WHO?

who you?

March 17
1845: The rubber band was patented in England by Stephen Perry.

Sine qua non:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Charles Goodyear developed vulcanization after accidentally leaving a piece of raw rubber on top of a warm stove, along with some sulfur and lead, in preparation for the world's worst omelette.

March 16
Annual: St. Urho Day

Grasshoppers eating your grapes? Call on St. Urho. He’s your man.

Source: Urho

Grasshoppers like grapes? Well, who doesn't?

March 15
1937: Death of H. P. Lovecraft

But he was unmoved, and cried: “If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!” HPL, “The Temple”

Source: Cthulinos

Good God man, get your goof on!

March 14
Annual: Pi (π) Day
If you’re in Portland, Oregon, have a piece at the Bipartisan Cafe, 7901 S.E. Stark. Best in town.

Source: The Pi Rap

“Today is Pi Day, in honor of the mathematical constant pi (π), an irrational number that begins 3.14 — like today’s date, March 14th or 3/14.

“π is a letter of the Greek alphabet, and it’s the symbol for the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. In other words, if a circle has a diameter of 10 inches, we could find out its circumference by multiplying 10 inches by π, and we’d find out that the circle with a 10-inch diameter has a circumference (or perimeter) of approximately 31.4159265. It can only ever be approximate — never exact — because π is an irrational number, meaning that it goes on forever without repeating or having patterns. Using powerful computers, π has been calculated in recent years into trillions of decimal places.

“Pi Day began in 1988, started by a physicist named Larry Shaw. And just last year, in 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution designating today as National Pi Day.

“Pi Day celebrations around the nation today involve eating dessert pies or pizza pies, throwing cream pies, and listening to lectures on the importance of the irrational number — sometimes all of these things occurring in unison.

“There are legions of people worldwide devoted to memorizing π to as far as they can memorize it. And today around the world, there are π recitation contests. The world record, according to the Guinness Book, is currently held by Lu Chao, a grad student from China, who over the course of 24 hours and 4 minutes recited pi to the 67,890th decimal place without error.

“To aid in the memorization of the never-ending, pattern-less number, people have written poetry and stories in a mnemonic called “Pilish,” which is a way of constrained writing “in which the number of letters in each successive word “spells out” the digits of π.” One of the earliest and best-known examples of it was a sentence by English physicist Sir James Jeans, who wrote: “How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics!” ‘How’ has three letters, ‘I’ has one, “need” has four — so it forms 3.14, the start of π — and each successive word’s letter count represents the next digit in π.

“Then, in 1996, a piphilologist (as these people are called), wrote a 3,834-digit Cadaeic Cadenza, which begins with a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”; every single word adheres to the constraints that render letter counts into accurate successive π digits.”
Source: The Writer’s Almanac, produced by Prairie Home Productions, presented by American Public Media:

Mayor Jones sez: There's goofs, and there's crazies. Also: All the best people are.

March 13
1798: Birthday of Abigail Powers Fillmore, First Lady and wife of Millard Fillmore
1874: Deathday of Millard Fillmore, 13th President (1850-53).

Coincidink? Mayor Jones thinks not.

March 12
1922: Birthday of Jack Kerouac, Mayor Jones’s Main Man and intrepid, peripatetic chronicler of Dean Moriarty, “the holy goof,” Neal Cassady.

“It never occurs to you that life is serious and there are people trying to make something decent out of it instead of just goofing off all the time. That’s what Dean was, the HOLY GOOF.”

“I liked the name/phrase Holy Goof. It seemed to me like the pair of words created a nice contrast. Something between something sacred and lovable, but also bumbling and mistake prone.”

Source: Jack K.

The Mayor just likes to look at the sacred, lovable, bumbling, mistake-prone guy

March 11
Happy World Kidney Day!

Join others with kidneys around the world in treating your kidneys right. Love your kidneys and they will love you. A PSA from Mayor Jones.

March 10
1977: Astronomers discover rings around Uranus.

Tee-hee. Maybe even you didn't know they were there.

March 9
1892: Birthday of Vita Sackville-West, who grew up in a mansion with staircase (52) for every week of the year and a room (365) for every day of year. Goofy.

“It is necessary to write,” she wrote, “if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?”
Source: opacity

Clap the net over every goofy moment.

March 8
1978 The first radio episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, is transmitted on BBC Radio 4. Mayor Jones, being a goof, once asked Mr. Adams to sign her copy of the Guide backwards. Mr. Adams, being a goof, obliged her.

Does one write backwards with the left brain or the right brain? Or just the goof brain?

Classic Adams Goofisms:
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.
There is an art, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
It’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end.

I can only hope to someday be an intergalactic goof.

March 7
1925: For reasons of her own, Mayor Jones each year marks the anniversary of the death of Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov, first head of the provisional government after Tsar Nicholas II was deposed (and disposed of). He lasted less than six months before he was succeeded by Alexander Kerensky. Mayor Jones’s unsubstantiated theory is that Lvov was just too goofy to be head of anything. More power to him.

Grave of Prince Lvov at Sainte Genevieve des Bois, Paris

Na Zdorovie, Prince Georgy!

March 6
1912: Gelatin, sugar, shortening. Mix ‘em up, spread ‘em between two chocolate cookies, and you have one of America’s favorite treats. Oreo cookies on sale for the first time.

Oreo Dirt Graveyard: MatthwJ

If Oreos didn't exist, some goof would have to invent them.

March 5
1963: The Hula-Hoop, first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, is patented by the company’s co-founder, Arthur “Spud” Melin.

Source: Spud

Hula Boola!

March 4

March forth, march forth, march forth

Whether of yellow brick or ideas and schemes
We all have a road to follow
March forth into this life of yours
Or in the past you’ll wallow

And that is not the place to be
If you want an authentic life
It’s reality that will bring you joy
March forth, despite all strife

Whatever direction you decide to take
Be it east, west, south or north
Follow your heart, for your soul’s sake
And march forth, march forth, march forth

-Mayor Jones, March 4th, 2002

Follow the goofiest road.

March 3
1931: Cab Galloway records “Minnie the Moocher,” the first jazz album to sell a million copies.

Cab comes back at 4:21–as a singing walrus ghost (what else?)

Friends that was the story of MInnie the Goofer

March 2
1904: Birthday of Dr. Seuss

Wanna train to be a goof? Go to the source, Dr. Seuss.

March 1
1810: Birthday of Frédéric Chopin

Chopin's body is buried here in Le Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris, but per his instructions, he left his heart in Warsaw.

I grew up with the Horowitz Ballades; in this composite video of scenes from the movie and a live Horowitz performance, the entire ballade is rendered, though it was edited for length in the film, a disappointment to me. I’d have found it even more powerful if the pianist and the officer and the audience had been allowed to succumb to this nine-minute spell of magnificence rising out of the ruins. The still of the real pianist, Władysław Szpilman, with the pain shining in his eye, is heartbreaking. He died in 2000 before the film was completed in 2002. But in 1993, a main belt asteroid given the provisional designation 1993 NB2, was discovered by E.W. Elst at the European Southern Observatory. It orbits the Sun once every 4.03 years. It was later renamed “9973 Szpilman.” Perhaps he lived to find himself immortalized in space as well as time.

Gravitas outweighs goofery today.

February 28
1820: Birthday of John Tenniel
Who did as much for Alice, arguably, as Lewis Carroll.

How is a writing desk like a raven?

February 27
1910: Birthday of Peter de Vries, who said, “Pain is the question mark turned like a fishhook in the human heart.” Not the goofiest thing he ever wrote, but underlying gravitas is what makes goofiness all the goofier. He also wrote: “Everybody hates me because I’m so universally liked.” “I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.” “We must love one another, yes, yes, that’s all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other.” “Celibacy is the worst form of self-abuse.” “It is the final proof of God’s omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.” “Life is a zoo in a jungle.”

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. - P. De V.

February 26
2002: Death of actor Lawrence Tierney
Beneath this steely exterior, lay the heart of a goof.

They blew his brains out all over the Pacific. There's nothing goofy about that.

February 25
1933: Death of Pat “Stalemate” O’ Sullivan, creator of Felix the Cat.

in which the prototype of the O’Sullivan Self-Spanker is introduced

The Mayor's inspiration for the bag of goofy tricks she carries.

February 24
1921: Birth of Abe Vigoda, who, as of this writing, is still not dead.

Abe (the Babe) Vigoda will live forever, in Goof City.

February 23
1965: Death of Stan Laurel

God Bless All Clowns.

February 22
1992: Ed McMahon, 69, weds Pamela Hurn, 37

And on their wedding night, he dropped his pants and said, Heeer'es Johnny!

You've got to be goofing me! (that's what she said)

February 21
1848: The Communist Manifesto was published. That led to a lot of things, none of which were goofy unless you count Karl Marx’s weird laser eyes.

It was an unwritten law that anyone referring to Marx's laser eyes would have the lasers turned on them.

A goof in time saves nine

February 20
1978: Bob Backland beats Billy Graham in NY, to become WWF wrestling champ

Ah, what might have been...

A goof can dream...

February 19
1859: NY Congressman Daniel E. Sickles is the first in the U.S. to be acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity, after killing his wife’s lover, D.C. D.A. Phillip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key). Some local papers called him a hero “for saving all the ladies of Washington from this rogue named Key.” Sickles also took a known prostitute to England, leaving his pregnant wife at home, and presented her to Queen Victoria, using the surname of a political opponent as her alias.

Here’s a picture of his leg bone, which was fractured by a canon ball during the Civil War. He later received a Medal of Honor for the attempted capture of a stand of Confederate colors and detachment of nine Confederates, taking three members of the detachment prisoner, dispersing the remainder, and recapturing a Union officer who’d been a prisoner.

The cannonball is a replica; the bone was Sickle's own

Goof City wonders how many jealous murderers would become war heroes if only give half a goofin' chance by a jury of their temporarily insane peers.

February 18
1930: Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane, and to be milked in an airplane, and the milk was sealed in paper containers and parachuted over St. Louis, MO. Ollie also inspired one Barry Levenson (as Giacomo Moocini and Ludwig Von Bovine) to write an opera, “Madame Butterfat,” featuring the Bovine Cantata in B flat–”She flies through the air with the greatest of ease/Dropping her ice cream, yogurt and cheese”–wherein Ollie tells the shifty opportunists who buy her from struggling Farmer Brown to make a hefty profit selling the milk, that if they didn’t give the milk to the needy she would “make the biggest cow pie that you have ever seen / So follow well my orders or I will be obscene.”

Ollie Portrait painted by E. D. Thalinger

” ‘And you know, maybe that’s the best tie there is,’ Levenson said. ‘We can just celebrate the event, the joyousness of a cow helping little children, even if there’s little historical basis for it. Who cares? It’s an excuse to have fun. And sometimes you need that.’ True enough. So eat some cheese today. Lift a glass of milk and toast the first flying bovine. Or as Harry Caray might say, Holy Cow.”

Barry, you are the milk of human goofiness. Sometimes, you just need that, the joyousness of cow.

February 17
1981: BIrthday of Paris Hilton
“Every woman should have four pets in her life. A mink in her closet, a jaguar in her garage, a tiger in her bed, and a jackass who pays for everything.”

The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in.

Goof City's just curious--where the goof was she going in that cute get-up?

February 16
1868: The “Jolly Corks” became The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. The Elks had modest beginnings, established as a private club to elude New York City laws governing the opening hours of public taverns. After the death of a member left his wife and children without income, the club took up additional service roles, rituals and a new name. Desiring to adopt “a readily identifiable creature of stature, indigenous to America”, fifteen members voted 8-7 to favor the elk above the buffalo.”

By a vote of one, Elks missed out on being Buffalo. But in Goof City, they're all still jolly corks, especially around the groaning board at the Goof City Grange Hall. Here's looking at you, goof!.

February 15
1954: Birthday of Matt Groening of Simpsons Fame

Turning genitals into cartoon characters, now that is God-given goofery.

February 14
1894: Birthday of Jack (Benny) Kupelsky

Am I a Goof? Si. So? *Sigh.* Sue me.

February 13
2000: Charles Schulz’s final “Peanuts” comic strip ran in Sunday newspapers, the day after his death at age 77.

Shake it like a Polaroid picture

February 12
Annual: Darwin Day, commemorating the birth of Chuck Darwin (video).

Chuck Darwin is famous as being the inspiration for the Darwin Awards, “A Chronicle of Enterprising Demises [sometimes posthumously] Honoring those who improve the species…by accidentally removing themselves from it!”

Goof City does not recommend this ill-conceived attempt at goofing off.

There's goofy, and there's stupid goofy. 'tis better to live as a goof than to die as one.

February 11
2006: Dick Cheney “accidentally” shoots friend in a hunting accident

Hoo, boy! In the annals of goofery, I need look no further for the highlight of February 11th. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney_hunting_incident:

“The incident has been the subject of jokes, satire and public ridicule. A number of these made reference to other controversies involving Cheney.
David Letterman began his Monday show on February 13 with “Good news, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally located weapons of mass destruction…. It’s Dick Cheney,” and adding that “We can’t get bin Laden, but we nailed a 78-year-old attorney.” His Top 10 list was devoted to “Dick Cheney’s excuses” and included “he thought the guy was trying to go gay cowboy on me.”
Jay Leno also had a piece on The Tonight Show in which he pretended to host a game show with footage of George W. Bush and Pervez Musharraf that was taken during Bush’s visit to Pakistan. Towards the end of that segment, the sound of loud bird calls were played, and Leno asked Cheney to take care of the problem, with footage of the Vice President shooting a gun then shown.
Texas Monthly won the 2007 Best Cover Line of the Year Award from the Magazine Publishers of America for its January 2007 cover mocking the Vice President.

Jon Stewart popularised the phrase “Cheney’s Got a Gun” (a play on the 1989 Aerosmith song “Janie’s Got a Gun”) on The Daily Show soon after the event. Stewart and the Daily Show ‘s correspondents repeatedly accentuated their disbelief of the absurdity of a sitting vice president shooting a 78-year-old man in the face while hunting quail which are raised in a pen and released mere seconds before they are shot. Stewart, for instance, pointed out that Whittington had been the first person to be shot by a sitting vice president since Alexander Hamilton, and that while Aaron Burr’s fatal shooting of Hamilton was during a duel over issues of honor and political maneuvering; Whittington “was mistaken for a bird.” Correspondent Ed Helms, reporting supposedly from Corpus Christi Hospital, said that Whittington’s condition had been upgraded from “stable” to “stable, but still shot in the face by Dick Cheney.” The show also used graphics from the video game Duck Hunt. After Whittington’s post-discharge press conference, Stewart noted that Cheney’s power was such that upon shooting someone, the victim would apologize.
On his first show after the incident, Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report, confessed to having been involved in a hunting accident of his own over the weekend, then proceeded to show an edited version of Brit Hume’s interview with Dick Cheney, featuring Colbert in place of Cheney with far more humorous responses to Hume’s question. Colbert later mentioned the hunting incident in his now famous speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
The incident has been parodied twice in the comedy Family Guy:
In the season 4 episode “Petergeist”, Cheney shoots Peter at point-blank range several times while hunting, and after says “I’m sorry, I thought you were a deer.”
In the season 5 episode “Boys Do Cry”, Cheney guards the president’s house with a shotgun, and while sleeping says “18% approval ratings… I’ll give you 18% of my foot in your ass” in reference to the drop in approval ratings to 18% which followed the shooting.
In the Robot Chicken episode “I’m Trapped,” Cheney is captured by terrorists in Afghanistan but escapes after stealing a suit of armor (a parody of the movie Iron Man). The scene then changes to a forest, where Cheney, still wearing the armor, shoots a hunter in the face and declares, “Meh, thought he was a bird.”
During a Saturday Night Live skit, Kristen Wiig as Diane Sawyer mentions the incident during a mock interview regarding Cheney’s accomplishments as vice president in which he denies feeling any regrets for the situation.
In his stand-up show The Fifth Annual End of the World Tour, Christopher Titus observes that “…[the] president is in bad shape if the only way to take attention off of him is have the vice president shoot a buddy in the face.”
In Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome America: A Final Night with George W. Bush, Ferrell (as Bush) describes Cheney as “a guy so charismatic he could shoot a man in the face with a shotgun…and then have that guy apologize to him.”
President Obama also joked about this subject. In his speech for the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on May 9, 2009, he said Mr Cheney was ‘very busy working on his memoirs, tentatively titled, How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People.’
There is a popular bumper sticker that states, “I’d rather hunt with Dick Cheney than ride with Ted Kennedy”

Goofiest element of all: upon release from the hospital for a resulting minor heart attack, Whittington said: My family and I are deeply sorry for everything Vice President Cheney and his family have had to deal with. We hope that he will continue to come to Texas and seek the relaxation that he deserves.

February 10
2008: Be wary, be very very wary

The Church of Goofetology convenes wherever goofs gather in the name of goofery

February 9
1909: Birthday of Carmen Miranda

Just think what the Mad Hatter could have done for her

Goofa Goofa Boom Goof!

February 8
1925: Birthday of Jack Lemmon

Little known fact: Lemmon was born with spina goofida.

February 7
1993: Pebbles Flintstone & Bamm Bamm Rubble wed

I Yabba Dabba Do!

February 6
1971: Alan Shepard became the first man to hit a golf ball on the Moon, using a ball and golf club head he had smuggled on board inside his space suit. Source: Golf on the Moon

You gotta love a goof who'll smuggle a golf club in a space suit. I think I'd go for a pogo stick though.

February 5
Annual: World Nutella Day

Nutella is more than just a “chocolaty hazelnut spread,” my friends, it is a way of life. My friend John Beck and I first discovered Nutella on a trip to Germany, and when he later came to visit me in my then home of Portland, Oregon, I never heard an expression of excitement more delirious than when he spotted it on the supermarket shelf: “Nutella!”

Nutella VIrgin? I confess to being a Spooner.

This goof is nuts for Nutella.

February 4
1921: Birthday of Xadeh Lofti, developer of Fuzzy Logic, “in which a system applies a quantitative assessment to inherently ambiguous ideas, thus providing a new paradigm to improve artificial intelligence and automated control systems.”

Not too fuzzy himself, though...

Source: Fuzz

Fuzzy, wuzzy, dopey, mopey, grumpy, lumpy, doc, schmock, happy, sappy, bashful, nashville, sleepy, weepy, it's all just plain goofy to me

February 3
1874: The day Gertrude Stein was separated at birth from Spencer Tracy.

“There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.” – Gertrude Stein

What the hell was the question?

February 2
1882: Birthday of JJ – James Joyce

(not to be confused with va-jay-jay)

“It can’t be helped, it must be done, now down with your breeches and out with your bum!” -JJ

All those who like pirates say AYE, all those who like horses say NEIGH

February 1
It’s February, named for an ancient Roman festival held annually in honor of Lupercus [aka Faunus], the god of fertility, woodlands, and pastures. Lupercalia is older than Rome itself. The festivities were run by the Luperci, or “Brotherhood of the Wolf”. Two male goats and a dog were sacrificed, and the blood of the goats was smeared on the foreheads of two youths with a knife. The knife was then wiped on wool dipped in milk, and the youths were required to laugh. The Luperci, who administered the rites, were crowned, anointed, and wore only an apron of goatskin. Women would line up along the road to receive lashes from the whips [februa] to insure fertility. Source: Luperci

Didn't I see him on Adult Friend Finder?

Whip it! Whip it good!

January 31
1979: Birthday of Daniel Paul Tammet, who holds the European record for reciting pi from memory (the number that begins 3.14) all the way to 22,514 digits, in five hours and nine minutes.

That's impressive, but I once ate pie for five hours and nine minutes. Off of Barack Obama's head.

Dan Lacey, Obama Victory Pie

January 30
1798: A brawl broke out in the House of Representatives in Philadelphia, as Matthew Lyon of Vermont spat in the face of Roger Griswold of Connecticut. He had an ethics violation charge filed against him for “gross indecency” after an exchange of insults. Lyon was also the only person to be elected to Congress while in jail.

Politicians have really gone downhill since then.

January 29
1860: My man Anton Chekhov’s birthday
“Russia’s most elusive literary bachelor” once said, “Give me a wife who, like the moon, won’t appear in my sky every day.”

Now that is a man I could live with, every so often, now and then, from time to time, if I were in the mood.

Lucy and Anton, goofing around

January 28
1754: The word “Serendipity” was coined by Horace Walpole in a letter he wrote to his friend Horace Mann.

“It was once when I read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a camel blind of the right eye had traveled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand serendipity? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental sagacity (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for, comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon’s, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table.”

Source: Serendipity

I stumbled upon this info while looking for something else.

January 27
1832: Birthday of Lewis Carroll

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Why is a goof like a plate of shrimp?

2010: Death of J.D. Salinger:
“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody,” – J.D. Salinger.

Source: Chris Hood, Things on Fire

January 26
1697: Isaac Newton received and solved Jean Bernoulli’s brachistochrone problem.

Illustration by Jean-Leon Huens, National Geographic Stock

Know what I did before I went to bed? Peed.

January 25
1882: Virginia Woolf’s birthday

Artist unknown

“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery – always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud.” – Virginia Woolf
Source: goofy woolf

What's that buzzing sound? - Leonard Woolf

January 24
Worst Day of the Year?

Jennifer Carlile, on MSNBC.com, asks, “Is the midwinter weather wearing you down? Are you sinking in debt after the holidays? Angry with yourself for already breaking your New Year’s resolutions? Wish you could crawl back under the covers and not have to face another day of rain, sleet, snow and paperwork? Probably. After all, it’s Jan. 24, the ‘most depressing day of the year,’ according to a U.K. psychologist. Dr. Cliff Arnall’s calculations show that misery peaks Monday.” Source: MSNBC.com

Aw, I ain't buyin' it. Any day can be goofy, 'slong as you honor your inner goof.

January 23
1991: “Seinfeld” debuts on NBC-TV

Goofery to the power of 4

George: “You could do your taxes in the time it takes me to have an orgasm.”

Elaine: “Naked? That’s not a good look for a man.”

Jerry: “I could read the sports section if my hair was on fire.”

Kramer: “Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go fill my freezer with my own blood.”

Newman: “You remember this: When you control the mail, you control information!”

George: “I happen to dress based on mood.”
Jerry: “But you essentially wear the same thing all the time.”
George: “Seemingly, but within that basic framework there are many subtle variations only discernible to an acute observer that reflect the many moods, the many shades, the many sides of George Costanza.”
Jerry: “And what mood is this?”

George: This is morning mist.

January 22
Annual: Answer Your Cat’s Question Day

If you will stop what you are doing and take a look at your cat, you will observe that the cat is looking at you with a serious question. Meditate upon the question, and then answer it!

(©2006 by WH.) For info: Thomas & Ruth Roy, Wellcat Holidays, 2418 Long Ln, Lebanon, PA 17046. Phone: (717) 279-0184. E-mail: info@wellcat.com. Web: www.wellcat.com. Source: Cat questions; meowsings

The answer is, running back Archie Griffin from Ohio State, in 1974 and 1975.

January 21
Annual: Aw. It’s National Hugging Day

You know what to do

January 20
Annual: Brazil: Nosso Senhor Do Bonfim Festival

Jan 20–30. Salvador, Bahia. Our Lord of the Happy Ending Festival is one of Salvador’s most colorful religious feasts. Climax comes with people carrying water to pour over church stairs and sidewalks to cleanse them of impurities. Source: Bonfim

Climax on the church stairs? Happy Ending indeed!

January 19
1809: Birthday of Edgar Allen Poe

Poe, poor guy, during an 1849 election in Baltimore, fell in with a gang of wonks who got him drunk so he would vote for their man. He was found in a gutter on October 3rd and taken to Washington Hospital. Would a man on his deathbed really peacefully murmur, as his physician reported, “He who arched the heavens and upholds the universe has his decree legibly written upon the frontlet of every human being and upon demons incarnate.” Who could even remember that to write it down? “Wait a minute, Ed…’He who arched…’ what was that again?…something, something, ‘universe,’ something, something, ‘frontlet’ (frontlet?), something ‘humans and demons’. Again, please? ‘He who arched’…”

Poe’s last words, on October 7th, ten days before he was to be married, were, “Lord, help my poor soul.” I sincerely hope the Lord did.

Source: The Ax Files

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”-E. A. Poe

That quote is actually the goofiest thing I could find about the guy.

January 18
1882: Birthday of Pooh-meister A. A. Milne

Reading of A.A. Milne’s classic poem (from the 1927 collection “Now We Are Six”)
with Alternapop musical accompaniment by Microsoft Songsmith.

(Never was so much ODE)

But now I am Six, I’m as clever as clever.
So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.

Source: “That Synch’ing Feeling,” Ewechewb’s Channel

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.-AA Milne

January 17
1706: Benjie Franklin’s birthday

Ben Franklin with the naked little boys he liked to keep around his workshop

He that lives upon Hope, dies farting.-Poor Richard's Almanack

January 16
1977: Marx Brothers inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.-Groucho

January 15
1870: First political cartoon to portray the Democratic Party as a donkey, Thomas Nast’s “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion,” Harper’s Weekly

Better a live jackass than a Republican!

January 14
1990: Premiere of The Simpsons on Fox-TV

The evolution of one Homer Simpson

Homer, you can park your goofy shoes under my bed anytime.

January 13
1931: Birthday of Charles Nelson Reilly, goof.

Charles Charles bo Barles Bonana fanna fo Farles Fee fy mo Marles Charles!

January 12
Bedford Day
1967: Death of James Hiram Bedford, a UC psychology professor, the first human being to be cryonically preserved. In the cryonics community, the anniversary is celebrated as “Bedford Day.” In 1965, the Life Extension Society (LES) offered to preserve one person for free stating that “the Life Extension Society now has primitive facilities for emergency short term freezing and storing our friend the large homeotherm (man).” Bedford’s body was maintained in liquid nitrogen by his family in southern California until 1982, when it was then moved to Alcor Life Extension Foundation, where it has remained to the present day. Source: Bedford

Happy Anniversary, our large homeotherm friend

January 11
1842: Birthday of psychologist William James, who coined the term “stream of consciousness” and said that “the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” He was tone-deaf, got motion sickness easily, suffered from depression and was suicidal for long intervals, had chronic back pain, recurring digestive ailments, and problems with vision. He told people he had “soul-sickness.” Source: William James

Christ, Billy Boy, get over yourself!

January 10
Annual: “Improv Everywhere” stages large-scale acts of silliness and have kickstarted something that’s come to be known as “No Pants Day”. It’s time to get onboard with what Improv Everywhere’s members have known for years: everything’s better without pants. Source: No Pants Day

This one'll separate the pants from the goofs

January 9
Annual: National Static Electricity Day

And don't give me any goddamn static about it

January 8
1926: Birthday of Soupy Sales, born Milton Supman.

Does this tie look goofy on me?

His parents called his brothers “Hambone” and “Chicken Bone” and called him “Soup Bone,” shortened to Soupy. Sales once encouraged his young viewers to tiptoe into their still-sleeping parents’ bedrooms and remove those “funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents” from their pants and pocketbooks. “Put them in an envelope and mail them to me”, Soupy instructed the children. “And I’ll send you a postcard from Puerto Rico!” He was then hit with a pie.

Source: Soupy Sales

Soupy is a honored member of the Goof City Hall of Fame

January 7
1800: Birthday of Millard Fillmore, after whom San Francisco’s Fillmore St. was named. He also served as 13th President of the United States.

If Pres. Fillmore were a rapper, he'd be known as Milli Filli

January 6
1973: The car that Hitler was said to have used in a parade, a Mercedes-Benz 770K Sedan, was sold at auction for $153,000,000. Source: Hitler’s car

Hey, hot stuff, wanna go for a ride in Hitler's car?

January 5
1969: Marilyn Manson born in Canton, Ohio, as Brian Warner, and he changed his name to Marilyn Manson, from actress Marilyn Monroe and serial killer Charles Manson. Manson claimed that he did this to show “what show business is, fake.” Source: Marilyn Manson

I don’t care if your world is ending today
Because I wasn’t invited to it anyway
You said I tasted famous, so I drew you a heart
But now I’m not an artist I’m a fucking work of art
I’ve got an F and a C and I got a K too
And the only thing that’s missing…

...is a goof like you

January 4
1925: French psychologist Emil Coue brings his self-esteem therapy to U.S. “Every day in every way I am getting better and better.” Source: www.brainyhistory.com

Yes, I am cousin to the 'coue-coue' Pigeon Sisters.

I may be a goof, but even I can't fall for that crap!

January 3
1969: A new album by John Lennon called Two Virgins featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the nude are confiscated at Newark Airport and are not allowed to be sold in the US, also vice squad officers closed down a record store in Chicago displaying the Album due to it being considered pornographic.

Source: www.thepeoplehistory.com

Come on guys, they were just being goofy!

January 2nd
1941: The Andrews Sisters recorded “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

Goofy to the third power!

January 1st
1898: The City of Greater New York is born.

With great fanfare – and controversy – the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island merge with Manhattan to form what the Herald Tribune calls “the greatest experiment in municipal government – the enlarged city.”

Source: http://ny1.com

Happy 112th birthday, New York. Now fuck you, you fucking fucks!

November 7th
1917: Bolsheviks seize power in Russian Revolution.

Vladimir Lenin seizes power from the Tsarist regime in a coup d’etat. Widespread starvation and catastrophic military failure in the First World War left Russia ripe for revolt. Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate on 15th March 1917, and an ineffectual provincial government was established in his place [led by Mayor Jones's alleged ancestor, Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov]. Contemptuous of what the revolution had accomplished thus far, Lenin returned from exile in Switzerland to spark his Bolshevik revolutionaries culminating in the coup of 7th November. He led the Soviet Union until his death in 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin.

Source: http://www.history.co.uk

Christ, what a bunch of goofs!

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