Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (74 page)

What happens when a person sees something they like? Their pupils dilate.

THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE (2001)

Great Idea:
Even after filming surreal fantasy epics like
Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
, and
Time Bandits
, director Terry Gilliam still hadn’t made his dream movie: an adaptation of the classic novel
Don Quixote
. No one in Hollywood would finance it because of Gilliam’s chaotic sets and his tendency to go way over budget. After trying to develop the film for ten years, Gilliam finally got the production money from European investors and began filming in the Spanish countryside in 2000.

Kiss of Doom:
A few days into shooting, Jean Rochefort (starring as Don Quixote) developed an infection that left him unable to ride a horse, leaving the movie without its lead actor. Entire days were lost due to flash flooding. Other scenes were ruined by deafening noise from a nearby Spanish military base. And when Gilliam tried to shoot indoors, the soundstage he’d rented had such poor acoustics that the dialogue was unintelligible. Ultimately, the movie was cancelled. The production’s insurance company lost so much money on the project that it took all rights to Gilliam’s script and to the movie itself as compensation. (The fiasco was captured in the documentary film
Lost in La Mancha
.)

THE ROAD TO TOMORROW (1978)

Great Idea:
Between 1940 and 1962, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope made seven “Road” pictures (
The Road to Morroco, The Road to Hong Kong
, etc.). Both were enjoying a comeback with younger audiences in the late 1970s—Hope was the subject of a Woody Allen documentary and Crosby recorded a duet with David Bowie (a surreal version of “The Little Drummer Boy”). So the time seemed right for one final “Road” movie: a reprise of their classic roles that would be both a tribute and a farewell to the series. This one would be a family film with Hope and Crosby as grandparents who accidentally get caught up in comic intrigue.

Kiss of Doom:
Filming was to start after Crosby’s summer concert tour, but he died in Spain of a heart attack while golfing. Crosby’s death didn’t kill the project, though—George Burns agreed to replace Crosby. But Hope and screenwriter Ben Starr got into a public spat over U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, refused to speak to each other...and the movie died.

Average lifespan of an umbrella: 1-1/2 years.

Just when you think you’ve heard everything...

L
ET’S NAME HIM BUTTOCKS!

“Japan’s system of writing, which evolved from ancient Chinese script, was simplified after World War II when the government abolished thousands of characters. In recent years, however, authorities in Tokyo have been under pressure to reinstate obscure and archaic characters so that more interesting and original children’s names can be created, says the
Daily Telegraph
. As a result, the justice ministry proposed an additional 578 characters for names, but included dozens that most parents might view as in poor taste, such as ‘Piles,’ ‘Buttocks,’ and ‘Prostitute.’”

—
Ananova

BAD OWNER!

“A police patrol in Nuremberg, Germany, noticed a woman, identified only as Gerda M., walking her dog Leonie in the city centre. The large mixed-breed dog only weighed 12 kg (32 pounds). It was taken to a pet shelter, where one worker told reporters, ‘I have seen many miserable things, but never something this cruel. This dog should weigh at least 25 kilos (66 pounds).’ He said the owner told him she was trying to get the dog down to 5 kg (13 pounds) so she could take it on a plane as part of her carry-on luggage.”

—Pakistan
Daily Times

ANYTHING TO DECLARE?

“In this age of airport security, screeners are under stringent orders to carefully check all baggage. Yesterday at Boston’s Logan Airport they discovered one for the books: the severed head of a harbor seal. They discovered it in a small cooler and immediately notified authorities. The head was apparently checked in by a Colorado man who told investigators that he is a biology professor and had found a dead seal on Revere Beach. He then cut off its head so he could take it home ‘for educational purposes.’ After more than an hour of questioning, investigators allowed the man to board a plane—without the seal’s head.”

—
Boston Globe

Thirsty? Each day, the U.S. uses 134,000,000,000 gallons of water to irrigate crops.

LOST AND FOUND

“The family of Maryland resident Joynal Abedin worried for more than two weeks after he failed to return home from work the week before Christmas. Then, on Jan. 5, Abedin’s wife received a $17,000 bill from Washington Hospital Center in the mail. Her husband had been killed in a hit-and-run accident in Prince George’s County. Although he was carrying ID, some of it contained an old address and police had been unable to locate his family, officials said. Abedin’s family is now asking why police couldn’t find the family when the hospital could—to send them a bill.”

—
Washington Post

DO AS I SAY...

“The owner of one of the largest fashion empires in North America is fighting a child support claim for $68,000 per month plus $5.5 million in back payments because he doesn’t want his 16-year-old son to suffer from ‘affluenza.’ A lawyer for multi-millionaire clothier Peter Nygard told Madam Justice Ruth Mesbar he would be calling an expert to testify ‘too much money is bad for children.’”

—
Toronto Star

SERIOUSLY WHACKED

“A boardwalk game called ‘Whack the Iraq,’ is causing controversy at the Jersey shore. It’s located at the end of Morey’s Pier in Wild-wood. Players shoot paint balls at live human targets dressed as Iraqis. Figures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden adorn the arcade. The operator of ‘Whack the Iraq’ said the game is just seaside fun and is not meant to offend anyone. A sign at the game states that ‘Whack the Iraq’ is intended to insult only one person, Saddam Hussein.”

—NBC

BACK TO NATURE

“Officials in Botswana have issued a plea to people who want to commit suicide: use trees, not trains. ‘I am sick of these people who throw themselves in front of the trains,’ Minister of Transport Tebelo Seretse told a newspaper. ‘The drivers are people—why turn them into murderers?’”

—Deutsche Presse-Agentur

More than 90% of the actions performed by the nervous system are reflex actions.

On
page 215
we told you about some people who were struck by lightning and lived to tell the tale. But don’t tempt Mother Nature. Here are some tips on how to avoid getting the shock of a lifetime
.

T
HE 30-30 RULE

How do you know when you’re close enough to a thunderstorm to be at risk? Experts say that if you can hear thunder, you’re near enough to the storm to be struck by lightning. A more precise rule of thumb is the “30-30 rule.”

30 Seconds:
When you see a flash of lightning, count off the seconds until you hear the accompanying thunderclap. If you count 30 seconds or less, you’re close enough to be at risk of being struck by lightning. Seek shelter indoors.

30 Minutes:
Remain indoors until 30 minutes after the last flash of lightning. After that it’s safe to go back outside.

The 30-30 rule applies even if it hasn’t started raining, or if the storm clouds are far away. Lightning can travel horizontally as far as 10 miles before striking the ground, so even if the sky overhead is blue, you can still be in danger.

STAYING LOW

Because air is a poor conductor of electricity, lightning takes the shortest path to the ground. It does this by striking high ground, tall trees, or other prominent features on the landscape. So one way to avoid lightning is to make sure
you
aren’t the tallest object around and that you aren’t standing next to—or under—the tallest object, either.

•
Avoid trees and hilltops. Open fields aren’t much better—if you’re standing in the middle of one, you’re probably the tallest thing around. Head for a gully or whatever low point is nearby.

•
If you’re in a forest and avoiding trees isn’t possible, stay away from the taller ones. Take cover under shrubs or a grove of low trees.

•
If you’re high up on a mountain, go back down below the tree line and seek shelter underneath a grove of small trees.

A mouse’s heart is smaller than an M&M.

•
Lightning is also attracted to water, so stay out of swimming pools, lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water.

THE LIGHTNING SAFETY POSITION

•
If you’re stuck out in the open, assume the “lightning safety position.” Squat to lower your profile and touch your heels together, so that if lightning does strike nearby, it will—hopefully—pass through your legs without going through your heart and other major organs. Cover your ears to protect against the sound of thunder.

•
Some victims say they were able to tell that they were about to be struck by lightning—the hair on their arms or their head stood up just before the strike. If you ever experience this during a thunderstorm, head for shelter immediately. If none is available, crouch down and assume the lightning safety position.

GIMME SHELTER

Not all storm shelters are equal. The best shelters are the ones that provide lightning with an easy path to the ground.

•
The very best, of course, is a building with a lightning rod—a metal rod on the roof of the building that’s connected by a wire to another metal rod buried in the ground.

•
Next best is a building with plumbing, electric wiring, cable TV, or telephone lines. Even rain gutters with downspouts can provide a path for lightning to reach the ground.

•
Shelters with no plumbing or wiring, such as bleachers and garden sheds, offer little or no protection from lightning.

•
Cars do offer protection. Just roll up the windows and be careful not to touch any metal surfaces. Bicycles, motorcycles, and other open vehicles can actually attract lightning, so get away from them.

•
Once indoors, stay away from windows and open doors and avoid touching plumbing fixtures, electrical wires, and phone lines. Stay away from electrical appliances: unplug them if you can, and do it before the storm arrives to avoid possible electric shock.

•
Talking on a corded phone during a thunderstorm is the number one cause of indoor lightning injuries in the U.S., so hang up.

•
Concrete walls and floors may look safe, but they’re likely to contain metal mesh and reinforcing bars—which conduct electricity—so avoid contact with them.

Americans consume 450 hot dogs every second.

Imagine being related to someone so universally despised that you couldn’t even use your own last name. We recently came upon David Gardner’s book
, The Last of the Hitlers,
and pieced together this forgotten bit of history
.

T
HE NAME RINGS A BELL

On August 21, 1942, a young Englishman walked into the local draft board so he could enlist in the U.S. military to fight in World War II. The board looked over his enlistment forms and then turned him down on the spot, just as he’d been turned down by Canada, and just as he’d been turned down when he tried to enlist in the British armed forces back home.

What was it that caused the armed forces of three different countries to reject his application out of hand? On the part of the form where enlistees have to identify living relatives who have served in the armed forces of either the Allied or Axis powers, he had entered the following:

1. Thomas Dowling. Uncle. England. 1923-1926. Royal Air Force.


2. Adolf Hitler. Uncle. Germany. 1914-1918. Corporal.


The young man’s full name was William Patrick Hitler. He was the son of Adolf Hitler’s older half-brother Alois, and Alois’s first wife, an Irishwoman named Bridget Dowling.

FAMILY TIES

For both William and his mother, the association with the Hitler side of the family was troubled from the start. Bridget was only 17 when she met Alois at the 1909 Dublin Horse Show. Alois dressed sharply and told her he was in the “hotel business,” but as Bridget’s suspicious father soon discovered, he was actually a penniless waiter with few prospects. He ordered his daughter to break off the relationship, but she and Alois eloped to England instead. Nine months and nine days later, Bridget gave birth to William Patrick.

Get outta town! In Fairbanks, Alaska, moose are banned from mating within city limits.

Marital bliss did not last long. Alois beat his infant son and sank what little money the family had in one get-rich-quick scheme after another. He finally abandoned his family in 1914 and skipped off to Germany, never to return. Bridget claimed in her memoirs,
My Brother-in-law Adolf
, that Alois even had a friend write to her during World War I saying her husband had died in battle, just so she’d never try to track him down for alimony.