Sunday, February 22, 2009

Here's a tip for your Oscar pools

Most of the major awards are a lock - Slumdog, Heath Ledger, Kate Winslet, etc., you've got to get the minor ones. Start googling critics Oscar picks now and average their scores.


February 22, 2002 -
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones, director of many of the classic short animated cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote, died on this date.



In 1996, Jones received an Honorary Academy Award in, for "the creation of classic cartoons and cartoon characters whose animated lives have brought joy to our real ones for more than half a century." At that year's awards show, Robin Williams, a self-confessed "Jones-aholic," presented the Honorary award to Jones, calling him "The Orson Welles of cartoons."

Today in History:
On February 22, 1862, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president of the Confederate States of America.



I guess his mother was proud of him.


February 22, 1987 -
Andy Warhol dies of complications after gallbladder surgery, though the details are hazy. The official cause was listed as cardiac arrhythmia, but speculation includes his fear of hospitals as well as possible Cefoxitin allergy. Mr. Warhol is best known for painting pictures of Campbell's Soup cans and Marilyn Monroe, although never together. Warhol's death brings him a bonus 15 minutes of fame.



His work can be seen in museums and galleries around the world to this very day.



Campbell's Soup cans can still be found in the canned goods section of your favorite supermarket to this very day.


February 22, 1980 -
During the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3.



It is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in sports history (the Miracle on Ice.)


February 22, 1994 -
CIA agent Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.



And though by 1989 Ames had acquired unexplainable wealth from his spying and did very little to conceal the spying, he somehow managed to evade being caught for five more years.


February 22, 1997 -
The first cloning of an advanced mammal, a sheep known as Dolly, is announced in the news media. Dolly was cloned from a mammary cell,



Dolly was purportedly named after Dolly Parton.

I guess that's a compliment.


And so it goes.

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