WHEN WAS TOILET PAPER INVENTED AND WHAT WAS USED BEFORE THEN?

   The Chinese invented toilet paper in the fourteenth century, and the Bureau of Imperial Supplies began to produce paper for use by the Chinese emperors. However, it wasn't until 1857 that the first factory-produced toilet paper was made, by American Joseph Cayetty, who named his product "Therapeutic Paper" and sold it in packs of 500 sheets. Cayetty's name was printed on each sheet.
   Before the invention of toilet paper, different areas of the world used many different things. Public toilets in ancient Rome provided a moist sponge on the end of a stick, while the wealthy used wool and rosewater. In Viking-occupied England, discarded wool was used, while in the Middle Ages this had been replaced by hay balls.
   In Hawaii, meanwhile, coconut husks were used, while the early Eskimos used snow and tundra moss. Wealthy people around the world often used hemp and wool, with lace being used by the French royalty. British lords used pages from books.
   Poorer people used their hands, grass, stones, moss, seashells, or wood shavings, while the use of water was also common around the world. In India, the left hand was used to wash with, while in Africa it was the right hand. The other hand in each place was used to greet people, and it was considered rude to offer the incorrect hand.
   In the U.S., newspapers and telephone directories were commonly used, as were other books. The Old Farmer's Almanac was actually printed with a hole punched through the corner of each page so that it could be hung in out-houses, and the Sears catalogue was widely used until it was produced with glossy pages, after which its use as a hygiene product became unpopular. Corncobs were also used in the United States.

Why do the COLORADO ROCKIES keep their BASEBALLS in a humidor?

SMOKIN FASTBALLS
   Tune into a Colorado Rockies game, and you're bound to hear one of the announcers mention the team's most well-known piece of lore: They store baseballs in a humidor. Wait, you may be asking yourself, aren't humidors used for cigars? Indeed, cigar aficionados keep their cigars in a humidity-controlled environment to prevent the tobacco leaves from drying out, which would affect their flavor. The Rockies aren't worried about the flavor of those baseballs, but rather about dried-out balls carrying farther and driving up scores. Why does this matter? Because Coors Field was well on it's way to developing a reputation as a park that was seriously unfriendly to pitchers---and very friendly to home runs.
   From the 1995 to 2001 seasons, National League pitchers at Coors Field recorded a horrendous earned run average (ERA) of 6.50, more than two runs a game higher than the 4.37 ERA recorded at other stadiums. Fans and the media attributed the numbers to Denver's mile-high thin air. But in the winter of 2002, based on a hunch that the balls might be drying out and losing weight in Denver's arid climate, engineers at Coors Field installed a humidor for storing game balls. Since then, N.L. pitchers have posted a 5.46 ERA at Coors. But N.L. scientists can't say exactly why it's so effective.
   According to a 2004 study by physicist David Kagan of California State University at Chico, keeping the balls at 50 percent relative humidity lowers their coefficient of restitution, a.k.a. bounciness. This means that humidified balls don't bounce off the bat as powerfully as dried-out ones do, making for a less batter-friendly pitch. Edmund Meyer and John Bohn, physics professors at the University of Colorado, later found that the added moisture does not change a ball's size and shape---and thus, its aerodynamics---which seems to verify Kagan's explanation for the humidor's success.

Can People Safely Eat Cat Food?

It makes my fur shiny
   Let's take a look at the ingredients in a typical can of cat food: meat by-products, chicken by-product meal, turkey by-product meal, ash, taurine. Nothing too horrible, but in general, these things don't constitute a healthy human diet, says Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian with the American Dietetic Association. " that said, I'm fully confident that your body can handle kitty chow.
   Your liver, kidneys, and skin do a terrific job of removing foreign substances from your body, especially mild ones like those found in cat food. "Technically, you could safely digest a baseball," Blatner says. But that doesn't mean you should. Perhaps the worst stuff in cat food is the mineral content in the ash, but your body would clear that out quickly, thanks to God.

Is it true BIRDS CAN"T FART?

They're too classy
   It's not that they can't. They just don't need to, says Mike Murray, a veterinarian at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. Birds have the anatomical and physical ability to pass gas, he explains, "but if I saw gas in a bird's gastrointestinal tract on an X-ray, I'd suspect that something abnormal was going on in there."
   Birds don't typically carry the same kinds of gas-forming bacteria in their gut as humans and other mammals to help digest food, so there's nothing to let loose. Parrots sometimes emit fartlike sounds, but it's not what you might think. "They like to make playful sounds like they're giving you a raspberry, but it's coming from the north end, not the south, "Murray says.
But can they burp the alphabet?
   Scientists are a little less certain about whether birds can release gassy buidup from the mouth, though. There's no official documentation of a bird burp (it's not a common field of research), but most ornithologists suspect that if a bird needed to burp, it would have no trouble doing so. "Birds are able to excrete lots of things through their mouths," says Todd Katzner, the director of conservation and field research at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. "The fact that birds can regurgitate food for their young suggests that they can also reverse the direction of other things down there. I'd be pretty surprised if birds didn't burp."

SIX FAMOUS EX-CABBIES

Larry David
   After watching a zillion episodes of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, one can imagine Larry as the rudest, most opinionated New York cabbie ever. But in a good way.
David Mamet
   The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright says his stint as a Chicago cabdriver was on-the-job training for his career as a writer.
Jimmy Smits
   In the early 1980s, Jimmy acted in off-Broadway plays and drove a cab on the overnight shift. That lasted until he received the pilot script for a new show producer Steven Bochco was developing called L.A. Law, and went on to star in N.Y.P.D. Blue.
Danny Glover
   In 1999, Danny used his leverage as a former San Francisco cabdriver to raise awareness about cabbies sometimes not picking up African-American passengers.
Philip Glass
   Philip was just another Juilliard-trained composer struggling to make a living in New York City when he drove a taxi. He said he loved the job because he was free to let his mind wander. It was behind the wheel of a cab that Philip worked on Einstein on the Beach, his most famous opera.

The East River Bridges (no tolls)

   You do not have to pay coming or going from Manhattan on the East River Bridge crossings---the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, and the 59th Street Bridge. There are always plans on the table to put toll plazas on those bridges, and they somehow always get defeated.
   If you have a hard time remembering the order of the bridges that connect lower Manhattan with Brooklyn, just imagine you're a German tourist; working your way uptown, it's BMW---Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg.

WORD POWER: The Word

Ventriloquism n. --- A: repetition of words. B: method of recording. C: "throwing" one's voice. D:  
 speech impairment.
Loquacious adj. --- A: evasive. B: multilingual. C: unctuous. D: talkative.
Monologue n. --- A: long speech. B: scholarly work. C: editorial. D: hum.
Terminology n. --- A: nomenclature. B: extremity. C: mannerism. D: grammar.
Elocution n. --- A: deprecation. B: oratory. C: appeal. C: legalese.
Interlocutor n. --- go-between. B: researcher. C: dialogist. D: translator.
Tautology (taw TAHL uh jee) n. A: consistency in reasoning. B: careful instruction. C: nervousness. 
 D: unnecessary repetition.
Eulogy (YOO luh jee) n. --- A: formal praise. B: commencement address. C: promise. D: sorrowful 
 poem.
Apologist n. --- someone who A: broods in the past. B: makes no excuses. C: is fearful. D: defends
 an idea.
Prologue n. --- A: introduction. B: explication. C. game plan. D. precis.