concerned citizens about their odd neighbors, yet nothing solid surfaced. Still, Brussel was confident that the real Bomber’s arrogance would be his undoing.

  Did Brussel’s strategy work? Turn to Part II on page 320 to find out.

  Neanderthals are believed to have buried their dead.

  UNCLE JOHN’S SECOND FAVORITE ROLL

  A friend of Uncle John’s recently called to report that her son had just made a backpack…completely out of duct tape. That started us wondering about other ways people use duct tape. Here’s a small fraction of what we found.

  DUCK TAPE

  Originally called “duck” tape (because it was made from a kind of cotton canvas known as “duck”…and it was waterproof), this household staple was developed for the military to keep moisture out of ammunition cases. Don’t have any leaky ammo cases? You can use it for a Band-Aid or to repair a tent, even as a fly strip. Russian cosmonauts used it to help keep the aging Mir Space Station lashed together. And now it even comes in a rainbow of designer colors, including camouflage.

  Here are some other creative uses people have found for the tape:

  • Researchers say it’s good for removing warts. Duct tape irritates the wart, which causes the immune system to kick in and attack the virus that created it. Recommended course of treatment: Tape the wart for six days, then rip off the tape, soak the area in water, and file the wart with a pumice stone or emery board. Reapply duct tape and keep it on for another six days. Repeat the cycle for two months or until the wart goes away.

  • The Tesoro Iron Dog is a 2,000-mile snowmobile race in Alaska. With temperatures hovering around -20°F, racers apply duct tape to their exposed skin to protect it from frostbite.

  • When one of his cows suffered a deep cut that caused “some of its insides to fall out,” a farmer in Maine used duct tape to close the wound. He found that medical tape couldn’t hold the gash together under all the conditions a cow faced on the farm—but duct tape did. Another farmer stuffed the innards back into an injured hen and taped her up with duct tape. When the duct tape finally fell off (months later), the hen was as good as new.

  The U.S. national flowers are the goldenrod and the columbine.

  • When calves are born in severely cold weather, their ears sometimes freeze. Instead of using fleece-lined earmuffs, which the cows scratch off, a Canadian rancher duct tapes the calves’ ears to their heads. The ears stay warm and the cows can’t get the tape off.

  • During the 2002 Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City, snowboarder Chris Klug broke a boot buckle just before his final race. After having survived a liver transplant only 19 months earlier, Klug wasn’t about to let a broken buckle stop him. With less than two minutes to spare, he grabbed a roll of duct tape, jury-rigged a quick repair, and went on to win a bronze medal in the giant slalom event.

  • On the NASCAR pro circuit, a special grade of duct tape is used for split-second auto body repairs. In fact, some cars are literally covered in it, which is why this grade is known as the “200-mph tape.” (Another grade of duct tape, known as “nuclear tape,” is used to repair nuclear reactors.)

  • Starlets, beauty queens, and fashion models have long used duct tape to enhance cleavage in low-cut gowns. First they apply surgical tape across their breasts to protect them, then duct tape, which is strong and flexible enough to lift, shape, and hold everything in place. The technique was once demonstrated on Oprah.

  SPACE CASES

  • When Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan drove their lunar vehicle across the moon, the fine grit kicked up by the vehicle’s wheels wreaked havoc on their equipment. They fixed the problem by building extended fenders out of spare maps, clamps, and duct tape. (Or did they? See page 278.)

  • After a month of living on the International Space Station without a kitchen table, astronaut Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko began piecing together scraps of aluminum. Once they got a frame together, they covered the top with duct tape. The table became the social center of the space station—the best place to eat, work, or just hang out.

  * * *

  “Duct tape is like the Force: It has a dark side and a light side—and it holds the universe together.”

  —Pop philosopher Carl Zwanzig

  Catnip can affect lions and cougars as well as house cats.

  UNCLE JOHN’S PAGE OF LISTS

  Some random facts from our files.

  5 Roman Delicacies, circa 200 A.D.

  1. Parrot tongue

  2. Ostrich brain

  3. Thrush tongue

  4. Peacock comb

  5. Nightingale tongue

  8 Things Rupert Murdoch Owns

  1. The N.Y. Post

  2. The Times (London)

  3. The Australian (Sydney)

  4. TV Guide

  5. Twentieth- Century Fox

  6. Madison Square Garden

  7. Fox News Channel

  8. L.A. Dodgers

  4 Jell-O Flavor Flops

  1. Cola

  2. Coffee

  3. Apple

  4. Celery

  5 Greatest American Generals (Gallup Poll, 2000)

  1. George Patton

  2. Dwight Eisenhower

  3. Douglas MacArthur

  4. Colin Powell

  5. George Washington

  5 States with the Most Nuclear Waste Sites

  1. Illinois—10

  2. California—9

  3. New York—9

  4. Michigan—6

  5. Pennsylvania—6

  4 Most Expensive Ad Spots on a Race Car

  1. Hood

  2. Lower rear quarter panel

  3. Behind rear window

  4. Behind driver’s window

  10 Animals That Have Been in Space

  1. Dog

  2. Chimp

  3. Bullfrog

  4. Cat

  5. Tortoise

  6. Bee

  7. Cricket

  8. Spider

  9. Fish

  10. Worm

  4 Most Copied Hollywood Noses (Beverly Hills plastic surgeons)

  1. Heather Locklear

  2. Nicole Kidman

  3. Marisa Tomei

  4. Catherine Zeta-Jones

  7 Actors in The Magnificent Seven

  1. Robert Vaughn

  2. Steve McQueen

  3. Brad Dexter

  4. James Coburn

  5. Horst Bucholz

  6. Yul Brynner

  7. Charles Bronson

  A variety of mimosa is called the “sensitive plant” because it wilts when touched.

  RETURN OF THE SEQUEL

  Hollywood can’t seem to leave well enough alone—not when it looks like there’s money to be made. Here’s a look at some of the worst movie sequels ever made.

  HOME ALONE 3 (1997)

  Background:The first Home A
lone (1990) earned more than $280 million at the box office, turning child actor Macaulay Culkin into a household name and the biggest child star since Shirley Temple.

  The Plot Thickens:Macaulay appeared in Home Alone 2 (1992), but by the time Home Alone 3 went into production, he was too old—17—and too expensive for the part. So the filmmakers cut their losses and started over with an entirely new family and an entirely new son: Alex, played by newcomer Alex D. Linz. Plot: He’s home with the chicken pox when international thieves break into the house to retrieve a missile-system computer chip that has found its way into one of his toys.

  The Critics Speak: “Better to stay home alone.” (Steve Persall, St. Petersburg Times)

  THE NEXT KARATE KID (1994)

  Background:The original Karate Kid, starring Ralph Macchio as teenager Daniel LaRusso, was the sleeper hit of the summer of 1984. It made more than $90 million at the box office; two years later Karate Kid II pulled in more than $115 million. Why not try for more?

  The Plot Thickens:By the time Karate Kid III hit screens in 1989, the kids in the audience had moved on but Macchio, 27, had not. He looked ridiculous trying to pass himself off as 17, so for sequel #3 the filmmakers dumped him and brought in a girl—Mr. Miyagi befriends Julie, a “churlish orphan” played by newcomer Hilary Swank. That Swank eventually became a star was no thanks to this dud: It died at the box office and took the entire franchise down with it.

  The Critics Speak: “The sound of one mouth yawning.” (Mike Clark, USA Today)

  Saturn’s not alone: Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus also have rings.

  BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2 (2000)

  Background:The Blair Witch Project (1999) cost $35,000 to make and went on to earn more than $250 million worldwide, making it not only the most successful independent film ever made, but also the most profitable motion picture in Hollywood history. Newcomers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, who directed the first film, made the covers of Time and Newsweek and were hailed as the brightest young talents in Hollywood.

  The Plot Thickens:Then Artisan Entertainment (the major studio that bought The Blair Witch Project after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival) decided to rush out a sequel. Myrick and Sanchez were starting work on a comedy called Heart of Love, but rather than wait for them to finish, Artisan hired a documentary filmmaker named Joe Berlinger to direct the sequel instead.

  Big mistake—Book of Shadows, the story of five fans of the original documentary who return to the same patch of woods to see if the Blair Witch legend is true, is probably the most hated of the most anticipated sequels ever made. Myrick and Sanchez had very little to do with it, but their careers stalled anyway; as of the summer of 2003, they hadn’t gotten Heart of Love off the ground and hadn’t made any other films.

  The Critics Speak: “The characters are boring, the violence generic, the suspense nonexistent.” (Jack Matthews, NY Daily News)

  PSYCHO (1998)

  Background:In its day Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) was disparaged by critics as a “sensationalist slasher movie.” But in the years since, the film has grown in stature and today is considered to be the second most influential film in the history of American cinema after Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane.

  The Plot Thickens:In 1998 Gus Van Sant, director of Good Will Hunting and My Own Private Idaho, decided to make a frame-by-frame, line-by-line remake of the original Psycho, filmed in color instead of black and white, and set in the 1990s. Why copy a classic? Universal figured that even if the idea was dumb, at least it would have built-in box-office appeal and get lots of free publicity, which would translate into ticket sales.

  For his part, Van Sant figured that if pop singers can make cover versions of classic songs, why shouldn’t filmmakers cover classic movies? He called the remake “experimental art.”

  Mosquitoes hibernate.

  Van Sant made his dumb idea even dumber by failing to stick to it—not satisfied with merely replicating Hitchcock’s masterpiece, he hyped up the sex and inserted one particularly lurid scene that provides a sexual dimension to Norman Bates’s weird obsessions. That’s what the scene was supposed to do, anyway—all it really did was make Van Sant look sadly misguided.

  The Critics Speak: “Van Sant called his film ‘a forgery. Like we’re making a copy of the Mona Lisa or the statue of David.’ Which, of course, raises the question: Who wants to see a forgery when you can see the real deal?” (Renee Graham, The Boston Globe)

  JAWS: THE REVENGE (JAWS 4)

  Background:According to Hollywood legend, when Steven Spielberg was asked to direct the movie adaptation of Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel Jaws, he agreed on one condition: that the shark not be seen for the first hour of the film. True or not, the shark movie without too much shark became Spielberg’s first big hit and one of the most successful thrillers ever made, precisely because the limited shark sightings kept audiences in suspense.

  The Plot Thickens:In its time Jaws (1975) was the highest-grossing movie ever made, so it’s understandable that Universal execs wanted more. But did they really understand what made the first film work so well? Apparently not, because each succeeding sequel had more and more shark, less and less suspense—and dwindling ticket sales. It probably didn’t help that the scripts, acting, directors, and special effects also got progressively worse. Even with the addition of Michael Caine as a love interest for Chief Brody’s widow (Roy Scheider bailed out after Jaws 2), Jaws: The Revenge was such a box-office failure that Universal didn’t bother with #5.

  The Critics Speak: “Jaws: The Revenge is not simply a bad movie, but also a stupid and incompetent one.…The screenplay is simply a series of meaningless episodes of human behavior, punctuated by shark attacks.” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)

  The Last Laugh: “I have never seen Jaws: The Revenge, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” (Actor Michael Caine, referring to his mansion in Oxfordshire, England)

  Sand melts at 3,100° F.

  LET’S PLAY TOILET GOLF

  It may be heresy for us to say, but sometimes you just don’t want to read in the bathroom. For those rare moments, here are a few products that will help make your next pit stop as fun as a trip to a theme park.

  NOW THAT’S A BATHTUB

  In 2003 the Jacuzzi company introduced “La Scala,” a bathtub spa with a built-in, 43-inch flat-screen TV, a CD player, a DVD player, and a floating remote control. Price: $29,000 (installation is extra).

  But what about the rest of us, who don’t have $29,000 to spend on a tub? Shouldn’t we be able to have fun in the bathroom, too? Never fear—the BRI is here! We’ve been looking around for things that anyone can use to turn their bathroom into an entertainment center. Here’s what we found:

  ROLL MODEL

  Product:Don’t P Me Off Roll Playing Puzzle

  Description: Have you ever solved one of those puzzles where you have to separate a couple of twisted pieces of metal that seem impossibly locked together? This is that kind of puzzle—only with a sadistic twist. The cylindrical wooden box completely encases a roll of toilet paper, so your houseguests can’t get at it…unless they solve the puzzle. How hard is it? The manufacturer’s advice: “We suggest that you have an extra roll on hand.”

  STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

  Product:Peeball

  Description:You need a urinal to play, so unless your bathroom is well equipped, your Peeball career will be limited to away games. Peeball is a little smaller than a Ping-Pong ball and is made of bicarbonate of soda, similar to the stuff that Alka-Seltzer is made of.

  How to Play:Toss the ball into the urinal, aim, and fire! The player who dissolves their Peeball in the shortest amount of time is the winner.

  A shrimp’s heart is in its head.

  Background:Peeball was developed by England’s Prostate Cancer Charity. Because “difficulty peeing and weak flow” are typical symptoms of prostate cancer, Peeball educates player
s about the disease and encourages anyone who has the symptoms to get a checkup. “The message is that if men can’t dissolve the Peeball in a certain period of time, they might need to see a doctor,” says spokesperson Gina Growden.

  LOO-TERATURE

  Product:Toilet Paper Literature

  Description:Klo-Verlag, a German publishing company, takes novels, detective stories, fairy tales, poetry, and other written works and publishes them on rolls of toilet paper. The company prefers shorter pieces that can be printed several times on the same roll, so that when one “end user” finishes off part of the roll, the next person in the bathroom will still find the remaining material interesting to read. “We want our books to be used,” company head Georges Hemmerstoffer explains. “That’s our philosophy.”

  TEE PEE

  Product:Toilet Golf

  Description:The game consists of a green bathroom rug shaped like a putting green, a miniature putter, and two golf balls. The rug wraps around the base of a toilet, so you can practice your putt while on the pot. (Also available: Toilet Bowling and Toilet Fishing.)

  SOUND SYSTEMS

  • Talking Toilet Paper.A digital voice recorder is built into the spool of this toilet paper holder. Record any message you want—then, every time someone touches the toilet paper, they’ll get a surprise. Manufacturer’s suggested messages: “This is a bathroom, not a library” or “Whoa! Somebody light a match!”

  • Fart Clock.Every hour on the hour the Fart Clock lets out one of 12 different fart sounds. Includes a light sensor to turn it off when the room darkens.

  • Fart Phone.It farts instead of rings. This phone will provide a mystery every time someone calls—is that the phone, or did somebody step on a duck?