FIGHTING BRAIN FREEZE WITH FIRE SINCE 1837

FIGHTING BRAIN FREEZE WITH FIRE SINCE 1837
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Just  so you know there are currently no 'HOT' links and you have to cut an paste all the web addresses. 


Also the time of the post is off.  It is telling you the time in California where the server that this Blog is posted is.  Here in Ohio it is three hours later  so their 9 PM something is my 'next day way too early in the morning'.


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Massive Corporation - The guy that started Geek Squad (and sold it to Best Buy for $3,000,000) has a tongue-in-cheek web site.  Droll to be sure.
http://massivecorporation.com/

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Tadpoles are sort of odd little creatures.  I have not seen one since I was a kid but I guess I don't poke around in puddles like I used to.  If you film them with a Kaleidoscope effect they are really unusual.  For three minutes of oddness check this out:
http://www.archive.org/details/IMB_SF_R42_C10

Here is a Kaleidoscope effect with clouds.  It is like a cotton candy universe.
http://www.archive.org/details/IMB_SF_R42_C2

The same deal but this time it is a Leopard Moth.
http://www.archive.org/details/IMB_SF_R42_C5

These are all from Archive.ORG.  If you are looking for something, anything check here.

The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

Audio            430,285 recordings
Live Music Archive    70,404 concerts
Moving Images        222,634 movies (most are short clips)
Texts            1,729,656 texts
World Wide Web        150 billion pages

You heard somebody mention Soupy Sales and wonder who he was, he is here as is a couple of thousand movies and who knows how many old TV shows (like the old Dragnet).
http://www.archive.org/

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Tokyo - Recipients of the Key to the Metropolis of Tokyo include:
Helen Keller
John Glenn

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Speaking of Tokyo, there is this guy in Tokyo that every  two weeks or so (for the last four years) dresses up like a Star Wars Storm Trooper and dances on the streets of Tokyo.  Sometimes people dance with him.  He says he does it to meet people and have a good time.  Just when I think I have everything figured out.  See him groove it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bygdRMCwC6s&feature=fvst

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Now to the reasons to be happy this week
(or at least civil).
Here goes:

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monday 16 november
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
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*** One way to prevent conversation from
*** being boring
*** is to say the wrong thing.
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birthdays:
1836 - Kalākaua I, sometimes called The Merrie Monarch, was the last reigning king of the Free Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. He served in office from 1874 until his death at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, CA, in 1891. In 1881 he became the first King to travel around the world.  And though missionaries had suppressed the Hula and Surfing,  he encouraged them and saved them for us.  Lucky for Lilo and Stitch.

1873 - W. C. Handy was a composer and musician.  He is often called the "Father of the Blues".  The Blues existed before Handy and he was not the first to publish a Blues song but he is credited with giving it its modern form.  He took the blues from a minor well-regional music style to one of the major influences in music. 
The birth of the Blues was in 1903, on a train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi.  W.C. Handy encountered a man playing “the weirdest music I had ever heard".  That weird music became the Blues and Handy spread it far and wide.  Its influences are felt tound the world.

1916 - Daws Butler was a voice actor born in Toledo, Ohio. He originated the voices of many famous animated cartoon characters.  This is a very partial list of his voices are:

    * Aesop's Son ("Aesop and Son" from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show)
    * Augie Doggie
    * Baba Looey (from Quick Draw McGraw)
    * Cap'n Crunch
    * Chilly Willy
    * Cogswell (Jetsons)
    * Dixie Mouse (of Pixie and Dixie)
    * Elroy Jetson (Jetsons)
    * Huckleberry Hound
    * Mr. Jinks (of Pixie and Dixie)
    * Quick Draw McGraw
    * Scooby-Dum
    * Smedley the dog (from the Chilly Willy cartoons)
    * Snagglepuss
    * Wimpy (from The All-New Popeye Hour)
    * Wolf (from the Droopy cartoons)
    * Yogi Bear

events:
1384 – Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman.  She was called king because at that time a Queen was the consort of the King.  Jsdwiga was not a consort.  She was the one at the desk that says "The Buck Stops Here."  She ran things for 15 years until her death.  The Catholic Church made her a Saint.  She is the Patron Saint of Queens and of United Europe (or as we say it hear The EU).

1776 – The Seven United Netherlands (Low Countries) recognize the independence of the United States.  They are one of the first countries to do so.

1821 – Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.  The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th century transportation route through central North America that connected Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico. First used in 1821 by William Becknell, it served as a vital commercial and military highway until the introduction of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880. At first an international trade route between the United States and Mexico, it served as the 1846 U.S. invasion route of New Mexico during the Mexican–American War.  Today U.S. Route 24 follows the approximate route of the Trail.

1938 – LSD is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland.  For a people known for their serious nature they sure unleashed chaos on humanity.  Of course an overdose of the 1970s cold medication "Contact" was every bit as hallucinogenic.  I know! Don't ask me how (but I have talked to trees and they have answered, we should listen to them).

holidays:
National Fast Food Day - This involves the ritual sacrifice of a plastic Ronald McDonald statue.

Hecate Night (Wicca) - Hecate is Queen of the Night, the Spirit World, and Witchcraft.  Hecate holds dominion over life, death, regeneration, and magic. She rules wisdom, choices, expiation, victory, vengeance, and travel. Hecate guards the frontier between life and death. She is an intermediary between the spirit world and that of humans. She is the witness to all crimes, especially those against women and children.

Hecate has been known to assume the shape of a black cat, a bear, a pig or a hen but most typically manifests as a mature woman or black dog. She has a particularly strong bond with dogs. Even when manifesting in human form, Hecate is usually accompanied by hounds.
If you want to know more go to:
http://gypsymagicspells.blogspot.com/2009/08/hecate-queen-of-night.html



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tuesday 17 november
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
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*** You hear about the Scottish drag queen?
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*** He wore pants.
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birthdays:
1749 - Nicolas Appert was the inventor of airtight food preservation.  Appert, known as the "father of canning," was a confectioner.  He invented the method of preserving food (using wine bottles) to win 12,000 francs offered by Napoleon.  Napoleon needed a way to feed his troops without depending on foraging.

1866 - Voltairine de Cleyre was an American anarchist feminist activist. She was a prolific writer and speaker, opposing the State, state-sanctioned marriages, and the domination of the Church in women's lives. She was a colleague of Emma Goldman.  Emma called her "the most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced".  She was fiery, passionate, a prolific writer and speaker and a beautiful person who was so concerned with the rights of others that she forgave a person that tried to assassinate her because he was legally insane.  I know it is sexist but she was really good looking as well.  Sorry but combining the pictures of her imaging her speaking to demand freedom for the downtrodden, is just totally sexy in my mind.  I love a woman that wants more than to look good and if she fights for the rights of others, to me she is totally hot. 

1904 – Isamu Noguchi, Japanese American artist and landscape architect.  You can see one of his works in Cleveland.
Called the "Portal" it is in front of the Justice Center Complex.  Or you can goto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Police_Headquarters_and_Portal.jpg


events:
1800 – The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C. 
1858 – Modified Julian Day zero.  Today November 17, 2009 (UTC) the Julian day number is 2455153.
A Julian date of 2454115.05486 means that the date and Universal Time is Sunday January 14, 2007 at 13:18:59.9.

1911 – The Omega Psi Phi fraternity, the first African-American fraternity (at a historically black university) is founded, at Howard University.  In 1927 the Fraternity started observing National Negro Achievement Week. This annual Fraternal observance continues today as Black History Month.

1933 – United States recognizes Soviet Union.  Before that, if we met them on the street we just looked straight ahead and pretended to not notice them.

1947 – American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain observed the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th Century.  The equipment you are reading this on has hundreds of thousands, if not millions of transistors in it.  They used to be single discrete devices and now they are etched in silicon chips by the thousands.

1973 – In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook".  can you say 'Watergate' boys and girls?  Sure you can.

holidays:
National Baklava Day - Random 'too sweet for words' food day

Take A Hike Day - I think this is meant in the nice 'get some exercise' way.

Homemade Bread Day - Print your own bread.... Oh?  What's that? ...the stuff you eat?  I thought that kind of bread only came from the market.  I did not know you could make it at home.

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wednesday 18 november
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*** "I want to be alone with my thought."
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*** Homer Simpson
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birthdays:
1647 - Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher and writer.  Bayle advocated a separation between faith and reason.  He believed that faith was better for finding some truths but in science, reason should prevail.  He was an advocate of toleration of divergent beliefs, his works influenced the development of the Enlightenment.

1874 - Clarence Shepard Day, was an American author. Day's most famous work is the autobiographical "Life with Father", which detailed humorous episodes in his family's life, centering on his domineering father, during the 1890s in New York City. Scenes from the book were the basis for a 1939 play, which became one of Broadway's longest-running, non-musical hits. It ran until 1947.  A movie was made and the kids, of the family were played by a young Elizabeth Taylor and a younger Martin Milner (co-star of TV's Adam-12). "Life with Father" also became a TV sitcom (1953–55).

1918 – Tasker Watkins, Welsh WW II hero - "On 16 August 1944 at Barfour, Normandy, France, Lieutenant Watkins' company came under murderous machine-gun fire while advancing through corn fields set with booby traps. The only officer left, Lieutenant Watkins led a bayonet charge with his 30 remaining men against 50 enemy infantry, practically wiping them out. Finally, at dusk, separated from the rest of the battalion, he ordered his men to scatter and after he had personally charged and silenced an enemy machine-gun post, he brought them back to safety. His superb leadership not only saved his men, but decisively influenced the course of the battle."  The text of his citation for his Victoria Cross.  He survived the war and lived 63 more years.

events:
1477 – William Caxton produces "Dictes" or "Sayengis of the Philosophre"s, the first book printed on a printing press in England.  They had the printing worked out but the spelling was more of an adventure than a rule.

1686 – Charles Francois Felix operates on King Louis XIV of France's anal fistula after practicing the surgery on several peasants.  Now an anal fistula does not mean what some of you dirty minded people think.  It is literally a 'pain in the ass' and requires minor but delicate surgery.  If you want to know more goto (no it is not a sex site):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_fistula

1883 – American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.  Now you could tell how late your train was instead just guessing.

1926 – George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."

1928 – Release of the cartoon "Steamboat Willie", the first sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon stars Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. This is also considered by Disney to be Mickey's birthday.

holidays:
National French Vichyssoise Day- Basically Potato/Leek Cream soup.  It can be served hot or cold.


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thursday 19 november
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
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*** Bring a chainsaw to work,
*** but don't use it.
*** If anyone asks why you have it,
*** say "Just in case..."
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birthdays:
1805 – Ferdinand de Lesseps, French diplomat and Suez Canal engineer.  Unlike the Panama Canal (which is a stunning marvel of Engineering) the Suez is a 100 mile long ditch.  Ferdinand tried to replicate this at Panama but a couple of things got in the way, blood sucking, disease carrying insects and high lands of central Panama.  Oh the rain did not help either.  From 1880 until 1889 the French lost 22,000 workers to malaria and yellow fever.  The latest attempt failed. 

People wanted a way to the Pacific for years.  In 1534 Charles V, (Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain) ordered a survey with an the idea of building a canal.  In 1698 the King of Scotland tried to set up an overland trade route and failed (bugs, disease, rain less than friendly locals).  In the 1790s, Alessandro Malaspina demonstrated a canal could work and drew up construction plans.  In 1885 they built a railroad that became very important. 

Finally we came along and we had something that none of the others had.  We knew Mosquitoes were the vectors for malaria and yellow fever and we killed them by the millions.  We built the canal in 10 years starting in 1904 and lost 5600 worker.  Building the canal was a War.  They talk about the Great Wall of China taking so many men's lives we tend to forget the 27,609 that paid the highest price to travel across Panama. 

1883 – Ned Sparks, Canadian actor.  At least that is how he ended up.  He left home at 16 to prospect for gold in Klondike, Alaska.  After running out of money, he a job as a singer in a traveling musical show. He briefly attended a Toronto seminary.  He left and  worked for the railroad, then in a Toronto theater and then he New York City where worked on Broadway and eventually broke into movies. 

If you like lavish, over the top dance production then I know you have seen Ned.  He was in "42nd Street" and "Gold Diggers of 1933".  Both had massive choreography by Busby Berkeley.  Many people look at Busby Berkeley's choreography and automatically think he is Gay.  Wrong.  He was married 6 times and was the reason Irving Wheeler divorced Carol Landis (he was the other man).  Busby was a field artillery lieutenant in WWI and got his inspiration from from watching soldiers drilling on the parade field.

events:
1095 – The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land, begins.  Their battle cry was "Deus vult" (Latin, God wills it).  The Crusader did pretty well and captured a lot of the Holy Land.  Of course the Saracens thought God (Allah) was on their side and later Crusaders got the stuffing kicked out of them. 
There were eleven major crusades and numerous minor ones.  Mostly the targets were  Muslims, but not wanting anybody feeling left out, they also went after pagan Slavs, Jews, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and political enemies of the popes.

1959 – The Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.  Now it is a collector's item.  The grill is especially sought for custom hot rods.

1969 – Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum (the "Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.

1969 – Football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.

1990 – Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the "Girl You Know It’s True" album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.  Hey I could get a Grammy if I did not have to do any of the singing.

holidays:
National Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day - Just about any of them, including Four.  Don't drink Four to stay awake though.  Depending on the flavor Four has up to 12% alcohol.  Drunk and alert??? Probably a very bad thing.  Also it only comes in 24 ounce cans.


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friday 20 november
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
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*** Laugh hysterically and shout
*** "You will all perish in flames!!!"
*** Then continue working calmly.
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birthdays:
1620 – Peregrine White. He was the first English child born in the Plymouth Colony....  Not really, he was born, in Provincetown Harbor, on the Mayflower.  They had not gotten off the ship yet.

1928 - Donald Hall - Who?  Well you uncultured savages, he was the Poet Laureate of the United States (2006-07 they serve from October to May of the next year and get $35,000).  His official title was 'Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress'.
this is some of his work

Ox Cart Man

In October of the year,
he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,
counting the seed, counting
the cellar’s portion out,
and bags the rest on the cart’s floor.

He packs wool sheared in April, honey
in combs, linen, leather
tanned from deerhide,
and vinegar in a barrel
hooped by hand at the forge’s fire.

He walks by his ox’s head, ten days
to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,
and the bag that carried potatoes,
flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose
feathers, yarn.

When the cart is empty he sells the cart.
When the cart is sold he sells the ox,
harness and yoke, and walks
home, his pockets heavy
with the year’s coin for salt and taxes,

and at home by fire’s light in November cold
stitches new harness
for next year’s ox in the barn,
and carves the yoke, and saws planks
building the cart again.

- Donald Hall
Donald Hall, “Ox Cart Man” from Old and New Poems.
Copyright © 1990 by Donald Hall.

1939 – Dick Smothers is one half of the comedy team The Smothers Brothers.  For those who have never seen them, there normal shtick was to start a folk song which would devolve into a comedy routine and eventually get back to the song.  Check them out on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfl2o44zb0
They had a hysterical comedy show in the late 60s.  Writers and regular performers  included:
Steve Martin
Don Novello (Father Guido Sarducci - Saturday Night Live)
Rob Reiner (Mike Stivic - Meathead on Archie Bunker)
Pat Paulsen (Presidential candidate)(he actually filed and ran)
Bob Einstein ("Super Dave Osborne" and "Officer Judy"),
Albert Brooks (Einstein's brother)
The television premiere of Mason Williams' hit record, Classical Gas, took place on the show; Williams was also the head writer for the series.
They had the coolest bands do musical segments including Jefferson Airplane and The Who. 
To see the video of when The Who played then destroyed their instruments including Drummer Keith Moon blowing himself and his drum set up and ruining Pete Townsend's hearing goto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9-JdubfUCw

events:
1820 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (whaler from Nantucket) 2,000 miles from the west coast of South America (Moby-Dick is partially inspired by this story).  Luckily for literature nobody tried to blow it up with half a ton of dynamite.

1923 – Renten Mark replaces the Papier Mark as the official currency of Germany at the exchange rate of one Renten Mark to One Trillion Papier Mark.  Just a little bit of inflation.  The Renten Mark is replaced by the Reich Mark (when Hitler took over) and after WWII that was replaced by the Deutsch Mark which has been replaced by the Euro.  While we have just made do with the dollar.
1962 – The USSR agrees to remove its missiles from Cuba ending the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I get to see my father a couple of weeks later.  He (along with the entire US Military around the world) was on Full "The Russians are coming" Alert.  Being an US Soldier's dependent, in Germany, during the Cuban Missile Crisis felt like running around naked in an arena during a demolition derby.  We were very scared.  Most of the US did not know that we were literally one single minor incident from World War III.  I think that is as close as we have ever come.  Not too cool.

1974 – The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later leads to the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.  About eight years later.  I was working for Western Electric when the break up occurred and we lost the right to use the Bell System logo (a highly stylized blue bell inside a blue circle).  They gave us all daubers about the size of the logo we used and we had to paint out every logo on every box, piece of equipment and piece of paper.  Thousands upon thousands of logos.  Strange.

1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released (Actually 1.01 - 1.0 never made it into real life). It stunk so bad that I can still smell it.  It had no applications not even Microsoft Office (which only ran on Macintosh at the time). Then there was 2.0, 3.0, 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, CE, Vista and now 7.  Have I told you lately that I hate Bill Gates?

holidays:
Absurdity Day - Act like you usually do and that will probably be enough.

National Peanut Butter Fudge Day - Random dessert day

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****joe722****