GETTING DOWN WITH MY BAD SELF SINCE 1837.
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You interested in the April Fool's day fallout? Well the following website will help hook you up.
http://techcrunch.com/april-fools-shenanigans/
The only thing is that some jokes are so specific that you have to do research find out what s funny.

http://techcrunch.com/april-fools-shenanigans/

Here is a partial list of some of the weirdness inflicted on the world, last Thursday:
YouTube: who cares about HD when you can watch your videos in text. You can opt to watch a video in TEXTp or text only mode. Pretty neat.

Google Goes Nuclear
Techcrunch reports that Google is getting serious about nuclear research, and is building a uranium enrichment plant. Some experts say it’s for energy, other say it’s a nuclear deterrent against the China threat.

Google Search
Google has renamed itself as Topeka.

Starbucks
Starbucks is now offering the "Micra" (very tiny) and the “Plenty” (128 fl. oz – think popcorn bucket) sizes. “Whether customers are looking for a large or small size, the Plenta and the Micra satisfy all U.S. and Canada customers’ needs for more and less coffee,” said Hugh Mungis, Starbucks VP of Volume. “Our size selection is now plentiful.”

Google UK
Google UK is offering an app for the Android that will translate animal speech. As the site explains: “Translate for Animals is an application for Android phones that recognises and transcribes words and phrases that are common to a species, like cats for example. To develop Translate for Animals, we worked closely with many of the world’s top language synthesis teams, and with leaders in the field of animal cognitive linguistics, including senior fellows at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.”

Hulu
Secret documentary: “Hulu Confidential For Internal Use Only.” Exposes their “alien plot” conspiracy to turn everybody's brains into mush which they will eat..

Kodak
Introducing smelly photographs. Kodak’s aromaphotography will let you smell the image you’re looking at, all thanks to the latest breakthroughs in “Neuro-Optic-Nasal-Sense Imaging.”

CollegeHumor
Initially redirects you to a screen that says “Attention your IP address “XXX” has been logged by the US Department of Information….the website you were trying to access, www.collegehumor.com, is currently under investigation for harboring un-American sentiment and will remain offline until an official review can be conducted….”

TripAdvisor
Announcing their first reviewer from space!

ThinkGeek.com
If you’ve always wanted a plush bacon doll or canned unicorn meat (with recipes), well today is you lucky day. They also had the Screaming Chef's Knife, the Programmable Tattoo (you can change it using a computer), the 2001 A Space Odyssey 'Monolith' action figure and for all you Star Trek fans 'Tribles n Bits' breakfast cereal. The nice thing about the Tribles n Bits is that you never have to buy another box.

Auto Windscreens
First Prescription Windscreen Launches!

Ben & Jerry’s
Virtual ice cream! (just lick your screen)

OnWindows
Microsoft, Apple and Jay-Z are partnering.

Google Mobile Search
“Well, I’m happy to announce that for those of you who turn to Google in search of, “where am I,” we finally have a better result. Starting today, just go to Google.com on your phone in the US, search for “where am I”, and wonder about your own whereabouts no more.”

Hull York Medical School
The Hull York Medical School has been selected to pilot a new course for trainee doctors — preparing them for the challenges of the next generation of medical practice. Its focus will be on diagnosing and treating disease in extraterrestrial life forms.

iFart
“The makers of iFart Mobile, one of the most popular iphone applications of all time have announced a major technological breakthrough in the iPhone platform. iFart’s developers created an “olfactic framework” which works inside Apple’s SDK and enables them to release digital scents via the iPhone speaker.”

Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is offering IT professionals some advice on surviving the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

Gmail
Google’s webmail service suffered a vowel outage.

Zurb
Startup Zurb has launched the Sharpiener, which is a sharpener for your Sharpie markers, in case they go dull.

Shipwire
Shipwire launches “Second Day Before Yesterday,” your packages will ship before you ordered them.

Toshiba
“Oh Buoy!” The incredible inflatable laptop. Only seconds to inflate! Press release: “We are thrilled to be first to market, propelling our customers into the future of aquatic computing.”

Red Tricycle
A pregnancy test app: iPeed. “After downloading the application, you simply aim your urine stream at the bullseye in the center of the screen. A complex algorithm analyzes the level of HCG (pregnancy hormone) in your urine. Sensitivity is > 12.5 mIU/mL, comparable to most tests available at the supermarket.” If it’s positive, you get a picture of a baby, if negative, you get a picture of a Martini.
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The music today is some 'The Runaways' some 'Suzi Quatro' a little 'The Donnas' and a lot of 'Joan Jett & the Blackhearts'. Women can KICK it.

I Hate Myself For Loving You:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry9ppgHPzks&feature=related

I Love Rock N Roll (Live NY)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRN9egfj978&feature=related

Devil Gate Drive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vFTksaposs
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Having a bad day? Do you need to vent? Would you like to write something (anonymously) that the whole world can read? Welcome to the Internet. The following websites give you the ability to CARP about what is bugging you.

What bad thing happened to you today? Tell it to BADHAP:
http://www.badhap.com/

MEGAGRIPE lets you air it out:
http://www.megagripe.com/

POSTSECRET is a little different. They want you to physically send them a home made postcard with you dirty little secret. If they like your card they post it.
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

FRUSTER is the place to go if you want to complain but have a short attention span. 140 characters only. Twitter for pissed off people.
http://www.fruster.com/

I LOVE TO COMPLAIN is just that, a place to put it all out there.
http://www.ilovetocomplain.com/

HE DID WHAT? and SHE DID WHAT? Are both sites to complain about your significant other. As you can see they are for women commiserating with other women and men doing whatever the short man version of the word commiserating is with other men. I am sure the posts at HE DID WHAT? are much longer.

HE DID WHAT?
http://www.hedidwhat.com/

SHE DID WHAT?
http://www.shedidwhat.com/

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

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monday 5 april
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** The science gets more fun
*** when I get a bigger gun.
***
*** - Kari Byron (Mythbuster)
*******************************************
birthdays:
1649 - Elihu Yale was a British merchant, philanthropist, governor of the British East India Company, and a benefactor of Collegiate School of Connecticut, which in 1718 was named Yale University in his honor. If you check out his first name you will see where the term 'Eli' (Yale students nickname) can from. Elihu was born in Boston and his parents returned to England when he was three. He never came to North America again. In 1718 he was contacted with a request to help out the struggling Collegiate School. His £800 pounds sterling bequest (a huge amount then) caused the school to first name a building and then the entire school after Yale.

1900 – Spencer Tracy, American actor

1908 – Bette Davis, American actress

1909 – Albert R. Broccoli, American film producer

1916 – Gregory Peck, American actor

events:
1792 – U.S. President George Washington exercises his authority to veto a bill, the first time this power is used in the United States.

1804 – High Possil Meteorite: The first recorded meteorite in Scotland falls in Possil.

1874 – Birkenhead Park, the first publicly financed public park, in Britain, is opened in Birkenhead.

1923 – Firestone Tire and Rubber Company begins production of balloon-tires.

1930 – In an act of civil disobedience, Mohandas Gandhi breaks British law after marching to the sea and making salt.

1958 – Ripple Rock, - Ripple Rock is a bad ass rock that was in the Discovery Passage between British Columbia and Vancouver Island. The first known large ship to fall prey to Ripple Rock was the steamer Saranac in 1875. At least 20 large and 100 smaller vessels were badly damaged or sunk between then and 1958. So they blew it up. The Canadians spent $3,000,000 and used 1,270 metric tons (yes tons) of Nitramex 2H to displace over 600,000 cubic meters of rock and water. It was one of the largest planned, non-nuclear explosions ever. There was debris thrown 1000 feet in the air. No more wrecked boats.

holidays:
Go For Broke Day - If you are so inclined, Go For It. Just remember that Dragons think are crunchy and have a tasty soft middle.

National Raisin and Spice Bar Day - Random food stuff.

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tuesday 6 april
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** If you think something small can't make
*** a difference, try going to sleep with
*** a mosquito in the room."
***
*** -Unknown
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birthdays:
1719 – Axel von Fersen the Elder, Swedish statesman, soldier and father of Axel von Fersen the Younger. I am glad they got the names in the right order.

1752 - Sébastien Érard was a French instrument maker of German origin who specialized in making pianos and harps. He developed many features for both and most of his improvements for pianos are still found on the modern instruments. The modern piano would be a different beastie without his additions. Érard was the first maker in Paris to fit pedals on the piano. There was the usual sustaining pedal, an action shift, a celeste, and a bassoon pedal (which put leather against the strings to make them buzz). A knee lever moved the action further than the action-shift pedal, making the hammers strike only one string. Other Érard piano patents deal mainly with technicalities of the keyboard action, soundboard, and tuning mechanism; virtually all of these innovations are retained in modern piano design.

1872 - Samuel Cate Prescott was an American food scientist and microbiologist who was involved in the development of food safety, food science, public health, and industrial microbiology. He was a MIT trained chemist. A year or so after he graduated he was asked back to teach at MIT. A canning company was having a bad time trying to keep their canned clams from exploding. Prescott discover the time and temperature needed to kill they bad things in the clams and he was off. He added greatly to our knowledge of correct canning and probably responsible for saving many people from bad clams.

Even as a kid I remember that every once in a while a can would puff up in the kitchen. I received sever warnings about not opening those cans under any circumstances. It has been 40 years since I last saw a 'bad can'.

events:
1808 – John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company. Astor, was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States. He was the creator of the first trust in America. He made his fortune in fur trading, real estate, and opium.

He built a fur-trading empire that extended to the Great Lakes region and Canada, and later expanded into the American West and Pacific coast. In the early 1800s he diversified into New York City real estate and later became a famed patron of the arts.

At the time of his death in 1848, Astor was the wealthiest person in the United States. His estate was estimated to be $20 million. According to a Forbes article, his estimated net worth as a fraction of the U.S. gross domestic product at the time would be equivalent to $110.1 billion in 2006 U.S. dollars, making him the fourth wealthiest person in American history.

1866 – The Grand Army of the Republic, an American patriotic organization composed of Union veterans of the American Civil War, is founded. It lasts until 1956. It was succeeded by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW). Both organizations placed markers on Civil War veteran's graves, for Memorial Day.

1869 – Celluloid is patented. Generally regarded to be the first thermoplastic, it was first created as Parkesine (sometime between 1856 & 1862) (he made a shoddy product and when out of bussiness) in 1869 it was reintroduce as Xylonite before being registered as Celluloid in 1870. Eventually the 1869 Celluloid patent was over turned in favor of Alexander Parkes, the inventor of Parkesine.

Celluloid was developed to make billiard and pool balls. At the time they were almost always made of Ivory and they were expensive. The Celluloid balls were made of nitrocellulose and camphor. For you non-chemists nitrocellulose is also known as gun cotton, a low grade explosive. Yes, sometimes the new billiard balls would go boom. Not the entire ball but part of the surface. This little feature caused serious difficulties in the Western States where the sound of a small explosion had everybody pulling their guns.

About the only things still made from Celluloid today are Ping Pong balls and guitar picks. Gun cotton is alive and well. It is used as lacquer on electric guitars and cars, solid rocket fuel, liquid skin, flash paper, photographic film, wart remover, Radon tests and aircraft dope.

holidays:
Old Lady Day - For those of you who think they are old.

Plan Your Epitaph Day - A good one especially if you are a little old lady.

Jump Over Things Day - Better than tripping.

National Caramel Popcorn Day - Random food day.

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wednesday 7 april
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** Some people are alive only because
*** it is illegal to kill them."
***
*** -Unknown
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birthdays:
1859 – Walter Camp, sports authority known as the "Father of American Football". He is credited with innovations such as the snap-back from center, the system of downs, and the points system, as well the introduction of the long-standard offensive arrangement of players (a seven-man offensive line and a four-man backfield consisting of a quarterback, two halfbacks, and a fullback). Camp was also responsible for introducing the "safety", awarding two points to the defensive side for tackling a ball carrier in his own end zone.

1917 - Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría was an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussionist. He is most famous for being the composer of the jazz standard "Afro Blue," recorded by John Coltrane among others.

That is not the reason that he is on the list today but rather the movie "Blazing Saddles" is the reason. Mongo Santamaria was one of the jokes. When the big, dumb Mongo enters the scene, a Spanish-speaking peasant cries "Mongo! Santa Maria!" before fleeing in terror. I hate to burst your bubble but sometimes I like puns.

1951 – Janis Ian, American singer and songwriter. At the age of thirteen, Ian wrote and sang her first hit single, "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)". Janis is dead set against RIAA going medieval on people caught down loading music off the Internet. She is one of the first artist to give away some of her songs on her website, so far it appears that some free music increases the exposure of the artist and actually increases their sales. She currently has seven songs available for free MP3 download and a rant against RIAA. The RIAA (petty organization that they are) has never certified Ian's signature tune "At Seventeen" as gold or platinum even though it has sold more than two million copies.
Score free music and read about Janis.
http://www.janisian.com/

events:
1788 – American Pioneers to the Northwest Territory arrive at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, establishing Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent American settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory, and opening the westward expansion of the new country.

1795 – France adopts the metre as the basic measure of length. How long is a metre? 39.37 inches is the easy answer. Never let a scientist or worse a committee of scientists ever define something because the latest definition of a metre is the distance traveled by light in free space in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second. I do not even know how you would measure that. I know the clock on my cell phone ain't getting it.

As for spelling the unit 'metre', that is how they do it all over most of the world. We just had to be different so we spell it 'meter'.

1827 – John Walker, an English chemist, sells the first friction match that he had invented the previous year. These were the interesting matches which could be struck just about anywhere. Mostly those are not too common, if there are a few in your pocket you can accidentally set them off. They did lead to a lot of crazy tricks like lighting them by pulling them across your jeans or flicking them with a thumb nail or against a tooth or on your zipper or across somebody's chest. Don't try the tooth thing unless you are prepared to get burnt.

This was not the first match which early versions go back hundreds of years. Those early matches were usually small sticks that were treated so they would catch fire easily and then could be used to light other things. It is not even the first self igniting match. The first modern, self-igniting match was invented in 1805. The head of the match consisted of a mixture of potassium chlorate, sulfur, sugar, and rubber. They were ignited by dipping the tip of the match in a small asbestos bottle filled with sulfuric acid. I can see more than one way to hurt yourself before you ever got any flame. So the friction match was the first practical match.

holidays:
No Housework Day - I can do that.

National Coffee Cake Day - Random food day

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thursday 8 april
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** You've reached middle age when all
*** you exercise is caution."
***
*** -Unknown
*******************************************
birthdays:

1732 - David Rittenhouse was a renowned American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman and public official. Rittenhouse was the first director of the United States Mint. In 1781 Rittenhouse became the first American to sight Uranus. In 1784 Rittenhouse, surveyor Andrew Ellicott and their crew completed the unfinished survey of the Mason Dixon line to the southwest corner of Pennsylvania.

1918 – Betty Ford, First Lady of the United States and rehab to the stars.

1926 - Henry N. Cobb is an American architect and founding partner with I.M. Pei of 'Pei Cobb, Freed & Partners', an international architectural firm based in New York City. We ain't talking row houses, people. These are the guys you go to when you have scads of money and you want a sky scrapper that shouts that fact.

events:
1895 – The Supreme Court of the United States declares unapportioned income tax to be unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.

1904 – Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times. So they had naming rights a long time before the Schottenstein Arena.

1908 – Harvard University votes to establish the Harvard Business School.

1942 – Siege of Leningrad – Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad. We have heard many times about the siege of Stalingrad but not so much about the siege of Leningrad. Curious since the siege of Leningrad had more casualties than any other siege ever in history. The 872 day siege cost 1,500,000 civilian and military casualties. Part of the reason the city survived was 'The Road of Life' where thousands of soldiers drove trucks across the frozen Lake Ladoga (during the winter) and in boats (obviously during the not-winter). Even so they barely brought enough supplies to continue the fighting and not enough to stop the starvation.

But why such a depressing item? Lake Ladoga! 10,000 to 12,000 years ago the Baltic Sea was not a saltwater sea connected to the North Sea and the Atlantic but rather a land locked freshwater lake. One huge lake. Lake Ladoga is the only freshwater part of that lake that is left. When the land bridges fell the Baltic Lake became the Baltic Sea. Lake Ladoga was a deeper part and as the Baltic Lake's elevation dropped it was cut off from the rest. The Baltic Lake was huge with over 146,000 square miles of surface area and 5,000 miles of coast line. For comparison that is 50% more surface area than all five of the great lakes combined.

holidays:
Grand Ivy Day - Not lesser Ivy.

International Bird Day - Find some one international to give the... er... A bird to.

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friday 9 april
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** Experience is what you get when
*** you don't get what you want.
***
*** -Tori Filler
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birthdays:
1794 - Theobald Böhm was a Bavarian inventor and musician, who perfected the modern Western concert flute and its improved fingering system.

1806 - Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British engineer who assisted in building the first tunnel under a navigable river and developed the SS Great Britain, the first propeller-driven ocean-going iron ship, which was at the time also the largest ship ever built. His steamship the SS Great Eastern laid the first lasting telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean.
Brunel suffered several years of ill health, with kidney problems, before succumbing to a stroke at the age of 53 years. Brunel was said to smoke up to 40 cigars a day and to sleep as little as four hours each night. Do you think he probalbly should have quit smoking and gotten more rest?

1897 - John Bradley Gambling was the oringinal host of WOR Radio's (New York City, 710 AM) morning show "Rambling With Gambling" (now known as "The John Gambling Show"). The show ran from 1925 until 2000. John B. was the first host then his son John A. took over in 1959 until the show ended in in 2000 but wait, since 30 April 2008 John R. (the grandson) is back on the air on "The John Gambling Show". The Grand Ole Opry is the only show that has run longer and the only reason is WOR took it off the air for 8 years.


events:
1860 – The oldest audible sound recording of a human voice is recorded. There is just one problem... there was no way to play it back. They did not figure out a way to recover the sound until 2008 and of course computers were required. 148 years that recording waited. Well I listened to it and except for the novelty of it, I could have waited another 148 years. Dolby noise reduction? What's that? But what do you expect from a device that had a Plaster barrel, with a membrane stretched over one end, and a hog bristle stuck in the membrane and the bristle was making marks on a soot covered plate. But if you want to listen there are links to it on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonautogram

1959 – Mercury program: NASA announces the selection of the United States' first seven astronauts, whom the news media quickly dub the "Mercury Seven".

There were women who met the criteria (both physically, educationally and flying experience) that were being considered (at least that is what they were told). They were allowed to go through the tests and training because NASA thought they would all wash out and save them the trouble of just saying 'No Women Allowed'. The only problem is that most of them succeeded. Nineteen female pilots were selected for training; thirteen passed, and four scored as highly as any of the Mercury Seven. None ever flew in a Mercury spacecraft because the program added a requirement for a certain amount of military flight experience. The Air Force did not admit women, all of the thirteen candidates were disqualified. None of them ever flew is space.

2010 - ****The following item is biased because I am totally a fan.****
********And before you ask, yes I bought all the records.*******
Today the movie 'The Runaways' goes into wide release. So what, you say. Let me paint you a picture. It is the 70s, teenage girls, rock, punk, loud and dirty and I present you with 'The Runaways' AKA 'The Queens of Noise'. Many say they were the first Riot Grrrl band. This is not a Biopic but a Rock n Roll movie. With a soundtrack that includes:

Nick Gilder
Suzi Quatro
MC5
David Bowie
Dakota Fanning & Kristen Stewart
The Runaways
The Stooges
Sex Pistols
Joan Jett and the Black Hearts

The film is based on Cherie Currie's memoir, 'Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway'.

The five member band at one time or another had the following members:
Joan Jett
Sandy West
Micki Steele
Peggy Foster
Cherie Currie
Lita Ford
Jackie Fox
Vicki Blue aka Victory Tischler-Blue
Laurie McAllister

And they went on to start or play in these bands:
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Lita Ford
The Bangles
Sandy West Band
Currie-Blue Band

ROCK N ROLL - see the movie. The trailer is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHpEJ749TRM

Some of the lyrics to the first song they had on the air.

CHERRY BOMB

Can't stay at home, can't stay at school
Old folks say, ya poor little fool
Down the street I'm the girl next door
I'm the fox you've been waiting for

Hello Daddy, hello Mom
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb
Hello world I'm your wild girl
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb

Hey street boy what's your style
Your dead end dreams don't make you smile
I'll give ya something to live for
Have ya, grab ya til your sore

THE RUNAWAYS LIVE IN CLEVELAND 7/19/76 :
This was The Runaways first show in Ohio. Sandy West, Cherie Currie and Jackie Fox were 17, Joan Jett and Lita Ford were 18, Micki Steele was 22.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9kUvoc6sf8

holidays:
Wild Turkey Drive begins - Give Wild Turkey to the needy. No Beam, no Walker, no Cutty just Wild Turkey.

National Chinese Almond Cookie Day - Random food day.

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****joe722****