Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.

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All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.

Happy Valentine's Day folks






Remember to enjoy the day and don't eat too much chocolate


Today is the 14th Day of The Lunar New Year Festival - tomorrow is Lantern’s Day and it marks the end of the Lunar New Year holiday.

The day before the Lantern Festival, the Lantern Display stages are built in the open square in the front of temples.





People bring their decorated lanterns to the display stage for the competition. Some lanterns might take more than a month to completely decorate.

People will also make offerings to the Goddess of Linshui, who is believed to protect women from dying in childbirth.



Fireworks still play an important part of Lantern Festival celebrations. Once again please remember, ACME is the leading distributor of 'off brand' fireworks in the world.


For those of you not in a romantic mood today:
February 14, 1931 -
Just in time for the Valentine's Day holiday, Universal Pictures released Tod Browning's horror classic, Dracula, on this date.



A Spanish-language version, Drácula, was filmed at night on the same set at the same time, with Spanish-speaking actors.


February 14, 1962 -
First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, with her breathless voice, takes television viewers on a tour of the White House. (Haven't you always found it strange that Marylin Monroe and Jackie Kennedy basically had the same voice?)



It was estimated that hundreds of millions of people saw the program, making it the most widely viewed documentary during the genre's so-called golden age.


February 14, 1963 -
Twentieth Century Fox releases the sci-fi film The Day Mars Invaded Earth, directed by Maury Dexter and starring Kent Taylor and Marie Windsor, to U.S. theaters on this date.



Filmed at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, California. Two years after this film was made, The City of Beverly Hills purchased the mansion in 1965. It was made into a public park in 1971. Greystone mansion was also used in The Loved One, in which one portion of the grounds appeared as the swimming pool where John Gielgud's character hangs himself, and one of the property's garden walkways "portrayed" Poet's Corner in the massive cemetery called Whispering Glades.


February 14, 1970 –
Sly & the Family Stone's song Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) and it's 'double A-side' Everybody Is a Star hit no. #1 on the Billboard charts at the same time on this date.





Sly Stone wrote this because he was upset that people were not listening to the messages in his songs even though the band was more popular then ever. They were an integrated band and tried to spread the message of racial harmony, but Stone thought that message was getting lost. The lyrics are scathing and mostly directed at Sly himself, but once again, many people lost the message in the powerful groove.


February 14, 1987 –
The Bon Jovi song, Livin’ On A Prayer, hit No. 1 on this date.



Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora wrote this with Desmond Child, a prolific songwriter who was brought in by the record company to give them a more commercial sound like he did for Kiss on I Was Made For Lovin' You. The characters Tommy and Gina were based on a real life situation Desmond encountered in the late '70s with his then-girlfriend, Maria Vidal, whom he was living with. According to the notes in his Desmond Child & Rouge: Runners In The Night album, Desmond was a New York taxi cab driver and Maria was a singing waitress in a diner. Vidal was nicknamed Gina by her fellow employees due to a physical resemblance to Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida.


February 14, 1991 -
Another fine film for Valentines Day - The Silence of the Lambs, based on the book by Thomas Harris, directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, premiered in the US on this date.



When characters are talking to Starling (Jodie Foster), they often talk directly to the camera. When she is talking to them, she is always looking slightly off-camera. Jonathan Demme has explained that this was done so as the audience would directly experience her point-of-view, but not theirs, hence encouraging the audience to more readily identify with her.


February 14, 1992 -
Besides learning that we are all not worthy of being in Alice Cooper's presence, we learned that "Milwaukee" is Algonquin for "the good land," when Wayne's World, starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey premiered on this date.



Alice Cooper came to the set under the impression that he would be performing musically for the film, with one line. Upon arrival, he was surprised to be handed an entire monologue to memorize and shoot with a small amount of time to do so. However, Cooper is known to be a history buff outside of his music career.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
February 14, 1400 -
... How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill’d,
All murdered ...



King Richard II of England, who had been deposed in 1399, died mysteriously on this date.


February 14, 1779 -
English explorer Captain James Cook and some of his crew are slaughtered (and possibly eaten) by angry Hawaiian islanders, after he tried to take a Hawaiian chief hostage over a dispute regarding a stolen boat.



There was possibly a better way to get the deposit back on a boat.


February 14, 1823 -
In honor of the Duke of Wellington, England erected the first nude public statue since antiquity — an 18ft bronze Achilles, (created from the loot of the British victories in France, 33 tons of captured French cannons) — in London's Hyde Park on June 18, 1822.

It caused such uproar, a fig leaf was added on this date.


February 14, 1849 –
On this date, in New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.

The daguerreotype was taken by famous photographer Matthew Brady. (According to some sources, after delivering his 1841 inaugural speech, President Harrison posed for a daguerreotype. Harrison died after only 31 days into his term. That photograph, if it existed, has since been lost.)


February 14, 1929 -
The Capone gang killed six members of the Bugs Moran gang and one other person at the S.M.C. Cartage company in Chicago, in an event known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Bogus police officers were used so that it appeared to be a routine police bust. Except for all the bodies.



The bloody St. Valentine's Day Massacre stirred a media storm centered on Capone and his illegal Prohibition-era activities and motivated federal authorities to redouble their efforts to find evidence incriminating enough to take him off the streets.

February 14, 1948 -
Raymond Joseph Teller (Teller) an illusionist, comedian and writer best known as the silent half of the comedy magic duo known as Penn and Teller, accomplished sleight of hand artist, painter, atheist, debunker, skeptic and Fellow of the Cato Institute was born on this date.



He legally changed his name to Teller and possesses one of the few United States passports issued in a single name.

Yeah, he can speak (you idiots.)


February 14, 1989 –
Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.



Still, 30 years later, threats against Salman Rushdie's life persist. Although mass protests have stopped, the themes and questions raised in his novel remain hotly debated.


February 14, 1990 -
The Pale Blue Dot photograph of planet Earth was taken on this date, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 3. 7 billion miles (6 billion kms).

In the photograph, Earth's apparent size is less than a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of sunlight scattered by the camera's optics.

We are truly but stardust.



And so it goes.