Category Archives: Because I Can

Don’t Forget to Mail Those Christmas Cards!

Postal Crack

Happy Birthday, Diablo

On November 30, 1996… we all heard Griswald say, “Hello” for the first time.

Diablo Cover

November 30, 1996 –

Happy Birthday, Dick Clark!

Dick Clark

Richard Wagstaff “Dick” Clark (November 30, 1929 – April 18, 2012)

Richard Wagstaff “Dick” Clark is an American television personality and businessman, best known for hosting long-running shows such as American Bandstand, various Pyramid game shows, and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

Clark has long been known for his continued youthful appearance, earning the moniker “America’s Oldest Teenager”, and also for his good health — until he suffered a stroke in 2004. With some speech ability still impaired, Clark made a dramatic return to his New Year’s show on December 31, 2005, and appeared at the Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006.

Wikipedia Link

RIP Leslie Nielsen

“I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley”

Leslie Nielsen

Leslie Nielsen (February 11, 1926 – November 28, 2010)

Leslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in over one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying over 220 characters.

Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Nielsen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and worked as a disc jockey before receiving a scholarship to Neighborhood Playhouse. Beginning with a television role in 1948, he quickly expanded to over 50 television appearances two years later. Nielsen appeared in his first films in 1956 and began collecting roles in dramas, westerns, and romance films. Nielsen’s lead roles in the films Forbidden Planet (1956) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972) received positive reviews as a serious actor, though he is primarily known for his comedic roles.

Wikipedia Link

Happy Thanksgiving!

Undocumented Immigrant

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963)

The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). John F. Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, according to the conclusions of multiple government investigations, including the ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963-4 and the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976-9. This conclusion initially met with widespread support among the American public, but polls, since the original 1966 Gallup poll, show a majority of the public hold beliefs contrary to these findings. The assassination is still the subject of widespread speculation and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories (even the HSCA, based on disputed acoustical evidence, concluded that Oswald may have had unspecified co-conspirators), though these theories have not generally been accepted by mainstream historians and no single compelling alternative theory has emerged.

Happy Birthday, ISS

On November 20, 1998, the first segment of the ISS, the Zarya FGB, was launched into orbit on a Russian Proton rocket, and was followed two weeks later by the first of three ‘node’ modules, Unity, launched aboard STS-88.

Wikipedia Link

RIP “Mr. Whipple”

 

 

Mr. Whipple

Dick Wilson as Mr. Whipple with the Charmin.

Dick Wilson, born Riccardo DiGuglielmo (July 30, 1916 – November 19, 2007), was a British-born American character actor who played the role of finicky grocery store manager Mr. (George) Whipple in over 500 Charmin toilet paper television commercials (1965–1989, 1999).

Happy Birthday, Calvin & Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic—albeit stuffed—tiger. The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th-century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century English political philosopher. The strip was syndicated daily from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. At its height, Calvin and Hobbes was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. To date, more than 30 million copies of the 18 Calvin and Hobbes books have been printed.

Wikipedia Link

Salute the Troops – send them Slim Jim while you’re at it!

Slim Jim - Salute the Troops

Edit: It was good while it lasted. All good things come to an end.

Veteran’s Day

Veteran's Day

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Edmund FitzgeraldThe SS Edmund Fitzgerald, May 1975.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a cargo ship that sank suddenly during a gale storm on November 10, 1975, while on Lake Superior. The ship went down without a distress signal in 530 feet (162 m) of water at 46°59.9′N 85°6.6′W, in Canadian waters about 17 miles (15 nm; 27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew perished. Gordon Lightfoot‘s hit song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, helped make the incident the most famous marine disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping.

We have had it with the two of you…

We have had it with the two of you...

RIP Michael Crichton

John Michael Crichton, M.D., (October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008 ) is best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of NBC’s ER.

Crichton’s books have sold more than 150 million copies worldwide. He was the author of The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, Rising Sun, Timeline, State of Fear, Prey, and Next. He was most famous for being the author of Jurassic Park, and its sequels.

His most recent novel, Next, about genetics and law, was published in December 2006.

He had won an Emmy, a Peabody and a Writer’s Guild of America Award for ER.

Extremely Rare Bi-Colored Lobster Caught in Newfoundland

Bi-colored Lobster

A fisherman recently caught this mottled red and blue lobster off of Felix Cove in Newfoundland, Canada. This super rare bi-colored lobster is considered gynandromorph, meaning it’s both female and male.

Daylight Savings Time Ends

Daylight Savings Time Graph

Clocks turn back an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, marking the beginning of standard time for the next few months.

This means that this weekend will be an hour longer than normal, but it will get dark an hour earlier in the evenings.

Standard time will be used through March 8, when clocks will “spring” forward an hour to begin Daylight Saving Time.

Ironically, standard time is no longer the norm. About two-thirds of the days during the year now operate on Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving Time now begins on the second Sunday of March each year and ends on the first Sunday of November.

DST has roots tracing to 1918 in the United States, though not all places always observed it. Currently, it is not used in Hawaii and most of Arizona.

Jack-O-Lanterns

Today…

In 1886, the ticker-tape parade is invented in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticket tape into the streets as the Statue of Liberty is dedicated.

In 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ’29 or Black Tuesday, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.

In 1960, in Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.

In 1969, the first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

In 1998, Space Shuttle Discovery blasts-off with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space. He became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962.

Happy Birthday, Charlie Daniels

Charles Edward Daniels is an American country music, Southern rock, and jazz singer, fiddler, and guitarist.

Charlie Daniels

Charles Daniels (October 28, 1936 – )

Wikipedia Link

RIP Rex Stout

Rex Stout

Rex Stout (December 1, 1886 – October 27, 1975)

Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as “that Falstaff of detectives.”  Wolfe’s assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975 (A Family Affair).