This book celebrates the very best articles from the BRI’s first ten years--plus 150 all-new pages! As always, the contents are divided by length: short articles for the reader on the go, medium articles if you have a few minutes to spare, and the extended sitting section for those truly leg-numbing experiences. Read about . . .- The origin of Twinkies- Who invented the Hula Hoop- The untold history of the Three Stooges- Space toilets: where no man has gone before- 1876: the year they stole the presidency- The FBI’s "Ten Most Wanted" list- How to start your own country- Celebrity impostersAnd much, much more!

    The text is written for the one-term analytic geometry course, often taught in sequence with college algebra, and is designed for students with a reasonably sound background in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry.

    In the right hands, this is a delightfully subversive manual for a lifetime of fun. This is the do-it-yourself handbook for enjoying our media-saturated world by tinkering with how it works. Pulls together the kookiest and most engaging ideas from the Internet, great suggestions on "culture jamming" (a practice of co-opting the resources, messages, and brain-washing machinery of existing media, pioneered by Adbusters magazine), and generally jam-packed with loads of fun ideas and funny material. Notable contributors include Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker, R.U. Sirius, Richard Kadrey, and that most prolific of all authors, Anonymous. (Editor's note: In some ways, the Happy Mutant philosophy is the cyberspawn of the behavioral shenanigans of the Dadaists, Surrealists, or the lesser-known but more interesting Situationists. )

    The enticing questions will amaze, amuse and inspire, while the highly visual format encourages kids to keep reading.

    100,000 first printing.

    -- FamilyFun

    Here is a list of good-luck charms, spells, soothsayings and other irrational but charming and creative folk beliefs. Here we have leprechauns and sprites, ghosts, the evil eye and wise women's curses. There are charms and spells to make the crops grow, to keep cattle healthy, to ensure safe childbirth, and many other longed-for desires. Most superstitions are of pagan origin; many were overlaid with popular Christian belief.

    The enticing questions will amaze, amuse and inspire, while the highly visual format encourages kids to keep reading.

    In the decade or so since the first edition, the industry has grown and expanded to previously unimagined heights, thanks in great part to the upsurge of cable TV services catering to animation fans. In the ten-year period since the first edition, nearly 450 new cartoon series premiered in the U.S. Alphabetically arranged by title, the book discusses each cartoon show in detail, providing full production credits and offering commentary on such elements as development, characters, style, and the show s significance in the overall scheme of television animation."

    but Didn't. Entertaining tidbits profile such mega-flops as nasty-tasting, difficult-to-light smokeless cigarettes from RJ Reynolds; Colgate's chewable toothpaste (no kidding); and Kraft's precooked toaster bacon. Obscure failures, such as The Belly Bongo (a toy/musical instrument that was supposed to be the next hula-hoop) and comic book superhero Paranex the Fighting Fetus, receive their fair share of ridicule as well. Not to be missed is the section on product names that didn't translate well, such as Asian beverages Pipi and Mucos, and the American sports car Pinto, which faced difficulty when sold in Brazil where "pinto" is slang for "tiny penis."

    Regan, author of "The Guinness Book of Military Blunders", presents an irreverent collection of tales of royal indignity. He celebrates the gaffes and peccadilloes of the blue-blooded, from the absolute rulers of the classical and medieval periods to the constitutional monarchs of the House of Windsor. Presenting a varied colllection of princely portraits, this is a "warts and all" expose of a range of decidedly undignified royal events, from calamitous coronations to farcical funerals, from grand occasions mismanaged to love affairs mishandled. As well as laying bare the turbulent private lives of kings, queens, kaisers and caliphs, the author examines the sometimes baleful influence that they have exercised on the political and social life of their time.