The following article is from the book Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into California.

It wasn’t everybody’s idea of home sweet home, but it was the right house at the right time for thousands of West Coast families after World War II.

MASTER BUILDER IN THE MAKING

All Joe Eichler wanted to do was build some low-cost housing for World War II veterans and their families: small, ranch-style homes with basic amenities. What he ended up with were stylish, iconic homes that are still in demand today. The reason? Eichler, though he didn’t know it at first, was a modern man in every way. For one thing, he was an equal-opportunity builder who opened the doors of his houses to people of all races and colors, a pretty daring prospect in the pre–civil rights era. If someone wanted to buy one of his houses, all they had to do was come up with the down payment (anywhere from $500 to $2,650) and qualify for a mortgage.

In fact, the only colors Eichler cared about were the colors of his houses. His son Ned tells the story of how his father, while cruising through one of his developments, called a halt to a house-painting job because the color the owners had chosen didn’t look right with the colors of the houses on either side of it. The house-painter told Eichler that the owners really wanted that particular color and added, “After all, it’s their house.” Eichler said, “Like hell it is. It’s my house. Change the g**damn color.”

THE HOUSES THAT JOE BUILT

Nowruz is the Persian New Year holiday, which starts at the vernal equinox. Although it has a Zoroastrian origin, it is celebrated in a asecular way by Persian and Turkish people all over the world. These celebrations vary, but usually include public parties, food, dancing, parades, and a lot of jumping over fires. Shown here is a celebration in Astana, Kazakhstan. See a roundup of photographs from Nowruz 2017 at Buzzfeed.  

Star Wars has become such an epic franchise with such a devoted fandom that the origins of that universe have been left behind. To understand some of the mechanics of the story, Looper takes us back to how the stories were first constructed to remind of some details we've either forgotten or never realized in the first place.

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A little context helps us to understand how the juggernaut we know as Star Wars grew from just a movie into what it is today: a modern mythology that became more than anyone could have imagined. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The NCAA basketball tournament has so many great players and great matchups that people watching start to think that's normal. It's not. Fail Army is here to remind us that the rest of us aren't that good at the game. This video has some NSFW language.

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Before playing basketball, you should know the rules:
1. Don't hang onto the rim, especially with a free-standing basket.
2. Do not use a folding chair to boost your jump.
3. Keep in mind that basketball can become dodgeball at any moment.

-via Tastefully Offensive

So many of the conventions that ruled how men and women interacted were "unwritten rules" that everyone understood, but were not legally codified. Conformity came from social pressure from the majority of people who just knew that "that's the way it is." Such was the dress code for the U.S. Senate that expected women to wear dresses long after those in other professions were wearing pantsuits, uniform pants, or jeans to work.

As the upper house in the U.S. legislature, the Senate has always been more formal and reserved than the House. Even during the 1980s, pants on women were apparently too much for that august chamber to handle. Individual Senate offices had their own rules, but on the floor, women wearing pants were verboten, which could necessitate quick changes. "We've heard from women staff that in the 1980s, if they came in to work—if they were called in on an emergency basis—they needed to keep a dress to put on quickly or they had to borrow one if they had to appear on the Senate floor," Richard A. Baker, Senate historian from 1975 to 2009, told The Washington Post in 2002.

While the dress code for the Senate was never officially codified, the norms were enforced by Senate doorkeepers, who controlled access to the chamber and served partly as security guards, partly as protocol monitors. Even today, they assess each person seeking entry, making sure they are supposed to be there and are dressed appropriately. The problem is that "dressed appropriately" has historically been up to the discretion of the doorkeeper on duty: Doorkeepers made determinations based on personal opinion or instructions from their boss, the sergeant at arms.

What did it take for the doorkeepers to back down over enforcing that dresses be worn by women senators? It took a critical number of concurrent women senators (six), and one breaking the unwritten rule in order to bring the entire subject up for discussion. Read how that finally happened in 1993 at mental_floss. 

"You know, when junior scrunches his eyes up like that, he looks just like (insert famous movie actor)!" Yes, he does. The internet has an unlimited supply of baby pictures from proud parents, plus a revolving door of celebrities, so it stands to reasons that people will see an occasional uncanny resemblance.

Check out an entire class of infants who are doomed to grow up and be compared to a famous person in this gallery. -via TVOM

It's happened to all of us. A family member, friend, or co-worker says something wrong, so you point out their error. But they are convinced you are the one who is wrong. We should just let it go at that point, but every once in a while, the argument escalates into something the two of you think is important, when it's not important at all. It's just dumb.

Are these examples of overthinking it, or just over-caring? Even if you manage to dial it back, those arguments and their aftermath will stay with you, so you can share it years later.

A reddit post asked the question "What's the most pointless argument you've been passionately involved in?" and 22 Words selected the 30 funniest of those dumb arguments to illustrate. -via Metafilter

If Deadpool were a musical, our hero might sing a song like "Gaston" from Beauty and the Beast. It has plenty of NSFW language.

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This parody works better than it should, but mainly makes us want a new Deadpool movie, like, yesterday.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

The tree genus called Paulownia has several species, mostly native to Asia, that grow fast on difficult soil. They tend to thrive after forest fires, which kill its enemy fungus. It's also called the Princess Tree.

The genus, originally Pavlovnia but now usually spelled Paulownia, was named in honour of Anna Paulowna, queen consort of The Netherlands (1795–1865), daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia. It is also called "princess tree" for the same reason.[1]

The tree also has a sweet tradition.

Paulownia is known in Japanese as ‘kiri’ and as ‘Princess Tree’ because it was once customary to plant a tree of this kind when a baby girl was born, and then to make it into a dresser as a wedding present when she married.

Before you run out and find a princess Tree to welcome your little princess, consider whether you will realistically have the time and skills to actually build a dresser, or the money to pay a carpenter to do it. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Fanghong)

According to Wikipedia, there have been ten X-Men movies so far. That's a bunch! If you've seen them all, you no doubt have your opinions on the quality of each one. Real X-Men fans will want to argue about anyone else's ranking of them, so head over to TVOM and see how your opinion meshes with their ranking of the five best X-Men films.

There's a miniature stone village in Prospect Hill, North Carolina, consisting of 27 buildings and other small-town structures. It was all hand-made by one man: Henry Warren. When Warren retired from farming, he gathered white flint rock and lovingly crafted each building over the last nine years of his life. He decorated the buildings with flea market finds, such as jewelry, gemstones, colored tile, and anything he thought would make Shangri-La look good. Heather gives us her impression of the village after visiting.

Now this is just my opinion, but I believe Shangri-La is sacred. Henry, a retired tobacco farmer with no history in art or architecture, devoted his retired years to creating art; and this art was meant to simply make people happy. There’s power in that. For nearly a decade he poured love and creativity into these buildings, with the nothing more than the intention of making the world more beautiful. You can feel that energy there. You can feel that these buildings were made for you, simply to make you feel good.

Warren died in 1977, but his family maintains the village, and welcomes visitors who want to enjoy his work. -via Metafilter, where you'll find more links to explore Shangri-La.

(Images credit: Flickr user Joel Haas)

Redditor CircleAddict works at Starbucks and had a customer encounter that didn't go quite right. He said, "A woman came through the drive through yesterday and got a little irritated with me because we didn't have drink carriers. Today, she came back and handed me this." In case you can't read the writing, it says:

Greetings Starbuck Barista! Yesterday at your drive through we had a less then cheerful encounter. At no fault of yours, you were out of carriers & said you could not take my empty cup (trash). I was less then understanding and my manner was curt.

I need to apologize. The thought of leaving a trail of unkindness like that is so not the path i want to reflect. Not for you, Not for me. You are a young man, clearly working hard to build a future & you should be commended. Keep up your attitude of cheer & hope. Stay hopeful no matter what kind of people cross your path (or drive thru :) )

Surly, God has good blessing in store. You taught this ole lady something yesterday about, Kindness, Compassion & staying humble. I thank you! Debbie

God Bless you today & all your todays.

Debbie was most likely affected by other things going on in her life, but she realized that didn't make it okay to lash out at a stranger. Good on her. The discussion below the post was full of commenters who were sorry about ruining someone's day and stories of strangers who went out of their way to apologize for rudeness. The world could use more of that.

The active ingredient in catnip that gives such pleasure to our kitties is nepetalactone. It doesn't have much effect on other species, but cats go wild -or at least some cats do. If you've had multiple cats, you've probably noticed at least one that didn't react to catnip at all. You have to feel sorry for those cats, while their housemates are enjoying a catnip-fueled high. However, there are some other substances, such as silver vine, Tatarian honeysuckle, and valerian root, that can stimulate cats. Molecular biologist Sebastian Bol performed an experiment to see how cats would react to these plants.

With 100 different cats, he rubbed the plant matter on a sock or a square of carpet, and set the material in the cats’ line of sight. Then he waited. If the cat approached and backed away, he considered that a denial. “Animals tend to move towards things they like, and back away from things they consider threats,” says Buffington. After each success or denial, he’d wait about five minutes for the cat to relax, then try again with another plant type. The response rate was striking: Almost 80 percent of the cats responded to the silver vine (a higher response rate than even nip, which got less than 70 percent of the cats high), and roughly 40 percent each for valerian root and honeysuckle.

The kicker is that these other plants do not contain nepetalactone. Read about research into cat euphoria at Wired. -via Metafilter

Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher of the Found Footage Festival are not strongmen, but they play two of them on TV. They took on the duo name Chop & Steele and convinced various local TV morning shows to feature them. Their strongman act is obviously lame, but it's probably the best they could do. See a compilation of those attempts at Found Footage Festival.

The newscasters were no doubt rolling their eyes when the camera wasn't on them, but they had to put on a brave face and act like nothing was wrong. Esquire interviewed Pickett and Prueher about the stunt and found out it was ridiculously easy to pull off. After all, they had done this same stunt a few years before. -via Tastefully Offensive

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

It was 1937 and the Marx Brothers were back with their seventh motion picture A Day at the Races. A Day at the Races was the follow-up to the boys' biggest and most popular film, their previous effort, 1935's A Night at the Opera.

A Day at the Races was their second film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was also their second film post-Zeppo, the youngest Marx Brother, their wooden straight man, having retired as an actor after 1933's Duck Soup.

Trying to duplicate the successful formula of A Night at the Opera, before beginning filming, Groucho, Chico and Harpo took a live version of A Day at the Races on the road. Before live crowds, jokes and gags were gauged and either kept or discarded.

Most of the A Day at the Races screenplay and gags were written  by Al Boasberg, who was also a major contributor to A Night at the Opera. But Boasberg demanded full credit as the film's screenwriter, a request MGM was not willing to grant, thus a furious Boasberg requested his name be erased from the film's credits altogether. Final writing credits went to Robert Pirosh and George Seaton.

A Night at the Opera director Sam Wood returned to the helm. Irving Thalberg, MGM's "boy genius," was the film's producer, but sadly, he died unexpectedly of pneumonia just two weeks into production. Groucho was later to claim he "lost all interest" in film-making after the death of Thalberg.

Thalberg loved the Marx Brothers and being the head of MGM, he made sure they were protected and their films were kept at a grade A level. After his passing, the production, writing, and general caring and interest level of Marx Brothers movies took a massive drop, never to return to the A Day at the Races high level again.