Be happy while you’re living, for you’re a long time dead. – Scottish Proverb
TODAY – MAY 5th – THURSDAY
126th day of 2016 with 240 days to follow. The moon is waning with 3% visible.
Holidays for Today:
*Cinco de Mayo
*International Day of the Midwife
*National Chocolate Custard Day
*National Enchilada Day
*National Hoagie Day
*Oyster Day
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BIRTHDAYS ON THIS DATE:
1811 John William Draper, English-American chemist, pioneered in photochemistry (discovered light initiated chemical reactions as molecules absorbed light energy: Draper Point is the point at which all substances glow a dull red (about 525 degrees C.)
1813 Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher and author (The Concept of Anxiety, Stages of Life’s Way, Works of Love, Christian Discourses, Practice in Christianity)
1818 Karl Marx, German philosopher (The Communist Manifesto)
1830 John Batterson Stetson, Orange, New Jersey, hat manufacturer (Stetson hats, what else!?)
1861 Peter Cooper Hewitt, New York City, New York, electrical engineer (invented the mercury-vapor lamp, an important forerunner of fluorescent lamps)
1864 Nellie Bly [Elizabeth Cochran Seaman], Cochran’s Mills, New Jersey, journalist (went around the world)
1884 Chief Bender, Crow Wing Co., Minnesota, pitcher (only American Indian in baseball’s Hall of Fame)
1890 Christopher Morley, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, journalist and author (Thunder on the Left, Seacoast of Bohemia, The Trojan Horse, Kitty Foyle), helped found the Baker Street Irregulars
1903 James Beard, Portland, Oregon, culinary expert/author (Delights & Prejudices)
1914 Tyrone Power, Cincinnati, Ohio, actor (Mark of Zorro, Alexander’s Ragtime Band)
1915 Alice Faye, New York City, NY, actress and singer (Poor Little Rich Girl, In Old Chicago, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Hello Frisco Hello, Fallen Angel)
1921 Arthur Leonard Schawlow, Palo Alto, California, physicist (Nobel / laser spectroscopy)
1922 Irene Gut Opdyke, Polish-American nurse (helped Jews in WWII; hid 12 in cellar to save them / autobiography, In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer)
1930 Will Hutchins, Los Angeles, California, actor (Sugarfoot, The Shooting, Clambake, The Quest, Gunfighter)
1938 Michael Murphy, Los Angeles, California, actor (Nashville, Tanner, Batman Returns, X-Men The Last Stand, White House Down, Fall, Rogue)
1942 Marc Alaimo, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, actor (Gul Dukat/ST Deep Space 9; The Last Starfighter, Naked Gun, Total Recall)
1942 Tammy Wynette, Redbay, Alabama, country singer (Stand by your Man)
1943 Michael Palin, England, actor (Monty Python, Fish Called Wanda), author (Sahara, Brazil, The Truth, Clangers)
1944 John Rhys-Davies, England, actor (Leonardo de Vinci / ST Voyager; Sliders; voice Gimli / Lord of the Rings; Sallah / Indiana Jones films; Beyond the Mask, The Shanarra Chronicles)
1955 Melinda Culea, Western Springs, Illinois, actress (Amy/The A-Team, Knots Landing, Wagons East!)
1963 Scott Westerfeld, Dallas, Texas, author (Series: Succession, Uglies, Peeps, Leviathan; Midnighters trilogy)
1979 Vincent Kartheiser, Minneapolis, Minnesota, actor (Angel, Mad Men, Money, Rango, A Kind of Murder)
1980 Hank Green, Birmingham, Alabama, musician / professional blogger (EcoGeek, VlogBrothers)
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Happiness is liberty from everything that makes us unhappy. – Vernon Howard
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HISTORICAL HAPPENINGS:
1260 Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.
1494 Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica and claims it for Spain.
1809 Mary Kies is first woman issued a US patent (for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread).
1816 American Bible Society organized (New York).
1832 U.S. government passed an act authorizing the first vaccination program to protect Native Americans against smallpox and allotted $12,000 to pay doctors $6 a day for their services.
1862 Cinco de Mayo in Mexico: Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla.
1865 First US train robbery in the US, at North Bend, Ohio.
1881 Louis Pasteur tested innoculations against anthrax upon an ox, several cows and 25 sheep. His experiment proved successful, and was a milestone in the treatment of disease.
1936 First bottle with a screw cap and a pour lip patent was issued in the U.S. to Edward A. Ravenscroft, Glencoe, Illinois (No. 2,039,345).
1945 The only WW II deaths of civilians on the mainland of the U.S. resulted from a Japanese bomb dropped over Gearhart Mountain, Oregon by an unmanned balloon.
1955 West Germany gains full sovereignty.
1961 Mercury program – Alan Shepard becomes first American in space, making a sub-orbital flight of 15 minutes aboard Freedom 7.
1963 World’s first human liver transplant was performed in America by Dr. Thomas E. Starlz at a Denver, Colorado, hospital.
1992 The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified (prohibits any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of the Congress from taking effect until the beginning of the next set of terms of office for Representatives).
2000 Conjunction of the five planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – formed a rough line across the sky with the Sun and Moon but was not visible from the earth because they were behind the Sun. Such a conjunction will not happen again until Apr 2438.
2010 Mass protests in Greece erupt in response to austerity measures imposed by the government as a result of the Greek debt crisis.
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My mom got mad at my dad the other day and went shopping to relieve her irritation. When she returned home she informed him that she had purchased ten new dresses.
“Ten!” he hollered, “What could any woman want with ten new dresses??”
Mom calmly replied, “Ten new pairs of shoes.”
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The local news station was interviewing an 80-year-old lady because she had just gotten married for the fourth time. (Her previous 3 husbands had passed away.) The interviewer asked her questions about her life, about what it felt like to be marrying again at 80, and then about her new husband’s occupation. “He’s a funeral director,” she answered.
“Interesting,” the newsman thought.
He then asked her if she wouldn’t mind telling him a little about her first three husbands and what they did for a living. She paused for a few moments, needing time to reflect on all those years.
After a short time, a smile came to her face and she answered proudly, explaining that she had first married a banker when she was in her early 20’s, then a circus ringmaster when in her 40’s, and a preacher when in her 60’s, and now in her 80’s, a funeral director.
The interviewer looked at her, quite astonished, and asked why she had married four men with such diverse careers.
She smiled and explained, “I married one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go.”
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ONE-LINERS: HOW TO KEEP A HEALTHY LEVEL OF INSANITY
~ At lunch time, sit in your parked car and point a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
~ Page yourself over the intercom. (Don’t disguise your voice.)
~ Insist that your email address is Xena-goddess-of-fire@companyname.com or Elvis-the-King@companyname.com.
~ Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
~ Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.
~ Put your garbage can on your desk and label it “IN.”
~ Develop an unnatural fear of staplers.
~ Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
~ Reply to everything someone says with, “That’s what you think.”
~ Finish all your sentences with, “…in accordance with the prophecy.”
~ Adjust the tint on your monitor so that the brightness level lights up the entire work area. Insist to others that you like it that way.
~ Dont use any punctuation
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Looking over the log book kept by the computer support staff at my office, I noticed several entries stating the problem was PICNIC.
I asked one of the technicians what PICNIC meant.
He laughed as he told me it meant “Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.”
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pic of the day: Blue & Gold Macaws...
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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!
~Did you hear about the man who lost his left side?
He’s all right now.
~A mushroom walks into a bar, sits down and orders a drink. The bartender says “We don’t serve mushrooms here.”
The mushroom says,”Why not? I’m a fun guy!”
~Where do erasers go for vacation?
To Erazona.
~A neutron goes into a bar and asks the bartender, “How much for a beer?”
The bartender replies, “For you, no charge.”
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“How long have you and your husband been married?”
“Fifty three years.”
“Wow!
“53 years and we’ve never had an argument.”
“Amazing! How do you do it?”
“I outweigh him by forty pounds and he’s a coward.”
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One Christmas, mom decreed that she was no longer going to remind her children of their thank-you note duties.
As a result, their grandmother never received acknowledgments of the generous checks she had given.
The next year things were different, however.
“The children came over in person to thank me,” the grandparent told a friend triumphantly.
“How wonderful!” the friend exclaimed. “What do you think caused the change in behavior?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” the grandmother replied. “This year I didn’t sign the checks.”
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LATE NIGHT QUIPS. . .
* The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was on Saturday, and President Obama ended his speech by saying “Obama out” and literally dropping the mic. Then Hillary Clinton caught the mic mid-air and said, “LET’S DO THIS!” – Jimmy Fallon
* As Bernie Sanders’ campaign is winding down, he had to fire hundreds of staff members. Now Bernie is down to a campaign director, a speechwriter, and a 22-year-old whose job is to keep explaining to him what Snapchat is. – Conan O’Brien
* A report came out last week that members of ISIS are trying to fake doctor’s notes to get themselves out of front line duty. Imagine a member of ISIS calling in like, “Hey guys, I have actually got a bit of a cough and don’t think I can go to the suicide bombing today.” – James Corden
* Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson put out a new alarm clock app today which includes a feature that will sync with The Rock’s calendar so fans can wake up at the same time as him. After that, your day and his day start to diverge pretty wildly. – Seth Meyers
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ONE-LINERS : Infamous Last Words. . .
~ I’ll get a world record for this.
~ It’s fireproof.
~ He’s probably just hibernating.
~ I’m making a citizen’s arrest.
~ So, you’re a cannibal.
~ Are you sure the power is off?
~ Yeah, I made the deciding vote on the jury, so what of it?
~ I’ve seen this done on TV.
~ These are the good kind of mushrooms.
~ Let it down slowly.
~ Rat poison only kills rats.
~ Just take whatever you want, this is a ghost town.
~ It’s strong enough for both of us.
~ This doesn’t taste right.
~ Nice doggie.
~ I’ve done this before.
~ Well, we’ve made it this far.
~ That’s odd.
~ Don’t be so superstitious.
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A guy is sitting at the bar, staring morosely into his beer when his friend walks in. “What’s the problem?
“Well, I ran afoul on one of those awkward questions women ask. Now, I’m in deep trouble at home.”
“What kind of question?”
“My wife asked me if I would still love her when she gets old, fat and wrinkly.”
“That’s an easy one! You just say, ‘Of course I will!'”
“Yeah, “That’s what I did, except I said, ‘Of course I do.'”
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TODAY IN TRIVIA: Who was SNL’s first host? The first guest host of NBC’s Saturday Night Live was comedian George Carlin on October 10, 1975.
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QUIP OF THE DAY: The cardiologist’s diet: If it tastes good … spit it out. – Unknown
THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!
Thought for the day. . . In the game of life it’s a good idea to have a few early losses, which relieves you of the pressure of trying to maintain an undefeated season. – Bill Baughan