What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness. – Baruch Spinoza
TODAY – JANUARY 26th – THURSDAY
26th day of 2012 with 340 to follow.
Holidays for Today:
*Spouse’s Day
*National Pistachio Day
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BIRTHDAYS ON THIS DATE:
- 1714 Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, Paris, France, sculptor (Child with Cage, Mercury Fastening his Sandals)
- 1880 Douglas MacArthur, Little Rock, Arkansas, World War II general and Medal of Honor recipient
- 1905 Maria von Trapp, Austrian-born singer (inspiration for The Sound of Music)
- 1911 Polykarp Kusch, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize for his accurate determination that the magnetic moment of the electron was greater than its theoretical value, thus leading to reconsideration of—and innovations in—quantum electrodynamics
- 1915 William Hopper, New York City, New York, actor (Paul Drake on Perry Mason)
- 1918 Philip José Farmer, Terra Haute, Indiana, sci-fi/fantasy writer (Riverworld, World of Tiers, Doc Savage)
- 1923 Anne Jeffreys, Goldsboro, North Carolina, actress (I Married an Angel)
- 1925 Paul Newman, Cleveland, Ohio, actor, philanthropist, race car driver and race team owner, ‘Newman’s Own’ food company (The Color Of Money, Cool Hand Luke, The Towering Inferno, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Sting)
- 1931 Mary Murphy, Washington, District of Columbia, film actress (Beachhead with Tony Curtis, The Desperate Hours)
- 1941 Scott Glenn, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, actor (Urban Cowboy,The Right Stuff, The Hunt for Red October, The Silence of the Lambs)
- 1949 Jonathan Carroll, New York City, author, known for novels characterized as magic realist, slipstream or modern fantasy (The Crane’s View Trilogy)
- 1949 David Strathairn, San Francisco, California, actor (The Whistleblower, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Fracture )
- 1958 Ellen DeGeneres, Metairie, Louisiana, actress and comedian and host (The Ellen DeGeneres Show)
- 1961 Wayne Gretzky, Brantford, Ontario, Canada, ice hockey player
- 1970 Tracy Middendorf, Miami, Florida, actress (Bones, Boardwalk Empire )
- 1971 Dorian Gregory, Washington, D.C., actor (Charmed, Soul Train)
- 1990 Christopher Massey, Nashville, Tennessee, actor (Zoey 101 )
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Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace. – Karl Barth
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HISTORICAL HAPPENINGS:
- 1788 The first European settlers in Australia, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, landed in what became known as Sydney. The group had first settled at Botany Bay eight days before. This day is celebrated as Australia Day.
- 1837 Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state.
- 1838 Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States
- 1855 Point No Point Treaty is signed in Washington Territory.
- 1861 American Civil War: The state of Louisiana secedes from the Union.
- 1863 American Civil War: General Ambrose Burnside is relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac after the disastrous Fredericksburg campaign. He is replaced by Joseph Hooker.
- 1863 American Civil War: Governor of Massachusetts John Albion Andrew receives permission from Secretary of War to raise a militia organization for men of African descent.
- 1870 American Civil War: Virginia rejoins the Union.
- 1911 Glenn H. Curtiss flies the first successful American seaplane.
- 1911 Richard Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier receives its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera.
- 1920 Former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company which he later sold to his former employer.
- 1924 St.Petersburg is renamed Leningrad.
- 1930 The Indian National Congress declares 26 January as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (Complete Independence) which occurred 20 years later.
- 1934 The Apollo Theater reopens in Harlem, New York City.
- 1934 German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact is signed.
- 1950 India officially proclaimed itself a republic as Rajendra Prasad took the oath of office as president.
- 1961 John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician. This is the first time a woman holds this appointment.
- 1962 Ranger program: Ranger 3 is launched to study the moon. The space probe later misses the moon by 22,000 miles (35,400 km).
- 1984 CBS television debuted Mickey Spillane’s “The New Mike Hammer” with Stacy Keach playing Mike Hammer.
- 1992 Russian president Boris Yeltsin announced that his country would stop targeting U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.
- 2004 President Hamid Karzai signs the new constitution of Afghanistan.
- 2004 A whale explodes in the town of Tainan, Taiwan. A build-up of gas in the decomposing sperm whale is suspected of causing the explosion.
- 2005 Glendale train crash: Two trains derail killing 11 and injuring 200 in Glendale, California, near Los Angeles.
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I am a lay minister at my church. My sister was getting married and she wanted a small, casual wedding. She asked me to officiate. I’d never performed a marriage ceremony before, so I asked my pastor for advice.
“My sister has asked me to marry her,” I said, and I’m not sure what to do.”
The minister answered, “Try telling her you just want to be friends.”
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ONE-LINERS:
You know you have an Internet addiction when …
… you kiss your girlfriend’s Facebook page.
… your idea of a good date is a virtual walk through a field … your Farmville pasture.
… it takes 15 minutes to scroll from the top to the bottom of your bookmarks.
… your eyeglasses have Google’s web page burned into them.
… your daydreams are about getting a faster connection to the net.
… your night dreams are in HTML.
… when you turn off your system you feel like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
… you refer to going to the bathroom as “downloading.”
… you start introducing yourself as “Jim8668 At Gmail Dot Com”.
… your heart races faster and beats irregularly whenever you see a new Web site address in print or on TV, even though you’ve never had heart problems before.
… you step out of your room and realize that your parents have moved and you don’t have a clue when it happened.
… you turn on your intercom when leaving the room so you can hear if new e-mail arrives.
… your wife drapes a blonde wig over your monitor to remind you of what she looks like.
… all of your friends have an @ in their names.
… your dog has his own home page.
… your dog’s homepage is actually good.
… you never speak to your mother, because she doesn’t have a computer.
… you check your mail. It says “no new messages.” So you check it again.
… your phone bill comes to your doorstep in a box.
… you don’t know if your three closest friends are guys or gals, because they have neutral nicknames and you never bothered to ask.
… your husband tells you he’s had the beard for two months.
… you wake up at 3 AM to use the bathroom and stop and check your e-mail on the way back to bed.
… you tell the kids they can’t use the computer because “Daddy’s got work to do” … and you don’t even have a job.
… you buy a Captain Kirk chair with a built-in keyboard and mouse.
… your wife makes a new rule: “The computer cannot come to bed.”
… you get a tattoo that says “This body best viewed with Internet Explorer 8.0 or higher.”
… the last female you picked up was a jpeg.
… you ask a plumber how much it would cost to replace your computer chair with a toilet.
… your wife says communication is important in a marriage, so you buy another iPad and install a wireless router so the two of you can chat.
… as your car crashes through the guardrail on a mountain road, your first instinct is to search for the “back” button.
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pic of the day:
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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!
The summer band class I taught was just getting underway when a large insect flew into the room. The sixth graders, eager to play their shiny new instruments, tried to ignore the buzzing intruder, but eventually one student could stand it no longer. He rolled up his music book and swatted the insect and then for good measure stomped on it to ensure its fate.
“Is it a bee?” another student asked.
“Nope! Bee flat.”
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I work like a horse. I eat like a pig. I like to play chicken. They call me a dirty rat. You can get my goat. I can be as slippery as a
snake. I get dog tired. I can be as quiet as a mouse. They say I’m as quick as a cat. I used to be as strong as an ox. I don’t like henparties. Please don’t badger me. People try to buffalo me. I’m as ugly as a toad. You should see the puss on me. I’m as gentle as a lamb. And I’m as happy as a lark when I drink like a fish. I’m as proud as a peacock. And I’m as hairy as a gorilla. And there’s a frog in my throat. Just the other day I got a charlie horse. I’ve got goose bumps all over. I’ve got the memory of an elephant, but I’m no sitting duck. I can be alone wolf. And I’m having a whale of a time.
So why is it supposed to be so bad when somebody calls me an animal?
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The Eternal Question – Why?
Why does the sun lighten our hair, but darken our skin?
Why can’t women put on mascara with their mouth closed?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavour, while dishwashing liquid is made with real lemons?
Why don’t we ever see this headline: “Psychic Wins Lottery”?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a “Broker”?
Why isn’t there mouse flavoured cat food?
Who tastes dog food when it has a “new & improved” flavour?
Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
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TODAY IN TRIVIA: Do you like pistachios?
Pistachios aren’t actually nuts. Pistachio “nuts” are actually seeds of red or yellow plum-like fruits whose flesh is removed during processing. However, everyone calls them a nut because they look like “nuts” and are in the cashew family.
California is the second largest pistachio producer in the world, even though it is mostly known for “happy cows” and oranges. In fact, 98% of the pistachios produced in the United States are from California. BUT? There’s a but on it. It is Iran that is the largest producer of pistachios in the world. So, the next time you think of Iran, think pistachios.
Pistachios are found in bible, it’s biblical in short. They are mentioned in the Old Testament in Genesis 43:11, and are one of only two nuts mentioned in Scripture. The other nut mentioned is the almond.
Pistachios are royalty. The Queen of Sheba made an official declaration that pistachios were an exclusively royal food. Nebuchadnezzar, the ancient king of Babylon, also had a passion for pistachios. It is said that he had pistachio trees planted in his hanging gardens. And the Mogul Emperor, Akbar the Great, often served chicken at these banquets, and ordered all the chickens to be fed pistachio nuts for 6 to 8 weeks in advance to give the chickens a more delicious flavor.
Pistachio is a happy food. They are called “the smiling nut” in Iran and “the happy nut” in China. People in the Middle East sometimes refer to the pistachio as the “smiling pistachio.”
In those same countries, if you are sitting under a Pistachio tree and you hear the shells snapping open, it is a sign of good luck. Be sure to seat on a P tree with a snapping sound.
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QUIP OF THE DAY: Time is a great healer, but a poor beautician. – Lucille S. Harper
THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!
Thought for the day. . .
Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take. – Peter McWilliams, Life 101
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