How about the lamellibranchs?

International Cephalopod Awareness Days are celebrated October 8th through the 12th. Today we celebrate Myths and Legends Day, saluting all the fantastical cephalopods of movies, literature and legend.



It's also World Egg day, so yes, let's all celebrate the incredible edible egg



I'm not clear when the current prices of eggs will come down - egg prices are high yet the price of chickens has come down. I am willing to speak to the Egg Board about this situation.


October 11, 1944 -
The murder-romantic classic, Laura, starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb and Vincent Price, premiered in NYC on this date.



Gene Tierney originally did not want to make this film but did it anyway under contract obligations.


October 11, 1958 -
Spencer Tracy was virtually the whole movie in The Old Man and the Sea, which opened in U.S. theaters on this date.



Ernest Hemingway himself was initially involved in the production, although the extent of his participation after selling his book was to go marlin-fishing off the coast of Peru to try to find a fish worthy enough for the picture. In the end, the producers used a rubber marlin and stock footage of marlin fishing in which Hemingway didn't participate in.


October 11, 1962 -
We all got to follow the wacky adventures of the crew of PT-73 when McHale's Navy set sail for the first time on this date on ABC-TV.



It was quite unusual for PT-boat captains to hold staff rank, as McHale does (he is a lieutenant commander). Usually, the captain of a PT-boat would be a lieutenant or junior lieutenant.


October 11, 1975 -
The long running (some say too long running) comedy variety show started at 11:30 PM, on this date, with George Carlin as its host.  It was called NBC's Saturday Night, because ABC featured a program at the same time titled Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. After ABC canceled the Cosell program in 1976, the NBC program changed its name to Saturday Night Live on March 26, 1977.



Studio 8H where SNL is filmed is not connected to the GE Building (NBC Studios) at Rockefeller Center, but is suspended by wires from the next floor. Arturo Toscanini, the director of the NBC orchestra, performed on radio from studio 8H and did not want the vibrations from the New York City subway to disturb his radio broadcasts so his studio was isolated from the rest of the building.


October 11, 2006 -
One of the funniest shows about TV (other than Mary Tyler Moore) 30 Rock, starring Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin appear in every episode. Tina Fey was not originally going to star in the show. However, NBC insisted she appear. Alec Baldwin has said that this show is the best job he's ever had.


Today in History:
October 11, 1884 -
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt and wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, was born in New York City on this date.





She was the first wife of a president to hold her own news conference at the White House, in 1933. She was a delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 until 1952. During her time at the United Nations she chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.


October 11, 1899 -
The Bores of South Africa declared war on Great Britain in the hopes of generating interest, on this date.



(The war should not be confused with the Boar War, which had been canceled on account of the loss of tusks.)


October 11, 1910 -
Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane on this date. He flew for four minutes with Arch Hoxsey at Kinloch Field (Lambert-St. Louis International Airport), St. Louis, Missouri in a plane built by the Wright Brothers.

He was having such a good time, he became the first US President to be repeatedly clubbed like a baby seal to get him out of the plane.

Bully!


October 11, 1919 -
Britain's Handley Page Transport became the first airline to serve in-flight meals when it offered lunch boxes on its London-to-Paris flight on this date.



The meals, consisting of a sandwich, fruits and chocolate, were sold at 3 shillings each. (British Airways has some of those first meals still available for purchase.)


October 11, 1952 -
Referee Francis DeReus halted the college football match between Wesleyan and Dubuque because of the profanity spewing from Dubuque's coach, Kenneth "Moco" Mercer. DeReus tossed coach and team from the game, and called the game because of profanity. The final score was Iowa Wesleyan 1, Dubuque 0. History does not record which vulgarities were involved.

Wanna guess?


October 11, 1961 -
Leonard 'Chico' Marx, the oldest of the Marx Brothers, died on this date. Chico was a compulsive womanizer and had a lifelong gambling habit. His addiction cost him millions of dollars by his own account. His brother, Gummo Marx, in an interview years after Chico's death, said, "Chico's favorite people were actors who gambled, producers who gambled, and women who screwed."



For a while in the 1930s and 1940s Chico led a big band. Singer Mel Torme began his professional career singing with the Chico Marx Orchestra (Desi Arnaz also toured with that band.)



Chico's lifelong gambling addiction compelled him to continue in show business long after his brothers had retired in comfort from their Hollywood income, and in the early 40s, he found himself playing in the same small, cheap halls he had begun his career in 30 years previously.



It was rumored that when Bugsy Siegal was shot, one of the items found on his person was a check from Chico, payment of a gambling debt from a poker game.


October 11, 1968 -
NASA launcher Apollo 7, the first successful manned mission in the Apollo lunar-landing program on this date. The launch was performed with very little fanfare, as it was the first American space mission since three astronauts died in a fire aboard Apollo 1.



However, the mission does mark the first live television transmission from a spacecraft in orbit.


October 11, 1976 -

After the death of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, Mao's widow Jiang Qing and three others, dubbed the "Gang of Four," were arrested and charged with plotting a coup, on this date. Their first album, Entertainment! was released two years later.



After their re-education, eventually, so were they.


October 11, 1978 -
Former Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) stabbed girlfriend Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb) to death in room 100 of New York's Chelsea Hotel on this date. Because Sid remembered nothing about the crime, theories include robbery and an abortive suicide pact. Vicious died of an ugly heroin overdose shortly before his trial.



Folks, there are no pretty heroin overdoses.


October 11, 2008 -
Luc Costermans, of Belgium, wanted to prove something on this date.  So he borrowed a Lamborghini Gallardo that was outfitted with some special equipment. (I don't have any friends that would loan me their Lamborghini.)

Driving with Guillaume Roman, Costermans drove 192 miles per hour on an airstrip in France, breaking the previous record of 178.5 miles per hour, which had been set three years before.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Costermans is blind and apparently Roman is crazy.



And so it goes