• When escape artist Harry Houdini was a child, he worked as a messenger boy. One Christmas Eve, when his family was impoverished and lacked food, he came home from work and told his mother, “Shake me — I’m magic.” He then shook himself, and coins fell on the floor — they were the tips he had collected that day. That Christmas, his family ate well.
• One Christmas Eve, humorist Robert Benchley was having lunch with some friends at a restaurant, but he rose to go home. His friends urged him to stay a little longer, but he explained, “I owe it to the children — they’ve never seen me drunk.” (By the way, Mr. Benchley was only joking — he was not drunk.)
• When comedian Bill Hicks was very ill and showing signs of the pancreatic cancer that would kill him, he celebrated his final Christmas with his family, and Rachel, his seven-year-old niece, who had not been told that he was ill, turned to him and said, “Uncle Bill, you’re going to be our first angel.”
• On December 13 in Hungary, girls write down on slips of paper the names of eligible bachelors, put them under their pillow, and draw out one name each day until Christmas, when only one name remains. According to folklore, that is the name of the boy they will marry.
Clothing
• While attending high school in the 1950s, Ilene Beckerman and a friend each wanted a “basketball sweater” but unfortunately they lacked athlete boyfriends to give them sweaters — also unfortunately, their high school didn’t have a basketball team. Eventually, Ilene and her friend discovered a store that would custom-make these sweaters — but only if a minimum of four sweaters was ordered. Therefore, Ilene, her friend, and two other girls ordered sweaters. On the back of the sweater was a space for the name of the team, but since the girls lacked a team they had “WC’WD” embroidered there. The initials stood for “We Couldn’t Think of a Name, So We Didn’t.” (By the way, the girls were so young that they thought the salesman was “vulgar” when he measured their chests when they ordered the custom-made sweaters.)
• Mary Moody Emerson, the aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson, once was visited by the mother of Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden. Cynthia Thoreau was wearing clothing with pink ribbons, and Mary Emerson shut her eyes while talking to her. Eventually, she asked Mrs. Thoreau if she would like to know the reason for the tightly closed eyes. Mrs. Thoreau said that she would, and Mary Emerson replied, “I don’t like to see a person of your age guilty of such levity in her dress.”
Comedians
• Phyllis Diller was an amateur comedian before she became a professional comedian. At college, she amused her female dorm mates by walking the halls with a rose in her mouth, a belt around her waist, curlers on her head, and nothing else. She also used to memorize jokes before going on dates. Later, as a homemaker before she became a professional comedian, she entertained other homemakers at the Laundromat.
• The Three Stooges’ Curly loved making children laugh. After suffering a stroke, he was forced to retire. Long-time Stooges short-film director Jules White visited him, and at one point, Curly got tears in his eyes and said to him, “I’m never going to make the children laugh again, am I, Jules?” (A few years after Curly died, the Three Stooges’ short films started being shown on television and Curly again made children laugh.)
• Some of the comedy routines of Mike Nichols and Elaine May started with a line from real life. For example, Mr. Nichols’ mother once telephoned him and said, “Hello, Michael, this is your mother — do you remember me?” Mr. Nichols had to ask her to hang up so he could call Ms. May and tell her about the new comedy line they would improvise around that night.
In human biology, handedness is the better, faster, or more precise performance or individual preference for use of a hand, known as the dominant hand. The incapable, less capable or less preferred hand is called the non-dominant hand. Right-handedness is most common; about 90% of people are right-handed. Handedness is often defined by one's writing hand, as it is fairly common for people to prefer to do some tasks with each hand. There are examples of true ambidexterity (equal use of either hand), but it is rare—most people prefer one hand for most purposes.
International Left-Handers Day is held annually every August 13. It was founded by the Left-Handers Club in 1992, with the club itself having been founded in 1990. International Left-Handers Day is, according to the club, "an annual event when left-handers everywhere can celebrate their sinistrality (left-handedness) and increase public awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of being left-handed." It celebrates their uniqueness and differences, who are from seven to ten percent of the world's population.
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
Left-handedness.
Billy in Cypress U.S.A. said:
Being left-handed, e.g. the myth of Billy the Kid due to a reversed photo negative.
Randall wrote:
Left Handed
Alan J answered:
Left-handed.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, responded:
Handedness
zorch replied:
Left-handedness.
mj wrote:
I live with someone afflicted with this
For years, teachers and other adults charged with the rearing of
children tried to eradicate this condition. It didn't work since we
still have left handed individual (like Dumbledore) around.
Roy, the Antifa secretary/treasurer in Gohmertstan, Texas wrote:
Sinistrality has to do with having a dominant, usually left, side. So I guess since its definition is the quality or state of having the left side or one or more of its parts (as the hand or eye) different from and usually more efficient than the right or its corresponding parts, "Democrat" would be a good synonym.
Deborah, the Master Gardener said:
Left-handedness. My mother was left-handed and learning to copy her signature to forge on high school detention notices was actually easier for me to be accurate when I learned to write with my left hand.
Cold rain blew through yesterday and possibly a few more today. Great way to kick winter to the curb and usher in spring.
Daniel in The City answered:
Lefthandedness
Jacqueline responded:
Left sided?
John I from Hawai`i says,
Left handedness.
David of Moon Valley replied:
ummmmm...
….the disease of left-handedness? or so my Wagnall & Funk’s tells me….yes? no? maybe so?
Michelle in AZ said:
Left-handedness
Barbara, of Peppy Tech fame wrote:
The answer is left-handedness.
Doug in Albuquerque, New Mexico, took the day off.
Stephen F took the day off.
Rosemary in Columbus took the day off.
Dave in Tucson took the day off.
DJ Useo took the day off.
Leo in Boise took the day off.
Bob from Mechanicsburg, Pa took the day off.
Jon L took the day off.
George M. took the day off.
Ed K took the day off.
Joe S (We resisted, we voted, we won. Get over it) took the day off.
Gary K took the day off.
Tony DeN took the day off.
Gateway Mike took the day off.
Stephen aus Oz (& peppy tech, too) took the day off.
Kevin K. in Washington DC, Where Republicans cannot see sedition clearly, even now, took the day off.
-pgw took the day off.
Kenn B took the day off.
Micki took the day off.
Angelo D took the day off.
Harry M. took the day off.
Roy the (now retired) hoghead (aka 'hoghed') ( Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. ~Frank Zappa ) took the day off.
Saskplanner took the day off.
Steve in Wonderful Sacramento, CA, took the day off.
MarilynofTC took the day off.
Paul of Seattle took the day off.
Brian S. took the day off.
Gene took the day off.
Tony K. took the day off.
Noel S. took the day off.
James of Alhambra took the day off.
BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
Ian Thomas - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Harmonica
Ric Steinke - Pedal Steel and Electric Guitars
Chelsea Hunt - Fiddle
Don Corbo - Upright Bass
Don Scott - Drums
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $7 (USD) for 11-track album
A BAD DAY: (A very short story in one sentence with more words than are required)
The next time a crazy guy with a gun has a "bad day" (which has happened countless times and will continue endlessly), I suggest that he go to his nearest shooting range or into the woods miles away from any other humans (who might offend him), with his best friend (9mm, .45 or other), slowly and safely load his gun, make sure there is a live round in the chamber, cock the gun, take off the safety, carefully point it at the center of his target (by putting it to his temple), test fire it before doing anything else that day AND that will solve "his problem" and I promise that he will never have another "bad day" on this earth, but he can have a warm, face-to-face conversation with his god and ask that god, “Why did I have such a bad day?”.
End of story.
A very short story in five words and some punctuation:
BAD DAY?
KILL ONLY YOURSELF!
NOTE:
This suggestion can be given to all those trying to explain why a “bad day” is the fault of everyone/anyone, except the person doing the killing.
CBS fills the night with LIVE'March Madness', then pads the left coast with local crap.
NBC opens the night with 'Dateline', followed by an old 'SNL' (from 03/17/07) with Julia Louis-Dreyfus hosting, music by Snow Patrol.
'SNL' is a RERUN (from 02/06/21) with Dan Levy hosting, music by Phoebe Bridgers.
ABC starts the night with a RERUN'Shark Tank', followed by a RERUN'American Idol'.
The CW offers a couple of old 'Friends', and a couple of old '2½ Men'.
Faux has a RERUN'The Masked Singer', followed by a RERUN'Game Of Talents'.
MY recycles an old 'Weather Gone Viral', followed by an old 'Storm Of Suspicion'.
A&E has the movie 'Taken 2', followed by the movie 'American Sniper'.
AMC offers the movie 'Divergent', followed by the movie 'Insurgent'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] HIDDEN HABITATS
[6:30AM] HIDDEN HABITATS
[7:00AM - 10:00AM] EARTH'S GREAT SEASONS
[11:00AM - 4:00PM] EARTHFLIGHT
[5:00PM - 5:00AM] PLANET EARTH: BLUE PLANET II (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has the movie 'Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous', followed by the movie 'Miss Congeniality'.
Comedy Central has the movie '50 First Dates', followed by the movie 'Vacation'.
FX has the movie 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom', followed by the movie 'Deadpool'.
History has 'Pawn Stars', 'Modern Marvels', another 'Modern Marvels', and still another 'Modern Marvels'.
IFC -
[6:00am - 11:30am] Saved By The Bell: The College Years
[12:00pm] Men At Work
[2:15pm] Three Amigos!
[4:45pm] Back To School
[6:45pm] 48 HRS.
[9:00pm] Another 48 HRS.
[11:15pm] 48 HRS.
[1:30am] I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
[3:30am] Eddie Murphy Raw
[5:30am] The Three Stooges - Hoi Polloi (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am - 10:30am]
[11:00am - 4:30pm] hogan's heroes
[5:00pm] windtalkers
[8:00pm] a few good men
[11:00pm] a few good men
[2:00am] platoon
[4:30am] monk - Mr. Monk And The Foreign Man
[5:30am] monk - Mr. Monk And The UFO (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen', followed by the movie 'Avengers: Age Of Ultron'.
Scripts, notes, photos, film, correspondence and other numerous other artifacts of the late Carl Reiner – some stretching back to Your Show of Shows, The Dick Van Dyke Show and earlier – have been donated by Reiner’s family to the National Comedy Center where a new multi-media exhibit on the comedy icon is planned for 2022.
The National Comedy Center, located in Jamestown, New York, also announced that the organization’s archive department will be renamed The Carl Reiner Department of Archives and Preservation. Reiner was a founding Advisory Board member for the Comedy Center.
“People called our father a comic genius, and his gift was his ability to transform discomfort or pain into pleasure and fun,” said Reiner’s children Annie, Lucas Reiner and filmmaker Rob Reiner in a statement. “His humor made people feel good, starting with those of us around him, and then pretty much the whole world. He would be so thrilled to know that the National Comedy Center’s archives department is being named for him and that his work will be preserved there, that he would jump in the air, do a scissor kick and sing La Donna e Mobile at the top of his lungs.”
According to the Comedy Center, The Carl Reiner Archives include thousands of pages of creative papers and business correspondence, unpublished comedy material, rare photographs, film footage and audio recordings from his personal and professional life. Also included are his industry awards, including his Emmys and Mark Twain Prize, early drafts and final scripts written by Reiner throughout his career with his handwritten annotations and his film screenplays.
Also included in the donation are the chairs and TV trays used for years by Reiner and best friend Mel Brooks as they ate dinner while watching television for years, up to the time of Reiner’s death in June, 2020.
With nominations set and just over a month until showtime, details are trickling out about the 93rd Oscars and neither sweatshirts nor Zoom made the cut.
“Our plan is that this year’s Oscars will look like a movie, not a television show,” said show producers Jesse Collins, Stacy Sher and Steven Soderbergh in a statement Friday. They’ve enlisted Emmy and Tony Award winning director Glenn Weiss to direct the live broadcast on April 25.
Although considerably scaled down from a normal year, the producers have said they are committed to holding an in-person event at Los Angeles’ Union Station for nominees, presenters and limited guests. There will also be a live component at the Dolby Theatre, which has been home to the Academy Awards since 2001.
But unlike the Golden Globes, which combined in-person and Zoom elements in its bi-coastal broadcast, the Oscars are not making a virtual element possible for nominees who either can’t or don’t feel comfortable attending. The producers said they plan to treat the event like an active movie set with on-site COVID safety teams and testing protocols.
Sharon Stone has one of the most famous movie scenes ever, in Basic Instinct, but she says she was duped into it — and furious over it.
The movie star, 63, writes about her ups and downs in Hollywood in her new memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice. An excerpt on Vanity Fair details her difficult experience playing Catherine Tramell in the 1992 film, including how she was directed to remove her underwear for the film's infamous scene under the pretense it would not be visible on film. However, that wasn't the case and she and her attorney discussed taking legal action to prevent the release of the film.
"After we shot Basic Instinct, I got called in to see it," Stone wrote of the film directed by Paul Verhoeven and co-starring Michael Douglas. "Not on my own with the director, as one would anticipate, given the situation that has given us all pause, so to speak, but with a room full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project."
It was in that room of strangers that, "I saw my vagina-shot for the first time, long after I’d been told, 'We can’t see anything — I just need you to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light, so we know you have panties on'" she remembered. "Yes, there have been many points of view on this topic, but since I’m the one with the vagina in question, let me say: The other points of view are bulls**t."
She continued, "Now, here is the issue. It didn’t matter anymore. It was me and my parts up there. I had decisions to make. I went to the projection booth, slapped Paul across the face, left, went to my car, and called my lawyer, Marty Singer. Marty told me that they could not release this film as it was. That I could get an injunction. First, at that time, this would give the film an X rating. Remember, this was 1992, not now, when we see erect penises on Netflix. And, Marty said, per the Screen Actors Guild, my union, it wasn’t legal to shoot up my dress in this fashion. Whew, I thought."
Okay, so, here’s the story: Back in 2015, Christopher Columbus, director of the frankly insane Robin Williams comedy Mrs. Doubtfire, gave an interview to Yahoo Movies in which he claimed that, due to Williams’ well-known penchant for foul-mouthed improvisations, he’d managed to put together four full cuts of the 1993 comedy back in the day, of increasingly vulgar vintage. Columbus, possibly unwisely, dubbed these cuts (which, as far as we know, were never screened for the MPAA), in terms of standard film ratings: “A PG rated version of the film, PG-13, R, and NC-17.” (Mrs. Doubtfire was eventually released as a PG-13 flick.) The interview itself is no longer online, but there’s no indication that Columbus ever did anything with these cuts, or whether—in the days when movies were cut on actual film stock—they even physically existed. (As opposed to, say, being assembled in his head with the material he knew he had at hand.) But he said it, and thus are the seeds of desire planted.
Cut to today, when—emboldened by its successful efforts to bully a multi-national corporation into releasing the Snyder Cut of Justice League—the internet has started looking around, wondering what other demands it can get fulfilled. Several folks on Twitter stumbled onto Columbus’ old statements, and, thus, the call for “the NC-17 cut” of Mrs. Doubtfire has now been issued forth.
As noted by Snopes, though, it’s extremely unclear whether this fabled artifact actually exists, or whether it would—like the Snyder Cut, now that we think of it—need to be dutifully assembled from a bunch of old pieces, and a large stash of someone else’s money. Certainly, Mrs. Doubtfire star Mara Wilson has said (back in 2016) that she’d never heard about an NC-17 version (although she did note that she wouldn’t be surprised if an R-rated cut had once been made, given Williams’ love of ad-libbing.) And even though the film’s screenwriter, Randi Mayem Singer, responded today with happy memories of the film’s “dirty dailies,” she couldn’t confirm that the actual cut in question had ever actually been made. So it certainly sounds like there’s probably no actual NC-17 edition of the film, so much as there are a bunch of very blue outtakes that might still exist, just waiting to ruin a new Blu-ray release.
Meanwhile, there’s a whole other question here, to wit: Do we really, uh, want to hear Robin Williams doing NC-17 rated material—which, by the definitions of the day, would have to be pretty explicitly sexual—in a film where he’s dressed as a woman so that he can fool his ex-wife into letting him back into her life? Williams was one of comedy’s gifted improvisers, but also one of its most determinedly unfiltered; hearing his attitudes (and the attitudes of the era) toward sex (and, just as a guess, trans people) get tossed like a hand grenade into a beloved classic would probably be a whole hell of a lot less fun that it sounds on initial blush.
Federal investigators looked into accusations from Project Veritas that Pennsylvania postal workers tampered with mail-in ballots and found that the claims were false.
The findings came in a little-noticed February 26 report from the US Postal Service Office of Inspector General. The report drew widespread attention after being posted by the website 21st Century Postal Worker earlier this week.
The investigation was initially launched after Project Veritas, a far-right political operation seeking to undermine media outlets and tech companies, produced an affidavit from a "whistleblower" postal worker, Richard Hopkins, in November.
Hopkins claimed that he overheard other postal service employees in Erie County, Pennsylvania, backdating ballots that arrived in the mail. In the 2020 election, Pennsylvania counted only mail-in ballots sent by Election Day on November 3.
"[Hopkins] revised his claims, eventually stating that he had not heard a conversation about ballots at all - rather he saw the Postmaster and Supervisor having a discussion and assumed it was about fraudulent ballot backdating," the report says. "[Hopkins] acknowledged that he had no evidence of any backdated presidential ballots."
Former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up)’s Palm Beach club has been partially closed because of a COVID outbreak.
That’s according to several people familiar with the situation, including a club member who received a phone call about the closure Friday. A receptionist at the Mar-a-Lago club confirmed the news, saying it was closed until further notice, but declined to comment further.
A person familiar with club operations said that, out of an abundance of caution, the club had partially closed a section “for a short period of time” and quarantined some of its workers. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation by name.
The extent of the outbreak, what portions of the club were closed or how it was affecting the former first family weren’t immediately clear.
A long dormant volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland flared to life Friday night, spilling lava down two sides in that area's first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years.
Initial aerial footage, posted on the Facebook page of the Icelandic Meteorological Office, showed a relatively small eruption so far, with two streams of lava running in opposite directions. The glow from the lava could be seen from the outskirts of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, which is about 32 kilometers (20 miles) away.
The Department of Emergency Management said it was not anticipating evacuations because the volcano is in a remote valley, about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the nearest road.
The Fagradals Mountain volcano had been dormant for 6,000 years, and the Reykjanes Peninsula hadn't seen an eruption of any volcano in 781 years.
There had been signs of a possible eruption recently, with earthquakes occurring daily for the past three weeks. But volcanologists were still taken by surprise because the seismic activity had calmed down before the eruption.
After more than a year of being shut down, Disneyland Park and California Adventure Park are set to re-open to guests at the end of next month. Both parks will allow guests who are California residents to return on April 30, after a year of being closed down due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The two parks, which are based in Anaheim, CA, will open at limited capacity, as new safety guidelines from California’s public health directives allows for red-tier counties – the second-highest level of risk – to reopen theme parks at 15 percent capacity for in-state residents.
The plan for the re-opening includes a new reservation system that will keep the park at capacity, along with requiring masks to be worn at the parks and encouraging social distancing to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.
Along with the new safety guidelines, there will also be one major difference for anyone hoping to ride the roller coasters, if they end up being a part of the reopening plan: no screaming.
That may sound silly but California’s Attractions and Parks Association is recommending that theme parks “mitigate the effects of shouting” in order to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus. It is also recommended that singing is discouraged as well, as it has also been linked to spreading COVID.
Once considered crazy by fellow villagers, Indonesian eco-warrior Sadiman has turned barren hills green after 24 years of effort, making water resources available in the drought-prone mountainous region where he lives.
Affectionately addressed as 'mbah' or 'grandpa', the 69-year-old has worked relentlessly to plant trees in the hills of central Java after fires to clear the land for cultivation nearly dried up its rivers and lakes.
"I thought to myself, if I don't plant banyan trees, this area would become dry," said Sadiman, wearing his trademark ranger hat and safari shirt, who goes by one name, like many Indonesians.
The long and wide-spreading roots of at least 11,000 banyans and ficus trees Sadiman has planted over 250 hectares (617 acres) help to retain groundwater and prevent land erosion.
Thanks to his effort, springs have formed where once there was barren and arid land, their water piped to homes and used to irrigate farms.
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U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
