Famous First Words: Whereas by an Act... The Stamp Act of 1765
It is Shakespeare Week (18-24). You know, he created over 1,700 new words but didn't understand why no one would play Scrabble with him. By the pricking of my thumbs, something witty this way comes. ^^His wit's as thick as a Tewkesbury mustard. --Henry IV Pt 2 (act 2, scene 4)
..........I must wait for the sunrise..........Grizabella …..Memory
I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience. --William Shakespeare.
It is a cloudy, rainless Friday morning. There is little breeze to shake the willow or blow the clouds on their way. This morning I had x-rays taken of my hip. About 5 raindrops fell on the windshield while I drove to the hospital, but the rain never came. So I am home now, eating a blueberry muffin and sipping iced water and cool coffee. It leaves a bitter sweet taste in my mouth and sustains me (hopefully) until lunch. Kansas (4 seed) squeaked by Samford (13 seed) by 4 points. For a while it seemed like the refs were reviewing every possession. It lasted way past my bedtime; so part of me just wants to take a nap. But writing to you is too seductive...
Good weekend and twenty, kind ePistliers
First Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: My apathy is at an all time whatever. -Submitted by VTSG
If you can't find the word you're looking for, invent it. ^^More of your conversation would infect my brain. --Coriolanus (act 2, scene 1)
..........That's how we laugh the day away.........Emerald City Chorus …..Merry Old Land Of Oz
Trivia Questions: Happy International Seal Day!
- ^ Seals have “Smokers' Blood”. What is that and/or what does it do?
- ^^ In what lake(s) do fresh water seals live?
- ^^^ Seals are pinnipeds. What land animals are they related to?
- ^^^^ How much seafood can a seal consume?
- ^^^^^ What is the biggest threat to seal populations?
Big Hello: Mari mari – Mapuche (Chile & Argentina) https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hello.htm
Second Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Chemistry, microbiology, biology, geology, and astronomy are all just science with different zoom settings. --Neil deGrasse Tyson --Submitted by ff of ks
Image of the Week:
Fake Library Statistics of the Week: 34% of librarians wanted to have a Pi Day program but library administration said it was irrational. #PiDay https://www.facebook.com/FakeLibStats/?fref=ts
Shakespeare did kill off most of his characters before Game of Thrones made it cool. ^^There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune. --Henry IV Part 1 (act 3, scene 3)
..........Innocent body and a sinful heart.........Norma Desmond …..Salome
Moonbeam: All that's missing for Utah is a blindfold and a cigarette. --Bob Costas ~~This is especially amusing since Firing Squad is an actual choice of how to kill convicted criminals in Utah.
Blasphemy of the Week: Any god who is mine but not yours, any god concerned with me but not with you, is an idol. --Abraham J Heschel
Puzzle of the Week: Take a body part, add a letter at the beginning and end to get another body part, then add another letter at the beginning and end to get something designed to affect that body part. --NPR Sunday Puzzle 3/15/24
Next Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy. --William Butler Yeats
Might I just point out that Mercutio got stabbed in the gut and, instead of seeking medical help, stood up and made a pun about it, then died. Exactly how I would go out. --Jeffrey the Space Walrus ^^Thine face is not worth sunburning. --Henry V (act 5, scene 2)
..........Softly, deftly, music shall surround you.........The Phantom …..Music of the Night
^ Both seals and heavy human smokers have high levels of carbon monoxide in their blood streams. While humans acquire it from burning tobacco, researchers think seals' blood carbon monoxide levels are connected to their deep dives. One study found that elephant seals' blood is around 10% carbon monoxide, which researchers attribute to the animals holding their breaths for about 75% of their lives.
Almanac: It is Friday, March 22, 2024. The moon will be full (Worm) on Monday (3/25). It is 39 & Holding Day, As Young as You Feel Day, International Day of the Seal, International Goof-Off Day, Tuskegee Airmen Day, and World Water Day (aka World Day for Water).
Among those born on this day were Kaiser Wilhelm II (1797), Randolph Caldecott (1846), Robert A. Millikan (1868), Chico Marx (Leonard, 1887), Karl Malden (1913), George Wyle (1916), Marcel Marceau (1923), Pat Robertson (1930), William Shatner (1931), Orrin Hatch (1934), May Britt (1936), Ron Carey (1936), Rudy Rucker (1946), Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948), Bob Costas (1952), and Matthew Modine (1959).
On March twenty second the Gutenberg Bible became the first printed book (1457), the League of Friendship was formed (1621), Joseph Priestly invented carbonated water (1733), the Stamp Act passed (1765), the first US nursing school was chartered (1861), Illinois became the first state to require gender equality in employment (1872), slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico (1873), Niagara Falls ran out of water due to a drought (1903), the first Masters in Augusta, GA began (1934), Liz Taylor divorced Mike Todd (her 3rd, 1958), the laser was patented (1960), the Beatles released their first album, Please Please Me (1963), Indira Gandhi resigned as PM of India (1977), Israel approved the peace treaty with Egypt (1979), and Congress overrode Reagan's veto of the civil rights bill (1988).
Fraternal Picture This Week: Storytime
This Week: Saturday, March 23 – National Puppy Day & Purim & Walk In The Sand Day & Women Arts Day
Sunday, March 24 – National Cocktail Day & Palm Sunday &
Night Sky, 3/24: The signature fall-and-winter constellation Cassiopeia retreats down after dark. Look for it in the north-northwest. It's standing roughly on end. For skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes and farther north, Cassiopeia is circumpolar, never going away completely. By 1 or 2 am daylight-saving time it will be at its lowest in the north, lying like a not quite horizontal W.
Monday, March 25 – Pecan Day & Tolkien Reading Day & Vaffeldagen (Waffle Day)
Tuesday, March 26 – Legal Assistants Day & Purple Day & Spinach Day
Wednesday, March 27 – International Whisk(e)y Day & World Theatre Day & National Scribble Day
Night Sky, 3/27: If you haven't spotted Mercury yet this season, look for it lower right of Jupiter as twilight fades. Jupiter is magnitude –2.1. Mercury this evening is magnitude –0.1, meaning one sixth as bright. And that's not counting the extra atmospheric extinction that affects low objects.
Thursday, March 28 – Weed Appreciation Day & World Piano Day
Shakespeare for children: Green Eggs and Hamlet I understand that Shakespeare intended to call Hamlet, Piglet. ^^Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade. -Measure for Measure (act 3, scene 1)
..........The light is shining through..........Pearl …..Only You
^^ One of the smallest true seals, the Baikal represents the seal's evolutionary journey from terrestrial to semi-aquatic, when seals likely spent time in freshwater before making their transition from land to oceans. Lake Baikal, a freshwater lake in Siberia is home to a whole host of interesting creatures, and is both the oldest, and deepest, lake on the planet.
Preantepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Gravity is one of the most fundamental forces in the universe; but if you remove it you get gravy. --Submitted by FNOG
Moonbeam: I do know dumb-ass questions when I see dumb-ass questions. --Orrin Hatch
Video of the Week: Piedras Blancas South Seal Cam Piedras Blancas South Seal Cam ~~Spoiler Alert: Sleeping seals look a lot like rocks.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace... --William Shakespeare
Commercial Shakespeare: Now Is the Winter of Our Disco Tent. Shakespeare had a side hustle selling stain remover. He called it Out Out Damned Spot. ^^Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage.
Dragon of the Week: Deemed by Literary Hub as the world's most famous dragon – The Eldest from Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea ~~I would have guessed Smaug.
Wacky Uses for Common Products: Make fluffy pancakes, waffles, and matzah balls. Substitute Canada Dry Club Soda for the liquid used in the recipes. Canada Dry®: Wacky Uses
In order to attract women I like to use this quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act II, Scene IV, line 82: “Hello” / The difference between a Shakespeare play and Fox News is that one is Taming of the Shrew and the other is the Shaming of the True ^^He has not so much brain as ear-wax. --(Troilus and Cressida (act 5, scene 1)
...........Should I scream and shout.........Mary Magdalene …..I Don't Know How to Love Him
^^^^ Larger seals can eat 10 pounds of food per day. As some populations have increased in recent decades, researchers are carefully studying the impact on seal's prey, including salmon, and encouraging management practices that protect both seals and potentially threatened fisheries.
Penultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Look, Look, Up in the sky! It's a bird. It's a plane. It's Boeing debris. --Submitted by 98%
Science Fiction Convention of the Week: MidSouthCon 39 (22-24, Memphis, TN) The oldest Mid-South SF Convention. MidSouthCon – The Mid-South's oldest SF Convention!
Weird Word of the Week: Polyatheist Polyatheist – There are hundreds of Gods I don't believe in. --Submitted by IIWSPIBH
Actual Science Conference of the Week: 18th World Congress on Controversies in Neurology (21-23, London, UK) ...debates on central contested topics in neurology... CONy 2024 Congress | March 21-23, 2024 | London, UK (comtecmed.com)
Answer to Puzzle of the Week: Ear → Heart → the arts
Shakespeare and his publicist thought “Shakespeare In Love” was Much Ado About Nothing ^^That kiss is as comfortless as frozen water to a starved snake –Titus Andronicus (act 3, scene 1)
..........Just give me a number instead of my name..........Joseph …..Close Every Door
^^^^^ In the last century, both the Japanese sea lion and the Caribbean monk seal have become extinct, the latter considered a harbinger of human-caused extinction in coral reef systems. Historically, seals have faced threats from hunting, accidental trapping, marine pollution, and conflicts with local people. More recently, seals face a new threat in the form of habitat loss as a result of climate change.
Question of the Week: Are single women just happier? --Submitted by VisCortex
Quote of the Week: I have a zero tolerance for sanctimonious morons who try to scare people. --Pat Robertson Also a quote from Pat Robertson: Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom (the State Department) to shake things up.
Final Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: An oxymoron walked into a bar and the silence was deafening. --Submitted by TETD
Today's Peace of History, March 22, 1965: 3,200 civil rights demonstrators, led by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and under protection of a federalized National Guard, began a third attempt at a week-long march from Selma to the state capitol at Montgomery in support of voting rights for black Americans.
It has been said that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Today, thanks to the internet, we know that is not true. / How many of Shakespeare's characters does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to change the light bulb, one to contemplate how a light bulb is as mortal as any human, and one to spend the afternoon debating whether to murder his uncle.
..........What kind of goddess has lived among us.........Ché …..O What a Circus
Masthead of the Week: Friday ePistle, March 22, 2024, gLobal ePistle. Online at: http://fridayepistle.blogspot.com/ Exclusive editor: Christine Smith. Lawrence, KS.
Moonbeam: Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world. --Wilhelm II aka Kaiser Wilhelm
Cost of War:
- As of 03/21/24 State Department Costs: $231,700,492,927.
- As of 03/14/24 State Department Costs: $231,116,374,112.
- As of 03/21/24 Interest on War Debt: $1,206,266,987,415.
- As of 03/14/24 Interest on War Debt: $1,204,775,154,572.
- As of 03/21/24 Homeland Security: $1,206,266,987,415.
- As of 03/14/24 Homeland Security: $1,162,801,480,323.
- As of 03/21/24 Veterans Care: $3,569,074,582,114.
- As of 03/14/24 Veterans Care: $3,557,766,084,098.
- As of 03/21/24 Military Costs: $3,075,554,770,468.
- As of 03/14/24 Military Costs: $3,074,422,065,453.
- As of 03/21/24 Total Cost of Wars: $9,245,980,591,278.
- As of 03/14/24 Total Cost of Wars: $9,230,933,061,289.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
The time of universal peace is near. Prove this a prosp'rous day, the three-nooked world shall bear the olive freely. --William Shakespeare
Famous Last Words: Enjoy International Goof Off Day INTERNATIONAL GOOF-OFF DAY - March 22, 2024 - National Today
..........And I need a moment.........Norma Desmond …..As If We Never Said Goodbye ~~All of tonight's songs are from Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals
There's a new Shakespeare video game. It's called Sonnet the Hedgehog. ^^I do desire that we may be better strangers. --As You Like It (act 3, scene 2)
May
Peace sing your melody
And
Joy play your harmony
prairie
mama
christine
Last Laugh:
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