Thursday, May 2, 2024

kowtow \KOU-TOU\, verb:

1. To act in an obsequious manner; show servile deference.

2. To touch the forehead to the ground while kneeling, as an act of worship, reverence, apology, etc., especially in former Chinese custom.

noun:

1. The act of kowtowing.

Kowtow comes from the Chinese practice of touching the ground with your forehead to show respect, called k'o t'ou. It literally means "to knock the head."

  

yeash

• To be annoyed with something

will you cool it. yeash!

 

History

• Martin Luther: the 23-year-old German theologian and future Protestant reformer was ordained (1507)
• Good Housekeeping: first went on sale (1885)
• Berlin: surrendered to Russian forces during WWII; the war in Europe ended less than a week later (1945)
• Nelson Mandela: won in South Africa's first multiracial election (1994)
• GPS: President Bill Clinton announced that US citizens and the military would have equal access to the positioning system (2000)
• Osama Bin Laden was killed in a raid by American Special Forces: Seal Team 6 (2011)

Birthdays

• Catherine The Great (Ekaterina Alekseevna) 1729 - Russian leader Catherine II
• Henry M. Robert 1837 - U.S. Army General, author
• Hedda Hopper (Elda Furry) 1890 - Actress and gossip columnist
• Vernon Castle 1887 - Dancer, actor ("The Whirl of Life")
• Baron Von Richthofen (The Red Baron) 1892 - German fighter pilot
• Lorenz Hart 1895 - Composer, lyricist, half of Rodgers & Hart
• Brian Aherne 1902 - Actor ("A Night to Remember", "The Best of Everything")
• Dr. Benjamin Spock 1903 - Baby doctor, author ("The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care")
• Bing Crosby 1903 - Singer, according to Bing Crosby his birthday is May 2nd, his birthday is actually May 3, real name: Harry Lillis Crosby
• Pinky Lee (Pincus Leff) 1907 - Entertainer ("The Pinky Lee Show"), burlesque
• Nigel Patrick 1913 - Actor ("The Jack of Diamonds", "The Mackintosh Man"), director, writer
• Theodore Bikel 1924 - Singer, actor ("Fiddler on the Roof", "The African Queen")
• Roscoe Lee Browne 1925 - Actor
• Françoise Fabian (Michele Cortes De Leon y Fabianera) 1932 - Actress ("Reunion", "Dressmaker")
• John Lee Gardner 1933 - Musician (Mothers of Invention)
• Link Wray (Frederick Lincoln Wray Jr.) 1935 - Musician, composer (Link Wray and His Ray Men)
• Engelbert Humperdinck (Arnold George Dorsey) 1936 - Singer
• Lorenzo Music 1937 - Actor, voice of Garfield, producer
• Gates (William James) Brown 1939 - Baseball player
• Clay (Palmer) Carroll 1941 - Baseball player
• Mickey (Lee Oddis) Bass III 1943 - Jazz composer, musician (New York Powerhouse Ensemble)
• Hilton Valentine 1943 - Musician (Animals)
• John Verity 1944 - Musician (Argent)
• R.C. Bannon 1945 - Country singer
• Bianca Jagger 1945 - Model, human rights activist, was married to Mick Jagger
• Goldy McJohn 1945 - Musician (Steppenwolf)
• "Rudy" Randy Cain 1945 - Musician (The Delfonics)
• Lesley Gore 1946 - Singer
• David Suchet 1946 - Actor
• Robert Henritt 1946 - Musician (The Kinks)
• Gerald Irons 1947 - Football player
• Larry Gatlin 1948 - Singer (Gatlin Brothers)
• Lou Gramm 1950 - Musician (Foreigner)
• Joe Callis 1951 - Musician (Human League)
• Christine Baranski 1952 - Actress ("The Good Wife")
• Angela Bofill 1954 - Singer
• Bruce Robert Howard 1961 - Musician (Blow Monkeys)
• Elizabeth Berridge 1962 - Actress
• Ty Herndon 1962 - Country singer
• Todd Sucherman 1969 - Musician (Styx)
• Dwayne Johnson 1972 - Wrestler, actor, known as The Rock
• David Beckham 1975 - Soccer player
• Jenna Van Oy 1977 - Actress
• Gaius Charles 1983 - Actor ("Friday Night Lights")
• Ashley Harleroad 1984 - Tennis
  Sarah Hughes 1985 - Figure skater
• Lily Allen 1985 - Singer
• Kay Panabaker 1990 - Actress

 

 

 

Hasselhoff Wednesday: May Day Today

 

 

Another working man

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

ort \awrt\, noun:

• A scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

Ort is related to the Old English word eten meaning "to eat."

 

Microsoft Minute

• A unit of time ranging in value from one realtime minute to several hours.

"Time to complete installation of Windows 10 37 minutes."

(24 minutes later)

"Time to complete installation of Windows 10 36 minutes. Did you know that Windows 10 will speed up all your everyday computing tasks!"

Holiday

• May Day aka International Worker's Day (Socialists)

History

• Act of Union: England and Scotland joined to form Great Britain (1707)
• Marriage of Figaro: Mozart's opera premiered in Vienna (1786)
• Empire State Building: world's tallest building (at the time) opened after 410 days of construction (1931)
  
• Citizen Kane: Orson Welles' film masterpiece loosely depicting — and criticizing — newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst debuted in New York City (1931)
• Cheerios: General Mills introduced the first oat-based ready-to-eat breakfast cereal (1941)
• North Korea: was established with Kim Il Sung as premier; he maintained power for the next 46 years (1948)
• Iraq War: George W. Bush declared the successful end of major combat operations in Iraq (2003)

Birthdays

• Benjamin Henry Latrobe 1764 - Architect known for his design of the United States Capitol and the Baltimore Basilica
• George Inness 1825 - American landscape painter
• James Graham 1878 - Scottish nobleman, politician
• Leo Sowerby 1895 - Composer, musician, won Pulitzer Prize for music in 1946
• Kate Smith 1909 - Singer
• Archie Williams 1915 - Olympic athlete
• Glen Ford 1916 - Actor ("Gilda", "The Courtship of Eddie's Father")
• John Beradino (Giovanni Berardino) 1917 - Baseball player, actor
• Jack Paar 1918 - Radio and television comedian, talk show host ("The Tonight Show")
• Harry Caray 1919 - Baseball broadcaster
• Dan O'Herlihy 1919 - Actor ("Macbeth (1948)", "Robinson Crusoe")
• Julian Goodman 1922 - CEO for NBC, was on Richard Nixon's master list of political opponents
• Joseph Heller 1923 - Novelist, short story writer, playwright
• Terry Southern 1924 - Author, essayist, screenwriter
• Scott Carpenter 1925 - One of NASA's original seven astronauts
• Chuck Bednarik 1925 - Football player
• Sonny James (James Loden) 1929 - Country music singer and songwriter
• Ollie Matson (Ollie Genoa Matson II) 1930 - Football player
• Little Walter (Marion Walter Jacobs) 1930 - Musician
• Judy Collins (Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins) 1939 - Singer and songwriter
• Bobbie Ann Mason 1940 - Novelist, short story writer, essayist, literary critic
• Stephen Macht 1942 - Actor
• Mimi Farina (Mimi Baez Fariña) 1945 - Singer, songwriter
• Rita Coolidge 1945 - Singer

  
• Nick Fortune 1946 - Musician (The Buckinghams)
• Jerry Heard 1947 - Golfer
• Douglas Barr 1949 - Actor, writer, director
• Dann Florek 1951 - Actor ("Law and Order: SVU")
• Ray Parker Jr. 1954 - Singer (Raydio)
• Nick Feldman 1955 - Musician (Wang Chung)
• Steve Farris 1957 - Musician (Mr. Mister)
• Phil Smith 1959 - Musician (Haircut 100)
• Wayne Hancock 1965 - Country musician
• Charlie Schlatter 1966 - Actor ("Diagnosis: Murder")
• Johnny Colt 1966 - Musician (The Black Crowes)
• Tim McGraw 1967 - Country musician
• D'Arcy Wreztky 1968 - Musician (Smashing Pumpkins)
• Wes Anderson 1969 - Director
• Julie Benz 1972 - Actress ("Dexter," "Angel")
• Curtis Martin 1973 - Football player
• Darius McCrary 1976 - Actor ("Family Matters"), singer
  Caitlin Stasey 1990 - Actress
  

   

  
  

  
  

   

  

   

  

 

 

 

 

Review Tuesday: HAZBIN HOTEL - Season One

 

 

HAZBIN HOTEL

Season One

Charlie, the daughter of Lucifer, tries to save souls condemned to Hell. 

Okay, continuing with the things my friend got me to watch during tax season we come to HAZBIN HOTEL. This animated show is an AMAZON ORIGINAL series. 

 

What appears to be a cute animation turns out to be a VERY adult oriented series. This takes place in HELL, and the daughter of Lucifer, Charlie Morningstar, is trying to figure out a way to save could that had been condemned. Why? At some point there had been an uprising in Hell and the angels had to come down from Heaven to put an end to it. To keep the residents of Hell in check, Heaven sent down an extermination force of EXORCISTS led by ADAM, the original man, to kill the demons of Hell. It wasn't meant to be a complete extermination, just a population control and to keep the Hellions on line. 

 

To help control the population Charlie comes up with the HAZBIN HOTEL. A rehabilitation center for wayward souls to get a second chance and get accepted into Heaven. This will help the population issues in Hell, so they won't need an annual culling from the Exorcists. 

 

That is the basic premise. The show is fun musical that's playful and charming and VERY adult in nature. I don't mean there's sexual penetration, but discussions about sex and drugs are more graphic than you'd expect. And there is a LOT of violence and cussing. This takes place in Hell. What would you expect? That's where this show leaves a niggling feeling in the BAX of my mind. The way this show is created, the souls condemned to Hell are the bad guys, and those in Heaven are stupid and stuck in their ill-informed ways. I have a feeling this wasn't an accident. You know, people who were sinners for a lifetime are entitled to a second chance at getting into Heaven, right?

 

Theological issues aside I found this show to be amusing and highly entertaining. It's not even remotely Biblically accurate but what would you expect from a cartoon that was split off from a web comic? I am not sure if I would call it a mistake or not, but I went and googled certain things about the series, especially Alastor Atruist the radio demon, part of the cast and my favorite character. At that time I found the PILOT episode which gives some background and shows the earliest incarnations of the various characters. For instance, you see the first interactions between Cheri Bomb and Sir Pentious. In the end, I would recommend this series, and it's already been greenlit for at least a second season.  

AMAZON

Official Website

 

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

aphotic \ey-FOH-tik\, adjective:

• Lightless; dark.

Coined in the early 1900s, aphotic comes from the Greek word photic meaning "light," as in the word photo, and the prefix a- meaning "not."
 
Splenda Daddy

• A man who strives to be a Sugar Daddy but just doesn't have the funds to pull it off.

She was all excited that she had finally landed a Sugar Daddy until he rolled up in his Accord. It was then she realized she had landed a Splenda Daddy, instead.

 
Trivia

What lies at the feet of the Statue of Liberty?

• A broken chain, symbolizing Lady Liberty’s freedom from oppression and bondage. It is protruding from the bottom of the statue’s robe and visible only from her torch or the sky above.

 

History

• George Washington: took the oath of office to become the first POTUS (1789)
• Louisiana Purchase: France agreed to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million, thereby doubling the size of the US (1803); eight years later on the same date, Louisiana became the 18th state
• A Tale of Two Cities: Charles Dickens' novel was first published as a serial in a literary magazine (1859)
• Suicide: Nazi leader ADOLF HITLER killed himself before Allied and Russian forces could capture him (1945)
• Vietnam War: officially ended when Saigon (now called Ho Chi Minh City) fell and South Vietnam surrendered (1975)

Birthdays 

• Cornelius Vanderbilt 1898
• Ellis Wilson 1899
• George R. Stibitz 1904
• Queen Juliana (Netherlands) 1909
• Al Lewis 1910
• Eve Arden 1912
• Robert Shaw 1916
• Percy Heath 1923
• John (Johnny) Horton 1925
• Cloris Leachman 1926 - Actress ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Phyllis")
• Willie Nelson 1933 - Musican
• Gary Collins 1938 - Talk show host
• Burt Young 1940 - Actor
• Johnny Farina 1941 - Musician (Santo & Johnny)
• Bobby Vee (Velline) 1943 - Singer
• Jill Clayburgh 1944 - Actress
• Richard Schoff (The Sandpipers) 1944
• Don Schollander 1946
• Perry King 1948
• Wayne Kramer 1948 - Musician (MC5)
• Merril Osmond 1953 - Singer (The Osmonds)
• Jane Campion 1954 - Director
• Paul Gross 1959
• Isiah Thomas 1961 - Basketball player
• Robert Reynolds (The Mavericks) 1962
• Barrington Levy 1964 - Dancer
• Adrian Pasdar 1965 - Actor ("Heroes")
• Turbo B 1967 - Rapper (Snap)
• Clark Vogeler 1969 - Musician (Toadies)
• Chris "Choc" Dalyrimple 1971 - Musician (Soul for Real)
• J.R. Richards 1972 - Musician (Dishwalla)
• Jeff Timmons 1973 - Musician (98 Degrees)
• Akron 1973 - Singer
• Johnny Galecki 1975 - Actor ("The Big Bang Theory")
• Kirsten Dunst 1982 - Actress ("Spider-Man")
• Gal Gadot 1985 - Actress ("Wonder Woman")
• Ashley Dupré 1985 former high-class hooker who took down the NYS Gov Eliot Spitzer, NY Post Columnist
• Dianna Agron 1986 - Actress ("Glee")
• Skyla Raynes Gray / ChibiNeko Cosplay - cosplayer / e-girl