Don’t follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise. – Joan Rivers
TODAY – JANUARY 17th – TUESDAY
17th day of 2017 with 348 days to follow. Moon is waning with 73% visible.
Holidays for Today:
~ Ditch New Years Resolutions Day
~ Hot Heads Chili Day
~ Kid Inventors’ Day
~ National Hot Buttered Rum Day
~ Popeye Day
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BIRTHDAYS ON THIS DATE:
1706 Benjamin Franklin, Boston, Massachusetts, statesman and inventor (lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass ‘armonica’)
1886 Glenn L. Martin, Macksburg, Iowa, aviation pioneer (started the Glenn L. Martin Company, which later became part of Martin Marietta, and today’s Lockheed Martin)
1922 Betty White, Oak Park, Illinois, actress (Mary Tyler Moore Show, Golden Girls)
1927 Eartha Kitt, North, South Carolina, singer/actress (Catwoman/Batman; Emperor’s New Groove)
1928 Vidal Sassoon, London, England, hair stylist/CEO (Vidal Sassoon)
1931 James Earl Jones, Arkabutla, Mississippi, actor (Darth Vader voice, Exorcist II, Soul Man, The Lion King)
1933 Shari Lewis, Bronx, New York, ventriloquist/puppeteer, author (Lamb Chop)
1942 Muhammad Ali, Louisville, Kentucky, boxer (three-time World Heavyweight Champion)
1962 Jim Carrey, Canada, actor / comedian (In Living Color, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, Dumb & Dumber, Batman Forever, The Truman Show, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears a Who!, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, True Crimes)
1980 Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Ukrainian ballroom dancer (Dancing with the Stars, 15 seasons)
1980 Zooey Deschanel, Los Angeles, California, actress (Mumford, Elf, Failure to Launch, Bridge to Terabithia, New Girl, Trolls)
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Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit. – Aristotle
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HISTORICAL HAPPENINGS:
1806 James Madison Randolph, the grandson of Thomas Jefferson, becomes the first child born in the White House.
1912 Sir Robert Falcon Scott reaches the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen.
1916 The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) is formed.
1917 The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
1929 Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by Elzie Segar, first appears in the Thimble Theatre comic strip.
1982 “Cold Sunday” – in the United States temperatures fell to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities.
1989 Stockton massacre: Patrick Purdy opens fire with an assault rifle at the Cleveland Elementary School playground, killing five children and wounding 29 others and one teacher before taking his own life.
1998 Paula Jones accuses President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.
2001 President Bill Clinton posthumously raises Meriwether Lewis’ rank from Lieutenant to Captain.
2002 Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, displacing an estimated 400,000 people.
2007 Doomsday Clock is set to five minutes to midnight in response to N. Korea nuclear testing.
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The shaddchan [matchmaker] corners a yeshiva bochur [student] and says, “Oy have I got a girl for you!”
“Not interested.”
“But she’s beautiful!”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. And she’s very rich too.”
“Really?”
“And she has great yichus [ancestry] from a very fine family.”
“Sounds great. But why would a girl like that want to marry me? She’d have to be crazy.”
“That’s only a minor detail. You can’t expect everything.”
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Murphy applied for a post at a famous Irish firm based in Dublin. An American applied for the same job and since both applicants had similar qualifications, they were asked to take a test by the Manager. When the results were in, amazingly, both men had only one wrong answer.
The manager went to Murphy and said, “Thank you for coming to the interview, but we’ve decided to give the American the job.”
Murphy, “And why would you be doing that? We both got 19 questions correct. This being Ireland and me being Irish surely I should get the job.”
Manager, “We have made our decision not on the correct answers, but on the question you missed.”
Murphy, “And just how would one incorrect answer be better than the other?”
Manager, “Simple. On question number 7 the American wrote down, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
You put down, “Neither do I.”
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ONE-LINERS: BUMPER STICKERS
~ Rock is dead. Long live paper and scissors.
~ The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on the list.
~ In America, anyone can be president. That’s one of the risks you take.
~ Life would be easier if I had the source code.
~ If at first you don’t succeed, call it version 1.0
~ There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
~ Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening all at once.
~ If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.
~ I think, therefore I’m dangerous.
~ Under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Socialism it’s the other way around.
~ Actions speak louder than bumper-stickers.
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Engineering classes at the University of Maryland are tough, and struggling students sometimes go to extremes in order to pass. Grading exams one semester, I got to this question: “What is the relationship between kinetic and potential energy?”
One student, obviously stumped, decided to get clever and wrote, “As far as I know, they’re just friends, but there could be something else going on there.”
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pic of the day: Cumberland Falls in Kentucky
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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!
It was a mystery that could only be solved by the great Sherlock Holmes himself. The day after every full moon, members of a Japanese fraternity would be found dead in the hall on the fourth floor. The victims were crushed and there were signs of skid marks and tire tracks on the floor. Holmes was called into the case.
It quickly became apparent that the only student that was not frightened was a young man named Nagawa who quickly became the object of Holmes’s suspicion.
The evening of the next full moon, while peering through the keyhole of Nagawa’s room, they saw that the student was no longer there, and in his place was a classic Japanese compact car!!!
The next morning Holmes confronted Nagawa. “When the moon is full, you become an automobile, and you run over your fellow students on the fourth floor.”
“But how did you know that?” gasped Nagawa.
Holmes replied, “Elementary, my were-Datsun.”
At this, Nagawa panicked, and ran down the corridor. As he opened the door to escape, he turned into a car again, but as he expanded he became trapped in the doorway. The pressure was so great that he exploded. No trace of him was ever found.
But for several days it rained Datsun cogs.
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How To Handle It When Your Wife Is Having One of “Those Days”:
DANGEROUS: What’s for dinner?
SAFER: Can I help you with dinner?
SAFEST: Where would you like to go for dinner?
ULTRA SAFE: Here, have some chocolate.
—-
DANGEROUS: Are you wearing that?
SAFER: Wow, you sure look good in brown!
SAFEST: WOW! Look at you!
ULTRA SAFE: Here, have some chocolate.
—-
DANGEROUS: What are you so worked up about?
SAFER: Could we be overreacting?
SAFEST: Here’s my paycheck.
ULTRA SAFE: Here, have some chocolate.
—-
DANGEROUS: Should you be eating that?
SAFER: You know, there are a lot of apples left.
SAFEST: Can I get you a glass of wine with that?
ULTRA SAFE: Here, have some chocolate.
—-
DANGEROUS: What did you DO all day?
SAFER: I hope you didn’t over-do it today.
SAFEST: I’ve always loved you in that robe!
ULTRA SAFE: Here, have some more chocolate.
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A minister and lawyer were chatting at a party.
“What do you do if you make a mistake on a case?” the minister asked.
“Try to fix it if it’s big; ignore it if it’s insignificant,” replied the lawyer. “What do you do?”
The minister replied, “Oh, more or less the same. Let me give you an example. The other day I meant to say ‘the devil is the father of liars,’ but instead I said ‘the devil is the father of lawyers,’ so I let it go.”
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The Reverend Douglas Johnston was not the best of drivers. One Sunday he was driving home from church when unfortunately, he had a minor bump with cyclist. The poor man was knocked off his bike into the ditch. The Vicar naturally stopped his car, got out and profusely apologised and gave the cyclist his calling card saying that if he could ever be of help, then the man should not hesitate to ask.
As the man rode home he looked at the card which said, ‘The Reverend Douglas Johnston is sorry he missed you today.’
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The New York Times, among other papers, recently published a new Hubble photograph of distant galaxies colliding. Of course, astronomers have had pictures of colliding galaxies for quite some time now, but with the vastly improved resolution provided by the Hubble Space Telescope, you can actually see the lawyers rushing to the scene.
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TODAY IN TRIVIA: How old was Mr. Ed when he died? Television horse Mr. Ed was foaled in 1949 in El Monte, California. Mr. Ed’s original name was Bamboo Harvester. Raised as a parade and show horse, he was once owned by the president of the California Palomino Society. He died in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, on February 28, 1979, at 30 years old.
~ How often do wolves attack people? Despite man’s fear and hatred of the wolf, it has not ever been proved that a non-rabid wolf ever attacked a human.
~ Are chickens on an odd daily cycle? Some research suggests so — A chicken will lay bigger and stronger eggs if you change the lighting in such a way as to make them think a day is 28 hours long.
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QUIP OF THE DAY: That’s the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn’t good enough for me! I demand euphoria! – Calvin (& Hobbes)
THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!
Thought for the day. . . Never do things others can do and will do, if there are things others cannot do or will not do. – Amelia Earhart