A point of information

Cash is the gift that shows you care,(even bagfuls of change seem OK by me.)

My birthday is in just three days. The correlation between those two statements is for you to make.


July 9, 1966 -
The Beatles song Paperback Writer, topped the charts on this date.



The B-side to this single was John Lennon's Rain. Paul and John would always compete for the A-side of The Beatles singles.


July 9, 1983 -
The Police song Every Breath You Take topped the charts on this date.



This is one of the most misinterpreted songs ever. It is about an obsessive stalker, but it sounds like a love song. Some people even used it as their wedding song.


July 9, 1995 -
The Grateful Dead, who had been performing for 30 years, gave their last performance on this day, when they performed at Soldier Field in Chicago. During their 30 years, they performed more than 2,300 live concerts.



The lead guitarist and backbone of the band, Jerry Garcia, died one month after the final show.


July 9, 1999 -
Universal Pictures finally shined a light on the world of pastriality when American Pie, starring Jason Biggs, Chris Klein, Tara Reid, Seann William Scott, Eugene Levy, and Shannon Elizabeth was released in the US on this date.



Jason Biggs had to do the sex scene himself because his body double showed up with an eight-inch-long scar across his stomach and was subsequently fired because of it.


July 9, 2010 -
The world was introduced to Minions, when Universal Pictured released Despicable Me, voiced by Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Will Arnett, and Julie Andrews, on this date.



Directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud wrote a language for the gibberish the minions speak throughout the film. They called it "minion-ese". Each word the minions speak in the film translates into an actual word.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
July 9, 1776  -
New York finally got around to ratifying the Declaration of Independence on this date, making it the 13th colony to do so. The document was read aloud to Gen. George Washington's troops stationed in New York City.

Later that night, American troops destroyed a bronze-lead statue of Great Britain's King George III that stood at the foot of Broadway on the Bowling Green. Most of the statue pieces were sent to Connecticut where munitions makers turned them into 42,000 bullets.


On the Fourth of July in 1850, President Zachary Taylor snacked on cherries and milk while attending a ceremony at the Washington Monument. It was a hot day, and the heat made him sick.

He got sicker and sicker and died on July 9.

He remains the only U.S. president to have died from indigestion (with the possible exception of Warren G Harding, who may or may not have been poisoned by his wife - which could be considered death by extreme indigestion - but that's another story.)



His last words were, "I regret nothing, but I am sorry to leave my friends."

I firmly believe he actually regretted eating the cherries-and-milk that caused his fatal indigestion, but I'm not going to quibble with a man's dying words. He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, possibly one of the worse president.


July 9, 1918 -
Two passenger trains crossing the Dutchman's Curve in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, collided at speeds of 50 to 60 miles per hour killing 101 people and leaving 171 injured, on this date.



The great wreck of 1918 is still considered the worst rail disaster in US history.


July 9, 1926  -
Mathilde Krim, geneticist, founder of the AIDS foundation, was born on this date.



Just want to remind folks that one of America's most famous women doctors was in the Israeli military.


July 9, 1933  -
We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination. And we are familiar with the landscapes of our own imagination, our inscapes. We've lived with them all our lives. But there are also hallucinations as well, and hallucinations are completely different. They don't seem to be of our creation. They don't seem to be under our control. They seem to come from the outside, and to mimic perception.



Oliver Sacks, neurologist, was born on this date.


July 9, 1945 -
... dirty money always brings sorrow and sadness and misery and disgrace. Said by a man who never took a bribe.



During a newspaper strike, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia read the daily comic strips aloud on WNYC radio on this date.

Co-incidentally or not, yesterday was the 95th anniversary of WNYC, which began as an AM radio station, 570 AM.


July 9, 1956 -
America's favorite actor, Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born on this date.



Let's hope someday, Tom finds himself and successes in a career.


July 9, 1958 -
A tsunami wave struck Lituya Bay in southeast Alaska on this date. The tsunami wave was 1,719 feet high - taller than the Empire State Building (1,470 feet tall). It was caused by an earthquake and descriptions by witnesses as moving at 600 miles per hour. It was later determined that this was the largest wave to ever strike land in history.



The wave destroyed 6-foot trees and stripped the shore down to bedrock. It killed two people when it sank their boat, while two other boats rode it out with all passengers surviving.


July 9, 1964 -
I'm ultimately a widow and a single mother, who's not even getting to be a mother right now. I am so alone, it's freaky.



Courtney Michelle Love, rock musician and actress, was born on this date.


July 9, 1982 -
Michael Fagan, dressed in jeans and a dirty t-shirt, and bleeding from a fresh cut on his hand, walks into the private bedroom of Queen Elizabeth II while she was asleep and her personal guard out walking her dogs. Fagan had scaled the wall surrounding Buckingham Palace and gained entry without triggering any alarms. The two carried on a 12-minute conversation, while the intruder holds a jagged broken ashtray, before somebody finally apprehended him.



Who knew that the Queen could carry on a 12 minute conversation with one of her subjects?


July 9, 2005 -
Danny Way, a daredevil skateboarder, rolled down a large ramp and jumped across the Great Wall of China on this date.



He was the first person to clear the wall without motorized aid.



And so it goes.


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