For some, this is a national holiday

Today is National Pizza with the Works (Except Anchovies, I'm not joking - I've seen this exception on many sites) Day

What's so wrong about anchovies? (I'm going to refrain from telling you the old George Carlin jokes I know that involve anchovies.)


As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn't see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more.







Happy Birthday Neil Percival Young !!!


November 12, 1955 -
Today was one of the most event-filled dates in Hill Valley, CA history:

George McFly and Lorraine Baines kissed for the first time at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance on this date. One week earlier, George had been struck by a car driven by Lorraine's father, Sam Baines, and Lorraine looked after him during his recovery. Lorraine accepted George's invitation to go the dance. Marvin Berry & the Starlighters played popular music during the entire dance, such as Night Train and Earth Angel.



During the famous Hill Valley Thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning strikes the Clock Tower at precisely 10:04 p.m., and it hasn't rung since.


November 12, 1993 -
Jane Campion's Oscar-winning film, The Piano starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel (and his penis), Sam Neill and Anna Paquin,was released in the US on this date.



Jane Campion became the first woman to win the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with this film, though she was unable to receive the award in person as she was due to give birth. 


Today in History:
King Cnut of England, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden died on this date in 1035. (Cnut is better known to most Americans as King Canute, which offers fewer typographical hazards.)



Cnut was the son of Svein Forkbeard, son of Harald Bluetooth, son of Gorm (now you know.) In 1013 Cnut's father conquered all of England from the Saxon King Aethelred but died anyway. This allowed Aethelred to take England back, which made it necessary for Cnut himself to reconquer England in 1016. He enjoyed this so much that he went on to conquer Scotland, Denmark, Norway, and part of Sweden, all of which came to be known collectively as Cnutland, perhaps explaining the region's subsequent popularity among European dyslexics.

This will be on the test.


November 12, 1912 -
The bodies of Captain Robert Scott and his men found on the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, frozen solid in one huge block of ice, on this date.



So he had literally become Scott of the Antartic.


November 12, 1933 -
Hugh Gray of the British Aluminium Company took five pictures of the Loch Ness Monster, the first known photos. Four the the five exposures were blank, and the remaining photo was later proven to be a hoax.

The brand of whiskey, Mr. Grey consumed has been lost in the ethers of time.


Early on the morning of November 12, 1942, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, mob informer, then in protective custody, fell to his death from a hotel window. It is not known whether he was thrown or pushed out the window, or if he was trying to escape. The angle of trajectory suggests that he was, in fact, defenestrated (my favorite word.)



Because of his mob status as a stool pigeon and the circumstances surrounding his death, Reles gained another moniker after his passing. In addition to "Kid Twist," Reles became known as "the canary who sang, but couldn't fly."


It was on this date in 1948 that former Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and seven others were sentenced to hang.

(This was back in the quaint old days, when the world considered it legal not only to have enemies, but to kill them after they tried to kill you.)



And so it goes



There are 17 days until Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah.(It seems I lost count yesterday)
There are 43 days until Christmas. (it's lightly snowing in NYC today)