Tuesday, October 8, 2024

We'd all like to be in an an octupus's garden

Given your newsfeed is jam packed with other, more heady news, it is understandable that some may not remember that since 2007, ACME has been proud to recognize that every year from the 8th to the 12th of October, International Cephalopod Awareness Days come around to teach the world about Cephalopods!

Today is Octopus Day, celebrating all the eight-armed fellows.




This event is all about celebrating and sharing how fascinating and incredible they are!


Today is also Fluffernutter day. Celebrate by bringing fresh white bread, peanut butter, and marshmallow cream together.



While this may be a childhood favorite for some - it's causing me to gag to even think about.


October 8, 1925 -
One of the most expensive movie made, at the time (at $3.9 million,) Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ premiered on this date.



This film had an "extra" cast like no other. Many Hollywood stars showed up on set to watch the shooting and were pressed into service as extras, especially in the chariot race. In addition, many who would later become Hollywood's top stars, but who were at the time just struggling actors, were also in the crowd scenes as extras. Among well-known and soon-to-be-well-known names "working" in the film were John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Marion Davies, Myrna Loy, John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable, Harold Lloyd, Carole Lombard, Janet Gaynor, Fay Wray, Mary Pickford, Colleen Moore, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Samuel Goldwyn and Rupert Julian.


October 8, 1927 -
The Hal Roach studio released The Second Hundred Years short, starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy - the first Laurel and Hardy film with them appearing as a team on this date.



Laurel and Hardy's heads were shaved for their appearance in this film, and their hair had not yet grown back in their roles in Call of the Cuckoos, released a week after this film.


October 8, 1977 -
The final masterpiece of Luis Buñuel, That Obscure Object of Desire premiered on this date.



According to screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, the reason Maria Schneider was dismissed from the film was her heavy drug use, which caused her to give a "lackluster" performance and caused tremendous friction between her and Buñuel.


October 8, 1966 -
The first Doctor Who episode to feature the Cybermen (the first episode of the Doctor Who serial The Tenth Planet) aired on this date.



The episode is the last episode to star William Hartnell as the First Doctor (and Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor).


October 8, 1972 -
Richard Boone starred in the TV series Hec Ramsey, about a gunfighter intrigued with new methods of criminology at the turn of the previous century, which premiered on this date.



In the fall of 1972, NBC moved its successful Wednesday night Mystery Movie series consisting of Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife to Sunday nights and added a fourth show, Hec Ramsey, while turning the original slot over to three new mysteries (Banacek, Madigan, and Cool Million). Hec Ramsey was a product of Jack Webb's then prolific production company. The series, which ran for two seasons (a total of ten 90 minute to 2 hour episodes) was superficially a Western, but it was set in the waning days of the Wild West when science was beginning to play a more significant role in crime solving than gunplay.


October 8, 1980 -
... The hand speaks, the hand of a government man ...



Today is the 44th anniversary of Talking Heads' fourth studio Remain in Light was released on this date


October 8, 1983 -
Francis Ford Coppola's under-rated arthouse teen drama Rumble Fish, starring Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Vincent Spano, Diane Lane, Diana Scarwid, Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, and Tom Waits, opened in limited release in NYC on this date.



To mix the black-and-white footage of Rusty James and the Motorcycle Boy in the pet store looking at the Siamese fighting fish in color, Stephen H. Burum shot the actors in black and white and then projected that footage on a rear projection screen. They put the fish tank in front of it with the tropical fish and shot it all with color film.


October 8, 1984 -
The critically acclaimed TV movie The Burning Bed starring Farrah Fawcett, Paul Le Mat, and Richard Masur, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, member of R&B group TLC watched this movie as a child with her sister. She was motivated to set her abusive father on fire in retaliation for abusing her mother on a daily basis as child. In the height of her fame, Lisa made national news for burning her boyfriend NFL star Andre Rison's house after setting stuffed teddy bears on fire in a bathtub.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
October 8, 876 -
The First Battle of Andernach occurred on this date between the West Frankish king Charles the Bald and the East Frankish king Louis the Younger, near Kettig southeast of Andernach.

The results of the epic battle was Charles' complete defeat. Thusly proving medieval royalty did not put much thought into the feeling of their progeny when naming them - Charles was not in fact bald but quite hairy and Louis was already 42 when this battle took place. To make matters worse, Louis had a younger brother known as Charles the Fat, who was probably not fat. Really, parents can be so cruel.

Don't worry, this won't be on the test.


October 8, 1582 -
Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day (and the four previous days) does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.



This leads to mass confusion and most of the populace just go back to bed and wait for tomorrow.


October 8, 1869 -
Franklin Pierce, an American politician and the fourteenth President of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857 is to date the only president from New Hampshire and was the first president born in the nineteenth century.



His good looks and inoffensive personality caused him to make many friends, but he suffered tragedy in his personal life (all three of his children died in childhood - don't ask how his third child died) and as president subsequently made decisions which were widely criticized and divisive in their effects, thus giving him the reputation as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.



After losing the Democratic nomination for a second term, Pierce reportedly quipped "there's nothing left to do but get drunk" (quoted also as "after the White House what is there to do but drink?") which he apparently did frequently. He once ran over an elderly woman while driving a carriage drunk. Franklin Pierce died in Concord, New Hampshire on this date at 64 years old, from cirrhosis of the liver, thus ending his miserable life.


October 8, 1871 -
Mrs O'Leary's cow started The Great Chicago Fire that destroyed more than 17,000 buildings, killed more than 300 people and left 90,000 homeless, on this date.



Bad cow.

Catherine O'Leary
seemed the perfect scapegoat: she was a woman, immigrant, and Catholic - a combination which did not fare well in the political climate of the time in Chicago. This story was circulating in Chicago even before the flames had died out and was noted in the Chicago Tribune's first post-fire issue. Michael Ahern, the reporter that came with the story would retract it in 1893, admitting that it was fabricated.



In 1997, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution exonerating Mrs. O'Leary - and her cow - from all blame.



Occurring the same day as the Great Chicago fire, a forest fire broke out at Peshtigo, Wisconsin, eventually killing about 2,500 people while burning some 850 square miles including, Holland, Michigan, and Manistee, Michigan (making it the largest lost of life by fire in the United States.)


October 8, 1918 -
Sgt. Alvin York (Gary Cooper) of Tennessee became a World War I hero by single-handedly capturing a hill in the Argonne Forest of France, killing more than 20 enemy soldiers and capturing 132 others on this date.



What makes this feat all the more amazing is that York original applied and was denied Conscientious Objector status because of his religious beliefs.


October 8, 1919 -
The first U.S. transcontinental air race began with 63 planes competing in the round-trip aerial derby between California and New York. Each way took about three days.



Seven men lost their lives during the race - flying was extremely hazardous at the time. Even the winner, Lieutenant Belvin W. Maynard, would meet his death three years later, while stunt flying at a county fair in Rutland, Vermont, on September 7, 1922.


October 8, 1928
-
Police raid 20 speakeasies in New York City in an effort to crack down on illegal liquor sales on this date.



New York City Police remain blind drunk, wandering the streets for three days afterward.


October 8, 1945 -
A patent for microwave oven was filed (US patent No. 2,495,429) by Percy LeBaron Spencer, who accidentally discovered that microwaves melted a chocolate bar in his pocket (the first item to be intentionally cooked in a microwave was popcorn.)



Spencer, an eighth-grade dropout and electronic wizard, worked for the Raytheon Manufacturing Corporation of Massachusetts developing a radar machine using microwave radiation. The first commercial microwave was produced nine years later and sold for $2,000.


October 8, 1948 -
For all my success with the Ramones, I carried around fury and intensity during my career. I had an image, and that image was anger. I was the one who was always scowling, downcast. I tried to make sure I looked like that when I was getting my picture taken..



Johnny Ramone (nee John William Cummings) the lead guitarist for The Ramones was born on this date.


October 8, 1956 -
New York Yankees pitcher Donald James Larsen pitches the first perfect game in a World Series - no walks, no hits, no runs.



His perfect game was the only no-hitter of any type ever pitched in postseason play until Doc Halladay pitched one on October 6th, 2010.


October 8, 1993 -
Ted Danson appeared in black face at a Friars Club roast for Whoopi Goldberg on this date.


His offensive comments amused Whoopi Goldberg but the incident becomes a great embarrassment.


October 8, 2011
On September 26th, 2011 Mikey Welsh, the former bassist for Weezer, posted on Twitter, “Dreamt I died in Chicago next weekend (heart attack in my sleep). Need to write my will today” followed by, “Correction – the weekend after next”.



He died on this date from a heart attack, possibly brought on by a drug overdose, in his sleep in a Chicago hotel room. If only they had read their Nostradamus.



And so it goes

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