Kid, bundle the hell up

The polar vortex as frozen most of the US this morning

remember, exposed flesh can become frostbitten in less than five minutes!


Please start putting your Christmas trees curbside (remember that most of a pine tree is actually edible.)



And yet, do you really want wood chips stuck in your colon for most of the year?

This year, MulchFest will take place on Saturday and Sunday, January 11 and 12 (in NYC.) Parks will host 35 chipping sites and 35 additional drop-off locations: 70 sites in all!


Today in History:
January 7, 1325 -
King Alfonso IV ascended the Portuguese throne on this date.

So now you know.


January 7, 1800 -

Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States, was born on this date. (Often cited as one of the 10 worse Presidents because he backed the Compromise of 1850 that delayed the Southern secession by allowing slavery to spread.



And no, he didn't install the first bathtub in the White House, that was a hoax by Henry Louis Mencken.


January 7, 1894 -
William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for the first practical celluloid film and decided on 35 mm for the size, a standard still used.



The earliest surviving copyrighted motion picture, the Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze is a short film made by W. K. L. Dickson on January 7th, 1894 for advertising purposes. Often referred to as Fred Ott's Sneeze, this is is one of the world's earliest motion pictures and America's best known early film production. The star is Fred Ott, an Edison employee known to his fellow workers in the laboratory for his comic sneezing and other gags.


January 7, 1912 -
Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.



Charles Addams, cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters, was spawned on this date.


January 7, 1943 -
The world's greatest inventor, Nikola Tesla, died alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel, of heart failure on this date in history.



Despite having sold his AC electricity patents, Tesla died with significant debts on the books.


January 7, 1957 -
If I hear the word 'perky' again, I'll puke.



Katherine Anne Couric, TV news host and colonoscopy spokes model, was born on this date.


January 7, 1967 -
The Newlywed Game premiered on ABC TV on this date (the show began airing in 1966 as a local afternoon show in some areas.)



I know your thinking about it - where was the most unusual place you and your husband made whoppee?


January 7, 1999 –
This is not a great day for Bubba - The impeachment trial of President William Jefferson Clinton began on this date.

It was only the second impeachment of a President in American history, following the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.



And so it goes.