Tinsel is distracting

Festivus for the rest of us



As not to embarrass yourself tonight at your Festivus family gathering, here are the four tenets of the holiday:



The Festivus Pole: During Festivus, an unadorned aluminum pole is displayed. The pole was chosen apparently in opposition to the commercialization of highly decorated Christmas trees, because it is "very low-maintenance," and also because the holiday's patron, Frank Costanza, "find[s] tinsel distracting."

Festivus Dinner: The Festivus dinner menu is flexible, but it should consist of filling, non-holiday comfort food (no turkey, duck, goose, or ham). The televised dinner featured what may have been meatloaf or spaghetti in a red sauce. (Presumably, an entree in a red sauce is more festive.) Kruger took a flask out from his jacket and took a swig; so one might interpret that drinking is optional.



The Airing of Grievances: At the Festivus dinner, each participant tells friends and family of all the instances where they disappointed him or her that year.

The Feats of Strength: The head of the family tests his or her strength against one participant of the head's choosing. Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned to the ground. A participant is allowed to decline to attempt to pin the head of the family only if they have something better to do instead.

Don't forgot to keep your eye out for the Festivus Miracle. A Festivus Miracle is a frequent if unimpressive miracle. Carrying in all the groceries into the house for Festivus Dinner without tripping or dropping one of the bags could be considered a Festivus Miracle.

A Healthy and Happy Festivus to you and your family.


It's the Sixth Day of Hanukkah -

just a couple more days to go.



Contemplate this - The world's largest menorah stands at 32 feet (9.8 m) and is lit at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan near Central Park. In the heart of Kyiv and with the participation of the local leaders and ambassadors, lit a large menorah during their 10 month siege: Ukranian officials boasts that it is a 12-meter high menorah – making it the tallest in Europe. We didn't have a tape measure out there, so we'll let the brave folks in the Ukraine have the honor.


December 23, 1942 -
The Noel Coward-David Lean War time drama, In Which We Serve, premiered in the US on this date.



Noël Coward was a friend of Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was Captain of the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Kelly from the outbreak of the Second World War until Kelly was sunk by enemy action in May, 1941. Coward wrote the screenplay for this movie based on Mountbatten's experiences on HMS Kelly. Coward's character in the film, Captain E. V. Kinross R.N. / Captain 'D', was also based on Mountbatten's experiences.


December 23, 1954 -
Walt Disney's live-action film, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, premiered on this date.



In 1969, Captain Nemo's pipe organ, which had been on display in Disneyland, was redressed and now resides in the ballroom of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. A duplicate was constructed for the ballroom of Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom Haunted Mansion, which opened in 1971, and over a decade later another duplicate was built for Tokyo Disneyland.



The climactic squid battle on the Nautilus was originally shot with a serene sunset and a calm sea. Director Richard Fleischer was troubled by the look of it because the cams and gears that operated the squid could easily be seen, making it look obviously fake. Walt Disney visited the set one day and Fleischer told him about the problem. Disney came up with the idea of having the squid battle take place during a fierce storm (another story is that it was actually screenwriter Earl Felton who came up with the idea). The scene was reshot that way and is considered by many to be the highlight of the film.


December 23, 1956 -
Alfred Hitchcock's classic quasi-docudrama, The Wrong Man, starring Henry Fonda, Anthony Quayle and Vera Miles, opened in Los Angeles, on this date.



This movie is one of Martin Scorsese's favorite Alfred Hitchcock movies, and was an influence on Scorese's Taxi Driver.


December 23, 1964 -
The Beach Boys made their first appearance on ABC-TV’s musical variety series Shindig!, on this date



The performance was tape on December 14th. Besides Dance, Dance, Dance, the band went on to perform Little Saint Nick, Monster Mash, Papa Oom Mow Mow, Johnny B. Goode,and We Three Kings of Orient Are. (Only hours before the show airs, Brian Wilson unfortunately suffered his first nervous breakdown on a flight from Los Angeles to Houston, in front of his horrified family.)


Today's theme - the holidays can be a lonely time.


Today in History:
December 23, 1690 -
Royal British astronomer John Flamsteed made the first sighting of Uranus by an astronomer on this date. Unfortunately, he didn't know what he was looking at, and classified it as a star: so yes, he didn't know Uranus from a star (I couldn't help myself.)

The 7th planet – Uranus – was 'officially' discovered on March 13, 1781, once again, completely by accident. British astronomer William Herschel was performing a survey of all the stars that were of magnitude 8 (too faint to see with the eye – or brighter.) He noticed an object that moved in front of the star background over time, clearly demonstrating it was closer to us than the distant stars. At first he thought he had found a comet, but later realized this object was a new planet in orbit around the Sun.


December 23, 1750 -
Benjamin Franklin was severely shocked while electrocuting a turkey on this date. Franklin believed electrocuting the turkey would make it more tender.

Lost in the annals of history is the crime the fowl committed.


December 23, 1823 -
The famous poem A Visit From St. Nicholas was first published on this date. It begins, Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ....



Fourteen years after its first publication, an editor attributed the poem to a wealthy professor of classical literature named Clement Clarke Moore.



In the last few years, new evidence has come out that a Revolutionary War major named Henry Livingston Jr. may have been the actual author of The Night Before Christmas.



His family has letters describing his recitation of the poem before it was originally published, and literary scholars have found many similarities between his work and The Night Before Christmas. He was also three quarters Dutch, and many of the details in the poem, including names of the reindeer, have Dutch origins.


December 23, 1888 -
After an argument with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh took a razor and removes a portion of his left ear. Their quarrel regarded the prostitutes in Arles who seemed to prefer Gauguin over Van Gogh; the painter delivered his ear a startled prostitute. She fainted.



Some women get very emotional when they receive that special gift.


December 23, 1938 -
The Coelacanth is one of the oldest living fish, and was thought to have gone extinct some 60 million years before Museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered the fish among the catch of a local angler, Captain Hendrick Goosen who caught one off the coast of South Africa on this date.



Since that time, more than 200 Coelacanths have been caught. It is one of the textbook examples of a "living fossil."


December 23, 1948 -
Japanese Premier Tojo and six others were hanged by the War Crimes Commission at Sugamo Prison, Tokyo, for the crime of starting an aggressive war on this date.



Now, that's not a necktie you want for Christmas.


December 23, 1954 -
The first successful kidney transplant between living patients were undertaken was performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston on this date.



Murray and his assistants removed one of Robert Herrick's kidneys and grafted it into his twin brother, Richard, who was dying of kidney failure. Richard Herrick made a successful recovery and lived another eight years.


December 23, 1968 -
On the first day of the first flight ever by astronauts to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman suffers from the first documented case of motion sickness. Previous astronauts had reported nothing -- partly because their ships were too small for them to move around a lot and get queasy, partly because they kept their mouths shut for fear they'd never fly again.

There is nothing worse than barfing into your own spacesuit.

Oh, wait a minute, yes there is - barfing into someone else's spacesuit.


December 23, 1986 -
Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager (no relation to Chuck Yeager), the Rutan Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing at California's Edwards Air Force Base after a nine-day trip on this date.



They covered 24,986 miles, more than doubling the old distance record set by a Boeing B-52 bomber in 1962 — a world record that remains unchallenged today.


December 23, 1985 -
In a Lutheran school playground, James Vance and Raymond Belknap acted upon a drunken suicide pact forged while listening to Stained Class by Judas Priest. Belknap shot a 12 gauge shotgun under his chin, dying instantly, and Vance followed, but survived with a severely disfigured face. He later dies from painkillers on Thanksgiving three years later. Both kids' parents file suit against the band, but a judge ultimately rejects their subliminal message theory.



I believe anyone would kill themselves being forced to listen to Judas Priest, but that's just me.

And so it goes