My Best Friend Is Ten Years Old Today

Yes, Google is my best friend!

I don't know how I ever functioned without it. I Google EVERYTHING!

Google could be YOUR friend, too. Questions? Google It!

RIP Paul Newman

I can't add much more than is already on the web.

I did try to search to see what kind of cancer he had, but it seems like nobody knows. In June of this year, Newman's reps denied reports that he had lung cancer. Not that it matters, but I posted a blog about a year ago, somewhere, now lost in cyberspace, about several celebrities that smoked in some of the old TV shows and/or appeared in cigarette commercials and later died from lung cancer.

I also found an article that had an interesting tidbit about Newman being on Richard Nixon's enemy list in the 70s, which Newman considered an honor...

"A committed liberal, Newman openly campaigned for several Democratic Party candidates -- which got him onto Republican president Richard Nixon's famous list of enemies in the 1970s.

"Being on president Nixon's enemies list was the highest single honor I've ever received," Newman said in a 2006 interview. "Who knows who's listening to me now and what government list I'm on?"

Today In Rock and Roll History

1968
The Chambers Brothers hit #11 with "Time Has Come Today".




I was 6 years old in 1968, but I met Willie Chambers in 2006 in LA.
Photo by Lanning Gold.

Leonard Cohen Is 74 Today

Leonard Cohen bio on wikipedia.

Bio on Leonard Cohen Website

This Day In 1897

Is There a Santa Claus?
From the Editorial Page of The New York Sun,
written by Francis P. Church, September 21, 1897


We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

"Dear Editor--I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West Ninety-fifth Street
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Can The Casey Anthony Story Get Any More Bizarre?

The Guardian Angels protecting the Anthonys? Are you kidding me? I think this is total abuse or misuse of this organization. A waste of a resource that could be used elsewhere. Since I first heard of this case, I have read, watched and listened to everything I can find. I now check all of the Florida news websites and I see a lot of other crimes going on in that area. Are the Guardian Angels best placed at the Anthonys?

Yes, I think the protesters are way out of line! Actually, I wouldn't even call them protesters. There's not much to protest at this point.

I also think that Cindy and George Anthony are way out of line. Stay in the house and shut up! You have surveillance cameras that you can turn over to the police. I assume you have home owners insurance to cover damages to your house.

I try to sympathize with these parents/grandparents, but they make it harder everytime they walk outside their house and while hammering No Trespassing Signs and stringing caution tape around their yard, they tell the media that they are destroying the family and not doing their job, not looking for Caylee. Hello! The reporters job is to report. Is your yard the most important thing right now? And you're invoking a judgement day? Be careful what you wish for.

How about shaking that bat at Casey? She had no problem calling 911 and giving a detailed account of a ten minute altercation, but "I`m sorry I`ve given you guys the run-around." and "I just wish I honestly had more things to help with." was what she had to say about her missing daughter.

The Anthonys want to use the media only WHEN they want and for only WHAT they want to talk about, but they don't want to talk about the ever mounting evidence pointing towards the unthinkable. Maybe the media should go away...until Caylee is found.

I will probably follow this case forever.

More Today in History

Capitol Cornerstone Is Laid

September 18, 1793

Capitol Cornerstone Is Laid.

On this day in 1793, George Washington lays the cornerstone to the United States Capitol building, the home of the legislative branch of American government. The building would take nearly a century to complete, as architects came and went, the British set fire to it and it was called into use during the Civil War. Today, the Capitol building, with its famous cast-iron dome and important collection of American art, is part of the Capitol Complex, which includes six Congressional office buildings and three Library of Congress buildings, all developed in the 19th and 20th centuries.

As a young nation, the United States had no permanent capital, and Congress met in eight different cities, including Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia, before 1791. In 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which gave President Washington the power to select a permanent home for the federal government. The following year, he chose what would become the District of Columbia from land provided by Maryland. Washington picked three commissioners to oversee the capital city's development and they in turn chose French engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant to come up with the design. However, L'Enfant clashed with the commissioners and was fired in 1792. A design competition was then held, with a Scotsman named William Thornton submitting the winning entry for the Capitol building. In September 1793, Washington laid the Capitol's cornerstone and the lengthy construction process, which would involve a line of project managers and architects, got under way.

In 1800, Congress moved into the Capitol's north wing. In 1807, the House of Representatives moved into the building's south wing, which was finished in 1811. During the War of 1812, the British invaded Washington, D.C., and set fire to the Capitol on August 24, 1814. A rainstorm saved the building from total destruction. Congress met in nearby temporary quarters from 1815 to 1819. In the early 1850s, work began to expand the Capitol to accommodate the growing number of Congressmen. In 1861, construction was temporarily halted while the Capitol was used by Union troops as a hospital and barracks. Following the war, expansions and modern upgrades to the building continued into the next century.

Today, the Capitol, which is visited by 3 million to 5 million people each year, has 540 rooms and covers a ground area of about four acres.

Jimi Hendrix November 27,1942 – September 18, 1970

38 years ago! Wow!

A little trivia...

Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, USA, while his father was stationed at an Army base in Oklahoma. He was named Johnny Allen Hendrix at birth by his mother, 17 year old Lucille Hendrix née Jeter. She had put him in the temporary care (a holiday) of friends in California. On his release from the Army his father, James Allen "Al" Hendrix (1919–2002), took him, and changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix in memory of his deceased brother, Leon Marshall Hendrix.


An unusual Hendrix experience...



And a classic...

I guess everybody remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing on this day.

I was home in bed. I was living with Jesse at the time and he had been gone a couple days on the truck and I wasn't working (I was between Tracker and Milestone), so I felt a little disconnected from the world at that time anyway.

I woke up, turned the TV on, before even getting out of bed and the news was on...and I watched live as the second tower fell. For some reason, I wasn't sure if it was real. I actually called Charles and asked him if what I was watching was real. I think all I did that day was watch that news story.