Baby it's Cold Outside

While the folks at ACME Industries are retooling Today in History - here's a selection from St. Mel's Almanac, a guide to, at least, a mediocre life.

Mildly Upsetting Fortune-Cookie Messages.Found on the Internet
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"Your car is unreliable and poorly maintained."

"Your friends secretly agree that your head is too small for your body."

"The man you've just hired to paint your house is an alcoholic. His work will be yeomanlike at best."

"Your roommate is stealing from you."

"The pants you've recently purchased are unfashionably short."

"You frequently mispronounce 'Antarctic,' and 'volumptuous' is not a real word."

---WEATHER ALMANAC---Travellers to El Nebke, Syria, can look forward to dry, mild weather throughout the week, with only sporadic hostage-taking. Bring a book just in case!

---FACT OF THE WEEK---The country code for Burkina Faso is 233.

---THIS WEEK’S ASTROLOGICAL OUTLOOK---
Capricorn:It's not your fault, so don't fret about it any longer. You will die a horrible death involving alien abduction. Take comfort in the knowledge that the National Enquirer will pay your family handsomely for your life story. Believe me, eat dessert first, life is very short, especially in your case.

January 3, 1951 -The ominous, four-note introduction to the brass and tympani theme music, then the staccato voice over intones, "Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent," for the first time on television.

January 3, 1953 - Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress. I wonder if she kept telling him to sit up straight and stop talking to his neighbor while they were at work?

January 3, 1958 -The editor of the scandal magazine Confidential, Howard Rushmore, murders his wife and then commits suicides in the back of a taxicab in NYC. I bet Howard was sorry that he couldn't read that story in Confidential.

January 3, 1961 -Three technicians -- John Byrnes, Richard McKinley, and Richard Legg -- are killed when the SL-1 experimental nuclear reactor explodes in Idaho Falls, Idaho. McKinley's corpse is found stuck to the containment dome ceiling, impaled on a control rod. The crewmen's radioactive bodies are so hot they have to be buried in lead-lined caskets. You think you hate your job - think about the clean up crew on this one.

January 3, 1962 -Pope John XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro. I'm sure Fidel is very concerned about his immortal soul languishing in hell.

January 3, 1967 -Jack Ruby dead of natural causes. He could possibly be one of the only people involved in this sordid affair that did.

January 3, 1969 -In New Jersey, 30,000 copies of John and Yoko's album "Two Virgins" are confiscated because the cover is deemed obscene. There is nothing more shocking than two naked multimillionaires on the cover of your Rock and Roll Album. Kids, go ask your parents what albums were.

January 3, 1987Four non-cancerous polyps are removed from President Ronald Reagan's colon. Two of them are still living comfortably in Boca Raton.

January 3, 1990 -Manuel Noriega surrenders at the Papal Nunciature. You would too if you were forced to listen to Van Halen and The Howard Stern Show repeatedly. He is brought to Miami and charged with drug trafficking and money laundering.

And so it goes.