Gong Hei Fat Choy

The Lunar New Year starts today, and it's the Year of the Pig, but which one?



In Chinese astrology, each year is associated with a Chinese zodiac animal sign and one the Five Elements: Gold (Metal), Water, Wood, Fire, or Earth. Both the sign and element of your birth year are said to affect your personality and destiny. Once again, this year’s elemental sign is earth - so we are celebrating Earth Pig.

(Please be aware that once again, Mr. Teeny and  I will be celebrating Chinese New Year recklessly this Year of the Pig, by shooting firecrackers in public locations for the next two weeks. Please also remember that people in China don't call it Chinese New Year, it's Lunar New Year; other countries celebrate Lunar New Year as well.)



Legend has it that in ancient times, Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on the Lunar Chinese New Year. Twelve came, and Buddha named a year after each one. He announced that the people born in each animal's year would have some of that animal's personality.

People born under the ‘earth pig’ are said to be a gourmet, faithful in friendship, stylish, perfectionist and hardworking. Those born under the sign of the pig are optimistic and gentle. They are very focused. Once they decide on a goal, they’ll put everything into it, but on the negative side, though cool-headed, they are also gullible. They trust others easily and are often scammed. This can cause them to lose a fortune. Chinese horoscopes say that, just as last year, this year of your birth sign is not the luckiliest, so famous people born in the year of dog,such as Stephen King, Hillary Clinton, Elton John, Larry David, and David Letterman need to watch out and avoid blue and green and the numbers one, seven and nine.



This year Pigs may find luck in some areas of their life, but others will require hard work to avoid potential pitfalls. Pigs will most likely experience many emotional ups and downs, making them feel frustrated and sad at times. 



It is also believed that the Pig is most compatible with the Tiger, the Rabbit, and the Goat, but least compatible with the Snake, and the Monkey.



The world’s largest annual human migration is now well underway as 2.8 billion trips are made across China in what is known as chunyun, when students, migrant workers and office employees living away from home will make the journey back to celebrate with their families.


Today is National Weather Forecasters Day. It is observed on February 5 to commemorate the birthday of John Jeffries, one of the first people in America to begin observing the weather in a scientific way.





The day was created to celebrate meteorologists, the men and women who predict - Dark. Turning partly light by morning


February 5, 1927 -
Buster Keaton's movie The General premiered on this date. Keaton's picture received both poor reviews by critics and weak box-office results when it first opened.



The General was Keaton’s favorite film and is now considered a late great of the silent era though was poorly received at its release. The cold reception the film received meant it was the last film in which Keaton had such artistic control over his content.


February 5, 1936 -
Charlie Chaplin Little Tramp makes his final silent-film appearance, Modern Times, which was released on this date.



This was one of the films which, because of its political sentiments, convinced the House Un-American Activities Committee that Charles Chaplin was a Communist, a charge he adamantly denied.


February 5, 1953 -
Walt Disney's 14th animated feature, Peter Pan, opens at Roxy Theater, on this date. This was the last Disney film released through RKO, as Walt Disney established his own distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution, by the end of 1953.



Though the film was extremely successful, Walt Disney himself was dissatisfied with the finished product, feeling that the character of Peter Pan was cold and unlikable. However, experts on J.M. Barrie praise this as a success, as they insist that Pan was originally written to be a heartless sociopath.


February 5, 1956 -
Don Siegel subversive take on 50's Communist paranoia, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, premiered on this date.



Kevin McCarthy and author Jack Finney have always denied the rumor that the story is a statement against McCarthyism and Communism; they just saw it as a thriller. Director Don Siegel, however, believes that the political references to Sen. Joseph McCarthy and totalitarianism are inescapable, even though he tried not to emphasize them


February 5, 1967 -
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour premiered on CBS-TV, on this date.


(Sorry, this is not from the first episode.)

Mom actually liked both of them equally.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
Today is Liberation Day in San Marino. Americans remain woefully misinformed about San Marino. (American remain woefully misinformed about most countries that aren't located between Canada and Mexico.)

Not only Liberation Day in San Marino, but, it's also the feast day of St. Agatha -

patron saint of breast cancer survivors, but again, I digress ...)

About seventeen-hundred years ago, during an epic game of hide and seek, Marinus the Stonemason ran up Mount Titano in Italy to hide from the Roman Emperor Diocletian. It was a good hiding spot and he was never found. He started his own country to pass the time, and the Republic of San Marino survives to this day, an island of foreign nationals in the middle of Italy.

Citizens of  are not San Mariners. They are Sammarinese.

The population of San Marino is about 25,000. The population of San Marino, California, is about 13,000.

The California town was named in 1878 by James de Barth Shorb, who had built his home there and didn't think people would go for Shorbtown. Instead, he named it after the Maryland town in which he'd been born.

That was reportedly San Marino, Maryland, which the California town's website claims to have been named "for the tiny European republic."

There is no Maryland town named San Marino. (If there is, they haven't yet made their presence felt on Google.) Foul play is obviously afoot.

Proceed with caution.


February 5, 1783 -
A large earthquake in Calabria, Italy left 50,000 dead on this date.

Luckily none of my wife's or a good friend of mine forebearers were involved or they wouldn't be here.


February 5, 1816 -
Rossini's opera Barber of Seville premieres in Rome on this date.







It was one of the earliest Italian operas to be performed in America and premiered at the Park Theater in New York City on November 25 1825.


February 5, 1914 -
William Seward Burroughs II, junkie, novelist, murderer, painter, professional sodomist and performer was born on this date.



Except for a couple of blots on his CV, he is my hero (well him and Julia Child.)


February 5, 1919 -
Four of the leading figures in early Hollywood: Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, incorporated to form their own company to better control their own work as well as their futures. The company was United Artist.



MGM reacquired its 100% stake in United Artists in 2011.


February 5, 1940 -
Hans Ruedi Giger, Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer best known for his design work on the film Alien, was spawned on this date.



He had a very happy childhood.


February 5, 1941 -
The SS Politician wrecked off the coast of the Isle of Eriskay in the Hebrides on this date. It carried some 20,000 cases of whiskey, which the natives hid from customs agents.



The story was told in the 1947 book Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie. The book was made into a film in 1949. According to official files recently released by the British Home Office, there was nearly 290,000 ten shilling notes on board as well (this would be the equivalent of several million pounds at today's prices), not all of which was ever recovered.


February 5, 1958 -
A B-47 returning from a simulated combat mission suffered a midair collision with an F-86, on this date. A Mark 15 Mod 0 hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb was purposely jettisoned by the crippled B-47 bomber off  the coast of Savannah, Georgia, and has yet to be recovered.

The bomb, whether or not it contains a plutonium detonator (the Air Force has been hazy on this fact), has not been found: to repeat - a large object with some enriched uranium surrounded by four hundred pounds of TNT has gone missing for 60 years. (This is essentially a dirty bomb - a dirty bomb resting just off the shore of a vibrant United States port.)



Recovering the bomb and the enriched uranium inside would be a coup for any nation looking to skip a few steps to becoming a nuclear power, so one could return the Tybee Bomb, definitely no questions asked.


February 5, 1971 -
Apollo 14 manned lunar module Antares lands near the Fra Mauro region of the Moon, on this date.



Apollo 14 commander Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the fifth human to walk on the Moon with astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell.



And so it goes.


717