Read Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader for Free Online Page B

FFA
    REAGAN WINS ON BUDGET, BUT MOORE LIES AHEAD
    Man Struck By Lightning Faces
    Battery Charges
    British Union Finds Dwarfs in Short Supply
    MAN FOUND DEAD IN CEMETERY
    Legislators Tax Brains to Cut Deficit
     
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    The world’s most expensive spice: Spanish saffron. It can cost more than $2,000 per pound.
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PAGE 42
    Here’s a page we’ve never tried before. It was sent to us by BRI member Tim Harrower.
    Elvis Presley died at 42 .
    The angle at which light reflects off water to create a rainbow is 42 degrees.
    The city of Jerusalem covers an area of 42 square miles.
    The Torah (the holy book of Judaism) is broken into columns, each of which always has exactly 42 lines.
    Fox Mulder ( The X-Files ) lives in apartment number 42 .
    There are 42 decks on the Enterprise NCC1701-D (the Next Generation ship).
    Bill Clinton is the 42 nd U. S. president.
    A Wonderbra consists of 42 individual parts.
    There are 42 Oreo cookies in a 1-pound package.
    “The beast was given a mouth uttering proud boasts and blasphemies, and it was given authority to act for 42 months.”
    —Revelation 13:5
    In Romeo and Juliet , Juliet sleeps for 42 hours.
    The right arm of the Statue of Liberty is 42 feet long.
    Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia were born in 19 42 .
    The number of dots on a pair of dice: 42 .
    Dogs have a total of 42 teeth over their lifetimes.
    In The Catcher in the Rye , Holden Caufield lies and says that he is 42 .
    The world-record jump by a kangaroo is 42 feet.
    The natural vibration frequency of white mouse DNA: 42 .
    The natural vibration frequency of human DNA: 42 .
    There were 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus Christ.
    And most important:
    According to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , “the meaning of life, the universe, and everything” is the number 42 .
     
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    Worth the risk? The average take from a bank robbery is about $3,000.
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HITS OF THE 1970s: A QUIZ
    Now it’s time to find out how much you know about a few of the hits of the ’70s. (Answers on page 457 .)
    1 . “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” a duet by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, was a #1 song in 1976. How did this unlikely pair get together?
    a) They each recorded the song separately, and a disc jockey spliced the two recordings together.
    b) They ran into each other at a recording session and—as a joke—decided to record the sappiest song they knew.
    c) It was the dying request of Diamond’s mother that he record a song with Streisand—her favorite singer.
    2 . Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” was the most-requested FM song of the decade...but some Christian fundamentalists cite it as an example of devil-worship in rock. Robert Plant, the group’s singer, composed the lyrics. He says...
    a) Even he doesn’t know what they mean.
    b) It’s strange that fundamentalists would criticize it, because he’s a born-again Christian.
    c) He purposely put “satanic” messages on the record to shock his critics. “If they’re idiotic enough to play it backwards, they deserve it,” he said.
    3 . Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me” sold a million copies in 1979. It was an incredible turnaround for the group. Their third album had just flopped, and Epic Records had pretty much given up on them. So how did they become stars?
    a) An L.A. deejay became their champion, urging listeners to write to Epic and release “I Want You to Want Me” as a single.
    b) The group was asked to tour as an opening act for the Rolling Stones, which sparked new interest in their album.
    c) Somehow, a quickie album that they made exclusively for the Japanese market wound up receiving air time on U.S. FM radio.
     
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    A cow has four stomachs.
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    4 . The #1 song of 1975 was “Love Will Keep Us Together,” by The Captain and Tennille who were, according to news reports, blissfully married. But few of the fans who heard the song knew it was really about...
    a) Two men.
    b) Two pets—a dog and a chipmunk.
    c) A