After fighting, everything else in your life got the volume turned down. – Edward Norton from Fight Club
TODAY – JULY 29th – FRIDAY
211th day of 2016 with 155 days to follow. Moon is waning with 23% visible.
Holidays for Today:
*International Tiger Day
*National Chicken Wing Day
*National Lasagna Day
*National Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day (historically a day to buy cheese and sacrifice some to bait mouse traps; modern practice is to “sacrifice” a little of your budget and buy an expensive cheese you love, but don’t normally indulge in because of its price)
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BIRTHDAYS ON THIS DATE:
1805 Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian and author (Democracy in America (2 volumes: 1835 and 1840), The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856))
1869 Booth Tarkington, Indianapolis, Indiana, author (Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams)
1885 Theda Bara, Cincinnati, Ohio, popular actress of silent era (nickname “The Vamp”, made over 40 films)
1891 Bernhard Zondek, German-born Israeli gynecologist (developed first reliable pregnancy test)
1892 William Powell, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, actor (Life with Father 1947)
1898 Isidor Isaac Rabi, Austria-Hungary, American physicist (Nobel / nuclear magnetic resonance)
1905 Clara Bow, Brooklyn, New York, actress (Down to the Ships 1923)
1905 Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish 2nd UN Secretary-General
1923 Edgar Cortright, Hastings, Pennsylvania, scientist and engineer (former NASA official, Chairman of Apollo 13 review board)
1933 Robert Fuller, Troy, New York, actor (Laramie, Wagon Train)
1936 Elizabeth Hanford Dole, Salisbury, North Carolina, US Secretary of Transportation (1983-87)
1938 Peter Jennings, Toronto Canada, journalist (former news anchor ABC Evening News)
1945 Sharon Creech, South Euclid, Ohio, author (Walk Two Moons, Bloomability, The Wanderer, Love That Dog)
1963 Alexandra Paul, New York, New York, actress (Baywatch, Paper Dolls, Christine, American Flyers, Death Train, Nightwatch, Firequake, Dirty)
1966 Martina McBride, Sharon, Kansas, country singer
1972 Wil Wheaton, Burbank, California, actor (Wesley on Star Trek Next Generation; Stand By Me, Toy Soldiers, Big Bang Theory, Powers, Fantasy Hospital)
1974 Josh Radnor, Bexley, Ohio, actor (How I Met Your Mother, Mercy Street)
1980 Rachel Miner, New York City, New York, actress (The Guiding Light, NY-LON, Californication, Supernatural, Bully)
1984 Todd Bosley, Overland Park, Kansas, actor (Little Giants, Jack, Treehouse Hostage, Lloyd, Scrubs)
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Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened! – Dr. Seuss
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HISTORICAL HAPPENINGS:
1836 Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
1851 Annibale de Gasparis discovers asteroid 15 Eunomia.
1858 United States and Japan sign the Harris Treaty.
1899 The First Hague Convention is signed.
1901 The Socialist Party of America founded.
1907 Sir Robert Baden-Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England, August 1 to August 9; regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement.
1957 The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.
1958 U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
1959 First United States Congress elections in Hawaii as a state of the Union.
1981 Marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer.
2005 Astronomers announce their discovery of Eris (largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the ninth-largest body known to orbit the Sun directly).
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A college student with a young child was pleased when her daughter became eligible to attend the day care center at the University. The director of the day care gave the mother a tour of the facilities. To assure herself of the center’s high standards, the young mother asked about the curriculum.
“Well,” said the director, eyes twinkling, “today we are studying the children’s favorite philosopher: Play-Doh.”
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A young and foolish pilot wanted to sound cool on the aviation frequencies.
This was his first time approaching a field during the nighttime, and instead of making any official requests to the tower, he said, “Guess who?”
The controller switched the field lights off and replied, “Guess where!”
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ONE-LINERS:
~ There’s no limit to what you can achieve if you don’t mind who gets the credit.
~ There’s something wrong if you’re always right.
~ These days about half the stuff in my shopping cart says, “For fast relief.”
~ They have a Dial-a-Prayer for atheists now. You can call up and it rings and rings but nobody answers.
~ Things are more like they are today than they ever have been before.
~ This is probably as bad as it can get, but don’t count on it.
~ Those who can’t write, write help files.
~ Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.
~ Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
~ Times are tough. The National Levitation Society went out of business because they couldn’t raise money.
~ This year I’m using big words to sound smart…Sorry, I meant utilizing gargantuan idioms to simulate intelligence.
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A father is asked by his friend, “Has your son decided what he wants to be when he grows up?”
“Yes, he wants to be a garbage collector,” he replies.
To this his friend responds, “Strange ambition to have for a career.”
The boy’s father replied, “Well, he thinks that garbage collectors only work on Tuesdays!”
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pic of the day: Entrance to Japanese Tea Garden
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California
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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!
A noted biologist, who had been studying little green frogs in a swamp, was stumped. The frog population, despite efforts at predator control, was declining at an alarming rate. A chemist at a nearby college came up with a solution: The frogs, due to a chemical change in the swamp water, simply couldn’t stay coupled long enough to reproduce successfully. The chemist then brewed up a new adhesive to assist the frogs’ togetherness, which included one part sodium.
It seems the little green frogs needed some monosodium glue to mate.
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I SPENT SEVERAL YEARS as a submariner, and while at sea we would have a celebration halfway through a patrol. On one such night, the captain, who was serving dinner to the crew, tried to put some vegetables on a recruit’s plate.
The young seaman wouldn’t take them. “With all due respect, sir,” the recruit said, “I don’t eat them for my mother, and she outranks you.” – Contributed to “Humor In Uniform” by Mark Widman
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My wife asked me to buy ORGANIC vegetables from the market. I went and looked around and couldn’t find any.
So I grabbed an old, tired looking employee and said, “These vegetables are for my wife. Have they been sprayed with any poisonous chemicals?”
The produce guy looked at me and said, “No. You’ll have to do that yourself.”
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LATE NIGHT QUIPS. . .
*Bernie Sanders said that he knows people are disappointed in the results of the primaries, saying, “I think it’s fair to say nobody is more disappointed than I am.” At which point, Jeb Bush threw his empty Hagen Daazs container at the TV. – Jimmy Fallon
* Legal experts are saying it’s only a matter of time before someone uses Pokémon Go as an excuse for committing a crime. At least then we’ll get to hear the first lawyer ever to use the “Squirtle Defense.” – Conan O’Brien
* A British Airways flight had to make an emergency landing recently after the cabin strongly smelled like marijuana. Even worse, the pilot was flying at, like, 5 miles per hour. – Seth Meyers
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An idiot decides to start up a chicken farm, so he buys a hundred chickens to get up and running.
A month later he returns to the dealer to get another hundred chickens because the first lot had died.
Another month passes and he’s back at the dealers for another hundred chickens, “I think I know where I’m going wrong” he tells the dealer,
“I think I’m planting them too deep.”
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TODAY IN TRIVIA: Where can you see the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States? It is located inside the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California.
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QUIP OF THE DAY: “Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.” – Oscar Wilde
THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!
Thought for the day. . . If you have nothing else to do, look about you and see if there isn’t something close at hand that you can improve! It may make you wealthy, though it is more likely that it will make you happy. – George Matthew Adams