Overheard

If you listen you can hear some funny conversations, especially when people are on their phones and aren't paying attention to who might be listening.

"If there's that many overweight people in the world, maybe the oceans aren't rising, but the land is sinking!"

"When I want to get rid of people calling to sell me something, I ask them to come help me move furniture.  If they are selling carpet cleaning services, I ask them if they can get bloodstains out and keep their mouths shut about it.  Makes them hang up on me every time!"

"That cat!  She's so picky.  I think I'm going to give her something for Boss's Day next year!  She's earned it!"

A parent commented to a child who was yawning mightily, "You need to go to bed earlier tonight."  Responded the little girl, "It's not that I go to bed too late, it's that you wake me up too early!"

A little girl and her family were waiting for their grandmother to meet them at a restaurant.  As grandma drove up in her convertible, the child turned heads with the comment, "Here comes Grandma!  And she's topless!"

At the oil change place, one of the nice workers came in to tell a lady her oil change was done.  He listed everything they done, saying, "We changed the oil and filter, vacuumed the carpet, and checked all your fluids, your transmission and brake fluid, it's all fine."  She smiled mischievously and answered, "That's okay, I already have break fluid!" as she raised her cup of the complimentary coffee the business provides..


 
Today is:

Alascattalo Day -- Anchorage, Alaska (A salute to Alaskan humor, a parade in honor of the "alascattalo", a cross between a moose and a walrus; the longest running, shortest parade in the world, held in the alley behind Club Paris from 12:03 to 12:07 pm.  A prize is given to the smallest and ugliest float -- yes, it must be both small and ugly.  An anonymous queen will be crowned, if she has the bad sense to show up.)

Army Day -- Democratic Republic of the Congo

Birthday of Guru Nanak Dev Sahib -- Sikh

Coping With Uncertainty Day -- of uncertain origin, as it should be

Electronic Greeting Card Day -- internet generated, and of course probably started by the electronic greeting card websites

Full Beaver Moon / Full Frosty Moon
     Bonn Om Touk -- Cambodia (Water Festival continues)
     Il Full Moon Poya Day -- Sri Lanka
     Palden Lhamo Festival -- Tibet (protectress of Tibet, celebrated mostly by women)
     Loy Krathong -- Thailand (Floating of the Lamps festival; to appease the water spirits, dedicated to Mae Kongkha, Goddess of Rivers)
     Tazaugmone/Thasaung Mong Full Moon -- Myanmar (Festival of Lights begins)
     That Luang Festival -- Laos (Ventiane's most important Theravada Buddhist festival)

Guru Nanak Jayanti -- India; Nepal (birth anniversary of Guru Nanak)

Homemade Bread Day -- use the bread machine, it's fun and easy, i promise!  sponsored by the Homemade Bread Day Committee of Ann Arbor, MI, US

International Students Day -- International (meant to celebrate all students around the world, not specifically students studying in countries other than their own; anniversary of the Nazi storming and closing of the University of Prague)

John Peter Zenger Day -- marking his arrest in 1734 for libel; he continued to edit his newspaper from jail and was acquitted, an early victory for freedom of the press

National Baklava Day

National Farm Joke Day

National Unfriend Day -- all those people on Facebook you regret accepting as friends?  Jimmy Kimmel suggests you unfriend them today!

Polytechneio -- Greece (anniversary of the 1973 student protests against the junta)

Presidential Election Day -- Chile

Presidents' Day -- Marshall Islands

Public Restroom Hand Dryer Appreciation Day -- internet generated, and why?  they've been proven less sanitary, blowing germs everywhere; i will not appreciate this one

Shogi Day -- Japan (celebrating shogi, a chess-like game)

St. Elizabeth of Hungary's Day (Patron of bakers, beggars, brides, charitable societies, charitable workers, countesses, exiles, falsely accused people, hoboes, homeless people, hospitals, lace makers/lace workers, nursing homes, nursing services, people in exile, people ridiculed for their piety, tertiaries, tramps, widows; Sisters of Mercy; Teutonic Knights; Erfurt, Germany; Jaro, Philippines; against in-law problems, the death of children, toothache)

St. Hilda's Day (Patron of learning and culture)

St. Hugh of Lincoln's Day (Patron of sick children, sick people, swans)

Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day -- Czech Republic; Slovakia

Take A Hike Day -- internet generated, and some websites say it's actually "Tell Your Boss to Take a Hike Day", but i don't recommend that unless you've recently inherited a fortune or won the Lotto

Volkstrauertag -- Germany (National Day of Mourning for all victims of National Socialism and the dead of both world wars)

Winter Welcome Quadrilles and Dainty-Sixes -- Fairy Calendar

World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims -- UN

World Prematurity Day -- because one in 10 babies is born prematurely, facing a very hard start in life



Birthdays Today:

Laura Wilkinson, 1977
Daisy Fuentes, 1966
Danny DeVito, 1944
Lorne Michaels, 1944
Tom Seaver, 1944
Lauren Hutton, 1943
Martin Scorsese, 1942
Gordon Lightfoot, 1938
Rock Hudson, 1925
Lee Strassberg, 1901
Atahualpa, last Emperor of the Inca, 1502
Flavius Claudius Julianus, Roman Emperor, 331
Vespian, Roman Emperor, 9


Today in History:

Diocletian is proclaimed emperor by his soldiers, 284
England and Spain sign an anti-French covenant/treaty, 1511
Elizabeth I ascends the English throne, 1558
France and Spain sign the Peace of the Pyrenees treaty, 1659
The Church of England organizes in New England, 1785
Congress holds its first session in the still incomplete Capitol Building of Washington, D.C., 1800
The Delta Phi fraternity, America's oldest continuous social fraternity, is founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York, 1827
Ecuador and Venezuela separate from Greater Colombia, 1831
Street signs are first authorized at San Francisco intersections, 1853
David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls, 1855
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Slavonic March is given its première performance in Moscow, 1876
Japan and Korea sign The Eulsa Treaty, 1905
The first US dental hygienist course is formed, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1913
US declares the Panama Canal Zone to be neutral, 1914
Lenin defends the "temporary" removal of freedom of the press, 1917
American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th Century, 1947
Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse, 1970
In Czechoslovakia, the Velvet Revolution that would overthrow the communist government begins when student protests in Prague are quelled by riot police, 1989
Brian May of the rock band Queen was appointed Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, 2007