Meanderings'N'Musings

// zero and holding

2006-07-15T17:39:00.000-04:00

For this week's technology news I thought I'd do a little bragging on Mac OS X.

Yeah, I know, like I never do enough of that, right?

But really, though, this is worth applauding Apple for.

Symantec, the globally reknowned and respected leader in anti-virus software released information this week stating that as of today there are NO known viruses for Apple's Mac OS X operating system.

To quote, Symantec stated:

"Simply put, at the time of writing this article, there are no file-infecting viruses that can infect Mac OS X."

Many times family and friends don't quite "get it" when I tell them that Mac OS X is invulnerable to viruses online. But there it is, in black and white.

There are ZERO types of the kind of viruses, worms, bugs, spyware, etc. etc. that plague those who use Micro$oft's Windows operating system.

By comparison, at the last count, there was nearly 100,000 known types of viruses, etc. available for Windows.

If you're sick of Windows, here's a suggestion: get a Mac.

// stand still, look pretty

2006-07-04T00:04:00.000-04:00

Hmm. This will make my second music review in a row that features a country music act.

Perhaps I'm starting to like country music better than I thought?

Nah.

I just really like Michelle Branch.

And this Jessica Harp gal ain't half bad, neither.

Put 'em together and you got a pretty nice ... country music duo?

Yep, that's what The Wreckers are. Even though separately the pair are both pop singers, they decided to combine talents and release this country music offering.

What a combination of talent, too.

Michelle Branch's 2001 album, The Spirit Room is easily one of my favorite albums of this young century so far.

While I'm not as familar with her partner on this album - although I do know Jessica Harp is an Aquarius and that's always, always a good thing - her vocals on these songs are amazing. How amazing? Indistinguishable, for the most part, from her Grammy-winning friend.

If you're a Branch fan also, then you already know she strums a pretty mean guitar and is an incredible songwriter. In fact, she wrote her amazing hit song, Sweet Misery, when she was in high school. And I don't mean during high school age, either, I mean actually in high school, sitting in class.

She has an uncanny ability for songwriting.

Ya know how Wolverine's mutant ability is healing and Professor X's is telepathy?

Michelle Branch's mutant ability is songwriting. The girl's a freak of nature.

It should go wihout saying then, since Michelle co-wrote all these songs with Jessica Harp, that they're all quite solid.

My favorite of the bunch are, in no particular order: The Good Kind, Leave the Pieces, and One More Girl.

My favorite track on the album, though, is a composition entirely written by Jessica Harp alone: Tennessee. It's a beautiful ballad that has Michelle Branch-type lyrics stamped all over it, yet she didn't write it. Clearly these women are large influences on one another as well as good friends; which is how The Wreckers came into being.

Speaking of Tennessee: I highly suggest you watch this video:

It's an acoustic performance of Tennessee by The Wreckers.

Granted, these really aren't straight-up country music songs. They're a lot more like acoustic versions of pop songs. Which, being not-so-much a country music fan, is fine with me.

If you are a country fan, though, the lack of any pure type of country on the CD is likely to put you off. That's really the only "caution" label I would put on this album. Otherwise, it's really well done and it's really good music.

The Wreckers' latest single from this album, which you can also watch right there on You Tube, is called Leave the Pieces.

If you like what you see - and hear - then by all means run right out and grab the CD. It's well worth it.

Now, since I started off talking about how this was my second country music album review in a row I might as well tie the two together even more, right?

One More Girl by The Wreckers was penned by Patty Griffin who also wrote two songs on the previous Dixie Chicks album.

I love it when things come full circle like that; it's one of those "circle of life" kind of things...

// superman returns

2006-06-30T04:27:00.000-04:00

First, let me take care of a little business: I'll be heading out of town tomorrow and for most of the weekend. Therefore, this will most likely be the final post I write until after the upcoming holiday.

It's unfortunate it'll work out that way because the 2nd anniversary of Ramblings'n'Musings (and the first of this companion blog) will come and go without my getting to be very self-congratulatory over it.

Ah well.

That said, then, I wanted to write this post for all those of you who may be heading out to see Superman Returns over the weekend.

I always like to try and start at the beginning and this movie definitely begins with the original 1978 Superman film.

Already a lot has been said about Brandon Routh (Routh like "south") and his likeness to the late Christopher Reeve.

There's a very good reason for that: Superman Returns will pick up right where the '78 movie left off.

You'll hear and see lots of references to the '78 film such as:

The use of the legendary Marlon Brando's voice and image from the '78 film as Superman's father, Jor-El.

I'm a big-time Brando fan and having Brando back, for me, made a huge difference. Listening to Brando say, "They can be a great people, Kal-El, if they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you...my only son," chokes me up with emotion everytime I hear it.

And yes, I just recited that line from heart. I'm a fanboy, I know.

Also, there's the use of the great John Williams' original score from the '78 movie.

Would Jaws be Jaws without the...duh, duh...duh, duh...music we're so accustomed to associating it with? Of course not. Neither would Superman be Superman without John Williams' score. By the way, John Williams also wrote the score for Jaws, too.

You'll also hear the characters mention things they did in the original movie. You'll hear some lines repeated and carried over and even some story points from the first make their way into this one.

Of course, if you've never seen the first film, then don't worry because this movie is also a self-contained story so you won't be lost at all. You won't catch all the references, of course, but that's okay because you won't be confused either.

One of the other little surprises, for me at least, was seeing Parker Posey walk onscreen as Lex Luthor's girlfriend. I'm a gigantic fan of hers and I didn't realize she was in this movie until I saw her. It was a great surprise for me.

Speaking of Lex Luthor, Kevin Spacey brings a real meanness to the role. It's not a comedic performance in the exact same mold as Gene Hackman gave when playing Lex Luthor in the past. Granted, Spacey is still funny at times; but he's downright mean at others. It works well. Spacey is a great actor so he does a great job here, too.

As for Routh, he's an incredible Superman and a great Clark Kent. I know that sounds redundant but it's really not. In order to pull off the Superman-to-Clark Kent conversion with only a pair of glasses and a parting of the hair it's necessary to act like the noble Superman on one hand and then act like the nerdy Clark Kent on the other.

Routh does this well and also manages to get most of the biggest laughs in the whole movie. It's very reminiscent of the same type of thing Reeve did originally.

It's actually very eerie, in one sense, how this movie really does give one the feeling that Superman is back. The same Superman you knew and grew up with, for most of us at least, who grew up with Christopher Reeve's Superman.

Of course, the effects are spectacular. Aren't all the effects for movies spectacular anymore? That's a given it seems with Hollywood in the 21st century.

What manages to make this movie stand apart is not it's effects: quite the opposite, it's good old fashioned story telling that makes this movie stand out. It's a film with a lot of heart.

There's a lot of nostalgia and a lot of heart and a lot of emotion poured into this movie and it pours over on the audience, too. This is the first film I've seen in years where there was a palpable sense of quiet attention all around the theatre. People weren't talking. No one was fidgeting. No one was making trips to the bathrooms and concession stands. The theatre was packed and everyone in attendance sat there and watched and watched deeply, attentively.

When the film concluded everyone stood up and applauded and cheered.

Welcome back, Superman.

It was great.

I hope you all get the chance to go see it; especially those of you with fond memories of the 1978 classic.

Before I close, let me give you one little bit of information that will make you want to see this all the more if you're already planning to and might tip the scales if you're still trying to decide:

There is a MAJOR secret uncovered in this movie that, so far as I know, has NOT been leaked widely to the world. I read a lot and hit a lot of websites on the internet and I had read NOTHING about it before I saw the film.

Naturally, I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling you what it is, but it's a good one.

Just go see it. You won't be sorry you did. I promise.

Here are some links for Superman Returns:

Read the reviews for Superman Returns @ Rotten Tomatoes.

Visit the Official Website for Superman Returns.

// this week in history - 6.25 to 7.1

2006-06-28T23:40:00.000-04:00

Elvis Presley gave his final concert during this week: his final performance was on June 27, 1977 at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana.

I'm not really an Elvis fan, so it's kind of odd that I would pick that event out of all the others for this week's historical post.

One thing my Dad and I seem to always come back to arguing over is about Elvis and The Beatles. He's a huge Elvis fan and I'm, of course, a huge Beatles fan. We constantly seem to, at least about once a year, get back to the old argument over who was bigger: Elvis or The Beatles.

What I always find so sad about Elvis' career is how he allowed others to totally manipulate him all his life; one in particular who was especially odious. Elvis was never free of the man who was the puppet master of his entire career, "Colonel" Tom Parker.

Exactly what he was a colonel of, I'm sure I have no idea. For the most part, Tom Parker was a con man. Unfortunately, he held the strings of one of the greatest phenomenons of all-time.

However big Elvis was, and is, pales in contrast to the Elvis that might have been had he of been free of the grasp of Tom Parker.

But The Beatles, now that's a different story altogether. No group of men ever marched to the beat of their own drum more so than the "Fab Four" from Liverpool.

The Beatles continue to be an enormeous influence, too. As does Elvis. But The Beatles are by far a more important influence because of the massive amount of creativity and uniqueness of the men in the band.

Elvis' influence is largely based on his ability as a performer.

Elvis wrote no music, played no instruments well and, for the most part - by his own admissions - was a mediocre piano player and poor guitarist. He left no impressionable legacy as an actor due to the fact that he partook soley of films that were competely laughable projects.

There is no Elvis composition to compare to Hey Jude nor film to compare to A Hard Day's Night - both landmarks in their own right.

In fact, if one were to take a poll among the top musicians, singers and performers in the music industry today (I'm sure many of you have seen such polls) of who the biggest influences on their careers are, I would be willing to guarantee you that the one common name among them all would be The Beatles.

As I often argue to my Dad: Elvis just entertained us, The Beatles inspired us.

I guess if you had to say who was bigger, it was The Beatles. But if you ask who could have been bigger, I suppose it was Elvis.

After all, Elvis did manage to accomplish all that he did with one arm tied behind his back.

Imagine what he could have done had he been set free to make his own decisions and guide his own career?

I guess that's why I'm remembering this anniversary on this post during this week.

While it's sad to remember the Elvis we knew gave his final concert this week, it's even sadder to know that their was an Elvis who we never knew that never took the stage at all.

// a funny thing happened on my way to this post

2006-06-25T14:15:00.000-04:00

Rather than tell you a story today, on Story Day, I'm going to instead tell you my favorite blonde joke.

I love blonde jokes.

For a couple of reasons, really, but mainly because blondes seem to be the last, lone bastion of stereotypes it's still okay to make fun of. You can't make fun of any religions, races, creeds or anything of that sort anymore because it's all taboo.

Thankfully, it's still okay to make fun of blondes. Although, I'm not sure why that is, really. My guess is it's because they don't get that we're making fun of them.

Anyway, on to the joke.

Here then, I present, Lance's Favorite Blonde Joke™ :

Two blondes are walking down the sidewalk one morning when one sees a compact lying on the ground. Stopping and bending over to pick it up, she opens the compact and gazes into the mirror.

"What is it?" the other asks.

"It's a picture of somebody," she responds while still gazing into the mirror.

"Who?" asks her friend.

"I'm not sure. But they look really familar..." she answers.

In annoyance her friend snatches the compact from her hand, "Let me see that!"

Gazing for herself into the mirror she scolds her friend by replying, "Oh, you idiot! That's me!"

// quickly catching up

2006-06-15T12:42:00.000-04:00

I realize now that I won't be able to write a review for every movie I see during the summer months.

I've noticed my movie-going quickly increases with the glut of movies that are released in the summer.

Already I've failed to mention several films I've seen recently, including some of the summer's biggest hits so far. Movies like:

RV.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand.

And most recently: Cars.

Instead of trying to go back and catch up on all of those reviews, I'm just going to press ahead. There's no point in dwelling in the past, now is there?

Besides, there's still so many movies ahead, like:

Superman Returns.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

And maybe the one I'm most looking forward to: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

Hopefully, I can be more diligent in posting movie reviews in the future.

I promise to try, anyway,

// the week in tech 6.3.06

2006-06-03T11:51:00.000-04:00

Tech news.

I haven't written one of these posts in awhile. It's time to crank one out.

The Wii (pronounced "we"), Nintendo's new video game system, has the tech industry buzzing.

A lot of the "experts" were scoffing until last month's Electronic Expo in Los Angeles where the Wii was a big, big hit.

Suddenly, no one's laughing anymore.

Personally, I thought the idea for the Wii's controller was strange, too. But then again, I thought Nintendo was nuts the first time someone handed me one of their controllers back in the 80's.

"Where's the joystick?" No joystick. Use the D-pad. "The D what?"

Well it didn't take long before joysticks were a thing of the past and every system had a controller with a D-pad. In fact, they all still do.

Knowing that Nintendo revolutionized the industry once with their idea for a controller, I wasn't going to write off the Wii's crazy-looking controller until I had one in my hands and got to see for myself whether or not it was a better, or worse, idea.

Apparently after everyone at E3 got their hands on the Wii controller last month they found out Nintendo was crazy after all.

Crazy like a fox.

Factor in the issue that the Wii is going to cost somewhere around the neighborhood of $250 bucks this Xmas, which is about half of what Micro$oft wants for their X-Box 360 and Sony for their PlayStation 3, and all of a sudden Nintendo is looking mighty good.

A unique, one-of-a-kind controller that offers a unique, one-of-a-kind gaming experience for half of what those other companies want.

Not bad.

No wonder everyone is talking about these guys.

// taking the long way (review)

2006-05-30T20:24:00.000-04:00

I suppose it's about time I got around to writing this after harping about the album and the situation for so long.

I'm sure by now many of you have read several reviews for the Dixie Chicks' latest album, Taking the Long Way.

It has garnered many fine reviews and has been called their best album by some.

After spending almost a week with it, I can tell you it's definitely an outstanding album. If we were grading on the A, B, C scale this is definitely an "A" album.

Especially for someone like me who isn't necessarily a fan of country music. In fact, the Dixie Chicks are the only country music act I have bought an album in the past 15 years or so.

Maybe longer.

I'd have to pull out the CD collection to check and, honestly, who ever listens to CDs anymore? Most of the new CDs I buy I never even listen to. Ever. I import them to iTunes and from there they go onto iPods and random playlists are burned and all the while the original CD stays tucked away in it's case. Most are spun one time - while importing them - and then are never spun again. Most CDs are archival records, a receipt you own to show you actually paid for your music.

But I digress...

You've probably already heard that this album has a lot of rock to it. And it does. A lot of power ballads, especially. There are some country-ish songs on it - and let's face it anything Natalie Maines sings is going to sound country, regardless of what it is. She has a completely country voice.

But a few songs, Easy Silence and I Hope in particular sound nothing like anything we have ever heard them perform before.

That said, you can probably now guess which songs are my favorite on the album.

Along with the previously released Not Ready to Make Nice, the songs Easy Silence, I Hope, Everybody Knows, Favorite Year and Baby Hold On have gotten the most plays in my iTunes Library and are all listed as four star songs.

For me, four stars are about as high as I go for "new" music, reserving five stars for the all-time great songs - like the Dixie Chicks' previous hit Landslide, for instance.

As for how politically charged the album is: very.

However, it's probably not what you might expect. There are no lyrics calling out President Bush or the White House or Exxon-Mobil or Halliburton or any "blood for oil" lyrics or any of the other cliche lyrics that might be rumbling through your head to expect to hear in a "political" song.

Which, I think, is exceptionally classy. You can make your point without making accusations or put downs and you can definitely make it without using cliches or doing the expected.

Lyrics like these on I Hope, I think, are exactly what needs to be said and these girls are definitely saying it in a spectacular way:

Sunday morning / heard the preacher say / "Thou shall not kill" / I don't wanna hear /nothin' else about killin' / And that it's God's will / Cuz our children are watching us / They put their trust in us / They're gonna be like us / So let's learn from our history / And do it differently

I could easily spill over into a whole separate tangent here about how the current administration has people in churches all over America praying for - actually on their knees praying - for a war. What, for any Christian, could be more UN-Christ-like? What a shame to them.

However, I'll do my best to stay on-topic.

Those are the kinds of "politically charged" lyrics you can expect. No name-calling. These gals might take the long way around, but they definitely take the higher road so far as name-calling is concerned.

So, to revisit my earlier musing about whether or not this is their best album ever - it will largely depend on your point of view.

It's definitely a first class album. An "A," a "10," a "homerun" however you prefer to describe it. But then again, so were their previous three.

Whether or not this album will be your favorite will be entirely up to you; but you'll definitely enjoy this one.

For the record, Taking the Long Way lands squarely on the top of my list. My favorite Dixie Chicks album, hands down. I'm not always incredibly adept at recognizing history in the making, but I think this album will be a landmark. In 10 or 20 years - assuming we've made it through the current mess and into that nebulous future - I think we'll look back at this album as a mile marker of where we were and the times we're living in. Like so many of those great albums of the 60's.

I couldn't recommend this one more highly.

Go get it and enjoy it. But above all, appreciate it.

This one came at a high price.

// I have to get to a library. fast.

2006-05-19T15:50:00.000-04:00

How can you not love a movie where the leading man delivers that line during a climatic moment and in a hurried, desperate and rushed tone?

Well, if you're an egghead like me, you can't.

I only just returned from seeing Dan Brown's multi-million-selling-novel-turned-motion-picture, The Da Vinci Code, and I can say that it's a really good film. Especially if you're a fan of the novel.

If you didn't like the book, then most likely you won't be seeing this movie anyway.

Although, I have heard of and read a few reports of people who didn't like the book, yet loved the movie. Roger Ebert admitted in his review to being such a person, but I doubt there will be many of those. Besides, we all know Roger Ebert is kind of weird anyway.

Irregardless...

My guess is most people didn't read the book based on religious and/or philosophical differences and therefore they won't see this film based on the same reasons.

For the rest of us, though, this is the movie we hoped we'd get to see.

It includes all the famous sights - both historical landmarks and precious works of art - that we wished we could see as we read the novel.

Tom Hanks is amazing.

Audrey Tautou is breathtaking.

Ian McKellen brings the perfect touch of humor and eccentricity to the character of Leigh Teabing that was in the novel.

And, surprisingly to me, practically everything that was in the novel is in the movie. Albeit in a condensed or perhaps slightly altered form. But it's there.

In fact, the film moves so quickly if you haven't read the book I HIGHLY suggest you do before you go see this or else you most likely won't be able to keep up. Even if you haven't read the book in a few years you might want to as well, just so you're not wondering, "was that in the novel?" all throughout the film.

The main complaint I have read from other reviewers is that the movie is too long: horsefeathers. I wonder if those people actually read this book?

The movie runs along at such a brisk pace that, again, if you haven't read the novel I doubt a novice could keep up.

It is a long movie, to be sure - well over 2 hours - but it is not too long nor is it ever boring.

The only slight I have for the film at all is that Hank's Robert Langdon seems to, on far too many occassions, play the opposite of the argument as the film's conscious. I was disappointed in that. I expected Hanks to deliver some of the movie's most controversial lines and heaviest hitters. Instead, he appears in some scenes to almost switch to the other side of the argument. Bummer.

Regardless, the film is spectacular.

Some of the only footage I have ever seen (outside of photographs, of course) of the gorgeous Castel Gandolfo is featured in the movie - although I'm quite sure the interior shots are set reproductions. I doubt the Vatican let the film makers anywhere near the actual Castel itself. Even so, the aerial and distance shots are incredible.

In short, if you liked the book, you'll like the movie. Go see it.

One last thing, though: Paul Bettany as Silas will freak you out.

Here are some links for The Da Vinci Code:

Read the reviews for The Da Vinci Code at Rotten Tomatoes.com.

Visit the official website for trailers and more at www.SoDarkTheConOfMan.com.

// today in history - may 11th

2006-05-11T15:58:00.000-04:00

Today is the day Oscar was born.

Well, kind of.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded on May 11, 1927.

However, it wasn't until 1929 that any awards were given, so Oscar didn't quite make his debut on this day.

He was conceived on May 11th, let's put it that way.

Through the years, many of Hollywood's top name actors, producers and directors have been members of the prestigious Academy.

Currently, there is no exception to that rule:

Tom Hanks is Vice President of the Academy.

The Board of Governors - to name only a few - consists of such talented and creative people as the outstanding and accomplished actress Kathy Bates, movie producer extraordinaire Kathleen Kennedy and Pixar's Chief Creative Executive, John Lasseter.

Needless to say, the Academy is in good hands. We can look forward to many, many outstanding events hosted by the Academy for years to come.

// a valiant effort

2006-05-07T21:45:00.000-04:00

Recently, thanks to the incredible invention that is eBay, I've been slowly re-building my comic collection of Valiant Comics.

Valiant Comics started up in 1990 and really only had a couple of good years before starting into a quick and steep decline that would lead to their eventual corporate death by 1999.

Probably most of you have never even heard of Valiant Comics or any of their characters.

For me, though, they were a real delight in the years from 1990 to 1993 or so. I really enjoyed their work as well as their attitude.

They were just a little company and doing something completely crazy: taking on the "big guys" of Marvel and DC Comics.

Marvel, of course, had popular and established characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men etc.

DC, likewise, was loaded with popular characters such as Superman and Batman.

Valiant had no established characters, really. They had the rights to a couple of creations from the early 1960's - like Magnus, Robot Fighter and Dr. Solar - but most of them were in no way memorable to comic book fans.

Saying, "Magnus" or "Solar" to comic book fans then would be no different in saying it to them now: most would simply respond with a quizzical, "Who?"

Plus, Valiant had to almost re-create those characters from scratch. But they were making their own way. They were not only inventing their own characters (which I loved) but also making comics that really made sense - at least "sense" in a comic book sort of way.

All of Valiant's characters, early on, lived in the real world. That is, the laws of science applied to them: physics, motion, gravity, etc. Any and all of the characters who could and did bend or rise above those scientific laws did so in a real world based on real world principles - the same as an airplane doesn't magically fly, but has means of propulsion defined by and ruled over by the laws of science, mathematics, etc.

I really loved all the hard work, thought and intelligence that went into making those comics.

They were great, great stories!

For a little while some of Valiant's comics were being bought and sold for hundreds of dollars.

Some of the best writers and artists in the field began to work with Valiant and write stories and render Valiant's characters in beautiful ways.

The incomparable Barry Windsor-Smith did a lot of his finest work for Valiant Comics.

Unfortunately, due to mismanagement, corporate greed and a number of other reasons, Valiant collapsed.

As the man who gave birth, life and vision to Valiant Comics, the artist, writer and Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, once said, "it was defeat snatched from the jaws of victory."

Instead of becoming a financial and cultural success like Marvel or DC, Valiant became a memory.

Now, most of those beautiful, awe-inspiring and wonderfully created comics can be picked up on website auctions, sales and eBay for practically nothing.

I've long hoped that perhaps Hollywood might lend Valiant fans a hand by securing the rights to one or several of their characters and making a motion picture based on them.

Perhaps it will happen. I hope so.

In the meantime there's some great sequential art laid out in these books for fans to still enjoy and think about what could have happened had Valiant succeeded.

It's been fun re-building my collection, too. I had, through the years, given away, lost and sold so many of my comics that only a few Valiant ones were left around the house. It's been fun collecting Valiant Comics again after all these years.

And hey, who knows, maybe if Hollywood ever does make X-O Manowar or Shadowman on the big screen maybe they'll be worth something - besides fond, nostalgic memories - once again.

// taking the long way (preview)

2006-05-03T00:12:00.000-04:00

May 23rd.

Just go ahead and circle that date on your calendar and reserve some time off to spend with your stereo.

That's the day the Dixie Chicks' new album will hit stores.

If we can judge by the quality of the stellar Not Ready to Make Nice pre-release single, (click the link above to hear the entire song on the Chicks' site) this album is going to be a whale of a comeback, of sorts, for the Dixie Chicks.

As of today, Not Ready to Make Nice has already climbed to #28 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles Chart after only one week of it's release.

I say "comeback," however, because they are coming back from one of the most tumultuous periods between albums of perhaps any group ever.

Other than the time John Lennon said The Beatles were, "more popular than Jesus," I don't know of any group who's faced more heat and hatred than these three gals have over one, single statement.

In hindsight, "we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas," seems pretty mild compared to what a lot of people are saying about him now.

And don't even get me started on the irony that is, probably, the two most controversial statements in music history being about Jesus and George W. Bush.

We'll be here all night if I start harping on that one.

Nonetheless, the Dixie Chicks' example during that trial, though, will always inspire me. I can't say enough about how much I loved - absolutely loved - the bravery of these three girls to say what they believed and then stand behind it 100% in the face of such vile criticism and hatred.

However much I loved the Dixie Chicks before that whole fiasco, it doubled - or quadrupled! - afterwards.

But, I'm digressing...

I've mentioned my glowing endorsement for them before, such as when I posted about their song and video, but I wanted to make a this a "preview post" because of how much I'm looking forward to this new album.

I know, as a huge Dixie Chicks' fan, I'm not going to be disappointed. But, I think a lot of casual fans - and probably a lot of new fans - are going to be really pleased and impressed with this album as well.

I base that reasoning on the fact that I know how personal the ladies made this album.

When you've got a lot to say, from the heart, that you feel strongly and emotionally about...well, there's probably going to be a lot of good come from that.

Ergo I think this album may be one of their best ever.

Regardless, we'll find out May 23rd, so don't forget to circle those calendars.

// 2006 mtv movie awards

2006-04-30T16:13:00.000-04:00

Yea, I know it's not a story. But I haven't posted here in awhile and figured this was better than nothing.

You can now vote for your favorites for the 2006 MTV Movie Awards over on MTV.com.

Log in and choose your favorites!

// the week in tech 4.22.06

2006-04-22T17:00:00.000-04:00

I never write these often enough anymore.

I need to get back to work, I know.

Anyway, big news all week long in the tech community has been the on-going lawsuit between Apple Corp. and Apple Computer.

Apple Corp. is, of course, the production company founded by The Beatles in 1968.

Paul McCartney came up with the name as a play on words. Apple core, Apple Corp...clever, right?

Well The Beatles have sued Apple Computer for trademark infringement before on the name. The last time apparently Apple Computer signed an agreement to never use the name in connection to music, only to computers.

Apple Corp. now claims that iTunes and the iTunes Music store violates that agreement.

My favorite quote from the trial so far has been that of Apple Computer's Attorney Anthony Grabiner (mentioned in the article linked above) who said "even a moron in a hurry" could tell the difference between iTunes - an online music store - as opposed to Apple Corp., which is a record company.

"A moron in a hurry."

I like that one.

I think I'll use it again myself later on.

So far, though, no decision has come about as to who wins in this case.

A lot of folks (folks like myself, who are just voicing guessed opinions) think that perhaps Apple Computer might settle and come away with a mutually beneficial agreement.

Such as getting exclusive rights to sell The Beatles music - which is completely unavailable anywhere online as a legal download - through the iTunes Music Store.

Will it happen?

Will Apple settle with Apple?

Will Apple defeat Apple or will Apple prevail?

Since Apple sells Coldplay songs online will Apple sue Apple Martin for copyright infringement also?

Stay tuned!

// king kong

2006-03-28T22:11:00.000-05:00

Of course, the entire title of this film is actually, Peter Jackson's King Kong.

And boy is it ever.

The actual run time for this thing is three hours and eight minutes.

Consider, by comparison, that the original 1933 King Kong ran a mere one hour and forty minutes.

So this movie is by no means just a re-telling of the same story. Peter Jackson does stay true to the original concept (and especially the ending) of King Kong but he definitely filled a lot of time with story of his own.

If you're familar with Peter Jackson's work, then you're quite aware of his ability to stretch a story.

Peter Jackson could spend three hours telling you the story of why the chicken crossed the road.

Maybe that'll be his next project:

Peter Jackson's "Why the Chicken Crossed the Road".

He'd start off telling you the backstory of the road. How it came to be. How the chicken's father had wanted to cross the road, too ,when he was younger. How the chicken's mother wanted to see him succeed, but feared for his life knowing the dangers of crossing the road.

And on and on.

Granted, it's hard for me to pick on him too hard for making long movies because, in truth, I really do enjoy a good, long movie.

I find most movies are too short instead of too long.

So long as a movie doesn't drag and stays interesting to watch, I really prefer a longer movie as opposed to a shorter one.

Such is the case with Kong. It stays interesting to watch from start to finish.

And what a finish.

I don't think I can possibly spoil anything for anyone because the ending of King Kong has been in the public awareness for over 70 years now.

That said, we all know the moral of the story: beauty killed the beast.

With a tale like King Kong, though, I have found many have missed the overall moral point of the film. It can be easy to overlook a philosophical truth in a movie with a 25 foot gorilla.

You kinda have a hard time taking your eyes off the ape.

Obviously, even if some have missed the literal point of the film, it still somehow registers subconsciously or subliminally because the film has remained such a landmark for so long.

It's truly worth mentioning, though, so I'll sum it up as best I can:

All of us are born uncivilized and have only the base responses. We respond to hunger, pain, amusement, etc.

As we grow, we learn of art and music and literature and it's the beautiful things in life that quell the beast, the animalistic nature within us all.

The more civilized we become, the farther from animalistic we grow.

Of course, man is inherently far ahead of beast to begin with. But mankind, uneducated and unlearned, is far more beast-like than the civilized man is.

Therefore it is truly beauty - the beauty of and found in knowledge - that truly slays the beast.

It's a fine point to share with future generations:

The incredible, powerful, and gigantic king of beasts taken from his uncivilized world and being slain - not only in civilization - but on perhaps the greatest, most beautiful, symbolic monument to civilization ever created: New York's Empire State Building.

This film takes that incredible metaphor that we've loved for over half a century now - King Kong - and updates him quite nicely to share with those generations to come.

Well done, Mr. Jackson. Well done.

Check out some links for Peter Jackson's King Kong:

Read the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.

Visit the official website.

// on pause

2006-03-28T00:09:00.000-05:00

I'm gonna hit the pause button on this post because there are quite a few movies I've seen recently and am still debating on which to write a review for.

There's also an, um, gorilla-sized movie releasing tomorrow that I want to see that I might just write about. I want to see it before I decide.

At any rate, the next post here will definitely be a movie review. I just haven't decided on which movie yet.

Patience, grasshoppers.

// today in history - march 23rd

2006-03-23T10:25:00.000-05:00

Today marks the first time in recorded history that "okay" was used in print.

In 1839, The Boston Morning Post used "okay" in an article as a purposeful misspelling of the term, "all correct."

For some reason, in the 1830s, there was some sort of fad going around where people liked to misspell words on purpose.

Ergo, "all correct" was making the rounds as, "oll korrekt." Sounds German doesn't it?

The kids were crazy in the 1830s, what can I tell you.

Anyway, there is some debate over what exactly the letters O.K. stand for. According to Wikipedia, no one knows for certain. However, okay, o.k., etc., is supposedly the most used word in the world due to it's acceptance into so many cultures. "Okay" is almost universally understood in all languages.

At any rate, happy birthday "OK."

That's the trivia lesson for today; now get out of here. And good luck not boring the next person who says, "Okay" to you to death by repeating this useless factoid.

// brandi carlile

2006-03-21T08:39:00.000-05:00

Awhile back I got an email asking me to post about Brandi Carlile.

I'm not one to blindly jump into things so naturally I like to take time to check things out before I write about them.

But I definitely wanted to make time to post about her and her music because I was really impressed with both.

Although, her name sort of sounded familar. I was pretty sure I had heard - or at least heard of - her before. I did some poking around in my iTunes library and, sure enough, there she was.

Brandi was the featured Discovery Download of the Week last September.

Her sound is part folk and part rock. A lot like a Sheryl Crow or Michelle Branch type of sound - not to draw comparisons, but just to give you an idea.

Of course, you can check out Brandi's catalog at the iTunes Music Store.

You can also see a couple videos of her on You Tube.

Check her out and see what you think.

Personally, I like the type of music she's doing and she breaks a lot of ground lyrically. She's an artist I'll definitely keep my eye on.

You also might want to check her official website (linked above) because she's currently on tour. She might be coming to your town soon.

Give her a listen and tell me what you think.

// howl's moving castle

2006-03-15T03:42:00.000-05:00

I dunno how many of you are familar with the work of Hayao Miyazaki, but let me tell you, he's incredible at what he does.

Some would call it anime (Japanese comic/cartoon/art) and others cartoons, but Miyazaki-san eschews either label on his work. One can hardly blame him. Most will instantly stereotype, or label, a film upon hearing such words connected to a work.

To do so greatly misjudges the phenomenal presentation and storytelling in Miyazaki-san's movies.

This latest effort is Howl's Moving Castle. It was recently nominated for best animated picture at the Academy Awards.

If you're a fan of animation or art I would highly suggest you pick this up and give it a view. Fans of animation, though, for the most part are already well familar with Miyazaki-san's work and gobbled this up as quickly as it was released.

But, it's also great if you've got kids or children in your family or are just a big kid yourself.

It's a wonderfully told story of a girl bewitched who takes up with a wizard (Howl) and his incredible, enchanted, moving castle. I won't spoil anymore details other than that because the movie takes so many surprising twists and turns you'll really want to experience them all for yourself.

The movie takes you away to another time and place that's so strange and yet so familar you're instantly reminded of all the great classics you ever saw when you were a kid. From The Wizard of Oz to everything in between and back again, this movie will feel like something you've seen in your dreams and remember from years ago - yet, it's all so brand new.

It's a marvelous blend of beautiful images and childhood imaginings that I'm certain everyone who sees it will really enjoy it.

Obviously, the film is a real visual treat, too. Again, fans of animation will really love this - and all of Miyazaki-san's work. He's a master storyteller and certainly a master of storytelling delivered in this gorgeous, animated fashion.

The movie is out now on DVD, so pick it up wherever you can and check it out.

I promise it'll blow you away.

Here are some links for Howl's Moving Castle:

Read the stellar reviews for Howl's Moving Castle at Rotten Tomatoes.

Vist the official website.

// a very short story

2006-03-11T22:12:00.000-05:00

I need a haircut.

Bad.

I generally try to refrain from cutting my hair (I like to wear it pretty short) in the winter time because I catch colds and flus supremely easy.

A lot of people notice I wear hats a lot and ask me if I like them.

You may have noticed that devilishly handsome picture I have in my profile and ask, "Pardon me, Luke Wilson -- err, Lance -- do you like wearing hats?"

Truth be told; I really don't. Actually, I never would wear a hat if it weren't for the simple fact that in winter I catch cold so easily if I leave my head uncovered when I'm out. It's kind of like wearing an undershirt: once you start, if you go without, you catch cold.

At any rate, it's been too long since my last haircut.

I'm starting to look like Greg Brady at his finest:

Ya know, of the myriad of jokes I can think of right now to make about that picture not a single one of them is actually fit to print. I shan't type any of them, then.

Anyway...

I just know that if I don't get a haircut soon this month is going to be a very Brady March.

// today in history - march 9th

2006-03-09T18:04:00.000-05:00

March 9th is a somewhat interesting date for American pop culture.

It's the anniversary of three very different products, by three very different sources. The three have reached such status in pop culture that they are instantly recognizable with just two syllables each:

Barbie.

U2.

Mustang.

In 1959, Mattel debuted the first Barbie.

On March 9, 1987 U2 released what is recognized by most as their greatest (some say the greatest) album ever - The Joshua Tree.

And on this same day in 1964 Ford Motor Company rolled the first Mustang off the assembly line.

An interesting trio, to be sure.

I suppose if we were playing that Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game someone could figure out what those all have in common with each other. And with Kevin Bacon, of course.

But we're not and so I'm not.

I'm only here to point out the trivial; not participate in it.

That said, I'll just conclude by sharing that I never would have imagined as I was driving my nieces to see Beauty Shop last year, in my Mustang, as we were all listening to I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, and they were showing me their new Barbie dolls, that they all shared the exact same birthday.

Beauty Shop...

...say...

...isn't Kevin Bacon in that one?

// date movie

2006-02-22T17:29:00.000-05:00

I saw this flick last night - and yea - it's as bad as the reviews for it say it is.

Basically, this is just one parody after another. A movie about other movies.

It just goes from one movie parody to another. Every scene exists solely to set up the next movie parody scene. In fact, most of them you can see coming a mile away before they even launch into them.

It's pretty bad.

What few scenes aren't directly lifted from another movie (which are few) make absolutely no sense on their own.

The perplexing part of all this for me was: why would you attempt to parody movies that are already comedies?

I could see making light of serious movies. Taking something from a love story and making fun of it. Which is what I thought this movie was going to be about, mostly. I knew going into the theatre that it had a lot of that type of thing in it. I knew it was basically making fun of other date movies. But, again, I was thinking they would parody serious movies.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to try and parody a comedy. I mean, it was funny once, what makes someone think just by doing it again will make it funny twice?

And personally, sight gags have never worked on me.

"Hey, here's a guy who looks like Owen Wilson!"

Uh huh. And?

"That's just it; doesn't he look like Owen Wilson? Isn't that funny?"

Uh. No.

Plus, I'm not a big fan of physical comedy, either. Just running around and stumbling and falling and acting like a clown. I think it's more silly than funny. Unless, of course, it's done in the right way, within the context of the picture or joke itself - then it can be funny. But just doing it for the sake of doing it, to me, isn't funny.

I much prefer humor that is based in (surprise!) dialogue. Lines. Joke delivery. Etcetera.

Anyways, avoid this movie at all costs.

Don't let the Napoleon Dynamite bit they show in the trailers talk you into going to see it (like it did me).

Stay home and stay far, far away from Date Movie

Alyson, we still love you, though, and we forgive you.

Here are some links for Date Movie:

Visit the official Date Movie website.

Read the reviews for Date Movie at Rotten Tomatoes.

// blogging 101

2006-02-12T16:15:00.000-05:00

Today's story will be pre-empted to bring you a lesson in blogging.

Hopefully this'll be helpful to someone out there.

In fact, I know it should because I've had enough people ask me about this or mention it to me. I've also read it on quite a few blogs, myself.

What I'm referring to is that one of the hardest parts of blogging, for some, is coming up with a title. They can never seem to think of anything.

I've even read several blog posts that start, "Well, I couldn't think of a title..."

So, if you've struggled with "title-block" yourself, here then is a little tip for you:

Write your post first.

If you sit there looking at Title: and can't think of anything - then just skip it. Write your entire post and then think, "Okay, what was the point of this post?" Hopefully, it had a point. If so, then that's your title.

If it was pointless, then consider the following:

A) Re-write it so that it actually has a point.

Or,

2) Just title it "Pointless."

Now, in the event that you should end up with a blog full of posts that are all titled, "Pointless Post 1," "Pointless Post 2," "Pointless Post 3," etc. and so forth, then you might wany to consider a creative writing class as well.

There you have it - simple, and easy. Hopefully it's helpful as well.

Have fun blogging!

// the day the music died

2006-02-03T18:24:00.000-05:00

I didn't get this posted yesterday, but as it works out it'll be posted on the actual day it happened.

Today is the 47th anniversary of the date of the Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Big Bopper plane crash.

Most of you are probably familar with the story. If not, the Wikipedia article above provides an excellent summary of what happened.

The loss of life in any plane crash is always a sobering reminder of how fragile life is. Sometimes even the smallest of things can alter the course of your life or, in the case of an accident, end it.

The loss of Buddy Holly in particular was huge for rock 'n roll music and it's fans.

So big that, almost half a century later, we're still talking about it.

At merely 22 years of age he had already established a catalog of hits that left a lasting legacy.

I have no doubt that, if he had of lived, Buddy Holly would have produced a library of both hit songs and influential music that would be nearly as big as The Beatles'.

Let's not forget that, even though he died at just 22, he nonetheless was among those that inspired The Beatles.

Again, in trying to put it into perspective, it was such a huge loss for music fans.

It's like trying to imagine that "Hey Jude" would never have the chance to be recorded.

If you get the chance today to listen to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens or the Big Bopper you might wanna take the chance to do so and remember not just the loss of these three influential artists, but also be reminded of how fragile our lives are.

The Apostle James wrote:

"Go now, you that say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain.' Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. For that you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that."

// mr. sunshine

2006-01-31T15:35:00.000-05:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then we might ask, "how many words would a sound be worth?"

At any rate, Country/Folk singer Lori McKenna's single, Mr. Sunshine is the Discovery Download of the Week at the iTMS.

And it's a good one.

So...

...there's no need for me to waste words typing a review.

Just give it a listen:

// the week in tech 1.28.05

2006-01-28T18:17:00.000-05:00

Most of you probably already heard the biggest news on the tech front this past week:

Disney bought Pixar.

That's right, Steve Jobs' other company.

As of this moment, Steve will simply be on the board of directors at Disney.

Last I heard, though, he was never very good at just "sitting."

My guess is we'll see Steve taking a much larger role in the future at Disney.

Which is a good thing. Especially for Disney.

Will it take time away from Steve's job at running Apple? Will it hurt Apple now that Disney will be getting more of Steve's attention?

I highly doubt it. It never took away from Apple before, when Steve was CEO'ing Pixar. Let's not forget, computers and Apple are Steve's first love. I don't expect his input or leadership to wane in the slightest.

However, so far as Disney is concerned - fans and stockholders alike - having Steve Jobs around is probably the single best thing that could possibly happen for them.

Steve has an impeccable drive to produce only quality products. Whether that be as relates to the computer industry or the film industry (all of Pixar's films to date have been Oscar nominated and/or won Best Animation awards).

For the past few years Disney has struggled trying to find a solid hit and has gotten bad marks from fans for simply milking their past hits.

Lion King 1 and 1/2 anyone?

I thought not.

We'll see how things turn out, but as of right now, the deal looks like a winner all the way around.

For Disney, Pixar and animation fans.

// famous quotes

2006-01-26T19:14:00.000-05:00

Many US Presidents have coined many a memorable phrase through the years.

JFK said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

Lincoln had the Gettysburg Address.

And Clinton had, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Today marks the anniversary of that famous phrase.

Ya know, politicians lie to us a lot, but it's not that often they stare you right in the eye, (on TV) point at you and demand you believe the "truth" knowing dang well they're lying their tail off.

I guess Bill thought the rest of America was as gullible as Hillary when it came to believing his stories.

// wedding crashers

2006-01-24T15:56:00.000-05:00

Ah, another Frat Pack movie.

What's to be said about these guys that hasn't been said before?

They're hilarious.

I loved this movie, everyone loved this movie (mostly) and so there's not a whole lot of reasoning behind me sitting here telling you everything about how good it is.

If you like the Frat Pack, then you'll love this, too.

Vince Vaughn is a great "straight man" (remember when that description didn't have anything to do with one's sexual orientation?) and delivers his lines with the same hilarious droll you're used to.

Owen Wilson is the same sly dog you expect him to be. Witty, funny and charming as always.

Rachel McAdams and all the other girls (there's a lot of girls, as you could guess, in a movie like this) are adequate in the movie. Everyone knows McAdams can do a lot more, but she's perfectly fine in this movie, too.

Personally, I found Isla Fisher's character the best of all the female roles. Her character was a riot. You just had to figure Vince Vaughn was going to fall in love with her because how can you not love someone that crazy?

Her explaning all her imaginary friends and the one, Caleb, who spoke in only a magical language that she could understand had me rolling.

So, other than the completely wild and unpredictable antics she brings in, you pretty much know what to expect through the whole movie.

That said, let me spend some time telling you what I didn't like about this movie.

First, it's about 40 minutes too long.

And yes, I watched the "Uncorked" edition as well as the theatrical release and both are too long.

All the funny parts in the movie definitely were worth leaving in. However, there's a lot of story that just goes nowhere and could easily have been omitted and made this movie a lot shorter.

Secondly, I felt like they "went for" the R rating. This movie has scenes that just seem, well, gratuitous.

Not that they are "bad," per se. They're not scenes of gross humor or far too much nudity. That's the problem. There's just enough of it in the film to make it seem out of place. To give you the feeling that they didn't need to include it and so the only reason you can think of that they did is that they wanted the R rating.

Frankly, the "Uncorked" edition isn't any racier than the theatrical release. They could have easily omitted a few scenes and gotten a PG-13 rating.

Maybe they felt they needed the R for the box office numbers. I don't know.

But that said, it's a hilarious movie. Again, if you're a Frat Pack fan, check it out, you'll most certainly enjoy it.

Here are some links for The Wedding Crashers:

Check out The Wedding Crashers Official Site.

Read the reviews for The Wedding Crashers at Rotten Tomatoes.

// less is more

2006-01-15T16:32:00.000-05:00

Addition by subtraction. Less is more. I'm sure you've heard of the concept.

In all likelihood though, you find yourself in a world where it becomes increasingly difficult to find others who subscribe to the theory.

Let's face it, we live in a complex world. Everything is bigger, faster and more confusing than ever.

There's more channels on most of our TVs than we'll ever need, use or watch. More buttons on our remotes than we know what to do with. Nothing, it seems, is simple anymore.

Not that "simple" is what is needed. I like complexity and diversity as much as the next person. However, a simplistic approach to complex and diverse objects and situations is what we need.

What does this have to do with Story Day?

Only that it gives me the opportunity to share my love of the simplistic approach with you all.

I love things that are simple, clean and non-cluttered. To me, they are the most aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

In art, it's called Minimalism.

For those of you unfamilar with it, check it out, it's a really brilliant and enjoyable field of expression.

In the world today, not many companies subscribe to the notion, of course. It's rather the opposite. The more buttons, switches, numbers and letters you can put on something the better. Or so they think.

Take a look at the remote control for a Windows Media Center PC:

Obviously, they don't subscribe to the minimalist theory.

For a better example, you could compare that with Apple's Front Row remote control:

Or an iPod, for that matter. They both are an example of the minimalist approach - in this example, of course, as pertaining to product design.

What do these two remotes do? The same things, basically. Again, the simplistic or minimalist approach doesn't mean that you have to sacrifice complexity.

To use the iPod comparison, anyone who's used an iPod and another MP3 player could tell you that they both have about the same features. Yet most MP3 players have nowhere near the ease of use that iPod does. Why? Because most MP3 players have dozens of more buttons, switches, etc. than iPod has.

Again, less is more.

Since visually an artist might include, paint or sculpt an image that contains less objects to look at doesn't mean it will convey less emotion or meaning.

There's obviously more going on in a Georges Seurat, for instance:

When compared with something by Keith Sonnier:

But, the simpler is often far easier on the eyes to enjoy, to look at, then the complex.

Not that I'm comparing either of these two beautiful works of art as "good" and "bad." They both are spectacular. They just go about it in two different ways.

Moreover, while one invokes a spirit and a mood (the feeling of a busy Sunday in the park, for instance) with many objects, the other can do so as well with far fewer.

In fact, the "more" approach will often invoke the "busier" feeling, while the simplistic will appear far less stressful - both on the eyes and the emotions.

People will usually respond to the beauty of the minimalist design even if they don't know what it is or what it's called.

How about lifestyles?

How "simple" or "complex" is your life?

Probably, like most of us, you find your life is way more complicated than you wish it were.

We're all surrounded with "busy" objects, products, etc. etc. It's hard not to feel the pressure.

Personally, I try to maintain this simplistic approach to my life. To my blog, even. Words on a white page. Lots of paragraphs. Short sentences. A clean, simple look to try and make it as easy on the eyes as possible to look at.

Since I know I enjoy the minimalist approach as applied to so many things - art, products, cars, clothing, it is used in so many different areas - I try to do my best to apply it to my life as well.

Hmm. This sounds like advice, doesn't it?

Far be it from me to dole out advice.

That said then, I'll just conclude that if you find things too complicated - your car, your stereo, your life - you might wanna try to give the minimalist approach a chance.

// the 13th

2006-01-12T19:23:00.000-05:00

This post kind of writes itself. Or at least links itself.

Since tomorrow is Friday the 13th, I thought it might be good to post a link to the Wikipedia entry on how and why it is this superstition is in our culture.

You might be surprised to find out that, like so many of the traditions and superstitions in America and other Western countries, this one also has it's origins in religion.

Read up on the entry at Wikipedia and see what you think about why it is you may - or may not - be nervous about tomorrow being Friday the 13th.

// casting a colossal shadow

2006-01-11T15:25:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered what you would do if confronted with the ability, the power, to bring a loved one back to life?

More to the point, have you ever wondered what you wouldn't do if given the chance?

There's been countless movies and novels written exploring the alternative. Characters who, in essence, "made a deal with the Devil" to bring a loved one back to life.

There have even been scores of movies and novels written about the repercussions of such a thing when the "deal" was struck with a more noble entity or being.

It seems, as humans, we all wish inwardly that we could conquer the greatest enemy of all - death.

It also seems that we have an innate understanding of how conquering death isn't really meant to be. As mortals, we're all fated to die. To cheat death would only bring with it enormous implications.

Which brings me back to my initial question - have you ever wondered if you would be willing to accept the implications of bringing a loved one back to life?

Have you ever wondered if you wouldn't risk anything - "risk it all" - for a chance to bring a loved one back?

While you mull that question over, let's move further on:

Motion pictures long ago reached a maturity level to which they are esteemed as "art."

Literature, novels, they too - long ago - reached a level of maturation where they're not just seen as entertainment but as art.

Well, at least some movies and books have reached that lofty goal.

One particular medium, which I have grown up with (granted, I'm using the phrase "grown up" loosely) that has not yet reached that goal is video games.

Perhaps as long as they're called "video games" they never will attain the status given to other forms of entertainment. Perhaps they need a new name in order to defeat an old bias.

Needless to say, some "games" do contain - in fact, some even far surpass - enough high quality work by enough talented artists to be considered as art.

Of course, there are few that ever recieve any such recognition.

One game that is sorely deserving of the recognition is Shadow of the Colossus.

I've never reviewed a video game on any of these Review Day posts, but I'm more than happy for this game to be the first one.

Heck, I'm downright embarassed that this is the least I can do to impart to you how incredibly powerful a narrative Shadow of the Colossus is.

To say this is a phenomenal game simply isn't doing it justice.

Never has a more unique approach been given to a video game than the one given to Shadow of the Colossus.

The premise is this:

A young man enters a forbidden land with a dead girl in his arms.

He places her body on an altar in a temple and asks the power, the ruler of the land to bring her back to life.

A voice from above him says it might be possible - if - and we all know that "if" is the biggest little word in the dictionary, but in this case "if" is literally a colossal sized "if" - the power inside of the 16 colossi that roam the countryside of the forbidden land are slain and their power harnassed.

The young man is given a challenge, in other words. If he can hunt down and slay all 16 colossi in the land, maybe the girl can be returned to life.

Maybe.

Well, when you haven't anything then you haven't anything to lose, right? Obviously this girl was the young man's everything, because he wastes no time in accepting the challenge. Even when he is told that the resulting price he may have to pay will almost certainly be a steep one, his determination to at least try is not shaken.

Therefore, the quest begins.

You have 5 weapons to use against the colossi. And that's it. You won't be getting anymore in your quest.

No flame throwers, no jumping on mushrooms for 1ups, no cars, no planes, no blue hedgehogs.

Just you, your horse Agro, a sword, a bow and your brain.

Against 16 colossi the size of skycrapers.

Why would anyone be crazy enough to take on a colossus, let alone 16 of them, with such limited means?

I think you probably already know the answer to that.

What then follows is an epic tale as powerful as any I have ever read or seen.

Think of Beowulf, or Homer, or any hero from any classic tale or tragedy and you'll understand.

Keep in mind, there are no other characters in this story, either. You, Agro, a dead girl and a voice in the sky representing a power, an entity, that you don't even know if you can believe or trust.

The land is completely desolate. A cursed, forbidden land. And it looks it. Deserts, dead leaves and grass with only a few pockets of "life" here and there. An occasional lonely waterfall or lake to remind you of what life used to look like.

What life used to look like.

The metaphors and analogies in the game are so starkly vivid that you cannot ignore them and it is not by happy chance that they are in the game. You realize someone designed and programmed this to be so beautifully lonesome. So wonderfully bleak. Such incredible despair.

Ah, but there is hope. The hope is you. The hope is in so long as you're alive, so long as you have Agro to see you from one colossus to the next, so long as you have your sheer determination to succeed, there is hope.

But at what price?

As you ride from colossus to colossus on Agro, to wake these giant behemoths only to usher them into eternal slumber, you cannot help but wonder and ponder what you're doing. You can't do anything else. Literally. There's no one else to interact or talk with - only your horse.

The power of the medium really comes through. Controlling the actions and being such a part of the story is what makes it so powerful. A story that wouldn't - and couldn't - be as powerful if it were simply read or watched.

The implications of doing, what so many of us have wondered, read or thought about, are truly felt. It's actually you doing it.

You ride to the sleeping place of these great giants, you wake them, you scale them and you topple them. With the controller in your hands, you feel as much a part of the events as you possibly could.

And in the end...wow.

Is it worth it? Does the girl come back to life? Who is the girl? Who is the guy? What is the price to be paid?

Well, you just have to experience it to understand it or appreciate it.

Shadow of the Colossus is incredible beyond words. Beautiful beyond descriptions.

If you own a Playstation 2 then you have to experience this game.

If you don't, and you still want to know more about it, you can read the Wikipedia entry for Shadow of the Colossus - but be warned - it tells you everything about the game; spoilers and all.

I think someday in the future video gaming will reach the mainstream acceptance that movies and books have; where people see them as art as well as entertainment.

I also think when we look back from that future that we'll point to Shadow of the Colossus as having shown us the way.

// the round mound of rebound

2006-01-09T16:09:00.000-05:00

Ya know, it's not often in a little town like the one I live in that you get to meet famous people.

A few years back, I had the opportunity to meet Charles Barkley.

At the time, Charles was still in the NBA and had that popular perception of being a tough guy. Rude. Obnoxious. If you remember the late 90's sports scene, then you remember the stigma of the attitude that Charles had.

It's funny how meeting someone can immediately confirm or dispel rumours you've heard about them.

Charles immediately dispelled any I had heard about him.

He couldn't have been a nicer guy. He signed autographs, he shook hands, he smiled, he thanked us all for coming out to see him - in fact, among his entire team and the opposing team, Charles stood head and shoulders above them all in outgoing friendliness.

Remember, this is a guy who said - when asked if he had any regrets after getting into a fight with a guy in a bar and throwing the guy through a plate glass window and was subsequently sued for it - "My only regret is that the bar was on the 1st floor."

That's another thing about Charles. He used to be called "The Quote Machine" back during his playing days. He really had - and has - a knack for turning a phrase.

What a great guy, though. I've always appreciated his friendliness, even though I only met him one time.

It just goes to show you, though - don't believe everything you hear about someone. There is always, always, two sides to every story.

// this week in tech 1.7

2006-01-08T07:01:00.000-05:00

Bill Gates opened the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas this past week.

He showed off several products for his "vision of the future", as well as Micro$oft's new Windows Vista operating system.

The same OS that used to go by the moniker "Longhorn" and was supposed to be released, in beta form, last year.

Then Gate$ and Co. moved it back to 2006, removed most of it's features and re-named it Vista. Possibly hoping that, with a new name, people would forget it was already supposed to be released.

Well, it's 2006 and I know everyone is just dying (and by "dying" I mean of course "dreading") to move from Windows XP to Vista.

We'll have to wait and see if Vista actually makes an appearance this year or not, though. Gate$ didn't exactly show much of the OS or give any offerings as to when it would actually go on sale.

Personally, I would say if you want a truly "next generation" operating system then don't wait on these guys - give this a try instead.

Whenever Vista finally rears it's ugly head - be that this year or no - it's just going to be a bastardization of Mac OS X, anyways. Why not have the original?

What fancy new features is Vista touting?

Enhanced search. Sidebar gadgets. Oh yea, there's a new transparent task bar, too.

Ideas borrowed (notice I'm being nice by not calling it corporate theft?) from Apple's Spotlight, Dashboard and the OS X Dock.

Again, only the ideas are horked from the Mac's OS.

Don't think the Windows counterpart are going to be anything but shoddy, scaled-down interpretations.

You'll be about as close to the original with those as you would be to listening to "Hey Jude" if it were being sang by this guy.

But will anyone actually care this time around?

Why of course not. They'll sell a googel of 'em and then I'll spend all year - whatever year it comes out - answering, "can you help me get my computer running? I just installed Vista and..." questions.

*Sigh*

// no longer a week, but a day

2006-01-05T15:50:00.000-05:00

I've decided to retitle Thursday's post Today in History. From now on, I'll be focusing on just one day's historical event instead of an entire week's worth.

For starters, concentrating on just one selected event that occurred in history, instead of a whole week's worth, will allow me to say more.

Which is what's most important, right?

Not that you get a history lesson, but rather that you get my opinion on history. Because, let's face it, my opinion is more important than history.

Plus, those posts were so long I'm sure most of you (don't look away, I'm talking to you) probably weren't reading them anyway.

So, as of today, Thursdays will be time to reflect on just one event instead of many.

And what's in store for today's topic?

The day Jackie Robinson retired from baseball.

There's no way you can overstate the importance of Jackie Robinson's role, in not just sports, but on an entire culture and society.

In some ways - I guess in a lot of ways - we still have a ways to go before we truly conquer the problems of racism in America and in the world.

But one thing is for certain, Jackie Robinson sure led the way with a lot of bravery, style and class. He's a true hero in so many ways to so many people.

Today marks the anniversary of his retirement from the sport he helped to not only change but also enlighten.

Throughout history there are just an armful of men and women who, at the end of their life or career, left the world different from what it was when they were born. People who changed the world, in other words.

Jackie Robinson is one of those people.

If you ever think one person can't make a difference, think again. Jackie made a difference.

// another post that's not a post

2006-01-04T15:23:00.000-05:00

Hmm, since I haven't done a podcast in awhile I guess I can't very well post The Top 10 from it, ah?

Man, this kinda sucks.

Why doesn't this guy ever update his blog?

// so many movies

2006-01-03T18:20:00.000-05:00

I've seen so many movies and heard so much new music since I wrote one of these posts, that I have no idea now where to begin.

I'm going to forego for this post, for now, until I can make up my mind on what I want to be my first review after my "break."

// the weekly top 10 from 11.22

2005-11-23T03:15:00.000-05:00

Here is the Weekly Top 10 from Episode #17 of my podcast.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

The Top 10 Alternate Greetings Wal*Mart Might Consider for This Holiday Season:

10. Merry Merchandising!

9. Happy December!

8. Have a Happy Final Month of the Year!

7. Merry 12th Month!

6. Have a Happy Religious Holiday of Your Choice!

5. Happy Chris-kwan-akuh!

4. Happy Chana-kwan-smas!

3. Go for Broke!

2. Happy Gift Wrapping!

1. Shop Till Ya Drop!

// the concert for bangladesh

2005-11-22T16:43:00.000-05:00

"By August 1971...10 million East Pakistani refugees had fled over the border into India with scant hope of surviving inevitable hunger and disease.

Up to that point, little public attention had been drawn to the crisis in East Pakistan/Bangladesh. Few people outside the region knew how the deadly catastrophe had come to be, or what individuals who cared could do to help relieve the suffering."

So begin the liner notes to the DVD performance of one of the most monumental concerts in rock and roll history.

Not monumental because of it's size or scope, but monumental because of it's importance.

In the summer of '71, Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar approached his good friend George Harrison about doing something to help the people of his home country.

Harrison responded by engineering an all-star concert featuring (among others) himself, Shankar, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan.

It was called The Concert for Bangladesh and it was the very first "concert for a cause" of it's kind.

This DVD features the concert as well as some excellent extras.

The concert footage alone is remarkable.

Originally Harrison - "the quiet Beatle" - wondered if Madison Square Garden was too large a venue. George had not performed live in nearly 5 years and he had reservations as to how popular such a concert as this would be.

Imagine that.

The concert would see George performing songs, written while he was with The Beatles, that he had never performed live before.

However, it would be Ravi Shankar who would take the stage first.

Now, if you're not familar with Shankar or Beatle-lore then you may not know who Ravi Shankar is.

I'd be willing to bet though that most of you are more familar with his daughter, Norah Jones.

Norah plays down the connection of her famous father and so most casual fans have no idea she is the world-famous sitar player's daughter.

Shankar's performance, during this concert and under these circumstances, would be most moving and powerful.

Harrison then took the stage and did some of his best known numbers. Songs like, Wah-Wah and My Sweet Lord.

Later he would do some of his most popular songs written and recorded during The Beatle years, Here Comes the Sun and Something.

He and Eric Clapton would duet on, While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Bob Dylan, also performing live for the first time in years, would do some of his greatest material such as A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall and Blowin' In the Wind.

As far as concerts go, these are classic performances and they are extremely well-preserved. The film on the DVD is as good as you could hope to expect.

The DVD also features a ton of extras - backstage footage, documentaries, recordings from the rehersals and from the earlier afternoon performance that have never before been seen.

Best of all, keeping with the true spirit of the concert, all artist royalties from the DVD go to The George Harrison Fund for Unicef.

I can't recommend this DVD enough.

If you're a George Harrison or Bob Dylan fan, there's enough on this DVD to warrant a purchase. If you're a music fan interested in seeing one of the great concert performances of rock and roll history, then this definitely will be something you want to pick up.

It's a great concert filled with great music for a great cause.

No wonder then that the "all-star benefit concert" would become such a beacon on the musical landscape.

George Harrison and Ravi Shankar though, with this concert, turned the light on first.

Here are some links for The Concert for Bangladesh:

Read the Rolling Stone review for the DVD.

Visit the Official Website for The Concert for Bangladesh.

Click here or the banner to the right to get your copy of The Concert for Bangladesh.

Read the history of the concert on Wikipedia.

// ugh

2005-11-20T21:49:00.000-05:00

*Sigh*.

// this week in tech 11.19

2005-11-19T22:15:00.000-05:00

Who says I never show the other guys any love?

Happy 20th anniversary to Windows.

The above article is a nice walk down memory lane if you want to remember all those OS crashes and blue screens of death.

As this article points out, it's rather embarassing that after 20 years, "Windows is still not everything we—or Microsoft—would like it to be."

Man, 20 years and they still can't get it right.

Oh wait, this is supposed to be a celebration isn't it?

Excuse me.

Ahem.

Happy 20th Micro$oft.

// this week in history - 11.13 to 11.19

2005-11-17T22:06:00.000-05:00

Time for another history lesson!

Here's a list of events that all happened during this same week throughout history.

November 13th

1002 - English king Ethelred ordered killing of all Danes in England, known today as the St. Brice's Day massacre.

1775 - American Revolutionary War: Patriot revolutionary forces under Col. Ethan Allen attack Montreal defended by British General Guy Carleton. Allen and his troops were disorganised and soundly defeated.

1805 - Johann Georg Lahner invents the hot dog.

1841 - James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism, which leads to his study of the subject he eventually calls hypnosis.

1851 - The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what will become Seattle, Washington.

1887 - Bloody Sunday clashes in central London

1908 - Andrew Fisher becomes the 5th Prime Minister of Australia.

1909 - Ballinger-Pinchot scandal begins: Collier's magazine accuses US Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger of questionable dealings in Alaskan coal fields.

1916 - Prime Minister of Australia William Morris Hughes is expelled from the Labor Party over his support for conscription.

1940 - The animated feature-length film Fantasia is released.

1941 - World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is torpedoed by U 81, she sinks on November 14.

1942 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal - Aviators from the USS Enterprise sink the Japanese fast battleship Hiei.

1950 - General Carlos Delgado Chalbaud is assasinated in Caracas.

1954 - Great Britain defeated France to capture the first ever Rugby League World Cup in Paris in front of around 30,000 spectators.

1956 - United States Supreme Court declared Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses illegal; this ended the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1960 - Sammy Davis, Jr. marries Swedish actress May Britt. Interracial marriage was still illegal in 31 US states out of 50.

1960 A fire at a movie theater in Amude Syria kills 152 people.

1961 - Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny succeeds Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shelepin as head of the KGB.

1965 - The SS Yarmouth Castle burns and sinks 60 miles off Nassau with the loss of 90 lives.

1969 - Vietnam War: Anti-war protesters in Washington, DC stage a symbolic "March Against Death."

1970 - Bhola cyclone: A 120-mph tropical cyclone hits the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people in one night (this is regarded as the 20th century's worst natural disaster).

1971 - The American space probe, Mariner 9, has become the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, swinging into its planned trajectory around Mars without a hitch.

1974 - Nuclear activist Karen Silkwood is killed in a car crash while she is travelling to an interview with New York Times reporter David Burnham. Her files are missing from the carwreck; an FBI investigation later concludes accident, but is not generally believed to have been impartial.

1974 PLO leader Yasser Arafat gives a landmark address to the United Nations General Assembly.

1981 - The first Friday the 13th event held by motorcyclists in Port Dover, Ontario, Canada.

1982 - A boxing match held in Las Vegas, Nevada ends when Ray Mancini defeats Kim Duk Koo. Kim's death on November 17 led to significant changes in the sport.

1982 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans.

1985 - The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupts and melts a glacier, causing a lahar (volcanic mudslide) that buries Armero, Colombia, killing approximately 23,000 people.

1985 Xavier Suarez is sworn in as Miami's first Cuban-born mayor.

1990 - The first known World Wide Web page is written.

1994 - Voters in Sweden decide to join the European Union in a referendum.

2001 - Doha Round: The World Trade Organization ends a four-day ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar.

2001 War on Terrorism: In the first such act since World War II, US President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against any foreigners suspected of having connections to terrorist acts or planned acts on the United States.

2002 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq agrees to the terms of the UN Security Council Resolution 1441.

2002 The oil tanker Prestige sinks off the Galician coast and causes a huge oil spill.

November 14th

1851 - Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick is published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York - after it was first published on October 18, 1851 by Richard Bentley, London.

1862 - American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, leading to the Battle of Fredericksburg.

1889 - Pioneer woman journalist Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days.

1911 - Aviation pioneer Eugene Ely performs the first take-off from a ship in Hampton Roads, VA. He took off from a makeshift deck on the light cruiser USS Birmingham in a Curtiss pusher.

1918 - Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.

1921 - The Communist Party of Spain is founded.

1922 - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) begins radio service in the United Kingdom.

1940 - World War II: In England, the city of Coventry is heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers.

1941 - World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from U 81 sustained on November 13.

1952 - First regular UK singles chart published by the New Musical Express.

1965 - Vietnam War: Battle of the Ia Drang begins - the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces.

1969 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon.

1970 - Southern Airways DC-9 crashes in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75, including members of the Marshall University football team.

1971 - Mariner program: Mariner 9 reaches Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.

1971 - His Holiness Shenouda III was concescrated as the 117th Patriarch of Alexandria and the See of St. Mark, the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

1972 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time.

1973 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.

1974 - Ronald DeFeo, Jr. murders his family in their Amityville, New York home.

1975 - Spain abandons Western Sahara.

1979 - Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis.

1982 - Lech Wałęsa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border.

1990 - After German reunification, the (extended) Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland sign a treaty confirming Oder-Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland.

1991 - American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103.

1991 - Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returns to Phnom Penh after thirteen years of exile.

1991 - A fired United States Postal Service employee goes on a shooting rampage, killing four and wounding five, before committing suicide.

1993 - Michael Jackson enters a drug rehabilitation program to treat an addiction to painkillers.

1995 - A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums, and run most government offices with skeleton staffs.

1998 - Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra are married in Las Vegas, Nevada.

2000 - Netscape Navigator version 6.0 is launched following two years of open source development.

2001 - Attack on Afghanistan: Afghan Northern Alliance fighters takeover the capital Kabul.

2002 - Argentina defaults on an $805 million World Bank payment.

2002 - The US House of Representatives votes to not create an independent commission to investigate the September 11 attacks.

2003 - Planetoid 90377 Sedna is discovered.

November 15th

655 - Battle of Winwaed: Penda of Mercia defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria.

1515 - Thomas Cardinal Wolsey invested as a Cardinal

1533 - Francisco Pizarro arrives in Cuzco, Peru.

1777 - American Revolutionary War: After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.

1791 - The first U.S Catholic college, Georgetown University, opens its doors.

1806 - Pike expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (it was later named Pikes Peak).

1854 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is given the needed royal concession by Said.

1864 - American Civil War: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman burns Atlanta, Georgia and starts Sherman's March to the Sea.

1889 - Brazil is declared a republic by Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca and Emperor Pedro II is deposed in a military coup.

1920 - First assembly of the League of Nations is held in Geneva.

1926 - The NBC radio network opens with 24 stations.

1939 - In Washington, DC, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.

1941 - SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the arrest and deportation to concentration camps of all homosexuals in Germany, with the exception of certain top Nazi officials.

1942 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal ends.

1943 - German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps." (see Porajmos)

1948 - Louis Stephen St. Laurent succeeds William Lyon Mackenzie King as Prime Minister of Canada. King had the longest combined time (3 terms, 22 years in total) as Premier in Commonwealth of Nations history.

1956 - The first film starring Elvis Presley, Love Me Tender, opens.

1959 - Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas.

1960 - The Polaris missile is test launched.

1961 - Roger Maris is voted the American League MVP (baseball)

1966 - Gemini program: Gemini 12 splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

1967 - The only fatality of the X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight when Air Force test pilot Michael J. Adams loses control of his aircraft, and is destroyed mid-air over the Mojave Desert.

1969 - Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.

1969 - Vietnam War: In Washington, DC, 250,000-500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the war.

1970 the Soviet Lunokhod 1 moon rover lands on the moon

1971 - Intel releases world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

1976 - René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois take power to become the first Quebec government of the 20th century clearly in favour of independence.

1978 - A chartered DC-8 crashes near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 183.

1979 - A package from the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.

1983 - Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is founded.

1985 - A research assistant is injured as a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes.

1985 - The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.

1987 - Continental Airlines Flight 1713, a Douglas DC-9-14 jetliner, crashes in a snowstorm at Denver, Colorado Stapleton International Airport, killing 28 occupants, while 54 survive the crash.

1988 - In the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle Buran is launched on her first and last space flight.

1988 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.

1989 - Sachin Tendulkar makes his Test cricket debut playing for India against Pakistan.

1990 - Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis launches with flight STS-38.

1990 - Producers acknowledge that Milli Vanilli, who won the 1990 "Best New Artist" Grammy Award, did not sing themselves on their album.

2000 - A chartered Antonov AN-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola killing more than 40 people

2001 - The Microsoft Xbox video game console launches in North America, along with the game Halo: Combat Evolved.

2002 - Hu Jintao becomes general secretary of the Communist Party of China.

2004 - Destiny's Child releases their final album: Destiny Fulfilled.

2004 - New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey leaves office, three months after resigning due to a gay extra-marital affair. State Senator Richard Codey takes over as interim governor.

November 16th

534 - A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published.

1384 - Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman.

1532 - Francisco Pizarro and his men capture Inca Emperor Atahualpa.

1632 - The Battle of Lützen, where king Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden is killed.

1776 - American Revolutionary War: Hessian mercenaries capture Fort Washington from the Patriots.

1776 - American Revolution: The United Provinces recognize the independence of the United States, the first country in the world to do so.

1821 - American Old West: Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.

1849 - A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his execution is canceled at the last minute.

1857 - Second relief of Lucknow. The most Victoria Crosses won in a single day (24).

1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Campbell's Station near Knoxville, Tennessee. Confederate troops unsuccessfully attack Union forces.

1885 - Canadian rebel leader of the Métis and "Father of Manitoba", Louis Riel is executed for high treason.

1893 - Athletic Club Královské Vinohrady is founded. Later the team was renamed to Sparta Prague.

1896 - First transmission of electrical power between two cities was sent from Niagara Falls to industries in Buffalo, New York. (See War of Currents.)

1904 - John Ambrose Fleming invents the vacuum tube.

1906 - Opera star Enrico Caruso is charged with an indecent act after allegedly pinching a woman's bottom in the monkey house of New York's Central Park Zoo.

1907 - Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma and are admitted as the 46th U.S. state.

1914 - The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens for business.

1920 - Qantas, the national airline of Australia is registered as an aerial carrier under the name of “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited”. Only KLM (now part of Air France-KLM) is older.

1933 - The United States and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.

1940 - World War II: In response to Germany leveling Coventry two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.

1940 - Holocaust: In Poland, Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.

1940 - New York City's Mad Bomber places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.

1943 - World War II: American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vermork, Norway.

1945 - Cold War: The United States controversially imports 88 German scientists to help in the production of rocket technology.

1957 - Serial killer Edward Gein murders his last victim, Bernice Worden.

1959 - The Broadway musical, The Sound of Music, starring Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel opens at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater.

1965 - Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.

1969 - The first episode of The Clangers is broadcast by the BBC.

1973 - Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.

1973 - US President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.

1977 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind opens in theaters.

1979 - The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea in Bucharest, Romania.

1980 - Louis Althusser murders his wife and immediately confesses.

1981 - Luke and Laura marry on General Hospital; it is the highest-rated hour in daytime television history.

1988 - The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that the Estonia was "sovereign" but stopped short of declaring independence.

1988 - In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan choose populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister.

1989 - A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops kill six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.

1990 - Rocky V is the 4th Rocky sequel to open in theaters, starring Sylvester Stallone.

1996 - Mother Teresa receives honorary US citizenship.

1997 - After nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People's Republic of China releases Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons.

2000 - Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting US President to visit Vietnam.

2001 - The first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Scorcerer's Stone, is released, becoming the second highest grossing film around the world of all time.

2004 - X-43A scramjet becomes the fastest air-breathing jet flying at nearly Mach 10 at approx. 11,200 km/h or 3.11 km/s.

November 17th

1292 - (Julian calendar) John Balliol becomes King of Scotland.

1558 - Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I of England.

1603 - English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason.

1777 - Articles of Confederation submitted to the states for ratification.

1796 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Arcole - French forces defeat the Austrians in Italy.

1800 - The United States Capitol building in Washington, DC holds its first session of the U.S. Congress.

1820 - Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica (the Palmer Peninsula was later named after him).

1839 - Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio opens in Milan.

1856 - American Old West: On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.

1858 - Modified Julian Day zero.

1863 - American Civil War: Siege of Knoxville begins - Confederate forces led by General James Longstreet place Knoxville, Tennessee under siege.

1869 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.

1871 - The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.

1903 - The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for "majority") and Mensheviks (Russian for "minority"). (NOTE: Later the Mensheviks became the majority party, meaning that technically the Mensheviks became the bolsheviks and the Bolsheviks mensheviks).

1919 - George V, then King of the United Kingdom, proclaimed Armistice Day (later Remembrance Day), saying "that at the hour when the Armistice came into force, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, there may be for the brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of all our normal activities … so that in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead." The idea was first suggested by Edward George Honey.

1922 - Former Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI went on exile in Italy.

1941 - World War II: Joseph Grew, the United States ambassador to Japan, cables the State Department that Japan has plans to launch an attack against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (his cable is ignored).

1962 - In Washington, DC, US President John F. Kennedy dedicates Dulles International Airport.

1967 - Vietnam War: Acting on optimistic reports he was given on November 13, US President Lyndon B. Johnson tells his nation that, while much remained to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking...We are making progress." (two months later the Tet Offensive made him regret his words).

1968 - NBC preempts the final 1:05 minutes of a very close NFL football match between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders with Heidi, prompting an outrage amongst sport fans.

1969 - Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.

1970 - Elton John plays a concert at A&R Studios in New York City which later becomes the album 11-17-70.

1970 - Vietnam War: Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai massacre.

1970 - Luna program: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and was released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.

1970 - Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse.

1973 - Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook."

1973 - Student uprising against the military regime in Athens, Greece.

1974 - Aliança Operário-Camponesa (Worker-Peasant Alliance) founded in Portugal, as a front of PCP(m-l).

1983 - The Zapatista Army of National Liberation founded.

1985 - The first edition of Phrack is released. It became the oldest computer underground magazine still running after its 20 years of existence.

1989 - Cold War: Velvet Revolution begins - In Czechoslovakia a student demonstration in Prague is quelled by riot police. This sparks an uprising aimed at overthrowing the communist government (it succeeds on December 29).

1990 - Fugendake, part of the Mount Unzen volcanic complex, Nagasaki prefecture, Japan became active again and erupted.

1993 - Annie Proulx wins the National Book Award for her novel The Shipping News.

1995 - Public Radio International's radio program This American Life broadcasts its first episode, "New Beginnings".

1997 - In Luxor, Egypt, 62 people are killed by 6 Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut (police killed the assailants).

2000 - Catastrophical landslide in Log pod Mangartom,Slovenia, kills 7, and causes millions of SIT of damage. It is one of the worst catastrophies in Slovenia in the past 100 years.

2000 - Alberto Fujimori is removed from office as president of Peru.

2003 - Arnold Schwarzenegger is inaugurated Governor of California.

2004 - Kmart Corp. announces it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion and naming the newly merged company Sears Holdings Corporation.

November 18th

1095 - The Council of Clermont began. The council was called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land.

1302 - Pope Boniface VIII issued the Papal bull Unam sanctam ("The One Holy"), which historians consider one of the most extreme statements of Papal spiritual supremacy ever made.

1307 - According to legend, William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head.

1421 - A seawall at the Zuider Zee dike breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people in the Netherlands.

1477 - William Caxton produces Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first English language book printed on a printing press.

1493 - Christopher Columbus first sights what is now Puerto Rico. He will land on it the following day and name it San Juan Batista.

1626 - St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated

1686 - Charles Francois Felix operates on King of France Louis XIV's anal fistula after practicing the surgery on several peasants.

1865 - Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.

1883 - American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.

1903 - The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the Americans exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.

1904 - General Esteban Huertas steps down after the government of Panama fears he wants to stage a coup. The Panamanian army is disbanded the next day.

1905 - Prince Carl of Denmark becomes King Haakon VII of Norway.

1909 - Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of dictator José Santos Zelaya.

1916 - World War I: First Battle of the Somme ends - In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916.

1918 - Latvia declares its independence from Russia.

1926 - George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."

1928 - Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the second appearances of cartoon stars Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

1929 - 1929 Grand Banks earthquake: Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula area.

1938 - Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

1940 - World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss Benito Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece.

1943 - World War II: 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lost nine aircraft and 53 air crew.

1959 - William Wyler's film Ben-Hur premieres at Loew's Theater in New York City.

1970 - US President Richard Nixon asks the U.S. Congress for US$155 million in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government (US$85 million was for military assistance in order to help prevent the overthrow of the government of Premier Lon Nol by the Khmer Rouge and North Vietnam).

1970 - Singer Jerry Lee Lewis divorces his third wife, Myra Gail, after 12 years.

1971 - Led Zeppelin release an untitled album, often dubbed "Led Zeppelin IV," featuring "Rock & Roll," "Stairway to Heaven" and other classic songs.

1978 - Jonestown mass suicide: In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones leads his People's Temple in a mass murder-suicide; 913 die, including 276 children.

1982 - Duk Koo Kim died unexpectedly from injuries sustained during a 14-round match against Ray Mancini in Las Vegas, prompting reforms in the sport of boxing.

1985 - Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip by Bill Watterson, was first published.

1985 - Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theisman breaks his leg on Monday Night Football, ending his pro football career.

1987 - Iran-Contra scandal: The U.S. Congress issues its final report on the Iran-Contra affair, stating that US President Ronald Reagan bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides and his administration exhibited "secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law."

1987 - King's Cross fire: In London, 31 people die in a fire at the city's busiest underground station at King's Cross St Pancras.

1988 - War on Drugs: US President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law providing the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers.

1990 - Chris Eubank defeats Nigel Benn in a WBO world middleweight championship bout, arguably the greatest British boxing contest ever.

1991 - Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon set Anglican Church envoys Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland free.

1991 - After the 3-month siege, the Croatian city of Vukovar is invaded by Serbians

1993 - In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution.

1996 - World-renowned bird expert Tony Silva is sentenced to seven years in prison without parole for leading an illegal parrot smuggling ring.

1996 - A fire occurs in the Channel Tunnel soon after it opens.

1997 - Gary Glitter is arrested in the United Kingdom on child pornography charges.

1998 - Alice McDermott wins the National Book Award with her novel Charming Billy.

1999 - In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 28 injured at Texas A&M University when a huge bonfire under construction collapses.

1999 - In Jasper, Texas, 24-year old Shawn Allen Berry is sentenced to life in prison, becoming the third person convicted in the racially-motivated death by dragging of James Byrd, Jr..

2001 - The Nintendo GameCube is released in North America

2002 - Iraq disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.

2003 - In the UK the Local Government Act 2003, repealing the controversial anti-gay amendment Section 28, becomes effective.

2003 - The congress of the Communist Party of Indian Union (Marxist-Leninist) decides to merge the party into Kanu Sanyal's CPI(ML).

2004 - Russia officially ratifies the Kyoto Protocol.

2005 - Worldwide Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is in theaters. Crowds gathered at midnight on November 17 anxiously anticipating the Potter phenomenon's latest film.

November 19th

461 - St. Hilarius becomes Pope.

1493 - Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to go ashore on an island he only saw for the first time the day before. He names it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).

1598 - An outnumbered Korean and Ming navy ambush and defeat a Japanese army at the Battle of Noryang Point.

1794 - The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which attempts to clear up some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.

1816 - Warsaw University is established.

1850 - Alfred Lord Tennyson becomes Poet Laureate, a position he held until his death in 1892.

1863 - American Civil War: Union President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the military cemetery dedication ceremony in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

1881 - A meteorite lands near the village of Großliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine.

1916 - Samuel Goldfish (later renamed Samuel Goldwyn) and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Company (the company later became one of the most successful independent filmmakers.)

1924 - In Los Angeles, California, famous silent film director Thomas Ince ("The Father of the Western") dies of a heart attack in his bed (rumors soon surface that he was shot dead by publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst.)

1941 - World War II: Battle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran. The two ships sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen.

1942 - World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.

1944 - World War II: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling US$14 billion in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.

1946 - Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.

1954 - Sammy Davis, Jr. loses his left eye in an automobile accident in San Bernardino, California.

1959 - Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.

1961 - Michael Rockefeller, son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, disappears in the jungles near Atsj, Papua New Guinea.

1967 - The Establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.

1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.

1973 - American football player Lance Rentzel is arrested for exposing himself to a ten-year-old girl; he is later sentenced to five years' probation.

1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.

1977 - Transportes Aereos Portugueses Boeing 727 crashes in Madeira islands killing 130

1979 - Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.

1984 - A series of explosions at the PEMEX petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City ignites a major fire and kills about 500 people.

1985 - Cold War: In Geneva, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.

1985 - Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 billion verdict against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in U.S. history, stemming from Texaco establishing a signed contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.)

1990 - Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the “Girl You Know It’s True” album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.

1994 - In Britain, the first National Lottery draw was held. A £1 ticket gives a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.

1997 - In Des Moines, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies were born alive.

1998 - Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against US President Bill Clinton.

1998 - Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of the Artist Without Beard" sells at auction for US$71.5 million.

1999 - In Istanbul, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ends a two-day summit by calling for a political settlement in Chechnya and adopting a Charter for European Security.

// the weekly top 10 from 11.11

2005-11-16T10:31:00.000-05:00

Here's The Weekly Top 10 list from my podcast this past weekend:

The Top 10 Reasons President Bush Feels You Should Believe That He Had Good Reason To Invade Iraq

10. Hey, he's the President and you're not. Who knows best, him or you? Think about it.

9. Hey, his Dad was President, too. What does your Dad do?

8. He's from Texas. You don't mess with Texas. What does that have to do with it? Nothing, but the principle is still the same. You don't mess with Texas.

7. True, they never found any weapons of mass destruction, but there were all those Nerf whiffle bats stashed away in Sadaam Hussein's backyard. I guess those weren't going to be used for anything dangerous, right? Don't be so naive.

6. Who'd you rather trust, a former President's son from the great state of Texas - or that flip floppin' waffler who lets his wife tell him what to do, John Kerry?

5. Hussein was asking for it. Keeping all that oil to himself. C'mon, the guy was begging for it.

4. Did I say he's the President already?

3. That three trillion dollars was burning a hole in his pocket.

2. God told him to. And when the Commander-in-Chief upstairs sends down an executive order, buster you better follow it.

1. Okay, you got me. I admit it. There is no good reason to believe him.

// the million dollar quartet

2005-11-15T14:11:00.000-05:00

Most rock enthusiasts will know immediately who The Million Dollar Quartet refers to.

On December 4, 1956 at Sam Phillips' Sun Records studio in Memphis, Tennessee, musician Carl Perkins came by to record a few songs.

Phillips realized the session needed a piano player and so he called Jerry Lee Lewis, who he had hired only two days prior.

Johnny Cash (by his own admittance) was already at the studio.

Once Elvis Presley dropped by, Phillips realized something special was going on.

He quickly called a local newspaper and had a photographer sent over. The picture ran in the paper the following day in Memphis telling how the foursome - Presley, Cash, Perkins and Lewis - were a "million dollar quartet."

More like a billion dollar quartet by today's standards. Eventually a trillion. The worth of the legacy of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash alone will never decrease.

Oh yea, Sam Phillips had another good idea on that day.

He left the tapes rolling.

Over the past 50 years bits and pieces of the historic day have found their way out onto vinyl, tape and eventually CD.

The finest of them all though is RCA's release The Million Dollar Quartet.

This CD contains all the known material to be found of the session - an hour and eight minutes worth.

It's a time capsule of the roots of rock and roll.

It's a rare glimpse of Elvis before he went into the Army, before his stardom got bigger than he could handle, without Colonel Tom Parker pulling his strings.

Just Elvis - and a few friends who became legends themselves - singing, strumming, laughing. It's an incredible look back into a world long gone now.

The most incredible part, to me, is listening to Elvis tell the story of seeing a tall, slender, young black man in Las Vegas performing Don't Be Cruel. Elvis loved his rendition so much he says he went back four straight nights to hear him sing.

Elvis then launches into Don't Be Cruel, imitating the man's style. Imagine that. Elvis imitating one of his own imitators.

The most amazing part is who the man was. A young Jackie Wilson whom Elvis - and the rest of the world - would come to admire greatly.

What else is there to say about this other than that it's a true gift from the past to the present. It's amazing that these recordings remain.

If you have the opportunity to hear it, be sure to seize the chance.

It's not often a window into the past is left this wide open for future generations.

// repeating myself

2005-11-15T00:37:00.000-05:00

I'm going to repeat a post.

It's been nearly a year since I wrote this, so probably most of the new readers will not have read it anyway.

Plus, since Atlanta lost yesterday, I haven't the heart to write a whole new post for Story Day.

Send all flowers and condolences to the email listed at right *sigh*

// john sanford (from 4.17.05)

I thought I'd post tonight about one of my favorite comedians - as well as one of my favorite personalities - of all-time: Mr. John Sanford.

You probably know him better as Redd Foxx.

Or maybe even Fred Sanford, the character he played (named after his brother) on the hit NBC show Sanford & Son from 1972 to 1977.

Redd Foxx was not just one of the funniest people who ever lived, he was also quite an anomaly, quite misunderstood and quite an enigma.

He grew up in St. Louis and was friends with Malcom Little. Mr. Little would later become the famous political activist, Malcolm X.

In fact, when he was washing dishes to pay his bills, friends would call him, "Chicago Red" to distinguish him from his friend, "Detroit Red".

Chicago Red was Redd Foxx and Detroit Red was Malcolm X.

Although his fame wouldn't bring him household name recognition until the 1970's, he was nonetheless quite famous by sheer word of mouth.

His comedy records were hugely popular and in 1967 Redd Foxx was the only celebrity Elvis Presley invited to his wedding.

Redd was part Seminole Indian.

Redd was an accomplished painter, artist and poet as well.

Redd was also generous to a fault. He gave away so much of his money, that it later landed him in desperate financial straits.

The IRS seized almost of all his posessions in the late 1980's when Redd was nearing 70 years old.

But Redd was a giver, to be sure. An ardent fan of the 1930's group, The Ink Spots, Redd would often sing their songs on Sanford & Son.

If you've seen an episode you've no doubt seen Fred serenade someone with, "and would I be sure that this is love beyond compaaaaare."

When NBC refused to foot the bill for paying The Ink Spots so Redd could sing their songs on air, Redd paid them out of his own pocket.

That's how Redd was. He did things behind the scenes that most people would never know about; although those that did would be left with a lasting impression.

Redd certainly left a legacy behind that's not to be forgotten any time soon.

Now a days, Redd is what the kids would call "old school."

On Nelly's debut album, during his song St. Louie, he quipped, "I'm from the home of Redd Foxx."

I'm glad to know Redd's not going away anytime soon.

Back to the TV show though...

Sanford & Son is one of my absolute favorite TV shows ever. I have all six seasons on DVD and probably a week doesn't go by that I don't watch at least some episodes of it.

Sanford & Son is also something that bonded me & my Dad early in life. My Dad was a huge fan also.

No matter what was going on or how crummy a report card I brought home or how big a fight my Dad and I had - we could always turn on the TV and if Sanford & Son was on - we'd sit down and laugh together.

It's those kinds of things that endear you to artists. They are so good at what they do, you can forget where you're at for a moment, and just enjoy what they do.

My Dad and I would always say no one could tell a joke like Redd.

Most of Redd's jokes wouldn't be funny if you wrote them down. It was just how Redd could deliver them that made them funny. To this day I can tell people one liner's from Sanford & Son, and if they've never seen the show, they simply don't get it.

I can't deliver a joke like Redd could - but I'm not alone - no one else can either.

// this week in tech 11.12

2005-11-12T19:46:00.000-05:00

Sony's DRM scandal is keeping them on the hot seat.

To be honest, Sony is a company I had respect for. I liked their products, I admired their innovation. I've been quite disillusioned with them over this entire fiasco.

There's more to be said about it, of course. They have not only a lot of explaining to do, but also a lot of making up to do.

Once you damage your reputation and trust with your customers it can be a long road ahead to getting it back.

Some of the rumors I've been hearing about certainly aren't doing anything to improve my outlook of them.

It could get much worse before it gets any better.

// this week in history - 11.6 to 11.12

2005-11-10T18:22:00.000-05:00

It's time for the longest post of the week again.

Here's a list of events that all happened during this week throughout history.

November 6th:

1528 - Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca becomes the first known European to set foot on Texas.

1789 - Pope Pius VI appoints Father John Carroll as the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.

1844 - The first constitution of the Dominican Republic was adopted.

1860 - U.S. presidential election, 1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that office.

1861 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.

1869 - In New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University defeats Princeton University, 6-4, in the first official intercollegiate American football game .

1873 - The Halifax Rugby League Football Club is formed.

1888 - U.S. presidential election, 1888: Democrat incumbent Grover Cleveland wins the overall popular vote, but is voted out of office because he loses in the Electoral College to Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison.

1900 - U.S. presidential election, 1900: Republican incumbent William McKinley is re-elected by defeating Democrat challenger William Jennings Bryan.

1913 - Mohandas Gandhi is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.

1917 - World War I: Third Battle of Ypres ends: After three months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Ypres in Belgium.

1918 - The Second Polish Republic is proclaimed in Poland.

1928 - Swedes start a tradition of eating Gustavus Adolphus pastries to commemorate the king.

1928 - U.S. presidential election, 1928: Republican Herbert Hoover wins by a wide margin over Democrat Alfred E. Smith.

1935 - Before the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Edwin Armstrong presents his paper "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation" (see: FM radio).

1939 - World War II: Sonderaktion Krakau

1939 - The Hedda Hopper Show debuts with Hollywood gossip Hedda Hopper as host. The show would run until 1951, making Hopper a powerful figure in the Hollywood elite.

1941 - World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule. He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a wild exaggeration) and that Soviet victory was near.

1947 - Meet The Press makes its television debut (the show went to a weekly schedule on September 12, 1948).

1956 - U.S. presidential election, 1956: Republican incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower is re-elected by defeating Democrat challenger Adlai E. Stevenson in a rematch of their contest four years earlier.

1957 - Félix Gaillard becomes Prime Minister of France

1962 - Apartheid: The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and calls for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation.

1963 - Vietnam War: Following the November 1 coup and execution of President Ngo Dinh Diem, coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over leadership of South Vietnam.

1965 - Freedom Flights begin: Cuba and the United States formally agree to start an airlift for Cubans who want to go to the United States. By 1971, 250,000 Cubans will take advantage of this program.

1971 - The AEC tests the largest U.S. underground hydrogen bomb, code-named Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.

1975 - Green March begins: 300,000 unarmed Moroccans converge on the southern city of Tarfaya and wait for a signal from King Hassan II of Morocco to cross into Western Sahara.

1975 - The Sex Pistols play their first concert at St. Martin's School of Art in London.

1977 - The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, fails, killing 39.

1984 - Ronald Reagan defeats Walter Mondale to be re-elected in one of the largest electoral landslides in United States election history.

1985 - In Colombia, leftist guerrillas of the April 19 Movement seize control of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, eventually killing 115 people, 11 of them Supreme Court justices.

1985 - "Irangate" scandal: The American press reveals that US President Ronald Reagan had authorized the shipment of arms to Iran.

1985 - The Playboy Club in New York admits topless male "bunnies" for the first time.

1988 - Beatle Ringo Starr checks into an alcohol rehabilitation centre.

1989 - Kitty Dukakis, wife of presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, is hospitalised for drinking rubbing alcohol.

1996 - The family of Eduardo Quihua Maquixtle from Vicente Guerrero, Mexico, including his four children, are stabbed by three men accusing them of witchcraft.

1998 - Hugo Chávez is elected president of Venezuela

1999 - Australians vote to keep the British monarch as their head of state in the Australian republic referendum..

2001 - Belgians national airline Sabena is declared bankrupt.

2001 - Michael Bloomberg is elected mayor of New York City.

2001 - David Trimble is re-elected prime minister of Northern Ireland

2002 - 12 people are killed in a fire on board a train headed for Vienna from Paris

2002 - Winona Ryder is found guilty of shoplifting after stealing items worth $5,500 from a New York boutique.

2004 - An express train collides with a stationary car near the village of Ufton Nervet, England, killing 6 and injuring 150.

2004 - Official Guided by Voices Day in Dallas, Texas.

2005 - The 2005 French Riots continue for a tenth day.

2005 - Manchester United beats Chelsea FC at a football game at Old Trafford, Manchester to end the defending champion's 40-match unbeaten run in the English Premier League.

2005 - The Evansville Tornado of November 2005 kills 22 in Indiana and Kentucky.

November 7th:

1665 - The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is first published.

1786 - The oldest musical organization in the United States was founded as the Stoughton Musical Society.

1811 - Tecumseh's War: The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana, United States.

1837 - In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot dead by a mob while attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time.

1848 - U.S. presidential election, 1848: Zachary Taylor is elected president in the first US presidential election held in every state on the same day.

1861 - American Civil War: Battle of Belmont: In Belmont, Missouri, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp but are forced to retreat when Confederate reinforcements arrive.

1874 - A cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party

1885 - In Craigellachie, British Columbia, construction ends on the Canadian Pacific Railway railway extending across Canada.

1893 - Women in the U.S. state of Colorado are granted the right to vote.

1910 - The first air freight shipment from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio, is undertaken by the Wright Brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse.

1912 - The Deutsche Opernhaus (now Deutsche Oper Berlin) opens in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg, with a production of Beethoven's Fidelio.

1914 - The first issue of The New Republic magazine is published.

1916 - U.S. presidential election, 1916: Democrat Woodrow Wilson is re-elected President of the United States by defeating Republican Charles Evans Hughes. Meanwhile, Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.

1917 - Russian Revolution: In Petrograd, Russia, Bolshevik leaders Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky lead revolutionaries in overthrowing the Provisional Government (As Russia is still using the Julian Calendar, subsequent period references show a October 25 date).

1917 - World War I: Third Battle of Gaza ends: British forces capture Gaza from the Ottoman Empire.

1918 - The 1918 influenza epidemic spreads to Western Samoa, killing 7,542 (about 20% of the population) by the end of the year.

1929 - In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public.

1932 - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century airs on radio for the first time.

1934 - Premiere of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini at Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

1940 - In the U.S. state of Washington, the middle section of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in a windstorm, a mere four months after the bridge's completion.

1944 - U.S. presidential election, 1944: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins re-election over challenger Thomas E. Dewey, to become the only U.S. president to be elected to a fourth term.

1956 - Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France and Israel to immediately withdraw their troops from Egypt.

1957 - Cold War: The Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters.

1962 - Richard M. Nixon loses the gubernatorial election in the U.S. state of California. In his concession speech, he states that this is his "last press conference" and that "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more".

1963 - The comedy film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World premieres.

1963 - Wunder von Lengede: In Germany, eleven miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days.

1965 - The Velvet Underground make their public debut at a high-school dance in Summit, New Jersey, United States.

1965 - The Pillsbury Doughboy makes its first public appearance.

1967 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

1972 - U.S. presidential election, 1972: Republican incumbent Richard Nixon defeats Democratic Senator George McGovern.

1973 - The U.S. Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.

1983 - A bomb explodes inside the US Capitol building.

1987 - In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

1988 - Geraldo Rivera receives injuries sustained in a fight with white supremacists on live television.

1988 - Boxing: In Las Vegas, Nevada, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard knocks out Donnie LaLonde.

1989 - Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States.

1989 - David Dinkins becomes the first African American mayor of New York City.

1989 - In California, convicted murder Richard Ramirez (aka "The Night Stalker") is sentenced to death.

1989 - East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph, along with his entire cabinet, is forced to resign after huge anti-government protests.

1991 - Basketball player Magic Johnson announces he has tested positive for the HIV virus that causes AIDS, and that he is retiring.

1992 - The Party for Socialist Turkey is founded.

1996 - NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor.

1996 - A Nigerian Boeing 727 crashes into a lagoon 40 miles southeast of Lagos, killing 143.

2000 - U.S. presidential election, 2000: Republican Texas Governor George W. Bush defeats Democrat Vice President Al Gore, but the final outcome is not known for over a month because of disputed votes in Florida.

2000 - Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first First Lady of the United States to win public office.

2001 - Bankruptcy of Belgium's SABENA Airlines.

2001 - The supersonic commercial aircraft Concorde resumes flying after a 15-month break.

2002 - Iran bans advertising of United States products.

2004 - War in Iraq: The interim government of Iraq calls for a 60-day "state of emergency" as U.S. forces storm the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

November 8th:

1519 - Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomes him with great pomp as would befit a returning god.

1520 - Stockholm Bloodbath begins: A successful invasion of Sweden by Danish forces results in the execution of around 100 persons.

1576 - Eighty Years' War: Pacification of Ghent - The States-General of the Netherlands meet and unite to oppose Spanish occupation.

1602 - The Bodleian Library at Oxford University is opened to the public.

1620 - The Battle of White Mountain, the first battle in the Thirty Years' War, takes place near Prague, ending in a decisive Catholic victory in only two hours.

1793 - In Paris, the French Revolutionary government opens the Louvre to the public as a museum.

1837 - Formation of Mount Holyoke Seminary, first US college founded for women

1861 - American Civil War: The "Trent Affair" – The USS San Jacinto stops the United Kingdom mailship Trent and arrests two Confederate envoys, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the UK and US.

1864 - U.S. presidential election, 1864: Abraham Lincoln is reelected in an overwhelming victory over George McClellan.

1889 - Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state.

1892 - U.S. presidential election, 1892: Grover Cleveland is elected over Benjamin Harrison and James B. Weaver to win the second of his non-consecutive terms.

1895 - While experimenting with electricity Wilhelm Röntgen discovers x-rays.

1917 - People's Commissars gives authority to Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin

1923 - Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government.

1932 - U.S. presidential election, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory.

1933 - Great Depression: New Deal - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.

1935 - A dozen labor leaders come together to announce the creation of the Congress for Industrial Organization (CIO), an organization charged with pushing the cause for industrial unionism.

1935 - Fernand Bouisson becomes Prime Minister of France

1937 - The Nazi exhibition Der ewige Jude ("the eternal Jew") opens in Munich.

1939 - Venlo Incident: Two British agents of SIS are captured by the Germans.

1939 - In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes an assassination attempt while celebrating the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.

1941 - Albanian Communist Party founded.

1942 - World War II: Operation Torch - United States and United Kingdom forces land in French North Africa.

1942 - World War II: French resistance coup in Algiers, by which 400 Civil French patriots neutralized Vichyst XIXth Army Corps during 15 hours, arrested vichyst generals (Juin, Darlan, etc.), and so allowed the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers, then, from there, to the whole French North Africa.

1950 - Korean War: United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown shoots down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet aircraft-to-jet aircraft dog fight in history.

1960 - U.S. presidential election, 1960: John F. Kennedy is elected over Richard M. Nixon, becoming the youngest man elected to that office.

1965 - The British Indian Ocean Territory is created, consisting of Chagos Archipelago, Aldabra, Farquhar and Des Roches islands.

1965 - The soap opera Days of Our Lives debuts on NBC in the United States.

1966 - Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate.

1966 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signs into law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with the upstart American Football League.

1971 - The fourth album of British rock group Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin IV) is released, including one of the group's most well known songs, "Stairway to Heaven".

1973 - The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay 2.9 million USD.

1974 - In Salt Lake City, Utah, Carol DaRonch narrowly escapes abduction by serial killer Ted Bundy.

1979 - Foundation of the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action).

1987 - Enniskillen massacre: In Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, an Irish Republican Army bomb explodes, at a ceremony honoring Britain's war dead, killing eleven people.

1988 - U.S. presidential election, 1988: George H. W. Bush is elected over Michael Dukakis.

1991 - Marion Barry is reelected mayor of Washington, D.C..

1994 - For the first time in 40 years the United States Republican Party takes control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections.

1997 - US president Bill Clinton speaks at a dinner sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, the USA's largest gay rights organisation.

2002 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council Resolution 1441 – The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves a resolution on Iraq, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences".

2004 - War in Iraq: More than 10,000 U.S. troops and a small number of Iraqi army units participate in a siege on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

2005 - Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Corzine is elected governor of New Jersey.

November 9th:

694 - Hispano-Visigothic king Egica accuses Jews of aiding Moslems, and sentences all Jews to slavery.

1282 - Pope Martin IV excommunicates King Peter III of Aragon.

1492 - Peace of Etaples between Henry VII & Charles VIII.

1494 - Family de' Medici become rulers of Florence.

1520 - Swedish King Christian II executes 82 in the Stockholm Bloodbath.

1729 - Spain, France & England sign the Treaty of Seville.

1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte leads the Coup of 18 Brumaire.

1848 - Robert Blum, German revolutionary, executed in Vienna

1851 - Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.

1862 - American Civil War: Union General Ambrose Burnside assumes command of the Army of the Potomac, after George McClellan was removed.

1872 - The Great Boston Fire of 1872.

1887 - The United States receives rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

1888 - Jack the Ripper kills Mary Jane Kelly, his last known victim.

1906 - Theodore Roosevelt is the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country (to inspect progress on the Panama Canal).

1907 - The Cullinan Diamond is presented to King Edward VII on his birthday.

1918 - Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates after the German Revolution, and Germany is proclaimed a Republic.

1918 - Kurt Eisner, Provisional National Council Minister-President, declares Bavaria to be a republic.

1921 - Albert Einstein awarded Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with the photoelectric effect.

1923 - In Munich, Germany, police and government troops crush the Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria. The failed coup is the work of the Nazis.

1932 - Riots between conservative and socialist supporters in Switzerland kill 12 and injure 60.

1937 - Japanese troops take control of Shanghai, China.

1938 - Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany's first large-scale act of physical anti-Jewish violence, begins.

1940 - Premiere of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez in Barcelona, Spain.

1953 - Cambodia becomes independent from France.

1960 - Robert McNamara is named president of Ford Motor Co., the first non-Ford to serve in that post, but he quit a month later to join the newly-elected John F. Kennedy administration.

1961 - Neil A. Armstrong records a world record speed in a rocket plane of 6,587km/h flying a X-15.

1963 - At Miike in Japan, a coal mine explosion kills 458, and hospitalises 839 with carbon monoxide poisoning.

1965 - Several U.S. states and parts of Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 hours in the Northeast Blackout of 1965.

1965 - Catholic Worker member Roger Allen LaPorte, protesting against the Vietnam War, sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building.

1967 - Apollo program: NASA launches the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft from Cape Kennedy.

1970 - Vietnam War: The Supreme Court of the United States to not hear a case to allow Massachusetts to enforce its law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war.

1971 - John List, an accountant from Westfield, New Jersey murders his mother, wife and three children. He then hides under a new identity for 18 years.

1986 - Romania: Election of Patriarch Teoctist Arǎpaşu/Theoctist

1989 - Cold War: Communist-controlled East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to freely travel to West Germany.

1993 - Stari Most, the "old bridge" in Bosnian Mostar built in 1566, collapses after several days of bombing.

1994 - Discovery of the chemical element Darmstadtium.

1997 - BBC News 24 begins broadcasting at 17:30 GMT.

1997 - Mike Lookinland (of The Brady Bunch fame) is charged with drunk driving in St. George, Utah.

1998 - Brokerage houses are ordered to pay US$1.03 billion to cheated NASDAQ investors to compensate for their price-fixing. This is the largest civil settlement in United States history.

2003 - During the holy month of Ramadan, a suicide-terrorist attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, kills 17 people.

2003 - Rebel Youth Network Organizing Committee formed in Toronto.

2004 - Mozilla Firefox 1.0 released. This has become one of Microsoft Internet Explorer's biggest competitors.

2004 - The long-awaited Xbox game Halo 2 is released, bringing in US$75 million from pre-orders alone.

2004 - John Ashcroft and Don Evans resign their posts as U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Secretary of Commerce respectively.

2005 - The Venus Express mission of the European Space Agency is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

November 10th:

1444 - Battle of Varna: The crusading forces of King Ladislaus III of Poland (or Ulaszlo I of Hungary) are crushed by the Turks under Sultan Murad II and Ladislaus is killed.

1674 - Anglo-Dutch War: As provided in the Treaty of Westminster, Netherlands cedes New Netherlands to England.

1766 - The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University).

1775 - American Revolutionary War: The Continental Congress passes a resolution creating the Continental Marines (later renamed the United States Marine Corps) to serve as landing troops for the recently created Continental Navy.

1865 - Major Henry Wirz, the superintendent of a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, is hanged, becoming the only American Civil War soldier executed for war crimes.

1871 - Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika saying "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

1919 - The first national convention of the American Legion is held in Minneapolis, Minnesota (convention ended on November 12).

1926 - In San Francisco, California, a necrophiliac serial killer named Earle Nelson (dubbed "Gorilla Man") kills and then rapes his 9th victim, Mrs. William Edmonds.

1926 - Michinomiya Hirohito is crowned the 124th Emperor of Japan

1938 - Kate Smith, on her weekly radio show, sings Irving Berlin's God Bless America for the first time.

1940 - Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI; his job is to report back information on Hollywood "subversives".

1942 - World War II: Germany invades Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.

1951 - Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.

1954 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima memorial) in Arlington National Cemetery.

1969 - National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts the children's television program Sesame Street.

1970 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - For the first time in five years, an entire week ends with no reports of American combat fatalities in Southeast Asia.

1970 - Soviet Lunar probe Lunokhod 1 launched.

1971 - In Cambodia, Khmer Rouge forces attack the city Phnom Penh and its airport, killing 44, wounding at least 30 and damaging nine airplanes.

1972 - Southern Airways Flight 49 from Birmingham is hijacked and, at one point, is threatened with crashing into the nuclear installation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After two days, the plane lands in Havana, Cuba, where the hijackers are jailed by Fidel Castro.

1975 - The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board.

1975 - United Nations Resolution 3379: United Nations General Assembly approves a resolution equating Zionism with racism (the resolution was repealed in December 1991).

1989 - After ruling for 33 years , Bulgarian Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov is replaced by foreign minister Petur Mladenov, who in 1990 changes the party's name to Bulgarian Socialist Party.

1995 - In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa along with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) are hanged by government forces.

1997 - Telcoms WorldCom and MCI Communications announce a $37 billion merger (the largest merger in US history at the time).

1997 - A jury in Fairfax, Virginia finds Mir Aimal Kasi guilty of the murder of two CIA employees in 1993.

1997 - Seymour Hersh's book "The Dark Side of Camelot" is published; it includes allegations of explicit photos of John F. Kennedy with various sex partners having been taken.

1997 - The conviction of 19-year-old British au pair Louise Woodward reduced from second-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter and her sentence reduced from life in prison to time served. She had been found guilty less than two weeks earlier in a baby-shaking death.

2005 - The New Cybermen were reveiled on the BBC's Website.

November 11th:

1111 - The famous "Eleven Day" was held in various countries in Europe at 11:11:11.

1215 - The Fourth Lateran Council meets, adopting the doctrine of transubstantiation, meaning that bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ.

1620 - In what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod, the Mayflower Compact is signed on the Mayflower, establishing the basic laws for the Plymouth Colony.

1634 - Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes "An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery" (anal sex).

1675 - Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = f(x) function.

1675 - Guru Gobind Singh becomes the Tenth Guru of the Sikhs.

1831 - In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.

1839 - The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.

1864 - American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea - Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south.

1865 - Treaty of Sinchula is signed in which Bhutan ceded the areas east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company.

1874 - Gamma Phi Beta sorority is founded at Syracuse University.

1880 - Australian bushranger and bank robber Ned Kelly is hanged in Melbourne.

1887 - Anarchist Haymarket Martyrs August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel are executed.

1887 - Construction of the Manchester Ship Canal starts at Eastham.

1889 - Washington is admitted as the 42nd U.S. state.

1911 - Many cities in the midwest broke their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through. (see The 11/11/11 cold wave).

1918 - World War I ends: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne in France.

1918 - Józef Piłsudski comes to Warsaw and assumes supreme military power in Poland. Poland regains its independence.

1918 - Emperor Charles I of Austria abdicates.

1919 - The Centralia Massacre in Centralia, Washington results the deaths of four members of the American Legion and the lynching of a local leader of the IWW.

1921 - The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by US President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery.

1930 - Patent number US1781541 was awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.

1933 - Dust Bowl: In South Dakota, a very strong dust storm strips topsoil from desiccated farmlands.

1940 - World War II: Battle of Taranto - The Royal Navy launches the first aircraft carrier strike in history, on the Italian fleet at Taranto.

1940 - The German cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail, and sends it to Japan.

1940 - Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in U.S. Midwest.

1942 - Road to Morocco, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour, premieres.

1962 - Kuwait's National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait.

1965 - Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe) was declared independent by the white minority regime of Ian Smith.

1966 - NASA launches spaceship Gemini 12.

1967 - Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to "new left" antiwar activist Tom Hayden.

1968 - Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal was to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.

1968 - A second republic is declared in the Maldives.

1969 - Jim Morrison (The Doors) is arrested by the FBI after repeatedly prodding a stewardess.

1972 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.

1975 - Angola becomes independent from Portugal.

1975 - Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam and commissions Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister, and announces a general election to be held in early December.

1978 - Maumoon Abdul Gayoom succeeded Ibrahim Nasir as the president of the Republic of Maldives. He has since been re-elected for six consecutive 5-year terms.

1978 - A renovated Hollywood Sign is unveiled, replacing the older version that was built in 1923.

1986 - Sperry Rand and Burroughs merge to form Unisys, becoming the second largest computer company.

1988 - In Sacramento, California, police find a body buried in the lawn of 60-year-old boardinghouse landlady Dorothea Puente .

1992 - The Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.

1993 - Australian Prime minister P. J. Keating makes a famous speech at the dedication of the tomb and the burial of the unknown Australian soldier

1997 - Mary McAleese inaugurated the eighth President of Ireland.

1997 - Marianne Biancuzzo is charged for drowning her newborn baby in a toilet and hiding the remains in a coffee can in Tucson, Arizona.

2000 - In Kaprun, Austria, 155 skiers and snowboarders die when a cable car catches fire in an alpine tunnel.

2004 - New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington

2004 - Mahmoud Abbas is elected chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization minutes after the death of Yasser Arafat.

2004 - Official Guided by Voices Day in San Diego, California.

2004 - Mary McAleese inaugurated for a second term as President of Ireland.

November 12th:

764 - Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, for fifteen days.

1028 - Future Byzantine empress Zoe marries Romanus Argyrus according to the wishes of dying Constantine VIII

1439 - Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.

1905 - (November 12 & 13) Norway holds referendum in favour of monarchy over republic.

1912 - The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

1918 - Austria becomes a republic.

1927 - Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union.
The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic as the first Hudson River vehicular tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City.

1933 - Hugh Gray of the British Aluminium Company takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster; four of them turn out to be blank, while the last one is later proven to be a hoax.

1934 - The musical Babes in Toyland debuts, featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as comic relief (see Laurel and Hardy).

1936 - In California, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.

1938 - Hermann Göring announces Nazi Germany plans to make Madagascar the "Jewish homeland", an idea that actually was first considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.

1941 - World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 ° C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
a Soviet cruiser "Chervona Ukraina" was destroyed during the battle of Sevastopol

1942 - World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal, will last for three days.

1944 - World War II: The Royal Air Force launches one of the most successful precision bombing attacks of war and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz off the coast of Norway.

1946 - A branch of the Exchange National Bank in Chicago, Illinois opens the first ten drive-up teller windows.

1948 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.

1969 - Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre - Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.

1970 - The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Gray whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous exploding whale incident

1971 - Vietnam War: As part of Vietnamization, US President Richard M. Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.

1979 - Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all petroleum imports into the United States from Iran.

1980 - The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest aproach to Saturn.

1982 - In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov is selected to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Leonid I. Brezhnev.

1990 - Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch.
Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

1991 - Dili Massacre, Indonesian forces opened fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor.

1992 - Absolutely Fabulous airs its first episode on BBC1.

1996 - A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, India killing 349.

1997 - Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

1998 - Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler.

2001 - In New York City, an Airbus A300 carrying American Airlines Flight 587 crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board.

2001 - Attack on Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Afghan Northern Alliance troops.

2002 - Special Extended DVD Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is released.

2003 - Occupation of Iraq: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 Iraq war are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.

2004 - Scott Peterson is found guilty of first degree murder of his wife Laci Peterson and their unborn son Conner after a five-and-a-half month long trial.

// the weekly top 10 from 11.05

2005-11-09T17:58:00.000-05:00

Here is the latest Weekly Top 10 from my podcast of November 5th.

If you don't "get it" then just scroll down to the post under this about the clay animation style of Wallace & Gromit.

The Top 10 Problems You Can Expect to Face When Working With Clay Actors:

10. They're not easy to make-up. The Play-Doh Barber Shop doesn't employ hairstylists or make-up artists.

9. Keeping your stars off the cover of the National Enquirer. Everyone knows "clay likes to play."

8. Dealing with the clay Teamsters Union.

7. Clay actors are very, very sensitive. They get bent of shape easily.

6. Trouble with discrimination laws. Red, Green, Blue and Yellow are ever present, but other colors are lacking adequate representation.

5. Lindsay Lohan keeps crashing her car into your actors' and making them late for work.

4. Due to their fear of being squashed beyond recognition, they won't do any of their own stunt work.

3. Making sure that your leading man doesn't run off with Angelina Jolie.

2. Agents for clay actors are real sharks.

1. If you don't get your movie filmed the first day, by morning, all the actors are too hard to deal with.

// wallace & gromit

2005-11-08T16:10:00.000-05:00

I usually alternate these posts so that I have a music review following every movie review that I write.

I'm going to break with tradition today though because I really wanted to talk about and review this movie:

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

I want to first talk about the origins of these two characters for those of you who may not be familar with them.

Wallace & Gromit began as characters in a series of three British animated feature films.

The first of the three was nominated for an Oscar and the subsequent two won Oscars for Best Animated Short Film.

The pair became so popular that NASA has even named one of it's Mars prototype rovers after Gromit.

You can visit the Wikipedia entry for Wallace & Gromit for details on this and a lot more information.

Wallace & Gromit are filmed using clay pieces on set props. The characters are moved mere inches at a time and filmed individually. Then, when all the film is compiled and set to motion, the characters appear to "move."

The process is called Stop Motion animation and it's one of the oldest special effect techniques ever created. Which is what gives Wallace & Gromit a great deal of it's charm.

Naturally, computer animation is a lot slicker effect and a lot easier to do. Stop Motion is a very time consuming way to film a movie.

However, the charm and beauty of Wallace & Gromit would be lost by creating them digitally with computers.

You can actually see the fingerprints of the animators on Wallace & Gromit's clay parts. It's a very "homestyle" look and it's really endearing once you see it in action.

That brings me to Wallace & Gromit's first ever full-length feature film: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

How good is this movie?

It's one of the highest rated movies ever on Rotten Tomatoes website.

It's rated 95% by professional reviewers and 92% by fans.

In other words, it's the "cream of the crop" animation-wise and will probably be a solid bet for Best Animated Feature Film at this year's Oscars.

I don't want to get ahead of myself though; let me tell you about the movie:

Wallace is voiced by his traditional counterpart, Peter Sallis. Gromit is silent, so he never speaks and never needs a voice-actor.

Ralph Fiennes (who will be giving you nightmares soon as You-Know-Who in the up-coming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) plays the hilarious villain, Victor Quartermaine.

The equally as hilarious - and quite beautiful actress - Helena Bonham-Carter plays the love interest, Lady Campanula Tottington.

Obviously then, this is a top-notch British cast of actors. Also, Wallace & Gromit's creator, Nick Park, is there to direct it all.

The movie focuses on an up-coming Giant Vegetable Competition. Wallace & Gromit's company, Anti-Pesto, has been hired by everyone in town to guard the great vegetables until the Golden Carrot is awarded to the winner of the competition.

While guarding all the goods by rounding up rabbits in the gardens, Wallace accidentally unleashes a great Were-Rabbit on the town. Naturally the pair are placed under obligation to catch it and bring it to justice.

The movie is astounding. Visually and otherwise. It's amazing to watch and hilarious to hear - and sometimes not hear! It's incredible how much is done with Gromit when he doesn't say a word. He's as funny as anyone in the film without ever uttering a syllable. Not even a "woof" or an "arf."

I absolutely fell in love with this film and Wallace & Gromit. After seeing the film, I've since seen all of the short films. You can currently pick up the 3 Oscar-grabbing 30 minute films on DVD at just about any store.

If you like animation, if you have kids or are a kid inside, just go see this film. You won't be sorry you did. It's top-notch in every sense of the word.

In case you can't tell by this glowing review, let me just sum up by saying, I loved Wallace & Gromit.

Here are some links for Wallace & Gromit:

Read the reviews for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit at Rotten Tomatoes.

Visit the official website of Wallace & Gromit.

// it ain't easy

2005-11-06T14:05:00.000-05:00

You know, telling stories on Story Day has become really tough to do during football season.

Right now, my Atlanta Falcons are winning 14-10 at halftime of their game against the Miami Dolphins.

I thought I'd take the opportunity, during halftime, to get today's post up.

Since Sunday is Story Day as well as NFL Sunday, it seems like I always end up talking about football during these posts. Perhaps that will change after football season.

We'll see.

At any rate, I'll try not to talk about football every Sunday from now until after the Super Bowl.

We'll see.

That said, I might as well go ahead and make one more football post since I already spent some paragraphs talking about it already.

I mentioned the Super Bowl, too.

Which segues perfectly into what I wanted to talk about today.

It seems like everyone anymore watches the Super Bowl - football fan or not. It's become almost a national holiday in America.

A question I often ask people is, "what Super Bowl was the first one you ever watched?"

My Dad, being a long time NFL fan, has seen them all. Every single one.

One year during the Super Bowl a snow storm knocked out our cable. My Dad and I got in the car and drove about 30 miles to a place where we could sit and watch it because he didn't want to break his string of consecutive years of never missing the game.

The first Super Bowl I ever watched was Super Bowl XIV. I barely remember a thing about it because I was so little at the time.

As a result, I don't really have a lot of recollections to share about it other than it was my first Super Bowl.

That won't stop me from asking you to share yours, though.

What was the first Super Bowl you watched?

What do you remember most about it?

If you're not a football fan and don't have any sports-related memories to share; that's okay.

It's alright if all you can remember is that Tom Brady looked really, really cute.

// this week in tech 11.05

2005-11-05T20:30:00.000-05:00

I got started talking about this last night during my podcast but didn't have time to finish it.

So far as I observed, this was the big news in tech circles last week.

It was also somewhat of a scandal.

Sony got busted for putting a rather dubious program on music CDs that installs itself on their customer's computers.

The program can, if the circumstances are right, even harm the PC.

It had PC owners everywhere scrambling to see if they had bought any Sony Music CDs.

Chances are, even if you did, you couldn't find the program in question. It's a rather well-hidden and sneaky little program.

Here's what an article on ZDnet.com points out about the program:In short, Sony BMG is using rootkit technology in order to hide and protect its DRM software. This is to prevent CDs produced by the company from being copied too often.

Using rootkit technology is an extremely dubious technique, and the poor coding of this particular example also raised our eyebrows.

Not only will this software slow down your computer, it can also lead to system instability. A number of people have reported that this software has led to the infamous Blue Screen Of Death.

The software can also mess up your system when you try and remove it from your computer. Possibly worst of all, the way this rootkit is coded makes it easy for it to be used to hide malware.
The question remains to be seen if Sony has violated any legal issues with this or what they plan to do about correcting the problem.

There's also the question of how this makes Sony look to the buying public.

Also, I would be remiss to point out this fact: The program will only run on Windows PCs.

Mac users are, as always is the case concerning viruses, spyware, trojans, woms, etc. etc, unaffected.

And yes, I do enjoy pointing that out.

// episode 15

2005-11-05T02:15:00.000-05:00

My podcast is posted for this weekend. You can follow this link over to the news items and other things on my main blog at Ramblings'N'Musings.

// this week in history - 10.30 to 11.5

2005-11-02T22:40:00.000-05:00

Here's another daily topic that it's been awhile since I posted on.

For sake of time though, I'm not backing up all the way to the last one.

If I did that, this post would get so long you poor readers would have a severe case of carpal tunnel from all the downwards scrolling action.

That said then, here's a list of all the events that happened throughout history during the current week:

October 30th

1270 - The Eighth Crusade and siege of Tunis end by an agreement between Charles I of Sicily (brother to King Louis IX of France, who had died months earlier) and the sultan of Tunis.

1340 - Battle of Rio Salado

1470 - Henry VI of England returns to the English throne after Earl of Warwick defeats Yorkists in battle.

1831 - In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in United States history.

1864 - Second war of Schleswig ends: Duke Frederick and the Danish Crown recognize Prussia's and Austria's annexation of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg.

1864 - Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors discover gold at "Last Chance Gulch."

1894 - Domenico Menegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially.

1905 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia grants Russia's first constitution, creating a legislative assembly.

1918 - The Ottoman Empire signs an armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War in the Middle East

1920 - The Communist Party of Australia founded in Sydney.

1925 - John Logie Baird creates Britain's first television transmitter.

1938 - Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing a nationwide panic.

1941 - World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.

1944 - Anne Frank is deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

1947 - The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
is founded.

1953 - Cold War: US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.

1961 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest nuclear device ever detonated. Nikita Kruschev announces that the scientists had planned to make it 100 megatons, but had reduced the yield so as to avoid breaking all the windows in Moscow.

1961 - Due to "violations of Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Josef Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker instead.

1965 - Vietnam War: Just miles from Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by wave after wave of Viet Cong
forces, killing 56 guerrillas. Among the dead, a sketch of Marine positions was found on the body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before.

1966 - The Zodiac killer kills his first victim, 18-year old Cheri Jo Bates, in Riverside, California.

1968 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.

1970 - In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.

1972 - US President Richard Nixon approves legislation to increase Social Security spending by US$5.3 billion.

1974 - "The Rumble in the Jungle": Muhammad Ali knocks out George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire to regain the World Heavyweight Boxing championship.

1975 - Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.

1980 - El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's Football War before the International Court of Justice.

1983 - The first democratic elections in Argentina after seven years of military rule are held.

1987 - In Japan, NEC releases the first 16-bit home entertainment system, the PC-Engine.

1988 - Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for US$13.1 billion.

1991 - The Madrid Conference for Middle East peace talks opens.

1995 - Quebec sovereignists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada (vote was 50.6% to 49.4%).

1997 - British au pair Louise Woodward is found guilty of the baby-shaking death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen.

2001 - George W. Bush throws out the first pitch at Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, in what was intended to be a defiant gesture, coming just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks.

2001 - Michael Jordan returns to the National Basketball Association with the Washington Wizards after 3 1/2 years (the Wizards lose 93-91 to the New York Knicks).

2002 - British Digital terrestrial television (DTT) Service Freeview starts transmitting throughout parts of the United Kingdom

2004 - A 163-metre high radio mast in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, UK collapses in a fire.

2004 - In Punjab, India the expelled BSP leader Satnam Singh Kainth launches Bahujan Samaj Party (Kainth).

2005 - Six Flags Astroworld in Houston closes after 37 years of business.

October 31st

475 - Romulus Augustus was proclaimed Roman Emperor.

1517 - Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church.

1587 - Leiden University Library opens its doors after its founding in 1575.

1822 - Emperor Agustín de Iturbide attempted to dissolve the Mexican Empire.

1861 - American Civil War: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States
Army.

1863 - The Maori Wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato.

1864 - Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state.

1892 - Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

1912 - The Musketeers of Pig Alley, directed by D.W. Griffith, debuts as the first gangster film.

1912 - Dominican Republic becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

1917 - World War I: Battle of Beersheba - "last successful cavalry charge in history"

1922 - Benito Mussolini becomes the youngest Premier in the history of Italy.

1923 - 160 consecutive days of 100 degrees at Marble Bar, Australia begins.

1926 - Magician Harry Houdini dies of gangrene and peritonitis that developed after his appendix ruptured.

1936 - The Boy Scouts of the Philippines was formed.

1938 - Great Depression: In an effort to try restore investor confidence, the New York Stock Exchange unveils a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public.

1940 - World War II: Battle of Britain ends - The United Kingdom prevents Germany from invading Great Britain.

1941 - After 14 years of work, drilling is completed on Mount Rushmore.

1941 - World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors.

1941 - American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography.

1954 - Algerian War of Independence: The Algerian National Liberation Front begins a revolt against French rule.

1956 - Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.

1961 - In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.

1968 - Vietnam War October surprise:Citing progress with the Paris peace talks, US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective November 1.

1981 - Lily and James Potter from the Harry Potter novels were killed by Lord Voldemort.

1984 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards (riots soon broke out in New Delhi and nearly 2,000 innocent Sikhs were killed).

1994 - An American Eagle ATR-72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 64 passengers.

1996 - A Brazilian TAM Fokker-100 crashes into several houses in São Paulo, Brazil killing 98 including 2 on the ground.

1997 - 19-year-old British au pair Louise Woodward, convicted by a Cambridge, Massachusetts, jury of second-degree murder the day before, is sentenced to life in prison.

1998 - Iraq disarmament crisis begins: Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.

1999 - EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board.

1999 - Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Church leaders sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.

2000 - A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 operating as Flight 006 collides with construction equipment upon takeoff in Taipei, Taiwan killing 79 passengers and 4 crew members

2000 - A chartered Antonov AN-26 explodes after takeoff in Northern Angola killing 50

2000 - The last Multics machine was shut down.

2002 - A federal grand jury in Houston formally indicted former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to the collapse of his ex-employer.

2003 - A bankruptcy court approves MCI's reorganization plans, essentially clearing the telecommunications company to exit bankruptcy.

2003 - Mahathir bin Mohamad resigns as Prime Minister of Malaysia after 22 years in power.

2005 - President George W. Bush nominates Appeals court judge Samuel Alito to join the Supreme Court.

2005 - BSkyB starts broadcasting Sky Three on Sky, ntl and Freeview throughout the United Kingdom.

2005 - Theo Epstein, the general manager of the Boston Red Sox who helped the team win its first World Series in 86 years, unexpectedly quit during contract negotiations.

November 1st

996 - Emperor Otto III issues a deed to Gottschalk, Bishop of Freising, which is the oldest known document using the name Ostarrîchi (Austria in Old High German).

1512 - The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.

1520 - The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America, connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, is first navigated by Ferdinand Magellan during his global circumnavigation voyage.

1530 - An approximated 400,000 die after the Netherlands' dikes fail.

1592 - At the Battle of Busan, the outnumbered Korean navy defeats a larger Japanese army.

1604 - William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello is presented for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London.

1611 - William Shakespeare's romantic comedy The Tempest is presented for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London.

1683 - The British crown colony of New York is subdivided into 12 counties.

1755 - Lisbon earthquake: In Portugal, Lisbon is destroyed by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between sixty and ninety thousand people.

1765 - The British Parliament enacts the Stamp Act on the 13 colonies in order to help pay for British military operations in North America.

1790 - Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he predicts that the French Revolution will end in disaster.

1800 - US President John Adams becomes the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion (later renamed the White House).

1848 - In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which will later merge with Boston University School of Medicine), opens.

1859 - The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse is lighted for the first time. Its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for 19 miles (30 kilometers).

1861 - American Civil War: US President Abraham Lincoln appoints George McClellan as commander of the Union Army, replacing the aged General Winfield Scott.

1870 - In the United States, the Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast.

1871 - The Stamford to Bourne, Lincolnshire turnpike road was freed from tolls.

1876 - New Zealand's provincial government system is dissolved.

1894 - Nicholas II becomes the new Tsar of Russia after his father, Alexander III, dies.

1896 - A picture showing the naked breasts of a woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time.

1901 - Sigma Phi Epsilon, a national men's collegiate fraternity is established at Richmond College, in Richmond, VA.

1914 - World War I: the first British naval defeat of the war, the Battle of Coronel is fought off of the coast of Chile.

1918 - Malbone Street Wreck: the worst rapid transit accident in US history occurs under the intersection of Malbone Street and Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York City, with at least 93 dead.

1922 - The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed VI, abdicates.

1939 - The first rabbit born after artificial insemination is shown to the world.

1943 - World War II: Operation Goodtime launched - United States Marines invade Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.

1944 - World War II: Operation Infatuate launched - The British Army land at Walcheren in the Netherlands.

1945 - The official North Korean newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, is first published under the name Chongro.

1948 - Off southern Manchuria, 6,000 are killed as a Chinese merchant ship explodes and sinks.

1950 - Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempt to assassinate US President Harry S. Truman at Blair House.

1950 - Pope Pius XII claims Papal Infallibility when he formally defines the dogma of the Assumption of Mary.

1951 - US soldiers are exposed to an atomic explosion for training purposes in Desert Rock, Nevada; participation was not voluntary.

1952 - Operation Ivy - The United States successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike" ["m" for megaton], at Eniwetok island in the Bikini atoll located in the Pacific Ocean.

1954 - The Front de Libération Nationale fires the first shots of the Algerian War of Independence.

1955 - A United Airlines DC-6B explodes in mid-air and crashes near Longmont, Colorado, killing 44 people

1956- Formation of the Indian state of Karnataka (1973), back then known as Mysore State.

1956 - Formation of Kerala state in India.

1957 - The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at the time, opens to traffic connecting Michigan's two peninsulas.

1960 - While campaigning for President of the United States, John F. Kennedy announces his idea of the Peace Corps.

1963 - The Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, with the largest radio telescope ever constructed, officially opens.

1969 - After seven years off the top of the charts, Elvis Presley hits number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with his song "Suspicious Minds."

1973 - Watergate Scandal: Leon Jaworski is appointed as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor.

1973 - Formation of Karnataka state in India.

1980 - Wayanad district formed in the state of Kerala, India.

1981 - Antigua and Barbuda gain independence from the United Kingdom.

1990 - A New York City civil jury awards Sandra Miller $100 for battery after an incident in which Mike Tyson grabbed her breasts and insulted her; the jury found Tyson's behavior "not outrageous".

1993 - The Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union.

1994 - George Lucas leaves the day-to-day operations of his filmmaking business and starts a sabbatical. While on sabbatical, he writes the prequel section of the Star Wars movies.

1994 - The Chijon Family is sentenced to death in South Korea for murdering and eating five people.

1998 - The European Court of Human Rights is instituted.

2004 - The Bank of Japan issues a new series of 1000, 5000, and 10,000 yen notes. Both old and the new series will circulate together.

2005 - ITV PLC's new digital channel, ITV4, lanches on Freeview, NTL digital, and Sky Digital.

2005 - Makybe Diva wins her third consecutive Melbourne Cup race.

2005 - First part of the Gomery Report is released today in Canada.

November 2nd

676 - Donus becomes Pope.

1772 - American Revolutionary War: Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren form the first Committee of Correspondence.

1783 - In Rocky Hill, New Jersey, US General George Washington gives his "Farewell Address to the Army".

1861 - American Civil War: Western Department Union General John C. Fremont is relieved of command and replaced by
David Hunter.

1868 - Time zone: New Zealand officially adopts a standard time to be observed nationally, and is perhaps the first country to do so.

1889 - North and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.

1895 - The first gasoline-powered race in the United States. First prize: $2,000

1899 - The Boers started their 118 day siege of British held Ladysmith during the Boer War.

1914 - Russia declares war on the Ottoman sultanate.

1917 - Zionism: The Balfour Declaration proclaims support for Jewish settlement in Palestine.

1920 - In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast was the results of the U.S. presidential election, 1920.

1930 - Haile Selassie is crowned emperor of Ethiopia.

1936 - The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is established.

1936 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaims the Rome-Berlin Axis, establishing the alliance of the Axis Powers.

1936 - the British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, high-definition (then defined as at least 200 lines) service. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.

1947 - In California, Designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden flight of the Spruce Goose; the largest fixed-wing
aircraft ever built.

1948 - U.S. presidential election, 1948: Harry S. Truman defeats Thomas E. Dewey for the US presidency.

1959 - Quiz show scandals: "Twenty-One" game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.

1959 - Ice Hockey: After being struck in the face with a puck, goalkeeper Jacques Plante returns to play wearing a protective mask for the first time in professional play.

1959 - The first section of the M1 motorway, the first in Britain, was opened between the present junctions 5 and 18.

1960 - Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case

1963 - South Vietnamese President Ngô Ðìhn Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.

1964 - King Saud of Saudi Arabia was deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother King Faisal.

1966 - The Cuban Adjustment Act enters force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.

1967 - Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and "the Wise Men" conclude that the American people should be given
more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.

1974 - 78 die as the Time Go-Go Club in Seoul, South Korea burns down. Six of the victims jumped to their deaths from the seventh floor after a club official barred the doors after the fire started.

1976 - U.S. presidential election, 1976: Jimmy Carter defeats incumbent Gerald Ford to become first candidate from deep south to win since the Civil War.

1981 - Antigua and Barbuda become independent from Britain.

1982 - Channel 4 in the United Kingdom was launched.

1983 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King Day.

1984 - Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.

1988 - The Morris worm, the first internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant mainstream media attention, was launched from MIT.

1991 - Bartholomew I becomes the Patriarch of Constantinople.

1991 - Jermaine Jackson's single "Word to the Badd!", which attacks his brother Michael, is leaked to radio station KPWR in Los Angeles.

2000 - The first crew arrives at the International Space Station.

2001 - Monsters, Inc. debuts with the best ticket sales ever for an animated film.

2004 - President George W. Bush wins U.S. Presidential Election over John Kerry.

November 3rd

1493 - Christopher Columbus first sighted the island of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea.

1755 - The colony of Massachusetts offers a bounty of 20 pounds for the scalps of Native American boys and girls under the age of 12.

1783 - John Austin, a highwayman, is the last to be publicly hanged at London's Tyburn gallows.

1783 - The Continental Army is disbanded.

1793 - French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges was guillotined.

1817 - The Bank of Montreal, Canada's oldest chartered bank, opens in Montreal, Quebec.

1838 - The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper is founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.

1844 - Debut of Giuseppe Verdi's I due Foscari, at Teatro Argentina, Rome.

1848 - A greatly revised constitution, drafted by Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, severely limiting the powers of the Dutch monarchy, and strengthening the powers of the parliament and the ministers, is proclaimed. This constitution is still in effect today.

1868 - U.S. presidential election: Republican Ulysses S. Grant is elected to the first of his two terms in a victory over Democrat Horatio Seymour.

1883 - American Old West: Self-described "Black Bart the Po-8" gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves an incriminating clue that eventually leads to his capture.

1896 - U.S. presidential election: Republican William McKinley is elected over Democrat William Jennings Bryan.

1903 - With the encouragement of the United States, Panama proclaims itself independent from Colombia. US President Theodore Roosevelt wanted the United States to build the Panama Canal but his efforts were blocked by Colombia.

1908 - U.S. presidential election: Republican William Howard Taft defeats William Jennings Bryan, Democratic candidate in his third and final nomination.

1911 - Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T.

1913 - The USA introduces an income tax.

1918 - World War I: Austria-Hungary enters an armistice with the Allies.

1918 - Poland declares its independence from Russia.

1923 - Lady Louise Mountbatten marries Gustav, Crown Prince of Sweden

1930 - Getúlio Dornelles Vargas became Head of the Provisional Government in Brazil after a bloodless coup on October 24.

1935 - George II of Greece regains his throne.

1936 - U.S. presidential election, 1936: Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected to a second term in a landslide victory over Alf Landon.

1942 - World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein ends - German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.

1954 - The first in the Godzilla series of films is released in Japan.

1955 - The musical film Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.

1956 - The Wizard of Oz is shown on television for the first time, with a viewing audience estimated at 45 million people.

1957 - Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter space: a dog named Laika.

1964 - U.S. presidential election, 1964: Incumbent US President Lyndon B. Johnson defeats Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, Sr with over 60 percent of the popular vote.

1967 - Vietnam War: Battle of Dak To begins - Around Dak To (located about 280 miles (450 km) north of Saigon near the Cambodian border), heavy casualties are suffered on both sides, with the Americans narrowly winning the battle on November 22.

1969 - Vietnam War: US President Richard M. Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity on the Vietnam War effort and to support his policies.

1970 - Salvador Allende is inaugurated as president of Chile.

1971 - The UNIX Programmer's Manual is published.

1973 - Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury, on March 29, 1974 becoming the first space probe to reach that planet.

1975 - An independent audit of Mattel, one of the United States's largest toy manufacturers, reveals that company officials fabricated press releases and financial information to "maintain the appearance of continued corporate growth."

1975 - The television breakfast show Good Morning America premieres with co-anchors David Hartman and Nancy Dussault.

1978 - Dominica gains its independence from the United Kingdom.

1978 The sitcom Diff'rent Strokes premieres on NBC.

1979 - In Greensboro, North Carolina, United States, five members of the Communist Workers Party are shot dead and seven are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis during a "Death to the Klan" rally.

1982 - A gasoline tanker explodes in the Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan, killing 2,000+ people.

1986 - Iran-Contra Affair: The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been selling weapons to Iran in secret in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.

1988 - Sri Lankan Tamil mercenaries try to overthrow the Maldivian government. At President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's request, the Indian military suppresses the coup attempt within 24 hours.

1991 - Fifteen people are killed in the Barrios Altos massacre in Lima, Peru.

1992 - U.S. presidential election: Democratic challenger Bill Clinton defeats incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush and independent candidate Ross Perot.

1994 - Red Hat Linux 1.0 is released.

1995 - At Arlington National Cemetery, U.S. President Bill Clinton dedicates a memorial to the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.

1998 - Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is elected Governor of the U.S. state of Minnesota.

November 4th

1576 - Eighty Years' War: In Belgium, Spain captures Antwerp (after three days the city was nearly destroyed).

1612 - Moscow Kitai-gorod taken by Russian troops under command of Dmitry Pozharsky

1677 - The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange. They would later be known as William and Mary.

1842 - Abraham Lincoln, future US President, married Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois.

1852 - Count Camillo Benso di Cavour became the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expanded to become Italy.

1861 - The University of Washington opens in Seattle, Washington as the Territorial University

1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Johnsonville - Confederate troops bombard a Union supply base and destroy millions of dollars in material.

1869 - The first issue of the scientific journal Nature is published.

1884 - U.S. presidential election, 1884: Democrat Grover Cleveland defeats Republican James G. Blaine in a very close contest to win the first of his two non-consecutive terms.

1889 - Menelek of Shoa obtains the allegiance of a large majority of the Ethiopian nobility, paving the way for him to be crowned emperor.

1890 - City & South London Railway: London's first deep-level tube railway opens between King William Street and Stockwell.

1899 - Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams is published.

1918 - World War I: Austria-Hungary surrenders to Italy.

1918 - The German Revolution begins when 40,000 sailors take over the port in Kiel.

1921 - The Sturmabteilung or SA is formally formed by Adolf Hitler

1922 - In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to King Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

1924 - Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming elected as the first woman governor in the United States.

1928 - Arnold Rothstein, New York City's most notorious gambler, is shot dead over a poker game.

1939 - World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons by belligerents.

1942 - World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein - Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin
Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat.

1948 - T.S. Eliot wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1952 - U.S. presidential election, 1952: Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson.

1956 - Soviet troops invade Hungary to crush the Hungarian revolution that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.

1960 - Filming wraps on The Misfits, starring Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable -- the last film for both.

1966 - Two-thirds of Florence, Italy is submerged as the Arno and Po rivers flood; 113 people die, 30,000 are rendered homeless, and countless Renaissance artworks and books are destroyed.

1970 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - The United States turns control of the air base in the Mekong Delta over to South Vietnam.

1979 - Iran hostage crisis begins: Iranian radicals, mostly students, invade the United States embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages (63 of whom are American).

1980 - U.S. presidential election, 1980: Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter by a wide margin.

1993 - Jean Chrétien takes office as Prime Minister of Canada.

1993 - Bolivia becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.

1993 - A series of fires destroy 1000 homes in southern California, causing between 500 million and 1 billion USD of damage. Half of the fires turn out to be arson.

1993 - A China Airlines Boeing 747 overran Runway 13 at Hong Kong's Kai Tak International Airport while landing during a typhoon. The wind was gusting to gale force at the time. It touched down more than 2/3 down the runway and was unable to stop before the runway ran out and the plane crashed into the sea. 22 people were injured.

1995 - After attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings Square, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is mortally wounded by an extreme right-wing Israeli assassin. He dies of his wounds later that night in a Tel Aviv Hospital.

2001 - Hurricane Michelle hits Cuba, destroying crops and thousands of homes.

2001 - The Police Service of Northern Ireland is established.

2003 - The largest-ever solar flare is recorded.

November 5th

1556 - Fifty miles north of Delhi, a Mogul Army defeats Hindu forces of General Hemu to ensure Akbar the throne of India.

1605 - Gunpowder Plot: A plot by Guy Fawkes to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is foiled when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building

1688 - Glorious Revolution begins: William of Orange lands at Brixham.

1838 - The United States of Central America began to disintegrate when Honduras separated from the federation.

1862 - American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln removes George McClellan as commander of the Union Army for the second and final time.

1862 - Indian Wars: In Minnesota, more than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of rape and murder of white settlers and are sentenced to hang.

1872 - Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.

1895 - George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.

1911 - After declaring war on the Ottoman Empire on September 29, 1911, Italy annexes Tripoli and Cyrenaica.

1912 - U.S. presidential election, 1912: Democratic challenger Woodrow Wilson wins a landslide victory over Republican incumbent William Howard Taft.

1913 - The insane king Otto of Bavaria is deposed by his cousin, Prince Regent Ludwig, who assumed the title Ludwig III.

1913 - United Kingdom annexes Cyprus, and together with France declares war on the Ottoman Empire.

1916 - The Kingdom of Poland proclaimed by the November 5th Act of the emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

1917 - St. Tikhon of Moscow was elected the Patriarch of Moscow and of the Russian Orthodox Church.

1930 - Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1935 - Parker Brothers releases the board game Monopoly.

1937 - World War II: Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring "living space" for the German people.

1940 - U.S. presidential election, 1940: Democrat incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Republican challenger Wendell Willkie and becomes the United States' first third-term president.

1962 - A mining accident kills 21 miners at the government-owned Kings Bay Coal Company on Svalbard, leading the Norweigian government to close the mine.

1968 - U.S. presidential election, 1968: Republican challenger Richard M. Nixon defeats Vice President Hubert Humphrey and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace.

1970 - Vietnam War: The United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years (24).

1979 - The radio news program Morning Edition premieres on National Public Radio.

1979 - Ayatollah Khomeini declares the USA to be "the great Satan".

1987 - Apartheid: In South Africa, Govan Mbeki is released from custody after serving 24 years in the Robben Island prison. He had been sentenced to life for treason against the white minority South Africa government.

1990 - Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at a New York City hotel.

1992 - In Detroit, Michigan, black motorist Malice Green is beaten to death by policemen Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn during a struggle.

1994 - A letter by former US President Ronald Reagan is released that announces he has Alzheimer's disease.

1994 - Forty-five year old George Foreman becomes boxing's oldest heavyweight champion when he knocks out Michael Moorer.

1996 - U.S. presidential election, 1996: Democrat incumbent Bill Clinton defeats Republican challenger Bob Dole to win his second term.

1998 - Lewinsky scandal: As part of the impeachment inquiry, House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde sends a list of 81 questions to US President Bill Clinton.

1998 - The journal Nature publishes a genetic study showing compelling evidence that Thomas Jefferson fathered a son, Eston Hemings Jefferson, by his slave Sally Hemings.

1999 - United States v. Microsoft: US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issues a preliminary ruling that software maker Microsoft had "monopoly power".

2003 - The final installment of the Matrix Trilogy (The Matrix Revolutions) is released in theatres simultaneously around the world at 2:00 pm(GMT).

// the weekly top 10 from 10.7 - 10.29

2005-11-01T22:32:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I posted The Weekly Top 10 from my podcast.

The last one I posted was actually from September 30th!

To catch up then, here are the Top 10's from Lance's Big Show episodes #12, #13 and #14:

Episode #12, October 7, 2005 - The Top Ten People President Bush Passed On To Nominate For The Supreme Court Before Ultimately Deciding On His Personal Lawyer.

10. His barber. If he can trim hair he's certainly qualified to trim those pesky Constitutional rights, too.

9. His limo driver. Steering America is no different than steering a car - you just gotta remember neither one goes anywhere without lots and lots of gasoline.

8. His personal trainer. He whipped W. into shape, he can do the same for America.

7. His daughters, Barbara and Jenna. Cuz they're like really smart and stuff and they like know how to lead cuz like daddy is a leader and grandpa was a leader and so like they're totally ready to take on the responsibility ya know? Plus the Supreme Court totally needs a make over. All that black is just so blah.

6. His dog, Barney. America's been "going to the dogs" since Bush stepped into office. Time to start letting them run things for real.

5. Pat Robertson. He's been judging America for years, it's about time he got recognized for it.

4. Tom DeLay. He really knows his way around a courtroom.

3. His brother, Jeb. Oh wait, that's the nominee for the next President. Nevermind.

2. His Mom. He still owes mommy a favor or two.

1. His Dad. We all know he's still trying to impress Daddy.

Episode #13, October 14, 2005 - The Top 10 Questions the US Soldiers Were NOT Allowed To Ask President Bush During Their Live Interview.

10. Is Tom DeLay innocent?

9. Is Carl Rove innocent?

8. When you said, "Mission Accomplished" did you really mean, "two more years of the exact same thing?"

7. One thing they were not allowed to say - "It could be worse, we could be in Louisiana."

6. Can I get a raise so I'll be making at least a quarter of what the Halliburton employees I'm protecting over here are making?

5. How's your approval rating, Mr. President?

4. What's Cindy Sheehan like up close and personal?

3. Why the heck did you pick Harriet Miers?

2. Since God told you to invade this place, did He also give you some sort of exit strategy?

1. So...when are we getting out of here?

Episode #14, October 29, 2005 - The Top 10 Reasons Harriet Miers Withdrew Her Nomination To The US Supreme Court

10. It'd only take time away from her more important role - following the Bushs around and kissing up.

9. She felt black really wasn't her color.

8. Nowhere to sit her M & M jar on the bench.

7. All the harsh criticism from the Democrats.

6. All the harsh criticism from the Republicans.

5. All the harsh criticism from the media.

4. All the harsh criticism from the public.

3. All the harsh criticism from strangers.

2. All the harsh criticism from family and friends.

1. Not giving in to the criticism though, she simply felt it was an honor just to be nominated - even though everyone else thought it was a joke that she was nominated.

// bewitched

2005-10-31T19:18:00.000-05:00

I'm sure the release of this movie during this time of year had something to do with the holiday.

However, my seeing it was for one reason only - Will Ferrell.

I thought Kicking & Screaming was better than it got credit for. I meant to write a review for that movie as well, but since Bewitched is the more recently released, I'll talk about this one.

Will Ferrell may very well be the funniest man alive.

He's the only reason I sat through this movie.

I had already read how bad the reviews were, I'm not a fan of Nicole Kidman's work, I wasn't a fan of the original TV show and I don't think remakes are usually worth doing.

After seeing it, I can say it's not as bad as I had heard or was expecting.

I could completely see where they were trying to go with this film.

Rather than make a straight up remake, the writers decided to try and come up with something original.

Will Ferrell plays Jack Wyatt - an actor trying to get his career back on track. He takes on the starring role in a TV remake of Bewitched. Not wanting to have his star status challenged on the show, he wants to cast an unknown as Samantha.

He finds Nicole Kidman (who really is cute as can be in this movie) due to her "nose twitching" ability and gets a little more than he bargained for. Nicole's character (Isabel) also happens to be an actual witch herself.

I can see how the writers were trying to avoid the normal "remake" situation and come up with something fresh. By doing so they actually pay homage to the TV show through photos, classic clips of the show and other things.

However, they burdened a nice idea with far too many coincidences to the actual TV show to make any sense.

I was already stretched to believe that in remaking Bewitched they found an actual witch to play Samantha.

They then went on to also make Isabel a witch who was wanting to fall in love, wanting to quit being a witch, had a father exactly like Samantha's father, an Aunt Clara, an Uncle Arthur and a whole lot more.

So now you've basically got a movie about the making of a TV show that's a remake of an older TV show with actors who so closely resemble the characters of the TV show being remade that you sometimes can't tell which is which.

Or should I say, which witch is which?

I just made that up - I'm so clever sometimes =)

Anyway, don't feel concerned if that all sounds a bit too confusing.

It was.

I was confused and so were most of the audiences who saw this film.

It was a nice try at the very least, though. I mean, again, it was an original attempt.

Unfortunately, the whole thing just isn't good enough to be "good."

Will Ferrell makes it watchable even though there's not one big laugh in the whole film. Still, since Ferrell is in it, you keep waiting and expecting him to deliver one. It just never happens.

Nicole Kidman is cute. I mean really cute. Not cute as in, "aw that was cute," but cute as in you can't take your eyes off her cute. I actually found myself wondering what it was about her I didn't like again.

Her best line in the movie, I think, is when she says, "He's idiotic yet I find him absolutely charming and it's been that way since the beginning - only now - I also hate him."

That said then, however mediocre this movie turned out to be it certainly was not Nicole Kidman or Will Ferrell's fault.

They both do great jobs in the movie - there's just not that much here to work with.

Also, Will Ferrell's old buddy Steve Carell does show up near the end to once again try and steal the show. Unfortunately - while that should be pretty easy to do in a movie this marginal - Carell isn't given enough material or time to even steal the ending.

I admire the attempt this film makes to break new ground. It's not just another "me too" remake of an old TV classic.

Besides that, there's just not much else to see here.

Here are some links for the Bewitched movie:

Visit the official Bewitched movie site.

Read the reviews for Bewitched at Rotten Tomatoes.

// names

2005-10-29T17:21:00.000-04:00

Since I'm sitting here killing time this afternoon I thought I'd go ahead and get tomorrow's Story Day entry posted.

I've had some discussion with a couple folks lately over how parents choose names.

One discussion about a couple who is expecting a baby and how they chose the name for it. Another who has a rather unique name and how her mother chose it.

Progressively that led to being asked about how I got my name - Lance.

I thought for today's story I'd tell you all how I got my name. It's not a terribly long story, but it's one I'm fond of.

My Dad was a huge fan of professional football when he was growing up - pro football meaning the National Football League.

If you're not a football fan then you may not be aware of the fact that about 1/3 of the teams that are currently in the NFL actually began in another league.

From 1960 - 1969 the NFL had a rival competitor. A league totally separate from the NFL itself called The American Football League (AFL).

The success of the AFL led to the NFL agreeing to merge the two leagues. All the teams from the AFL simply became NFL teams.

Teams like the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders, New England Patriots, Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs and others began - not as NFL teams - but as AFL teams.

Naturally, my Dad enjoyed watching both the leagues during the era.

One of his favorite players to watch in the AFL was a wide receiver for the San Diego Chargers named Lance Alworth.

Of course, Lance Alworth came to the NFL after the merger of the two leagues and ended up playing out his career with the Dallas Cowboys.

Something about Lance's name stuck with my Dad and he decided it would be a good name to give a kid.

That kid being me.

Two things about that I've always liked:

One is, of course, the connection to Pro Football. I like being named after a professional athlete and I love football so naturally I enjoy the connection.

Secondly, I love underdogs. The AFL was certainly an underdog league.

When Joe Namath and the New York Jets of the AFL upset the NFL's Baltimore Colts (coincidentally my Dad's favorite team) in Super Bowl III it became the all-time example of an underdog coming out on top.

So that's the story then of how I got my name.

One last thing - a classic photo from the cover of Sports Illustrated of my namesake from December of 1965. Old school football fans will note some things about this photo:

1. Alworth is wearing no gloves, no wristbands, no elbow pads, etc.

2. The single-bar facemask.

3. Lastly, the original Charger uniform was one of the best ever. Lightning Bolt yellow, Charger blue and white. It doesn't get more "old school" than these uni's.

// episode 13

2005-10-15T02:26:00.000-04:00

13 is supposed to be an unlucky number - of sorts it is.

My 13th podcast will be my final one for the next two weeks.

I'm heading out of town for vacation, so there will be nothing further from me until around October 30th. Somewhere around there.

In the meantime, I wish everyone well and hope you all stay safe and happy. I'll be looking forward to hearing from you all again as soon as I get back.

Feel free to leave as many comments, questions, etc. on this post as you want and I'll answer them all when I get back.

I hope you enjoy Episode #13!

Here are all the links to the news used in tonight's show:

Al Gore remarks on the job President Bush is doing.

President Bush: "God told me to go to War."

Bush stages a rehearsed meeting with soliders.

2005 the Web's biggest year.

Spielberg is in the game.

The new Apple iPod.

Lindsay Lohan's car crash.

// demon days

2005-10-11T18:06:00.000-04:00

Wow. Now this is one weird album.

You probably have to be a bigger fan of the "herb" than I am to enjoy music like this.

Actually, let me rephrase that - to enjoy lyrics like these.

The music on this album is actually pretty good. It ranges from good to great, in fact.

By now almost everyone has probably heard the impossibly catchy Feels Good, Inc. song. The album doesn't stray too far from that type of sound, either.

Lyrically, I just don't get it. I'll admit that, freely, at the sake of making myself sound old.

"Fire coming out of the monkey's head" ... ?

Um, okay.

The fact that this track features Dennis Hopper speaking the lyrics should tell us something.

I'm sure "fire coming out of the monkey's head" is probably some cleverly worded metaphor to describe something (again, see the herbal note above). I'm obviously not totally oblivious to exactly what that is. At least completely, anyway. I've heard Puff the Magic Dragon too, ya know?

Dragons and monkeys aside though, this is a really solid album - from start to finish. You can pop it in and listen to every track and really enjoy the music.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend it unless your tastes fall into this category, genre, whatever.

I enjoyed it though.

To repeat a famous phrase, "It has a good beat and you can dance to it; I'd give it an 85".

Here are some links for this album:

Check out the Gorillaz online.

Read the Rolling Stone review for Demon Days.

// a joke for a story

2005-10-09T22:29:00.000-04:00

I'll trade you: a joke instead of a story.

My Falcons lost a heartbreaker of a close game today and I'm just not in the mood to type out a whole, entire story.

To show I'm a gracious loser though (if you're a Falcons fan you're accustomed to losing) and can still keep my sense of humor (another thing Falcons fans learn to do) I'm still going to post and post a joke.

Here goes:

What goes - *Click* "Is that it?" *Click* "Is that it?" *Click* "Is that it?"

A blind man trying to solve a Rubik's Cube.

// this week in tech ending 10.8

2005-10-08T17:24:00.000-04:00

I really wanted to talk about this on the podcast last night, but I just ran out of time.

I ended up having to leave out about 6 or 7 items that I wanted to cover.

I think maybe I should start doing a Sunday morning podcast called The Leftover Show. I usually have enough topics left over to do another thirty minute podcast.

I'm just kidding, though. We all know I'm too busy watching football on Sundays to do anything else.

Moving on:

The big news in the tech world this week was the news that Google and Sun are amping up to take on Micro$oft.

It sounds kind of far fetched, I know.

Besides the U.S. government, I don't think there's a single more powerful entity in America than Micro$oft.

Some might compare this to a David versus Goliath kind of thing, but I wouldn't go that far.

Let's remember, in the story David had God on his side. With that in mind then, it was Goliath who was truly at the disadvantage.

Now, I doubt God has chosen a side in this fight, but aside from divine intervention I highly doubt Google and Sun are going to topple Micro$oft.

The plan for Google and Sun is to go after Micro$oft's bread and butter suite of applications - Micro$oft Office.

I think everyone - from offices to schools - uses M$ Office's set of tools. M$ Word, Entourage, Powerpoint, etc.

Now, admittedly, I'm a product guy. My own personal belief is that if you build great products people will buy them. It just makes sense to me.

However, that personal belief has never applied in any sort of sense where Micro$oft is concerned.

Which is, of course, why they are the bane of my existence. Making Bill Gate$ my own personal arch enemy.

He's the Lex Luthor to my Superman.

The Doctor Octopus to my Spider-Man.

The Shannen Doherty to my Alyssa Milano.

The Lindsay Lohan to my Hilary Duff.

I'm going to be honest with you, my friends.

Micro$oft's products are absolute junk. Second rate. Just pick a derogatory set of adjectives and they are it.

For instance:

Windows is a second rate operating system. Copied wholly from Apple's Macintosh operating system, the entire thing is simply a back-ass-wards way of computing.

Consider this - Apple's Macintosh came out in 1984. Micro$oft's first "successful" attempt at copying it wasn't released until 1995. Over ten years later. It took them ten years to copy it "successfully".

Apple CEO Steve Jobs often says (i'm paraphrasing), "We're at least ten years ahead of the competition."

I used to think he was just kidding around, but once I actually looked at the facts, numbers and dates I realized he was serious. Apple really is about ten years ahead because it takes Micro$oft at least that long to get any attempt at copying them right.

If any of you used and remember Windows 95 then you'll know why the phrase "successfully copied" is a stretch at best.

In all truthfulness, Windows XP is the only decent version of Windows. At least it doesn't crash as often, let's put it that way.

Now let's look at MSN Messenger: it was reverse engineered from AIM's code and as such is only a shoddy, bloated, second rate version of AIM.

Add to that the fact that MSN Messenger spreads more viruses and bugs to internet users than AIM and Yahoo! Messenger combined and you realize it's not just clunky and buggy - it's also (as is par the course for Micro$oft) not very secure.

Micro$oft Word alone is enough to give you an absolute throbbing headache.

It's "Help" section should be sued for using the word. It's anything but helpful.

I could go on and on.

So could most of you reading this. You all have your own reasons for why you hate your computer and how much it frustrates you.

Yet consider - no one is switching.

There are options. You can go to Linux.

You can switch to a Mac (BTW, I love this area of the Apple website. If you're remotely interested in switching to a Mac, click this link. You'll find it amazingly interesting). But no one is doing it.

I can't speak for the Linux experience, but I can assure you the Macintosh experience is light years ahead of anything you'll ever have on Windows.

There are better products out there - far better - than what Micro$oft makes, yet no one uses them.

My "better products = more sales" ideology just doesn't apply to Micro$oft.

Everyone seems content to continue with Micro$oft's products, regardless of how lousy, buggy, cheaply made and insecure they are.

For this reason - and this reason alone - Google and Sun could create the greatest - and completely free! - set of office applications ever made since the dawn of man and it wouldn't make one single difference to any but a few.

Why? Because the average computer user buys the cheapest computer he/she can find (usually Dell) and then plugs it in and uses whatever blinks in front of their face first.

Which is what?

Since Micro$oft owns the operating system (regardless of which PC you buy) then you see exactly what Micro$oft wants you to see - Outlook Express and Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Windows Media Player, etc.

What about Firefox, AIM, iTunes, Yahoo! Messenger, Google, Gmail and on and on?

Well you have to go find those, don't you? It takes an active effort on the users' part.

They have to do something - that's basically what I'm getting at.

Computer owners can either take what is given them or go search out for themselves what the best products are.

Micro$oft is betting on most people staying stupid. I'm sorry to use that term, but it's the truth.

They assume you don't know and don't want to go to the work of finding out.

So they teach you to "trust Micro$oft." How often have you seen the word "trust" and "Micro$oft" on your PC? A bunch, huh? It's called conditioning, folks.

That's how people end up just using what is set in front of them when they first turn their PC on.

And on and on it goes. From one household to another and from one office to another all across America.

Until the mindset changes of computing in America - and I personally see no signs to indicate that it is - Micro$oft isn't going to be toppled anytime soon.

I applaud Google and Sun for taking up their slings and taking on Goliath and fighting the good fight.

I'll be supporting them, too.

I just don't have much hope that our side will win.

// this week in history 10.2 through 10.8

2005-10-05T23:14:00.000-04:00

Here's a list of events that all happened during this week throughout history.

October 2nd

1187 - Siege of Jerusalem: Saladin captures Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule.
1535 - Jacques Cartier discovers Montreal, Quebec.
1780 - American Revolutionary War: British spy John Andre is hanged by American forces for his role in Benedict Arnold's plot to sell West Point to the British Army.
1835 - The Texas Revolution begins with the Battle of Gonzales: Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, Texas, but encounter stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia.
1836 - Naturalist Charles Darwin returns to Falmouth, England aboard the HMS Beagle after a five-year journey collecting biological data he will later use to develop his theory of evolution.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Saltville - Union forces attack Saltville, Virginia, but are defeated by Confederate troops.
1889 - In Colorado, Nicholas Creede strikes it rich in silver during the last great silver boom of the American old west.
1889 - In Washington, DC, the first international Conference of American States begins.
1919 - US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed.
1924 - The Geneva Protocol is adopted as a means to strengthen the League of Nations.
1928 - The "Prelature of the Holy Cross and the Work of God", commonly known as Opus Dei, was founded by Saint Josemaría Escrivá.
1935 - Italy invades Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
1941 - World War II: In Operation Typhoon, Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow.
1944 - World War II: Nazi troops end the Warsaw Uprising.
1950 - The comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz is first published in seven US newspapers.
1955 - The ENIAC computer is deactivated at 11:45 PM.
1955 - Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuts (last new episode aired on June 26, 1962).
1958 - Guinea declares itself independent from France.
1959 - The Twilight Zone pilot premieres.
1962 - Johnny Carson debuts as host of The Tonight Show.
1967 - Thurgood Marshall sworn in as the first African-American justice of United States Supreme Court.
1968 - A peaceful student demonstration in Mexico City ends in the Tlatelolco massacre.
1978 - Baseball: Bucky Dent hits a home run for the New York Yankees to defeat the Boston Red Sox in a one-game play off at Fenway Park. The home run was Dent's 5th of the season.
1990 - A Chinese airline Boeing 737-247 is hijacked; after landing at Guangzhou it crashes into two airliners on the ground, killing 132
1992 - The Carandiru Massacre takes place after a riot in the Carandiru prison system in São Paulo, Brazil.
1996 - The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments are signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
1996 - An AeroPerú Boeing 757 crashes in Pacific Ocean shortly after takeoff from Lima, Peru killing 70.
1996 - Lance Armstrong is diagnosed with testicular cancer that spreads to his liver, lungs, and brain.
2000 - The science fiction TV-series Andromeda premiered, it ended on May 13, 2005.
2001 - Bankruptcy of Swissair.
2001 - First palindromic MM-DD-YYYY date since August 31, 1380.
2004 - American Samoa joins the North American Numbering Plan.
2005 - The Ethan Allen tour boat capsized on Lake George in Upstate New York, killing twenty-one people.

October 3rd

2333 BC - Establishment of the Kingdom of Korea (in the name of Joseon).
42 BC - First Battle of Philippi: Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight an indecisive battle with Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius.
1283 - Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, becomes the first person executed by drawing and quartering.
1574 - Siege of Leiden lifted by the Watergeuzen; foundation of the first Dutch university
1712 - The Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor
1739 - The Treaty of Nissa is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia at the end of the Russian-Turkish War, 1736-1739.
1778 - British Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska.
1789 - George Washington proclaims the first Thanksgiving Day.
1863 - Thanksgiving Day declared as the last Thursday in November by President Abraham Lincoln.
1918 - King Boris III of Bulgaria takes the throne
1929 - The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia, "Land of the South Slavs".
1932 - Iraq gains its independence.
1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia under General de Bono (replaced November 11 by Pietro Badoglio).
1942 - First successful launch of A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany: the first man-made object to reach space.
1951 - New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-4, winning the National League pennant, with Bobby Thomson's "The Shot Heard 'Round the World".
1952 - United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon.
1960 - The Andy Griffith Show debuts.
1962 - At Cape Canaveral the Mercury 8 blasts off with Astronaut Wally Schirra aboard for a nine-hour flight.
1964 - Underdog debuts on CBS.
1981 - The Hunger Strike by Irish Republican Army prisoners at the Maze jail in Belfast ends after seven months and 10 deaths.
1990 - Re-unification of Germany. East Germany ceases to exist.
1993 - Battle of Mogadishu: In an attempt to capture officials of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's organization in Mogadishu, Somalia, 18 US Army Rangers and about 2000 Somalis are killed.
1995 - O. J. Simpson found not guilty of murder.
2004 - The Montreal Expos play their last major league baseball game before the franchise is moved to Washington, D.C.
2005 - Annular solar eclipse
2005 - President Bush announces his nomination of Harriet Miers to replace retiring Sandra Day O'Connor as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

October 4th

610 - Heraclius arrives by ship from Africa at Constantinople, overthrows Byzantine Emperor Phocas and becomes Emperor.
1535 - The first complete English-language Bible is printed, with translations by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale.
1582 - Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian Calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
1777 - Battle of Germantown: Troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under Sir William Howe
1824 - Mexico adopts a new constitution and becomes a federal republic.
1830 - Creation of the state of Belgium after separation from The Netherlands
1883 - First run of the Orient Express.
1883 - First meeting of the Boys' Brigade in Glasgow, Scotland.
1895 - The first U.S. Open Mens' Golf Championship run by the United States Golf Association was played on a nine-hole course in Newport, Rhode Island.
1957 - Launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
1958 - Fifth Republic of France established.
1960 - An Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-188 Electra flying from Boston crashes, killing 62 people after a bird strike.
1966 - Basutoland becomes independent from the United Kingdom and is renamed Lesotho.
1983 - Hooters restaurant first opened in Clearwater, Florida, United States.
1983 - Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 mph, driving Thrust 2 at the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, United States.
1988 - U.S. televangelist Jim Bakker indicted for fraud.
1991 - The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was opened for signature.
1992 - An El Al Boeing 747-200F crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam, killing 43 including 38 on the ground. See Bijlmerramp
1993 - Doom press-release version is made available to journalists for review.
1993 - Russian constitutional crisis of 1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders tanks to storm the Russian parliament building.
1998 - Leafie Mason of Hughes Springs, Texas, is murdered by Ángel Maturino Reséndiz. She is the serial killer's second victim in his second incident.
2001 - A Sibir Airlines Tupolev TU-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. 78 people are killed.
2003 - Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel: 21 Israelis, Jews and Arabs, were killed, and 51 others were wounded.
2004 - SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight.
2005 - Americans John L. Hall and Roy J. Glauber and German Theodor W. Haensch win the Nobel Prize in Physics.

October 5th

1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1665 - The University of Kiel is founded.
1793 - French Revolution: Christianity is disestablished in France.
1864 - The Indian city of Calcutta is almost totally destroyed by a cyclone; 60,000 die.
1869 - A strong hurricane devestates the Bay of Fundy region of Maritime Canada. The storm had been predicted over a year before by a British naval officer.
1877 - Chief Joseph surrenders his Nez Percé band to General Nelson A. Miles.
1895 - The first individual time trial for racing cyclists is held on a 50-mile course north of London.
1905 - Wilbur Wright pilots Wright Flyer III in a flight of 24 miles in 39 minutes. A world record that stands until 1908.
1910 - Portugal overthrows its monarchy and declares itself a republic.
1915 - Bulgaria enters World War I as one of the Central Powers.
1921 - Baseball: The World Series was broadcast on the radio for the first time.
1930 - British Airship R101 crashed in France en-route to India on its maiden voyage.
1936 - The Jarrow March sets off for London.
1944 - Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German Jet fighter over France.
1947 - The first televised White House address is given by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
1949 - WSAZ, the United States' first television station, located in Huntington, West Virginia, begins broadcasting.
1953 - The first documented recovery meeting of Narcotics Anonymous is held.
1953 - Earl Warren is sworn in as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States.
1962 - The Beatles release their first hit, "Love Me Do," in Britain.
1966 - Near Detroit, Michigan, there is a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration nuclear breeder reactor, killing three workers.
1969 - The first broadcast of Monty Python's Flying Circus
1970 - PBS became a television network.
1970 - Montreal, Quebec: British Trade Commissioner James Cross is kidnapped by members of the FLQ terrorist group.
1973 - Signature of the European Patent Convention
1974 - Guildford pub bombing by the IRA leaves 5 dead and 65 injured.
1974 - I Honestly Love You first reaches #1 on the Billboard charts, giving Olivia Newton-John her first top-selling single in the United States.
1981 - Raoul Wallenberg becomes an honorary U.S. citizen.
1984 - Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
1988 - in the first fair poll since 1973, chileans vote "NO" to a 3th term in office for General Augusto Pinochet, sparking a transition to democracy process.
1990 - After one hundred and fifty years The Herald broadsheet newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, is published for the last time as a separate newspaper.
1991 - An Indonesian military transport crashes after takeoff from Jakarta killing 137.
1991 - The first official version of the Linux kernel, version 0.02, is released.
1999 - The Ladbroke Grove rail crash.
2000 - Mass demonstrations in Belgrade lead to resignation of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milošević.
2001 - Tom Ridge resigned as Governor of Pennsylvania to become President Bush's Homeland Security Advisor.
2003 - Akhmad Kadyrov elected President of Chechnya.

October 6th

105 BC - Battle of Arausio: The Cimbri inflict a major defeat on the Roman army of Mallius Maximus.
68 BC - Battle of Artaxata: Lucullus averts the bad omen of this day by defeating Tigranes the Great of Armenia.
891 - Formosus becomes Pope.
1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1600 - Jacopo Peri's Euridice, the earliest surviving opera, premieres in Florence.
1884 - The Naval War College of the United States Navy was founded in Newport, Rhode Island.
1889 - Thomas Edison shows his first motion picture.
1903 - The High Court of Australia sits for the first time.
1908 - Austria annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1921 - International PEN is founded in London.
1927 - Opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent talking movie.
1928 - Chiang Kai-Shek becomes Chairman of the Republic of China.
1939 - Last Polish army is defeated in World War II.
1945 - Baseball: Bill Sianis and his pet billy goat are ejected from Wrigley Field during Game 4 of the 1945 World Series (see Curse of the Billy Goat).
1955 - A United Airlines DC-4 crashes in Medicine Bow Peak, Wyoming, killing 66 people
1966 - LSD is declared illegal in the United States.
1973 - The Crossing: 80,000 Egyptian troops cross the Suez Canal, starting the Yom Kippur War.
1976 - Cubana Flight 455 crashes due to sabotage, after taking off from Bridgetown, Barbados.
1976 - New Premier Hua Guofeng orders the arrest of the Gang of Four and their associates, putting an end to the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China.
1978 - Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad and Benny Andersson, members of the Swedish pop group ABBA, are married.
1981 - Anwar al-Sadat is assassinated.
1993 - Michael Jordan makes his first retirement from the NBA.
1995 - 51 Pegasi, in the constellation of Pegasus, 47.9 light-years away from Earth, was discovered to be the first major star apart from the Sun to have a planet (and extrasolar planet) orbiting around it.
1998 - Gay-bashing: Near Laramie, Wyoming, University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard is viciously attacked by two assailants for being gay (he died on October 12).
2000 - Slobodan Milošević resigns.
2001 - The most-attended ice hockey game in history, between Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, before a crowd of 74,554.
2002 - The French oil tanker Limburg is bombed off Yemen.

October 7th

3761 BCE - The epoch (origin) of the modern Hebrew calendar.
1513 - Battle of La Motta — Spanish troops under Ramon de Cardona defeat the Venetians.
1571 - Battle of Lepanto occurs.
1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1763 - British Royal Proclamation of 1763 lays down rules for settling aboriginal lands in North America.
1776 - Crown Prince Paul of Russia marries Sophie Marie Dorothea of Württemberg.
1777 - Battle of Second Saratoga occurs.
1780 - Battle of Kings Mountain: American Patriot militia defeat Loyalist irregulars led by British colonel Patrick Ferguson in South Carolina.
1816 - First double-decked steamboat, the "Washington", arrives in New Orleans
1840 - Willem II becomes King of the Netherlands.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Darbytown Road (Johnson's Farm) - Confederate forces attempt to regain ground that had been lost around Richmond is thwarted.
1864 - American Civil War: Capture of the C.S.S. Florida — Union Warship captures the Confederate raider ship while in port in Bahia, Brazil.
1865 - Morant Bay Rebellion starts in Jamaica.
1879 - Germany and Austria-Hungary create the Dual Alliance.
1886 - Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba.
1908 - Crete revolts against the Ottoman Empire and aligns with Greece.
1912 - The Helsinki Stock Exchange sees its first transaction.
1913 - Henry Ford introduces the assembly line.
1919 - KLM of Netherlands was founded. It is the oldest airline still operating under its original name.
1940 - Germany invades Romania.
1943 - Japan executes 100 American prisoners on Wake Island.
1949 - German Democratic Republic (East Germany) formed.
1949 - One of the earliest television shows, Ford Theater debuts
1950 - United States forces invade North Korea by crossing the 38th parallel.
1951 - Malayan Emergency: Malay Races Liberation Army (MRLA) ambushes and kills British High Commissioner Sir Henry Gurney.
1957 - Dick Clark's American Bandstand debuts.
1957 - A fire in the Windscale plutonium production reactor, north of Liverpool, England, cause the release of radioactive material, which is later blamed for 39 cancer deaths.
1958 - President of Pakistan Iskander Mirza, with the support of General Ayub Khan and the army, suspends the 1956 constitution, imposes martial law, and cancels the elections scheduled for January 1959.
1960 - Kennedy & Nixon debate Cold War foreign policy in the second of four scheduled debates.
1968 - Hollywood adopts the movie ratings system.
1970 - Richard Nixon announces a new five-point peace proposal to end the Vietnam War.
1977 - The adoption of the Fourth Soviet Constitution.
1982 - Cats opens on Broadway and runs for nearly 18 years. The show eventually closes on September 10th, 2000.
1984 - NFL running back Walter Payton breaks Jim Brown's rushing record.
1985 - Achille Lauro hijacked by Palestinian terrorists.
1996 - The Fox News Channel, an American cable news network, is launched.
1998 - Charmed Premieres on The WB, an American TV Station
1998 - Matthew Shepard, beaten the night before, is left tied to a fence and dies in Laramie, Wyoming.
2001 - Start of U.S. invasion of Afghanistan with an air assault and covert operations on the ground.
2002 - Maher Arar is deported by the US government to Syria, where he is tortured and held without charge for a year before being returned home to Canada.
2003 - California recall: California governor Gray Davis is recalled from office and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2004 - King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicates.

October 8th

451 - At Chalcedon, a city of Bithynia in Asia Minor, the first session of the Council of Chalcedon begins (ends on November 1).
1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1600 - San Marino adopts its written constitution.
1862 - American Civil War: Battle of Perryville - Union forces under General Don Carlos Buell halt the Confederate invasion of Kentucky by defeating troops led by General Braxton Bragg at Perryville, Kentucky.
1871 - Three major fires break out on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Illinois, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and Holland, Michigan
The Great Chicago Fire is the most famous of these, burning 1,200,000 acres (4,900 km²) in one day, eventually destroying about 17,450 buildings, and killing about 250 people while leaving another 90,000 homeless.
The Peshtigo Fire burns 1,200,000 acres (4,900 km²) across six counties in one day and kills 1,200 to 2,500 people, making it the deadliest in United States history.
The Holland Fire destroys at least two towns.
1895 - Queen Min of Joseon, the last empress of Korea, was assassinated.
1912 - First Balkan War begins: Montenegro declares war against Turkey.
1918 - World War I - In the Argonne Forest in France, United States Corporal Alvin C. York almost single-handedly kills 25 German soldiers and captures 132.
1932 - The Indian Air Force is established.
1939 - World War II: Germany annexes Western Poland.
1941 - World War II: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol.
1944 - The radio show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet debuts
1956 - New York Yankees baseball pitcher Don Larsen pitches first (and only) perfect game in World Series history in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series.
1957 - Baseball: Walter O'Malley announces that the Dodgers are going to move from Brooklyn, New York to Los Angeles, California
1962 - Spiegel scandal: Der Spiegel publishes the article "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ("Conditionally prepared for defense") about a NATO manoeuver called "Fallex 62", which uncovered the sorry state of the Bundeswehr (Germany's army) facing the communist threat from the east at the time. The magazine was soon accused of treason.
1967 - Guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia.
1968 - Vietnam War: Operation Sealords - United States and South Vietnamese forces launch a new operation in the Mekong Delta.
1970 - Vietnam War: In Paris, a Communist delegation rejects US President Richard Nixon's October 7 peace proposal as "a maneuver to deceive world opinion."
1978 - Australia's Ken Warby sets the current world water speed record of 317.60mph at Blowering Dam, Australia.
1982 - Poland bans Solidarity.
1990 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: In Jerusalem, Israeli police kill 17 Palestinians and wound over 100 near the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount
1991 - The Croatian Parliament cuts all remaining ties with Yugoslavia
1998 - Oslo Airport Gardermoen, Norway opens.
1999 - New Coligny Calendar, NCC, The beginning of a new era of the Colignay Calendar, the oldest material Celtic calendar.
2001 - A twin engine Cessna and Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) jetliner collide in heavy fog during takeoff from Milan, Italy killing 118.
2001 - U.S. President George W. Bush announces the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security, which will be headed by Tom Ridge.
2003 - Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark's engagement to Australian lawyer Mary Donaldson is announced
2004 - Martha Stewart goes to jail.
2004 - Schapelle Corby is arrested for drugs smuggling in Bali.

// the weekly top ten from 9.30.05

2005-10-04T20:34:00.000-04:00

Since I missed today's post, I'm going to just skip to tomorrow's. I'll be working late tomorrow and this will give me a chance to get ahead.

Here is the Weekly Top 10 from my podcast of September 30th.

The Top 10 Ways Kate Moss Can Build Her Popularity Back After Being Fired For Cocaine Use

10. Start selling her own, personalized hair care products on QVC.

9. Be Paris Hilton's co-host on an all-new season of The Simple Life.

8. Be a spokesperson for Coke...A-Cola.

7. Be a spokesperson for Slim-Fast.

6. Voice an animated character. I think she'd be perfect for the voice of the stick bug in a sequel to A Bug's Life.

5. Start dating a Scientologist.

4. Join the Kabbalah.

3. Make a surprise guest appearance on Taradise.

2. Co-Host an MTV awards show. It doesn't matter which one. We all know it's easy to do that while you're coked up.

1. "Accidentally" leak a sex video onto the internet.

// steve bartkowski

2005-10-02T12:23:00.000-04:00

Since today is Story Day and NFL Sunday as well, I thought I'd tell a nice football story.

When I was a kid growing up my favorite football player was the Atlanta Falcon's quarterback, Steve Bartkowski.

Back in the late 90's when I first got online, one of the first things I did was look up Steve.

I was curious as to what he was into and was looking for old photos or anything I could find on my boyhood hero.

I did find his website (it has since been taken down) and quickly sent off an email to him telling him what a big fan I used to be "back in the day."

I didn't get any reply back from him or from the website.

I didn't really expect to, either. I figured some employee would just read it and delete it. "Bart" was a pretty popular player in his time, and I was sure he got lots of such emails daily.

However, (I don't remember the reason now why) I did include in the email my mailing address. Probably because I was asking for more information on memorabilia.

A few months went by until one day I came out of my post office with an unusual letter.

Opening it, I found a typed response thanking me for being a fan and inside was an autographed football card signed by Steve Bartkowski.

I realize to a professional athelete something like that is maybe a small thing. But, to a fan, it's really huge. It was really huge to me, too.

I'll always have fond memories of Steve and Atlanta from my boyhood and I have to really, really thank him for adding such a nice touching end to those.

However big a fan I was of Steve's before, it tripled after that.

// the week in tech ending 10.1

2005-10-01T20:08:00.000-04:00

Google is going to blanket San Francisco with free Wi-Fi internet.

Why don't I live in San Francisco? That would be awesome to have free, high-speed internet access anywhere in the city.

For those of you who do live in San Francisco, allow me to express my envy in the words of Napoleon Dynamite: "Lucky!"

If you listened to last night's podcast then you already know about Motorola's CEO Ed Zander saying, "screw the nano."

Which was pretty funny, I think.

Apparently it wasn't just me, either. The guys over at The Joy of Tech made a pretty funny cartoon about it, too.

It shows even high dollar, high profile, fancy schmancy CEO's can get just as jealous as kids in a school yard when someone else has a cooler toy.

Motorola's iTunes phone has been about as impressive as a box of 16 color crayons - sure you get 4 more than the basic box, but big deal. You still need more to have a party. Motorola's phone definitely needs more before anyone is going to get excited about it.

The iPod nano?

People are already pretty excited about it.

However, Apple CEO Steve Jobs hasn't taken the opportunity to fire any comments back.

Which means obviously this isn't going to turn into a catfight of Duff-Lohan proportions.

I have to admit that I'm totally disappointed by that, too.

I was kind of hoping Steve would shoot back with, "Hey Ed, suck on it," or something equally as juvenile to keep the whole thing going.

Alas, it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

I guess I'll just have to rely on Page Six to keep me giggling over the latest gossip.

// this week in history 9.25 through 10.1

2005-09-29T21:36:00.000-04:00

Here's a list of events that all happened during this week in history.

September 25th

275 - M. Claudius Tacitus is appointed Roman emperor by the senate.
303 - On a voyage preaching the gospel, Saint Fermin of Pamplona is beheaded in Amiens, France.
1066 - The Battle of Stamford Bridge marks the end of the Viking era.
1396 - Ottoman Emperor Beyazid I defeats a Christian army at the Battle of Nicopolis
1513 - Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reached the Pacific Ocean.
1555 - The Peace of Augsburg is signed in Augsburg by Charles V and the princes of the Schmalkaldic League.
1690 - "Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick", the first newspaper published in the Americas, published for the first and only time.
1789 - The Congressional Apportionment Amendment to the United States Constitution is proposed at the U.S. Congress
1804 - The Teton Sioux (a subdivison of the Lakota) demand one of the boats from the Corps of Discovery as a toll for moving further upriver.
1846 - U.S. forces led by Zachary Taylor captured the Mexican city of Monterrey.
1890 - Yosemite National Park established in California.
1912 - Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York,_New York.
1955 - The Royal Jordanian Air Force is founded.
1959 - Solomon Bandaranaike, prime minister of Sri Lanka is assassinated by a Buddhist monk, Talduwe Somarama, and dies the next day.
1957 - Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is integrated through the use of United States Army troops
1962 - The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is formally proclaimed. Ferhat Abbas is elected President of the provisional government.
1972 - In the Norwegian EC referendum, 1972, the people of Norway reject membership
1978 - PSA Flight 182, a Boeing 727, collides in mid-air with a Cessna 172 and crashes in San Diego, California, resulting in the deaths of 144 people.
1981 - Sandra Day O'Connor was the 102nd Justice sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the first woman to hold the office.
1996 - The last of the Magdalen Asylums was closed in Ireland
1998 - A Pauknair BAE146 crashes into hillside in Morocco killing 38.
2002 - The Vitim event, a possible bolide impact in Siberia, Russia.
2003 - A magnitude-8.0 earthquake strikes just offshore of Hokkaido, Japan.
2005 - Fernando Alonso wins his first Formula 1 World Drivers Championship by finishing 3rd in the Brazilian Grand Prix.

September 26th

46 BC - Julius Caesar dedicates a temple to his mythical ancestor Venus Genetrix in fulfilment of a vow he made at the battle of Pharsalus.
1580 - Sir Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe.
1687 - The Parthenon in Athens is partially destroyed after an explosion caused by the bombing from Venetian forces led by Morosini who were besieging the Ottoman Turks stationed in Athens.
1777 - British troops occupy Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the American Revolution.
1789 - Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay is appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood is appointed the first United States Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph is appointed the first United States Attorney General.
1810 - A new Act of Succession is adopted by the Riksdag of the Estates and Jean Baptiste Bernadotte becomes heir to the Swedish throne.
1907 - New Zealand and Newfoundland each becomes a dominion of the British Empire.
1914 - The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
1918 - World War I: Battle of Meuse.
1934 - Steamship RMS Queen Mary is launched.
1944 - World War II: Operation Market Garden fails.
1950 - United Nations troops recapture Seoul from the North Koreans.
1957 - Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story opens on Broadway
1960 - In Chicago, Illinois, the first televised debate takes place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.
1961 - Bob Dylan makes his public debut.
1962 - Yemen Arab Republic is proclaimed
1962 - Premiere of The Beverly Hillbillies on CBS.
1969 - The Chicago Seven trial begins.
1969 - The Beatles album Abbey Road is released in the UK.
1973 - Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time.
1970 - The Laguna Fire starts in San Diego County, California, burning 175,425 acres (710 km²).
1981 - Baseball: Nolan Ryan sets a Major League record by throwing his fifth no-hitter.
1983 - Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war.
1983 - Australia II, the first non-American winner, wins the Americas Cup.
1984 - United Kingdom agrees handover of Hong Kong.
1988 - Ben Johnson is stripped of his gold medal in the 100 m sprint at the Seoul Olympics for failing a drug test.
1991 - Biosphere 2 opens.
1996 - Nintendo 64 went on sale in the United States.
1997 - A Garuda Indonesia Airbus A-300 crashes near Medan, Indonesia, airport, killing 234
1997 - An earthquake strikes the Italian regions of Umbria and the Marche, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse.
2001 - Star Trek: Enterprise begins airing in the US.
2002 - Thirty people are killed in a gun attack at a temple in Gandhinagar, India
2002 - Five people are shot dead in a botched bank robbery in Norfolk, Nebraska, United States.
2005 - The shock elimination of favoured to win, Teresa Bergman, on New Zealand Idol.

September 27th

489 - Odoacer attacks Theodoric at the Battle of Verona, and is defeated again.
1540 - The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) receives its charter from Pope Paul III.
1590 - Pope Urban VII dies 13 days after being chosen as the Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history.
1605 - The armies of Sweden are utterly defeated by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Battle of Kircholm
1787 - The United States Constitution is delivered to the states for ratification.
1821 - Mexico gains its independence from Spain.
1822 - Jean-François Champollion announces that he has deciphered the Rosetta stone.
1825 - The Stockton and Darlington Railway opens, and begins operation of the world's first service of locomotive-hauled passenger trains.
1854 - The steamship Arctic sinks with 300 people on board. This marks the first great disaster in the Atlantic Ocean.
1903 - Wreck of the Old 97, a train crash made famous by the song of the same name.
1905 - Albert Einstein publishes the paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" in Annalen der Physik. This paper revealed the relationship between energy and mass.
1928 - The Republic of China is recognized by the United States.
1938 - Ocean liner Queen Elizabeth launched in Glasgow.
1940 - The Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin by Germany, Japan and Italy.
1941 - The SS Patrick Henry is launched becoming the first of more that 2,700 Liberty ships.
1942 - Glenn Miller and his Orchestra perform for the last time before Miller enters the US Army.
1949 - The first Plenary Session of the National People's Congress approves the design of the Flag of the People's Republic of China.
1954 - The nationwide debut of Tonight! (The Tonight Show) hosted by Steve Allen on NBC.
1959 - Nearly 5000 people die on the main Japanese island of Honshu as the result of a typhoon.
1964 - The Warren Commission releases its report, concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
1968 - The stage musical, "Hair", opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, where it played 1,998 performances until closure was forced by the roof collapsing in July, 1973.
1979 - The United States Department of Education receives final approval from the U.S. Congress to become the 13th US Cabinet agency.
1980 - Marvin Hagler defeats Alan Minter to claim boxing's world Middleweight championship in London. They have to be escorted away by police after a riot forms.
1983 - Richard Stallman announces the GNU project to develop a free Unix-like operating system.
1986 - Cliff Burton, bassist for Metallica, dies after being crushed by the band's tour bus during their European tour.
1988 - The National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi is founded.
1995 - The Government of the United States unveils the first of its redesigned bank notes with the $100 bill featuring a larger portrait of Benjamin Franklin slightly off-center.
1996 - In Afghanistan, the Taliban capture the capital city Kabul after driving out President Burhanuddin Rabbani and executing former leader Mohammad Najibullah.
1997 - Communications are lost with the Mars Pathfinder for unknown reasons.
1998 - Google is first established
2001 - Boyband 5ive announced their disbandment.
2002 - Timor-Leste (East Timor) joins the United Nations.
2003 - Smart 1 is launched.
2004 - Virgin Group announces a joint venture with Mojave Aerospace Ventures to build VSS Enterprise for commercial space flights and a new company called Virgin Galactic.

September 28th

48 BC - Pompey the Great is assassinated on orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt (may have occurred September 29, records unclear).
AD 935 - Saint Wenceslas is murdered by his brother, Boleslaus I the Cruel
995 - Members of Slavník's dynasty - Spytimír, Pobraslav, Pořej and Čáslav are murdered by Boleslaus's son, Boleslaus II the Pious
1066 - William the Conqueror invades England: the Norman Conquest begins.
1106 - The Battle of Tinchebrai - Henry I of England defeats his brother, Robert Curthose.
1322 - Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor defeats Frederick I of Austria in the Battle of Mühldorf.
1448 - Christian I is crowned king of Denmark.
1542 - Navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo of Portugal arrives as what is now San Diego, California, United States.
1708 - Peter the Great defeats the Swedes at the Battle of Lesnaya.
1779 - American Revolution: Samuel Huntington is elected President of the Continental Congress, succeeding John Jay.
1781 - American forces backed by a French fleet begin the siege of Yorktown Heights, Virginia, during the American Revolutionary War.
1787 - The newly completed United States Constitution is voted on by the U.S. Congress to be sent to the State legislatures for approval.
1820 - The tomato is publicly proven safe when Robert Johnson eats a bushel (24 kg) of tomatoes in Salem, Massachusetts.
1823 - Leo XII is elected pope.
1844 - Oscar I of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
1867 - Toronto becomes the capital of Ontario.
1868 - Battle of Alcolea, causes Queen Isabella II of Spain to flee to France.
1871 - Brazil passes law freeing future children of slaves.
1928 - UK passed Dangerous Drugs Act.
1939 - Germany and the Soviet Union agree on a division of Poland after their invasion during World War II.
1939 - Warsaw surrenders to Nazi Germany during World War II.
1944 - Battle of Arnhem - Germans defeat British airborne at Arnhem, Netherlands.
1958 - France ratifies a new Constitution of France; the French Fifth Republic is then formed upon the formal adoption of the new constitution on October 4. Guinea rejects the new constitution, voting for independence instead.
1961 - A military coup in Damascus effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.
1971 - UK Misuse of Drugs Act: medicinal cannabis is banned.
1972 - Paul Henderson scores The Goal to win the Canada/USSR (ice hockey) "Summit Series".
1973 - ITT Building in New York City bombed to protest ITT's involvement in the September 11 1973 coup d'état in Chile.
1976 - R&B singer Stevie Wonder releases the classic double album Songs in the Key of Life.
1987 - Encounter at Farpoint, the first episode of TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation airs.
1994 - The car ferry MS Estonia sinks in Baltic Sea, killing 852 people.
1995 - Bob Denard and a group of mercenaries take the islands of Comoros in a coup.
2000 - The Al-Aqsa Intifada begins after the visit of Ariel Sharon to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

September 29th

61 BC - Pompey the Great celebrates his third triumph, for victories over the pirates and the end of the Mithridatic Wars on his 45th birthday.
48 BC - Ptolemy XIII of Egypt had Pompey murdered and his head cut off on his 58th birthday. Pompey's head and ring were kept for Julius Caesar.
AD 855 - Pope Benedict III becomes pope.
1364 - Battle of Auray: English forces defeat French at Brittany; end of the Breton War of Succession
1567 - At a dinner, the Duke of Alva arrests the Count of Egmont and the Count of Horne for treason.
1789 - The U.S. War Department first establishes regular army with a strength of several hundred men.
1789 - The first U.S. Congress adjourns.
1829 - London's reorganized police force, the Metropolitan Police, becomes the first official police department in the world.
1864 - American Civil War: The Battle of Chaffin's Farm is fought.
1902 - Impresario David Belasco's first Broadway theater opens.
1907 - The cornerstone is laid at Washington National Cathedral in the U.S. capital.
1918 - The Hindenburg Line is broken by Allied forces during World War I.
1938 - Britain, France, Nazi Germany and Italy sign the Munich Agreement, allowing Germany to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
1939 - Poland is divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
1941 - The Babi Yar massacre begins.
1943 - U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign an armistice aboard the British ship Nelson off the shore of Malta.
1954 - The convention establishing CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) is signed.
1961 - The New York Times publishes music critic Robert Shelton's review of a performance from little known singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which will lead to Dylan's discovery by Columbia Records representative John Hammond
1962 - Alouette 1, the first Canadian satellite is launched.
1963 - The second period of the Second Vatican Council opens.
1964 - Argentine cartoonist Quino publishes his first Mafalda comic strip.
1972 - Sino-Japanese relations: Japan establishes diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China after breaking official ties with the Republic of China.
1988 - NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster.
1992 - Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello resigns.
1996 - Super Mario 64, a revolutionary platformer game for the Nintendo 64, is released in the United States.
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.
2004 - The Burt Rutan Ansari X Prize entry SpaceShipOne performed a successful spaceflight, thereby halfway to winning the prize.
2004 - Baseball: The Montreal Expos play their last game at Olympic Stadium.

September 30th

1399 - Henry IV is proclaimed King of England.
1867 - The United States takes control of Midway Island.
1882 - The world's first hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States.
1888 - Jack the Ripper kills his third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes.
1895 - Madagascar becomes a French protectorate.
1935 - The Hoover Dam, astride the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada, is dedicated.
1935 - "The Adventures of Dick Tracy" is first heard on the Mutual Radio Network.
1938 - The League of Nations unanimously outlaws "intentional bombings of civilian populations"
1939 - General Władysław Sikorski becomes commander-in-chief of the Polish Government in exile.
1947 - Baseball: The World Series, featuring New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, is televised for the first time.
1949 - The Berlin Airlift ends.
1954 - The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world's first nuclear reactor powered vessel.
1960 - The last episode of "The Howdy Doody Show" airs on NBC.
1962 - Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez founds the United Farm Workers.
1962 - James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying segregation.
1965 - Civil unrest follows a failed coup attempt by Indonesia Communist Party (PKI). More than a million people died.
1966 - The British protectorate of Bechuanaland declares its independence, and becomes the Republic of Botswana. Seretse Khama takes office as the first President.
1967 - BBC Radio 1 is launched; the BBC's other national radio stations also adopt numeric names.
1975 - The Hughes (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing) AH-64 Apache made its first flight.
1980 - Ethernet specifications published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation.
1982 - Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills six people in the Chicago area. Seven were killed in all. The incident is known as the Tylenol scare.
1982 - The TV sitcom Cheers premieres.
1989 - Foreign Minister of West Germany Hans-Dietrich Genscher's speech from the balcony of the German embassy in Prague.
1991 - President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti is forced from office.
1997 - Origin Systems Inc. releases Ultima Online, a massively multiplayer game, opening the door for a new video gaming genre.
1999 - Japan's worst nuclear accident at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tokai-mura, northeast of Tokyo. Workers overload a container with uranium, exposing workers and local residents to very high radiation levels.

October 1st

331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Arbela
959 - Edgar the Peaceable becomes king of all England
965 - John XIII becomes Pope
1788 - Nguyen Hue declares himself emperor of Viet Nam
1791 - First session of the French Legislative Assembly
1795 - Belgium is conquered by France
1800 - Spain cedes Louisiana to France via Treaty of San Ildefonso
1811 - First steamboat to sail the Mississippi arrives in New Orleans
1814 - Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw the Europe's political map after the defeat of Napoleon the previous spring.
1829 - South African College founded in Cape Town, South Africa; later to become the University of Cape Town.
1847 - German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds Siemens AG & Halske
1854 - The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
1869 - Austria issues the world's first postcards
1880 - John Philip Sousa becomes leader of the United States Marine Corps Band
1880 - First electric lamp factory opened by Thomas Edison
1885 - United States begins special-delivery mail service.
1886 - U.S. mint in Carson City, Nevada closes.
1887 - Baluchistan conquered by the British Empire
1890 - Yosemite National Park established by Congress
1891 - In California, Stanford University opens its doors
1898 - Czar Nicholas II expels Jews from major Russian cities
1898 - The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie.
1903 - The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern baseball World Series.
1908 - Ford introduces the Model T car
1910 - A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, California, killing 20.
1918 - World War I: Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence (aka "Lawrence of Arabia") capture Damascus.
1928 - The Soviet Union introduces its first Five-Year Plan.
1931 - The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York opens.
1936 - Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain.
1938 - Germany annexes the Sudetenland.
1943 - World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.
1946 - Nazi leaders sentenced at Nuremberg Trials
1949 - The People's Republic of China is declared by Mao Zedong
1949 - First rectangular television tubes manufactured by Kimble Glass
1957 - First appearance of "In God We Trust" on paper currency
1958 - NASA created to replace NACA
1960 - Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom
1961 - East and West Cameroon merge as Federal Republic of Cameroon
1961 - Roger Maris sets new record for most home runs in a single season with 61, surpassing Babe Ruth's previous mark of 60.
1963 - California State Board of Education created.
1964 - Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley.
1964 - Japanese Shinkansen (or, "bullet trains") begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.
1965 - General Suharto crushes an attempted coup in Indonesia.
1968 - The Guyanese government takes over the British Guiana Broadcasting Service (BGBS).
1969 - The Concorde supersonic transport plane breaks the sound barrier for the first time.
1971 - Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida.
1975 - Seychelles gain internal self-government.
1975 - The Ellice Islands split from Gilbert Islands and take the name Tuvalu.
1975 - Thrilla in Manila: Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila.
1977 - Brazilian soccer star Pelé retires.
1978 - The Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party is founded.
1979 - United States returns sovereignty of the Panama canal to Panama
1982 - Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a Constructive Vote of No Confidence.
1982 - EPCOT Center opens at Walt Disney World
1985 - The Israeli air force bombs PLO Headquarters in Tunis.
1988 - Mikhail Gorbachev is named head of the Supreme Soviet
1998 - ICANN assumes responsibility for selling top-level domain names for the Internet.
2004 - Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki makes his 258th hit of the season, breaking George Sisler's 84-year-old single-season record.

// the weekly top 10 from 9.9.05

2005-09-28T13:38:00.000-04:00

Good thing I saved this. I never would have been able to remember it otherwise.

Here's the last Top 10 from my podcast of September 9th:

Top 10 Reasons NOT To Purchase An iPod nano

10. You only really know two songs you like - the ABC's song and Itsy Bitsy Spider.

9. Who needs a thousand songs in their pocket? You need them in your ears to be of any use. How can you hear a song in your pocket?

8. You don't need thousands of photos in your pocket, either. You still have the ones that came with the last wallet you bought and those are plenty.

7. You might mistake the nano for a pack of Certs and eat half of it before you realize it's not doing a thing for your breath.

6. Music hasn't been any good since The Doobie Brothers broke up.

5. You're Amish.

4. You work for Micro$oft or Dell and are already on your 2nd warning after getting caught blogging about how much you hate your job and know being seen with a nano would be your 3rd strike.

3. You already own the finest portable music player ever invented - an 8-track tape player.

2. You just bought a brand new iPod mini. Ouch.

1. You're old. You're grumpy. You hate music. And doggone it, you like it that way!

// the longest yard

2005-09-27T11:51:00.000-04:00

It's been so long since I did Movie/Music Review Day I've forgotten what I reviewed last.

I've been alternating between a movie or music and I think last time I did music. Without looking, of course. "Just scroll down the page!" I know, I know. But I like living dangerously, so I just logged in and started writing without looking. So I'm gonna go with a movie this time - It's Adam Sandler's remake of the Burt Reynold's classic, "The Longest Yard."

Actually, as you can tell by the poster for this movie, Reynolds is in this one, too. Of course, he's playing a different character this time around since Sandler is playing the lead character, Paul Crewe.

This movie is pretty mediocre in most ways.

For starters, if you've never seen the original, you'll have no idea where this movie falls short. Even so, you'll still probably be able to tell that this movie can't figure out if it's a comedy or a drama.

The first film walked that balance perfectly. It was a dramatic movie with just the right flair of comedy to make it a classic.

When I saw the trailers for this remake, I thought the movie was just going to be a comedy and that was it. I was surprised to find out that they did try to capture the "feel" of the original by including dramatic sub plots.

It doesn't fail completely, either. It manages to capture some drama and some comedy but not enough to excel in either direction.

For the most part the movie is just average. Mediocre.

Which brings me to another point. Adam Sandler.

Sandler seems to be stuck in a rut as of late to make a better than "okay" movie. It seems like forever since he had a really solid hit.

I was hoping this movie would be that for him.

One of the things they managed to recapture pretty well is the sport in this movie. The original Longest Yard was a really good football movie. A lot of movies about the sport are just silly. They run silly plays and do things that any fan of the sport would know is completely ridiculous.

One of the appeals of the classic movie was how it did a really good job of portraying what a football game between two teams who - let's face it, prison inmates would be trying to kill prison guards - would be like.

Of course, something like that you have to portray with a little humor, a little tongue in cheek, a little bit of black comedy.

I always figured that since Burt Reynolds actually played college football and NFL pro's were used in the movie it helped attain that "feel" to the original.

Sandler has never played college football (so far as I know) but he's a huge football fan and there are quite a number of pros in this new movie, too.

So once again that "realism" is captured.

Of course, it's still movie realism. Hollywood realism. Keep that in mind as you watch the movie.

But, The Longest Yard is great material. It was one of my favorite movies, one of my dad's favorite movies, I would say it's one of most guys' favorite movies. Again, it's a certified classic.

It's also material that's very approachable for a remake.

It's just a shame that this movie didn't live up to the opportunity it had. It could have been a lot better. A lot more dramatic. A lot funnier.

As it stands, it's a pretty mediocre film.

Here's some links for The Longest Yard:

Read the review for The Longest Yard at Rotten Tomatoes.

Read about the original The Longest Yard at the IMDB.

// this week in tech 9.10.05

2005-09-10T21:30:00.000-04:00

iPod nano.

I mentioned this already when it was announced and covered it on the podcast last night, too.

But, I wanted to go a bit further today for a couple of reasons:

1) It was the big news this week in the tech world and B) I wanted to say just how bold a move I think this was by Steve Jobs and Apple.

While I think iPod nano is a great product, the real news I wanted to talk about here is in Apple cancelling it's production of iPod mini.

iPod mini was Apple's best selling product.

Conventional wisdom says you don't cancel your best selling product.

Conventional wisdom says you milk it for all it's worth.

Isn't that what other companies do? Release a successful product and milk it for all it's worth.

Sure, you release variations to try and further saturate your product into the market. Different colors, different sizes, etc., etc.

You try and beat the mule for all it's worth and only when you've squeezed every last nickel you can get out of it do you finally cancel it and move on to something else.

That's conventional business "wisdom."

This is one of the reasons why Mac fans love Apple - they're not a very conventional company.

Normal logic says you cancel your worst selling product.

Another reason Mac fans love Apple - they don't use normal logic.

They cancelled their best selling product.

Why?

Because every company making MP3 players was targeting iPod mini.

Since it was Apple's most popular player, the best way to catch up - if you're a competitor - is to make a cheaper model with more features than iPod mini, right?

That's especially how the tech industry thinks. Give them what they want, only give it it to them cheaper.

If you offer MP3 players at a lesser price, with maybe a few more features, they'll choose that over the higher priced iPod mini, right?

Well, since that's what everyone was trying to do, Apple decided to take iPod mini out of the crosshairs of companies like Sony, Dell, Rio, Creative etc.

They killed it.

So much for that competition. All of a sudden Sony, Dell, Rio, Creative, etc. is sitting on products designed to compete with a music player that no longer exists.

But surely if Apple 86'ed iPod mini, they must believe they have something better to replace it with, right?

Right.

When Steve Jobs showed iPod nano on stage last week you could almost hear the competition collectively sigh out, "ah crap."

Apple completely sent everyone back to the drawing board and totally changed the rules of the game with this move.

Apple did what they always do - what no one else thought they would.

How can you not love a company that's so unpredictable?

No one in the industry has, so far, been able to touch the design of iPod.

iPod is immediately recognizable everywhere you see it.

The white ear phones.

The scroll wheel.

The mirror-like, metal finish on the back that you could do your make up with.

The simple interface.

The ease of use.

The perfect synchronization with Apple's iTunes program.

Since it's release, iPod has never had a serious contender. Not even close. There's simply no good alternative to iPod.

There's alternatives, sure. But like I said, no good ones.

Then came Apple's decision to give iPod a little competition of it's own: they released iPod mini.

Now, personally, I was never enamorate of iPod mini.

iPods are supposed to be white. That's what I was accustomed to anyway.

The mini, with it's pastel colors, never looked like a "real" iPod to me. Plus, the mini lacked the mirror-like, metal finish that is another trademark of iPod. The mini came in a completely alumnium case made of one color - silver, blue, green, gold or pink.

Regardless of how iPod the mini was or wasn't, it quickly became Apple's biggest seller.

I think Apple - by eliminating iPod mini and going back to the drawing board totally to design iPod nano - has come up with a product that's a truer reflection of what a smaller, lower priced iPod should look like.

With the white (and alternately black) iPod nano, the scroll wheel, color screen and metal finish on the back, Apple has designed another truly beautiful product.

And one that is absolutely an iPod.

I noticed friends, who weren't geeks, when looking at an iPod mini for the first time would sometimes ask, "is that an iPod?"

When you look at iPod nano it's without question an iPod.

It might even be cooler than the actual iPod.

How cool is it?

Let me say it this way: It's so cool that even though I already own 2 iPods, have three times the song library that iPod nano is capable of holding, and really don't have a reason to need one - I might just get one anyway.

My hat's off to Apple this week, not just for making another amazing product, but for also taking a chance not many - if any - other companies would take.

It's also been a reminder to me of how often Apple leaves the competition chasing where they were - not where they are.

To paraphrase Steve Jobs, he has often said that Apple innovates years ahead of the competition - and when they finally catch up, years later down the road - Apple has already moved on to the next big thing.

That's what the Apple ][ was.

It's what Macintosh was.

It's what iMac was.

It's what Mac OS X has been.

It's what iPod has been.

And I think it's what iPod nano is going to be:

The next big thing.

// episode 10

2005-09-10T03:59:00.000-04:00

Can you believe it? My 10th podcast.

Even I am surprised that I've done that many so far.

Granted, with my penchant for chat - sometimes called a gift for gab - I suppose I shouldn't be. If there's one thing I'm good at and like to do it's talk.

Anyway, Episode 10 is now uploaded and available for listening.

As usual, here are the links to all the news items used in tonight's podcast:

President Clinton calls for an inquiry into FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina.

FEMA chief relieved of duties.

FEMA executives lacked any disaster experience.

Rolling Stone article: "A Polluter's Feast".

Patriots win season opener.

Paul McCartney still inspired by John Lennon.

// this week in history 9.4 - 9.10

2005-09-08T12:25:00.000-04:00

Here's a selection of events that all happened during this week throughout history:

September 4th

476 - Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, is deposed when Odoacer proclaims himself King of Italy.

1781 - Los Angeles, California, is founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (the City of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of the Little Portion) by a group of 44 Spanish settlers.

1886 - Indian Wars: After almost 30 years of fighting, Apache leader Geronimo surrenders with his last band of warriors to General Nelson Miles at Skeleton Canyon in Arizona.

1888 - George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak, and receives a patent for his camera which uses roll film.

1950 - The "Beetle Bailey" comic strip begins.

1951 - The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, California, from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference.

1957 - American Civil Rights Movement: Little Rock Crisis - Orville Faubus, governor of Arkansas, calls out the National Guard to prevent black students from enrolling in Central High School in Little Rock.

1957 - Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel.

1967 - The last new episode of the television sitcom Gilligan's Island airs on CBS-TV.

1971 - In America The Lawrence Welk Show airs its last show.

1972 - Mark Spitz wins his seventh swimming gold medal at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, becoming the first Olympian to win seven gold medals.

1997 - In Lorain, Ohio, the last Ford Thunderbird rolls off the assembly line.

September 5th

1698 - In an effort to move his people away from Asiatic customs, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a tax on beards; All men except priests and peasants, are required to pay a tax of one hundred rubles a year and the commoners had to pay one kopek each.

1877 - Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

1882 - The first United States Labor Day parade is held in New York City.

1906 - Brandbury Robinson throws the first legal forward pass in an American football game.

1939 - World War II: The United States declares its neutrality in the war.

1949 - A former sharpshooter in World War II, Howard Unruh kills 13 neighbors in Camden, New Jersey, with a souvenir Luger to become the first U.S. single-episode mass murderer.

1960 - Muhammad Ali wins the gold medal in boxing at the Rome Olympic Games.

1972 - Munich Massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attack Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games.

1975 - In Sacramento, California, a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson named Lynette Fromme attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but is thwarted by a Secret Service agent.

1983 - The half-hour Robert MacNeil Report changes its name to the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, becoming the first hour-long network news show.

1983 - Tom Brokaw becomes lead anchor for NBC Nightly News

September 6th

3761 BC - The first day of the Hebrew Calendar.

3114 BC - On this date in the proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started.

1522 - The Victoria, one of the surviving ships of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world.

1620 - The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America.

1628 - Puritans settle Salem, which will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1847 - Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.

1870 - Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming, votes in the morning, becoming the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.

1901 - Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

1941 - Holocaust: The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word Jew inscribed, is extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.

1970 - Jimi Hendrix plays what turns out to be his last ever performance, at the badly controlled and rained out Love and Peace Festival, on the Isle Of Fehmarn, Germany.

1972 - Munich Massacre: Israeli athletes and coaches are killed when police assault Black September members in a failed hostage rescue in West Germany.

1995 - With the jury absent, Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman invokes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson.

1995 - Cal Ripken Jr. breaks Lou Gehrig's record of playing 2131 consecutive baseball games.

1996 - Eddie Murray becomes the 15th member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Oriole Park in Baltimore, Maryland.

1997 - The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, at Westminster Abbey draws large crowds.

2001 - United States v. Microsoft: The United States Justice Department announces that it was no longer seeking to break-up software maker Microsoft and will instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty.

September 7th

1776 - World's first submarine attack. The American submersible craft Turtle attempts to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship Eagle in New York Harbor.

1901 - The Boxer Rebellion in China officially ends with the signing of the Peking Protocol.

1911 - French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum.

1915 - Former cartoonist John B. Gruelle is given a patent for his Raggedy Ann doll.

1921 - In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held.

1940 - World War II: The Blitz - Nazi Germany begins to rain bombs on London. This will be the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.

1950 - The gameshow Truth or Consequences debuts on television.

1963 - The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members.

1966 - The final new episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show airs (the first episode aired on October 3, 1961).

1970 - An anti-war rally is held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, attended by John Kerry, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.

1971 - The last new episode of The Beverly Hillbillies is aired (the first episode debuted on September 26, 1962).

1979 - The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) makes its debut.

1979 - The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for USD $1 billion to avoid bankruptcy.

1996 - In Las Vegas, Nevada, actor and recording artist Tupac Shakur is shot several times after attending a boxing match, he dies six days later.

1997 - The first test flight of the F/A-22 Raptor takes place.

1998 - Google Inc. is founded.

September 8th

1504 - Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Florence.

1810 - The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men established fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon.

1888 - In London, the body of Jack the Ripper's second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found.

1888 - In England the first six Football League matches ever are played.

1921- 16-year-old Margaret Gorman won the Atlantic City Pageant's Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America.

1930 - 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape.

1935 - US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed "Kingfish", is fatally shot in the Louisiana capitol building.

1966 - "The Man Trap", the first episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek airs.

1971 - In Washington, DC, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.

1974 - Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.

1974 - Evel Knievel's attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, Idaho, fails after a parachute prematurely deploys on his "sky cycle."

1998 - At Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, Mark McGwire breaks Roger Maris' 1961 record of 61 home runs hit in a single season.

1999 - US Attorney General Janet Reno names former US Senator John Danforth to head an independent investigation of the 1993 fire at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas.

1999 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book in J.K. Rowling's hugely popular Harry Potter series, is published in the United States.

2003 - Brianna LaHara, a 12-year-old U.S. schoolgirl, is sued by the RIAA for downloading music illegally.

September 9th

1543 - Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is officially crowned "Queen of Scots" in the central Scottish town of Stirling.

1739 - Stono Rebellion, the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies prior to the American Revolution, erupted near Charleston

1776 - The Continental Congress officially names their new country the United States.

1839 - John Herschel takes the first glass plate photograph.

1850 - California is admitted as the thirty-first U.S. state.

1850 - The Compromise of 1850 strips Texas of a third of its claimed territory (now parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming) in return for the federal government assuming $10 million of Texas's pre-annexation debt.

1870 - Redmond, Washington founded

1926 - The National Broadcasting Company formed.

1947 - "First actual case of (a computer) bug being found" - a moth lodged in a relay of a Mark II computer at Harvard.

1954 - Marilyn Bell swam for 20 hours and 57 minutes under grueling conditions to become the first person to swim across Lake Ontario

1956 - Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.

1965 - Sandy Koufax throws a perfect game against the Chicago Cubs

1966 - The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon Johnson.

1971 - Attica Prison riots

1995 - The Sony Playstation is released in the United States

1999 - The Sega Dreamcast is released in the United States

1999 - Final Fantasy VIII is released in the United States

September 10th

1846 - Elias Howe gets a patent for the sewing machine.

1913 - First paved coast-to-coast highway opened in the U.S.

1927 - France wins the first Davis Cup

1939 - Canada declares war on Nazi Germany.

1943 - German forces began their occupation of Rome during World War II.

1960 - Mickey Mantle hits what is thought to be the Major League's longest home run, sending the ball an estimated 643 feet.

1963 - 20 African-American students enter public schools in Alabama.

1972 - United States loses first international basketball game in disputed match versus the Soviet Union at Munich, Germany

1977 - France's last execution is performed by guillotine.

1990 - The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, the largest church in Africa and perhaps the world, is consecrated by Pope John Paul II.

1990 - Will Smith makes his television debut in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

2001 - Major Charles Ingram allegedly cheats to win the £1,000,000 prize on the British Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

2002 - Switzerland, known for its neutrality, finally joins the United Nations.

2002 - The U.S. Homeland Security Advisory System is set to Orange, or High Condition, for the first time.

2003 - Anna Lindh, the foreign minister of Sweden, is stabbed fatally while shopping, and dies of her wounds on September 11.

// the weekly top 10 from 9.3.05

2005-09-07T01:24:00.000-04:00

Here is The Weekly Top 10 from my latest podcast:

The Top 10 Surprises In The Nerds Broadway Show Based On Apple's Steve Jobs and Micro$oft's Bill Gate$.

10. Steve & Bill get along really well.

9. Bill Gate$ is quite the dancer.

8. Steve Jobs wears something besides mock turtlenecks and jeans.

7. Bill's speeches are actually enjoyable and humorous to listen to.

6. Steve doesn't one, single time brag about the success of iPod during the entire show.

5. Isn't Steve & Bill on the same stage at the same time surprise enough?

4. Apple's offices have far more pictures of George Bush than Al Gore hanging about.

3. Micro$oft's offices seem like a really happy and cool place to work.

2. Steve Jobs is really, really nice in the play.

1. Bill Gate$ is really, really sexy in the play.

// how to dismantle an atomic bomb

2005-09-05T23:10:00.000-04:00

I've pimped this album now for almost a year straight.

No, it's not as good as previous U2 albums, but it's pretty doggone good.

I will refer to some posts I've written before:

This one, about the existential lyrics prevalent in this (and past) U2 albums.

And this one, which deals with the final track on the album, Yahweh.

I'm not going to spend a great deal of time re-writing all that again. If you really want more details, please, click the links above and read away.

I wanted to mention this album though because I really think it's going to be one of the big nominees at this year's Grammy Awards.

For those of you who remember last year, you will recall the album didn't make it out before the Grammy nomination deadline.

The first single off the album did and was nominated - Vertigo - but the album itself fell after the deadline.

That makes it a prime suspect, I think, for a lot of nominations this year.

We'll see, I suppose.

If you have heard the biggest releases off the album this year - Vertigo, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own and All Because Of You - then you have heard the best of the album for certain.

However, the rest of the tracks on the album really merit listening to as well.

In particular the aforementioned Yahweh as well as City of Blinding Lights, One Step Closer and Original of the Species.

Of course, if you're a U2 fan then you know a U2 album can only rightly be enjoyed and appreciated as a whole. Therefore if you've only heard the singles, you're really missing out on a whole lot more.

Not to give anything way - but the theme of the album moves from sex, desire, etc. to love and inner peace and finally to acceptance and understanding in a really brilliant manner.

U2 details "how to dismantle an atomic bomb" in an almost step-by-step, song-by-song illustration.

To call it brilliant isn't a stretch by any means.

If you haven't gotten a copy of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb yet, I would highly suggest you check it out and get an early taste of, again, what I think is going to be a Grammy winning album.

The only thing left to say is:

uno, dos, tres, catorce - turn it up, captain

// happy labor day

2005-09-05T14:46:00.000-04:00

No post over here today other then just to wish everyone a happy Labor Day.

I hope everyone is really enjoying the extra time off.

I know I sure am.

Probably because last week was such a hectic and busy week for me. I've noticed whenever you work especially hard it makes you enjoy time off, vacations, holidays, etc. all the more.

Perhaps I should work on being more productive so that I can enjoy my time off more?

Nah.

Anyways, happy Labor Day, gang.

Here's a few links you can enjoy:

Read about the origin of Labor Day in America and other countries on Answers.com.

Read about Labor Day on the US Department of Labor's website.

// my 'be nice' policy

2005-09-04T03:27:00.000-04:00

As things heat up around the country with everything that's going on, I thought it might be wise to make this statement about my own, personal "Be Nice" policy.

It's Story Day and I think this would be a good time to go "on record" about this.

I believe in being nice.

Now, I know there's been a lot said by me in the past about the Bush White House.

However, I would like to make it perfectly clear that I am not anti-Bush in any way.

Nor am I anti-American or anti-Republican or anti anything else so far as that goes. At least not that I am consciously aware of.

Mr. Bush is President of our country and as such I completely respect his office. I'm not against him or anyone else of the Republican party. I don't side against people just because of party affiliations.

Granted I've made a lot of jokes about him and other members of his staff, but that was all in good fun.

With all that's been going on lately I've heard and read some very mean statements.

I've even heard things as mean as, "I hate Bush," or, "I hate the President," and other things of that nature. People have called him stupid, cursed at him, the list goes on and on. I'm sure, if you've been listening, you've heard, read or seen similar. Hopefully not worse.

Let me be perfectly clear on this - I don't hate anyone - least of all the President of our country.

No one will ever read or hear me say such a thing because it's outside my realm of beliefs to say, "I hate" anyone in sincerity.

Now, I do disagree a lot with the choices President Bush makes.

I disagree with the decisions he makes.

I question what he says a great deal of the time.

I sometimes doubt his sincerity, honesty and integrity.

But I do not hate him or am against him in anyway.

If President Bush, at any time, wants to do the right things for our country then I am totally supportive of that.

It doesn't matter to me who is right or who is wrong.

What's right and what's wrong is all that matters.

If President Bush makes the right decisions - and come on, even on accident he's going to get a few right - then to oppose them just because you don't like him, or you think he talks funny or whatever, is silly.

What I am for - totally - is peace.

It's hard to be for peace, folks, when you talk about hate.

It's hard to stand for and try to promote peace when you're shouting about hate.

Let's remember something here - while the hypocrisy perceived in others is sometimes so easy to point out, it's just as hypocritical to talk about peace while saying you hate.

Now, heaven knows I am all for people coming together for peace and opposing the ideals that are contrary to the ways that lead to peace.

But we don't have to be mean or hate other people - again, least of all our President - to do that.

I think it's best to oppose the message - not attack the messengers.

I've written many times before about how I am determined to never censor (by deleting) any comment anyone ever leaves here unless it is absolutely necessary.

In fact, I can't even think of a "for instance" in which it'd be necessary for me to do that. But, since you "never say never," I'll leave that "absolutely necessary" thing there just in case. Who knows what might happen.

So if anyone comments here that they hate someone - I'm not going to delete it.

I'm only posting this policy publicly so everyone will know what I plan to do:

I'm not going to say I'm for peace while I talk about hatred.

I'm not about hate.

I'm about peace.

And I'm going to be nice about it, too.

// the week in tech 9.3.05

2005-09-03T18:03:00.000-04:00

It seems all the news took a backseat this week with the events in south Louisiana.

Rightly so, too.

However, there was some "lighter" news in the world this week.

One such event was the opening of the new musical on Broadway this month, "Nerds:// A Musical Software Satire"

The show is a musical based on Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs and Micro$oft co-founder Bill Gate$. It's a "satirical history" of the two men about their rise to power during the creation of the wonderful technological world so many of us now live in.

I really hope it makes it to the big screen. Or at least a direct to DVD deal. I'd love to see it, but I'm a long way from Broadway (in every sense of the term you can imagine).

I haven't read any reviews of the show yet, but just based on the content alone, I'm sure I'd find it - at the very least - humorous.

The show features songs with such titles as "A Revolution Starts With One," "Let's Merge," "I've Gotta Lotta Money" and "Stroll Through the PARC."

If any of those allusions make sense to you, then you're obviously a bigger geek than you thought.

I'd love to see the "rap" part at least. At one point during the show Bill Gate$' character breaks into rap:

I could buy the whole world now with only just a third
Of my fortune, I'm cool now, haven't you heard?
This Microsoft Office is no longer for a nerd
My Outlook Excels me to my PowerPoint -- Word!

That alone would be worth seeing, I bet.

Anyways, this article has a good deal of info about the play and this site - you know you want it - has pictures from the show.

Enjoy!