Sunday, January 29, 2017

Even your dog wants to celebrate

Today is the second day of the Lunar New Year celebration, known as the Son-in-Law Day (also it the first time of the new year to worship the God of Land.)



It's the day that many married women return to their mothers' homes.



Some believe that the second day of the new year is also the birthday of all dogs and reward them with special treats.


January 29, 1595 -
... Give me my Romeo, and, when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun....









William Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet was probably first performed on this date (unless it wasn't).

I don't know, I wasn't there, were you?


January 29, 1959 -
With a budget that exceeded $6 million, Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty premiered in Los Angeles on this date.



Famed Warner Bros. animation director Chuck Jones worked on the film briefly when Termite Terrace closed temporarily during the late 1950s. He found the atmosphere at Walt Disney Productions oppressive because everything anyone did there had to be approved by Walt Disney before, during, and after the process of production.


January 29, 1964 -
Introducing us to saving our precious bodily fluids and the rule about no fighting in the War room, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was released in the United States, on this date.



The film led to actual changes in policy to ensure that the events depicted could never really occur in real life.


Today in History:
It's Thomas Paine's birthday today. He was born in 1737.



You could commemorate the occasion by reading (or rereading) Common Sense. You could also commemorate the occasion by registering to vote or piercing your perineum or bleaching someone else's rectal area.

I don't care, it was just a suggestion.


January 29, 1845-
Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem The Raven was originally published in the New York Evening Mirror, on this date, where it met with lukewarm reviews.



Poe was almost completely unappreciated during his lifetime, but later became an extremely popular author in both the detective and Gothic genres.


January 29, 1886-
Karl Benz patented the Benz Patent Motorwagon, on this date, which looked much like a tricycle with a cushioned seat; this was the first gas-powered car.

Making a gas-powered car had been a long-time dream of Benz, who had originally started tinkering with engines in his spare time as a bicycle shop owner.


January 29, 1929 -
The Seeing Eye was incorporated in Nashville, Tennessee by Dorothy Harrison Eustus and Morris Frank, on this date. A few weeks later, the first seeing-eye Dog Guide School in the United States opened in Nashville. (The name the Seeing Eye came from Proverbs 20:12 in the Bible, "The seeing eye, the hearing ear; The Lord hath made them both." )



Frank had trained under Jack Humphrey in Switzerland at a kennel owned by Dorothy Eustis. Humphrey's became the Seeing Eye’s first geneticist and served as chief instructor. Buddy was Frank's first dog and in 1936 became the first seeing-eye dog to ride as a passenger on an American commercial airline.


January 29, 1954 -
Oprah Gail Winfrey, the most influential (and one of the wealthiest) woman in the world, is another year older.



Now that President Obama is taking a long vacation and the other gentleman is currently occupying the White House, Oprah might not be happy.  I just want to remind those folks in Washington DC, Oprah could get enriched uranium in a human heart beat - don't piss her off.


January 29, 1979 -
Brenda Spencer fired repeatedly at the school across from her residence in San Diego, killing two and wounding eight children, using the rifle her father had given her as a gift.



I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day. -- The reason she gave inspired the Boomtown Rats song.



Remember: guns don't kill people, it's the damn gifts our father's give us.



And so it goes.


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