Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy (19 page)

HAVE A BALL WITH YOUR KIDS

If you’re in the market for a sexually suggestive toy for your child (and who isn’t?), the Hokkaido Marimokkori, a doll made in the northern Japanese state of Hokkaido, may be just the thing. “Marimokkori” is a play on words:
marimo
is a type of algae that grows in a ball shape and is found on Hokkaido’s shoreline;
mokkori
means “mound.” That explains the doll’s round, green head (like the algae balls)…and possibly explains the
mound
: a round, pink ball on its crotch. The pink ball is attached to a string that you can pull. You then let go of the string and, as it retracts, the doll vibrates and emits a giggling sound.

YOU’RE VIRTUALLY UNDER ARREST

In May 2008, a 43-year-old Japanese woman was playing an online virtual-reality game when she found out that her “virtual husband,” played by a 33-year-old Japanese man she had never met, had divorced her. “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning,” she later said. “That made me so angry.” She was
so
angry, in fact, that she logged on to the game, somehow figured out the man’s password…and deleted his character. When the man discovered that his virtual self, which he’d been developing for more than a year, had vanished, he called the police. They tracked the woman down, arrested her, and put her in jail for what the media dubbed a “virtual murder.” The woman faces up to five years in a real prison and a $5,000 fine for manipulating electronic data.

Within 24 hours, a single bacterium in a petri dish can multiply 1 billion times
.

THE OTHER DIMENSIONS

In October 2008, a man named Taichi Takashita launched an online petition that, he said, he would present to the Japanese government when it had one million signatures. What’s the petition for? A change to Japan’s marriage laws—because he wants to marry a cartoon character. He has fallen in love, he says, with the famous Japanese
manga
cartoon character Mikuru Asahina, and wants to change Japanese law to allow marriage between humans and fictional people. “I am no longer interested in three dimensions,” he wrote. “I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world.” As of January 2010, he claimed to have more than 660,000 signatures and was still gathering more.

SHE’S DEAD. STILL.

In September 2008, a couple walking through a wooded area on the island of Honshu came across a grisly sight: a corpse wrapped in plastic. Dozens of investigators were brought in, the body was taken away, and, after several hours, forensic pathologists began to unwrap it. That’s when they found out that it wasn’t a body; it was an extremely lifelike silicone sex doll. Humiliated police officials vowed to catch whoever had pulled the prank, and news of the “sex-doll murder case” spread around the world. A few days later, a 60-year-old man came forward and confessed but said it wasn’t a prank. He had bought the doll after his wife died years earlier, he told police, and had become very attached to it. He’d recently decided to get rid of it because he was going to live with one of his children. “He was confused about how to get rid of her,” a police investigator told reporters. “He thought it would be cruel to cut her up into pieces and throw her out with the trash.” The man, whom police did not identify, was charged with violating waste-management laws and was fined an undisclosed amount. Police said he was very sorry his doll was mistaken for a corpse.

In California, it’s illegal to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool
.

THE DA VINCI TREASURE

The Asylum is a movie production company that makes blatant knockoffs of Hollywood blockbusters and usually releases them direct to video. Here are some of their familiar-sounding works that you may find at a video store near you (probably in the bargain bin)
.

The Day the Earth Stopped
(a rip-off
of The Day the Earth Stood Still
)

Sunday School Musical
(High School Musical)

The Terminators
(Terminator: Salvation)

AVH: Alien vs. Hunter
(AVP: Alien vs. Predator)

Halloween Night
(Halloween)

2012: Supernova
(2012)

Transmorphers
(Transformers)

The Da Vinci Treasure
(The Da Vinci Code)

The Land that Time Forgot
(Land of the Lost)

When a Killer Calls
(When a Stranger Calls)

King of the Lost World
(King Kong)

100 Million B.C
.
(10,000 B.C.)

Street Racer
(Speed Racer)

Pirates of Treasure Island
(Pirates of the Caribbean)

Monster
(Cloverfield)

Snakes on a Train
(Snakes on a Plane)

In Massachusetts, 1% of the construction costs of a prison must be spent on art
.

SAVED BY SILICONE

When fake breasts become real heroes
.

B
UMPER BUMPERS
. In Ruse, Bulgaria, a 24-year-old woman ran a red light at a busy intersection and slammed into a passing car. Although both cars were totaled, the woman escaped with minor injuries. How? According to police, “Her silicone breasts acted as airbags” (although she did require surgery to replace her implants, which ruptured in the crash.)

ROCKET DEFENSE
. In 2006 a young Israeli woman was hit in the chest by shrapnel during a Hezbollah rocket attack near the Lebanese border. Her silicone implants absorbed the impact of the metal fragments and kept them from reaching her heart. “This is an extraordinary case,” said her doctor. “She was saved from death.”

BODY ARMOR
. Jane Selma Soares of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was on her way home when she got caught in the crossfire of a shootout between police and a gang of drug dealers. She tried to duck out of sight, but a bullet caught her in the chest. Doctors later found the bullet…lodged in one of her breast implants. Soares, who suffered no serious injuries, eventually got new, larger implants. “I’m twice as happy,” she declared. “First, because my prosthesis saved my life, and also because now I look even more beautiful!”

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
. In 2003 Denise Leblanc and Mark Marzoni were deep-sea fishing off the coast of Panama when Marzoni hooked a 1,000-pound marlin. Marzoni was trying to reel in the fish as Leblanc, leaning over the side of the boat, filmed the catch. The marlin was nearly in the boat when it began thrashing—and suddenly impaled Leblanc with its sharp sword-like snout, spearing through her right arm, her right breast, and her side. The fish fell back into the water; Leblanc collapsed on the deck. Marzoni rushed to her aid and noticed that her right breast was…gone. Later, at the hospital, doctors made an astonishing discovery: The marlin’s bill had shoved Leblanc’s silicone implant through her ribcage and into her chest cavity, preventing the sharp snout from puncturing her lung and possibly killing her.

In the United States it’s a federal crime to imitate Smokey Bear or Woodsy Owl
.

GHOSTOLOGY 101

Whether you believe in ghosts or not, isn’t it fun to think that a spirit might be hovering near you right now? Wait—you’re in the bathroom? Eww…well, maybe not
.

B
OO!
Ghosts are as popular as ever—just look at hit television shows such as
Medium
and
Ghost Whisperer
, countless accounts of “real-life” hauntings on cable TV, and the steady stream of scary movies from Hollywood. In nearly every U.S. city, you can take a ghost tour or hire a team of “ghost hunters” to investigate your attic. In fact, a 2007
Associated Press
poll reported that 34% of Americans believe in ghosts and 23% say they’ve seen one. Are all these people crazy? Or are ghosts real? If so, where’s the evidence? We’ll tell you everything you need to know to hold your own in this spirited debate.

SOUL CALL

Any phenomenon that can’t be neatly explained by science is deemed
paranormal
. Those who study this field are called
parapsychologists
, but it’s not something you can get a degree in at your local university. Most “ghost hunters” don’t consider themselves parapsychologists, calling themselves
paranormal investigators
instead. Here are a few of the supernatural things they look for.

• Spirit:
From the Latin
spiritus
(“breath”), this is a blanket term for any
discarnate being
, one that lacks a physical body. There are many forms that a spirit can theoretically take on.

• Ghost:
A person (or animal) who is no longer living, but exists nonetheless, just not in the physical realm.

• Entity:
Any disembodied consciousness that can be classified as a ghost. The two terms are often used interchangeably, along with
phantasm, phantom, wraith, spook, sprite
, and
specter
.

• Apparition:
How a ghost appears visually. It can manifest in many different forms, from a “full-bodied” apparition to a mist to what are called “shadow people”—small, dark masses that take on a loosely human form. (Interestingly, ghosts rarely appear as a white sheet with two eyeholes.)

If all U.S. ships that serve as memorials were a separate navy, it would be the world’s third largest
.

• Orb:
A self-illuminated ball of light that travels through the air with some kind of intent. There are several theories as to exactly what they are—many people think of them as simple spirit forms.

• Poltergeist:
The German word for “noisy ghost,” this phenomenon is believed to throw objects, bang on walls, and slam doors. Poltergeists are often believed to be connected to adolescent females (perhaps it’s all the hormones).

•
Residual haunting:
If a person performed a specific act over and over during life—such as putting wood into a stove—it can leave a
psychic impression
that plays over and over, like a tape recording. In a residual haunting, the ghost doesn’t realize it’s dead; it just keeps performing its task obliviously. (Sometimes, in reports of ghosts walking through walls, the original blueprints of the building reveal that a door once stood there.)