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The Daily Dose/January 30, 2010
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...
HUT, HUT HIKE: After two decades of being played in Hawaii a week after the Super Bowl, the NFL's all-star game, the Pro Bowl, for reasons we're sure were explained to us, is being played 1) in the same city as the Super Bowl and, 2) the week before the Super Bowl.
What In The Hell Is Going On Here? We don't know, either. For years the Pro Bowl was harmless enough being played in Hawaii. It made Hawaiians feel like were real Americans for a week or so and since it was after the Super Bowl, when nobody really cares about the NFL anymore, you could watch, or not watch, as you saw fit. For example, if the grass was mowed and the trash taken out and you had some time to kill before dinner you might sit down and watch a half or so, to hear Al Michaels one last time or simply because your tires didn't need rotating or the driveway had been shoveled.
Uh-Oh: Now though, we're obliged to pay attention. For example, we aren't paying a whole lot of attention, but even we've heard about the Colts whining about some of their players having to make an appearance at the Pro Bowl event thought they're not playing in it because this means they won't be able to travel to Miami with the rest of team on Monday, which is the day after the Pro Bowl.
This is silly. The Pro Bowl doesn't matter. It is a meaningless exhibition and the players have probably forgotten who won and who lost before they return to the locker room and nobody really wants to hear the Pro Bowl's dirty laundry aired in public.
Thought For The Day: If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days. -Dorothy Canfield Fisher
THIS COURT DOTH ADJUDGE THAT HE…SHALL BE PUT TO DEATH BY THE SEVERING OF HIS HEAD FROM HIS BODY: Charles I of England was executed on this date in 1649 after having been convicted of treason and other high crimes after he lost both English civil wars.
It's Hard To Get Good Help Nowadays: Charles i may have been a bit crackers. When the prosecutor rose to read the indictment Charles tapped him on the shoulder with a cane, and then poked him and when the prosecutor still wouldn't shut up he clobbered him on the shoulders.
Dry, Technical Matter: To guard against the cold, as if that was his biggest problem, Charles wore a couple of cotton shirts to his execution.
Please Pass The Dry Technical Matter: Charles I was the last King of England for a decade. Parliament passed a law forbidding Charles II from ascending the throne, though he would become King of Scotland. After the English got tired of not having a king, he was allowed back and became king in 1660.
God, We Love Dry, Technical Matter: Charles II got around. His wife was unable to produce an heir, meaning the throne passed to his brother, James II and VII, but he had well over a dozen illegitimate children, including no less than two who were ancestors of Princess Diana, meaning if Prince William ever takes the throne he will be the first descendant of Charles II to do so.
Tough Crowd: Oliver Cromwell, who had ruled England in the interregnum between Charleses, was ritually executed on this date in 1661 despite the fact he had already been dead for two years!
Missed Him By That Much: Andrew Jackson survives the first assassination attempt on a President of the United States on this date in 1835. One Richard Lawrence, who was under the delusion that 1) Jackson was preventing the government from paying him a large sum of money, and 2) that Jackson had also killed his father, had brought two (2) pistols with which to kill Jackson with, but both misfired.
I Left My Heart Where?: Yerba Buena, California is renamed San Francisco on this date in 1847.
Ready, Aim, Fire: On this date, in 1862, the United States Navy commissions its first ironclad warship.
The career of the USS Monitor was brief. It would battle the Confederate ironclad, the CSS Virginia in March in a battle that saw both sides claiming victory, and would be lost off the coast of North Carolina before the year was out.
I Do Solemnly Swear To Kill All Jews: On this date in 1933 Adolph Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. On this date in 1945, about three months before he dies, Hitler will commemorate the twelfth anniversary of his swearing in with his last public address.
Up, Up And Away…Sort Of: Ranger 6, a moon probe designed to take pictures of the moon before it crashed onto its surface, was launched on this date in 1964. On February 2, Ranger 6 would crash into the moon without sending any video or camera data. As sometimes happens in NASA, no one was entirely sure what the hell happened, though it is suspected that the television power system inadvertently turning on for 67-seconds a little bit after launch had something to do with it.
What In The Hell's Going On Here?...Oh, Wait, It's NASA: A little research shows that the entire Ranger program more or less a fiasco, at least at the start. NASA, already displaying the brilliance that would lead to the Apollo 1 disaster three years later, saw both Ranger 1 and Ranger 2 not get out of low earth orbit and fall back to Earth. Ranger 3, thanks to a variety of zany malfunctions that would lead you to believe its Project Managers were Laurel and Hardy, missed the Moon by over 22,000 miles. Ranger 4 actually became the first spacecraft to reach the Moon but a power failure prevented any of its assigned tasks from being completed. Ranger 5 ran out of power and could only wave at the Moon from 450 miles away.
The Fine Print: Rangers 7, 8 and 9, however, were able to complete successful missions.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: William Howard Taft was the President of the United States who had the longest average State of the Union addresses with four messages, all written, averaging 22, 614 words.
Remember, We're Trained Professionals. Do Not Try This At Home: 22,614 words comes out to 20.54 of today's Daily Dose.
Today's Stumper: What was the CSS Virginia known as it before it was commissioned as the Virginia? - Answer next time!
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