Enjoy it before it melts.

It's National Ice Cream Sandwich Day today, a day to enjoy an ice cream sandwich.

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The best way to celebrate is to make your own!


August 2, 1965 -
Michael Caine's first outing as the anti Bond spy, Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File, premiered in the US on this date.



Producer Harry Saltzman hated Director Sidney J. Furie and his oddball style, and went so far as to bar him from the editing room. According to Furie, Saltzman also excluded him from the movie's party at Cannes, and even stole his best picture British Academy Award.


August 2, 1967 -
The crime drama In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, opened in New York on this date.



Set in a hot Mississippi summer, but filmed during autumn in Illinois, many of the actors had to keep ice chips in their mouths (and spit them out before takes) to prevent their breath from appearing on camera during the night scenes.


August 2, 1968 -
The Doors single, Hello, I Love You, from their album Waiting for the Sun, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



The music is similar to The Kinks' song All Day And All Of The Night. So similar, that it has been rumored that The Doors paid royalties from the British single to The Kinks after the threat of legal action.


August 2, 1975 -
The eponymously named title track from their One of These Nights album, became the Eagles second single to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart, after Best Of My Love, on this date.



Written by Glenn Frey and Don Henley, this song was inspired by the soul music Frey was listening to when he started writing it on the piano. Artists like B.B. King and Al Green were a big influence on many songs on the album.


August 2, 1985 -
Universal Pictures released the sci-fi comedy film Weird Science, directed by John Hughes and starring Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock and Ilan Mitchell-Smith, on this date.



In the scene where Bill Paxton is speaking to Kelly LeBrock while interrogating everyone over what had happened the previous night, in the background, Suzanne Snyder and Anthony Michael Hall are struggling to stay in character, but it is clear they are laughing. John Hughes chose to use this take in the completed film.


August 2, 1989 -
Universal Pictures released Ron Howard's film, Parenthood, starring Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Dianne Wiest, Martha Plymton and Keanu Reeves on this date.



This movie is based on Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Lowell Ganz, and Babaloo Mandel's experiences as parents.


August 2, 1998 -
Beastie Boys' fifth studio album Hello Nasty started a three week run at No. 1 on the Billboard Album Charts, on this date. This would be the band's third U.S. No. 1 album.



Some of the pioneering hip-hop acts that emerged in the early '80s distorted their vocals in innovative ways, but in the '90s, rappers usually went for a big, bold sound without any distortion. Beastie Boys bucked that trend, using a karaoke microphone to squiggle their raps on tracks from their 1992 album Check Your Head, notably So What'cha Want. By the time they recorded Intergalactic for the Hello Nasty album, they had access to a vocoder.


August 2, 1999 –
M. Night Shyamalan's psychological thriller, The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette premiered in the US on this date.



Reportedly, Haley Joel Osment got the role of Cole Sear for one of three reasons. First, he was best for it. Second, he was the only boy at auditions who wore a tie. Third, director M. Night Shyamalan was surprised when he asked Osment if he read his part. Osment replied, "I read it three times last night." Shyamalan was impressed, saying, "Wow, you read your part three times?" To which Osment replied, "No, I read the script three times."


August 2, 2014 -
Weird Al Yankovic's fourteenth studio album, Mandatory Fun goes to No. 1 on the Billboard Album Charts, on this date.



It’s the first No. 1 comedy album on Billboard’s charts since Allan Sherman’s My Son, the Nut in 1963 – the album that contained Sherman’s biggest hit, Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh.

Another job posting from The ACME Employment Agency


Today in History:
August 2, 1100 -
Force Majeure: (I can appreciate that those of you with delicate natures may wish to skip this story.)
You may often wonder when this phrase came into being - Act of God. You've all seen it long enough and you may unfortunately experienced it when you went to collect on you home insurance policy. As with most things, the English can pinpoint the first popular usage of the phrase.

William II (William Rufus), the second surviving son of William I the Conqueror, was King of England from 1087 until 1100, with powers also over Normandy, and influence in Scotland. He was not well liked for his unusual practice of vigorous sodomy with unwilling men every morning of his reign.



William started out as King of England on September 26, 1087 and liked to start his day with a brisk bout of forced buggery. While he enjoyed a romp with many of his 'special friends', he really enjoyed a good round of sodomy with some new, mostly unwilling courtier every morning.

And why not - It's good to be the king.

It was drawing upon the 1000th new morning wake up call and William wanted to go on his usual after sodomizing the new guy hunt. So off the royal entourage went and before you knew it, they all raced home, including William's brother, Henry (soon to be Henry I) and William II lie (or lay, I'm never really quite sure) dead, with an arrow shot through his lung, on this date.



Henry, after hurriedly crowning himself the First, called for an inquest into how his brother happened to find himself with an arrow through the lung. Not that Henry was that interested in the answer (literally, no one would pick up William's corpse. A peasant had to bring it round to the back of the Winchester Cathedral on a dung cart - I kid you not.) A Royal commission was held and decided that it was a just end - an 'Act of God' played out on a wicked king.

So there you go - blame the fact you can't get a payment from your insurance company on an English monarch with a penchant for vigorous sodomy.


August 2, 1776 –
Once again, your teachers lied to you - the signing of the Declaration of Independence didn’t occur on July 4.



After the Continental Congress voted to declare independence on July 2, the final language of the document was approved on July 4, and it was printed and distributed on July 4–5. The actual signing was on this date. Matthew Thornton from New Hampshire didn't get around to sign it until November 4, 1776.


August 2, 1876 -
Drinking at a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, Jack McCall noticed Wild Bill Hickok playing poker at a corner table. Then he calmly walked over to the table and blew a wide hole in the back of Hickok's head with a .45 revolver. The professional gambler and onetime lawman was holding a pair of Aces and a pair of Eights, now known as the "Dead Man's Hand." There is no general consensus on what the fifth card was.



So kids, please remember to split those aces and eights when you are dealt them.


August 2, 1909 -
The first Lincoln head pennies were minted on this date.

It was 95% copper and was the first US coin to depict the likeness of a president.


August 2, 1923 -
President Warren G. Harding died suddenly at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on this date. His wife Florence forbids an autopsy, and the President's body is embalmed shortly after death. It is speculated by many that the cause of death, initially reported as "a stroke of apoplexy," was in fact poison administered by the First Lady. Mrs. Harding was rather annoyed that her husband was taking dictation from his secretary in the broom closet.



You have to love this asshole - he actually lost the White House china in a poker game. And despite the fact that Prohibition made it illegal, Harding served his friends alcohol.



Harding had the largest feet of any U.S. President. He wore size 14 shoes. I'll just leave you all with that.



Make of it what you will.


August 2, 1939 -
Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd, representing fellow physicists who have discovered that an atomic bomb could be built from Uranium, write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt explaining the dangers of Germany developing Atomic Bomb capabilities before the United States. The letter came just before the beginning of World War II.



The scientists warn Roosevelt of efforts in Nazi Germany to purify Uranium-235. Soon after the letter, the United States Government begins “The Manhattan Project.” Einstein later reacted to the destructive elements of the atom bomb by saying. "If only I had known I should have become a watchmaker."


August 2, 1943 -
A Navy patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sank after being sheared in two by the Amagiri, a Japanese destroyer, off the Solomon Islands. Two members of the crew were killed in the collision.



An injured Kennedy and the ship's other survivors clung to the wreckage and swam to a nearby island, where Aaron Kumana and Biuku Gasa found them. The pair rowed 35 miles through enemy-held waters to summon a rescue boat.


August 2, 1990 -
After Kuwait refuses to waive Iraq's war debts, 100,000 Iraqi soldiers stream across the border and seize control of Kuwait City. Their troops outnumbered 5-to-1, the Kuwaitis mount no resistance whatsoever. In so doing, Saddam Hussein precipitates the first Gulf War.



This was one of the the reasons we got into the mess in Iraq.



And so it goes.