This trailer didn't test well

David O. Selznick may hay done just a touch too many drugs - this is the first trailer of the film



That whole Twilight vibe just wasn't there in the late 30's.


I caught this film yesterday and wanted to share it with you



Is that it? - Just about sums up most of Western Philosophy.


Alright, I promise, this is the last one - Look Around You: Maths



45,000,000,000,002


Today in History:
January 31, 1921 -
The Carroll A. Deering was a five-masted commercial schooner that was found run aground off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on this date. Its crew was mysteriously missing.
Theories abound about the the crews disappearance ranging from piracy, mutiny and victims of the dread 'Bermuda Triangle'.


The truth is out there.


January 31, 1921 -
John G. Agar, American's greatest B movie actor, first husband of Shirley Temple


and owner of the world's largest King Kong Statue (I kid you not), was born on this day.







Sometimes, it's just a red letter day.


January 31, 1940 -
The first monthly retirement check was issued to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, in the amount of $22.54. Miss Fuller, a Legal Secretary, retired in November 1939. She started collecting benefits in January 1940 at age 65 and lived to be 100 years old, dying in 1975.



Ida May Fuller worked for three years under the Social Security program. The accumulated taxes on her salary during those three years were a total of $24.75. Her initial monthly check was $22.54. During her lifetime she collected a total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits.


January 31, 1945 -
Private Eddie Slovik is the first U.S. soldier to be shot for desertion since the Civil War.



Although over 21,000 American soldiers were given varying sentences for desertion during World War II, including 49 death sentences, Slovik's was the only death sentence carried out.


January 31, 1950 -
Coming off yet another three day bender, President Truman gives the go-ahead for the development of Edward Teller's hydrogen bomb.

Hopefully, no one in the Axis of Evil is reading my blog


Explorer-I, officially Satellite 1958 Alpha (and sometimes referred to as Explorer 1), was the first Earth satellite of the United States, having been launched at 10:48 pm EST on January 31, 1958, as part of the United States program for the International Geophysical Year.

The satellite was launched from LC-26 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida onboard a Juno I rocket.



Electrical power was provided by mercury chemical batteries that made up approximately 40 percent of the payload weight. These provided power that operated the high power transmitter for 31 days and the low-power transmitter for 105 days. (This is on the test.)


January 31, 1961 -
The United States sends its first space monkey into space, Ham the chimpanzee. His Mercury/Redstone 2 achieves an altitude of 158 miles. Ham's capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and was recovered by a rescue ship later that day.

After the flight, Ham lived for 17 years in the National Zoo in Washington D.C., then at the North Carolina Zoo before dying at the age of 27 on January 19, 1983. Ham appeared repeatedly on television, as well as on film with Evel Knievel. Truly, a great way to honor this space pioneer - appear with Evel Knievel.


January 31, 1966 -
The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program. Three days later, on February 3, 1966 the Luna 9 spacecraft was the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data to Earth.

For unknown reasons, the pictures from Luna 9 were not released immediately by the Soviet authorities.



Now the truth can be told.


And so it goes.

National Inane Answering Message Day

Observed on January 30th every year, this holiday encourages you on this day to bring an end to all of the mindless and endlessly long answering machine messages that annoy and waste the time of callers.



Or, you could leave a long, drawn out, insane message on your machine this day. The choice is up to you.


Did you get a chance to see last night's full moon (you can see it again tonight) - it was the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. It offers anyone with clear skies an opportunity to identify easy-to-see features on the moon.

This being the first full moon of 2010, it is also known as The Full Wolf Moon. Amid the zero cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages.



In London, impeccably dressed werewolves are often seen on the prowl in search of a dish of beef chow mein.



The moon was about 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter than lesser full moons of the year, according to Spaceweather.com.



As a bonus, Mars was just to the left of the moon (the reddish, starlike object.)


January 30, 1969 -
At a free concert at their Apple corporate headquarters in London, The Beatles made their last-ever public appearance as a group.



Their performance of Get Back was filmed for the movie Let It Be.


Another in the series of science mockumentaries - Look Around You: Germs



Remember: Germs originated in Germany (this will be on the test.)


Today in History:
January 30, 1649 -
Once again, history proves that it's not always good to be the king (or apparently the man who overthrows him either). Charles I was your average inbred near dwarf royalty that much of Europe was popping out at the time. He is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the nation's shortest king. He married another inbred royal princess (Princess Henrietta Maria of France) and that would have been that. Unfortunately for him, two issues got in his way - his wife was Catholic and after much tsuris, England was in a Protestant mood.

Also, Charles had picked up the nasty habit of believe in the Divine right of the Monarchy. Parliament was feeling it oats and would have none of it and this lead to the English Civil War. Rather than the Blue and the Grey, England had the Roundheads and the Cavaliers (it really doesn't matter who was who - but it might be on the test.)

Charles and his supported were defeated and Charles was put on a show trial for High Treason. Since Charles believed he had a Divine right to be King, he put up no defense. Parliament, wishing all the best to meet the Divine, convicted him of treason and ordered his execution.

When Charles was beheaded on January 30th, 1649, it is reputed that he wore two shirts as to prevent the cold January weather causing any noticeable shivers that the crowd could have been mistaken for fear or weakness. He put his head on the block after saying a prayer and signaled the executioner when he was ready; he was then beheaded with one clean stroke.



It was common practice for the head of a traitor to be held up and exhibited to the crowd with the words Behold the head of a traitor!; although Charles' head was exhibited, the words were not used. In an unprecedented gesture, one of the revolutionary leaders, Oliver Cromwell, allowed the King's head to be sewn back on his body so the family could pay its respects. Charles was buried in private and at night on February 7th, 1649, in the Henry VIII vault inside St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.

This was Cromwell's big mistake.

Under Oliver Cromwell, England became a Republic and became Protectorate and ruled England until his death from malaria in 1658. He was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son Richard. Although Richard was not entirely without ability, he had no power base in either Parliament or the Army, and was forced to resign in the spring of 1659, bringing the Protectorate to an end. In the period immediately following his abdication, the head of the army, George Monck took power for less than a year, at which point, Parliament restored Charles II as king.



Now here's the kicker - in 1661, Oliver Cromwell's body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, and was subjected to the ritual of a posthumous execution. Symbolically, this took place on January 30; the same date that Charles I had been executed. As Cromwell was quite dead at the time, he could put up a very weak defense at best. His body was hung in chains at Tyburn. Finally, his disinterred body was thrown into a pit, while his severed head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Abbey until 1685. Afterward, the head changed hands several times, before eventually being buried in the grounds of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1960.


January 30, 1835 -
Andrew Jackson is the subject of the first recorded assassination attempt on a U.S. president. Jackson was crossing the Capitol Rotunda following the funeral of a Congressman when Richard Lawrence approached Jackson and fired two pistols, which both miraculously misfired. Jackson proceeded to beat the living daylights out of Lawrence with his cane, prompting his aides to restrain him.

As a result, Jackson's statue in the Capitol Rotunda is placed in front of the doorway in which the attempt occurred. Lawrence was later found to be mentally ill, having accused Jackson of preventing him from becoming King of England.


January 30, 1948 -
Sometimes, it's not good to be the world's greatest advocate of non violence.



Mohandas K. Gandhi is assassinated by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse on his way to morning prayers.



I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent - Gandhi


January 30, 1968 -
North Vietnam launches the Tet Offensive, in which they suffer a defeat and 46,000 dead,



but shocks the complacent American television viewer who had been led to believe the war was won.



Faced with an unhappy American public and depressing news from his military leaders, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided to end the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.


January 30, 1976 -
George HW Bush becomes the 11th director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a position which he holds until 1977.

Perhaps he knows who killed the Kennedys.



When after all it was you and me


And so it goes.

Another great mashup found

Bet you didn't know that Tony Soprano is a Wild Thing



Good chuckle for the morning.


J.D. Salinger, the author whose work touched millions and became a cultural touchstone for a generation of American teens, died Wednesday.

My only question is - did Death had a copy of Catcher in the Rye in his back pocket?


Pecking around the web I found this screamingly funny science mockumentary (well, to me anyway) - Look Around You: Water (via Boingboing)



Water, Water, What hast thou donst?


January 29, 1979 -
I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day. -- Brenda Spencer fires repeatedly at the school across from her residence in San Diego, killing 2 and wounding 8 children, using the rifle her father had given her as a gift. The reason she gave inspired the Boomtown Rats song.



Remember: guns don't kill people, it's the damn gifts our father's give us.


January 29, 1954 -
Oprah Gail Winfrey, the most influential woman in the world, is another year older.



After getting a President for a present last year, what do you get her this year?


January 29 1595 -
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in lobe with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun....





William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet is probably first performed (unless it wasn't).

I don't know, I wasn't there, were you?


It's Thomas Paine's birthday today. He was born in 1737.



You could commemorate the occasion by reading (or rereading) Common Sense. You could also commemorate the occasion by piercing an eyebrow or waxing your car or bikini area.

I don't care, it was just a suggestion.


January 29, 1964 -
Introducing us to precious bodily fluids, and the rule about no fighting in the War room, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released in the United States, on this date.



Nuclear annihilation will never be the same.


And so it goes.

Serendipity

Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely.

The word derives from an old Persian fairy tale and was coined by Horace Walpole on 28th of January 1754 in a letter he wrote to his friend Horace Mann (not the same man as the famed American educator).



This should not be confused with Synchronicity - which is an album by the Police (but that's another story).


I have no idea why this song popped into my head this morning. It's such a cheery tune to hum in the morning



and if a double decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side what a wonderful way to die ...


Today in History:
January 28, 814 -
First Reich: Charlemagne, German emperor, dies at the age of 71.

Though he had conquered much of Europe, his legacy was considerably reduced after his death from mismanagement and incompetence.



Coincidentally, The Siege of Paris, lasting from September 19, 1870 – January 28, 1871, ends, bringing about French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and led to the establishment of the German Empire (Second Reich).

Due to a severe shortage of food, Parisians were forced to slaughter whatever animals at hand. Rats, dogs, cats, and horses were regular fare on restaurant menus.

* Consommé de Cheval au millet. (horse)
* Brochettes de foie de Chien à la maître d'hôtel. (dog)
* Emincé de rable de Chat. Sauce mayonnaise. (cat)
* Epaules et filets de Chien braisés. Sauce aux tomates. (dog)
* Civet de Chat aux Champignons. (cat)
* Côtelettes de Chien aux petits pois. (dog)
* Salmis de Rats. Sauce Robert. (rats)
* Gigots de chien flanqués de ratons. Sauce poivrade. (rats)
* Begonias au jus. (flowers)
* Plum-pudding au rhum et à la Moelle de Cheval. (horse)

Even Castor and Pollux, the only pair of elephants in Paris, were not spared.


January 28, 1958 -
Those damn little toys that you step on in the middle of the night got their start today.



The Lego company patented their design of modern Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.


January 28, 1973 -
Barnaby Jones, starring Buddy Ebsen, premieres on CBS, on this date.



This was George Uttley's (Tom Poston) all-time favorite show in the sitcom Newhart. George would often quote Barnaby when faced with a problem and he needed sage advice to solve it.


January 28, 1977 -
Star of TV's Chico and the Man, Freddie Prinze has a violent allergic reaction to lead.



He commits suicide by shooting himself in the head on this date. He was only 23.


January 28, 1978 -
Fantasy Island, starring Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize, debuted on ABC television on this date.



The actual aircraft used in the series, a Grumman Widgeon seaplane, was rented from a local charter company and almost all of the footage of the plane used throughout the series and films was shot in one day and recycled over the entire run.


January 28, 1986 -
Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates 74 seconds into its flight, killing teacher Christa McAuliffe and the rest of the crew. Their capsule plunged intact into the ocean, pulverizing everyone on impact, making a rescue attempt difficult, if not impossible.

The cause was later found to be failure of a booster rocket O-rings because of the cold weather .

Moral: Avoid rocket travel this week, if possible.



And so it goes.

Huh?

VATICAN CITY, Italy (AP News) -- Pope John Paul II whipped himself with a belt, even on vacation, and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection, according to a new book by the Polish prelate spearheading his sainthood case.


If whipping yourself with a belt is what it takes to become a saint, there are scores of boys in Chelsea that are bucking for Archangel


January 27, 1832 –



Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Anglican deacon, children's author, mathematician, and photographer (child pornographer?) was born.

I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll, because he was the first Humbert Humbert. Have you seen those photographs of him with little girls? He would make arrangements with aunts and mothers to take the children out. He was never caught, except by one girl who wrote about him when she was much older. -- V.V. Nabokov, interview, Dec. 1966 Vogue


On January 21, 1901, the great maestro Joe Green (Giuseppe Verdi was merely his stage name) suffered a stroke while staying at the Grand Hotel et de Milan, in Milan. So revered was the composer that horses hooves were wrapped in blankets to muffle their noise as they passed the hotel where he rested.







Verdi gradually more feeble and died six days later, on this date. To date, his funeral remains the largest public assembly of any event in the history of Italy.


Today in History:
January 27, 1756 -
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian musical genius, composer and fart joke lover, whose works included The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, was born on this date.

January 27, 1859 -
Kaiser Wilhelm II, (Queen Victoria's first grandchild and first cousin to both King George V and Tsar Nicholas II) emperor who ruled Germany during World War I but was forced to abdicate in 1918, was born on this date.

Oh, those wacky royals.


January 27, 1900 -
Hyman Rickover, American admiral who is considered the "Father of the Atomic Submarine", was born on this date.

Creating a detail-focused pursuit of excellence to a degree previously unknown, Rickover redirected the United States Navy’s ship propulsion, quality control, personnel selection, and training and education, and has had far reaching effects on the defense establishment and the civilian nuclear energy field.


Jan 27 1967 -
A launchpad flash fire in the Apollo I capsule kills the astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward H White and Roger B Chaffee at Cape Canaveral.




Jan 27 1992 -
Candidate Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers mutually accuse each other of lying about whether or not they had a 12 year affair.



Oh, that wacky Bubba



And so it goes.

They're dancing in the streets (in India)

January 26 is Republic Day (Poorna Swaraj) in India and dancers from all over the nation gather in New Delhi every year on this day to dance in the huge National Arena and all along a five mile parade route.



On January 26, 1979, Le Freak was on the top of the American charts.



It's nice to think there's a connection.


Today in History:
January 26, 1958 -
Ellen DeGeneres, actress, comedian and Cover Girl spokes model, was born on this date.



I was going to make a joke comparing Ellen to Paula but I read this morning that Ellen is already annoyed with Simon - this is going to end badly.


January 26, 1962 -
Mafia boss Charles Lucky Luciano died of natural causes at the Naples airport. On the day of his fatal heart attack, Luciano had plans to sell the rights of his life's story to a movie maker. Luciano dropped dead as he was about to shake hands. The Mob disliked the idea and had tried unsuccessfully to change his mind. It has been hypothesized that Luciano's heart attack was a result of poisoning by the Mafia.



He was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Queens, New York after a federal court ruled his burial on United States soil could not be blocked on the grounds that a corpse is not a citizen of any country and is therefore not subject to immigration control or deportation laws.


January 26, 1979 -
Dukes of Hazzard premiered on CBS television with One Armed Bandits - (A shipment of slot machines is hijacked.)



High comedy indeed.


January 26,1979 -
70-year-old multibillionaire Nelson Rockefeller is stricken by a massive heart attack while giving dictation to his 27-year-old research assistant, Megan Marshack. Some time after that event, Marshack had called her friend, news reporter Ponchitta Pierce, to the townhouse and it was Pierce who phoned 911 approximately an hour after the heart attack.



Much speculation went on in the press regarding a personal relationship between Rockefeller and Marshack. Rockefeller's will leaves Marshak $50,000 and the deed to a Manhattan townhouse.

January 26, 1984 -
Michael Jackson's hair is ignited by a magnesium flash bomb at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles during the filming of a Pepsi television commercial, causing third-degree scalp burns.



It is later reveals that unscrupulous doctors prescribe a full regiment of pedophilia to ease the singers wounds.


January 26, 1998 -
U.S. President Bill Clinton denies, on television, having had sexual relations with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.



And sometimes, a blowjob is just a blowjob.


January 26, 1996 -
Insane madman millionaire John E. du Pont shoots Olympic wrestler David Schultz three times, killing him. A two day police standoff follows at the Foxcatcher estate and wrestling compound, with SWAT teams biding their time under the assumption that du Pont, an expert marksman, possessed an arsenal at his disposal.

Nothing good every comes from greasing yourself up and rolling around a mat with another person in a unitard.


And so it goes.

Finally - It's the official policy in the Antarctic!

The seals have been told! As has anyone in the ocean!


Check out No Kicking Penguins and find out how you can contribute to awareness for autism.

Since it is the last Monday of January, Today is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, a day honoring the conception of the bubble wrap, invented 50 years ago. Do you have time on your hands - go waste it at Bubble Wrap Fun. Then go wash your hands, you don't know where that time has been.


It's Robert Burns' birthday and people will be celebrating with a Burns Supper.

The Burns Supper is eaten all across Scotland each year on the anniversary of the national poet's birth. It consists of haggis and whiskey. It is customary for the host to read Burns' Ode to a Haggis at the dinner table, presumably as a diversionary tactic.

The haggis are a gentle breed of playful mammals indigenous to the Scottish highlands. They have never survived attempts at transplantation. They have been popular cuisine for as long as the British isles have been populated. Julius Caesar reflects in his memoirs that he tried to bring several thousand haggis back to Rome for breeding after his conquest of Brittania--a controversial decision that eventually led to civil war in the Roman Empire.

The ancient Picts of Ireland invaded and eventually settled Scotland in no small part because of their affinity for haggis. The ancient Celts migrated in the opposite direction to avoid it.

Haggis were traditionally trapped, killed, and prepared like most other small mammals. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, however, it became fashionable to drop living haggis, like lobster, into pots of boiling water.

This is because after boiling for half an hour the pelt peels off easily and can then be dried and used for in textiles. Haggis fur is especially popular in Scottish gloves, coats, and seat covers.

I would like to bring some attention to the terrible plight of the delicate and sweet-tempered Haggis, whose inoffensive lives are too often ended by being boiled alive at the hands of a boozy Scot.

In today's frigid atmosphere of political correctness, it is considered unfair to condemn the Scots for their grotesque maltreatment of these affectionate animals. To deplore their treatment of the haggis is to criticize their culture, and cultural criticism is an obscenity.

But Scottish culture? We're all grateful for whiskey, but is it enough to justify bagpipes and men in skirts? Has any other culture cried out so eloquently for condemnation?

Try looking into the trusting brown eyes of a haggis and explaining that it must be boiled alive and ceremonially dismembered for the sake of Scottish culture.

According to People against the Indefensible Treatment of Haggis, more than eight million haggis were "ranched" for this year's festivities. Over six million of these ranch-bred haggis, beside whom veal calves might well be considered pampered, were sold to Scots who will take them home, boiled them alive, then skin and dismember them. The nearly two million not sold will be tossed alive into commercial blenders, mixed with fresh cream, frozen, and later sold as the popular Scottish summer treat, Haggis Ice.

This horror must end. To help bring it home to Americans, I ask you to take a moment to reflect on our own Groundhog's Day. Each February 2, we honor the prognosticative skills of that curious little creature in a vast national celebration of pagan superstition. How many groundhogs die for this celebration? None. How many groundhog mothers are separated from their groundhog children in order to satisfy our national groundhog needs? None. How many grandfathers stand at the heads of their dinner tables, proudly presiding over the dismemberment of a steaming groundhog carcass?

The Scots could learn a thing or two about ethical animal treatment from us. We could probably also teach them a thing or two about trousers.

January 25, 1951 -
The story of a little boy who would only talk in sound effects, Gerald McBoing-Boing, was released on this date.



This cartoon won the Oscar for best animated short subject for 1951.

January 25, 1961 -
Walt Disney's 101 Dalmations, premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on this date.



This was the highest grossing movie in the US in 1961.


January 25, 1970 -
Robert Altman's Oscar winning film starring Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould, M*A*S*H, premiered in NYC on this date .



The opening title sequence has a text that identifies the place as Korea. This was added at the insistence of the studio after director Robert Altman had removed every reference to Korea, intending it to be mistaken for Vietnam, which would reinforce the anti-war statement.


Today in History:
January 25, 1924 -
The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France .





Prior to this, figure skating and ice hockey had been events at the Summer Olympics. Few, if any, of the athletes survived those winter sports Summer Olympics, as the rinks continually melted. And you don't want to know about the injuries sustained during nude hockey games.

January 25, 1927 -
Antonio Carlos Jobim, composer and primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, was born on this date.





If you are in your mid 40's to early 50's, you probably wouldn't have been born without the help of this guy - go ask your parents.


January 25, 1938 -
Etta James, blues, soul, R&B, rock & roll, gospel and jazz singer and songwriter, was born.





Pour yourself a double and listen to some powerful music.


January 25, 1947 -
Anita Pallenberg, model, actress, fashion designer and bathtub companion to Mick Jagger, was born on this date.






January 25, 1947 -
Mobster Al Capone dies in Florida, released from Alcatraz , due to his declining health (his mind gone from long untreated syphilis.)




January 25, 1960 -
Actress Diana Barrymore, Drew's aunt, commits suicide with alcohol and sleeping pills.



Go out and rent The Bad and the Beautiful.

January 25, 1971 -
Idi Amin Dada, everybody's favorite tyrant, comes to power in Uganda.



Forest Whitaker won a Golden Globe award, a BAFTA, the Screen Actors' Guild award for Best Actor (Drama), and the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of this cannibal.

Hopefully, Forest isn't a method actor.


January 25, 1971 -
Charles Manson and three of his followers are convicted in Los Angeles of the Tate and LaBianca murders.

All were sentenced to the gas chamber, with sentences commuted to life imprisonment when the death penalty was temporarily abolished.


January 25, 1990 -
An Avianca Boeing 707 ran out of fuel and crashed in Cove Neck, N.Y.



73 of the 161 people aboard were killed.



And so it goes.

Giggle of the morning

Two big thumbs up from the kids after breakfast (actually got them to stop playing Wii.)


January 24, 1947 -
Warren William Zevon, singer-songwriter and musician, was born on this date.









... I'm drinking heartbreak motor oil and Bombay gin
I'll sleep when I'm dead
Straight from the bottle, twisted again
I'll sleep when I'm dead ...

Remember kid's - keep enjoying every sandwich.


January 24, 1949 -
John Belushi, actor and comedian, was born on this date.



Because, I'm a dancer!!!


Today in History:
January 24, 41 -
Roman emperor and crackpot Caligula is assassinated by his bodyguards. His last words apparently were, "I am still alive! Strike again."



Yeah, yeah, I know you know that the Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a senator and a god, married his sister, slept with the horse, slept with the potted plants ...

I guess this guy got more unnatural things done in a day then most of us do in a lifetime.


January 24, 1848 -
James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento, starting the California gold rush.



According to the Gold Institute less than 2 million ounce's of gold wre mined during the height of the California Gold Rush in 1849.


January 24, 1908 -
The first Boy Scout troop is organized in England by its founder, Robert Baden-Powell, a man who enjoyed seeing and photographing naked boys swimming just a little too much.



It is odd that such a homophobic organization would be founded by a repressed homosexual.


January 24, 1927 -
Alfred Hitchcock, former titles writer for silent movies, releases his first film, The Pleasure Garden, in England.



Alfred Hitchcock and his future wife, Alma Reville became engaged during the shoot.


January 24, 1978 -
The nuclear-powered Soviet Cosmos 954 satellite plunges through Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates, scattering radioactive debris over parts of Canada's Northwest Territories. Much of the satellite lands in the Great Slave Lake; only about 1% of the radioactive material is recovered.

Hey, I hope we all enjoyed that smoked salmon from Canada in the late 70's.


January 24, 1986 -
Crackpot and founder of the fraudulent Scientology movement, L. Ron Hubbard dies. His bad science fiction writing has grown alarmingly prolific in the years since his death.

Hopefully, Tommy Davis doesn't read this.


And so it goes.

Class

To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I'll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere.

Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen - Conan O'Brien


January 23, 1950 -
Richard Dean Anderson, actor and love god of Patty and Selma Bouvier, was born on this date.





I wonder what Patty and Selma will think of the MacGruber movie

Today in History:
January 23, 1897 -
Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.

The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.


January 23, 1948 -
John Huston's classic film, Treasure of Sierra Madre, starring Humphrey Bogart opens in NYC on this date.



Walter Huston, father of director John Huston, won the Academy Award for best supporting actor. John won for best direction. This was the first father/son win.


January 23, 1975 -
Barney Miller, a TV series set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village, premieres on ABC TV.



Many real-life police officers considered this the TV show that best depicted the reality of police life.


January 23, 1978 -
Terry Kath of band Chicago accidentally kills himself while pretending to play Russian Roulette in Woodland Hills.



The circumstances of his death gave him the dubious distinction of being one of the first celebrities to be nominated for a Darwin Award.

Moral: Remember guns don't kill - one bullet in the chamber does.


January 23, 1985 -
O.J. Simpson was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. The great Buffalo running back, Leslie Nielsen sidekick, and alleged decapitator was the first Heisman Trophy winner to be inducted.



He remains the only inductee to the Hall of Fame to have been acquitted of double homicide.



And so it goes.

Remember - you are what you eat.

Are you filled with the finest ingredients?



Are you made real trees?


Remember your TV viewing is set for tonight. First watch Hope for Haiti Now (but don't watch it on NBC.) Then your local news. And finally the final appearance of Coco on The Tonight Show.


This video has been making it was around the internet. Once you hear it - you can't get it out of your mind



Please, if you could explain why the flight attendant went to the park to scare the swans, could you let me know?


January 22, 1968 -
The comedy show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, hosted by Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, premiered on NBC television on this date.



The show originally aired as a one-time special on September 9, 1967. It was such a phenomenal success that it was given a regular one-hour time slot on Monday nights, replacing The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Here's your Today in History -
Today is the birthday of Grand Duke Ivan III of Moscow, better known as Ivan the Great.

He was born in 1440 and became Grand Duke of Moscow in 1462. Although Moscow was a lot of fun, it was not yet Russia. Ivan was determined to remedy that shortcoming as quickly as possible: he had tsars in his eyes.

To enlarge his dominions he began nibbling at his smaller neighbors, paying an annual tribute to the

Golden Horde of Tatars to keep them from nibbling at him. Having eventually swallowed most of his surroundings, Ivan decided in 1480 that it was time to stop paying the Golden Horde.

The Golden Horde reminded him that it was time for their annual tribute. Ivan ignored them.

The Golden Horde sent him polite reminders in the mail, but he ignored these also.

They sent reminders on brightly colored stationery embossed with the words PAYMENT PAST DUE, but Ivan, alas, remained indifferent.

Finally the Golden Horde marched against Ivan and he marched his own troops out to meet them. The two armies met, faced off, and simultaneously retreated.

This was a victory for Ivan, in that neither he nor his descendants ever paid tribute to the Golden Horde again. But it was also a defeat for Ivan, who was therefore denied the rank of tsar.

(The first real tsar of Russia was his grandson, Ivan IV, "the shooting tsar.")


January 22, 1521 -
The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V commenced the imperial Diet of Worms, on this date, to address the issues Martin Luther brought up in his 95 Theses.

While worms in general are quite unpleasant to consume, most people were afraid to contridict the Emperor, so many people in Europe became Protestant.


It was on this date in 1807 that U.S. President Thomas Jefferson exposed a plot by his former vice-president and unconvicted murderer, Aaron Burr, to establish an empire in the southwestern part of the continent. Burr was eventually acquitted as a result of Chief Justice Marshall's tree-falling-in-forest ruling that treason wasn't treason unless someone was there to see it—along with someone else who saw the same thing. The vice-presidency was never the same.

From that date forward, retiring vice-presidents have been compelled to either retire into the political obsolescence of private life, where we can safely ignore them, or into the presidency, where we can keep an eye on them (or in Dick Cheney's case, get to run the government away from prying eyes.)


January 22, 1901 -
Alexandrina Victoria (Hanover, if she needed a last name) the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India of the British Raj, finally gave up the ghost much to the relief of her 59 year old son Edward, permitting him to finally get a job.



After 63 years England stops sale of Queen Victoria postage stamps series and began King Edward VII series .


January 22, 1905 -
Thousands of demonstrating Russian workers were fired on by Imperial army troops in St. Petersburg

on what became known as "Red Sunday" or "Bloody Sunday".



96 people were killed, and over 300 were wounded. This incident marks the beginning of the so-called 1905 revolution.


January 22, 1918 -
Manitoba, Canada film censor board decides to ban comedies, on the grounds that they make audiences too frivolous.



Canada does not fully recover their true frivolousness until the broadcasting of SCTV in the early 80's.


January 22, 1984 -
The future began today. The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, was introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with its famous 1984 television commercial.



Hooray for Apple - Oops, I mean Big Brother!!!


January 22, 1987 -



If you're a sick puppy, you know why I posted this video.



And so it goes.