On This Day…August 6

HISTORICAL EVENTS:

• 1538 – Bogota, Columbia is founded by Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada
• 1776 – 60 ‘proof sheets’ of the Constition of the United States are delivered to the Continental Congress
• 1806 – Francis II, the last Roman Emperor, abdicates, thus ending the Holy Roman Empire
• 1890 - At Auburn Prison in NY, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person executed by electric chair
• 1909 – Alice Ramsay and 3 friends are the first women to complete a transcontinental automobile trip
• 1912 – Bull Moose Party convenes in Chicago
• 1923 – Henry Sullivan swims the English Channel
• 1926 – Henry Houdini performs his greatest trick, sealed underwater for 91 minutes
• 1945 – Hiroshima is devastated by atomic bomb ”Little Boy”

FAMOUS BIRTHS:

•  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (poet) – 1809
• Alexander Fleming (scientist) – 1881
• Louella Parsons (gossip hag) – 1881
• Dutch Schultz (bootlegger) – 1902
• Lucille Ball (comedienne) – 1911
• Robert Mitchum (actor) – 1917
• Andy Warhol (artist) – 1928
• Piers Anthony (English writer) – 1934
• Michelle Yeoh (Chinese actress) – 1962
• Elliot Smith (musician) – 1969
• M Night Shaymalan (director ) -1970
• Geri Halliwell (Spice Girl) – 1972
• Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster) -1976
• Adrianne Curry (Brady Snatcher) – 1982
• Jon Benet Ramsay (murdered child model*) -1990

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Hapiness Is…

When someone starts off a story, “Omigod, I felt like the biggest geek one time…I was at this Doctor Who meet-up group and…”

If the thing that made you feel like the biggest dork was not simply being at the Doctor Who meet-up group, then I have some seriously high expectations for this story!

PS – Who’s gonna be the new Doctor anyway? When are we gonna find out. The fact that it’s not James Nesbitt I find to be a shame. I’d watch that creepy dark Doctor Who. And Jennifer Saunders was an interesting thought. I think she’d do a good job as the first female Time Lord.

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American Family Association

You remember the American Family Association, right? They’re pro-family.

But not the gay kind.

And families might not be for you if you have AIDS (it’ll be hard to maintain close ties with all the quarantining). And Jews should maybe not be invited to have Families either. Other than that, they seem to be about Families for Everybody!

Oh, and a lot of boycotts. Yay!

Currently the AFA are boycotting McDonaldsbecause they joined something called the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and therefore are “aggressively promoting the homosexual agenda”. I happen to love America because a boycott is a solid way to register your outrage. And we’re all entitled to our own opinions.

And I like reading comments from some of my fellow Americans. It’s good to see how very similar we can be. And also not. No matter your views…some are just worded in a way that caused a giggle.

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Ummm…Sir, Is That Your Son?

I didn’t really realize it before.

But this guy…

 

Might just be the father of this guy:

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News Flash

Stephen Colbert is a really delicious flavor of ice cream.

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Week’s End Update – Your Headlines

Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence says Tara Reid reeked of booze and cigarettes - In her defence, Reid claims that booze and cigarettes were the only thing that could mask the overwhelming stench of abject failure and total shamefaced disgrace.

China set to unblock “Great Firewall” during Bejing Olympics- Millions of Chinese have two weeks to google search how Westerners get rid of all their unwanted female children.

Winona Ryder was caught shoplifting makeup from a CVS. – Her excuse last time was she was “researching a role,” this time she claimed she “didn’t know how that got there,” once she blows through “holding it for a friend,” expect the next excuse to invole either magnets or tiny little men in her pockets. – But seriously, isn’t the real story here that Winona uses drugstore cosmetics? Doesn’t she have any celeb-u-status left to score some high-end serious swag?

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Happy First Day of Spring.

Or, if you’re like me, clicking on Google today made you wonder, “Is it national Pin Cushion Day?”

Ohhhhh.

Those are tulips. It’s March 2o. The vernal equinox. Spring is trying to spring.

Got it.

What happened on this day in history? Any famous people born on March 20?

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Fiction Tourney. Who Ya Got?

Not psyched for the NCAA Tourney? You can always make your picks for TMN’s literary Tournament of Books. Same bracketology; different genre. I’m hoping for a smackdown in the final between, “And Then We Came to The End” over “On Chesil Beach.”

Admit it, you’re gonna put some money down on “Tree of Smoke” to take it all, but everyone’s saying that’s a shoo-in to win. Take a risk, man. Who’s your Cinderella Story this year?

Let’s dance.

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Goodbye, Arthur

Arthur C. Clarke died on March 18 – a visionary of the space age. He may be most remembered for ’2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY’ which was developed from a 1951 (?) story “The Sentinel”. Kudos to anyone who knows what “The Sentinel” was about.

He also said:

Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth. –Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this universe, there shines a star.”

- (from Clarke’s foreword in 2001, A Space Odyssey, 1968)

He was a scientist whose work with satellites led to the coining of the term a “Clarke orbit.” He foresaw the use of communications satellites – without which we wouldn’t have GPS or TV…. He was a visionary award-winning science fiction author who influenced several generations of writers and became an icon of the SF subculture. He was a prolific writer of more than 100 books, several of which, “Childhood’s End” and “Rendezvous with Rama” were startling reading. Resquiescat Intra Astra (and a free trip to the Quicky Mart to anyone who translates that).

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Ambition is…(SXSW Roundup)

All hail Paul Ford! – He did the impossible. He did the unthinkable. He did the why-would-anyone bother?

He downloaded the entire SXSW torrent file which contains more than 48 continuous hours of music, representing 763 different bands (which is less than half the bands that played).  Are you beginning to comprehend how ridiculously large the scale of South by Southwest is???

And he listened to each song in its entirety. And he reviewed each band. Succinctly. In 6 words or less.

He also provides a link where you can download their songs. Check it out. Comprehensive and kinda handy, huh?

Also, for those who care, The Raconteurs release their second full albun next Tuesday.

And NPR had some really good coverage of SXSW as well. Archives of concerts (some videos), including REM, Yo La Tengo, AA Bondy, Bon Iver and more. And really good blog coverage too.

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Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

Whoa.

So, technically it’s been around for years. In the nineteenth century eyeball tattooing was used as a cosmetic correction in some cases of blindness. But this just doesn’t seem right.

Criminy! I am all for rugged individualism, but whatever happened to trekking the Appalachian Trail? Sitting on Walden Pond? Exploring the wilds of Alaska?

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Bans of the Week

A community on the outskirts of Los Angeles has banned swearing and cursing for a week.

An Irish bar has banned the most maudlin of tunes, “Danny Boy” for the month of March. (He doesn’t want that song, written by an Englishman who never set foot on Irish soil to harsh the buzz on St. Paddy’s day).

And how did we miss this? Randy Quaid has been banned from the stage forever. Wow, when you piss off theater folks,  they take serious action.

 

So, no hopes of seeing him reprise his role as Cousin Eddie in the touring musical version of “Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure” at a community theater near you anytime soon.

Or Ever.

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News of the Week

Sign up for retribution! 

 

If you bought Airborne to keep all the germies out pre-flight, there may be a piece of the big settlement pie waiting for you. They’re on the hook for false advertising because maybe they didn’t do any testing involving actual doctors. But what does that matter? The product itself was invented by an elementary school teacher so, it was probably never based on real science (at least not any that involved science above a 2nd grade level).

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The News This Week

It’s not even Friday, so going back 5 days – Sheesh, There have been a ton of world events, Right?

•  There was a lunar eclipse, next one 2010, hope you caught it!
• Largest Beef Recall Ever- Unfortunately, most of it’s already been consumed.
• Obama adds Che Guevara flag to his Texas offices, good call? Bad call?

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You Learn Something You Should Have Already Known.

I hate that feeling. You learn something so basic that you can’t believe that it took so long to dawn on you.

Like learning how to comb your hair. At age 10.

Or this dang 100% button in the lower right corner of the browser.  Did you know that if you click on that it enlarges your window to 125%?  Click it again and it bumps up to 150%.  But now you’re stuck at 150% right?  Nope.  Click it again and you back to 100%.  So easy. So, why havie I been squinting my ass off half the time?

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My First Thought on Hearing the News

CNN.com was kind enough to inform me that the FBI wants palm prints and eye scans and tattoo mapping and they’re planning on awarding a $1 billion dollar contract in the near future.

Yes, we’re on our way to becoming a surveilled society. Yes, it’s a little scary.

But my first thought was, ‘I bet Halliburton wins that contract.’

Cynical.

We’ll see.

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New Joke Day.

I’m still working on this one so bear with me.

Four guys walk into an bar: a mormon, a black guy, a feminist broad and a guy who lived in a cage for 5 years… 

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Oh, I knew he Died but…

I had missed the headline. 

2008, will you top that?

Can you top that?

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Ancient Chinese Secret

Well the cold and flu season is upon us and I have just the new trick to help you out. It might be tempting fate to say that I almost want a cold this year to try this remedy.

Someone, Anyone…get a cold and report back.!

Thick sweet dark syrup with ginger…maybe I’ll just try it anyway. 

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2008 – It’s Gonna be Great

It’ early in the month and a great time to come up with a theme for the year (I mean – look at the Audi wall for some possibilities).

Suggested Favs:

• The Year of the Rat (Chinese)
• Ratteriffic (A nice variation on a theme)
• This year, the world got a little older
• Party like it’s 2009!!!
• Where’s my rocket car?
• Election? We don’t need no stinkin’ election
• But first, The Primaries
• Buy more stuff from China – and give it to your enemies
• 2008 – No Sleepin’ Late
• Where’s My Jet Pack?
• 2008 – Cause I’m Sleepin’ Late
• Oh No – Not Again!!

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I Hate Bank of America – You should too!

I tried to spread the word over that poor soul who was arrested for checking on (asking if someone else’s BoA check was good) a fraudulent check he was given in a craigslist scam months ago.

But here’s a reason to hate them even if you don’t bank with them. If you’re in a pickle and use one of their ATMs, it costs you $5 to take out your $20.  – $3 ATM fee and $2 out of network fee but, they only have the decency to tell you about one of them. The other will just be a little surprise for you later on. Enjoy.

Avoid Bank of America.

(Interesting tidbit, banks make more on fees than on interest. How crazy is that)?

UPDATE: Tear up that Credit Card!

How does Bank of America reward its loyal customers? By jacking up their interest rates!! Yay.

This is not only for those who have fallen behind on their payments or whose credit scores have dropped but for any customer whatsoever.  BofA sent letters to its customers saying that they would more than double their interest rates to as much as 28% without giving an explanation for the raise in rates.

Business Week calls it, “a credit card you want to toss.” We couldn’t agree more.

I hope the next advertising tagline is: “Bank of America the scourge of the banking industry.” They can afford to be truthful. No one can do anything about such a behemoth.

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Daily Show and Colbert Report to return.

I’m sure Comedy Central is forcing their hands and I’m not sure how good these shows will be without their writers but, selfishly, I’m glad they’re coming back.

They summed it up in a joint statement, Stewart and Colbert said: “We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.”

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Ahhh. Good Old Fashioned Sibling Rivalry.

In the “I want to be famous too!” category: Britney Spear’s 16 year old sister is pregnant.

The competition is heating up, y’all. I seem to remember a gum-smacking Britney telling Matt Lauer she was poor white trash. Don’t worry, honey, we believe you. You can stop trying so hard now. You can put the gunrack back in the trailor. Every last one of us is convinced.

I do wonder whether Nickolodeon will still think Jamie-Lynn Spears, now an unwed teen mommy, is still a good role model for kids. Maybe they should rethink her contract on Zooey 101. No?

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Texas-sized Garbage Island- Your Subtelty Isn’t Lost On Me.

We’ve all heard the rumors of the Texas sized (or twice the size of Texas, depending on who’s reportage you’re listening to) pile of trash floating in the Pacific. The scuttlebutt is that it is hanging out somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii; How come there are no pictures of it? I would think it would be visible from some satellite. Or that Google Earth would be able to come up with something to slake the public’s thirst for knowledge.

(EDIT: See link below).

It is rumored to be between three feet and three or four hundred feet thick in different areas. Is all this submerged underwater? Is there no bit of it popping it’s little head though the surface of the,  sea?

And don’t think I don’t appreciate the fact that no matter how big it is, the pile of crap is always comparable to Texas. Your constant subliminal linking of the two is not lost on me.

Check it out!

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Uh, Dad? This One’s for You.

A pint of beer is better for you after a workout than water, say scientists

Yes. If you wait long enough scientists will support any cockamamie theory you want them to.

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