May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions!

It's time to think about how you're doing two-and-a-half weeks into the new year, on your new year's resolutions. If your evaluation is less than positive, consider participating in today's made up holiday, Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day.



If you haven't broken or given up all of those New Year's resolutions, you're doing better than most of us (So maybe the rest of us can make those new good behaviors regular habits)


January 17, 1929 -

I yam what I yam



Popeye the Sailor Man, created by Elzie Crisler Segar, first appears in the Thimble Theatre comic strip on this date.


January 17, 1949 -
American audiences finally got to see family that lived in Apt. 3B of 1030 East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, after hearing them for years on the radio, when The Goldbergs premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Many episodes of The Goldbergs were recorded live, and others were only shown once and then destroyed. Today, only a handful of episodes survive. The epsiode shown above is one of the earliest surviving episodes.


January 17, 1969 -
The Star Trek episode The Mark of Gideon where, Kirk is abducted and held aboard an abandoned duplicated of the Enterprise, first aired on CBS TV on this date.



A strange hole in the plot of this episode: The Gideons were obviously prepared to take drastic action to solve their overpopulation problem. But since their planet was so incredibly crowded that inhabitants were willing to kill for a moment of privacy, where did Hodin and his council find the space to construct a duplicate of such a large vessel as the Enterprise.


January 17, 1975 -
The TV-series Baretta, starring Robert Blake and Tom Ewell, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



The series was originally intended as a continuation of the TV series Toma, with Robert Blake replacing Tony Musante as Det. David Toma. When Blake balked at taking over an established role, a new series was created for him instead.


January 17, 1976 -
Barry Manilow scored his second US No.1 single with I Write The Songs, which was written by The Beach Boys Bruce Johnson, on this date.



Manilow was originally reluctant to record this song, saying to Arista Records chief Clive Davis, "This 'I Write The Songs' thing Clive, I really don't want to do it." Manilow says his worry "was that the listeners would think I was singing about how "I" write the songs, when it was really about the inspiration of music. Clive understood, but didn't think it would be a problem. "Besides," he told me, "You DO write songs!" Manilow says he was concerned about coming off as a gigantic egomaniac, but that he liked the song so much he decided to record it. He adds, "Whenever I heard the song in public, I felt the need to run to everyone who was listening and say, 'You know, I'm really not singing about myself!'"


January 17, 1977 -
The short-lived sitcom Busting Loose, (the series ran for 21 episodes,) starring Adam Arkin, Pat Carroll, and Barbara Rhoades premiered on CBS TV on this date.



Busting Loose was broadcast over two seasons. Thirteen episodes aired during its first season in the winter and spring of 1977. Eight more were broadcast during its second season in the fall of 1977, and four other episodes produced for that season never aired.


January 17, 2015 –
The Mark Ronson single, Uptown Funk (featuring Bruno Mars,) goes to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts, on this date.



The Vance Joy song Riptide was on the charts when Uptown Funk was released. Both tracks mention Michelle Pfeiffer, which is a little odd considering the actress hadn't been in any blockbuster movies in a while.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
January 17, 1706 -
Benjamin Franklin was born on this date.



The inventor of spectacles and the hundred dollar bill, Franklin was one of Washington’s first celebrated womanizers to avoid conviction. One day Franklin tied a key to the string of a kite that he then flew in a thunderstorm, thus discovering Electrolysis.



Franklin also invented the Post Office and can be credited with the creation of the first fully functioning disgruntled postal worker.


On January 17, 1806, President Thomas Jefferson's grandson James Madison Randolph became the first child to be born in the White House - his mother was Martha Randolph, one of President Jefferson's two daughters. James was her eighth child.

Sadly, no official records have been kept on the more interesting statistics of children conceived in the White House.


January 17, 1860 O.S. - (which means Julian calendar. We celebrate his birthday on the 29th of January N.S. - which means Gregorian calendar. So it not really his birthday today but he's dead so I don't think he really cares.) -

Anton Chekhov was born in Taganrog, Russia.

Tragically, a bureaucratic snafu at the Kremlin resulted in Chekhov’s not being told he was one of the Great Russian Writers, so he practiced medicine well into middle life. By then, of course, he was almost good enough to quit practicing, but he’d also made a name for himself as a writer. As a doctor and writer of comedies, Chekhov originated the saying "laughter is the best medicine" (some of his tubercular patients disagreed, but they subsequently died, proving his point).



Chekhov’s greatest work is The Seagull, in which a young man with an odd haircut, kills a seagull, making his girlfriend cry and a lot of people with unpronounceable Russian names argue and wave pistols about.



Chekhov should not be confused with Pavel Chekov, who was the security officer of the USS Enterprise,



and neither of them should be confused with Charo.


January 17, 1871 -
Andrew Smith Hallidie received the patent (U.S. patent #110,971) for an "improvement in endless wire ropeways" which would be the basis for his cable car system, on this date.

He was inspired to work on the cable car system after seeing horses having a difficult time trying to pull cars up Jackson Street in San Francisco.


January 17, 1893 -
Another proud moment in America history - a group of American businessmen stole Hawaii on this date.

Queen Liliuokalani, the monarch of Hawaii,

was overthrown by a group of sugar plantation owners who wanted a more pro-American government.



The coup took place with the tacit approval of the United States, though the new leader of Hawaii, Sanford Dole, refused to step down when asked to do so by President Cleveland. Hawaii and the US finally resumed full diplomatic relations in 1897, under President McKinley. Hawaii was annexed by the U.S. in 1898.


January 17, 1899 -
Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born on this date. Chronic self-esteem problems in his early adolescence resulted in his turning to a life of crime in Chicago (where crime had by now trickled down from elected officials to the lower classes).



The United States wanted to help this poor unfortunate individual, so that gave him an early birthday present. The day before his 21st birthday, Prohibition went into effect.



Capone was such a successful gangster that eventually Robert DeNiro had to play him.



In the end, Capone was captured by Eliot Ness and his Unmentionables, who got their name from the fact that their busy schedules prevented them from changing their underwear


January 17, 1922 -
I like bawdy humor. I love bawdy humor, but not dirty humor.



Take a moment out of your day to remember - Betty Marion White, who was one of the hardest working actress in Hollywood (she had been working almost continuously since 1949) was born on this date.


January 17, 1931 -
When I was in New York after I left the Army, I studied for two years at the American Theater Wing, studied acting, which involved dance and fencing and speech classes and history of theater, all that.



James Earl Jones, actor and (Darth Vader), was born on this date.


January 17, 1950 -
In Boston on this date, eleven thieves stole more than $2 million in cash and securities from the Brink's armored car company’s offices. They were all later caught.



The 1978 film The Brink’s Job starred Peter Falk and Peter Boyle was based on the nonfiction book about the crime, The Big Stick-Up at Brink’s by Noel Behn.


January 17, 1961 -
In his farewell address on this date, President Eisenhower warned against the rise of "the military-industrial complex."



And yet on the same date, Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of Congo, was murdered after 67 days in office on this date. President Eisenhower allegedly approved the assassination of the prime minister by the CIA.


January 17, 1962 -
Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they're eating sandwiches.



James Eugene Carrey, Canadian-American actor and rubber-faced comedian, was born on this date.


January 17, 1964 -
Just try new things. Don't be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar, all right?



Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, the first African-American First Lady of the United States, was born on this date.


January 17, 1966 –
A B-52 bomber collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker during a mid-air refueling maneuver over Spain, killing seven airmen, on this date.



The accident caused the dropping of three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea (each of the bombs were equal to 70 thousand tons of TNT) but none of them exploded.

Oops


January 17, 1977 -
Let's do it



Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on Capital punishment in the United States.



And so it goes