From the outside, jellyfish look like squishy, insubstantial blobs, and this is reflected in their structural makeup. Jellyfish are 95 percent water with the rest of them accounting for minerals and proteins. Between their two dermis layers is a gelatinous, water-based substance called mesoglea that contains muscle cells, nerve cells, and structural proteins.
We here at ACME continue to salute International Cephalopod Awareness Days, 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 World Egg Day, so yes, let's all celebrate the incredible edible egg
I'm still working on keeping egg prices low compared to the high prices earlier this decade, (You're welcome.) I did speak to the Egg Board about that 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.
Clifton Webb had to deal with the shock of seeing himself on-screen after a long absence from Hollywood. Watching the first batch of rushes that included his first scene in the tub when he meets McPherson, Webb nearly had a heart attack: "When I saw myself sitting in the bathtub looking very much like Mohandas K. Gandhi. I felt I might vomit. After it was over, Dana (Andrews) saved my life with a big swig of bourbon. The first shock of seeing myself had a strange effect on me, psychologically, as it made me realize for the first time that I was no longer a dashing young juvenile, which I must have fancied myself being through the years in the theatre."
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.
Spencer Tracy flew to Cuba from Los Angeles to meet Ernest Hemingway and get his approval as Santiago.
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.
Ensign Charles Parker (Tim Conway) often mentioned that he was from Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Conway grew up in Chagrin Falls in real-life.
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.
Besides George Carlin being the guest host, the musical guests included Janis Ian, performing At Seventeen and In the Winter, and Billy Preston, performing Nothing from Nothing and Fancy Lady.
October 11, 1981 -
The surprise art-house hit, My Dinner With Andre, starring Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory (sitting around, eating and talking,) premiered on this date.
The low-budget flick was shot in an abandoned hotel in Virginia - in the winter. "Since we didn't have the money to heat the hotel, (producer Beverly Karp) brought me a bit of cognac from time to time," recalls a co-producer. The crew kept warm by wearing ski clothes; the actors just had to act warm, aided by the lights and long underwear.
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.
In her 2011 book Bossypants, Tina Fey said that during the early years of the show, Donald Glover was its only black writer. She also said that he was so young that when he started on the writing staff, he was still living in a New York University dorm, and working there as a Resident Adviser. Since he came from a large family in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Fey said that Glover was especially good at writing for the character of Kenneth, who was also supposed to be from Stone Mountain.
A book for all the young philosophers in your home
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, 1890 -
Founded in Washington D.C. on this date, the Daughters of the American Revolution has chapters around the world and in all 50 US states. They work to promote US patriotism and preserve history as well as raise money for educational scholarships.
All members have a traceable ancestry lineage to someone who actively worked to achieve US independence. Since the mid-1980s, the DAR has supported a project to identify the names of African Americans, Native Americans, and individuals of mixed race who were patriots of the American Revolution.
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?
Bet it wasn't nearly as bad as anything the president has said this past weekend (or any weekend for that matter.)
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 launched 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.
The mission, however, does mark the first live television transmission from a spacecraft in orbit.
October 11, 1975 -
William Jefferson (Blythe III) Clinton and Hillary Diane Rodham were married in Fayetteville, Arkansas 45 years ago, on this date.
The past is another country: they absolutely did things differently there.
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, 1984 -
Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space on this date. During her three-hour extra-vehicular activity (EVA), Sullivan tested NASA's Orbital Refueling System (ORS) to determine the feasibility of fueling satellites in orbit.
Sullivan was joined aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger by Sally Ride, the first American woman to reach outer space. Mission STS-41-G was the first space flight with two women astronauts.
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 Lamborghinis.)
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
(Psst - there are 75 more days until Christmas.)
102
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