THE MORON’S ALMANAC © 1999, JustMorons.com
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Almost as reliable as the Farmer’s Almanac®, but without all that crap about farming.
(See the web version of the Moron’s Almanac for links and photos)
Don’t miss The Asinine Prophecy: A Moronic Adventure. New installments every Thursday night.
*** Volume 1, Number 10 ***
*** Sunday, March 14 through Saturday, March 20 ***
--- MORONIC TRIVIA ---
On March 20, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte snuck back from exile into Paris, beginning what has come to be known as his "Hundred Days" rule. How long did Napoleon’s "Hundred Days" last?
(e) It’s all a lot of crap anyway
---THIS WEEK’S VITAL MORONIC INFO---
March 14 is Constitution Day in Andorra
March 15 is Revolution Day in Hungary (1848)
March 15 is Constitution Day in Belarus
March 15 is Youth Day in Palau
March 15 is J.J. Roberts Day in Liberia
March 16 is Canberra Day in Australia
March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day all over
March 18 is Aruba Day in Aruba (1976)
March 19 is Youth Day in Zambia
March 20 is Independence Day in Tunisia (1956)
March 20 is the Vernal Equinox (for the whole planet)
--- THE IDES OF MARCH ---
March 15 is the Ides of March. Julius Caesar was killed on the Ides in 44 BC, by a group of conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius. They were angry at him because he had crossed the Rubicon. Later Marc Antony borrowed everyone’s ears and told them that Brutus was an honorable man, which upset them so much they had a Civil War.
Sixteen centuries later, more or less, William Shakespeare immortalized the story, and eventually Marlon Brando got to play Marc Antony, so everyone was happy in the end.
(My own birthday is March 15, so I used to think I was reincarnated from Julius Caesar. It made sense: he died on March 15, and 2008 years later there I was. He was a general and Emperor of the most powerful civilization of his age, and I was a dumb white kid from the suburbs. The logic was irrefutable.)
Caesar is also famous because he wrote a famous book called "The Garlic Wars," which begins with the famous line, "All garlic is divided into three cloves." It also includes the line "veni, vidi, vinci," the exact meaning of which is still a matter of debate, but which probably has something to do with Druids.
Henry IV of England died on March 20, 1413. Henry IV never crossed the Rubicon, and never published any literature, but Shakespeare wrote a play about him anyway.
One celebrated figure Shakespeare never wrote about was St. Patrick, whose festival day is March 17. Patrick is more or less the father of Celtic Christianity, and is credited with having driven the snakes out of Ireland. (How he did this hundreds of years before the invention of the automobile remains a mystery.) In honor of St. Patrick’s devotion and tireless spiritual work (he founded over three hundred churches), people everywhere get drunk and throw up.
On March 16, 1792, Gustavus III of Sweden was shot to death by a Captain Anckarstroem at a masked ball. It took him almost two weeks to die. Shakespeare never wrote about Gustavus, possibly because Gustavus was born several generations after Shakespeare’s death, but the Italian composer Verdi wrote an opera about the whole sad affair.
On March 18, 1584, Ivan IV of Russia died. He is better known by his nickname: Ivan the Terrible. He was the first king of Russia to call himself a Caesar, probably in the hopes that Shakespeare would write a play about him. He couldn’t pronounce Caesar, however, so he simply called himself "zar," and subsequent arguments over whether that should be spelled czar, tsar, zar, or tzar became so heated that they eventually resulted in Russian History.
--- THIS WEEK IN HISTORY ---
Karl Marx died in London on March 14, 1883, and never got to witness the incredible global impact of his progeny: Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo.
The Iditarod usually ends around now, when some cold, wet son of a bitch becomes the first cold, wet son of a bitch across the finish line in Nome.
March 20 is the Vernal Equinox. That’s the fancy way of saying it’s finally fucking spring.
--- OTHER BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK ---
March 14: Billy Crystal (1947); Hank Ketcham (1920); Albert Einstein (1879)
March 15: This Moron (1965); Fabio (1961); Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933); Samuel "Lightnin" Hopkins (1912)
March 16: Erik Estrada (1949); Jerry Lewis (1926); Henny Youngman (1906)
March 17: Rob Lowe (1964); Rudolf Nureyev (1938); Shemp Howard (1895)
March 18: Queen Latifah (1970); John Updike (1932); Grover Cleveland (1837)
March 19: Bruce Willis (1955); Ursula Andress (1936); Philip Roth (1933); Wyatt Earp (1848)
March 20: Spike Lee (1957); Fred Rogers (1928); Carl Reiner (1922)
--- WORD OF THE WEEK ---
This week’s word is Espionage. This comes to us from the French espionnage, also meaning espionage (only French), which they got from the Medium French espionner, meaning spy, which came from Italian and German words that looked similar and meant pretty much the same thing, even though it’s unlikely they agreed on pronunciation. If you pronounce espionner with a bad French accent it sounds kind of like "I spy on ya." Thus the French espionnage also sounds like "I spy on Yaj." Most historians agree there was no historical European figure named Yaj, which is exactly what one would expect if indeed Yaj had been a brilliant spy. Only a bad spy would have left an historical record. So there you have it.
--- ASTROLOGICAL OUTLOOK ---
(You can get your personal moronic horoscope at JustMorons.com each Wednesday night. This week’s guest astrologist: Fred Rogers)
As winter comes to a close, it’s a good time for taking stock of ourselves and our situations. This is the best time for little organizational tasks like scraping that stuff off the bottom of the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator, or finally sitting down and writing out that long-deferred list of the people you’d like to kill.
Trivia solution: C: Close to 100 days. It actually lasted from his taking command March 20 up until his abdication after Waterloo, on June 22. I think that’s around 90 American days, but French mathematics may be different.
--- LINK OF THE WEEK ---
See the online version of the almanac for a link to the diary of a Law Clerk of the Supreme Court of Palau. Also, links to St. Patrick’s actual autobiography, the Iditarod home page, Tunisia online, a quick lesson in the ancient Roman calendar, and much, much more.
--- THIS WEEK’S FARMING TIP ---
Farming tip? You don’t need no stinkin’ farming tip. Weekly farming tips appear in the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is not the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is the Moron’s Almanac. Please try not to get us mixed up again: it confuses us and embarasses the farmers. Thanks.
© 1999, JustMorons.com
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