Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
TODAY – SEPTEMBER 29th – THURSDAY
273rd day of 2016 with 93 days to follow. New Moon with 3% visible.
Holidays for Today:
~ Confucius Day
~ International Coffee Day
~ National Mocha Day
~ Michaelmas Day (All Angels Day: feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of the sea and maritime lands, of ships and boatmen, of horses and horsemen. One of the principle angelic warriors, protector against the dark of the night and the Archangel who fought against Satan and his evil angels.)
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BIRTHDAYS ON THIS DATE:
1561 Adriaan van Roomen, Flemish mathematician (invented the math operation, division)
1895 Roscoe Turner, Corinth, Mississippi, aviator and racer (three time winner of the Thompson Trophy)
1895 Joseph Banks Rhine, Waterlook, Pennsylvania, parapsychologist (Extra-Sensory Perception, founded parapsychology lab at Duke University)
1901 Enrico Fermi, Italian-American physicist (first nuclear reactor (Chicago Pile-1; Nobel for work in induced radioactivity)
1907 Gene Autry, Tioga, Texas, The Singing Cowboy (Back in the Saddle Again, Here Comes Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), actor (The Gene Autry Show, Red River Valley, Prairie Moon, Back in the Saddle, Saginaw Trail)
1930 Colin Dexter, British author of Inspector Morse novels
1931 James Watson Cronin, Chicago, Illinois, nuclear physicist (particle physics; Nobel)
1939 Larry Linville, Ojai, California, actor (Frank Burns in M*A*S*H tv series, Blue Movie)
1942 Madeline Kahn, Boston, Massachusetts, actress (Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety, All Dogs Go to Heaven, A Bug’s Life)
1948 Bryant Gumbel, New Orleans, Louisiana, sportscaster/TV host (15 years on Today Show, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel)
1955 Ken Weatherwax, Los Angeles, California, actor (Pugsley from The Addams Family TV series)
1970 Natasha Gregson Wagner, Los Angeles, California, actress (Fathers and Sons, Pasadena, The 4400, Deep Blue Breath, Search Engines)
1974 Alexis Cruz, The Bronx, New York, actor (Touched by an Angel, Stargate, Bug, DarkWolf, Spectres, Tortilla Heaven, Shark, Altergeist)
1980 Zachary Levi, Lake Charles, Louisiana, actor and director (Chuck, Tangled, Thor: The Dark World, Heroes Reborn)
1987 David Del Rio, Miami, Florida, actor (The Troop, Pitch Perfect, Spare Parts, Undrafted)
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It is a great mitzvah to be happy always. – Rebbe Nachman of Breslov
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HISTORICAL HAPPENINGS:
1789 The U.S. War Department first establishes a regular army with a strength of several hundred men.
1789 The first U.S. Congress adjourns.
1829 Scotland Yard (The Met) formed in London.
1907 The cornerstone is laid at Washington National Cathedral in the U.S. capital.
1916 John D. Rockefeller becomes the first billionaire.
1943 World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign an armistice aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS Nelson off Malta.
1962 Alouette 1, the first Canadian satellite, is launched.
1988 Space Shuttle: NASA launches STS-26, the return to flight mission, after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
1990 Construction of the Washington National Cathedral is completed.
1996 Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 in North America.
2001 The Syracuse Herald-Journal, a U.S. newspaper dating back to 1839, ceases publication.
2004 The asteroid 4179 Toutatis passes within four lunar distances of Earth.
2007 Calder Hall, the world’s first commercial nuclear power station, is demolished in a controlled explosion.
2008 Following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history.
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Whenever my aunt went to the doctor, she would complain to me about the long delay she always endured. One day, when my aunt’s name was finally called, she was asked to step on the scale. “I need to get your weight today,” said the nurse.
Without a moment’s hesitation, my aunt replied, “One hour and 45 minutes!”
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“I filled out a rental application that asked, ‘Do you own any liquid-filled furniture?’ Couldn’t they just have said ‘waterbed’? How many other forms of liquid-filled furniture are there? ‘Yeah, I have a beer couch, will that be a problem?'” –Lisa Goich
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HEALTH MESSAGE
1. If walking/cycling is good for your health, the postman would be immortal.
2. A whale swims all day, only eats fish, drinks water and is fat.
3. A rabbit runs and hops and only lives 15 years.
4. A tortoise doesn’t run, does nothing, yet lives for 450 years.
AND…YOU TELL ME TO EXERCISE?
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ONE-LINERS:
How they replied to an Invitation to the Scientists’ Ball:
– Pierre and Marie Curie were aglow.
– Roentgen was radiating enthusiasm.
– Einstein thought it would be relatively easy to attend.
– Volta was electrified.
– Archimedes was buoyant.
– Ampere was worried he wasn’t up to current research.
– Ohm resisted the idea at first.
– Boyle said he was under too much pressure.
– Edison thought it would be an illuminating experience.
– Watt reckoned it would be a good way to let off steam.
– Stephenson thought the whole idea was loco.
– Wilbur Wright said he’d take a flier on it.
– Dr Jekyll declined — he hadn’t been feeling himself lately.
– Morse replied: “I’ll be there on the dot. Can’t stop now – must dash.”
– Heisenberg was uncertain.
– Hertz said in the future he planned to attend with greater frequency.
– Henry begged off due to a low capacity for alcohol.
– Audubon said he’d have to wing it.
– Hawking said he’d try to string enough time together to make a space in his schedule.
– Darwin said he’d have to see what evolved.
– Schrodinger had to take his cat to the vet … or did he?
– Mendel said he’d put some things together and see what came out.
– Descartes said he’d think about it.
– Newton, impressed by the gravity of the matter, was moved to attend.
– Pavlov was drooling at the thought.
– Gauss was asked to attend because of his magnetic personality.
– Nobel got a big bang out of it.
– Freud could barely repress his excitement.
– Galileo was so happy he felt the Earth move under his feet. But he thought people were much too inquisitive about the whole thing,
– Franklin said it beat flying a kite in a thunderstorm.
– Cantor wasn’t able to count all the invitations he’d received.
– Godel said he couldn’t prove it but he’d be there.
– Hubble wanted to bring the idea into better focus, but ultimately he was really looking forward to it.
– Tesla recoiled at the thought.
– VanDeGraaf charged his assistant with attending.
– Westinghouse stopped everything. He needed a brake.
– Da Vinci said he had no idea on the subject.
– Shockley was waiting until things took a more solid state.
– Goddard couldn’t be reached. He was out to launch.
– Sagan had billions and billions and billions of things to do.
– Piaget thought the whole thing sounded childish.
– Fermi was controlled in his reaction.
– Cousteau was submerged in his work.
– We left a message on Turing’s answering machine. Or maybe we spoke to him.
– Maxwell was too busy exorcising his demons.
– Teller had a splitting headache.
– Babbage was counting on going.
– Faraday was charged up with the idea.
– Marconi was radiating with pleasure, but was not wired up about going.
– Pasteur was boiling about not being invited.
– Bohr held another party on a higher floor at the same time.
– Planck decided to have a drink at the h-bar.
– Avogadro expected a large number to attend.
– De Broglie waved aside the invitation.
– Shannon asked for more information.
– Abel worried about commuting there since Hamming said it was a long distance.
– Galois wanted to assemble his own group.
– Russell had to visit the barber first.
– Alvarez already crashed it a long time ago.
– Watson and Crick went and ended up twisting the night away
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A gorilla walked into a drugstore and ordered a $1.50 chocolate sundae. He put a ten-dollar bill on the counter to pay for it.
The clerk thought, what could a gorilla know about money? So he gave the gorilla a single dollar bill in change. As he did, the clerk said, “You know, we don’t get too many gorillas in here.”
“No wonder,” the gorilla replied, “at nine dollars a sundae.”
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pic of the day: Camellia ‘Winter Star’
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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!
~How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same… – while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
~How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?
~When a house burns up, it burns down.
~You fill in a form by filling it out.
~An alarm clock goes off by going on.
~When the stars are out, they are visible … – but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
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A woman was walking down the street when she was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked her for a couple of dollars for dinner.
The woman took out her bill fold, extracted ten dollars and asked, “If I give you this money, will you buy some wine with it instead of dinner?”
“No,” I had to stop drinking years ago, the homeless woman replied.
“Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?” the woman asked.
“No,” I don’t waste time shopping, the homeless woman said. “I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive.”
“Will you spend this on a beauty salon instead of food?” the woman asked.
“Are you NUTS!” replied the homeless woman. “I haven’t had my hair done in 20 years!”
“Well, ” said the woman, “I’m not going to give you the money. Instead, I’m going to take you out for dinner with my hubby and myself tonight.
The homeless Woman was astounded. “Won’t your hubby be furious with you for doing that? I know I’m dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting.”
The woman replied, “That’s okay. It’s important for him to see what a woman looks like after she has given up shopping, hair appointments, and wine.”
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A minister tells of his first Sunday in a new parish and of presenting the children’s message.
It seems the sanctuary in the new church had some magnificent stained glass windows, so his message centered on how each of us are called to help make up the whole picture of life (the family of God). Like the pictures in the windows, it takes many little panels of glass to make the whole picture.
And then he said, “You see each one of you is a little pane.”
And then pointing to each child, “You’re a little pane. And you’re a little pane. And you’re a little pane. And…”
It took a few moments before he realized why everyone was laughing so hard.
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LATE NIGHT QUIPS. . .
* There were actually 1,000 people in the debate audience and they were instructed not to applaud or cheer during the debate. As people watching were like, “What about sobbing? Can we quietly sob?” – Jimmy Fallon
* Facebook is expanding its campaign to combat online hate speech. In other words, Facebook is shutting down. – Conan O’Brien
* Madonna reportedly bought her son a Donald Trump piñata this weekend to celebrate his birthday. A Donald Trump piñata is just like a regular piñata, except there’s nothing inside. – Seth Meyers
* We all just watched Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton debate for an hour and a half. Coming into tonight’s debate, Democrats were divided between two strong emotions: panic and pants-crapping. Democrats have not been this nervous since Anthony Weiner asked to borrow their phone. – Stephen Colbert
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Stupidity in Action: An Australian man named only as Gordon was riding in a friend’s car on a drinking binge when he spotted a highly venomous king brown snake by the side of the road. Gordon picked the snake up with his left hand (“because I had a beer in the right one”) and was bitten.
Then, instead of leaving the reptile, he put it in a plastic bag and the pair drove off. “For some stupid reason,” says Gordon, “I then stuck my hand back in the bag and it bit me another eight times.”
Gordon’s pal kept him awake by “whacking my head and pouring beer on me,” and eventually called an ambulance from a nearby hotel. Gordon lived, but he lost his arm.
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TODAY IN TRIVIA: When did Americans first eat beef? Beef seems so American, but it was actually an import. Spaniards brought the first cattle to the United States in the sixteenth century. Originally, the settlers regarded them as beasts of burden, but the Indians found them delicious. The Indians, in fact, were the first cattle herders, and they were the ones who moved the cattle across the Mississippi River to the grasslands of the plains.
~How many teenagers have a VD? Each year, more than 300,000 American teenagers become afflicted with some form of venereal disease.
~Did a weapon become a musical instrument? The harp’s ancestor was a hunting bow, but the history of this complex instrument is far from clear. Epic tales, poetry, and works of art have shown that harps existed since at least the ancient times of Babylonia and Mesopotamia. They’ve been represented in paintings in the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses III, in ancient Greece sculptures, in votive carvings from Iraq which date from 2900 B.C. Likely during the growth of Islam, the harp traveled from north Africa to Spain during the eighth century. Its use soon spread throughout Europe.
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QUIP OF THE DAY: The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.
THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!
Thought for the day. . . Mistakes are the portals of discovery. – James Joyce